#three level kitchen island

[casdasgay]

Kitchen in San Francisco Example of a mid-sized mountain style cork floor open concept kitchen design with an undermount sink, flat-panel cabinets, medium tone wood cabinets, quartz countertops, multicolored backsplash, glass tile backsplash and an island

[suugarbabe]

ballooning around | t.n x reader

warnings: fluff

word count: ~1.9k

a.n.: this is for my wives' @finalgirllx & @thatdammchickennugget jinxed july <3 this is for week one; water balloon prompt

Truly it was a marvel that you were functioning, with as hot as it seemed to be at the villa. Somehow, Theo had convinced all of you to spend two weeks with him in Italy at his parents' very large, very private (and very expensive) villa. You say somehow, but everyone knows that with just the smidgen of widening of his big ocean eyes and you’re a fucking goner, doing anything and everything your boyfriend asks or suggests. 

Pansy and yourself had decided that if you were stuck in the heat then you might as well also get bronze; the two of you choosing to lay out by the pool, oiled and lotioned with giant sunglasses perched on your noses. You two had managed only a mere hour of peace and quiet in the sun before you were bombarded with the shouting and rowdiness of the boys. The slapping of bare feet on concrete became louder and more multiplied until you saw three bodies whip by the two of you to cannonball into the pool. 

Your body tensed, eyes closing as you braced for the feeling of sun warmed water to assault you. But it didn’t come. You peaked an eye open when you heard moans and groans of curses (both english and italian), only to see Theo, Enzo and Mattheo hovering just above the surface of the pool. “There’s not a chance in bloody hell I’m allowing you to drench us in pool water just because you lot act like you’re all eleven again in the heat,” Pansy had her wand leveled, pointed strait at the three culprits in front of you. 

It was impossible to hide the grin on your face, pulling your sunglasses down ever so slightly to make direct eye contact with your boyfriend. “Please, bella, tell your friend to let us have a little fun, yeah?” he was laying his accent on extra thick, he knew it was something that often had you melting on his every word. However the heat had you feeling extra bratty, “Not today, amore mio, it’s too hot. Leave the shenanigans for cooler temps, please.” You turned to your friend beside you, “Let them down, Pans. I wanna go inside for a drink.” 

Pansy shrugged, tugging her wand slightly to break the connection. You didn’t miss the slight gape in Theo’s mouth, his expression that of slightly betrayed, but you thought it was cute that he thought you’d give in so easily. Pansy followed you, twirling her wand between her fingers. “Ladies, looking like you’re plotting something, should I be afraid?” Blaise teased as he and Draco exited the villa, Blaise holding the door for you two to enter. Pansy spoke over her shoulder cheekily, “If you know what’s good for you, I wouldn’t plot with the three stooges in the pool.” 

Blaise wore a smirk as he held his arms up in defense, backing away and towards the pool as he let the door close behind the two of you. Sliding up to the kitchen island you let Pansy work on making the drinks as you took off your sunglasses, pulling your wand from the strap of your bikini top where you had secured it for the walk inside. Pansy quirked a curious eyebrow, “Doing some plotting of your own, babes?” You shook your head as you smiled, “Not necessarily, more like…precautionary measures.” 

You held your sunglasses at arms length, pointing the tip of your wand to one lens, “speculo vicissm.” You did the same to the other lens as Pansy laughed lightly, “A reflection charm? Pray tell, my dear, how are these going to help?” You grab the glass she had just set in front of you and threw a decorative straw in it before taking a large sip, “Fucking, Merlin, Pansy, is there any mixer in here?” Pansy just shrugged her shoulders. You took another smaller sip, “Okay, actually it’s not that bad. Anyway, we know that Theo and the others are probably plotting some childish plan to get us back for your little hover charm earlier.” 

She nodded her head, waving her hand in a circular motion as if to tell you to continue, “So I figured…what better way to see him coming than to have eyes on the back of my head. Or rather, be able to see him behind me…without him knowing.” Pansy tapped the side of her glass with her fingers outstretched, her ring making a clinking sound like a mini applause for you as you put your sunglasses back on. “Oh, that is fucking brilliant. I knew Nott had to have fallen for you for more than just a nice ass-ouch!” Pansy rubbed her arm where you swatted at her, “Okay, okay, I’m sorry, your very average ass.” 

You laughed, going to swat at her again but she jumped back, running toward the door leading to the pool. Pansy was giggling as you followed briskly after her, being distracted only by Mattheo calling your name. You walked over hesitantly, eyebrow raised and scanning your surroundings as you approached, “Is this some ploy to help Teddy get back at me, Matt? You know I’ll get you back if it is.” You pointed an accusing finger at the raven haired boy who held his hands up in defense, “I’m clean, swear. Look, no wand. I was just, erm, wondering what you were getting Nott for his birthday this year?” 

Arms crossing you sat into your hip, “Theo’s birthday is not until December…why are you asking about that?” Mattheo started stumbling over his explanation as you saw movement in the reflection charm you put on your sunglasses, “I, erm, just wanted to know because I didn’t want to get the same thing as yo-” Mattheo was cut off by you crouching down, pulling him with you. The snap of elastic led way to a burst of water hitting the fence where Mattheo and you once stood. You raised to full stature, quickly turning around while Mattheo continued to sit behind you only to see Enzo with a weak smile on his face. 

“A water balloon, really? Explain yourself, Berkshire,” your tone took that of an accusing older sister and Enzo became visibly nervous. “T-theo,” Enzo cleared his throat after his voice cracked, “ahem, erm, Theo made me do it.” You turned to face your boyfriend who seemed completely unbothered. He stretched his long, toned body across the pool floaty, feet lazily hanging into the water, “What’s wrong, cara mia? Can you handle the heat, or no?” His accent made the question more taunting then it already was. You shook your head, smirking down at him, “Okay, pretty boy. I know what you’re up to. Good luck trying to get me now.” 

But try Theo did, and fail he did often. After the mishap with Mattheo distracting, or more like attempting to distract you Theo tried three more times to soak you with water balloons. And nearly each time your sunglasses charm came in handy. When you were walking back towards the villa to get you and Pansy another round, you saw Mattheo trying to sneak up behind you, “Don’t even think about it Riddle.” You heard him groan in defeat before throwing the balloon at Enzo instead. 

When you were laying out again with Pansy, he had tried to use a hover charm. Thankfully Pansy sensed that one a mile away, using her own wand to counter his spell and send the balloons chasing Theo until he jumped back into the pool to escape. His third attempt was the lowest one in your opinion, so you’re happy it didn’t work out for him. Theo had called you over, saying he wanted a truce and that “he forgave you for foiling his plans earlier.” He tapped on your bottom lip with his thumb, something he did often when he was wanting a kiss. You wanted to believe him, even began to lean towards him until you saw Draco and Mattheo tip toeing in the reflection. The moment you saw them release the balloons you apparated to the other side of Theo, causing both balloons to hit him in the chest and forehead. 

Theo had let out a slew of curses as your hands set firmly on your hips, “Really, Malfoy, you too? Shouldn’t you be hiding in the shade with how fucking pale you are? You’re brighter than the fucking sun.” Draco scoffed, a scowl gracing his face, “Hey, just because you’re pissed at Nott, don’t take it out on me.” Theo had called a truce then, and for the last thirty minutes you felt like you had finally found peace. So when Blaise called you over to the table, you didn’t find it suspicious whatsoever. That and the fact that you fully trusted him to stay out of the rest of the boy’s childish antics. 

“So how did you manage it?” Blaise asked as you sat down. You tilted your head, “How did I manage what?” Blaise leaned his elbows on the table, hand waving as he spoke, “How did you manage to always know when they were coming? Did you put eyes in the back of your head or something, love?” You laughed lightly, handing your sunglasses over to your friend. Blaise quirked an eyebrow, picking up the sleek shades and twisting them this way and that before finally putting them on himself. He let out a low hum of recognition, smiling as he pointed a finger at you, “A mirror charm, you clever witch.” 

You nodded, leaning back in your chair, “Thank you, much. I’m very proud of that. Although I do feel slightly bad with how many times Theo got pummeled with water balloons today.” Blaise pulled your sunglasses down his nose slightly, peering at you over the lenses, “Don’t feel bad, love. He deserved that. However, I do feel bad, because I don’t think you deserve this, but they roped me into it.” Before you even had a chance to properly process what Blaise had just said, what felt like a water balloon the size of your head burst above you, essentially drenching your entire top half in frigid water. 

Turning around slowly in your chair, a look of shock still etched on your face, you saw your boyfriend standing by the edge of the pool, looking far too proud for his own good. You stood up from the patio chair you were sitting in, your look of shock now exchanged for one of determination, “Oh, you are dead meat, Theodore.” You started running after him, Theo only giggling before running away and around the pool. Enzo took your earlier seat next to Blaise, mouth half full of licorice as he spoke, “M’money’s on Theo, his legs are longer and he’s far quicker. Ten galleons he laps the pool and catches her first.” Blaise shook his head, “Nuh uh, no chance. Our little witch is gonna get him and then they’re both gonna end up in the pool.” 

Not as soon as Blaise finished his sentence did you grab hold of Theo’s shoulder, a small yelp from him heard before you both hit the water; Blaise simply smirked at Enzo, holding his hand palm up and waited for his winnings.

[megalony]

Who Do You Think I Am

This is my newest Eddie x Reader x Buck imagine, I hope you will all like it. Let me know what you think.

Taglist: @justagirlthatlovedtoread@musicistheway@avada-kedavra-bitch-187@luula@missdreamofendless@bradleybeachbabe@woderfulkawaii@amberpanda99@daggersquadphantom@marvel-and-chicago-fan@angryknightstatesmantrash@minjix@lyjen@kmc1989@itsmytimetoodream@noonenuts@hiireadstuff@ashie-babie@classyunknownlover@jayyeahthatsme@sp1ritssz@dumb-fawkin-bitch@oliverstarksbae@gimatida@heart-35@supernaturalstilinski@stefansalvatoresgf@kyky9103@wutheringhearts2275@gay4hotmilfs@itshamleth@chaoticnosleepinfluencer@gs29@wh0reforsmutstuff@mel-vaz@natashamea18@chrisevansdaughter @alexandra8484 @deena-beena-weena@targaryenluvs @shelbygeek @kpoplover-19@marvelmenarebeautiful@gillybear17 @zoeybennett

Eddie Diaz Masterlist

Evan Buckley Masterlist

Summary: When one of their kids isn't well, Buck goes to collect her from nursery and the 118 come to make sure she's okay. And there are more than a few choice words for the nursery staff about how they've acted.

Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Are you going now?"

Glancing over her shoulder, (Y/n) scanned her eyes up and down Eddie's frame while her teeth sank down on her lower lip. He was wearing his work uniform, he didn't usually get dressed at home. He got changed into his gear once he got to the station, he must either be in a hurry or he'd brought his uniform home to wash it the other day.

Her arm tightened around the toddler sat on her hip who was cuddled up into her chest like some sort of baby monkey.

"Yeah or I'll be late. You still want me to pick you up tonight?" Eddie finished pouring the coffee in his travel mug and screwed it on tight before he looked over at (Y/n).

"Yeah- baby can you take a look at her before you leave, please?" Her arm bounced Ellie on her hip and her eyes travelled from the toddler back to Eddie.

She watched the way he glanced at the kitchen clock before he sucked in a deep breath and nodded. It would have to be quick, he was running out of time and he really didn't want to be late for the change from A to B shift.

He set his mug down near his keys and walked round the kitchen island, reaching his hands out for their youngest. Ellie was curled into (Y/n), her chest tucked into her mother's chest with her arms bound tight around the teddy in her arms. Her eyes were barely open from how tired she looked and she didn't even smile when Eddie stood in front of her.

He gently lifted her from (Y/n)'s arms, causing the two year old to grumble as Eddie sat her down on the counter and crouched down to be level with her.

"What's wrong?" He directed his question at (Y/n) while he pressed his hand against Ellie's temple, noticing she was a little warm but nothing to indicate a temperature or a fever.

"She's coughing a lot and she, I don't know, she doesn't seem herself." (Y/n) didn't want to worry.

They had done enough worrying over Ellie from the moment she was born three months premature. The first two and a half months of her life she had spent in the neonatal unit at the hospital and ever since they got her home, Ellie had been a happy but sick baby. She picked up any illness or infection going round. She held onto infections longer than usual and they wore her down.

She had been on a variety of antibiotics and she was only two years old.

(Y/n) didn't want to worry but she couldn't help it and she didn't want to send Ellie to nursery if she was coming down with something. If Ellie picked up a bad infection, they had to keep her home and get the doctor's advice on medicines. When one of the kids in Chris's class got the measles, they had to bring Chris home and isolate all the kids at home so none of them got it and passed it onto Ellie.

"Baby girl, let me look." Eddie pressed his finger to Ellie's lips until she opened her mouth. He then felt her throat and listened to her breathing.

(Y/n) could see the debate in his eyes. He didn't know whether sending her to nursery was such a good idea or not.

"Send her. If she was really bad she'd of been crying by now, and it's Buck's day off. If she feels worse he can bring her home."

"Okay."

Today wasn't such a bad day for childcare. Considering they had four kids in the house, the three of them did well to work around childcare. And it was Evan's day off today. If Ellie was coughing up a storm or had a fever, they wouldn't have to cancel shifts, Evan was here to care for her.

But they may as well send her since she wasn't complaining and if Ellie was very ill, she would of been crying and begging to stay home. It was worth getting her into the routine of nursery since she had only just started going two months ago and she was there three days a week.

If she felt worse, Evan could go get her, no problems.

"Alright, I love you both and I'll see you tonight." Eddie pressed a sloppy kiss to Ellie's cheek and lifted her up, gently settling her back down in (Y/n)'s arms.

He pressed his hand to (Y/n)'s chin and tilted her head up to meet his so he could steal a kiss from her lips. He bit down on her lip before he pulled back and he murmured a soft "Thank you," when (Y/n) handed him a slice of toast. She knew he hadn't eaten yet and wasn't likely to if he was going to walk right into a busy shift.

He headed out the kitchen, grabbing his flask on the way, and made a beeline for the hall that looked as packed and cramped as a school hallway.

His eyes trailed over his troop, smiling down at them as they were all getting ready. Chris was sat near the front door, tying up his shoes with his bag perched next to him. Lola was leaning back against the wall with one foot up on Evan's thigh so he could tie her shoelace for her since she couldn't do it herself yet.

And Maria was stood to one side with her backpack on and her hair in two pigtails so she could twist her head from side to side and have her hair bash against her cheeks. It was her way of stimming.

"Who's driving us?" Maria looked between both dads with a smile. She could tell that since Eddie was wearing his uniform, he was going to work whereas Evan was dressed casual. He was wearing jeans and a short sleeved shirt, and when she looked and saw her mum walking through, she could tell her mum was also going to work.

"I'm driving, and we're dropping mummy off at work today too." Evan patted Lola's leg as a sign that he was finished so she could stand on both feet again.

He had been at work until eleven o'clock last night but his silver lining was he had the next two days off. So he had the house to himself until he went to get Ellie from nursery, then he would pick up the rest of the kids and have the evening with them until Eddie and (Y/n) came home.

"Alright troop, I gotta go." Eddie grabbed his keys before he turned to the closest child, who happened to be Maria. He kissed her cheek, then moved to Lola, then finally Chris, giving them each a kiss and whispering a quiet 'love you' to them all.

He finally turned to face Evan who had his own keys swirling around on his thumb and his hand in his back pocket somewhat casually. He brushed his thumb across the side of Evan's neck and reeled him in for a kiss before he weaved around Chris to get to the door.

"Everyone be good for pops."

Eddie left the door open behind him for the rest of them to head out and get in 'the bus' as the kids always referred to it. Since they had a family of seven, they had what was effectively a mini-bus, something (Y/n) hated to drive but what was child's play for Evan and Eddie. Considering they could manage driving the trucks at work.

Both Chris and Lola followed after Evan and when he opened the back door, they climbed up and went right to the far back. There were two rows of three-seats in the back, and then two up in the front. Plus two seats in the boot that could fold up or pull out so they could effectively fit ten people in the car.

They strapped themselves in while Evan picked Maria up and clipped her in, and (Y/n) moved round to the other car seat to get Ellie strapped in. (Y/n) pursed her lips and sighed when Ellie didn't say anything.

The toddler wasn't always loud, but she usually babbled quite a lot and today she had barely spoken a word. She just closed her eyes and coughed quietly into her teddy.

"All good?" Evan looked over at (Y/n) when the pair of them climbed in the front.

"I don't think Ellie's very well… can you be on standby, if she seems unwell at nursery?"

Evan took a glance in the rear-view mirror as he began to drive. Ellie didn't look unwell, but she didn't look herself either. He turned the radio up to see if the music might liven her up. All the kids loved to sing, whether it was early in the morning or late into the night. The only time they didn't sing was when they were sick.

"Yeah, course I will."

(Y/n) nodded and managed a smile when Evan reached across and curved his hand around her thigh. When she was at work, she couldn't always answer her phone and both the school and nursery always seemed to ring (Y/n) first before they rang the boys. They even rang her regarding Chris because he thought of her as his mum and Eddie had added her and Evan to Chris's school record.

But she knew Evan would tell the nursery to ring him today, he was the only one with a day off who would be able to answer his phone straight away.

When he pulled up on the curb, (Y/n) leaned across and stole a few kisses from his lips before she looked in the back. "Alright, have a good day, I love you all." She blew a few kisses towards them before she hopped out, her work was first on the journey. Then the school, then the nursery on the way back because the older kids had to be at school before Ellie technically needed to turn up to nursery.

It didn't take long for Evan to arrive at the school and he got as close as he could to the gates.

He opened the back door and unclipped Maria first since she was the closest to him. He picked her up and set her down on her feet, helping her hook her arms through her bag straps while Lola hopped out, followed by Chris who bashed his crutches into the back of Evan's leg as he got out.

"It'll be me picking you all up today. Have fun and be good please."

"Bye papa."

"Bye baby, love you." Evan kissed the top of Lola's head and did the same to Chris, following them a few feet up the path until they were at the gates. But he looked down to his left when Maria pulled on his hand and started to sway back and forth on her heels.

"You love me too, papa?"

"You know I love you, sweetheart. Go on, good girl." He kissed her cheek and gave her a little nudge, waving and watching until they all got safely to the doors before he headed back to the car.

He opened the other back door and poked his head round to check on Ellie. He had been busy getting the girls up and sorted this morning while (Y/n) saw to Ellie, so he didn't know if she had been complaining she felt ill or if (Y/n) just noticed something was off.

"How's my baby, hm?" He leaned in the back and kissed her forehead which was a little warm. And his heart swelled when he got a smile out of her.

It was habit that all three of them referred to Ellie as the baby, even though she was now two years old. She was their youngest, and since she had been born premature, they were used to friends and family constantly asking 'how's the baby?' As everyone had been worried she wouldn't make it. And with all the infections and rough illnesses she picked up, she worried them even more.

"We go bed, papa?" She snuggled her face down into her teddy and smiled brightly when Evan started peppering her face with kisses.

"Hm, maybe later. You're going to nursery this morning, but I'll pick you up and you can spend the afternoon with me, how's that sound?"

He could see it in her eyes that she didn't want to go, but she didn't have the energy or the will to argue either. Ellie had grown up thus far being ill and constantly being cared and doted on by one of her three parents. Going to nursery was a change she wasn't too keen on. She didn't like being parted from any parent, but they were slowly getting her used to it.

It was hard on all three of them too because they were constantly worrying about Ellie and wondering if she was alright.

With a lasting kiss to her cheek, Evan closed the door and got back in the driver's seat. He turned the radio up a little more, but he felt his heart quicken when Ellie didn't sing or babble or even laugh. She only coughed and gave the occasional, cute sneeze.

Evan had a feeling she wouldn't last the whole day, something in his gut just told thim that he would be picking her up early.

Nursery didn't last as long as the school hours. The plan was usually for Evan to pick Ellie up first, take her for a drive or a walk somewhere, just the two of them. Then he would go get the other kids when they finished at half three.

But Evan didn't like being home alone, especially with both (Y/n) and Eddie at work today. So he would be relieved to pick Ellie up early, maybe after lunch so she at least had the morning at nursery. Then he could have the afternoon with his baby and then the rest of his kids.

He was going to end up seeing Maddie this morning anyway since she wasn't at work and Evan didn't like being alone.

"Come on then, baby. Off we go."

Evan gently unclipped her and swung her navy blue Fireman Sam bag on his shoulder as he let her curl up into his chest. She was tired and he was more than happy to cuddle her than have her walk inside.

He winced when she coughed into his neck, but she wasn't snuffly or finding it hard to breathe which was a relief. Her arms cocooned around his neck and she breathed softly against his neck as he walked into reception.

"Is it Ellie?" One of the women was halfway between the reception area and the play room with the other kids.

"It is," Evan gently eased her down to her feet and took her hand so he could walk over and put her bag on one of the hooks. The one thing he liked about this nursery was the fact that they didn't have too many kids here at a time. It wasn't too many kids to overwhelm or make Ellie nervous and that also meant there was less chance of her getting ill.

He let Ellie take the lead and drag him into the room before he crouched down in front of her and pulled her close.

"Be a good girl, I'll be back soon, okay?" He took a deep breath when Ellie flopped into his chest. She tucked her face into his shoulder and clung to his neck, leaning all her weight onto him so her legs bent and went floppy. "Go on, baby." He encouraged, kissing her temple before he tried to unhook her arms so she would go play.

She didn't seem too sure or very keen when one of the assistants came over and took her hand, but Ellie let herself be guided away from Evan.

Once she was out of sight and earshot, Evan moved his hands to his thighs and pushed up to his feet again. His sights set on the woman who led them inside and he plastered on a smile as he walked over to her, tucking his hands into his pockets as he walked.

"Hi, uh, Ellie's not feeling well. Her mum and her other dad are at work, so if she needs to come home, you'll just have to ring me today and I'll come back and get her." He knew if Ellie heard him say any of that, she would start crying and ask Evan to take her home if she knew he was willing to come back for her at any point.

And he didn't want them trying to ring (Y/n) or Eddie and panicking when they couldn't get hold of either of them. There was no point calling them when Evan was off and was the easiest to access his phone. And he was already panicking that Ellie was going to get upset and want to come home.

The only reason Evan had brought her in was because he knew he couldn't keep her home whenever he suspected she wasn't one hundred percent. They could play things safe with Ellie more than the other kids, but they couldn't always keep her home and try to smother her to protect her. They had done enough worrying about her already to last them a decade.

"Okay, I'm sure she'll be fine but I'll make a note."

"Thank you."

***

A groan tumbled past Eddie's lips and he hung his head down when his spine clicked into place. He felt like someone had run him over with the truck. He was glad Evan wasn't on shift with him right now to see the discomfort he felt or Evan would fuss like a mother hen.

He shrugged off his shirt and grabbed a fresh one from his locker and the towel which he slung over his shoulder. A hot shower would do him some good and make him feel a bit more lively so he could get through the rest of his shift in one piece.

His head snapped up and crashed into the locker door, causing him to yelp when his phone rang.

That was lucky. He usually turned his phone on silent and kept it in his locker, he must have forgotten this morning.

With one hand cupping his temple which was now throbbing, his other hand rummaged around in his bag to find his phone before it stopped ringing. His eyes narrowed into a frown that set deep into his features when he looked over the caller ID.

Why was Ellie's nursery ringing him? Why did he already have a missed call off them from two minutes ago? They shouldn't be ringing Eddie when he was at work and Evan was the parent who was dropping off and picking Ellie up today. Why weren't they calling him?

"Hello?"

"Mr Diaz?"

"Yes… is Ellie okay?" He could feel his guts twisting themselves into knots while he sat down on the bench in front of the lockers. He arched his chest forwards to curve his spine and try to straighten out the tension he felt while he waited to know what was going on.

"Ellie was coughing this morning, but now she's started wheezing and she says her chest hurts. She isn't breathing very well, we think it'd be best if you could come and pick her up."

She wasn't having chest pains this morning, Ellie barely even coughed or croaked when Eddie looked at her this morning. To go from looking groggy and tired to wheezing was a little drastic and extremely worrying. But Eddie couldn't go and pick her up. He was at work. They should be ringing Evan and telling him this.

"Has she been sick? How bad is her breathing?" There were a million things coming to Eddie's mind about what the problem could be and what was happening. One of which was Ellie had just coughed a bit too harshly and given herself a bit of chest pain from straining. He hoped it was that. He prayed that was what was wrong.

"She's not been sick, but she is gasping and wheezing and she's getting herself upset."

"Okay… I'm sorry but why are you calling me, not my partner?" There was no question that Ellie was going home. Evan was going to have to go and pick her up.

"We couldn't get hold of her mother, so we called you."

"No, I get that but- you've rang me twice to get hold of me, why didn't you ring her other dad, Mr Buckley?" It felt so strange to hear Evan's last name passing through his lips. It had been a long time since Eddie had called him Mr Buckley and that was only when they were at some sort of formal place like the doctor's office or when they were registering the kids for school.

Surely if (Y/n) and Eddie hadn't answered the first time around, they should have tried Evan too. Was he alright? Why wasn't he answering? He had dropped her off this morning, hadn't he spoken to them when he took her in?

"We tried her mother first, then we tried you. It's protocol to call the parents-"

"He is her parent! Ellie has three parents and Evan is one of them. He dropped her off this morning for God's sake. I know you've got him on file."

Eddie could feel his blood beginning to boil.

They couldn't be serious. They couldn't be doing this to them. They had four kids together, Eddie had added (Y/n) and Evan as Chris's adoptive parents at his school. They had registered all the girls together at each nursery and school they went to and they rarely got this problem.

The one main issue they had was when they had Maria registered at a preschool and she had an accident. They kept insisting they could only speak to 'the real father' and didn't accept that both Eddie and Evan were equal fathers to Maria. They took her out of that school the same day and registered her somewhere else.

Sure, they got a few odd looks when they first applied and went to look round, but most of the staff had been accepting and a little curious. No one had been this rude to them in years.

"I- I'm sorry…?"

"It's fine, I'll ring him and he'll be there in five minutes." Eddie crudely hung up the phone, snaking a hand through his hair as he scrolled to find Evan's icon and call him instead. He couldn't be bothered to argue with the receptionist, not when he was at work and needed to go get changed ready for when the bell sounded.

Evan wasn't going to be happy about this, Eddie could already feel the anger and he hadn't even spoken to his partner yet.

"Hey babe, everything okay?" Evan didn't usually get phone calls from Eddie when he was at work. It wasn't that often that they did split shifts, they were usually on shift together, even if their schedules only lined up for half a shift and one left and the other stayed.

With (Y/n)'s job it was different, she could call them and have a conversation while she was on shift. But Eddie never rang while he was at work.

"Babe, can you go to nursery and pick Ellie up please?"

"What, why?"

Evan sat forward on the sofa, his back hunching over while he dragged his free hand along the back of his neck. What was Eddie talking about? Why had he been talking to the nursery? They were supposed to ring Evan if there were any problems and he had been a little worried that he hadn't heard anything from them by now.

"They called me, she's having breathing problems and they're worried, you need to go get her."

"No one rang me." The hurt was evident in Evan's voice and it made Eddie wince.

"I- I know babe, I know. I've already told them you're on your way, just let me know how she is when you get there please."

Evan muttered a quiet 'Will do' before he ended the call and grabbed his keys. He had a gut feeling he would be heading back to that nursery earlier than planned today, but Evan thought he would at least get the call himself. They had seen him drop her off, he had spoken to one of the girls who worked there. They had him as one of Ellie's contacts, he was one of her dads.

His fingers drummed against the steering wheel and every now and then he moved his hand to scratch his jaw and drag his nails down his neck. He could feel the anger radiating through him and it was bustling out of him in waves.

What was wrong with her this time? Was he going to have to make another trip down to the emergency room?

Evan hated taking any of the kids to the emergency room on his own; he would have to call (Y/n) at work and ask her to meet him there. He would ring Eddie back and check whether the hospital was busy today or not. An ambulance might be quicker than sitting in the waiting room.

He dragged his hand across his face to liven himself up and see if it would somehow wipe away the angered, hardened expression he found staring back at him in the rear view mirror.

By the time he climbed out the jeep, he was shaking and his hands were balled into fists which he shoved in his jacket pockets.

He stormed into the reception he had been in less than six hours ago and drummed his hand against the counter as he waited for someone to talk to him.

"I'm here for Ellie, what's happened?"

"Someone to collect little Ellie."

Evan's eyes darted to the double doors ahead of him when he realised there was a lady leaning out, obviously waiting for someone. She nodded and beckoned Evan over. It was the girl he spoke to this morning. She held the door open for him for him and he hurried after her and followed her through the main room.

"She's right this way."

He could feel a wave of relief wash through him at finally seeing a familiar face. He would finally get some answers out of her and find out why no one called him and be told exactly what was wrong with his daughter.

"We tried contacting her parents-"

"Who do you think I am?"

The words flooded past Evan's lips before he could stop himself and he found his hands curling back into fists to try and calm himself down. His nails punctured into the palm of his hands and his head tilted to the side when the woman turned around to face him.

"I- I'm sorry?" She paused, one hand on the door that led into the small kitchen at the back. Clearly they wanted Ellie out the way of the other kids to try and calm her down.

"I've dropped my daughter off here before work a hundred times, I brought her in this morning and spoke to you. I told you if there were any problems, call me. But no one did, I had to find out second-hand that something was wrong. Who do you think I am, the babysitter?"

Did this girl honestly think Evan was the babysitter or Ellie's uncle? Did she think Evan was just a friend of the family who helped out and brought Ellie here on his days off? She had seen Ellie cling to him and kiss him goodbye. When Ellie was in her brighter mood she would kiss him on the cheek and say goodbye papa.

Did all of that mean nothing or go in one ear and straight out the other with this girl? What did she think happened or was going on when three different people brought Ellie into nursery and Ellie seemed attached and referred to them all as her parents?

At the very least, Evan thought this lady would have gotten the wrong impression and thought he was her stepdad or her mum's new boyfriend if she was that confused. Clearly she didn't think he was anyone of importance.

"I- well, um,"

"Her name is Buckley-Diaz and I'm Mr Buckley, that doesn't give you a clue, at all?"

Evan waited with raised brows and hunched shoulders but when the girl just stared at him and gawped, Evan sighed. There was no point debating this any further. Clearly they didn't care to work out what was going on or come to grips with the fact that Ellie was lucky enough to have three loving parents and not just two.

"She has two dads, one of them is me. If you have a problem with that, I won't hesitate to switch childcare providers."

With that said, Evan moved past her and pushed open the kitchen door and briskly walked inside. His eyes landed on Ellie straight away. His youngest was sat on a little plastic chair near the window, leaning forward like she was about to fall asleep sitting up. But the way she was trembling and cuddling her teddy to her chest told Evan she really wasn't well.

As soon as Ellie lifted her head, Evan saw the tears streaking down her face and he suddenly realised she was wheezing.

"Papa!" The word was breathless and crackled like static and she unhooked one arm from around her teddy to reach out for Evan when he knelt down in front of her.

His hands found her waist and he leaned forward to press a kiss to her cheek while he rested her elbows on his knees and balanced back and forth on his heels. His thumbs brushed across her sides and he managed a calming smile when she looped her arm around his neck and tucked her temple against his so she could press a sloppy, gasping kiss to his cheek.

"Hi baby. What's wrong, hm? Tell me what's the matter." Evan kissed her again before he gently sat her up straight so he could look at her properly.

He watched her unhook her arm from his neck so she could tap her chest while she dropped her teddy to rest on her thighs. "Chest hurts, papa. Sore." She patted her chest before she moved her hand near her throat and back down again. Everything hurt. Breathing was a struggle, she wanted to cry but it made her gasp and her throat felt raw and broken.

"Let me see, baby."

Evan cupped one hand on her neck to check her pulse and he moved his other hand to gently cup her chin. He pressed his thumb against her lower lip to get her to open her mouth so he could take a look. Her throat looked red raw and inflamed and he didn't like how hard it was for her to breathe. Her pulse was quite high too.

With pursed lips, Evan leaned back, trying to stay calm so Ellie wouldn't panic as he rummaged around in his back pocket for his phone. But when he went to stand up, Ellie stretched her arms out and made a loud, croaky scream that had Evan shuddering and cringing.

"I'm not leaving, baby. Come're, shh I'm right here." In an instant, Evan leaned down and scooped Ellie up into his left arm so he could cuddle her into his chest.

He moved to stand near the window, gently bouncing Ellie in his arms every few seconds while he made a phone call. He leaned back so she could curl up on his chest and he felt her fingers scrunching up in his shirt as if to make sure he wouldn't dare put her back down.

"Buck, how is she?" Eddie's panicked voice came through the receiver within two rings and Evan guessed he had kept his phone in his pocket rather than his locker for any news.

"I'd guess tonsillitis, I'm taking her down to the emergency room, again."

"Again- fuck, that's the third time this year. Buck, I can come down and get you in the ambulance, then you won't have to wait, the emergency room was packed this morning when we dropped a few patients off. We can come down, just stay there."

That would make the third time that Ellie had gotten tonsillitis, and the doctors wouldn't do anything about it unless she got it at least seven times in a year. All they would do was give her antibiotics and tell them to keep her home and keep her fluids up. If she got worse or got a temperature, they would be back to the doctor for an inhaler, more meds and a chest X-ray.

Eddie couldn't see why they wouldn't just remove her tonsils and he done with it. This wasn't fair on her, always getting ill and forever getting chest infections, but there was nothing they could do to persuade the doctors otherwise.

"You sure?" Evan knew what that meant. He knew that meant the team would come down to this if Eddie made it a call out.

More to the point, the team would find out that Eddie and Evan were in a relationship together, and that they had kids. That they were in a poly relationship with someone else.

The team were open minded and always easy going and understanding, but the boys thought it better to keep their lives private. They didn't know what kind of looks they were going to get. It was bad enough that Evan's parents had reacted horribly to the news and used to ask Evan to find out if the girls were his or Eddie's.

And with Eddie's family being devout Catholics, they hadn't been impressed he'd entered a relationship with two other people at the same time. The team were loving and caring and understanding, but the boys didn't want any strange looks or frowns from the people they thought of as their family.

"We're coming down to you right now, babe. Call (Y/n), get her to meet us at the hospital. I'll see you both soon."

Evan found himself smiling and he leaned his cheek against Ellie's head and continued to sway her side to side. When he scrolled through his phone for (Y/n)'s contact, he stopped and looked down at Ellie as her hand scrunched up in his shirt and gave a small tug for his attention.

"We go home?"

"No, baby. Daddy's coming down to see us, you can see him in his uniform and ride in daddy's ambulance."

***

"Where are we going?"

Eddie ran his hands up and down his thighs and tilted his head back into the headrest when the truck took a right turn and had them all leaning to one side. He glanced across at Ravi who was switching between looking out the window and glancing over at Eddie and Chimney.

"My daughter's not well, we're gonna go take her to the emergency room." He moved his hands to grip his knees and he scratched his nails through his overalls.

He hadn't expected Bobby to say no when he approached and asked if they could go on a personal call. The moment he explained his daughter wasn't well and needed a trip to the emergency room, Bobby understood. He understood Eddie didn't want his partner or child to be waiting in the queue that had been out the door.

Not when Ellie could barely breathe and she was a high priority. Whereas if the team assessed her and took her, they could take her through the paramedics entrance at the hospital and she would see a doctor sooner than being in the waiting room for hours.

"How come?" Chimney had learned that they could ask Eddie questions about his private life if he opened the door and started the conversation. Otherwise, no one pried because he clearly liked to keep things private. They knew he had a partner and kids, but that was it. No no one had met any of them.

It was the same with Evan, no one asked him about his private life because he wouldn't offer anything up.

"She was a preemie, born three months early." Eddie tilted his head to the left and looked out the window as his hands left his knees and rung together between his thighs. "Picks up any infection going and nursery said she's not breathing well."

He couldn't have been more relieved when the truck pulled up outside the nursery.

Eddie had been expecting him and Hen to arrive in the ambulance while the rest of the team waited back at the station. But Bobby said they would all go and treat this like any other call out, and if they got another call on the way then everyone would be together and ready to divert after Eddie had been dropped at the hospital.

He climbed down and grabbed one of the medic bags from the side compartment before he led the way inside. Eddie grabbed the reception door and flung it open with haste and an air of confidence that almost rattled the walls.

His head turned to the left and his lips pursed when he watched the receptionist look him up and down with wide eyes and a dropped jaw. It was Daphne, the lady who had called Eddie less than an hour ago about Ellie, the one Eddie rarely spoke to whenever he dropped Ellie off.

"Mr Diaz," The surprise was evident in her voice and she darted to look towards the main room and back again. Clearly Evan hadn't told them he had called for back up.

"Where's Ellie?" He didn't have the time or the patience to play nice. Eddie wanted his family and he wanted to get out of here.

"In the kitchen."

As soon as Daphne pressed the button to unlock the door, Eddie stormed through with Bobby and Hen hot on his heels.

He didn't bother to smile at the carers or the toddlers who stopped to see who was storming through. Eddie didn't feel like smiling. He felt like screaming. not only had they pissed him off by disrespecting his boyfriend, they clearly hadn't called for any help or thought to contact a doctor whereas Evan clearly thought Ellie was bad enough to need to go to the hospital.

The sight in the kitchen was enough to melt Eddie's hardened exterior and his lips managed a smile when he looked around.

Evan was sat at the small round table, slouched back in the chair with one hand on the back of Ellie's head and the other hand on her back to try and keep her stable on his chest. He had his lips smothering the top of Ellie's head, but the moment they both heard the door open, the toddler was looking off in that direction.

"Daddy!"

"Hey little girl." Eddie grinned softly and dropped his medic bag on the middle of the table.

For a second, he forgot that the rest of the team were following behind him. He didn't think before he acted, not that it really mattered anymore, and he curved his hand around to cup the back of Evan's neck. His lips pressed down on Evan's forehead and his thumb glided over the back of his neck until he was shivering from the contact.

Eddie reached out with his free hand and grabbed the wooden chair behind him and dragged it over so he was sat in front of Evan with their knees bumping together.

"Alright, let me take a look at you, little one." He waited for Evan to spin Ellie around to face him before he reached out to cup her chin. He felt that her throat seemed a tiny bit swollen, unlike this morning, and he could already see the inside of her mouth was inflamed.

Ellie let him check her temperature and she stayed limp and mobile while Evan leaned her forward over his arm so Eddie could use the stethoscope to listen to her lungs and how croaky her breathing was.

"Buck?" Bobby stood in the corner of the room and moved his hands to his hips as he raised a brow. Eddie never mentioned anything about Evan being his partner. He could have sworn Eddie had mentioned the name (Y/n) more than once. Maybe he had gotten it wrong.

"Are you-"

"This is our daughter Ellie." Eddie didn't want to wait around and have them play the guessing game or stand and stare, trying to study and figure out what they were to each other.

He whipped the stethoscope from his ears and chucked them back in the bag before he rummaged around for a blood pressure cuff. With Evan here to hold her, Eddie might be able to get a reading. Ellie hated her blood pressure being taken and neither of them could blame her, it wasn't a nice feeling.

But Eddie paused and looked back at Ellie when her hand batted against his shoulder. She waited for him to look at her before she started to pat her chest and whimper. It was hurting again. And they all watched with sympathy in their eyes when Ellie started to croak and cough which turned into gasping cries from the pain it caused.

"Hurts,"

"I know, I know little one. Alright, let's get her in the ambulance."

When Eddie stood up and hooked the bag back over his shoulder, Evan turned Ellie around so she could cuddle back up into his shoulder with her face burrowed into the crook of his neck. But his eyes went straight back to Eddie and he watched his partner turn to face the care assistant who was still stood in the corner of the room.

"Don't expect us to bring our daughter back here again."

Evan pushed himself up onto numb legs and grabbed Eddie's hand, squeezing tightly as he led the way out after Hen and Chimney. He had seen the look of thunder on Eddie's face the moment he walked in here and he had heard the frustration in his voice over the phone.

If they weren't going to be understanding or even try to listen to them, they weren't bringing Ellie back here. They had to understand that she had three parents and they had to listen to each of them. They couldn't just make presumptions or ignore Evan like they had done today.

Eddie wouldn't stand for them being so rude to his boyfriend like that.

A tender smile flickered onto Evan's face when he felt Eddie's hand on his lower back and his partner follow close behind until Eddie's chest was almost bumping into his back with each step.

Bobby and Ravi headed back to the truck and took Eddie's bag with them while Chimney climbed in the driver's seat of the ambulance. And Hen opened the back doors, beckoning the boys to hop in before she followed after them.

Evan perched himself down on the gurney and sat Ellie on his lap with her back slouched into his chest. His hands splayed out on her chest and tummy and he smothered his lips into the top of her head while Hen and Eddie sat down in front of them.

"Is she your only child?" Hen scanned her eyes between the boys who both shared a look while Eddie bit down on his lip, leaving Evan to answer this one.

"You're the baby, aren't you?" He murmured into the top of Ellie's head. "We've got four. Chris, Lola, Maria, and then Ellie."

While Hen muttered a quiet "Damn." With wide eyes, Eddie looked through one of the drawers on his left and found a steroid inhaler. It was a very weak dosage that would do Ellie some good to try and get her throat and airways open so she could breathe easier.

"Let's try some of this, see? Big breaths, like daddy, and it will feel better." Eddie pressed the white pen-like inhaler to his lips and took a deep breath. He tried to smile and stop himself from coughing at the taste, but he knew if he or Evan didn't try it first, there was no way Ellie was going to believe them and have a go herself.

She squirmed back into Evan, whining and shaking her head until Evan kissed her cheek. "Be a good girl for us, hm? Then we can tell mummy how good you've been."

"Mummy?" Ellie tipped her head back into Evan's chest, coughing and croaking as she stared up at him.

"Yeah, mummy's gonna meet us at the doctors, you wanna make her proud, don't you?"

She scrunched up her nose and curled her lips, but when Eddie pressed the inhaler closer, she didn't pull away. Her eyes sparkled when Evan sucked in a deep breath and puffed out his chest to get her to imitate him while Hen grinned at the pair of them.

Ellie copied Evan and reached both her hands out to hold Eddie's wrists as she tried to breathe in the inhaler. But as soon as the powdered steroids got into her lungs, she gasped. Her short nails scratched the back of Eddie's hands and she wriggled back into Evan, screaming as much as she was able to with the little breath she had left.

"Baby please- Ellie no- okay, okay all gone, see? It's gone now." Eddie wrenched out of her rather tight grip and handed the inhaler to Hen so she could hide it.

He dropped his head down and sighed, shaking his hands to get some feeling back from where she gripped him and his thigh burned from how she had kicked him in her panic.

"You're a little fuss-pot, you know that?" Evan murmured quietly as he rubbed his chest that now felt bruised from where she bashed her head back into him. It had only been an inhaler, it wasn't as if it actually hurt to take it and it must have made her feel a little better, even if it didn't feel normal for her. She knew they weren't trying or going to hurt her.

"I wonder who she gets that from." Hen dead-panned as the three of them felt the ambulance pull to a stop.

"Not me. Come on, let's go find mummy." Leaning over, Eddie gently scooped Ellie up from Evan's lap and climbed out the back. He felt Evan's hands on his shoulders and both of them found (Y/n) straight away.

She was stood to the far side just shy of the ambulance entrance, leaning her shoulders and one foot up against the wall. With her arms folded over her chest and her bag hanging off one elbow.

When her eyes locked on them, her lips curved into a soft smile and she pushed off the wall to aim for her guys and their youngest baby.

Evan reached her first. He weaved beside Eddie to meet (Y/n) halfway and his hands found her hips while his lips attached to her forehead. Their phone call had been brief but (Y/n) had immediately agreed to meet them here at the hospital. Ellie would need all of them if she was going to be seen by a doctor because they could guarantee she would get distressed and have a meltdown or some kind of tantrum.

She gripped Evan's waist and leaned up to kiss his cheek before she reached out for Eddie. His arm curled around her waist and she pecked his lips while Ellie scrambled to get into her arms.

"Mummy,"

"I'm here, baby. Come on, what have you been doing, hm?"

When Evan turned his head to the side and noticed the smile playing on Hen's lips, he could feel his cheeks flushing pink and a blush crept up the side of his neck. "We'll introduce you all later."

"Hm, I'm counting on it."

[hamsterclaw]

Yoongi’s a murder detective fighting burnout when he’s assigned the case that you and your former partner fucked up.

Paring: Yoongi x f! Reader

Genre: Detectives!Yoongi and reader

Rating: 18+

Word count: 6.6k

Warnings: Swearing, descriptions of murder, bloodshed and assault, sex, depression and burnout, mentions of guns

The flashing blue lights in Yoongi’s window are followed by the wail of sirens cutting through the early evening bustle.

Yoongi looks out the window. He’s three floors up from street level, there’s raindrops tracking along the dirty glass, the faint smell of mildew that accompanies any rainfall in this filthy city.

Under the table, his good leather shoes, the ones he saves for weddings and funerals, have rubbed a hole in the skin over his achilles. Yoongi had worn them for his disciplinary hearing today, the part of him that still wants to be a cop temporarily winning over the part of him that doesn’t.

He wonders if this is what burnout feels like.

His superior, Kim Namjoon, had called him into his office after the hearing to tell him he was on probation, to clean up his act because he wouldn’t be so lucky as to get off next time.

The truth is, Yoongi had known while he was pressing the suspect’s face into gravel with his booted foot that it would come back to bite him on the ass.

He’d done it anyway.

Yoongi’s never been kind to scum who exploit children, but his partner, Jung Hoseok, had seen something in Yoongi’s face that day that had made him report Yoongi.

Yoongi doesn’t blame him. Hoseok has been his partner on and off for five years and he’s as sterling as they come. His moral compass is as strong as it was the day they graduated from the academy, despite all the fucked up shit they’ve seen.

Unlike Yoongi.

Yoongi was never black and white to begin with and now he’s so far into the grey he scares himself sometimes. It’s never been his goal to be the kind of cop who metes out his own justice.

Only madness lies that way.

Anyway now Hoseok’s been reassigned temporarily to narcotics, supposedly a break from homicide, and Yoongi’s partnerless.

Probably not for long, there’s always some hungry rookie wanting the credibility of working homicide.

Yoongi sighs, closes the file he’d been skimming. It’s well past seven, there aren’t any open cases that need his immediate attention and he figures he might as well go home to his apartment and his cat, Kenzo.

The pavement’s slippery under the smooth soles of his good shoes, Yoongi pulls his coat tighter against the early autumn chill as he walks the five blocks to his apartment.

The smell of fried wontons fills his nostrils as he passes a conduit street in the back end of Little China, Yoongi’s tempted to stop and pick up dinner.

He’s tempted every time and succumbed yesterday so he soldiers on, not without a pang of regret. He regrets food choices because he’d rather that, than think about his actual regrets.

The bang of a gunshot when he’d been two minutes too late to what then became a crime scene.

Fucking some girl with a cute face because he hadn’t been man enough to treat Mara the way she deserved.

Choosing to stay in homicide even after it had become clear to him that he had plumbed the depths of human depravity. Scarring his psyche repeatedly because it’s easier than making the active choice to request a transfer.

Yoongi unlocks his door, toes his shoes off, hangs up his coat.

There’s a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye, a flash of grey fur as Kenzo skitters across the entryway, close but not touching him.

It’s the kind of greeting Yoongi can get behind.

He pours out a serving of dry food into Kenzo’s dish, heads to the fridge to reheat yesterday’s wontons.

Eats standing at the tiny kitchen island, cracks open a beer to wash it all down.

He catches sight of his face, pinched in the scowl it seems to fall into more often than not these days.

Jesus, is he getting old?

Yoongi avoids looking at his reflection again as he showers. Changes into the same t-shirt he’s been wearing for weeks, contemplates watching porn just to take the edge off, but decides he can’t be bothered.

He falls into sleep, deep and dreamless, wakes up with an almighty crick in his neck just before dawn from the way he’d been huddled in a tight ball under the covers.

He knows he’s not right, but he’s been not right for so long Yoongi wouldn’t even know where to start putting himself together again.

***

Redemption comes in odd packages, Yoongi thinks, as he looks up a case he worked on six months ago, a shady businessman on the fringe of organised crime who’d got high as a kite and beat a sex worker to death.

He’d been killed on the way to serving out his sentence in the cushy prison in Busan his fancy lawyer had managed to negotiate, crushed in the back of the transport vehicle when it had been t-boned by a lorry.

Apparently a freak accident, Yoongi doubts it but he’s also not going to look too closely, it’s out of his jurisdiction and he’s too jaded to mourn the loss of another brutal asshole. They’d had to identify the sex worker by her dental records and DNA, her face had been unrecognisable.

There’s a knock on the frosted glass panel on his office door, Yoongi looks up as Kim Namjoon walks in, followed by the latest hungry rookie angling for a stint in homicide.

‘Min Yoongi, this is Y/N L/N,’ Namjoon says. ‘She’s a new transfer in from the Seoul branch.’

Yoongi doesn’t have to fake his disinterest as he nods politely at you.

‘What’s the case?’ he asks.

Namjoon looks pointedly at the crime scene photo blown up on Yoongi’s screen.

Yoongi waits.

He can feel your gaze on him, but he’ll get to that later.

The anticipation of a new case never gets old, he’s been in homicide since he graduated off the beat ten years ago and he no longer thinks it’s sick of him to get excited about another murder.

It’s the thrill of the hunt that he lives for, the translation of nebulous facts and witness statements into a puzzle that he can solve.

Yoongi’s damn good at his job. It almost makes the sacrifices in the rest of his so-called life worth it.

Namjoon hands Yoongi a case file, crisp, sharp edges waiting to razor his fingertips open. Flat.

Inside, the standard cover page, then a note that makes Yoongi sit up straight out of his slouch.

He looks at Namjoon to find Namjoon’s already looking at him.

‘The reaper of Seoul?’

Yoongi realises as he says the words out loud how it sounds.

The capture and subsequent conviction of the serial killer who’d terrorised the citizens of Seoul for three years had made headlines nationwide.

Last year.

‘Yeah,’ Namjoon says, the tension in his jaw evident now that Yoongi’s looking at him properly.

Namjoon glances at you. ‘It would seem he never left.’

You shift your weight and your eyes meet Yoongi’s.

‘My partner and I broke the case,’ you say. There’s a brittle smoothness to your voice that Yoongi recognises as a paper thin facade over the hauntedness underneath. ‘Turns out we didn’t.’

***

The note in the case file is a single sheet of letter paper, lined in blue.

The handwriting is precise, neat between the lines.

Oh dear.

Better luck this time?

Best regards from your neighbourhood Reaper.

Yoongi looks at you, sitting across the room at the desk Hoseok’s temporarily vacated.

You’re staring at your screen, face backlit in blue, expression unreadable. You’re in black, nondescript knitwear, your hair pushed back from your face, eyes narrowed.

He clears his throat. ‘You worked the case with your partner.’

It’s a statement you answer to like a question.

‘It was the first case I picked up when I joined homicide,’ you say, turning to Yoongi. ‘It started with -‘

‘Kim Seulgi,’ Yoongi says.

You nod, almost grimacing at the name of the Seoul Reaper’s first high profile victim.

‘Her family wanted answers.’

Kim Seulgi had been born of Seoul’s elite, an architect with her grandfather’s firm who had picked up a number of accolades for her work on the National Opera House.

She’d been engaged to an equally accomplished classical pianist, Jeong Minho, and had been the only offspring of her wealthy parents.

She’d disappeared three days before her wedding, only to turn up on her wedding day, floating in the Hangang, dressed in the clothes she’d disappeared in.

You say, ‘She was an ambitious first target.’

‘Was she the first?’ Yoongi asks.

The flicker in your eyes tells him this isn’t the first time you’ve considered this.

‘My partner Kiho.’ There’s strain in your voice. You start again. ‘My partner, Kiho, and I thought he’d killed before.’

You shrug. ‘The captain felt we were wasting time looking back into his early years.’

Yoongi says, neutral, ‘Budgets are limited, your case must have passed the thresholds for plausible deniability.’

‘It seemed to fit,’ you agree.

Your eyes meet again. ‘Not all of it, though.’

Yoongi knows, intimately, what it’s like to not be certain. Sometimes all you have is your instinct. It’s one thing to build a case no reasonable person would doubt, but you’re also betting on your gut. You’re betting on being a good enough detective to know that the pieces fit, without forcing them to fit.

You’re betting on being honest with yourself, and Yoongi knows more than anyone how tempting the lies can be.

Now you’re the one watching him, taking the measure of him.

His email pings.

‘That’s the link to the full case file,’ you say.

You get up, carry a stack of notebooks to his desk.

‘Our notebooks,’ you say.

Yoongi looks at the stack.

Every cop’s got their own collection of notebooks, raw data and impressions that don’t always make it into official reports.

The equivalent of dirty underwear when you’re not expecting company versus lingerie when you’re down to fuck.

This close, he can smell your shampoo, bright and faintly floral.

You blink at him.

‘I need to sort something with human resources,’ you say. ‘I’ll see you later.’

In actual fact it’s 36 hours later when he next sees you, at 4am, at a crime scene.

***

The rain falling is more than a drizzle, enough that the tent around the victim is the first priority.

There’s an imprint of violence in the air, Yoongi knows you feel it too by the way your lips tighten as you duck under the yellow tape to join him.

You nod at him in greeting, then there’s silence as you enter the tent.

The victim’s on her front, face turned to the right, hand tucked under her cheek.

She hasn’t been dead long enough for livedo to set in, she would almost look asleep if it weren’t for the purple of her lips, the greyness to her complexion.

The bath of blood she’s lying in.

Yoongi can just see the edge of the gaping wound on her neck.

You wait until forensics turns her body over.

The top three buttons of her silk blouse are undone, her chest slick with blood.

Yoongi’s reading the crime scene like he’s reading you, and he knows what you’re going to say before you say it.

‘It’s him,’ you breathe. The devastation in your eyes makes it difficult for him to look at you. ‘Fuck, it’s him.’

***

You’re shivering visibly despite the hot coffee Yoongi’s poured you, despite the fact that he’s turned the heating in his ancient Hyundai up as far as it’ll go.

There are droplets of water in your hair, sparkling incongruously in the gloom.

You’re waiting till first light to knock on neighbourhood doors, the victim was found in a quiet cul-de-sac.

Two minutes from her own front door.

Not much chills Yoongi these days but that fact does make him pause.

The audacity of it.

He says, ‘I have a blanket in the trunk.’

You’re protesting but Yoongi gets back out in the rain anyway, grabs the blanket and gets back in.

Hands it to you, takes your cup as you drape the blanket around yourself.

‘It gets colder here than Seoul,’ Yoongi offers, handing you your coffee back.

‘We fucked it up,’ you say, and Yoongi knows that’s what you’ve been thinking since you saw the body.

He’s just been waiting for you to be ready to say it.

‘So make it right,’ he says, simple.

‘An innocent man’s in prison because Kiho and I fucked up,’ you say.

Yoongi doesn’t want to minimise it but he doubts the man you put away was completely innocent.

‘I read your notebooks,’ he says. ‘Who’s Jeon Bogyeol?’

There had been twelve murders before the arrest. All women in their late twenties to mid thirties, all living alone.

They’d all lived in the same part of Seoul, but apart from that there was nothing to link them that he could find.

You look at him warily. ‘He was a night watchman at the apartments of seven of the women.’

Yoongi waits.

‘We cross-referenced staff at all the addresses, and his name kept coming up. Like Jang Daeseong.’

You flinch at the name of the man convicted of the murders, as though it didn’t fall from your own lips.

You keep talking, though, your voice never faltering. ‘We never found any links between Jeon Bogyeol and the other five women.’

‘Did he have a history?’ Yoongi asks. He’s looking out the window at the first rays of sunrise, muted orange through the rain. His shoulder aches, an old injury he doesn’t think about except when he’s tired, and cold.

‘There was a neighbour,’ you say. You’re chewing on your bottom lip, a tell Yoongi’s noticed for the first time tonight.

‘She called the police once saying she’d seen Bogyeol taking a woman into his apartment against her will.’

You’re frowning. ‘The beat cops who responded to the call out said there was no sign of anyone else in his apartment. The neighbour moved away.’

‘Moved away?’ Yoongi asks, and you glance at him, understanding the sharpness in his tone.

‘I was going to look into it when the Chief shut us down,’ you say. It’s stated simply, like a fact, no sign of defensiveness.

Yoongi offers you more coffee from his flask.

‘Where’s Bogyeol now?’

‘When the new letter came in I looked him up,’ you say. The steam rising from your cup obscures part of your expression for a moment, but Yoongi can hear the tremor in your voice.

‘He’s less than fifty miles east of here.’

Dawn’s breaking, the rain’s finally starting to peter out, but Yoongi’s chilled anyway.

***

The morning sun is high in the sky by the time Yoongi and you finish interviewing the neighbours and the new victim’s friends and family.

Yoongi’s phone rings. It’s Namjoon.

‘Can you talk?’ Namjoon asks.

Yoongi mouths ‘Namjoon’ in response to your inquiring expression, puts some distance between you and him.

‘Yeah,’ he answers.

‘The post-mortem results are back, and the preliminary tox screen is negative. The ME’s put the cause of death as exsanguination.’

Yoongi processes this. ‘It’s the same MO as the previous Seoul reaper victims,’ he says.

Namjoon sighs. ‘Has anything new come out of your interviews?’

‘No,’ Yoongi says. The victim had been well-liked, none of the neighbours had seen or heard anything, and on the surface of it there were no conflicts he could see. Her boyfriend of two years had been away on a work trip, his location confirmed around the window of the crime.

Yoongi’s looking at you as you wait against the car, and when your name comes out of Namjoon’s mouth he’s already got an inkling of what Namjoon wants to know.

‘I reviewed the case,’ Namjoon says. ‘There are no obvious flaws or errors in their investigation.’

Yoongi grunts. ‘There was a lead that they didn’t follow up on.’

He fills Namjoon in.

‘I’ll follow it up.’

Namjoon says, thoughtfully, ‘I wonder where her partner’s working now.’

Yoongi’s surprised Namjoon doesn’t already know, to be honest, he’s always two steps ahead of Yoongi.

He flicks his gaze to you again. You’re still waiting against the car, and there’s a loneliness to your posture, a fatigued downturn to your mouth that makes him say, ‘Hey Joon, I’ll call you back, ok?’

He ends the call, unlocks the car.

‘We should get back and compare notes,’ Yoongi says. His voice has dropped the way it does when he’s tired, and shit, he is tired. He hasn’t slept well for a while.

‘Let me drive,’ you offer. You take his keys, and your fingers brush his for an instant.

The contact, brief though it is, makes Yoongi’s skin tingle.

He wonders if you notice his reaction, but you’re already sliding in, adjusting the seat, starting up the car.

***

Yoongi wakes when you’re parking the car, sits up, a little embarrassed.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, looking to gauge your reaction.

‘Don’t be,’ you reply. ‘I would have done the same if you’d driven.’

There’s a hint of mischief in the curve of your half-smile.

‘You mumble in your sleep.’

Yoongi rubs a hand over his face. ‘What’d I say?’

‘I couldn’t make out any words,’ you tell him, but there’s a twinkle in your eye that makes him wonder if that’s really true.

Mara is the only person who’s shared his bed in recent years, and she’d never mentioned anything.

You swipe your ID to get into the station, hit the lifts.

In the dire grey lighting you look almost as tired as he does.

‘Coffee?’ Yoongi offers, when you pass the vending machine on the way to the office.

‘Yeah,’ you say. You’re on your phone, frowning over a text.

Yoongi passes you a cup.

‘Problem?’ he asks.

‘Kiho,’ you say. You look at him. ‘My old partner. He wants to meet up.’

‘It’d be useful to talk through the case with him,’ Yoongi agrees.

Your expression is difficult to read. ‘He’s in a retreat a couple hours drive from here. He took time off after we closed the case.’

Yoongi gulps his coffee. ‘There isn’t anything else we can do here anyway, we’re waiting on leads.’

He reaches out his hand for the car keys. ‘I can drive.’

***

The retreat Kiho is staying in is set amongst the foothills of a mountain, rolling grounds all around, a view of the cliffs overlooking the sea.

It seems to Yoongi like a place only the very rich or the very damaged would live.

Unless you get better pay packets in Seoul he’s apprehensive about meeting Kiho.

You sign in at the front desk, the receptionist greets you warmly, like she’s met you a few times before.

You lead Yoongi through a huge lounge, through open patio doors and into a green. Yoongi’s looking around at the residents, scanning the area the way he does automatically whenever he’s in an unfamiliar place.

You’re waving a hand, and then you’re embracing a tall man tightly. Neither of you say anything but Yoongi can see the way your shoulders slump, like the tension’s draining out of you.

It’s only when the tall man looks up at Yoongi inquiringly that Yoongi notices the long scar running along his neck. Tracing the path of his jugular, vertical rather than horizontal.

Kiho extends a hand.

‘So you’re going to get our guy,’ he says.

Yoongi doesn’t know what to say to that.

‘We’re going to get him,’ he says, finally.

Kiho turns to you. ‘You haven’t told him,’ he says to you.

You’re looking at Yoongi.

‘We can tell him now.’

***

‘I started getting notes after Jang Daeseong was convicted,’ you say. You’re sitting in a gazebo with Yoongi and Kiho, mugs of coffee in front of you.

Yoongi raises an eyebrow.

You flick your eyes to his, then look away, unlock your phone.

Yoongi takes your phone, scrolls through a gallery of pictures.

Lined paper, handwriting he’s seen before.

Yoongi reads through the content, then returns your phone to you.

‘The originals are with forensics,’ you tell him. ‘The paper and ink are generic, impossible to trace. There’s no trace of DNA, not so much as a partial print.’

‘The notes stopped coming last month,’ you say. ‘Right around the time I moved.’

Kiho’s scratching his neck absently, Yoongi catches how your gaze drops to his scar.

The length of it’s longer than a stab wound, he thinks the surgeons might have had to extend the scar to repair the vessels beneath.

You turn to Yoongi.

‘We have to stop him,’ you say. ‘Use me to lure him out.’

‘He nearly killed me,’ Kiho says. His expression is sober, his tone flat.

He stops there, but Yoongi can hear his next words, loud and clear.

What’s he going to do to you?

‘We can’t let him keep going like this,’ you say, very gently.

Kiho meets Yoongi’s gaze.

Yoongi doesn’t falter.

‘He has to be stopped,’ he agrees.

***

The drive back to the police station goes quicker - there’s something about seeing your old partner that’s given you a bump of energy.

Yoongi can practically feel the adrenaline fizzing in your blood, coming off you in waves.

He’s worried about the crash when the adrenaline ebbs.

He sure as fuck hopes you can cope with the lows better than he can.

He’d put in a call before you left the retreat, Namjoon’s fast tracking a last known address on the neighbour of Jeon Bogyeol who’d moved away.

You’re typing an address into the satnav yourself, face drawn, eyes serious.

Yoongi doesn’t have to ask whose address it is.

‘Are you sure you’re up to this?’ he asks.

His voice is as neutral as he can make it but he already knows that you’ve made your decision.

It’s written all over you, in the way your shoulders are squared, in the tilt of your chin, in the way your hands are tensed into fists in your lap.

‘I need to see this through, Yoongi,’ you say.

Yoongi takes a moment.

‘What happened to Kiho?’ he asks.

‘He didn’t see who it was,’ you answer. Your eyes are fixed in front of you, jaw tensed.

‘He was heading home in between shifts and he got jumped in the car park under his apartment. If he hadn’t been found by the car park attendant —‘ you voice trails off, and you shiver.

‘He was lucky the car park attendant called for help right away. That his next door neighbour, fresh off a shift in the trauma department, arrived home when she did and was there to take over. That he lives five minutes on blue lights away from the best trauma centre in Seoul.’

You look at Yoongi. ‘Kiho’s damned lucky to be alive.’

‘It’s a different injury from the reaper’s usual MO,’ Yoongi says slowly.

You nod. ‘He was toying with us.’

‘You said you received notes from the Reaper,’ Yoongi says. He’s watching you carefully in the rearview. ‘What did they say?’

Your lips press together in a line, but your voice is steady when you answer.

‘He said he’d been watching me, and that he was coming for me. That I’d be his final kill.’

***

The address you’ve put in for Jeon Bogyeol is a house in a run down suburban neighbourhood, the type of place Yoongi grew up.

The houses are haphazardly arranged, like a careless scatter on a Monopoly board, connected by a warren of roads too narrow for more than one car to pass.

Yoongi can see you tensing up the closer you get to your destination, and after he parks and switches off the engine, he places his hand on your arm.

Your eyes are expressive, more so than your voice.

‘We haven’t got grounds yet for an arrest warrant,’ you say, flat.

‘We’re working the case,’ Yoongi replies. ‘And if it’s right, we’ll work it until it’s airtight.’

Your response is to stare at him a moment, then to push open the car door.

Yoongi notices that you’ve unzipped your jacket, making your holstered gun more visible.

His own gun presses against his hip, the weight of it reminding him that although he’s only drawn it a handful of times, each time has been with intent.

He sure as fuck hopes neither of you will have reason to draw your gun today.

***

The address is little more than a shack, a rickety door that looks like it’ll give under a strong kick, a boarded up window that’s visibly cracked.

Yoongi knocks, identifies you both.

Follows procedure because he’s determined to get it all right this time.

Get the monster locked up where he belongs.

You don’t have grounds to break down the door, at least not until you go round to the back and see the pink tricycle upended in the dirt, streamers splayed tendrils of pink and white.

There isn’t much that sends Yoongi into the grey as much as the suggestion that a child might be involved.

He doesn’t really recall looking at you to confirm, just knows that one minute he’s outside in the chill and the next he’s inside the shack, gun drawn, the metallic tang of blood in the back of his throat.

There’s nowhere to hide in the empty shack, Jeon Bogyeol is gone.

You do a cursory search but both of you know you aren’t going to find your answers here.

Then Yoongi must blank out, because the next thing he hears is your voice, firm, saying his name.

He’s panting, covered in sweat, back against a wall, your hands grabbing fistfuls of his jacket to keep him upright.

He blinks, and you snap into focus. There’s ringing in his ears.

Your mouth opens, and the ringing stops. He hears your voice.

‘Let’s go, Yoongi.’

He lets you lead him out, folds himself into the passenger seat of your car, notes distantly how you put your hand on the top of the doorframe like you’re worried he’s going to bang his head.

You start the engine and then you drive, and Yoongi’s grateful that you don’t say anything at all, don’t ask for an explanation of why a fucking tricycle sent him into a tailspin.

Yoongi looks down in his lap because he’s not ready to see if you’re looking at him differently now that you’ve seen him wig out.

You put the radio on after a few minutes, stop at a drive thru after an hour.

It’s only when you hand him a coffee, silently, that he’s moved to speak.

He clears his throat, and you’re the one who speaks, still looking straight ahead, out the windscreen.

‘You don’t have to tell me. I mean, I’ll listen if you do, but you don’t have to.’

Yoongi chews on that a moment.

‘Three years ago I worked what we thought was a murder in Busan. It turned out to be an abduction.’

Yoongi laughs. There’s no humour in it.

‘We found her. She was still warm. If we’d been ten minutes quicker at figuring it out, if her fucking dad had told us about the business deal he had that had gone sour sooner, if I’d even just tried harder…’

His voice trails off.

He risks a glance at you.

You’re still not looking at him.

‘I can’t speak to whether you could have prevented it, Yoongi. All I know is that none of us come to work to do a bad job.’

Your hand lands on his forearm briefly.

‘Some days are just bad days at the office.’

It’s not the first time Yoongi’s heard it, but it’s the first time it’s been said to him with no judgement that he can hear.

***

When you get back to the precinct, Namjoon’s waiting.

He hands Yoongi another case file.

‘I got Jimin to follow up on those leads we talked about,’ Namjoon says, no preamble.

‘We visited Jeon Bogyeol’s last known address,’ you say. ‘There’s no one there now, but it hasn’t been long since he moved out.’

Namjoon says, ‘Keep me informed.’

He nods to the case file. ‘There’s some interesting information in there.’

As Namjoon walks off, you turn to Yoongi.

‘I’m going down to visit someone I know in forensics, see if they can check the house.’

Yoongi heads for your joint office.

There’s a cleaning cart parked just outside the door, which opens just as Yoongi reaches for the doorknob.

The cleaner apologises and bows politely.

Yoongi steps aside to let her pass.

‘You forgot this,’ he says, spotting the dusting cloth left on your desk.

He hands it to her and places the file on his desk.

Outside, it’s raining again.

***

Yoongi wakes with a jolt.

You’re perched on the edge of his desk.

‘You should go home, get some sleep.’

‘In the middle of an active murder investigation?’ Yoongi mumbles.

‘I’m one of the potential targets, remember?’ you say, grimacing. ‘He might come to us.’

At Yoongi’s expression, you say, ‘We’ve been doing nothing but following up leads since the last murder. The last investigation took months, almost a year. What are you going to do, not sleep until he’s caught?’

‘I don’t sleep much anyway,’ Yoongi says, but he knows you’re right.

‘I know you don’t,’ you reply. There’s an empathy in your tone that reminds him you’re a homicide detective too.

You exchange a look, and then you both speak at the same time.

‘I should go —‘

‘Do you like wontons?’ Yoongi blurts out.

You raise an eyebrow. ‘Is this like inviting me in for ramen?’

‘What?’ Yoongi splutters. ‘No, not like that. There’s this place I go. They have—-‘

‘Wontons, I get it,’ you say. You get up. ‘Yeah. Let’s go.’

***

It’s been a while since Yoongi shared a meal with someone else, the last person was Hoseok, who could go straight from a crime scene to a steakhouse without turning a hair.

You’re chasing a wonton around your plate, fatigue lining the corners of your mouth.

Yoongi asks, ‘Where do you live?’

‘The other side of town,’ you tell him. ‘Near the financial district.’

‘Fancy,’ Yoongi muses.

‘More than I can afford,’ you say darkly. ‘If this case goes on for a while I’m going to need to move.’

You look up at him. ‘Where do you live?’

‘Close to here,’ Yoongi says.

‘Yeah?’

You put your chopsticks down. ‘I should —-‘

This time, Yoongi interrupts.

‘Do you want to come round for ramen?’

Your eyes meet, and there’s a beat of silence. Then a pulse of connection that sends heat through Yoongi’s veins.

Your knee brushes his under the table.

‘Yeah,’ you answer, deliberate. ‘Fuck, yeah.’

***

Yoongi’s always hated the preamble to a hookup, in his line of work uncertainty is a thing to be avoided.

You work the case until you get an explanation no reasonable person would doubt.

He finds himself waiting, though, now that you’re standing in his apartment.

You’re looking around, and he wonders if his existence seems as lonely on the outside as it feels on the inside.

He’s wondering if you’ve changed your mind, if you really did think he meant ramen, when you reach out and grasp the front of his shirt.

Slip the tips of your fingers just under, hold the placket as you use your other hand to unbutton. Start at his throat, work your way down, slowly.

His skin prickles under the warmth of your fingers.

You lean forward and press a kiss to the base of his neck.

Yoongi reaches up, slides a hand around the nape of your neck, and you tilt your face to his.

Close up, you’re soft.

Yoongi traces your bottom lip with his thumb, and your lips part.

You don’t say anything, though, and that’s ok, because Yoongi thinks you’re as talked out as he is.

It’s been a hell of a fucking day.

You’re kissing his neck again, instead of his mouth, and that’s ok, because this isn’t love, it’s comfort.

A human connection in a day filled with monsters.

Yoongi sighs as your hands slip over his bare chest, round to his back.

He helps you lift your top over your head, admires your breasts, nipples pressing against the fabric of your bra.

He cups the weight of them in his hands, and you moan.

Yoongi’s cock is filling out, and you’re undoing his belt like you want to see for yourself.

You drop to your knees in front of him, press your mouth onto the length of him over his boxer briefs, sigh with pleasure.

‘Not too much,’ Yoongi warns, ‘not if you want me to fuck you.’

You look up at him, hair mussed, a smile curving your lips.

You tug his boxer briefs down, and Yoongi curls a hand around himself so as not to hit you in the face.

‘Just let me —‘

You open your mouth to take him in, and Yoongi groans at the feel of your warmth.

When did he last —

His crown nudges the back of your throat, and you swallow, and he loses his train of thought.

He grabs your shoulder, tugs you up, kisses the smear of his own stickiness at the corner of your mouth.

The light slanting in through the window is hues of gold and orange, filling in the hollows of your face, outlining the curves of your body.

Yoongi has to stop looking at you because he doesn’t want to cry at how much he’s missed being close to someone like this.

‘Where do you want me?’ he asks, voice taut.

‘Anywhere,’ you say. ‘Just turn these fucking lights out.’

***

In the dark, Yoongi’s most enraptured by the warmth of you.

Your skin is smooth, so soft under his hands as he wraps his fingers around the curve of your hips.

His cock glides in and out of the heat between your legs, and your moans are beautiful but what really gets him are the hitches in your breathing as he moves.

He turns you over, onto your back, and you pull him to you. Your mouth opens on his shoulder in what would be a kiss if you weren’t biting down. Your tongue flicks over his bruised skin, an apology.

You haven’t spoken to each other in words in a while but Yoongi doesn’t think either of you need words right now.

At least he doesn’t.

You’re tightening around his cock now, your cries quickening until you gasp his name in a tone that makes him grunt and his hips jerk, taking him deep as he can go.

Even in his pleasure he makes sure not to crush you as he collapses next to you.

Then you’re up, walking over to the window, pulling up the sash, lighting a cigarette without asking if he’s ok with it.

Yoongi admires the outline of your profile against the glass.

‘I needed that,’ you say, taking a drag, hunching a little to blow smoke out of his window.

‘Me too,’ Yoongi says, honestly.

He ties off the condom, gets up to toss it in the trash on top of yesterday’s takeout.

Pours you a glass of water on his way back to bed.

He half expects you to be dressed, and you are, but in his clothes, not your own, an old t-shirt he’d tossed on the chair by the bed yesterday morning before he left for work.

He can’t see your face clearly in the dark. It makes it easy to find his voice.

‘You should stay,’ he says. ‘We can get coffee in the morning.’

You’re quiet. ‘I want to.’

Yoongi climbs into bed, and after a moment you slide in next to him.

Your bodies aren’t touching at all, but somehow having you there with him is enough.

Yoongi means to check on you, but he’s asleep so quickly he doesn’t get a chance to.

***

There’s a basketball hoop set into the wall in the back end of the station, a concrete square with a chain-link fence.

The building opposite is a block of offices, as is the building next to it.

Yoongi makes the shot, and you grab the ball on its first bounce.

You say, ‘Forensics got nothing from Jeon Bogyeol’s shack. He bleached the shit out of the place before he left.’

Yoongi grunts, watches you point and shoot.

He’d read through the file Namjoon gave him on the neighbour - it’s incomplete but she was last seen alive twelve weeks ago in a coastal town.

There’s something niggling at the back of his brain, he’d suggested shooting hoops in the hopes that the activity might shake the thought loose so his conscious mind can make the connection.

His phone vibrates in his pocket.

Namjoon.

‘I’m going up to see Namjoon,’ he says. ‘You coming?’

‘I’ll stay here for a bit,’ you say. ‘I’ll be up in a sec.’

Yoongi shrugs, lets himself back in.

Takes the stairs up to Namjoon’s office on the third floor.

There’s a cleaning cart parked next to the staff kitchen as he rounds the corner.

Yoongi’s about to knock on Namjoon’s door when his scattered thoughts crystallise.

The case file Namjoon had given him had a grainy photo of Jeon Bogyeol’s neighbour, the one who’d reported him and then disappeared.

He’s seen her face before, and recently.

Coming out of your office.

‘Fuck,’ he swears.

He grabs his phone out of his pocket, dials your number.

Your phone rings, and rings.

Yoongi takes off, down the stairs, back the way he came.

By the time he bursts out of the back door of the station, gun drawn, his heart’s thumping triple speed, but his hand is steady as he aims it at the man with a knife standing over you.

His finger goes from trigger guard to trigger.

‘Fucking drop it,’ Yoongi warns.

He doesn’t, so Yoongi shoots.

***

Jeon Bogyeol’s neighbour who had reported him was called Seo Hyerin.

She was in her early forties, an ex-teacher who he’d coerced into helping him by turning up at her new place even after she’d moved to get away from him.

She’d been too scared to disobey him, but in forcing her to help him, Jeon Bogyeol had given her access to enough information to clinch the case against him.

Once she’d found out he’d been shot and was likely to go straight from hospital to prison, she’d shared all that information with Yoongi and you.

The pieces fell into place so easily there was no need to make any of it fit.

And now Yoongi’s sitting in the kitchen of your apartment, watching as you pack things up.

He’d been right. Your place was fancy.

You were being transferred back to Seoul to finish up, see things through with the case.

He realises you’re looking at him.

‘My new place is a couple hours drive from here,’ you say.

‘Yeah?’ Yoongi says, like he hadn’t already looked it up.

He’d also looked up timed automated cat food dispensers, just because it was one thing to have a neighbour drop in and feed Kenzo if he’s stuck with a case occasionally, but it’s another thing if he’s regularly going to be driving down to see you.

If he’s regularly going to be spending the night away.

It’s uncharacteristic, for him, but he’s hopeful.

‘I slept pretty well that time,’ you say, looking down into your box.

You look up at him, and the curve of your lips makes Yoongi think to himself that he’d like to kiss you, sometime.

‘In your apartment,’ you clarify, like he wouldn’t already know.

‘I make good ramen,’ Yoongi says. ‘I can make it again for you, you know.’

You laugh, and the sound makes Yoongi feel warm.

He realises that he’s smiling.

Fuck, it’s been a while.

[winterrrnight]

12 with rafe I'm begging 😔😔

you ask and I shall deliver 🫡 I hope you like this nada <3 do let me know your views on this! 🩷

especially you

PAIRING: soft!rafe cameron x gn!reader

SUMMARY: there are some things Rafe will do especially just for you.

WARNINGS: established relationship, very much hates everyone but you, the reader is a perfectionist - in constant need of academic validation (it is me guys 😓), fluff, usage of nicknames like babe, baby, sweetheart, minimal swearing

EDITH SPEAKS: this is kind of self indulgent 😀 need me a man who does this for me 😭😭 anyways, yes yes we are kickstarting the fics for the 600 celly! If you were there for my 300 celly, I know how late I got with those requests and I am so sorry about that 🥲 I promise I will try my best to not let that happen this time 🥲

please reblog if you liked reading this! feedback is always appreciated ⛲

a lil note: the song below is used just as the title, and its lyrics aren't used as an inspiration.

PROMPT REQUESTED: “C’mere. Sit down. Tell me what’s going on.”

600 followers celebration || navigation

You sigh as you shut your laptop close, maybe a little too aggressively for your liking, but honestly, you couldn’t care less. You slump your head on the kitchen island in your arms, a headache already starting to creep in your head.

It’s barely week three in your new semester and you’re already piled upon with readings over readings, essays over essays, assignments over assignments, and you barely have any time with yourself or your boyfriend.

“What the actual fuck Kelce!” He groans. “Get your shit together man!” This is just the bare minimum of what he is actually saying. It doesn’t help your situation though, your headache only pulsating more harshly, making you groan in pain.

Speaking of your boyfriend, he’s sitting in the living room, headphones in as he almost yells into the microphone, as his thumbs run rapidly over the controls of the controller gripped tightly in his hands. Curse words followed by his friends’ names leave his lips, as his gaze is fixated on the screen in front of him.

You sigh as you look at him. He does not go to university because just as he graduated high school, his father passed his business onto him.

“No no no no no no!” He yells, “god what the fuck is wrong with you guys?”

His deep voice booms in your ear, and you squeeze your eyes shut, holding your head in your hands as you gently press your temples, but it does not work; Rafe’s voice level only increases with time, and it bothers you more and more.

“Rafe!” You yell out completely exasperated, from your place in the kitchen island. He doesn’t even look at you, and you realize you weren’t loud enough for your voice to penetrate through his headphones.

You get up from your chair and saunter over to Rafe, gripping his headphones and yanking them off. “Shut up!” You snap, as you toss his headphones to the side and leave the living room, stomping off to your bedroom.

Rafe watches you go away, completely stunned. He takes a deep breath before picking up his headphones. “We’re pausing it for now, and no, I will not hear any shit from either of you,” He fumes in the microphone and shuts off the game before making his way to the bedroom. As he enters inside quietly, he sees you are standing in the balcony, leaning against the railing as you look out, a stressed look on your face.

“Babe,” he says softly as he steps out to the balcony, wrapping an arm around your waist. “What's wrong?”

“Nothin’,” you mutter under your breath, not tearing your eyes away from the sky stretched out in front of you to look at him.

When he detects your reluctance to talk, or to even lean into his touch, he lets out a sigh, his arm dropping back to his side as he sits down on one of the chairs in the balcony.

A few moments pass in utter silence, as all you both here is the sound of the birds chirping in the distance, cars rushing past the streets, and the soft breeze blowing against your skin.

Your back is towards him as he watches you stand next to the railing; he can tell you are completely tense from your stance, the way your shoulders aren’t relaxed, your jaw is clenched a bit, and you are gripping the railing a little too lightly.

“Baby…” he calls out softly, “C’mere. Sit down. Tell me what’s going on.” He says. He’s determined to not let you go unspoken this time, ready to even pull you into his arms if needed.

To his surprise, you don’t deny as you trod to the empty chair next to him and sit down. His arm instantly wraps around your shoulders and he pulls you in his side. He presses a long, yet soft kiss on your forehead, rubbing your arm in a soothing motion.

“I’m sorry if I was too loud baby,” he mumbles against your hairline, “I absolutely didn’t mean to bother you so much,”

You let out a deep exhale as you shake your head. “It’s okay Rafe, I was just… too tense already and that just put me over the edge, I guess,” you murmur softly.

“What’s been keeping you tense then hm?” He asks, pressing another kiss to your forehead, his feeble attempt to comfort you as much as he can.

“This semester’s already kicking my ass,” You sigh. “I already have a shit ton of work to do, and it’s just the third week? I spend all my day doing this shit and I still can’t catch up with it. I barely have time for myself or to spend with you,”

Rafe’s grip tightens a bit on you as he pulls you in closer to himself. “You know I would typically say that it doesn’t matter, don’t stress too much, don’t work so hard blah blah blah, but I know you well enough to know it doesn’t work on you,” he says and he sees a small smile form on your face. “No matter what I’ll say, you will work hard and put in 120% effort for something which doesn’t even count that much for your grade. And you know how much I appreciate that about you, you’re insanely hard working,” a small smile on his lips as his other hand holds onto yours.

“But you know what I can do?” He continues. “I can take great care of you. You don’t have to worry about your meals; I’ll take care of them. I’ll watch a movie, give you kisses and cuddles, or do anything you want when you take a break; which, by the way, I’ll make sure you take. Whenever I see the moment, I’ll take you out wherever you want to go. I don’t want you to take unnecessary stress of the new semester sweetheart, because I know you’ll make it through it okay? You 100% will, I know that.”

You turn to look at him, a softened look in your eye. All his words slowly sink in you, and you realize you don’t have to take as much pressure of the new semester as you were. You rest your head on his shoulder and softly nod. “Thank you Rafe…” you whisper.

“There’s nothing to thank me for you sweetheart, I am your boyfriend, this is the least I can do,” he smiles as he presses another kiss to your forehead.

You slowly feel your tensions melt away as you sit with Rafe on your balcony under the warm afternoon sun, your body muscles relaxing and the stress laying heavy on your mind gradually withering away.

This is one of the moments where you realize Rafe’s the one.

↶ೃ✧˚. ❃ ↷ ˊˎ-

TAGLIST: @runningfrom2am @saccharinesammie @maybankslover @totalswag @madelynie @chenslucy @ietss @elle-mp3 @viawritesstuff @wallsdreams @lunalitva @sadfury @newsies-pape-girl @jamesbuckybarneswify @xxxlaura @thatsthewaythechrissycrumbles @callsignwidow @starkowswife @drewstarkeyswifehoe @jjchaer @f4ll-for-you @wearemadeofstardust0 @drewsmusee @rafegirly @addriaenne @leighbronk @rafesdrew @bejeweledreverie @raf3sgff @aerangi @drewstarkey1bae @moneymaybank @spideysimpossiblegirl @the-tortured-poets-depxrtment

[hunnylagoon]

Right Where You Left Me

Pt 2: Jailbird

Ellie Williams x reader

I want to write a poem about you but I’m afraid it won’t be enough. I almost feel ashamed that I want you to fit into a word because we both know that you are beyond anything that can be put on paper.

Premise: You and Ellie were childhood friends before you drifted apart. Funny thing about soulmates is that they tend to find there way back to each other. While you both visit home for winter break, events unfold and it is no longer possible to avoid each other.

Warnings: Angst / homophobia / brief violence / reader has religious issues

Part one here!

Part three here!

Part four here!

I may have been wrong to say that I could never hate Ellie. Fuck she was vicious, in the most passive-aggressive way too. She's so sly about it that I can't even get mad without seeming irrational.

Winter break finally rolled around and I had yet to make any progress with Ellie it was whatever the opposite of progress is. If she wanted to hate me, that was fine, I could do the same, I could be petty. It's now December and all of this bullshit started in September, she could hardly be courteous.

Fuck her.

I had survived mid-terms and finals but the way Ellie was acting had me skipping happily towards the edge. She will wash a whole sink of dishes and leave just my fork, or Venmo request me if I ate one of her grapes. Everything had gotten worse when Dina, Abby, and Cat all left to visit their families for winter break leaving just Ellie and I, without the girls there to hold us to the house rules we were at each other's throats.

She was foaming at the fucking mouth to tear me apart. There was no level-headed Abby or fun-loving Dina, not even Cat who was just mellow. Just me and Ellie verbally abusing each other. "Fuck off, with your wild animal teeth," I spat, slamming the dish cupboard closed with a loud thud.

"Wild animal teeth?" She repeats "Wow, you're getting creative, I'll give you that," Ellie's gaze held a certain bitterness "Heard you were on your knees again last night and I don't mean praying."

My eye almost twitches at her words and it takes everything in me not to throw a ceramic bowl at her. I hated her, I hated her freckled face, and eyes as sharp as knives, just hearing her raspy voice, and seeing her sardonic smile made me want to keel over and let the earth wrap me in her flourishing greenery. I often wanted that to happen. I was trying to refrain from going home as I didn't want to spend the entire break with my family but I was starting to think nothing was better than this, I was set to leave the following day (Christmas Eve) anyway but I was seconds away from grabbing my bag and jumping into my car. "Can you just learn to be fucking civil?"

"Why would-

"Because we were sixteen years old when that stupid shit happened!" I spat "You're holding a grudge from when we were sixteen," I reiterated, searching her features for some sign that I'd gotten through to her.

"It's not like you've changed since any of that happened." She stands, unnervingly calm on the other side of the kitchen island. "You were always awful since we were young, always crying, always emotional, always explosive, my dad said you're like a birch tree, one spark and you burst into flames."

"Fuck off."

"You always had to have the attention," Her eyebrows furrow "Nothing was your fault, blame being fucking erratic and insane on your parents."

"You don't know my parents half as well as you think you do."

"What don't I know about them? They've been in my life as long as you have."

"Ellie, stop," I say, suddenly I'm taken away from the mood to fight, I just want to scream into my pillow.

"What?" She asks "You're going to say some shit like 'they aren't loving'  or 'you wouldn't get it' Please, enlighten me, what wouldn't I get?" She moves closer just an inch or so "Wow, your life sounds so hard, you have two parents who love each other and a huge fucking house, oh shit," Sarcasm drips from her tone "Maybe it's that trust fund that's taking a toll on you."

"Please, stop."

"You could commit every crime known to man and you would still be their pride and joy, there is nothing you could say or do that would make them hate you-

"Here we go with your 'life is so fucking hard and I'm edgy and indie and I have a sad backstory that I'll bring up every second sentence even though I was seven when it happened' " I mock her.

She bites the inside of her cheek and I can tell that I've struck a nerve "You know when my lease-

"Don't even worry about it," I move out from the kitchen and begin towards my room, Ellie's eyes are trailing me "The minute my lease is up, I'm packing my shit and moving into student housing so I won't have to look at your fucking face while I'm eating!" I slam my bedroom door behind me.

I left that night, I couldn't bear the sound of her guitar strums, so repetitive it made me want to slam my head through the drywall.

You better believe that I cried my entire way home while blasting Julien Baker. My mother was pleasantly surprised to see me at her doorstep a day early, I knew Ellie would be coming down sometime tomorrow to spend the Holidays with her family, I didn't know when, I just knew that I didn't want to see her.

I never even told my parents that Ellie was my roommate and they hadn't heard it from Joel as they drifted when Ellie and I were fifteen.

My bedroom was exactly how I left, I cuddled into my twin bed that night sinking into the absolute silence of the the snowfall, with my dog Dusty curled at my side. I always loved the snow, the way it acted as soundproofing for the earth, when I was little I would just sit in the backyard so I could hear the birds sing in their purest and truest form.

Christmas Eve was dull to begin with, to say the least; my mom made Christmas tree-shaped waffles as she did every year, I was then dragged to an excruciatingly long church sermon. When we returned home I was sent to shovel the driveway, turns out visiting home from college doesn't excuse you from chores. I knew Ellie had arrived when I saw her grey sedan in Joel's driveway as well as Tommy's Range Rover. Bundled up in mittens and a hand-knitted scarf that Naomi gave to me I felt really tough giving the middle finger to Ellie wherever she was in Joel's house.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Elijah was cackling in the doorway. Dusty I happily bounding through the snow, paying to mind to my brother.

I immediately dropped my arm, trying to play nonchalantly "Uh, shoveling the driveway?"

His laughter only grew "You look so stupid," He huffed between cackles "You're standing in a foot of snow in the driveway giving Mr. Miller's house the middle finger in your cute little mitts."

"Say that louder, no one could hear you," I say, sarcastically.

"Hear ye, hear ye-

My eyes go wide and I drop the shovel to form a snowball and deck it at my brother "Shut up!"

"Ow!" He flinches, and his track and field hoodie from high school is now covered in powdered sleet. "Whatever," He yanks his hoodie off to shake the snow off of it "Just finish the driveway so we can watch a movie or something, I haven't seen you in months, Naomi and Aaron haven't shut up about you all holiday break."

I give him a mitted thumbs up before I try to speed run the shovelling, albeit slipping on black ice more than a few times. When I came back inside, I needed to change, my parka was dripping with snow that had melted into water.

I bundle up into sweatpants and an old soccer t-shirt. Being in my old room digs up memories pinned on my wall with bright thumbtacks year after year of photos of my soccer team, in every single one Ellie and I have our arms slung over each other. We're smiling wide and not focusing on the camera but on one another. I tear the picture away from the thumbtacks and throw them into a random shoe box that sits at the bottom of my closet. After that, I take down every artifact I have of Ellie, the drawings she made me, drafts of songs we wrote together, and t-shirts she left in my drawers, I throw it all into a Rubbermaid storage bin.

Though I leave the little wood carvings that Joel made for me alone.

My family's famous Christmas Eve dinner rolled around and I couldn't believe how excited I was, I'm not the best cook and despite me and my mother going through spats every other day, she was one hell of a good chef and I had spent months craving her honey roasted carrots and creamy mashed potatoes.

Please don't judge me when I say this, but we are the family that dresses up for dinners at home. Nothing black tie, just something a little dapper, one time I wore jeans to our family dinner and I was grounded for a week.

I finished zipping up my white sundress and I let my little sister tie a matching bow into my hair, when she saw what I was wearing she changed into her white dress which was ankle length while mine fell right above my knees.

"Oh, my sweet girls are matching again," My mom fawns over us "Let me get a picture of this cute little moment," I smile for the picture, and Naomi does the same, hooking an arm around my midriff. "Adorable," Mom looks at the picture before tucking her phone into her pocket "Now girls, please set the table."

Even though I hadn't been at home for months, setting the table was like muscle memory to me, Naomi put the placemats down, and then I did the dinner plate and salad plate, Naomi would place the napkins and cutlery then I would set glasses and pour everyone water from the pitcher. By the time we finished setting the table everyone aside from my mother and Elijah were at the table, early awaiting what was sure to be a filling dinner.

Slowly but surely my mom brought the dishes with Elijah, placing them all through the center of the dining table. After everything was placed my father, who sits at the head of the table cleared his throat, that was his signal for everyone to join hands. "Dear God, We gather today with grateful hearts to thank you for this food before us. We appreciate the effort and resources that have provided us with this nourishment. May this meal sustain our bodies and remind us of the many blessings in our lives. We are thankful for the love of family and friends who surround us and for the abundance we enjoy. Bless this food, our time together, and those who prepared it. May it strengthen us physically and spiritually. This is your body, this is your love. We thank you for feeding us with your gracious hands. In Jesus' name, we give thanks and pray. Amen."

"Amen," My family repeats before we all ravishingly fill our plates with chicken, maple-roasted mushrooms, buttered green beans, bread rolls, and mashed potatoes. I was eating so fast, I was shocked that I didn't spill anything on myself.

"So, have you met any cute boys at college?" My mother asks me, she is the only one eating politely "I'm sure you could get a real smart guy with those looks of yours."

My father nods "Just make sure he's Christian."

"Or catholic," My mother adds.

I laugh awkwardly in response, I take a sip of my water, the condensation making it slippery in my hands. Elijah gives me an odd look that goes unnoticed by my parents.

"I think we should drop off some bread or cookies or something to the Miller's, just something to say hi while Tommy and Maria are still there." My mom tells us, she isn't speaking to anyone in particular.

"Is Ellie there right now?" Aaron asks.

Elijah shrugs "Probably, her car is in the driveway."

Now Naomi is looking at me "We should invite her over for New Year's or something if she's staying for the rest of break."

My dad shakes his head "I don't know if that's a good idea," All eyes fall on him "It's just- I think she's a bit of a bad influence." He takes a swig of his wine and attempts to suppress a burp but fails. I press my lips into a thin line and look down at my plate to hold in my laughter, Elijah does the same beside me.

"I don't remember Ellie being a bad influence," Aaaron furrows his eyebrows, racking his brain to think of a time that she had done their family wrong.

"It's just that there were rumours of her having-" My father searches for the words "Unnatural tendencies I suppose, and I tried to talk to Joel about it but he got defensive and said that she didn't need fixing, that's how I lost my best fishing buddy."

My mom looks at the discomfort on all of her children's faces "I mean, we all need a bit of fixing."

Dad is quick to catch on "Oh, yeah, of course, I mean it's not just Ellie," He fumbles over his words "And it's not her fault that she's that way, I think It's because she lost her mother when she was young so she got confused about the parental roles, Joel never remarried and he didn't date around much so Ellie didn't have a proper mother figure, it's not her fault she's a dyke and there's still time to fix it if she wants to choose the right path."

Stillness falls over the table, I had never heard silence quite this loud. Even my mother is at a loss for words. All of my siblings are darting our eyes at one another, we don't utter a single word but we understand each other clearly 'Dad actually said it'.

He noticed this and tried to backtrack on his words "I'm not a bad guy, I mean we've all read the bible cover to cover, we know it's a sin. I'll wrap this up, you all know that we love you no matter what and all I'm saying is I'm glad we could distance ourselves away from it."

"Hey Dad, did you watch the Canucks game last week?" Elijah swoops in to change the topic. It's too late, a wave of sickness has already overtaken me.

While my family discusses nothing in particular, trying to ignore what Dad said, I am sick to my stomach, I push my plate away and prop my elbow the the table for my hand to support my head. I am nearly shaking. My dull eyes peer across the table and meet my father's drowsy gaze.

"Honey, are you feeling alright?" My mom pauses whatever conversation she is enwrapped in.

I don't respond, I don't know how.

My family's eyes find a resting place on my figure. Mom pushes herself away from her chair and walks over to me, she places one hand between my shoulder blades, the other takes my cold hand and she slowly rubs a circle on my back to comfort me. "Sweetness, whatever is repressed inside, say it, let it out, we're all family."

Naomi nods in agreement, her wide eyes full of concern. "I don't know how to say it," I tell them.

"Air it out," My dad says, finishing off his glass of wine and pouring himself another "Today is the perfect day, tomorrow is the birth of Jesus, a fresh start."

My heart is racing faster than it ever has before, faster than when I broke my wrist in Ellie's backyard or when I had been on a rollercoaster for the first time. "I like girls," I say, my voice is quiet, and my three words take my family with silence. My mother freezes and takes a step back, her comforting hands leaving me.

"You're joking," My dad scoffs "Tell me this is a joke and you're normal."

"I can't," My voice cracks and I can already tell that the tears are oncoming. I think briefly back to Ellie's words 'There is nothing you could say or do that would make them hate you' if only she could see what was about to happen.

"All of those sleepovers with Ellie?" He is disgusted, his face contorting with horror "Were you dating her?"

"no-

"How can I believe anything you say, you lied to us for nineteen years when you knew you were sick."

"Dad, I'm not sick-

"How many sinful acts have you done under this roof?"

"None, I swear," I shake my head, it took less than a minute for me to be filled with regret at my words. I shouldn't have even come home for the holidays, actually, I never should've found Dina's listing and jumped at the deal.

"Get out," Any light tone in my dad's voice is gone, replaced by pure resentment.

"What?"

"You heard me, get out."

"Dad, it's Christmas Eve-

"Get out!" His voice rumbles through the dining room like thunder "I thought we fixed this phase when we sent you to boarding school."

"Please, dad-

"Get up and get out or I'm going to make you,"

"Fine- make me," Tears prick in my eyes but I cross my arms trying to muster up that false coolness Ellie is so good at feigning.

My dad slams his glass down so hard that it shakes the table, and the partially empty wine bottle my parents had been nursing all night is knocked over by the abruption, tipping over the deep red liquor to travel down the tablecloth and drip onto what was once my pure white dress. "Get up!" He grabs a fistful of my hair and I scream from the shock of pain. He yanks me off my chair and my face slams against the hardwood when his arm slumps, impact heavy from the sudden drop, it doesn't take long for my nose to start bleeding. He drags me to the door pushing it open; my siblings don't do anything they're petrified in horror and my mother begins to cry, covering her eyes from the scene before her.

My dad doesn't stop at the door, I thrash on the ground and he pulls me over both of my hands trying to pry his away from the roots of my hair, he drags me into the snow, finally releasing me. I shake as my hand gently finds the way to my burning scalp where I fully believe he has pulled out clumps of my hair with his harsh and unforgiving grasp.

From the doorway the rest of my family watches, Naomi has a hand covering her mouth her doe eyes brimming with tears of her own. My father disappeared into the house, it didn't take long to see what he was doing he slammed the window to make the bedroom open and began to throw all of my belongings out of the window. My pictures, my old soccer uniform, armfuls of clothes from my old beaten dresser, candles, books, paints, and shredded posters were torn straight off my wall.

"Dad, stop, I'm sorry, I'll get better!" I am on my knees, hands clasped together pleading with him. My skin is burning from the contact with the snow, I know that it must be a horrific sight to behold. White sundress, stained with wine, tangled hair, red-tinged skin, puffy eyes and incoherent sobs.

The snow makes everything so quiet the only sound travelling through the night are my sobs. I can no longer see my father in my bedroom, he is coming back down and somehow that is worse, he pushes past my family and throws the presents I was supposed to receive on Christmas morning beside me, I flinch at the movement.

"I'm sorry!" I plead like I'm bargaining with the Grimm Reaper for my life "Give me a job and I'll do it, just tell me what to do to get better!" The screaming carries through the night, alerting the neighbours in what was supposed to be a calm and quiet neighbourhood. Across the street, Joel turns on his porch light, squinting his eyes at the scene on the opposing lawn and trying to make sense of it. "I want to get better!" I shake with every sob. I could hear my dogs barking from the loud noises.

My dad shakes his head "You're too far gone, I didn't raise a fucking dyke," He is almost crying himself, he doesn't mourn for the daughter that he has but the daughter that could've been. The daughter who donned white every Sunday for church and settled down with a nice family man, a daughter who was holy but in this moment I am the purest form of holiness, born again from the violence of my father.

"Dad, I was created in God's image, why would he create his child to be this way if it was so wrong?"

"You're a fucking mistake is what you are," He seethes "Get off my property or I'm calling the cops."

"You still have my bags!" I scream and I watch him retreat to get them "Are you going to do anything at all?" I search my family for any sign of life but they all avert their eyes from mine. My father comes back out, and he throws my purse and suitcase on the lawn, this time both of them hit me, talking about kicking someone when they're down.

My dad begins to usher the family inside "I never want to see you again, get your ass up and start working, I'm not paying for you to fuck around with women instead of getting an education."

"That's it?" I cry "You won't come to my wedding or meet my kids? What about my funeral?"

"Not as long as you're with a woman." With that, he slams the door behind him and locks it. I let out another guttural sob, I've already cried so much that it's beginning to hurt within my stomach. I take a deep and shaky breath in, wiping the tears away from my eyes with my freezing hands, I'm sure to catch hypothermia if I don't warm up. I look up to see my neighbours all around either watching from their window or in the Miller family's case, the front porch. I'm sure that someone has already called the police.

"Let me in, I'm sorry!" I scramble off the ground and begin to bang on the door. Shaking the handle "Let me in!" This goes on for longer than I would've liked, I hammer on the door and scream as loud as I can but they all ignore me. Eventually, I stand by the window and slam my hands on it "Let me in or give me my fucking dog, you can't take care of him!"

I knew I was fucked when I heard sirens. It only made sense for the neighbours to call the cops at this disturbance.

I'm going to do you all a favour and tell you some useful information; when the police arrive and you don't wanna seem guilty, don't try to drive away from the scene because you might just end up getting handcuffed and shoved into the back of a police car for your childhood bestfriends family to watch from their front row seats.

"Prison life isn't for me," I wallow as I press myself against the bars of the holding cell. There are two other women in the cell with me and they both snigger. One of their names is Lucia, and she has bronze skin and brown hair so dark that it almost looks black with gold hoop earrings the size of my head, I don't know the other woman's name but she looks significantly older and has stringy blonde hair, the wrinkles of her face drooping.

"Honey, this isn't prison, you'll live another hour," Lucia sits on the uncomfortable bench, her arms crossed, she's kind of hot to be blunt.

"You reek of liquor though," Blondie cackles and I catch a glimpse of her rotting yellow teeth, what's the opposite of pearly whites? Golden nuggets? Something like that.

"Because I got wine spilled on me," I retort. I had been crying before they even placed me in the cell, wailing so loud that I was annoying the officers. I was so upset and starved for affection that I hugged the officer who detained me, babbling incoherently about how my life was ruined, I don’t even blame them for arresting me, I looked like a crackhead trying to break into a nice suburban home. “I'm not drunk."

"Could've fooled me," Lucia smirks, she's wearing a black tank top and skinny jeans. I wasn't a fan of skinny jeans but she was converting me.

I fell asleep hugging myself on one of the uncomfortable metal benches with chipped blue paint, when I woke up, it was Christmas, even though it didn't feel like it. I saw the snowfall outside of the windows on the other side of the cells. Lucia had told me just before she was released that they had the right to hold you longer over holidays, I wanted to weep all over again.

Blondie got removed from the cell too and I was all alone. The only thing that kept me sane was pretending I was Katniss or Lucy Gray, if they had survived the Hunger Games, I could survive this. I genuinely thought my life was over and I was getting sent to prison for hammering on my dad's door and screaming.

With each hour that ticked by, my profound sense of loneliness only grew. The sounds of distant laughter flitted through the hall and I am reminded of the world that lies beyond the metal bars. I wonder what my family is doing at this moment, every voice that I hear acts as a reminder of the love I had jeopardized. I lost Ellie, I lost Conner, and now I had lost my family.

I think about praying to god for a moment though I discard the thought. If he was real why did he let that happen to me? Maybe forgiveness and redemption were not necessary.

"Crybaby, call someone to pick you up," Officer Reid who initially arrested me and interrogated me began to unlock the cell, "Charges are dismissed." He had been calling me Crybaby since I was stuffed in the back of the police car and wailing uncontrollably.

"Like for real?"

He was in fact, for real. I was brought to a landline phone and my hands acted faster than my head, dialling the number of someone I would trust with my life, I just prayed that the number hadn't changed.

After making my call I was told to go to a weird booth thing to collect my effects, where an old and very judgmental woman dumped my few belongings out of an envelope. I wish I knew the technical names for this stuff but it's not like I've been arrested before this one off occasion. She looked at each of the items, stating what it was while she took inventory of it. "Smartphone, lipgloss, a single gold earring, and a cross necklace," She marks something down and then turns the paper around and holds out a blue pen for me to take "Sign here."

My phone had died already, I was missing an earring, and the cross had failed me, all I had left to rely on was my cover girl lipgloss. I sat in that stark grey room for what seemed like hours, everyone seemed miserable as I am, at least I wasn't the only person having a not-so-merry Christmas.

Holy shit, I was still disgusting. I was sticky and freezing, still in the wine-ruined white dress, there was still dried blood on my face despite my pestering Lucia to help me get it off. My hair is tangled, the bow that my sister had tied in lost somewhere in the snow. I haven't looked in a mirror but I know I look rough from the side glances that everyone is casting me. I can't imagine the dark bags beneath my red, puffy eyes to be any sort of appealing.

The sterile waiting room is beginning to get on my nerves, I flinch at every movement and hold onto hope that every person walking through the door is the person I'm waiting on. I try my best to avert my eyes from the clock so time doesn't drag on any longer than it already is.

By the time Joel gets here, the sun is beginning to set, his eyes frantically search the room until they land on me, I'm already standing up and walking toward him. "Kiddo, are you okay?"

My lip quivers and it feels like every awful thing I've ever felt is going to seep through my teeth. My head falls onto his chest but this time I don't cry, I think I've run out of tears "I have nothing ahead of me."

Joel doesn't ask questions, he just hugs me in return, resting his chin on the top of my head, there is the comfort I had been so desperately searching for.

He signs release papers and he guides me to his red Ford Explorer. When I called him I asked him to bring me shoes as I was barefoot when I was detained, being the number one dad that he was, he brought a reusable grocery store tote bag, containing a hoodie, sneakers, fuzzy socks, sweatpants and a bag of my favourite chips. I slip the sweats on underneath my dress while the hoodie goes overtop, I awkwardly unzip it and shimmy it off, stuffing it into the tote bag.

The drive back to his house begins and he turns on the radio, trying to make lighthearted chatter "Thanks for coming to get me," I say, my voice is quiet and I pull my knees to my chest like as I tend to do when I get nervous "You can just drop me off at my car and I'll be out of your way."

"Sorry, kiddo," He says, eyes focused on the road "You're staying with me tonight, I don't want you driving these roads in the dark and it'll be good for you to have a hot shower and a warm meal, get some sleep somewhere that's not a holding cell."

"It's just that-

"If you still want to leave in the morning that's up to you but you shouldn't end your Christmas alone," Each word seems so genuine "And you know I would gladly have you stay with me three hundred and sixty-five days a year."

I look at him, a soft melancholic smile on my face, "Thank you," I say.

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

A sigh falls from my lips "What happened to all of my stuff that was left on the lawn?"

"Tommy and Ellie brought it all inside."

Ellie brought it back inside? Did she actually give a shit or was this something her dad ordered her to do? "Did my dad say anything to you?"

Joel shakes his head "Maria went barging on his door, those two were in a screaming match for a good two minutes before he locked the door on her. Hasn't been outside since, everyone in the neighbourhood has been coming by to ask what happened."

"Even Sharron?" I ask Joel, wrinkling my nose in distaste.

"Even Sharron," He solidifies. Sharron was the grouchy crone of the street, shutting down every party, cussing out teenagers from her porch, and yelling at barking dogs "She said she was worried about you." The windshield wipers painted rhythmic patterns across the glass, clearing a path through the soft snow that continued to fall.

"She's not worried about me, she's worried I'm on drugs and I'll break into her musty home to steal all of her hummels."

Joel huffs a laugh "I can't believe that I used to let her babysit you and Ellie."

"Me neither, you should be paying for my therapy." I tease.

He chuckles at my words, "So you're majoring in wildlife biology?"

"You remembered what I wanted to major in?"

"Of course I did."

"Hey, Mookie!" Tommy wraps his arms around me the moment I set foot in the door. He's called me Mookie since I was a little girl, it started when I couldn't pronounce monkey and thus Mookie was born. "Let me get a good look at you," He pushes me back just the slightest hands clasped on my shoulders "Look at that bruise you've got on your cheek, looking awful tough, like those greasers you used to read about."

"Look at that, Mookie grew up," Maria greets me with a warm smile, pushing Tommy away to hug me "Good to see you made it through prison alive," She jests.

Joel's house is exactly how it was when I left.

The air carried the familiar scent of firewood and lavender incense. In the living room, an inviting fireplace stood as the heart of the home. Its gentle crackle and the dancing flames provided a soothing backdrop to the overstuffed couches adorned with cozy blankets and throw pillows, worn from years of shared family movie nights. A well-loved rug covered the wooden floor, its pattern a mosaic of memories and spills easily forgiven and of course, a coffee table hand-crafted by Joel and intricately carved.

The shelves lining the walls were a treasure trove of family history. Photographs in mismatched frames captured smiling faces frozen in time, chronicling the evolution of Ellie through the years. A collection of well-read books, their spines creased and pages worn, stood proudly, offering a glimpse into the literary adventures that had unfolded within those walls.

The kitchen, the heart of many childhood homes, held the lingering aroma of Christmas dinner. The countertops, scarred from countless meals prepared and shared, were a testament to the love that had gone into creating family dinners. A worn wooden table in the center of the room bore witness to the countless conversations, celebrations, and moments of solace shared over shared meals.

"You know what, when I was around your age, I spent my fair share of time in the cooler, good to see you're taking after me," Tommy winks and gives me a hard pat on the back. Neither of them acknowledges the reason behind last night's events and somehow it feels worse than talking about it.

"We've just finished up making dinner, I'm sure you're hungry," Maria smiles softly, taking my hand into her calloused one.

"Yeah, I'm starving," I smile in return and trail behind the blonde woman to the dining table.

All of the plates are laid out with portions of food on each one, Ellie is sitting alone, spooning mashed potato into her mouth while she texts someone, she glances up at me and offers nothing more than a tight-lipped smile and awkward wave before going back to her phone. Tommy comes by with a tray of garlic butter rolls and uses tongs to add more onto my plate "Don't think I've forgotten how much you love these."

I grin up at him, I'm sitting in the same chair I sat in all those years ago when I Ellie and I would settle down after spending all day in the sun, Joel would ask us what we wanted for dinner and almost every time we would shout hotdogs.

"Good to have you back," Joel nods to me "House always felt a little empty without you."

I always felt a little empty without this house "Good to be back," I smear some mashed potato onto Tommy's famous garlic butter bread rolls.

I feel almost sick with nostalgia as I look around the dining room, Joel still had Ellie's crafts from elementary school hung up and if you look closely, you find little clues that I've left behind; proof that I once existed as a girl beneath this roof. There's a dent in the wall from the time I stood on my chair to catch a spider and accidentally fell over, my head hitting right into the wall, Ellie was laughing too hard to help me.

"So what school do you go to?" Maria asks me, washing down her pot roast with some ice water.

"Northridge actually," At my words, Ellie's head perks up, she's looking dead at me with a look of fear in her eyes.

"Oh, Ellie goes there!" Tommy smiles "She never mentioned that you do too."

Ellie is silently pleading with me, I know she doesn't want me to tell her family that she's been borderline tormenting me as my roommate and sending me to bed with tears in my eyes. I didn't plan on telling them anyway "That's funny, I guess we just keep missing each other."

Joel set up an air mattress in Ellie's room, that's when it became clear to me that he had no idea just how bad the fallout was between us. I hate to say that I missed her room and all of the memories we shared in it.

Ellie's bedroom resembled something of a teen guy who'd never gotten laid before. She had a navy comforter, her shelves were lined with comics and novels, I know for a fact that she'd read every single one of them. Her desk was always a mess, covered in pages of poetry and sketches that she had torn out from her journal. Almost every inch of her walls is covered in posters of bands, movies and her nerdy video games.

I was fresh out of the shower, finally in my clean clothes that I had dug out of my suitcase. I got to charge my phone too, there was an overwhelming number of messages.

D-Manz: HAPPY CHRISTMAS BITCH!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU AND CAN'T WAIT TO PARTY WHEN WE GET BACK

Jesse: Merry Christmas, hope your day isn’t shit! 😁😁😁

Riley: Merry Christmas! Hope you're having fun at your new school!

Abs: Merry Christmas and stay safe!

Kayla: Missing you girl ☹️ so excited for that staff party!

Kit-Cat: Merry Christmas, don't have too much fun without me

Yara: Merry Christmas ❤️ this probably isn't the time but I was hoping you could send over your notes from the last conservation lecture, just wanna text you before I forget!

566-460-4374: I got your number from Kyle, this is Roderick, I saw you last night and wanted to check up on you, hope everything is okay and merry Christmas.

Lindsey: Hey, haven't talked to you in a while but my parents said some stuff went down, just wanna make sure you're okay.

Ellie: Lmk if you need a ride back to our place

Ellie: Don't know if you can even see this but I got all of your stuff off the lawn, I promise it's safe 👍

Naomi: I'm so sorry

Naomi: I didn't think that would happen

Naomi: I didn't know what to do

Naomi: I love you

Aaron: U good?

Naomi: Please don't hate me, I'm sorry I didn't do anything

Elijah: Sorry but I wish you didn't tell Dad that

Naomi: I'll try to talk to Dad

Elijah: Hope you're safe

Elijah: Call me when you can

Still, there wasn't any word from either of my parents. I replied returning well wishes and assuring everyone that I was okay, I turned my phone onto Do Not Disturb and began to watch the Hunger Games on my phone. The room would've been pitch black if it wasn't for the blue light from my screen and the gentle beams of moonlight gliding through the window.

Ellie walks into the room after she finishes with her shower, she's in sweatpants and an old hoodie that she got from a rodeo, I had the same one, and we bought them together. I glance up at her before looking back at my movie and pulling the quilt further up my body. "You still like the Hunger Games?"

"Yeah," I say, being as brief as possible.

"You should take my bed and I'll sleep on the air mattress," Ellie says while she ties her hair into a low ponytail.

"I'm fine here, thanks."

"Seriously," Ellie is standing awkwardly at the foot of her bed, waiting for me to do something.

I shut my phone off and turned on my other side to face away from her "Just go to bed."

Ellie runs her hands down her face in frustration, she's starting to feel like an asshole "Please take the bed, it's the least I can do." I ignore her so she speaks again "I am begging you," She tells me bluntly "I feel like a dick and it would make me feel better if you just took the bed."

"You are a dick," I answer, she should've seen this response coming from a mile away.

"Please take the bed."

I sit up to look at her, frustration now boiling up inside of me "You're going to be nice now because you feel bad for me?"

"That's not why-

"It is actually," I tell her "This will last for a few days and then we'll go home and you'll be a cunt all over again, fucking keeping a list of everything I lay a finger on so you can say it's my fault if it breaks." She bites the inside of her cheek, that's her tell. Every time she does that I can tell that I've gotten under her skin. "You'll still act like you don't know me and I'm just some weird girl who thinks the world of you, I know what you say to those girls you have over, the walls aren't that thick." My insides ache from all of the screaming and crying of the past couple of days "And I know that I hurt you and I've told you a million times over that I'm sorry, you don't get to start having empathy for me now."

Ellie's silent again, she can't seem to find the words, so instead she slips under the covers of her bed, giving up. Minutes pass us, we've slept in this room together a thousand times but this time it's different, we don't share her queen bed and stay up all night watching the walking dead and talking shit about people at our school, we lay in the uncomfortable silence. We're grown but in this moment I still feel like a child searching for her mother's hand to guide her, I feel like my teeth still need to fall out so brighter, stronger ones can take their place, that the baby fat has yet to shed from my bones.

"I didn't know that you liked girls," Ellie said, breaking the silence "And I shouldn't have assumed that stuff about your parents." I don't respond to her, though she knows that I heard her. "I lied that night when you moved in."

"What?"

"I got all bitchy and said that you don't even cross my mind, I was lying," She's confessing to me as if I'm a priest "There wasn't a day that went by where I didn't think about you."

I'm not doing well.

I want nothing more than to crawl into bed next to Ellie and just hug her until I fall asleep but the resentment I've garnered for her these past months refrains me.

"I don't know if you ever knew this, but back in high school I had a bit of a crush on you," She says and my break hitches in my throat "Hey, you there?"

'I don't know if you ever knew this but I turned myself inside out trying not to be in love with you.' I don't say that, instead, I say "Goodnight, Ellie, Merry Christmas."

"Goodnight," She mutters, and like me, she turns her body to face away from me.

I don't feel mature in the slightest, I'm kept awake, haunted by shame and embarrassment. Ellie had seen me only one night prior, on my knees begging for love. We may be cold and calculated to one another now but I remember when she was a little girl who overwatered her plants because she didn't know how to stop giving.

TAG LIST I just tagged whoever wanted a part two: @elliesaesp @yalaysbee @laundrybag29 @readbydayana @elliesaturnsoftdrink @mikellie @melanie-watermelon @skylerwhitwyo

[jeanbie]

SWEET UNWIND ★ masterlist.

pairing: levi x reader

warnings: sexual content, unprotected sex, rough sex, creampies, foodplay, grumpy & sunshine, fem!reader, piv sex, silent sex (little dialogue) | wc: 6.1k

note: proudly inspired by the insatiable thoughts i had while watching charles bake his cake and kill people in "the brothers sun". also i got cheated on and felt horny, so turned to my favourite cartoon man for relief

⏤ When Levi's not working, he likes to take things slow, and as of late, he's found that baking desserts is an excellent way to unwind. Yesterday, he made a beautifully sweet strawberry drizzled cake with cream. On today's menu, his personal favourite: cream pie.

Gangnam, Seoul; five to midnight, the city turning in for the night as bold and bright lights flicker to life, the streets lined with neon glows that on the waterfront look like blurry fireworks. While constant lines of traffic come and go, honking and revving at the lights as they hurry to wherever they need to be next, Levi switches off the egg-timer that blares to life loudly and sets it down on the kitchen island.

Behind him, baking in the oven with a warm and golden glow, is the sponge for his lemon drizzle cake. He glances up at the TV screen across the room and watches as one of the contestants drizzles extra veins of lemon curd across a wide canvas of white meringue cream, then looks back at his own display of ingredients. 

First, he heads to the oven and using the oven glove, he pulls down the door and extracts his top sponge layer. Immediately, Levi sets it aside to cool — too hot and the dollop of cream that will spread into his smooth centre will melt and dribble off like water. 

When Levi’s not working, he likes to take things slow, and as of late, he’s found that making desserts is an excellent way to unwind. It’s a simple step-by-step process where the final product produces something he can feel proud of, and something he can enjoy with a cup of tea or even something stronger.

He’s found over the last three years or so of baking that a hard liquor blends well with cheesecake, one with crumbled biscuits as a garnishing layer. Bailey’s accents any type of chocolate dessert almost too perfectly, and even does well inside of one. Last Christmas, for example, Levi enjoyed a whole chocolate truffle infused with the alcohol all to himself.

Baking takes a level of concentration that actually requires very little of him, and being able to see something he’s made all on his own at the end of it all can often be more rewarding than the stakes in the real world, outside of his entirely too fancy penthouse apartment. His job is often too demanding, too vicious, but coming home with a bag of ingredients that will eventually transform into something beautifully delicious feels like he’s turning a switch and stepping out of one life into another. 

Outside, out there in the harsh city, Levi Ackerman is a force to be reckoned with, a danger to those outside of his inner circle. But here, inside his home, his fortress, he doesn’t have to be anybody but himself — Levi Ackerman, the man, the neighbour, the dessert enthusiast.

Now that the sponge has cooled and the decorations have been sliced and prepared, Levi takes to assembling his own version of the British Bake Off lemon drizzle cake. Instead of it being baked as a tray bake, Levi’s followed the same style as Mary Berry herself; circular, smooth and comfortably petite.

He takes the cream he prepared before and slaps it with a wet plop on the bottom layer of sponge, smoothing it out with the flat-knife until he’s satisfied with the coverage. Then, he uses a spiral technique to create a lemony blend to bite into.

He spares a single glance at the swirling iron staircase leading up to the upper floor of his apartment when he hears movement, a simple and quiet rustle of sheets and an equally low-volume groan — a stretch of some kind. Then, he looks back at his cake and sets the top sponge over the finalised inner workings of his cake and gets to work on the pipework and decorations.

It is so easy for him to get lost in the craft. One minute rolls into five and rolls into ten as he perfects the lemon slice arrangement on top of the cake. He even prepared some lemon gratings beforehand and uses them as a powdery layer on top of the smoothed out blanket of cream. Once everything is in place, Levi looks back up at the TV and watches the contestants present their final results to the judges. 

Back and forth — his eyes move from their cakes to his. He thinks his cake would have earned him Star Baker that week, that’s for certain.

Even though Levi chooses to bake after work to dispel the tension building up in his bones, he still doesn’t feel completely satisfied with his work today. The cake is as good as he can get, especially when it’s his first real attempt at a lemon drizzle. But an ache lingers in his shoulders, a buzzing feeling of discomfort in every joint and muscle. 

Today has just been extra hard. One dessert won’t suffice.

After a long haul of tracking down one of the leaders of a local crime organisation known as the Hannam Tigers, and successfully putting a few of his henchmen in early graves, Levi knows that one small cake won’t be enough to satiate his irritation for the night. In his line of work, things went wrong sometimes, even when they were annoyances he could do without. 

The Hannam Tigers operate in a network of highly trained men with highly decorated backgrounds, and even with Levi’s colourful skillset, it can be a challenge to rid them from the world. 

Levi rinses his hands under the tap and uses a cloth to dry them, catching the final portion of the competition on TV before tossing the cloth to the side and dumping his utensils into the sink. For now, he focuses his attention on the assortment of ingredients he’s set to the side to make his all time favourite dessert.

But first, he’ll need to head upstairs.

With what he needs in his hands, Levi escapes the kitchen before it swallows him into creating more and more desserts and then climbs the staircase curling up into the upper floor. Up here, there is a study that he barely uses — not because of his incompetence to utilise it, but instead for a general lack of need, considering he prefers a much more physical and hands-on approach to what he sensitively calls his ‘career’ — a small bathroom and his bedroom, which he heads for and catches a glimpse of the glistening city from the window inside, the door ajar.

Inside, he takes a few steps forward and sets his things down, looking up to make out your shape in the swamp of black bedsheets. He can barely see you in the dark, but you groan and make your presence known, sitting up on your elbows to peer at his silhouette cast by the light from the hallway.

“You finished your cake?” you ask, your voice tired but nonetheless sweet, caring, genuinely curious.

Levi makes out your face in the dim light and waits until his vision settles. Once he sees you more clearly and sees the smile on your face, he nods simply and looks back down at his messy pile of ingredients.

You arch up a little higher to see what he’s looking at.

“Bring any for me?”

Levi doesn’t look up. “No.”

“Rude,” you reply, amused and unable to make out what he’s arranging neatly on the ottoman at the bottom of the bed. “I happen to like lemon drizzle.”

He knows. That’s why he picked that episode to watch, those ingredients at the store. 

“I don’t,” he replies. Levi’s not a fan of lemon anything, really. 

The door behind him creaks ever so slightly, the light widening across the room. You sit up straighter, watching him as he falls into a carefully analysed breakdown of his mystery items.

“Can I have some later?” you ask, filling the silence with conversation. If you strain, you might make out the next episode of Bake Off beginning to play, but you search for Levi’s signature noises instead; his silent yet attentive laughs from his nose, the grunts under his breath, unbothered hums of his attention and or interest. 

Levi looks up then, and rolls up the sleeves of his white dress shirt. His blazer is downstairs hanging off one of the bar stools under the kitchen island, his shoes by the door. Now, he’s just dressed in whatever he came home wearing — there hadn’t been time to change, what with you slumbering like a princess in his bedroom. 

It’s a good thing he likes you, otherwise the lights would have been on and his work clothes off. Instead, he left you to it, heading for the kitchen when he came home and switching on his complimentary British Bake Off episode to accompany him in his regular routine of baking.

“I only made it for you,” he tells you. 

You arch an eyebrow — not that he can see, anyway. “Oh, really?”

He gives you a hum, thoughtless. You rearrange yourself under the sheets.

“I thought the whole point was to eat the dessert yourself after making it,” you say, filling the quiet moment with something as he skims his gaze over the ottoman again. 

He doesn’t look up when he says, “Well, I haven’t finished baking yet.”

“Oh?” you reply. “Something else cooking?”

“Yes,” he says. Then, he rounds the bed slightly from the right and whilst looking at you, he climbs up onto the bed with his knees. 

“What’re you making?” you question, a grin widening over your face as he looms near. You feel his hand just miss your leg under the sheets as he lays his hands flat on the bed, lifting his weight closer to you all whilst maintaining an unnaturally cool composure.

If you didn’t know him any better, you’d think he was bored by the entire exchange. His face is covered in shadows, and yet you can still see the slipping shift of something in his eyes as they catch in the light from the windows. 

Levi’s face reanimates in the city lights, now not far from your own. He curls his fingers around the bedsheet and tugs it down, exposing your legs to the cool shift of temperature in the bedroom. You shudder, leaning your head back until it softly hits the wooden headboard. 

“Pie,” Levi says.

“Mmm. I love pie,” you comment. 

He grunts, another one of your favourite Levi-sounds.

His hand shifts from the bed to your leg. In the dark, everything feels more pronounced; his ever-so-slightly rough palm smooths across your thigh and down your leg, past the knee and down towards your ankle. Once caught in his grasp, he manages to pull you from your sloped position against the headboard and back down into the pillows. He knows you're wearing nothing else from the waist down — all the more reason to tug you down and snatch a glimpse of what he knows is his.

“What kinda pie?”

Levi finds your eyes again in the dark, and you’re not sure if he planned it, but now you can see his face in a spectrum of light. His expression is flat, toneless, yet intrigue dances across his eyes as they wander across your face, down past your neck, and down to the exposed skin of your chest from underneath one of Levi’s shirts you stole from his drawers.

He says nothing for a moment. Using both hands and releasing your ankle, Levi presses his hands against your abdomen, running them up underneath the shirt until he reaches your sternum, the sloping sphere of your breasts against his fingertips. His eyes flick up to yours as he pushes the shirt all the way up over your breasts, and uses his body to part your legs until your knees are on either side of his hips.

The weight of his gaze makes you squirm slightly. 

He blinks. Licks his bottom lip so quickly you almost miss it and says very simply, “Cream.”

Your grin widens.

Levi lowers his face to your stomach, his lips pressing against the skin above your belly button. Immediately, as if practised, your hands jump up to his head of hair, your fingers threading through it as he works his mouth down from your stomach to the damp space between your legs.

A home within a home; a place he loves to push his face into when he’s had a particularly long day.

Levi doesn’t even have to put in any effort anymore. You quite contently lift your calves up over his shoulders, widening them enough to feel his lips circle around your clit, two fingers widening your folds so he can stuff his face with your cunt.

Coating your clit with a layer of wetness, he replaces his lips with his right thumb and moves his fingers, using his tongue to part you down the middle, and making you writhe against the bed with a satisfied moan. 

He’ll admit it to nobody but himself — he’s missed you. You’ve missed him, too, and the way it feels when he rubs his thumb against your nub in careful circles and plunges two fingers up your cunt. Levi could fool himself all he liked with the fantasy that baking a cake was enough to relieve his pent up stress from work, but nothing quite works to ease the burden like a face full of his favourite girls’ pussy.

Levi’s left hand drifts from your stomach to your thigh, smoothing over the top before curving down and round to the inner of your legs, his forearm wrapped around you comfortably and effectively locking you in place. He likes to watch the wetness pool between your legs as he gorges himself on your taste, but today he closes his eyes and closes his lips around you, tasting every inch of you like you’re his own slice of dessert, his favourite kind. Topped and served with a string of elated moans, just the way he likes it best.

“Mmf—!” There’s not a lot for you to say, nothing you can conjure up from the air gasping in your throat as Levi’s tongue licks laps around your clit, his thumb just shy to the side as he leaves a wet present for him to massage into your skin, his mouth very quickly preoccupied by the space neglected beneath. 

As his fingers curl up inside of you, then widen apart, your calves drop as if you’re trying to pull Levi closer to your body, and in turn he pushes his left arm down on your thigh and drags you with a smooth motion down the bedsheets and closer to his mouth. Your head arches back with the angled slope of your back, reaching up off the mattress in a coordinated performance of pleasure, and Levi finds the time to open his eyes and look up over your stomach and breasts to find your face; mouth agape and lids closed, gasping silently into the dark. 

Yeah. Out of all the desserts he could possibly create in his kitchen, he’d probably have to confess that his favourite one was one that could be made in the bedroom. 

Your hands take fistfuls of his hair and feeling the hot flatness of his tongue in the space between your clenching hole and your clit, you find your hips grinding up into his mouth, the slight nudge of his teeth making you squirm even harder beneath him. Levi’s no longer phased by the aching tightness of your fingers woven in a knot on his head. Whenever your fingers twitch and the clutch on his hair tightens, Levi knows he’s doing something right.

Every lick and nip against your cunt is matched by a groan, and as you ride the dampness between your legs against his lips, your voice thins out into a raspy nothingness. Your mouth is dry with the air of the bedroom, your eyes forcing themselves to close when they try and open to peer down at the man snug between your thighs. 

Levi feels a mixture of wet substances around his mouth and on his chin, but before he can grant you the pleasure of cumming down his throat, he pulls back.

The emptiness of the space between your legs is jarring, and almost immediately you sit up. Your hands drop from his hair and fall onto the bed, which you use to lift up your shaking body to watch as Levi leans back on his knees and retreats to the forgotten ottoman. It is only when he rises to his feet to observe the array of secret items displayed for his eyes only that you realise Levi is still wearing every article of clothing he was before. 

“What’re you doing?” you ask him, finally finding your voice as he arches over and fiddles with something that sounds plastic.

You catch the shine of your own arousal on his chin as he scans the catalogue of items.

“Preparing dessert,” he replies.

Your brows quirk, but when Levi stands upright and begins to shake something with his left hand, you feel your heart and its fast beating plunge straight to your stomach. A knot wells and tightens, and you bite a moan back and feel your thighs coming together like a magnet in anticipation.

Levi is shaking a bottle of whipped cream.

It shouldn’t surprise you nor excite you the way that it does. Levi has always had reservations about whipped cream — it should be from a bottle or made in a bowl; exclusively used as a side for a tart or cake slice, as a topping on a pancake, as the twist of sweetness on top of a hot chocolate. Levi doesn’t use whipped cream on his desserts in the same way he does as an accessory to the bake, but today — tonight, it seems as though he has found another valuable use for his generally unused bottle of whipped cream.

“This is new,” you say, feeling your ass lift off the bed as you struggle to contain your writhing excitement. Levi tests the nozzle; a burst of white cream spits out onto his finger, and without looking away he puts his finger in his mouth with all the nonchalance of a chef tasting his dish as he makes it. “I thought you didn’t like bottled cream on your desserts.”

“I like it on some things,” he replies. “First rule of baking is that you never feel afraid of trying something new.”

You hum thoughtfully as he retakes his position on the bed. It should make you laugh with the way he looks down at you while slowly twisting the bottle from left to right, but it doesn’t; it only makes you breathe heavier, your pulse quickening and legs opening as if on automatic and letting him take the space he’s claimed between them.

“They do say that it goes well with pies,” you say finally, watching as he angles the nozzle down on your stomach. The placement, if nothing else, has surprised you, and you suppress a moan of eagerness when he presses down and watches with a newfound intensity as the spiral of white cream pools out onto your skin. He’s cautious with the amount; just a small bud of cream, enough to swallow in just a mouthful.

Levi leans himself forward and pauses just before he can lick the dollop up off your tummy. 

“Clue’s in the name,” Levi replies, and with his eyes boring into your own, he presses his lips around the blob of cream and mouths it up off your body. It is entirely too fast, your jaw slacken as he pulls away, as if gauging your reaction. The yearning expression on your face has the nerve to almost look endearing to him.

He swallows. “Sweet.”

He receives from you something sounding like a whimper. Then, his finger is back on the nozzle and using the cream, he creates a trail from where he last was all the way down to your clit. 

You feel yourself clench when the cool texture of the cream sits in a melting bundle on your bud, and your teeth bury themselves into the flesh of your lower lip, biting down with extra force when Levi’s mouth shifts down to your clit and in one teasingly slow strip, he licks the trail of sweet cream up from your cunt to the wet spot on your stomach.

With his tongue, your back arches up off the bed, your knees by his shoulders. Levi is uncomfortably aware of the pooling arousal between your legs, his own forming tightness in his trousers. Watching you writhe with a glistening shine getting more and more pronounced so close to his face has proven to be exactly what he needed to unwind today, but he’s still not quite satisfied.

He’s not ignorant to the way your hips meet with the empty space he leaves when he moves away again, as if fucking an imaginary cock or grinding against an invisible set of hips. He uses his right hand to press you back flat against the bed and savours every second of your aroused moaning when he slathers your cunt with the cream, leaving no wet patch untouched. 

He watches with only minimal irritation when the cream slips down your folds into a white pool on the sheets — his sheets — but he takes its sliding as a sign to move back in. 

Levi licks the cream up as if it isn’t even there; it’s as if he’s taking gulps of you like it’s nothing, licking every inch of the cream and enjoying the wonders of your pleasure as you cry out above him. His nose brushes against the hidden bump of your clit, the feeling of his hot tongue making your toes curl behind his back, your fingers clenching around the sheets.

Ordinarily, you may have laughed at the sight of his lips coated in a white sheen, the cream on the tip of his nose, but today you can find nothing to laugh about. Every unit of energy is devoted to the tightening clench of your cunt, the tingling warmth growing inside of you as Levi wipes his nose and rises off the bed and onto his feet, right where the ottoman stands as a barrier between you.

He lets you play out your imaginary fantasy, rolling your hips into the empty vacuum of space where he was just situated and uses his hands to undo the belt around his waist. His trousers fall with an effortlessness when he undoes the front button, and he compels himself to watch you stare at him with a lustful gaze as he pulls his trousers down to his ankles. He decides he’ll keep his shirt on — it’s only fair, since you’re still wearing his, albeit the fabric is bunched up under your neck in the way he likes it.

He mounts the bed once again and meets you when you moan expectantly, and relishes in the sharp intake of your breath when he takes your right leg and folds it to the side. You look at Levi over your shoulder, your neck to the side as he presses you down with his left hand and uses the right to hold his cock.

You are once again reminded of how truly lucky you are to have a man like Levi; a man who needs nothing but your cunt in his face to get his cock standing rigid against his lower stomach.

You swallow a moan when Levi pokes the tip of his cock against your fluttering entrance, and when his eyes catch yours, the sharpened edge of his grey eyes staring straight into your own, you can’t catch the cry of pleasure that escapes when he pushes himself into you, feeling you wrap around the tip of him like your cunt is a mouth on its own.

Levi watches you gasp as if pained and he rolls his eyes.

“Shut up. You’re wet enough,” he says in a low tone.

“Hmf—!” And then the length of his cock is buried inside of you, only proving his point.

There’s nothing to explain the way it feels when he’s stuffing your hole: it’s as if he was made for you, a perfect fit to make you whole. Even with virtually nothing to ease the slip into your pussy, there’s no agonising stretch, no painful play — just a wholeness that feels as natural as anything else in the world.

Levi’s fucked you so many times that he might as well claim he lives up here, and each time he makes himself at home, he’s welcomed with open arms and a swallowing gulp. He pushes his hips all the way against you, until the underneath of your thigh is squished against his stomach and you feel the slight slap of his balls against your ass.

He’s never quite fucked you from this angle before, but it’s not unwelcome in the slightest. He wraps his wrist around your thigh and holds the front of it with his hand, his left coming to hold the sinking curve of your waist, which he uses to push you further into the mattress. 

Every time his dick sinks further inside of you, you let out a moan — he moves in and out so fast it’s as if he’s trying to keep your noise at a constant speed, never wanting to be left in a silence.

Levi looks down at you as he fucks, no longer interested in the way his dick disappears into the dripping darkness of your cunt and instead entirely devoted to mapping out the pleasure on your face. Nothing he hasn’t seen before, but everything he loves to see.

His hips rock against you, his shoulders tensing as you clench furiously around his length. Surely you don’t mean to be coaxing him into an early finish — surely you wouldn’t be rushing him along when he’s trying to enjoy his dessert.

The tip of Levi’s dick kisses your insides, but from this angle and the burning heat pooling in your abdomen, you don’t know if he’s hitting your cervix or deeper into your literal stomach. Levi’s fucked you from all different angles in every corner of his house, but he feels extra large today. The darkened edge of his eyes might be deceiving you, the sticky residue of cream still on your skin. 

You’re almost vibrating with pleasure as he fucks you, and all you can do is stay pinned to the bed like a doll and gasp out your praises.

Like most fucks with Levi, he says nothing besides, “Fuck,” in a dragged out, strangled type of way. He likes to make you suffer by dragging it out for as long as humanly possible, just to see you writhe and cry underneath him, your pussy pink and pulsing, begging for him to stop. 

Today, however, luck looks to be on your side. 

Unlike normal, Levi has little desire to unravel you into a sobbing mess. All he wants today is to fuck the brains out of his girlfriend and watch as her cunt fills with his cum.

Levi’s fingers clench into your skin, and for a second he closes his eyes in an effort to ride it out just a little bit longer before filling you up. When he feels your hand wrap around his wrist like a vice, his eyes fly open to look at you; you’re curled up, sunken in the bed, contorted into his favourite shape. 

Levi spares a glance at his cock swallowed up in your hole and watches with pride as he thrusts in and out of the wetness, and after a stuttering sequence of your hips jerking and mouth falling open with the release of some of his all time favourite sounds, Levi devours the sight of white squeezing from around his dick. 

He feels his throat catch. He’ll let you have that one.

Around the quivering clenches of his cock, Levi shudders and lets you squeal until you’ve run dry. He runs his fingers across the width of your connection and smooths the cum between his fingers. Then, without giving you the satisfaction of catching your breath, Levi continues his thrusting which gives him the continued pleasure of hearing you squeal and cry, your free hand reaching to the slip of sloping skin above your pussy as if you were trying to suppress the feeling rippling through you.

Long forgotten are the fingertips pressing bruises into your skin, but each thrust of his dick hitting the same spot inside you is met with an exhausted groan. Finally, when you’ve gathered the energy and courage to look up and around your body at his face, Levi lets slip what you think might be a satisfied smile, and he falters.

Ropes of warmth fill your cunt, and you hear Levi moan, loudly, and he unwraps his wrist from your leg and holds the base of his dick with his right hand. Carefully, he pulls himself out, save for the tip which remains snug in your hole, leaving no space untouched by his seed. He watches with wonder at the way your hole gapes around his cock like a mouth, swallowing his cum up until it billows out. Finally, he slips out of you, staring down at the oozing, swollen hole that is pulsing with cum. 

For a while, he stares at it, breathing loudly as he waits for all of his cum to squirt out of you; it’s like squeezing a cream doughnut and watching the sickeningly sweet contents slide out. 

Levi glances back up at you, amazed that you’ve been bold enough to watch him until the end, and he pats your waist appreciatively before rolling you back so that you’re flat on the sheets, legs apart, cunt wide.

Time to taste.

You watch as his head disappears between your legs, but he leaves no element of mystery. Your body almost jumps up off the mattress when his tongue pushes into your gaping entrance, lapping at the mixture of your cum and his and whatever else he can catch a taste of while he’s savagely licking down there.

Barely having the energy to pretend to stage a protest, you elect for moaning your approval and tiredly rake your hand through his hair again, pushing it from his forehead as you stare half-lidded at the crown of his head.

You lose count of how long Levi remains nestled down there. The only way you notice he’s no longer there is by the way he sweeps his hands down your legs and lays them flat, making note of every twitch and quiver your body makes.

Staring up at Levi and reluctantly forcing your body back up on your elbows, you grin up at him as he licks his top lip and appears thoughtful.

“Yeah,” sighs Levi, sniffing once in the way he does when he’s trying to fall back into his characteristic charade of coolness. “Homemade cream tastes better.”

Unable to argue, you heave out a laugh and meet his gaze.

“You’re fucking greedy,” you say, but that he actually does smile at. 

“So what,” he replies, reaching for another one of the items on the ottoman; a cloth from downstairs that he uses to wipe the mess between your thighs, “we both know I like cream pies. I even shared.”

You flinch when he dabs the cloth against your still-sensitive pussy. You take it from him to finish the honour, meanwhile Levi gathers the bottle of cream and whatever else he brought and never used before opting to watch you shift the cloth between your legs, throwing it back at him in a forced huff. He catches it effortlessly.

“Whatever,” you say, very slowly moving across the bed to the floor. The wooden slabs are cold beneath your feet. “I’m sure your lemon drizzle is miles better.”

Levi shakes his head affectionately and moves to meet you face-to-face when you stand on your feet. He hums when he gets there and strokes his finger down your arm, charming his way into your arms and once he’s close enough to your face, he allows a smile to warm over his features.

He dips his head to greet your lips with a kiss, the first of the day since he left you in the morning.

“Trust me when I say,” Levi says when he pulls away, his expression amused as he croons his finger under your chin and quickly leaves another kiss on your mouth, “I very much doubt that.”

[rafeyscurtainbangs]

Please Please Please - Rafe Cameron Short Story (Part 1 of 6)

+18 Minor DNI

Older MobDealer!Rafe x Female Reader

🪄 re-uploaded because I had to make a new account.

⭐ republished ⭐

+18 Minor DNI

3333 words

Warnings contain spoilers: domestic assault, cheating, swearing, name-calling, gaslighting, threats, and mentions of killing partner, general violence. Every chapter after this, will have Rafe as the focal point.

📖 Loosely based on the song and music video Please Please Please by Sabrina Carpenter 💕

✨“Stopping in your tracks, you watch the tall blonde struggle to break free. He grits his teeth, fighting against the cuffs, his broad chest gaping at the buttons of his black button-down shirt. He looks like he’s been through it; a gashed lip, the bottom of his pressed shirt half-tucked, his hair messy and sweaty against his dewy, tanned skin.”✨

*blue font is present day

Reader’s POV:

Red wine, Tony’s favorite, Cabernet Sauvignon specifically. Tokara Telos, the first bottle of wine we shared on our very first date. Fitting for our two year anniversary. Slowly swirling the glass you watch the rich red wine cascade down the side. You look at the oven, eyeing the clock, watching a second hour pass. Nine… Dinner was set for seven. Where the hell is he? Maybe he texted me? Maybe he’s in a business meeting gone long or wrong?

Unread to read. Your heart skips a beat as you watch the three dots impatiently; Tony finally acknowledging you, letting you know where the fuck he is and what the hell he’s doing.

Nothingness.

The three dots disappear leaving behind the disappointing chain of messages.

Is he with someone else?

I hate that that’s where my mind goes first, since he’s assured me time and time again he’s faithful and I’m paranoid. It’s hard to give him the benefit of the doubt when there’s so much to doubt. Every excuse just sounds so fabricated with him, corroborated by his goons so I don’t have a leg to stand on.

Then there’s the talk around the country club… It’s just whispers, no real proof, but I swear it’s so goddamn loud. I’m rarely at the Island Club, but when I am, I can see the eyes on us. The cutting watch of women who Tony could possibly be seeing on the side; gossip shared just out of earshot. Everyones’ pity and focus always seems to be directed at me.

It’s embarrassing to feel like everyone knows my drama but me. No one opens their mouths. Ya know why? They’re scared… Scared of him. And I don’t blame ‘em. I’d be scared too.

So here I sit. Getting stood up by my boyfriend while he’s out doing god knows what, with god knows who, because he can. He can do whatever he’d like, break my heart, bruise my ego, because deep down I know there’s nothing I can do… The day I met him was the day I lost myself.

“Vlad,” you call from the kitchen, your voice bouncing off the walls of the lavish estate. “Vlad?”

“Miss?” Tony’s driver comes around the corner with a broad smile, taking in the smells of whatever lingers of the now cold pom de terre. “Smells delicious, Miss. I didn’t know you were a cook.”

“I’m not,” you sigh through a labored laugh. “Just thought I’d make what we had on our first date,” you hum, hearing the drunken slur in your own voice. Vlad cocks an eyebrow, clocking it instantly. “Umm… Dinner was supposed to be at seven,” you sough, gesturing with your glass toward the clock. “Do you know where he-”

“How was lunch with Anna?” He cuts you short, quickly changing the subject, leaving a sour taste in your mouth.

“Where’s Tony,” you return, trying your best to level your wavering tone, dismissing his “pleasantries”.

“The office-”

“What office exactly?” You snip, knowing it’s the Law Firm or The Country Club. Vlad’s gaze casts to the floor. He shuffles his Italian leather boot anxiously, not as good with his “excuses” as the other men on Tony’s payroll. It’s a wordless answer nonetheless - The Country Club. “Can you take me there? I want to make sure he has some dinner. I’m assuming he’s been there all day. The meeting just went long?” You ramble, without a verbal answer from him, gathering your things to leave as the older man flounders.

"Miss…” He cautions you, taking his turn with a faltering tone, making matters worse for Tony.

“Is there an issue?” You ask as you lift an eyebrow in his direction.

“Mr. Marietta is in an important meeting. As you know, they’re not usually the safest situations, and he demands your safety. Tony expressed to me that he would be home late. Would you like me to call him and ask when he’ll be coming home?” You roll your eyes, chuckling in disbelief as you stroll past him.

“I am perfectly capable of that,” you breathe as you snag a new bottle of red wine, heading out the door.

⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ⊹ ꙳ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ ✦ ⊹ . * ꙳ ✦

The Country Club comes into sight, the gaudy neon sign flickering from a distance. The parking lot is packed, littered with cars; always jam-packed on the weekends. Kooks, Pogues, and tourists alike all brought together for their shared love of pussy.

“Park there,” you guide from the backseat as you spot Tony’s blacked-out Maybach truck parked under the streetlight. Vlad locks eyes with you through the rearview mirror.

“Would you like me to call him before you go inside, Miss?” You shake your head ‘no’ as you look out the window, drawing a deep, nervous breath before pushing out.

What am I walking into?

“Y/n?” Luis, Tony’s bodyguard and bouncer, calls from his seat outside the door. “What are you doin’ here?” He looks in all directions for watchers-on anxiously, the blood drained from his face like he’d just seen a ghost. Only a handful of people even know that Tony owns this shithole. To virtually everyone on the Island he’s just another Kook King. The Marietta to the Marietta and Klaus Law Firm. This is simply a front for something bigger, something Tony can use to wash his dirty drug money; a front. “You just missed Tony,” he lies through his gold-capped teeth.

“He’s here,” you smile as you step toward the door, grabbing the handle. Luis rests his large palm on top, looking down at you blankly. “He’s in a meeting, Miss.”

“And-” You ask as you twist the knob, but Luis doesn’t budge. “Move.”

“No.”

“Get the fuck out of my way,” you snap. Luis’s jaw tightens as he shakes his head ‘no’ standing firm. “You said he wasn’t here. Now he’s here and I can’t go in? That’s my fuckin’ boyfriend,” you hiss.

“I have orders, ma’am.”

“Orders?” You scoff.

“Orders-”

“Pussy,” you spit, turning on your heels, heading back where you came. Plan B. You pick up speed, clipping down the asphalt before he can intervene, following the line of men waiting outside, before slipping through the front door.

Your head hangs low as you walk through the dim, seedy hallway, pushing past patrons sauntering in and out of the gentlemen’s club. The main floor. I’ve never been here… The office is the farthest I’ve gone. You catch a few familiar faces from the Island Club, their eyes doubling in disbelief and shame for seeing you here and being seen themselves. Music blares as you storm toward the back; beautiful women dancing on the stage in nothing but Pleasers for the swarm of men gathered around, flicking and raining ones on the stage.

“Yes,” you gasp as you watch a stripper step out from behind the back-of-house door; catching it before it swings shut. Just a few paces and you’re there. You slide in your key and open the office door without a second thought, ripping off the bandaid.

Nothing… The office is dark, only the light of Tony’s laptop glowing in the empty post. Maybe he is gone. You step toward it, letting your heart rate settle as you circle his desk.

The corner of your lips curl into a trembling smile as you see a framed picture of the two of you on his desk. A post-it note affixed to the top with a reminder for tonight’s date.

Maybe I am paranoid… You pull out his large leather desk chair, taking a seat. Drawing a deep, needed breath, you let your shoulders fall, releasing some of your tension. It doesn’t explain why his truck is still here… Your eyes flash open, returning to the worry at hand landing on a bar napkin. Red lipstick.

Your stomach sinks as you hold the note, your eyes flicking to the laptop screen. Oh my god. Your heart shatters as you watch a blonde bounce on Tony’s lap, his lips locked on hers.

“No…”

“I know,” you sigh as you relax your head back onto the cold brick wall of Kildare County Jail, looking up at the ceiling.

“Did ya kill 'em?” The woman asks in a gruff tone as she crosses her arms over her chest, tits spilling out of her tattered, lace bralette as she snaps her gum. “S'that why you’re in here?”

“Thought about it? But no. That’s not why I’m here.” You open your heavy eyes, taking in your surroundings, contemplating all the choices that landed you here. The worst of it, ever being with him in the first place.

“So, what happened next?”

“Well…”

There’s a brief separation as Tony draws away from their kiss, staring toward the door of the Champagne Room. Luis… He must have figured it out. Tony pushes the stripper off his lap, gathering his clothes as he frantically dresses.

Here we go.

You hear the muffled bang of the first door and the gritting of his key working the lock on the second. You watch as the knob twists, light flooding the room as Tony pushes into the office coming toward you fast. Tony grabs your shoulders, and you fight him off. “Don’t fuckin’ touch me,” you snap.

“Baby, please. You gotta talk to me? What’s going on? Why are you so upset? Please just talk to me,” he pleads like he’s done before; times when I gave him the benefit of the doubt; times when I believed I could be the problem here. “We weren’t doing anything.”

“Tony!” You cry. “Are you fuckin delusional? I saw you fuckin’ that stripper with my own two eyes.”

“Princess, she was just dancing. It was a lap dance. Alright? You have to believe me.”

“Just a lap dance…” You scoff looking down at his undone belt, zipper down, dress pants pitched from his hard-on. He follows your eyes, hastily zipping and fastening his pants closed.

“I don’t know what you think you saw-”

“We’re done,” you chuckle tiredly as you step back, throwing open the side office door. Tony immediately reaches for you, clawing for your arm. “Let go of me,” you struggle.

“You’re not leavin’,” he asserts, pulling you back inside.

“I am. I’m done with you. It’s our anniversary, Tony. Look at where you are. Look at what you’re doing. How could you do this to me?”

“Do what? It was just a dance. I just got out of a major deal. Alright? I was about head home-”

“Liar!”

“Liar?” He questions. “Did you just call me a liar?” He asks as you feel the sting of his blunt fingernails digging into your arm.

“I know what I saw…”

“Princess… Even if I was lying. What the fuck are you gonna do about it. Huh? You’re mine, bitch. I own you. Where are you gonna go? What money do you have? How are you gonna afford this lifestyle you’ve become so accustomed to? Spending my hard-earned money like the gold-digging slut you are. You should be grateful,” he snarls as he steps toe-to-toe with you using his free hand to tug his leather belt from the loops of his pants.

You look up into his dark eyes as cruel words spit so readily from his wicked lips like he’s had time to prepare. I’ve seen this side of him, only once. He’s an evil man, and I know that. But this sort of cruelty has never been reserved for me. Until today. He grips his belt a little tighter in his fist making you take a few steps back but he stalks closer.

“You’re not goin’ anywhere,” he threatens.

“I am,” you whisper as you try to remain firm.

“I don’t think you understand this relationship we’ve got goin’ on, sweetheart. You go when I say you go,” he growls, tracing the belt along your bare thigh. “Do you think you’ll have a life after me? You think I’ll allow that shit.” He winds up smacking it against your skin. You gnash your teeth in pain, holding back tears, the most horrifying part knowing he could go far harder. “You know too much. You’re a liability. You have nothing. You are nothing without me. And you will be nothing without me.” Chills fall down your spine at his words and the crazed look in his eyes, his pupils blown from coke, pleasure, and rage.

“M'not scared of you.”

“You’re not. Huh? My tough girl.” He leans in; lips draw to your neck, kissing your pulse point, your rapid heartbeat calling your bluff as you inhale Cassidy’s cheap perfume lingering on his skin. You pinch your eyes shut as his large hand threads into your hair, tugging slightly while the other soothes your stinging thigh with his rough palm.

“I came from nothing, Tony. I’ll be fine.”

He scoffs as he uses his grasp on your strands to shove you away, letting the back of your head and body bang against the side door. Tony buttons up his still-undone shirt; bright red lipstick stained on the collar as well as his neck, a dark hickey forming to boot. Tears roll down your cheeks as you stand there defeated in your date night dress, your perfect makeup now streaming down your cheeks as you look into his soulless eyes.

“Fuck you, Tony.”

“Yeah. Yeah,” he chuckles as he pulls a cigarette out from behind his ear, placing it between his lips before snapping his lighter. “You leave, and I’ll find you. I own Figure 8, princess. Hell, I own this whole damn island. You better not make it too hard on me, baby doll. It’s our anniversary, after all. I’m sure you got somethin’ pretty for Daddy under that little dress of yours. I know you like it rough… but you might not make it out this time,” he laughs as he tosses his belt roughly toward his desk, the picture of the two of you clattering and shattering on the floor.

“Are you threatening me?”

“Me? Never… But if my hands are wrapped tight enough around that pretty little throat of yours and you don’t have enough juice to shout our safe word that’s on you, angel.”

“Go to hell.”

“I’ll give you a 5 minute head start, love. That seems fair?”

You grab the door and pull it open, taking a few steps before turning around again, pressing your back against the cool door, holding it shut as you look for an out. Luis is gone from his post, most likely keeping watch on the opposite end, Vlad in the parking lot, open water on the other side. There’s no way I can go back home. No family close by. No car. No escape. Looking out into the busy parking lot, you watch a squad car slow-roll through the back of the lot. Perfect.

Thank you, Luis. You reach down, snagging his Louisville Slugger perched against the weathered barstool. "Miss?” You hear his bodyguard’s frantic voice as he rounds the corner. You run into the lot as fast as your feet can take you, swerving around cars; dodging Luis.

You slam your eyes shut, swinging hard, nailing Tony’s Maybach truck, shattering the glass. The car alarm blares, echoing through the large lot. “Y/n!” Luis yells, but you swing and swing again.

“Y/n!” Tony barks from the door. You point the bat in his direction, twirling it before knocking off the wing mirror and sending it flying. A second siren fires, the sound of the police cruiser blares through the night, competing with the truck as it gets closer and closer.

You nail the glass, shards spilling into the truck as the cruiser pulls up, moving to the front of the vehicle you make your delinquency visible, quickly knocking out each headlight while the deputies climb out of their vehicle. “Get on the ground. Get on the ground now!” They holler.

“Deputy, this… this is a misunderstanding,” Tony assures as he enters the lot, softening his voice again.

“No, it’s not. And if I had a knife, I’d slash your tires, asshole.” The officers grab for you, expecting a fight, ultimately getting the latter. You cross your arms behind your back, smiling at Tony as they lock you in cuffs.

"Well, shit,” the older woman chuckles as she pulls you back to reality.

“Mhmm… but I’m a liability. After that little stunt I pulled, I know I’m living on borrowed time. Jail is the only place I could leave and be safe for the night. It’s just a band aid though; a temporary fix. I’m sure he’ll bail me out any minute, but who knows what’ll happen? I want to show him I’m not afraid.”

She purses her lips, debating whether to ask the million dollar question. “Are you?” She asks somberly.

“I wish I wasn’t-”

“L/n, someone just bailed your ass out. Let’s go,” an officer calls from outside the cell. The woman beside you taps your leg, giving you a little nod.

“He lays a finger on you, honey, I got no problem comin’ back here.”

“Thank you,” you whisper before turning toward the officer, giving her a wide, fake smile.

You rise to your feet, fixing your dress as you walk to out-processing. “To the left.”

Shupe matches your gaze from his post, giving you a wary glance. “M'am, are these your belongings?” He asks as he holds up the plastic bag of goods. You give him a soft smile and a nod. “Sure you got nothin’ you wanna tell me, Miss F/N L/N. Now’s the time,” Shupe warns. “You know, it’s Tony who posted your bail. He’s waitin’ for you outside-”

“I’m fine. Just fine, Deputy,” you assure as you fish your lipstick out from your clutch, slicking it on in the reflection of the privacy glass. “It was nothin’. Just a misunderstanding, as I said.”

“Just fine? Trashing Mr. Marietta’s Maybach truck was nothing? Just a normal night for the two of you?” He asks sarcastically.

You look at him and smile, dead-eyed and defeated. “It was our anniversary, actually.” Shupe’s eyes widen at yours, the occasion making your story even more unbelievable. “Have a great day, Deputy.”

“This is not a beauty pageant,” the female officer grunts, shooing you toward the exit.

I don’t know if I made the right choice… but I’m not gonna snitch. If I want to survive, I’m going to have to be strategic.

“I’m cooperating. Ain’t I?” You hear a deep voice echo down the hallway.

Stopping in your tracks, you watch the tall blonde struggle to break free. He grits his teeth, fighting against the cuffs, his broad chest gaping at the buttons of his black button-down shirt. He looks like he’s been through it; a gashed lip, the bottom of his pressed shirt half-tucked, his hair messy and sweaty against his dewy, tanned skin.

His eyes match yours; even from a distance, you can see how blue they are. His entire demeanor shifts, softening as a smile pulls on his pretty lips. A smile so beautiful, you can’t help but return the same.

There’s something magnetic about him, an intensity drawing your focus to him like a moth to a flame. He winks, and in that instant, everything changes. There’s no mistaking the connection swelling between you.

“Hey,” he mouths; your breath catches in your chest, pulse-quickening as time slows to a snail’s-pace. He looks at you until the last minute before being shoved inside his confinements. The metal door slams shut, jarring you from your daze, the bustle of the jail building from the solace in your mind.

Who was that?

It was momentary… a fleeting beat. The calm before the storm. You get pushed along, shoved toward the exit, and away from a sweet dream, thrown straight into a nightmare.

Part 2

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[incendiobrock]

Boston Blues {Matt Sturniolo}

Request: Linked here

Prompt(s): A showing up to B's doorstep, soaking from the rain + "Wait, don't go. Please..."

Warnings: mentions of emotional abuse (parents), language

You had always loved growing up in Boston. The colorful leaves on the trees in the fall, the fluffy, white snow in the winter, watching the flowers bloom in the spring, and relaxing by your friends pool in the summer. Every season in Boston had its perks, and sharing those memories with three of your neighbors made it that much sweeter.

When you were in middle school you had met three boys that lived down the street from you. You were waiting at the bus stop when they had arrived and introduced themselves as Nick, Matt, and Chris. The four of you instantly became inseparable and would spend every waking moment together, considering all you had to do was walk down the street and knock on their front door.

As the years went on the friendship grew, and a special spark had formed between you and Matt. Matt was your escape from reality, the anchor to your ship. Throughout your last couple years in high school there was a divide between your parents. They constantly argued into the late hours of the night, and somehow you were always brought into it. Your parents made it difficult to be home so you began to seek refuge in Matt.

Matt was the support system you needed to keep yourself from dwelling on the fact that you had such a strained relationship with your parents. You began catching feelings for the boy, which he had reciprocated. Things were untraditional in the relationship you had formed because your parents had made you lose the longing for a true relationship. They showed you that love doesn't always last and someone you love could easily become someone you hate, and that thought terrified you. Matt understood your anxieties, knowing about your home life, and let you take things at your own pace. There was no label, due to your fear of abandonment, but you were practically dating on every other level.

Now, you were both twenty years old, graduated from high school, and trying to begin figuring out adulthood. Matt and his brothers had started a YouTube channel that grew tremendously in popularity and brought in some extra pocket change. They all loved doing it, and you supported them the whole way. As you stood in their parents kitchen late one night they began discussing their future.

"I really wish we had our own space to make content. I love filming the car videos, but it would be nice to film content in a house without having to worry about disturbing mom and dad." Chris shared, taking a sip out of his Pepsi can.

"Yeah, I've been really thinking about LA ever since we've gone those few times to visit Madi." Nick added, agreeing with his brother that they would benefit from their own space. You stayed silent as you sat at the island, scared about the thought of losing your three closest friends. The chat that night was just a daydream the boys had, nothing set in stone until about a month later.

Matt paced his bedroom, dragging his feet lightly on the hardwood floors. He was waiting for you to come over so he could tell you some news that he knew would be difficult for you to hear. A light knock on his door pulled him out of his trance, "Come in!" He said. Slowly, you peeled open the door, spotting Matt standing at the foot of his bed. You smiled widely, walking over to him and initiating a hug. "Hi Matt," You said under your breath, instantly feeling lighter in his presence.

He felt himself gulp as you pulled back from the hug, you had no idea what was about to come. "Hey." He replied, taking a seat on the edge of his bed and patting the space next to him for you to sit. You complied, plopping down on his plush bed and throwing your legs over his lap as you faced towards him. His hands rested on your knees as he began to twirl the silver ring he wore on his index finger.

"Matt, what's wrong? You seem stressed?" Your hand reached out to take place on top of his, rubbing your thumb across his knuckles soothingly. His eyes remained glued to his lap as he took in a shaky breath.

"Nick, Chris, and I are moving to LA... We bought a house over there and we will be moving in a couple weeks. I know this is really sudden but we didn't know the turn around would be so fast until our offer on the house got accepted." His eyes had finally met with yours, watching as your face fell into a frown.

"Oh-" Was all you managed to say back, now you were the one looking at your lap.

"I want you to come with me." He said, placing a hand on your shoulder which causes you to reconnect your eyes with his. Your eyebrows furrowed slightly as you repeated what he had said inside your head. You shook your head, letting out an exasperated chuckle, "You know I can't leave Boston."

"Why not? You're an adult for one, plus you hate being at your house with your parents." Matt countered.

"I know... But I don't have a steady income and I just can't." Your head was spinning, thinking about what he was asking you to do. Leave your whole life behind and move halfway across the country with him? What if he decided he hated you one day and you were stuck stranded out on the West coast?

"Come on y/n, you're being ridiculous. I will help you out, I love you so much I just want you to come with me, please." Matt begged.

You shot up off the bed, glaring at him as he watched in shock at your sudden movement. "I said I can't Matt! Don't try to force me to move halfway across the country with you!" You said, raising your voice and feeling your emotions begin to catch up to you. This wasn’t a simple request that he was asking you to fulfill, this was leaving behind everything you had ever known. Jumping straight into a pit of fire, burning you with your own insecurities of being too caught up in a relationship, leaving you vulnerable to being abandoned.

"I'm not trying to force you!-"

"Yes you are! I can’t just leave my whole life behind for you! Have fun with Nick and Chris... I'm not moving." And with that, you stormed out of his room making sure the door slammed behind you. You knew deep down that he was going to leave you eventually, you just didn't expect it to be today. This was exactly why you never made anything official between you two.

---

Two weeks had passed and you hadn't heard a single word from Matt. You spent a lot of time in your bed, unable to leave it. You hadn't felt hungry and your eyes were red from all the tears you had cried. The whole time you had been apart you reminisced on all the years you had spent with Matt and the other boys. You weren't sure you were ready to leave that all behind. Nick had messaged you a few times throughout the weeks, updating you on their move. Today was finally the dreaded day.

Rain tapped on your window as it steadily poured outside. It's like the world knew how depressed you had been, reflecting your own emotions with the weather forecast. The boys had to leave to go to the airport in a little less than two hours. The walls in your house were extremely thin, allowing you to hear your parents yelling from down the stairs. Did you really want to live here like this? A numbing headache pounded in your head as you listened to the screeching downstairs.

Without thinking you pulled a small suitcase out of the back corner of your closet. Necessities and a small amount of clothes began to pile in, only grabbing what you absolutely needed. You didn’t have time to think about your actions, knowing that your own fears were going to hold you back if you let them. If things didn’t work out then you would just figure out a new plan, or so you tried reminding yourself. After grabbing as much as you could fit into your suitcase you checked the time on your phone, 1:47pm… They would be leaving to get to the airport any minute now.

The wheels on your suitcase echoed as you dragged it down the hallway, leading to the stairs. You ran down them and into the living room, causing your parents to stop their fighting and look over at you. Shock caused your body to stop in place, wide eyes looking back at your parents as they both stood with their arms crossed over their chest, angry scowls on their face. “Where do you think you’re going?” Your dad’s voice boomed, surrounding the stagnant air. Doubt about your plan began rushing back, worried about how your parents were going to react when you told them you were leaving to move across the country with a boy that they hadn’t even met. Sure, they knew who Matt was, and they had seen him around, but you never introduced him.

You swallowed some saliva as you began to walk quickly towards the front door, trying to keep your head held high, “I’m sorry, I don’t have time to explain. I promise I’ll text you when I land!” By this point your hand was on the door knob and you were stepping out into the freezing cold rain.

“Land? What do you mean land?” Your mom yells, as you shut the front door and take off down the street, your suitcase rolling behind you. It was in moments like these you felt thankful that the triplets only lived down the street from your house. Rain drops pelted you in the face, soaking through your jeans and hoodie. From a distance you could see Nick, Matt, and Chris packing the trunk of the van with their belongings.

“Wait!” You yelled, causing them all to look up at you as your feet smacked against the wet, gravel road. Finally, you had reached their house. Your chest heaved up and down as you tried to catch your breath.

“Kid, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Chris asked, taking ahold of the handle of your suitcase and rolling it away from your body.

“Wait, don’t go… Please!” You got out, between some huffs of air.

“Our flight is at 2:45, we have to go y/n…” Matt said solemnly, feeling his heart break seeing you standing in front of him for the last time, covered in rain. You shook your head, taking a step closer to Matt and taking his hands into your own, “Not without me.” Tears formed in your eyes as you tried to choke back your emotion.

Matt’s hands immediately let go of yours as he pulled you into a hug, wrapping his arms over your shoulders. You accepted the hug, tightening your grip around his torso, snuggling your face into his chest. You didn’t think you would ever get to feel him hold again. You were thankful the trunk of the car was covering you both as the rain continued falling around you. “You’re coming with us?” He whispered, trying to convince himself that what you said was true. He felt your head nod, confirming his question and mending his breaking heart.

His hands found sanctuary on the sides of your face as he pulled your lips in for a rough kiss. You kissed him back with passion, thanking your mind for not holding you back from this moment. After the kiss, your foreheads rested against one another and a soft smile formed across your lips.

“I love you, Matt. Let’s go to LA.”

“I love you more… You have no idea how happy I am that you’re coming with me.”

[sourcherryandsprinkles]

Scream week request!

Ethan Landry x fem!reader with prompt #2 (“Did you touch yourself to the thought of me?’’) please!!!

Thank you!!!

SCREAM WEEK 4/7

I got so many requests for this one!

Warnings: 18+, mention of masturbation

my taglists are here + you can send requests here at any time

—

There was a leak at your apartment, so Chad kindly offered you to come stay at his and Ethan’s place until it was repaired. It was small for three people, but you made it work. 

You set your suitcase down by the couch, tired of rolling it for the past twenty minutes through the busy subway. ‘’Thanks, again. I would have asked Tara, but she and Sam got into a fight and I don't want to be caught in the middle of it. You know how they get.’’

‘’I wouldn’t want to either,’’ Chad said, knowing the Carpenter sisters and their temper. ‘’The couch's not new, but I've fallen asleep on it many times and it's not too bad. I'll fetch you some blankets and pillows.’’

Your first two days living with the boys didn't go without awkward encounters. First, you walked in on Chad in the bathroom — thankfully, he was just shaving and had a towel on. Then, there was that one time you were looking through your suitcase for a specific shirt and Ethan tripped on one of your bras. You didn’t think it was that awkward — it’s just a bra —, but his cheeks went bright red, not used to seeing girls undergarments.

On the third day, that’s when the awkward level skyrocketed. 

You were showering, but when you got out and reached for your towel, you realized you had forgotten it on the back of the couch... Making a naked run to get it was out of the question, so you had to call out through the door and ask someone to bring it to you. 

Chad was busy in the kitchen, so Ethan brought it to you. You cracked the door slightly, just enough for the towel to be slipped through, but as he handed it over, his gaze inadvertently caught sight of your naked reflection in the bathroom mirror. You didn’t notice anything, just wanting to dry yourself and finish getting ready, but the incident sent blood rushing to his pants. 

When you came out of the bathroom, Ethan’s door was closed. You thought he had already left, but you could hear muffled sounds and moans coming from inside. 

A few minutes after Chad left, Ethan came out of his room. His shirt was different and his hair was a bit ruffled. 

‘’You’re here,’’ he remarked, halting his steps, surprised to see you.

Sitting at the kitchen island, you hummed, knowing better than you speak with your mouth full. 

‘’I thought you had a morning class?’’ Ethan said, taking a seat across from you and avoiding your eyes.

‘’Not until ten,’’ you explained, taking another spoonful of your smoothie bowl. Having Chad around to make you breakfast in the morning was something you would miss when returning to your apartment. ‘’Do you want some?’’ you asked, pointing at your bowl. 

Ethan shook his head. ‘’Eh, no thanks. I’m not hungry.’’ He set his laptop on the island and turned it on. ‘’I need to re-write my business notes from yesterday. My laptop died, so I had to use good old paper and a pen...and my bad handwriting.’’ 

You finished eating in silence, scrolling on your phone to pass time. ‘’Ethan?’’ 

He hummed, his eyes not leaving his screen. 

‘’Did you touch yourself thinking about me?’’ you asked bluntly, catching him off guard. 

‘’W-what? No,’’ Ethan stammered, his cheeks and ears turning crimson. ‘’I would never…’’ 

‘’You can tell me if you were.’’ You purposely took your time licking the purple smoothie off your spoon, knowing he would sneak a glance at you when you wouldn’t be looking. 

‘’I know. But I wasn't,’’ he replied hastily, mentally groaning when he caught your purple stained tongue. 

‘’Then why were you saying my name?’’

—

Scream taglist: @misfityanii @beautybyfire @iluvscream191 @mariposa555 @bella7866 @o638 @lulubelle14 @luvvtxinityy @frasersgf  @Eddiefrickenmunson @jasperr-the-friendly-ghost @ghostf4cee @thesebitcheslovesosadotcom @wandaswigglywoos @xjennyx2 @jennasslut @thatonesblog  @mikaelsonsstuff @icarly23 @tcddszn  @bt.oliana  @skyesthebomb @a1mzcruml3y @red1culous @iluurmom @popeheywardssecretgf @michaelangdonsslut @byhrxb @kamthecoolest @kattybug @ravenstrueluv @landryslxys @die4niyahhh  @sl4sh3rfuck3r @radiant-whore  @Meadzy21 @luci1fer @nomorespahgetti  @bloodyhw  @depthsofdespairr  @bellysbeach @wilmalovegood @loupiotesworld  @wenvierismycomfort @t-candy  @s-al-em  @darylscvmdumpster  @tommysaxes  @adaydreamaway08 @johannelis2302nely @aqshua @lynbubble @luiise @planetkt @vampyrgoff @adrluvh @mymultiveres  @miqi-16 @not-liah  @lovenats01 @doestalker @lonelywitchv2 @lausley336  @arinexeisnotworking @halforangecuts @l3ndryz  @ilovelandry  @your-platonic-gay-lover @danniackerman  @angelxxrose @lottiefromsam  @thecrowdedstreetin1944 @cinnamonbun222 @angelxxrose @lottiefromsam @zoeynicolas @thecrowdedstreetin1944 @cinnamonbun222 @pumkinnroses @cruzgrecia @sunnysunny133696 @aesthetixhoe  @gizmodecaprio @bingsbitch @buckyswhxre  @emerald-09

All and more taglist:  @kenqki  @hawkegfs  @gillybear17   @black-rose-29 @fudge13 @cece05 @laylasbunbunny @gemofthenight @beautyb1ade   @mellabella101 @vxnity713  @bisexualgirlsblog @queenofslytherin889 @thatbxtchesblog @softb-tterfly @ethanlandrycanbreakmyheart  @xyzstar  @graceberman3   @mikeyspinkcup @jackierose902109 @daisydark @laurasdrey @mischieftom @fanatic4niall @peterholland04 @idkwhattonamethisblogs  @lexasaurs634  @notasadgirlipromise @zoeynicolas @thejuleshypothesis @multi-fandom-bi-bitch @lexasaurs634  @notasadgirlipromise @thejuleshypothesis  @katherinejess  @rafesgirlstuff  @lafleshlumpeater @iamluminosity

[mariclerc]

Hermana necesito que hagas uno de que lucille se entera que tenga un hermano/hermana JAJAJAJAJAJ ASI TE TENGO ENTENDIDA

Bestieee, thanks for this request <3 I found it very adorable and cuteee 🥺

Funny tummy | pg10

Summary: Where you decide to tell little Lucille that you are pregnant but you don't know how.

Warning: none, just fluff.

a/n: part three of "family cuddles", dedicated to @martaaairwin1994-blog

Sunlight streams through the window, illuminating a kitchen with sleek countertops and brightly colored cabinets. Pierre is dressed in casual clothes, wrestles playfully with a giggling Lucille, your two-year-old with bright eyes and her hair in pigtails. You stand by the counter, making coffee, a smile on your face as you watch them.

“No, papa! Tickle monster!” Lucille says while squealing.

Pierre laughs. “Gotta get the tickle monster!”

Lucille squeals again, dodging him as he chases her around the kitchen island. You watch them, your heart swelling with love. You take a sip of your coffee, then glance down at your stomach, a small frown creasing your forehead for a moment. It happens that you find yourself pregnant again and your belly is still not so noticeable, Pierre obviously already knows this, but the thing here is that you don't know how to tell Lucille that she is going to be a big sister.

“Maybe I should wear a looser dress today...” you say to yourself quietly.

Pierre finally catches Lucille in a hug, showering her with kisses. “There you go! Gotcha!”

Lucille giggles and wriggles free. You put down your mug and walk over to them, crouching down to Lucille's level.

“Alright, that's enough tickles for now, mademoiselle Lulu. How about some breakfast?”

“Pancakes mama!” Lucille says, clapping her hands happily.

You nod at her while smiling. “Pancakes it is, then. But first, let's wash those tickled hands, shall we?” you asked and she nods.

You take Lucille's hand and lead her to the sink. As you turn on the faucet and help her wash her hands, Pierre comes up behind you and wraps his arms around your waist. You lean back into him, a comfortable silence settling between you.

He leans and kisses your cheek. “Morning, beautiful mama.” he whispered.

“Morning, sleepyhead. Did you have a good night's sleep?” you asked him softly.

“The best. Especially after a certain little mademoiselle finally decided to let us sleep past six.” he made a pause. “And also when a petit têtard stopped making you feel bad during the night.” he said quietly referring to the baby. (little tadpole)

You both chuckle. You finish drying Lucille's hands and turn around, facing Pierre. You hesitate for a moment, then reach up and place a hand on your stomach. Pierre follows your gaze, he, more than anyone, knows what you are thinking at that moment and the truth is that it is a little scary to think about how to tell Lulu about your new baby.

“How do we tell her?” you say in a whisper.

“Just let it flow naturally, okay?” He says and takes your hand.

You look at him, a shy smile playing on your lips. He smiles at you.

“Mommy! Sprinkle pancakes!” Lucille says, calling from the table.

You let out a little laugh. “Pancakes are coming sweetie!”

You walk towards Lucille, then you look back to Pierre. You open your mouth to speak, but the words get caught in your throat. Suddenly, Lucille speak up, her eyes wide with excitement.

“Mommy, guess what? My tummy feels a little funny! Is there a tickle monster in there? Like in your tummy?” she says with bright eyes.

You look at Pierre, a wave of emotion washing over you... For a two-year-old (almost three) like Lucille to have understood everything, it is something very shocking for the two of you. You glance down at your stomach again, a tear welling up in your eye, Pierre understands and smiles. He kneels down next to Lucille, a wide grin on his face.

“Actually, little one, there's not a tickle monster in there. There's a...” He pauses, searching for the right words. You step forward and kneel beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“There's a little baby sister in there. You're going to be a big sister, Lucille! Isn't that amazing?”

Lucille's eyes widen even further. She processes this information for a moment, then a huge smile breaks out across her face.

“A baby sister! Like a little doll?” she says while clapping her hands.

You hug her tightly. “Even better love! A real, live baby sister to play with and love endlessly.”

“Toys?” she asks.

You let out a soft giggle. “Yes my love! You will be able to share your toys with her and she will be like a best friend to you, what do you think, honey?” You asked her shyly.

She smiles. “Yay! Love ya mama... And sissy.” she giggles.

Lucille throws her arms around you, giggling with delight. Pierre joins the hug, the three of you laughing together. In that moment, filled with sunshine and the joy of your little family, you know that everything is perfect, just the way it is.

[hyunluvbug]

show me how to love | three - why won’t you love me?

pairing: hyunjin x afab reader

content: some angst :D

a/n: longer chapter, hope you enjoy :)

Sunrays creep in through the bedroom curtains, casting shadows to every corner of the room. Her head races with thoughts of confusion. She only remembers small fragments of what the night before had brought her. She pushes the covers away and places her feet onto the cold wood floor. The sounds of the floor creaking and plates clinking together filled the air. 

She stretches out her arms and stands up to slide on some fuzzy socks. Her warm hand touches her head and she begins to remember how unsober she was yesterday. She opens her bedroom door with a soft creak. A low yawn leaves her lips as she stares at the single pillow and blanket on her couch. Hyunjin stands in the kitchen, his back faces her while he uses the spatula to flip over an omelet. The smells of egg, bacon and cheese fills up her apartment and her stomach rumbles. She pulls out a stool at the kitchen island and sits down. 

“How do you feel?”

“Like I have been run over several times.” 

Hyunjin lets out a low chuckle which causes her to glare at him. He turns the knob on the oven and the sizzling subsides. 

“Any plans for today?” She suddenly asks him, he picks up a plate and places the omelet on its surface. He slides the plate over to her and her mouth practically drools from the smell. 

“Probably heading out after this. Going to meet another groupie.” He teases and moves his eyebrows. 

She stays silent, she messes with the edge of the omelet with her fork. Even though it was a joke, it made her feel uneasy just a bit.

“Okay.” She mumbles. 

Hyunjin sits down beside her and begins to eat his omelet silently beside her. She continues to pick at her food, not feeling hungry any more. 

Hyunjin places a hand onto her bare thigh, spinning her chair towards him softly. She feels tingles everywhere from the touch. “Hey, you have to eat Y/n.” He places his own fork down and picks up hers. 

He cuts a piece of the omelet with his knife and places the fork in front of her mouth. “Open.” 

She can’t help but get a little flustered at his demand, god her mind is in the gutter. She opens her mouth and he puts the fork inside. 

“Good girl.” 

She almost chokes on the omelet from his word choice. He sure makes it hard not to be in love with him. She takes the fork from him and insists on feeding herself now. How the hell is she supposed to get over him when he does shit like this. 

She finishes up her omelet and he finishes his. Hyunjin rinses both of their dishes off and  places both of them in the dishwasher. 

“I am off now.” Hyunjin says, running his hand through his black hair. 

“Thanks again Jin. I appreciate it.” 

“Anything for you.” He smirks and she rolls her eyes. 

She holds the door open for him, “Text me later?” 

She looks at him. His eyes are scanning her body, noticing how her pajama shorts hug her hips. Her legs are out on full display in front of him. She is embarrassed from his gaze.

“Uh yeah! See you later!” He smiles, making his eyes squint up. Her favorite smile to see on his face. 

She gives him a wave and he heads out. She shuts the door behind him letting her back rest against the door. She lets out a deep sigh, letting all the nerves leave her body. From this day forward, she vowed to herself that she would get over Hyunjin. Her crush on him brings her nothing but pain and false hope. She has to remind herself that Hyunjin’s  flirtatious behavior was only on a friendship level. He doesn’t want commitment, he doesn't want to be in love. Love is something she always dreamed of having. But, Hyunjin was the only guy she ever wanted to love. The feeling of wanting someone who didn’t want that at all was agonizing and she could not force him. She had to move on someday. 

But, how could anyone not fall in love with Hyunjin? Hyunjin is the most beautiful man she has ever met and laid eyes on. She is lucky to even have him as her friend. She is grateful for his comfort and presence he would give her. She just wishes it could be different someday. Maybe one day he won’t move his hands away, one day he will hold eye contact. Just maybe. 

—--------------------------------

How did Han convince her to go to another party? She honestly wasn’t quite sure. But, her main drive of the night was to forget about Hyunjin. Maybe find someone else to have a crush on. So now here she is again, another drink in hand and dancing with Han. He was hooping and hollering as her body moved next to his. Her face was warm from all the drinking she had already partaken in. A few of their other friends were scattered amongst the crowd. Some of them are stealing glances their way and laughing at the sight. She wasn’t the best dancer but she’s too drunk to even care. Her heart is beating like crazy and she had never felt more alive than in this moment. 

She closes her eyes and spins around amongst the crowd, her body crashes into a strong build. An arm catches her waist and she opens her eyes, it’s Yeonjun. Yeonjun is another one of Han’s friends and also the host of the party. 

“Hey Y/n.” He lets out a small chuckle. He removes his arm and she stands up straight. 

“Sorry, I was just caught up in the moment.” She said shyly and he smiles down at her. 

“It’s okay. No worries.” 

They both stand together, everyone else dancing around them. She licks her lips and puts her cup to her lips. She takes a big swig of the liquor feeling it trickle down her throat. 

“Having a good time?” He asked, gesturing to the now empty cup in her hand. 

“Very.” 

“That’s good.” 

Her eyes cast away from him, taking in all of them people dancing around them. Her knees begin to wobble just a tiny bit. Her eyes land in a corner of the room where Hyunjin is holed up yet again. A different girl is kissing all over his neck, his arms lazily around her waist. She darts her eyes away already feeling sadness creep up. 

“Hey Yeonjun.”

“Yeah?”

“Wanna makeout?” 

Yeonjun’s eyes widen, she looks at him, not a single sense of a joke coming from her. 

“Uh- sure.” 

That is how they both now ended up sitting off to the side. She sits on his lap while his plump lips tug on her lips. Her lips smack sloppily against his, she couldn't deny it, he was a great kisser. He lays his hands on her waist, she grabs them and places them on the back of her ass. He moans into her mouth once she pushes her tongue into his. The kisses grow even more sloppy the longer they kiss. She pulls away for a second to catch her breath. Yeonjun’s eyes are glossed over and his lips are redder than ever.

“You’re so pretty Y/n.” 

She smiles at him and places her lips back on his. This was the best distraction she could have ever thought of.  

Meanwhile, nearby Hyunjin still sits. The girl in his lap was kissing up his neck. His eyes land on Yeonjun and Y/n. He feels something in his chest as he watches them makeout messily. 

“Stop.” Hyunjin mumbles but the girl continues. 

“I said stop.” He raises his voice a little louder. The girl scrambles away from him. 

She gets off of him and pulls down her skirt. He stands up and keeps his eyes on them. He watches as Yeonjun moves her onto his thigh, now letting her move a bit. She throws her head back and Hyunjin feels furious. 

“Y/n.” 

Y/n hums as she hears her name. But then she realizes it didn’t come from Yeonjun. 

She stops moving on his thigh and turns her head to see Hyunjin. “Oh Jin hey.” She smiles smugly. Hyunjin looks at her face, she looks fucked out. The sight gives him a sensation. 

“Is he bothering you?” Hyunjin has his hands in fists  by his side. 

“Does it look like it?” She asks, wrapping her arms around Yeonjun’s neck. Yeonjun smirks underneath her, enjoying the feeling. Yeonjun begins to kiss on her neck, making her look back at him. 

Hyunjin sighs loudly and grows more angry at the sight. 

“Alright! That’s enough.” Hyunjin gently takes her off Yeonjun’s lap. 

“Hyunjin! What the hell!” 

“Y/n let’s go!” He grabs her wrist and tugs her into the opposite direction. 

Yeonjun sits dumbfounded as he leads her away. Hyunjin keeps walking, his hand circles around her wrist. He leads her through many people until they are outside. He finally lets go and she glares at him. 

“Now why did you do that?” She crosses her arms over her chest. Hyunjin just stares at her, still feeling angry. He looks at her face, how worked up she looks. He can’t deny how hot she looks right now but he can’t focus on that right now. 

“I didn’t want you to make a mistake.” 

“And what mistake is that?”

“Having sex with random people.” 

“Yeonjun isn’t random. I know him.” They both stand there for a moment looking at each other. The cool air blows on her cheeks, she begins to realize just how worked up Yeonjun made her. 

“How many of the groupies do you know personally anyways?” She mumbles under her breath. 

“Y/n, that’s not fair!” Hyunjin yells back at her. She stands there dumbfounded. 

“What’s not fair is how you’re treating me! What the fuck do you expect me to do Hyunjin?” Hot tears begin to well in her eyes, Hyunjin takes notice. His eyes soften as she begins crying, tears streaming down her face. Slowly collecting down into her shirt. 

“Do you know how much you hurt me Hyunjin?” She cries out, her hands shoot up to her face trying to wipe away all the tears. It’s no use as they continue to fall even more gradually. Hyunjin steps closer to reach out to her but she steps back. 

“I really don’t understand you. I don’t understand. Why is it okay for you to have sex with random people but I can’t? What is the fucking difference? I am so sick and tired of this Hyunjin. I just wanted a moment to get over you! To finally not worry about what you’re doing and with who. Is that something so bad to do?”

Hyunjin stands there, his head looking down at his feet. He wishes he could hug her right now and tell her it’s okay. But he can’t. 

 “Why wont you love me?” 

“Of course I love you.” 

“Hyunjin, that's not what I mean.” 

He looks up, her eyes are still filled with tears. He doesn’t know what to even tell her. He doesn’t know how to handle love. He doesn’t want to hurt her. It’s breaking him inside to even look at her right now. His heart is aching and he is sure hers is too. 

 “I love you Hyunjin and it hurts like absolute hell. I don’t know what the fuck I am supposed to do anymore.” She lets out a laugh. 

Hyunjin’s hands are in fists at his sides. His fingers dig into his palm to keep him from crying. He wants to tell her he loves her too but he is absolutely terrified. The only thing he knows how to do is leave. That is exactly what he decides to do. 

“Han can take you home.” He mumbles looking down at the sidewalk beneath him.

“What-”

“Just go home. Please.” 

He turns around and walks away. She watches him as he keeps walking, not turning back.

[romanreignseater]

Pregnancy Cravings

Roman Reigns x Reader

Rating: 18+

Warning: Smut, pregnancy sex, overstimulation, and oral (m & f receiving).

“Not only did you crave the weirdest foods at the weirdest times, you always craved the man who put you in this state.”

A/N: I just wrote this on the whim, kind of obsessed 🤭. First part to my three part series coming out on Sunday!!

GIF: @jeysuso

Not only did you crave the weirdest foods at the weirdest times, you also craved the man who put you in this state.

Being 6 months pregnant was not easy. Your baby girl constantly kicking and punching at you, your swollen feet, your energy levels at an all time low, but your sexual levels at an all time high.

Your cunt always throbbed for the man who caused you to fall pregnant, Roman Reigns.

You stood in the kitchen as you watched him played with your dog in the living room. This would be your first child together and you knew he would be a wonderful father. He has so much care and love in his heart, and he had a lot more to share.

You couldn’t wait to compete for the love of Roman with your little princess, who would be a daddy’s girls 100%.

As he stood up tall, you couldn’t help but to clench your thighs at the sight of his lean shoulders, broad neck, and built arms all hugged in a tight black tee. Your eyes drifted to toned legs clad in his black shorts to match. The outline of his cock prominently displayed for your viewing pleasure, waiting nothing but to suck the skin off of it.

You were drawn out of your thoughts when his deep and burly voice came through your ears.

“Y’gonna keep staring or what?! Take a picture it’ll last longer, and I know you got a lot of those.” His shit-eating grin as wide as ever.

“Whatever loser.” You rolled your eyes playfully and went into your favorite place, the fridge. As your back faced him, you heard him come closer to you. You soon turned around before he reached you.

He stood still staring deep into your eyes, the same damn eyes that got you pregnant. “Do you see something that you like sir?!” He smirked at you and you fell deep into his trance.

He laughs and you blush as you covered your face, feeling panties soak. “What’s the problem cutie?!” He dragged you away from the fridge and closed it. He placed his back against the island and pulled you close. Your belly slightly separating the both of you.

“How’s my baby girl doing today?!” You smiled. “She’s doing good, not kicking too much today.” “I was asking about you.” You stared at him slightly confused.

“I-I’m okay.” His head tilted to the side, not believing your confession. “No you’re not. Every time I see you you’re staring off into space and looking all lost, what’s the problem mama?! Tell the truth.” You exhaled deeply and looked into his chocolate eyes.

“I want you to fuck me.”

“What? I couldn’t hear you baby, speak up.”

“I want you to fuck me really good.”

You took your hand and placed it on his massive girth. You squeezed it ever so delicately, rubbing it up and down. “And I want to suck you off and swallow your sweet cum, I wanna have it paint the inside of my throat.”

He took your hair to create a makeshift ponytail and began to laugh. “Is that so mama?!” You shook your head yes. “I need words baby.”

“Yes.”

“Yes who?!”

“Yes daddy.”

“That’s all I needed to hear.”

As Roman went to take you elsewhere, you stood your ground. He looked confused as to why you weren’t moving. “Let me start the fun right here.”

You carefully went on your knees in front of him and pull his shorts down. You now know why his cock was on full display earlier, he wasn’t wearing any boxers. “Such a dirty boy, but I like it.” His cock standing at attention. His tip a beautiful dark pink, strung along is his deep tanned cock.

Your mouth drooling at the sight. Your hands grabbed his thighs and you took his dick into your mouth. First, circling and swallowing the tip. Licking and nipping at it ever so gently. Your tongue gliding across the slit, enjoying the warmth and pre-cum leaking out.

His hands grasping the back of your head pushing your head down deeper. Your head bobbing up and down generously, spit coating his cock. “Mmmmmm that’s how I like it mama.” His kind words pull you to continue your ministrations.

Your hands grip his thighs tightly, not wanting to separate. You roll his balls into your hands, and take his cock out of your mouth. You lowered your head and sucked on his balls. His head lolled back indulging in the sensation. You sucked on each separate ball, the tip of your tongue licking the surface of his balls.

Roman grunts and grits his teeth, legs shaking just as he’s about to cum, he pulls you off and gently picks you up. You both make out as he draws you to the couch. “Gotta be careful now, let’s not go too crazy.” Roman laughs as he expresses his concern for your baby girl. So in the mood, you laid back and spread your legs wide, showing the outline of your cunt sitting perfectly in your pink velvet shorts.

Roman couldn’t contain his smirk. “Alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn ya.” His kiss so passionate, gently removing your top and shorts. Your breasts have become very heavy and sore, so bras were a no-no. Roman sat still, mesmerized by your breasts and their fullness. “Take a picture sweetheart, it’ll last long—.” Roman ripped your panties in half and shoved them into your mouth.

“I don’t want to hear another word unless it’s ‘harder daddy’, ya understand?!” You shook your head yes. Roman lowered his head and laid on his stomach. He spread your legs even further apart. “Play with those tits mama while I eat my sweet pussy.” Your head instantly went back as Roman dove straight into your folds. You okay with your sore and full breasts as he circled your clit with the tip of his tongue. He licked from your pulsing hole to your beating clit.

You squeezed your breasts reveling in the feeling of Roman eating you out. He jabbed his tongue into your hole, fucking you with it. (Muffled) “Mmmmmmm, that’s so good.” Roman is a man who enjoys pleasure as well, but always pleasing you was his end goal. (Alexa play “Dogtooth” by Tyler The Creator).

Just as you were about to cum, Roman rose from your flower and wiped his face with the back of his hand. You watched him and his rock hard body in awe. “Take a picture baby, it’ll last long—.” Before he could finish, you pulled Roman by his arm. You took your panties out of your mouth, “Just fuck me daddy.”

Without hesitation, Roman plunged straight into your wet cunt. Holding your legs as far as he could, he devilishly pounded into your cunt. His medium paced and hard strokes sent you into another dimension.

He beat up your pussy so deliciously, speeding up his pace yet carefully watching out for your belly. “I’m about to give your another baby if ya keep gripping me like that.” Roman’s grunts became louder as your cunt tightly gripped his girth.

“Fuck I’m about to cum daddy, keep fucking me please.” Roman rubbed your clit pushing for your climax. “Cum with me mama, cum with me…” You both reached your peaks at the same time. Roman continued to fuck you, and you shook due to the overstimulation he was giving you. “OH MY GODDD, it’s too much!!”

You began squirting all over Roman’s thighs and stomach. You legs shook in his hands coming down from your intense high, sweat all over your body. “Whew, I need a drink. I’ll be back, don’t miss me too much baby.” As you go to catch your breath, you felt your baby girl kick.

“What am I going to do with your daddy baby girl?!”

THE END!!

MY TAG SQUAD: @cyberdejos2 @thesamoanqueen @cococodysleevelesshoodie @nayys-world @mzv11 @babybatlover @vogueyonce @harmshake @harlem11680

[soaringthroughthegalaxy]

Hello :) if your requests are still open:

This is my first time requesting something so please ignore this if I‘m doing something wrong.

I saw the 150 Random Writing Prompts and was thinking of a jealous Hunter smut. (Or Echo, if you find it more fitting)

With

143.: “Are you trying to turn me on or are you really just that oblivious?”

And if it’s ok ( I could not decide, sorry)

97.: if you interrupt me one more time— so help me god”

93.: say you want me, and i’m yours.”

Thanks 🙏🏻 You are an awesome writer!✨

Thank you so much for the request, anon! You did nothing wrong at all! I was able to work in all three, but I’m incapable of writing anything short, so this is kinda long - oops. Hope you like it! <3

Bonus point if you spot the Taylor Swift lyric I managed to weave in!

Green Doesn’t Suit You

With the whole squad safely back on Pabu, you settle into a comfortable civilian life. But the yearly Celestialis festival, said to bring good fortune for the next year to those who attend, brings with it something you never thought you’d have.

Pairing: Hunter x f!reader

Word count: 6.5k

Rating: 18+ MINORS DNI!

Warnings: jealousy, friends to lovers, pet names, old lady shoving her oar in, Omega is a fantastic wing-woman, confessions of love, first kiss together, squint for possessiveness, being (lovingly) manhandled, first time together, oral (f!receiving), unprotected PiV, dirty talk, soft aftercare, all the fluffy feels.

The air was stifling, not only from the heat outside but the warmth emanating from both ovens in the kitchen of your new home on Pabu.

The house had been a gift – the fanciest gift you’d ever received – from Shep and the other island residents. A thank you for all the hard work you, the boys, and Omega had put into rebuilding their island after the freak tsunami.

All seven of you, living together in a space infinitely bigger than the Marauder or your old barracks. It was heaven.

“We still need to get those tanks moved.” Omega grumbled, grabbing a clean tray and loading it with the latest batch of cooled cookies you’d made. In the sitting room, just visible through the kitchen doorway, were two bacta tanks. Where Phee had managed to procure them from was still a mystery, but they’d saved Crosshair and Tech’s lives after you, Hunter, Echo, and Wrecker had stormed Mount Tantiss to rescue Omega and the twins. The brothers had been worse for wear – it was still a miracle Tech had survived his fall.

“I’ll speak to Phee in the morning.” You added it to your mental list, skirting around an open cabinet door.

Today was the Celestialis festival, where Pabu’s residents came together to wish for good fortune for the year ahead. Once Shep and the island’s organising committee had caught wind of how good your baking skills were, they’d pulled you into the fray. For weeks, you’d been planning and purchasing ingredients and trying different recipes. And for the last few days, you’d been baking all hours of day and night – with varying levels of assistance from Omega and her brothers.

Four years ago, when the war had broken out, you’d signed up as a civilian handler. Fresh out of college and with nothing lined up, it had seemed like a good idea. While other handlers stayed on Kamino and supported their squads from a distance, the moment you’d read the files for Clone Force 99, you’d known that you’d need to be at their side constantly. They had a habit of veering off track, and handling that from afar would only give you a permanent migraine. So, after signing a hefty waiver with the Kaminoans, you’d been handed some armour, a blaster, and directions to the hangar.

Three years, you’d fought alongside them, learning the best ways to manage them and their unique skill set, building bonds and friendships far deeper and more meaningful than anything you’d ever had before. This last year, since Order 66, had brought its own challenges, too, but it has also brought you Omega.

Grabbing another tray from a cupboard, you pass it over to the young girl, watching as she loads it up with more cookies. Sweat beads on the nape of your neck, and you sigh, lifting your hair to try and get some air to it.

Omega, forever perceptive, abandons the cookies to help tie your hair back. From a small pot on the counter, she goes to grab a hairband, but at the last minute, you redirect her to the strip of fabric that sits nearby, the two of you sharing a look.

It’s another hour before you’re ready to leave for the festival. The boys had headed out mid-afternoon to help set up, taking their dressier clothes with them to spare themselves the walk back to the house and to not get in your way as you finished up. As infuriating and stubborn as they could all be at times, their thoughtfulness was unparalleled.

Dragging wagons laden with treats up to the central plaza, you and Omega work quickly to lay out all the goodies on the tables Shep had set aside for you. You hoped there would be enough for everyone, especially as other food was on offer, too. Stepping back from the tables, you take a deep breath.

“Finally left the kitchen, eh?” Echo teases as he approaches, the rest of the boys in tow. He’d tried to help as best as he could over the last few days, but baking with one hand had been less than ideal. Ultimately, he’d sat at the kitchen table and kept you going with conversation and caff breaks. And he’d chased Hunter off a few times when that keen nose of his had brought him sniffing around for treats to ‘sample.’

You watch as Omega passes a star-shaped cookie over to Wrecker, and the delight on the big man’s face as he devours it fills you with pride. “If I step foot in that kitchen again at any point in the next two weeks, please shoot me.” You joke, the corners of your lips curling into a smile.

“Deal.” Crosshair teases, toothpick sliding to the other side of his mouth as he reaches for a Roonan lemon cookie. His appetite hadn’t returned much since his rescue from Mount Tantiss and time in the bacta tank, but he was trying to eat a little more each day so you wouldn’t worry about him.  

“Hey!” You protest playfully, the boys chuckling as Crosshair takes a small bite, throwing you a wink. Light conversation flows between you all, broken up by the occasional island resident swinging by for some treats. The music starts, and more residents arrive, joining the festival’s spirit, dancing together and laughing.

Hunter can’t keep his eyes off you. For the last four years, he’s seen you in blacks and armour, with the recent addition of sweatpants around the house, and yet now you’re in a dress. A light and airy thing with delicate straps that cross over your shoulders, the fabric cinched in at your waist to accentuate the soft curves of your body. He’s sure it’s the same shade of aqua that paints his pauldrons, too. The thought has a strange sensation sweeping through his gut.

The sound of someone calling your name snatches his attention and drags his thoughts back to the present. As you turn towards the person calling for you, he can’t help but steal the opportunity to admire you. Eyes raking up your bare legs, across your hips and ass that he’s imagined grasping many times, over the smooth plane of your back to the curve of your neck and then…

The entire galaxy might as well cease to exist as his mind goes blank.

Wide brown eyes lock onto the scrap of red fabric keeping your hair up, and that strange sensation in his gut slams into him again. There, holding your hair up, is one of his spare bandanas.

His heart races, thoughts scattered like leaves in the wind. A torrent of emotions surges within him. He wants to reach out to you, to pull you close and finally tell you how much you mean to him, but he holds himself back. He can't bear the thought of you not returning the sentiment. Maybe it had just been an accident. Maybe his bandana had been the closest thing available.

In the silence of his thoughts, he missed you excusing yourself to talk with one of the island’s elderly residents, who’d been calling you over.

“Smooth.” Crosshair deadpans, gaze flicking to Hunter as they watch you go, the rest of their siblings distracted by the food and music.

The slink of his brother’s voice pulls Hunter from his thoughts, and he frowns in Crosshair’s direction. “What?” He asks. They’d worked hard to reconcile ever since Crosshair had been deemed stable enough to leave the bacta tank – they’d broached difficult topics and mended a few bridges as they worked towards getting back to what they’d had before the Order had been given. It was slow and, at times, painful, but neither of them was willing to give up on each other again.

“You were staring at her like she’s pure aurodium. Not that I blame you…” Hawkish eyes slide towards Hunter, a smirk tugging at Crosshair’s lips as he watches his brother’s jaw clench and his head tilt, a hardness settling across his features.

Crosshair lets out a low chuckle, enjoying the slight rise he’d secured. “Green doesn’t suit you, vod.” He tosses the comment before snatching up a few more of your baked treats, striding away in search of a quiet place to perch. Crowds still bothered him, but he didn’t want to avoid the gathering altogether and feel like even more of an outcast.

Across the plaza, you’d reached Mrs. Magiere. The elderly lady had lived on the island for years and had slowly convinced her family to move across the galaxy and join her. She wandered the island around lunchtime, and you’d often crossed paths, sharing polite conversation.

Beside her stood an unfamiliar man. “There you are, dear. I want to introduce you to my grandson, Dax.” Mrs. Magiere reached for your hand, drawing you closer.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Dax.” You offered the man a smile. He was a little taller than you, with a slender build, perfectly coifed brown hair and piercing green eyes.

Dax tries to keep his gaze on your face, but his eyes betray him for a moment as he takes all of you in. You’re quite lovely, he must admit. “And you. My grandmother speaks very fondly of you.” He replies.

Mrs. Magiere looks between you both with glee. “Why don’t you two go and dance? My old bones can’t keep up anymore.” One of her hands finds your lower back, and she gives you a gentle nudge towards Dax.

Warmth sweeps across your cheeks caught off guard and a little uncomfortable, but Dax offers you a reassuring smile and his hand. Not wanting to cause a scene or upset anyone, you take it, letting him lead you towards the plaza’s centre where couples and families are dancing. He stops en route, snagging a delicate pink flower from one of the blossoming vines nearby. With careful hands, he slides it into your hair, leaning back to admire you.

“And here I thought you couldn’t be any more beautiful.” The compliment comes naturally to Dax as he retakes your hand, leading you to a small available spot amongst the dancing island residents.  

The warmth in your cheeks grows, and all you can offer Dax is a small smile as he twirls you into his arms once you are amongst the crowd. Laughing softly, you let him lead, the few dance classes you’d taken at college helping you keep up with him.

“You did a wonderful job with the baked goods.” Dax lays another compliment on you, enjoying your bashful smile.

It felt good to be appreciated for all your hard work preparing for this evening, especially by those outside of your little family. “Thank you. What did you like the most?”

Turmoil rolls through Dax. Truth told, he hadn’t sampled any of the treats you’d so lovingly prepared, but he knew it was essential to compliment you. “The oat ones were delicious.” He takes a stab in the dark.

Your smile falters briefly before you fix it back into place. “I’m glad.” You lie in return, not pointing out that you hadn’t made oat cookies.

Standing off at the side of the plaza, it took no time for Hunter to find you amongst the crowd. Over the years, he’d memorised the sound of your heartbeat and the delicate whisper of your voice as the light breeze carried it to him. His eyes found you, and his brows furrowed as he watched you gracefully twirl in the arms of another man, a torrent of emotions churning within him. Jealousy, like a venomous snake, coiled around his heart, injecting poison into his every thought.

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from you. The woman he loved, whose smile could light up his darkest days, was now smiling at someone else. Insecurity gnawed at him, an unpleasant feeling he thought he’d long buried during his cadet days.

He longed to be the one guiding you across the dance floor, holding you as though you were the most precious thing in the galaxy. The realisation that someone else was experiencing that privilege grated on him.

“I don’t like him.” Omega’s voice snapped Hunter from his spiralling thoughts, and he glanced down to see her standing at his side, her own eyes watching you and the unfamiliar man dance.

“Hm, neither do I.” Hunter comments, arms crossed over his chest as he watches you twirl again.

It was no secret to Omega how much you and Hunter loved one another, and she was getting tired of neither of you doing anything about it. “Then, why don’t you go dance with her?” She asked, injecting as much innocence into her voice as she could muster, wide eyes turning up to look at her brother.

Hunter sighed. Omega had a point – he could quickly end this torture.

“Mind if I cut in?” The smoky rasp of Hunter’s voice interrupted your dance, and you turned towards him, offering him a bright smile.

The smile Dax had been wearing dissipated, a faint clench to his jaw as he shook his head while the music changed to something softer. “Not at all.” He lied, taking his hands from you. His grandmother had told him about the man who’d interrupted, with half of his face shrouded in darkness, and had warned him that you were close. Not willing to go easily, Dax lifted one of your hands to his lips, holding your gaze as he pressed a kiss to the back of it before stepping away a small distance. He’d wait nearby for another turn.

Your bright smile turned a little uneasy as Dax pressed a kiss to your hand, but relief had your shoulders sagging as Hunter stepped forward, sliding one arm around your waist to pull you close, your hand resting on his shoulder. He took your other hand with his free one, fingers interlacing. “Thank you for the save.” You murmured gratefully, knowing that with his hearing, you didn’t need to raise your voice to be heard above the music.

“Always.” Hunter’s answer leaves no room for doubt as he gently leads, moving you both in a slow sway. He can’t help but revel in your closeness. Every touch, every brush of your hand against his, feels electrifying, making his heart race with desire. Your warm body is pressed to his, his senses overwhelmed with you.

Warmth and security flood your body with the press of Hunter’s hand on your lower back, igniting a desire to be even closer. The rest of the galaxy can’t reach you here, tucked safely in his arms, and for a moment, you allow yourself to forget about everything that’s happened over the last four years – all the pain and bloodshed, all the horrors and tears. Through it all, Hunter has been a steady presence.

As you sift through the good memories, certain moments stand out. There was that day at the lake on Kintan, where the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in hues of orange and pink. The two of you had sat side by side, another successful mission under your belt, your laughter dancing in the air. You remember stealing glances at him, the way the sunlight had caught in his eyes, adding more warmth than you thought possible to those endless pools of brown.

Then there were the late-night conversations while you were deep in hyperspace, where you’d lose track of time, sharing dreams, fears, and secrets. Hunter’s voice, soft yet determined, painted a vivid picture of what he wanted from life after the war.

You could only hope those wants had changed.

Hunter drew his senses in, letting the crowd in the plaza fade into the background as he focused on you, the steadiness of your heartbeat, the feel of your hand in his and your bodies pressed together, and the subtle change to your scent. “You smell different.” He comments, curious eyes finding yours.

“If anyone else said that to me, I’d stomp on their foot.” You laugh, a little caught off guard by the statement. “I…” You trail off, the warmth that had faded from your cheeks now returning. “I stopped wearing perfume while knee-deep in the war, but now we’re out the other side of it. I thought I might try it again.” You admit, head dipping bashfully, before worry laces through you. “Is it too much? I aimed for something I hoped wouldn’t bother you and your senses.”

Lips parting at your answer, Hunter blinks with disbelief. Here you were in a sweet little dress, one of his bandanas keeping your hair up, and now you’d dropped on him that you were wearing a perfume picked out with his heightened senses in mind. He groans, desire churning through his veins. “Are you trying to turn me on, or are you really just that oblivious?” 

Freezing, you think for a moment that you’ve misheard him. “What?” You question softly.

Hunter realises his mistake, but it’s too damn late to take the words back. 

In the following pause, neither of you moving, simply staring at one another, Dax spots his opportunity and steps forward. “Can I cut back in?”

Hunter has to actively stop himself from grunting in frustration at the interruption. “We’re not done.” He tells him politely, making sure to keep his eyes on you. He knows he has to say something to you. “Cyar’ika, I…”

Dax huffs, finding it unfair that this man had swooped in and stolen you mid-dance and refused to let him back in. “Look, bud-“

Something snaps in Hunter, and his head whips to the side, eyes narrowing at the man you’d been dancing with. “If you interrupt me one more time, so help the Maker…” He growls out the threat, no longer caring that he’s being rude. This was too important. You were too important.

Your jaw drops, and you watch in disbelief as Hunter threatens Dax. Your heart races, and for a moment, the tension in the air is palpable. Dax, a bit taken aback by Hunter’s sudden intensity, raises his hands in a placating gesture.

“Whoa, whoa, man.” Dax stammers, realising he’s pushed Hunter’s patience to the limit. He steps back, allowing some space between him and the seething clone.

Hunter takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, regaining his composure. He turns back to you, his eyes softening as he tries to find the right words. "Cyar'ika, I'm sorry. It’s just... I need to talk to you.”

Your heart still races, but now it’s not just from the tension between the two men. You look into Hunter’s eyes searchingly. “What is it?” you ask, your voice filled with concern.

Keeping hold of your hand, Hunter leads you away from the crowd, finding a quiet corner of the plaza where you can talk in peace. The silence lingers for a few minutes as he struggles to find the right words, scrubbing his free hand over his face, having never anticipated this moment would come. 

Unable to bear seeing him so stressed, you step closer, resting a hand against his chest. His heart thuds heavy under your palm. “H…” You breathe the little nickname you’d given him shortly after joining them all those years ago, which breaks him out of his funk. 

“You’re a kaleidoscope of everything beautiful in this galaxy.” He blurts out, catching you off guard. “Your kindness, the way you listen, how you look after everyone around you — you’ve had me captivated since the day you waltzed onto the Marauder like you owned the damn thing and introduced yourself. And now, it’s terrifying to think of my life without you in it.” Once the words start, he can’t stop them.

“And I know we’ve been friends for years, and I value that more than anything in the galaxy. But seeing him dance with you and thinking of him doing it again…” Hunter huffs, trying desperately not to get worked up. “I mean, cyar’ika, the colour…” He gestures to your dress with his free hand. “And you’re using my bandana to keep your hair up, and you picked out a perfume with me in mind...” He trails off, knowing he’s shared so much that he can’t return from it, but Maker does it feel good to get the weight off his shoulders.

A small smile weaves onto your lips, even though you know you shouldn’t be happy, given the man you love is clearly stressed. “What if I told you none of it was accidental?” You murmur, your hand on his chest smoothing across the firm plane of muscle. “That you didn’t misplace your right pauldron the other week – I borrowed it to colour match. And I purposefully asked Omega to use your bandana earlier when she was tying up my hair.” You confess, eyes darting up to watch as surprise paints itself on his handsome features.

“You know, I’ve spent countless nights replaying moments in my head, wondering if you ever picked up on how my heart races when you’re near or how I can’t keep my eyes off you when we’re together. I didn’t want to make things awkward or ask for something neither of us could give in the middle of a war. But we’ve made it out the other side, so…” It’s your turn to trail off.

Your words hung in the air, and Hunter’s heart began to race, his body swirling with so many emotions it was difficult to grasp onto any of them. A rush of warmth surged through him, from the tips of his fingers to the depths of his soul. Gazing into your eyes, all he finds is pure, unwavering honesty. Your sincerity was a balm to his fears.

Hunter’s silence unnerves you, but you’re not backing out now. Not when the promise of something so much sweeter is tantalisingly close. “Say you want me, and I’m yours.” You whisper.

Hunter’s gaze never wavers from yours, and a flicker of relief crosses his eyes as he realises that this isn’t a cruel joke or an illusion. It’s real. The tension between you seems to crackle with anticipation as he takes a deep breath, finally finding the words he’s been searching for. “I’ve wanted you since the day you walked onto the Marauder.” He admits softly, his thumb gently caressing your cheek. “I’ve tried to be strong, to protect you and the rest of the squad, to not let my feelings get the better of me. But I can’t deny it any longer. I want you with every beat of my heart, every breath I take.”

His confession sends a shiver down your spine, and you can feel the intensity of his desire in the way he holds you and the way he looks at you. There’s no turning back now.

With a slow, deliberate movement, Hunter leans in, capturing your lips in a passionate kiss. The world around you fades into obscurity, and it’s just the two of you finally giving in to the magnetic pull that has existed between you for so long. The kiss is a promise, a declaration of all the unspoken feelings and desires built up over the years.

As your lips parted, Hunter rested his forehead against yours, his breathing ragged with emotion. “I want you, and I’m yours.” He whispers, his voice filled with love and longing.

A radiant smile spreads across your face, and you reply, “I’m yours too, Hunter. Always.”

His smile matches your own as he pulls back a little, though his fingers remain on your face, now stroking across your jawline. “Want to get out of here?”

Teeth sinking into your lower lip, you nod. “Thought you’d never ask.”

Hunter’s eyes twinkle with excitement and relief as he takes your hand and leads you away from the plaza, slipping down side streets towards your home. As you walk hand in hand, you can feel the electric connection between you two, a spark that has finally ignited into a full-blown flame.

Halfway there, Hunter pulls you close, wrapping his arms around your waist as he tucks you against the side of a building, his lips finding yours. His kisses are hungry, filled with longing and desire, as if he’s been waiting forever for this moment. And in truth, he feels like he has.

As the kiss breaks, your laughter echoes in the stillness of the night, smile as bright as the stars above as he disentangles from you, drawing you out of the shadows and back towards the house. As you reach the front door, he stops, his free hand moving to your hair, plucking the flower from Dax free. Carelessly, he drops it to the floor.

“Hunter!” You exclaim, watching the delicate bloom hit the pebbled path beneath your feet.

Something dark shines in his eyes, sending a thrill through you. “The only things in your hair should be my bandana,” his hand reaches for your ponytail, giving it a gentle tug as he leans in, lips ghosting the shell of your ear. “Or my hands.”

Breath catching, Hunter’s lips meet yours for a passionate kiss. The front door is pushed open, and you’re guided inside, steady hands grasping at your hips as he kicks the door shut behind you both.

Heart thudding as both of Hunter’s hands cup your face; you sink into his touch as his tongue slides between your lips, tasting you. He leads you up the stairs, refusing to break the kiss for even a moment as you reach his room. One hand leaves your face to push the bedroom door shut, and a moment later, you’re pressed up against it, Hunter’s body pining you in place, an arm resting on the door above your head, caging you in. That earlier sense of safety creeps back through you.

Tearing his lips from yours, Hunter’s chest heaves with each breath, a fire licking its way through his veins as you both open your eyes, gazing at one another for a split second. His head dips, mouth leaving a trail of delicate kisses along your throat, groaning as you tilt to give him better access, the prettiest moan sliding from your lips as he laves a kiss to the juncture where your shoulder and neck meet, following it with a quick, gentle nip.

Knees shaking, your fingers find the buttons of his shirt, undoing them one by one until you can push the fabric off his body. The rough pads of his fingers drag across your bare thighs, breath stuttering as the hem of your dress meets his grasp. He breaks contact just long enough to lean back and lift the garment over your head, letting it fall to the floor.

“Fuck…” Hunter curses quietly, eyes roving over your exposed body, the curves and dips of your frame, the swell of your bare breasts. A needy groan escapes him as he realises your panties match the dress, too.

Before self-consciousness can creep in, he’s dragging you to the bed with a hungry kiss, pushing you back onto it, kiss breaking as your back meets the soft mattress. For a moment, you both pause, drinking the other in. There’s a wildness in Hunter’s eyes you’ve never seen before, a warmth in your cheeks at how his eyes devour you. You’ve seen him shirtless countless times – while sparring or coming out of the fresher, changing, or patching up wounds, but now you can look.

His broad shoulders taper to his narrow waist, and his tanned, toned skin begs to be touched. Half of him is shrouded in black ink, and a burning desire to drag your nails over the ridges of his abs has you licking your lips.

Hunter’s not faring much better, either. The sight of you sprawled on his bed in nothing but a scrap of aqua fabric, lips kiss-swollen, his bandana still in your hair, and your gorgeous tits exposed has him itching to fuck you on every surface, to fill the room with the scent of your arousal and make you scream his name over and over again. “Don’t mind me, just enjoying the view.” Hunter breaks the momentary silence, reaching down to palm himself through his pants.

The action draws your gaze downwards, and you watch delightfully as the man you love gives himself a stroke through the fabric.

Hunter’s nostrils flare, picking up on how the simple action drew more of your heady scent from between your thighs. At the foot of the bed, he slowly sinks down onto his knees, eyes never once leaving you. If you smell that delicious, he can only imagine how you’ll taste.

Propped up on your forearms, you watch as Hunter sinks down between your thighs, those warm brown eyes focused solely on you. Fingers skim up your calves, feather-light, gently pressing your legs wider as they reach your knees. His head turns inwards, gazes breaking as he presses soft kisses to your thighs, tongue leaving small, slow licks in their wake. He takes his time savouring you, savouring the moment.

Lips brush across the juncture between your thigh and hip, sucking small marks against your skin before Hunter buries his face against your clothed pussy, eyes shut as he presses his nose against your clit, inhaling deeply. Your scent pulls a low growl from him, the vibrations making you gasp. “So wet already. I’ll take good care of you, I promise.” Hunter vows, tongue pressing forward to lick across the damp fabric of your panties, making your breath stutter at the contact as your head thunks back down onto the mattress, eyes screwing shut.

Fingers prying the material down your legs, Hunter dives back between your thighs, dragging the flat of his tongue through your soaked folds, delighting in the way your hips buck and you cry out. He was right; you taste even more delicious than you smell, and he groans at your tang on his tongue.

Drawing your legs over his shoulders, he settles in, licking long, broad strokes across your pussy, familiarising himself with you. His senses home in on you, mind cataloguing every slight noise you make, every jerk of your hips, the way your breath quickens when his tongue skirts oh so close to your entrance and then circles around your clit.

Needy little whines escape you, every nerve in your body alight as Hunter teases you, lips and tongue exploring you, his nose bumping against your clit to send sparks of desire surging through you. Warmth pools in your belly, and it only grows as the wet warmth of his tongue presses against your entrance, dipping in. “Hunter…” You moan out his name, fingers burrowing into his hair as you cant your hips, grinding against his face.

Pride blooms in Hunter’s chest at your response, and he keeps going a little longer before he flicks his tongue up and across your clit, the sounds of your cries of delight like music to his ears. Hands grasping at your thighs, he presses your legs up, almost folding you in half as his tongue sweeps side to side, teasing his way back down your pussy as he has greater access.

The change in angle makes you moan, free hand clawing at the sheets while your hips rock, chasing the delight of his mouth. A light suck on your clit makes you gasp, the warmth in your belly building with every swipe of his talented tongue. Dragging his tongue around the edge of your folds, he draws an arch, skirting around the top of your clit again. “Hunter, please.” You crack, desperate for him.

You feel him smile against you, releasing one of your thighs, fingers roaming up your body until his tattooed hand gently squeezes one of your breasts. His mouth is relentless, tongue finding your clit, firmly moving side to side over the sensitive bud as those talented fingers of his tweak your pebbled nipple.

The warmth crescendos, spilling over, and you cry out his name as your release slams into you, making your body shudder, gasping for breath at its intensity.

Hunter works you through the high, and as you whine at the overstimulation, his mouth leaves you, fingers letting go of your nipple to smooth over the soft skin of your breast. “Beautiful.” He whispers reverently, tongue darting out to lick his lips and drink up the taste of you as he watches you come down from the high, your heavy-lidded eyes opening to meet his gaze.

With your hand in his hair, you guide him up your body, small hums of delight leaving you as he peppers kisses across your stomach and chest, laving little licks across your breasts as he drags you further up the bed. He breaks away for a second, using one hand to remove his belt and shuck off his pants.

You watch as he strips completely, acres of tanned skin finally revealed. As he ditches his boxers, his hard cock springs free, and your tongue darts out to wet your lips, thighs parting a little wider. You relish the low groan the action pulls from him before he takes himself in hand, fist sliding along his shaft for a few pumps. He’s average in length but thicker than you expected - anticipation coils through you.

He prowls up the bed, settling above you, letting a little of his weight rest against you. Dark eyes meet yours, and you can’t hold back your smile, fingers reaching up to trace along his face. Drawing his head down, you steal a kiss, letting the moment build as your eyes flutter shut, tongues brushing together. Hunter shifts above you, resting his weight on one hand while the other dips between your bodies, fingers wrapping around his cock as he teases the velvety head through your soaked folds. Achingly slowly, he presses forward, your lips parting as you let out a soft moan at the stretch as he eases into you inch by inch.

“That’s it, cyar’ika. Maker, you’re so pretty, taking all of me like a good girl.” He whispers against your lips, enjoying how your breathing changes and your heart races at his words. You feel like heaven as he bottoms out, hips flush against you, chests pressed together as his hand moves back to the side of your head, redistributing his weight.

The stretch as Hunter fills you is exquisite, and your eyes open to gaze up at him in awe that this is happening – that this incredible man is yours. The first slow roll of his hips has your head tilting backwards, a breathy sigh filling the room.

The pace builds, your hands reaching for him, dragging up his back and down his flanks, nails scraping along flushed skin, making him grunt at the combination of pleasure and pain. Desire coils through you, building with every thrust of his hips, every drag of his cock as he pulls out to the tip and pushes back in. He leans down to kiss you, demanding tongue sliding between your lips to taste you.

“You’re so good for me, so fucking good around me. Made for me.” Hunter growls and the sound of your bodies meeting creates a background of white noise. “Won’t last long, baby. You feel too good. Fucking dreamed of this.” He adds, supporting his weight with one hand again, thrusts never faltering as he reaches down to grasp one of your legs, hauling it up. He presses a kiss to your ankle before he pushes your leg towards your chest, the change in angle enabling him to thrust into you even deeper.

Eyes falling shut once again as he drives you closer to the edge, you whine and whimper as his cock repeatedly rubs against your g-spot. The hand he’d used to pry your leg up moves to your breast, fingers tweaking your pebbled nipple again before he gently squeezes. Your name falls from his lips, raspy alongside his command. “Come for me.”

Between his hands, cock, and voice, you’re powerless to resist. Fingers scrambling at his body for purchase, your back arches as you cry out his name, desire bubbling over into a rush of euphoria that sweeps through your body and momentarily renders you speechless. Tremors wrack through you, toes curling as you desperately pant for breath, hazy eyes opening to look up at him.

Feeling you come apart, watching you fall into pleasure beneath him, was more than Hunter could’ve ever asked for. You were beautiful every day, but lost in the throes of an orgasm he’d given you? You were divine. He could feel the pressure building, feel himself teetering on that edge.

“Where?” The roughness of Hunter’s voice caresses you, warm puffs of his breath tickling your ear from where he’s bent down to bring you both even closer, caging you under him as his thrusts grow sloppy, muscles taut under your hands.

“In me, please.” You whisper back, and the deep moan he lets out will forever be seared into your mind.

Hunter gives a few final thrusts before he presses in as deep as he can, a guttural sound leaving him as his eyes screwed shut, thighs shaking as he hits his own peak, the pressure evaporating into molten bliss as he gives you everything. Slowly, the pleasure pulls back, like the tide, and he swallows thickly as his eyes open, breath catching at the sight of you.

You’re gazing up at him like he hung all the stars in the galaxy, indescribable love woven through your features. Carefully, he lowers your raised leg, fingers rubbing to return some of the feeling as his lips meet yours with a tenderness that could only come from years of shared moments, mouths moving in perfect harmony, a slow, sensuous exploration of one another.

Hand sliding to your waist, Hunter holds you still as he gently eases himself out of you, shifting to lay on his side, drawing you against his chest.

You nestle into his embrace. Your fingers trace the contours of his chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breath. The years of laughter and tears, the countless shared experiences, and the trust built over time have all culminated in this moment.

Hunter presses a sweet kiss to your forehead, and you can feel the soothing rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your fingertips. He draws lazy circles on your back, a comforting motion that brings you a sense of security and belonging.

With your bodies pressed together, you both revel in the aftermath of your lovemaking. The room is filled with a peaceful stillness, and you listen to the soft melody of your combined breaths, knowing that this love is the anchor that holds you both steady in a still-turbulent galaxy.

[mukumukunomi]

From: Your Heart To: Mine

cw: Luffy x fem!reader, romantic pining, long-distance relationship, Wano arc spoilers?, loose cannon compliance (follows cannon loosely).

wc: 2,394k

a/n: Last fic of the year! Mainly just me putting a bunch of ideas into a quick story and will probably have a few more parts in the future. I had several hc's of Luffy being in a relationship with someone far away and someone who he didn't ask to join his crew, and why that might be. And then I had the idea of long-distance penpals and protective!Luffy reunions so it just spiraled from there. Hope you enjoy it, Happy New Year! :)

Part 1

Part 2 (TBD)

❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦

Luffy shifts in anticipation. “Where is it?”

Dark orbs scan the horizon, mouth chewing loudly on a sandwich as his legs swing over the side of the crow’s nest. It’s a relatively calm day on the Grand Line. The Thousand Sunny’s hull breaks the azure waves as they crest, leaving a wake of churned water behind. Their trail is swiftly swept away by the tides into a stretch of blue on blue. A blurred line where the sea meets the sky. It is only broken by the speckle of fluffy white clouds that lazily trek above him.

In other words, the perfect day for a News Coo to appear.

The bird’s last appearance is fuzzy in his memory. Was it last week? Last month? When was the last time his bounty had gone up? The fact he doesn’t remember concerns him because it means there’s been no news from you in a long while. He only pays attention when there’s something from you.

He yawns, staring up at the sun currently hidden behind a large cloud. The days seem to stretch longer without you. Your island may be far away now, but he can almost feel your presence as if right beside him. What were you doing? What was the last tasty thing you ate? Did you spill three or four bottles of ink today?

Not knowing is its own form of torture. It’s hard to not miss you in the moments where something strikes him with your familiarity. Blue skies remind him of your little blue house on the island. The stars remind him of the lake. The patch of grass that spans Sunny’s deck reminds him of your garden. And Robin’s books remind him of the papers and ink littered across your kitchen table. 

There was no way of knowing then how those small letters in your handwriting would become such a crucial part of his life. In a way, they became points of time where his adventure reconnected to yours. Snippets of your life he would have never known about if you hadn’t logged it for him to see. 

Flapping wings catches his attention as a beak snatches the sandwich from his hand.

“Hey!”

The large gull swoops downwards, landing awkwardly on deck. It narrowly misses hitting Brook, who’s tuning his violin strings, and swerves over to where Nami’s lounging on the deck under an umbrella with Sanji serving beverages. It swallows the half-eaten sandwich whole just as Luffy lands with a thud next to it.

“Give it back!” He yells, grabbing the bird by the neck and shaking it. It doesn’t discourage the creature to hack it up in the slightest.

Nami’s annoyed gaze meets his as she fans herself in the heat. She fishes into her pocket for a moment before extending her hands towards them in a gesturing motion. The flash of something shiny focuses the bird’s attention. “Bring it here, Luffy.”

He grumbles, but obliges. Nami slots the berry into the bag around the News Coo’s neck, then holds her hand out expectantly. The gull drops the newspaper into her open palm. Nami doesn’t retract, leveling a stare at the bird. “Anything else?”

It shakes its head.

The redhead’s frown deepens as she sets the newspaper in her lap. She sits up, flicking another golden coin into the air almost threateningly. “Are you sure? Those letters with the star symbol on them? You didn’t drop it, did you?”

The bird reaffirms its previous gesture with a vigorous shake of its head under her intense glare. It takes Luffy a moment to realize what exactly it means.

No letter.

He drops the bird abruptly as disappointment bubbles inside him. The avian lets out a yelp as Luffy turns to walk dejectedly away, missing the way his navigator’s face falls as he does so. 

“Listen here,” Nami’s voice echoes behind him, now shaking the bird in the same way Luffy had, “You’re going to deliver this letter to Starcleaved Island. Expedited. And don’t return until you bring back news about our friend.”

Luffy registers the sound of several coins before the bird takes off above him again. He feels limbless as he climbs up the stairs towards the back of the boat, drifting his way into the library filled with dusty books and laid out sketches of archeological sites. Robin smiles gently at him as he sinks into a chair next to her. “Can I help you, captain?”

“Oi, Robin, can I see Y/N’s letters again?”

Robin clearly wants to say something, but at the last moment turns to grab a familiar blue leather tome from the shelf behind her. He gently thumbs to the most recent entry, earmarked and already worn from how many times he’s turned to it. Luffy takes a moment to appreciate the way the letter is adhered to the page of the book, obviously done with care in the experienced hands of his archeologist. Without Robin, these letters would have probably ended up lost. It had been her idea to keep them in something more sustainable. 

But the thought is fleeting as his eyes are once again drawn to the top of the last entry:

Luffy, It’s been a long while since you and the crew left. How is everyone? Are they still eating well? You haven’t eaten all of the food I gave you already have you? What adventures have you had since we last spoke?  I’m doing much better now that I’ve gotten over that nasty cold I caught right at the start of the season. Please thank Chopper for the medicinal recipe he sent with your letter last time. Oh! And Sanji’s soup recipe! They were lifesavers! Though, I do wish I were eating it with you. Like when you were here. We had so much fun. We couldn’t keep Zoro and Franky from the alcohol. And Usopp did that weird dance to Brook’s song. Do you remember that? Hopefully, Nami was able to use that note I made. Forgery is all fun and games until you actually have to convince people the documents you write are real. But we know Nami is sneaky, and I’m the best forger there is. There’s no way my handiwork is discernible. You can’t tell the real from my fakes. I thought a lot about what you said. I think maybe you’re right.  I’ve heard Dressarosa has become a really beautiful place after all the unrest there. (Although, I wonder who’s responsible for that?) Maybe I can extend my business further out into the world. Smuggled goods receipt, fake invitations, not-so-deceased wills…my hand itches just thinking about it. Sincerely yours, Y/N P.S Your handwriting has gotten better. Robin must be really patient to get you to sit for more than five minutes. P.P.S You know, I still haven’t been able to get that stain out from where you spilled the red ink. You owe me a new rug.

He notes the date, questioning eyes meeting Robin’s. “How long has it been since we got this letter?”

Robin hums in thought. “About three months.”

No letter from you in almost three months. It wasn’t like you at all. Not with all the previous letters filling up more than half the book already. 

“We’re all worried.” Robin says gently, comfortingly.

 He speaks slowly, eyes not leaving the page. “Y/N can take care of herself. She’s strong.”

He’d already accepted the risks when parting separate ways. He was on his own adventure, and you were on yours. That fact doesn’t stop the ache you leave behind. 

“She would have loved to come with us.” The raven-haired woman muses, flipping to the page of her text where she had left off. It’s both a statement and a question that’s left unanswered as the room goes quiet. 

But Robin's words stick like glue to his mind in the silence. It’s rare for him to reflect on past decisions. He’s not the type to regret. “I know.”

He knew not extending an offer to you had hurt you. Knew how much you would have loved to come. But it hadn’t felt right at the time. Joining his crew wasn’t something you needed. Not in the same way as the rest of the crew. They had been nobodies to the rest of the world. Adrift with no sense of purpose. He had seen their potential and felt their worth through their grit. Each of his current shipmates needed this crew, and this crew only, to realize that. Luffy sensed you already had determined your purpose long ago without them. 

Still, he did need you. In what capacity, he didn’t know. He vowed that once he became the King of the Pirates, he’d circle back down the Grand Line to see you. Perhaps, he’d figure out this feeling in his chest that he hadn’t been able to shake since leaving Starcleaved Island.

***

Well, this was splendid.

You huff in annoyance as you sit in the dingy cell, footsteps loudly clanging from the deck above. It was damp and dark here. You didn't know how long you hadn't showered, nor the last time you saw the sun. The only light source came from the gaps between the floorboards. A slit beam of it shone directly on you, and you savor the sun’s warm comfort as you muse about your predicament.

Starcleaved Island was a peaceful respite on the Grand Line, famed mainly for its phenomena of meteor showers. Boats would go out into the middle of a large lake, which spanned nearly a quarter of the center of the island’s mass, to sight see the recurring celestial objects that streaked across the sky. It was told that once, long ago, a meteor fell and 'cleaved' a hole in the center of the island, which eventually became the lake. You had grown up standing next to that body of water, wishing on those shooting stars, for as long as you could remember. You and your little blue house next to it.

Everything changed when they came. When he came. When Luffy appeared on the shores of the lake next to your house. Half-drowned and soaking to the bone on that brisk morning. You had gotten your first look of one of the most infamous pirates of the sea, besides the ones on wanted posters.

He had been adorable. Was still adorable to you.

You feel yourself flush as the thought permeates your reminiscing. Goosebumps unrelated to the dampness in the air radiate along your skin as you recall his smile and boyish charm. You miss him. There wasn’t a moment since his departure that you didn’t. There was something gravitating to his existence, as if the entire world centered itself on him. He was frightening, quite frankly. All that power and influence in the hands of an idiot. 

Of course each new wanted poster of that adorable idiot went on your fridge for you to ogle. You couldn't resist.

But how in the world did you get such rotten luck? You had just saved up a month’s worth of expenses for travel for a new business venture to Dressarosa when these pirates raided your hometown. And taken you, unfortunately.

The wayward thoughts are broken up by the sound of something clanging against the metal bars of your cell. Narrow eyes glance at you from the other side, a sneer on the pirate’s lips as he spits a wad of chewing tobacco onto the floor. “Girlie, you feel like talkin’ yet?”

You frown, crossing your arms.

The pirate grumbles something under his breath. “Two months of silence isn’t going to bring you back to that shoddy little island we found you at.”

You feel the emotion bubble in your chest, just managing to swallow the sob that wants to tear its way from your throat. That was your shoddy little island. How dare he take you from it?

The man sticks his pinkie-finger in his ear and wiggles it. “Perhaps you’ll talk when we tell ya where we are. Ever heard of Wano, girlie?”

You blink. Wano? The samurai country? From what you understand, they were mostly closed off from the rest of the world. It was at least a three month's travel away from home!

“We’ve got our weapon materials to sell. And unless you want to join the fishes, you’ll forge those documents to say we’re a spice ship.”

You felt your lip curl in disgust. Weapons for what? “How do you even know I-”

“Your bag’s filled with all kinds of unfinished notes for entry into Dressarosa. Quite good.”

You curse. Discretion was gone, it seemed. “I don’t extend my services to scum.”

The brute simply smiles at the rasp of your voice. “I-”

“Captain!”

The man turns at the sound of the voice coming from the deck above. He cranes his neck upwards at the helmsman. Sucking air through the gap in his teeth, the captain calls wearily. “Whaddya’ want!?”

The helmsman’s voice echoes down loudly over the sound of the waves against the hull. “The barrelman spotted a pirate ship crashed on the shore where we were to drop anchor.”

“So what?!”

“The Jolly Roger…it’s the flag of the Strawhats, sir!” 

Your heart skips a beat. The Sunny was here?

The captain blinks with mouth agape as he processes the information. “We…” The man scratches at the scruff on his chin, “We’ll go around it. We’ll pull into port instead.”

“But, sir, without the documents there will be suspicion…”

Your voice comes out louder than you intend. “I’ll do it.”

The captain turns to you quizzically. You clear your throat. “You have example documents, right? I can do it in an hour…unless you broke the inks in my bag.”

There’s suspicion in the man’s gaze. “Really?”

“I don’t work for free. I have one condition: You let me walk away once we dock.”

A laugh that sounds like a pitiful cough erupts from him. “Ha! You know what you’re asking for? If you stay here you won’t be able to leave! You’ll never leave Wano’s borders alive!”

It takes all your strength not to shake anxiously. “Do we have a deal?”

The captain shakes his head as he walks away, chuckling. “Your funeral, girlie.”

You watch him ascend to the deck, letting out a sigh of relief once the trapdoor is shut. Your palms press gently onto your eyeballs as you try to fight the wave of nausea rolling over you.

Sunny was here. Luffy was here.

You had to get away from these people quickly and find him. No matter what it took.

[youcouldmakealife]

SOTM: Vinny/Tony, Fourniers; one-trick pony

For the prompt: Dying for a Vinny/Anton update!

Thomas never had time for hobbies, not really. As a child, maybe, but the first time he volunteered to play goalie in house league he knew that was what he wanted to do.

He doesn't mean in a ‘with his life’ sort of way, though it was that too. More like every time he wasn’t actually on the ice, in the net, he thinking about it, practicing skills for it, working on his reflexes, his flexibility. Doing a hundred jumping jacks a day after a teammate’s older sibling told him it’d make him taller. He kept it up even after his coach told him that wasn’t how height worked, just in case he was wrong. Anything to get better.

It’s not that Thomas slacked on the rest of his life or anything — when he was at school he was at school, and when he was with friends, he was with friends, though he did make Meg shoot on him more than he probably should have, and when he was camping with his dad, he was in the wilderness.

But he never had enough ice time to satisfy him, never had enough teammates putting shots on him, never had enough time one-on-one with the Sudbury Wolves goalie coach that gave him some sessions as a favour because he was his teammate Zack’s uncle. Because Zack told him that Thomas had ‘it’.

And if Thomas didn’t have ‘it’ before those sessions, he did after, that edge that nobody else his age had. Advice on his blocker hand, sure, but more important things: on eating a clean diet. On prioritizing mobility above everything else. On what he could play through, and what he couldn’t, and if he didn’t know, to take that time just to be safe. That his mental toughness was as important as his physical toughness, and then some.

He had teammates who would sneak time during the long drives to games in the surrounding towns, entertained by Game Boys, books, Pokémon cards, but Thomas had a bad case of motion sickness he didn’t manage to shake until he was in Juniors, and spent so much time on a bus it started to feel stranger not being in motion. Besides, he was already thinking about the game ahead.

But lack of practice or not, Thomas probably should not be doing worse than two fifth graders at Pictionary. Right after he was worse than them at Just Dance — ‘Uncle Vinny, you’re supposed to be an athlete’ was said, and his feelings are still a little hurt. Also worse at baking cookies, apparently, though all three efforts tasted pretty good to him.

“Can’t you do anything other than hockey?” Vanessa said, so offhand he knew it wasn’t meant to sting, but, of course, it stung anyway.

Thomas doesn’t know how to explain being so focused on one thing impoverishes everything else, and he definitely doesn’t know how to do it in an age appropriate way. It’s good, he thinks, that they don’t understand — at their age he’d already started cutting away parts of himself that didn’t, couldn’t fit. He couldn’t join any of the after school clubs, or play any other sport above house league level. No sleepovers, except with teammates, because he had practice first thing on weekend mornings. At a certain point it was just hockey. It had to be.

Vanessa and Olivia can be anything they want to be. Maybe not literally — there was a point he remembers Olivia wanted to be a mermaid, and he doesn’t know how achievable that goal is, though he does know if he ever brings it up Olivia will furiously deny that ever happened and then refuse to speak to him for the rest of the day.

But they have Fourns and Chloe as parents, two of the most supportive people Thomas has ever met, and Fourns had a long, successful NHL career, so money isn’t a barrier either. They can try everything, do what they’re good at, what they enjoy, what they love. Which is dancing to Rihanna, baking cookies, and hurting a poor goalie’s feelings.

That night, Thomas brings his batch of cookies home with him, because the girls didn’t want them, and eats three standing right at the kitchen island. They’re perfectly good cookies. He doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

Anton comes downstairs when Thomas is on cookie three, hair damp from the shower.

“Good day?” he asks, then says, “Cookies,” before Thomas can actually answer him, shoving one into his mouth.

“Good cookie,” Anton says, through a mouthful of crumbs, squeezing Thomas’ shoulder on his way to the fridge. He doesn’t even notice Thomas beaming at him, too busy investigating, probably because last time Thomas went to the Fourniers he brought back half a cake and two pizzas. The Fourniers don’t do leftovers.

Thomas doesn’t know if Anton would have even played hockey if he wasn’t Vladimir Petrov’s son. It’s not exactly something that could ever be tested. Anton’s been surrounded by hockey his whole life: he literally sat in the Stanley Cup before he ever got a pair of skates. Hockey wasn’t just an option, it was the option.

Anton loves it, Thomas knows that — he wouldn’t have gotten this far if he didn’t genuinely love hockey. Wouldn’t put up with hearing ‘as the son of the legendary Vladimir Petrov…’ if he didn’t love it, or the teammates he calls immature idiots, like he didn’t get into an elbow-off with Thomas over who got the last pancake just last week.

He definitely wouldn’t put up with the media if he could avoid it, and he likes meeting fans more than he pretends he does, especially when they’re kids, but he likes his privacy more, and nobody gets much of that in Montreal, not if they’re playing for the Habs.

Even Thomas finds it a little overwhelming at times, and he not only gets recognised less than Anton does, he loves meeting fans. It makes it feel real to him, when sometimes the practice-game-flight-repeat lulls him into taking it all for granted. There’s only so much time left before it’s all over, and Thomas doesn’t want to waste it.

He’ll probably need hobbies in retirement. Scratch probably: Thomas gets bored when they go three days between games.

And retirement isn’t that far away, he knows — every contract he’s depending on the Habs still wanting him. The minute they don’t, his choice is going to be retiring or going somewhere else, leaving behind his city, his team. Tony, who’d probably take it pretty personally. And that’s if Thomas could even bring himself to do it. He doesn’t think he could. But without hockey, he doesn’t know where that leaves him. Here, he guesses. Making subpar cookies.

“How were the monsters?” Anton says.

“They said my cookies sucked,” Thomas says.

“What?” Anton says, immediately outraged on Thomas’ behalf. “They’re good cookies!”

“I thought so!” Thomas says.

Anton grabs a second cookie, taking a big bite out of it.

“Good cookie!” he says through another mouthful of crumbs. Thomas doesn’t plaster himself against him right then just because he’s afraid the cookie might choke him. He waits for him to swallow.