#was a little absent through some of it but i was still tuning in to see what everyone was saying

[rattkachuk]

real quick! whatever goes down tonight, so much fun was had in the oilers lb tag this season, and i love u all dearly!!!

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

I DREAM, NOW, OF A NORMAL LIFE WITH YOU ; SUGURU GETO

synopsis; suguru isn’t a lightweight. this is your first time actually seeing him drunk — though maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he’d be the sappy kind.

word count; 9.4k (..... i got carried away ok)

contents; suguru geto/reader, gn!reader (shoko calls u "girl" but in a "girl help" way not a gendered way), written w a no curses au in mind, sugu is a sappy emotional drunk i said what i said, sickening amounts of fluff, depictions of intoxication, reader is averse to alcohol, sugu wants to marry u so bad it makes him look silly, lots of emotions & lots of love <33

a/n; this fic has been ROTTING in my drafts for the longest time but its super precious to me and now i finally get to post it!! @softgirlgonehaywire & @hayakawalove ily ty for being interested in sappy!sugu this is a treat for u <33

the bar isn’t all that far off from your apartment.

it’s a short distance, really. walk straight ahead, until you reach the record store that suguru likes to frequent, and then take a right; a minute or two uphill, and then you’ll be able to see the blue of the sea. once you’re there, all that’s left is to look for mellow golden lighting and descend a set of stairs.

which is what you’re currently doing, popsicle in hand, loose clothes and comfortable shoes on as you wallow in the mellow summer evening. everything is blue — the dark shade of the sky, and your ice pop, pastel and sweet, tasting of pure youth. the hoodie you threw on is a rich cobalt, suguru’s in name but yours in spirit. he only wears it when you complain that it doesn’t smell like him anymore.

humming a jolly tune, you take a sharp turn, allowing the summer sensations to curl around your subconscious. blissed out and content. 

you were so, so bored — stuck at home with no one to keep you company, no one to mumble snarky commentary about the show playing on tv, no one to run their fingers through your hair while your head rests in their lap. pure torture, really, being faced with the consequences of your own actions. after you stupidly told suguru you’d be okay on your own.

he even asked you twice, just to be sure, even told you that he’d prefer you to join him on his night out. and again, you declined; because it’s been so long since he had some time alone with shoko and satoru, and you were feeling a little tired anyways. 

so he gave in. heading out, with a promise to bring back a tub of your favorite ice cream, leaving you with the apartment to yourself. did you come to regret your little white lie? maybe. possibly.

but everything worked out in the end.

a pleasant breeze caresses your skin, brushing against the apple of your cheek, and you watch as peach blossoms dance in a faraway park. cicadas cling to every tree in sight, buzzing a pleasant tune, mingling with the giddy giggles of high school students enjoying their summer vacation. it’s been raining for a couple of days; you can still smell it in the air, feel it in the low tinge of humidity clinging to your skin, still hear suguru’s insistence that you bring an umbrella with you to work — just in case.

but today, the skies were clear, and it’s late, not too humid but not too chilly. and the stars are out, glimmering in that fuzzy sea of mellow cerulean, leaking out like little marbles cast into space. falling down, down, down, close enough for you to see. from here, it looks as if they’re waving. you resist the urge to wave back.

peace. bliss. a nostalgia so vibrant you could drown in it, feel it lick at your ankles like soft sea foam.

eager to scratch a certain itch in your brain, attention span zipping from one street vendor to the pop music blasting from a couple streets away, you take your phone out from your pocket. absently scrolling through your messages, until you get to the ones shoko sent you just ten minutes ago. the ones that brought you out here, into a summer evening soon to slip into nightfall, ones that have you walking to the bar you chose not to join them at.

messages that still have you pushing back a bout of giggles, chewing lazily on your ramune ice pop with a giddy smile.

sho 🚬: come get ur man sho 🚬: he’s drunk. sho 🚬: like DRUNK drunk 

you: …… um.  you: what happened to hi? hello?? good evening???

sho 🚬: no time for that. look sho 🚬: [ image ] sho 🚬: he looks so goofy lol

unable to resist the temptation, you press the pad of your finger against the screen — opening the image attachment, just to drink in the sight once again. what you see is a certain man, slumped over in his seat, cheek smooshed against the wooden table in front of him. messy hair, no longer tied into a bun, cascading down his shoulders and back. from the little you can see of his face, his skin is flushed a light pink, and his eyes are closed, fingers still curled around an empty beer jug. 

like a sleepy puppy.

a coo tiptoes on your tongue, but you bite down on your lip in an effort to stop it, just grinning at your screen with pure adoration in your lovesick eyes. 

he’s drunk, alright. an unfamiliar sight, but not at all unwelcome. because he’s cute, terribly so, so cute that it hurts, even when he’s obviously wasted. it’s almost funny — you know their drinking habits. shoko holds her liquor so well that it’s a little horrifying, and satoru can get wasted if he has more than a sip of it. and suguru?

suguru never gets drunk. he barely even drinks. out of consideration for satoru, maybe, or you. probably both. that’s just how he is; you thought he hated fish for years, because he was always so eager to give you the best bites of the sushi rolls you ordered. turns out he was just indulging you.

so, to be frank — the idea of him suddenly being drunk is a little bit of a shocker. but it’s also kind of exciting, in a ridiculous way. new, fun, just what you need when you’re bored out of your mind.

(or maybe you’re just happy to have an excuse to go see him.)

you: NOOOO  you: MY BABY 😭😭😭 you: what did u guys DO to him???

sho 🚬: satoru and him made a bet 😐 you know how they are sho 🚬: he drank like a divorced mother of four ive never seen something so beautiful

you: …. you: have i told you that you’re both terrible

sho 🚬: u love us <33 sho 🚬: anyway he’s been asking me where u are for the past ten minutes pls come i can’t stand him sho 🚬: he’s crying.

you: HUH???????? you: WHY????????????????

sho 🚬: dude i dont know sho 🚬: please come get him he’s being so sappy that satoru’s abt to throw up

you: ???? okok 😭 you: im omw ig??

sho 🚬: girl hurry he just told me he genuinely appreciates my presence in his life 😐

an exhale — laced with deep amusement — drops from your lips and spills into the summer air. it tastes like a memory from long ago.

slipping your phone back into your pocket, you raise your gaze, searching for a glimmer of goldish light. soaking up the scent of the ocean, sparkling on the border of your peripheral. salty and sweet.

no matter how hard you try, all you can think of is that certain someone, waiting for you to pick him up. your mind keeps drifting back to the way his eyes crinkle when he laughs, the way his hair falls over his face when he leans down, the sound he makes when he stretches in the morning.

you want to see him. badly. you want him near, want to feel the familiar warmth of his presence, want to see him smile and laugh and sigh and raise his eyebrow at your antics. 

so there isn’t any time to waste. you’re walking towards that familiar set of stairs before you know it, shoes hitting the asphalt with a mantra of satisfying thuds. 

and when you step in through the opened door, you’re immediately engulfed by a sense of overflowing comfort. mellow, warm lights, the soft buzzing of static from an old radio, low citypop beats trailing through the air. the bartender by the counter gives you a curt nod in greeting, before motioning towards a certain table. it’s over in the corner, covered in beer jugs and fancy glasses, with three beauties seated around it.

satoru notices you first.

a bright grin finds its way onto his face, and he waves you over giddily, happily. barely contained excitement in the motion. shoko’s gaze follows his, flitting over to meet yours — and you think she mouths an oh, thank god, before taking another sip from her glass. she brings a hand up in greeting when you come closer, and you can’t see her smile, but there’s a crinkle to her eyes; a warmth in them that you’d never miss.

”hey, guys.”

”yo!” satoru chirps, beaming in a way that’s so distinctly him it makes you soften. he looks so comfortable in his seat, with a cocktail you know is non-alcoholic and probably too sweet for anyone but him to stomach. giggling to himself, leaning over to poke suguru’s cheek, with a teasing declaration of your chaperone is here! 

and there he is. 

the man you came here for, still slumped over in his seat, unresponsive. not for long. as the lilt of your voice reaches his ears, his eyes flutter open, in a bout of recognition — even in the drunken state he’s in. an immediate sensation of familiarity creeps into his veins, rousing him from his cozy, half-asleep stupor. 

he doesn’t even grumble over the way satoru keeps poking at his cheek, interest and attention focused solely on a certain someone. you, your presence. 

and when your eyes meet his, he lights up.

it’s precious, you think, how his eyes widen, blooming with genuine affection, so endearing you could kiss him right then and there. his face is flushed, and his hair is tousled, and the warm lighting of the bar paints him in a golden hue. so perfect for him, your star in the sky. 

a smile spreads across his lips, big and happy and warm, and you can’t help but mirror it. 

(gosh, he’s cute.)

with a dizzy kind of eagerness, suguru sits up, palms flush against the table to support his weight. he stumbles out of his seat, paying no heed to satoru’s amused huff of careful! or the rattling of fragile glass.

it only takes a few uncoordinated steps for him to reach you, where you haphazardly lean against the wall, watching him amusedly. that delighted smile never leaves his lips, as his arms go to curl around your waist, big and heavy, his jaw finding its rightful place on the curve of your shoulder. 

”baby,” he drawls, fond and affectionate. breathing you in. ”sweetheart. my angel.”

a flustered puff of laughter slips from your lips, stumbling a little under his weight. his voice is syrupy sweet, overflowing with love and adoration, soft in a way that has your knees buckling. a little raspy. murmured right into your ear, sending pleasant shivers down your spine. 

he’s too sweet for you to handle, really, even sweeter than satoru’s overpriced cocktail. and he smells the same as always; a blend between coffee grounds, cigarette smoke and rain, one that never fails to soothe you. even when it’s tangled up with a vague but vivid stench of alcohol, courtesy of the drinking he’s been doing until now. 

you crinkle your nose, but don’t let go of him, nuzzling your cheek against the side of his head. words buzzing with warmth. ”hey, sugu.”

suguru only squeezes you tighter, content to have you in his arms. finally, his world makes sense again. all he can do is bask in your voice, warmth, scent — he’s just so enamored by it all. almost in a trance, heartstrings dancing along to the beat of your presence, your very existence, that appears to him as something almost angelic. soft and familiar, something that feels right at home when it’s tucked into his embrace. where he can keep it safe.

”missed you…” he murmurs, sleepy, smearing an open mouthed kiss against the crook of your neck. ”i love you s’much…”

a chuckle. ”i love you too,” you echo, running a steady hand over his back. your voice is laced with something teasing, but awfully fond. ”you really are drunk, aren’t you?”

”mm…” he only hums, cheek pressed flush against your soft skin. ”’m sorry…” he mumbles, stifling a yawn. he sounds a little guilty, and it makes you want to coo. pull his cheek a little.

instead, you laugh. amusement vowen into the bubbly noise. ”it’s fine, sugu. c’mon — let’s go home, alright?”

at that, satoru visibly reacts, placing his glass on the table with a soft clink before getting up to stretch. he grabs suguru’s discarded jacket, letting it hang off his arm as he walks over to the two of you.

”i’ll help you carry him,” he smiles, always so dependable. so ready to be of service. maybe a little too eager to carry suguru around like a sack of potatoes. 

a smile blooms on your face, and satoru gives you a playful wink. shoko just leans back in her seat, stretching idly. it feels like home with them there.

”i’ll stay here,” she hums, a faint grin tugging at her lips. ”he’s your problem now.”

”got it.” you meet her lidded eyes, sharing an amused look as satoru tries to coax suguru away from you, pulling at his cheek while he whines and clings to the fabric of your clothing.

finally, he relents, and you look back at the table with a grin. ”see you later, sho’.”

a smile is the only response you get, but it’s enough. it’s her, the same as always, still sipping from a glass of expensive whiskey and raising her hand in a silent see you. relaxed and cool, and so very lovely. 

with one arm over satoru’s shoulder and the other clinging to your hoodie, suguru stirs.

”shoko…” he groans, craning his head to look back at her, even as satoru makes a move to leave. ”don’t drink too much. and watch out for strangers…” 

he trails off, blinking drowsily, a protective tone to his voice. worried. awfully like him. neither you nor satoru can resist the chuckle you indulge in, but shoko just rolls her hazel eyes.

”i don’t need to hear that from you,” she scoffs, tinged with amusement and what you’re almost certain is embarrassment. there’s a fondness to her snark, one you’d never miss. 

(shoko will always be shoko. you know that she appreciates suguru’s concern, even if she doesn’t want to show it.)

”alright, c’mon,” satoru quips, slapping suguru’s back with a grin. ”there, there, big guy. let’s get you home, hm?”

just as you suspected, he doesn’t let you help, doing all the heavy lifting on his own. not breaking a single sweat, flaunting his strength as he hoists suguru up the steps — while you do nothing but follow, a light jacket hanging off your arm. 

cold midnight air embraces you, slathering your cheeks with the essence of summer as your shoes meet the asphalt. satoru smiles, a low exhale escaping him, dusting off his hands. ”there we go.”

suguru stumbles towards you, no longer caged in, slumping against your shoulder with a satisfied sigh. blinking slowly, as you link arms, his muddled senses adjusting to the outside world. a pleasantly blue sky, a sun long set, and a string of lamp posts to light up the street ahead of you. artificial fireflies, watching over the town you love so dearly.

you part your lips, and a soft exhale slips out, dripping with fondness. ”thanks, satoru,” you smile, meeting his gaze.

”don’t mention it,” he waves you off, but you know he appreciates it; always eager to be praised. ”can you bring him back by yourself?”

”yeah, we’ll be fine. it’s close, anyway. don’t worry.”

a hum buzzes in his throat, and his cobalt gaze drifts upwards, to bask in the starry sky. a moment passes, and then he’s looking back at you and suguru; a soft and earnest smile playing at his lips. so sincere you want to reach out, cup his cheek, make sure he knows how loved he is.

”i’ll go back to shoko, then,” he chirps. bubbly and graceful, giddy and playful. always so lovely. ”gotta make sure she stays out of trouble.”

a chuckle. you mirror his smile. ”of course.”

and with that, your precious best friend makes a move to return to the bar, taking a decisive step away from you. before he can get too far, though, a certain hand reaches out to hold onto his sleeve — keeping him still.

satoru turns around. blinking once, then twice, in confusion; faced with none other than suguru, still slumped against you. a little out of it, sleepy and disoriented, yawning quietly, but his eyes are as clear as ever. caring and sentimental. 

his gaze cuts to the bone of things. it’s something you’ve grown used to.

”thanks, satoru,” he murmurs, letting go of said man’s shirt. the words that spill from his lips are straightforward, a little tactless, but overflowing with earnest appreciation. ”you’re my best friend.”

a moment passes. the stars burn in silence.

satoru blinks.

then he sighs, with what you know is nothing more than feigned annoyance. masking his embarrassment, the same way shoko did, the same way suguru always does. your repressed, beloved little losers. 

”yeah, yeah. i got it,” he pats suguru’s shoulder, once, twice. not looking at him. ”you’re such a sap, you know that? geez.”

a grin crawls up to rest on your lips, fresh mischief blooming in your eyes. ”not gonna call him your best friend back?” you tease, a soft tilt of your head.

satoru gives you a glare, playful, one you can’t physically see from behind his shades but still somehow sense. ”don’t add fuel to the fire,” he grins, with a halfhearted flick to your forehead.

before you can bicker further, suguru yawns, loudly, closing his eyes and nuzzling into you. you share an amused look with satoru, until he shakes his head fondly.

”take care of him, alright?”

”i will. you guys have fun!”

and at last, satoru turns on his heel, coupled with a smile and a lazy wave. but suguru calls out to him once more, unwilling to part ways without saying his piece. so sentimental, so loving it comes to him like breathing.

”bye-bye, satoru,” he slurs, voice loud enough for the entire street to hear, tired and honest. raising his arm in a lazy wave. ”i love you!”

”go home already!” satoru shouts, descending down the steps with a flush to his cheeks that you’ll tease him for later. his soft laughter is carried away by the breeze, sweet and saccharine.

(satoru will always be satoru. you know that he loves suguru back, even if he doesn’t want to say it out loud.)

with a faint chuckle, melting into the summer air, you tug on suguru’s arm. ”alright,” you chirp, looking up at him. ”let’s go!”

he seems a little more awake now, at least, trying to match your steps. meanwhile, you do what you can to support his weight; he’s stumbling a bit, but you don’t mind. if anything, his weight is a comfort, your arms linked together like a lucky charm. a safe harbour.

suguru is acting kind of like a big puppy, gazing at you with hearts in his eyes. a little meek, clinging to you, trailing after you pliantly. he’s a little dizzy, still, and he needs you to get back home in one piece. it makes you puff out your chest, stand up straighter. makes you feel protective of your 6’2 boyfriend, all toned muscle and broad shoulders, the personification of scary dog privilege. but he needs you right now.

a soft bout of laughter spills into the air, as you try to ignore his heavy stare. it’s impossible, though — so you turn your gaze to meet his own, and he practically glows under the sound of your giggles, that cheeky smile you’re wearing. ”you okay, suguru?”

his eyes soften. silently, he runs a thumb over the knots of your knuckle, smoothing down your skin, thick fingers intertwined with yours. 

he looks deep into your eyes, and a soft hum of affirmation buzzes in his throat. 

”i’m just so happy,” he grins, with a sincerity that has your heart doing flips inside your ribcage. it flutters, flutters, flutters, in the wake of his unbridled joy. it buzzes like it wants to break out.

suguru has this dreamy look on his face, one you can do nothing but admire, painted over with fluorescent moonlight and pure summer bliss. one that reminds you a little of high school rooftops, midnight road trips, what it means to be in love.

you nudge him, softly, with the arm that’s tangled up in his own. tilting your head, teasing words on the tip of your tongue. ”you know, i never took you for a sappy drunk.”

suguru's only response is a cute little mmrn, steps heavy as he leans on you for support. trying his best to carry himself, not wanting to inconvenience you, but it’s just a little tough. especially when he feels this soft, this grateful — this blessed.

a giddy, dreamy smile tugs at his lips. his amber gaze travels up, towards the little pale dots of star clusters all across the night sky, gleaming like milk poured over rich coffee. then he exhales; a soft, blissful little sound. ”i’m so lucky.”

a moment passes, silently. in the distance, cicadas buzz. with a patient smile, you admire him, the reflection of starlight in his eyes. suguru has this forlorn look, etched into his expression, like he’s seeing something that isn’t quite there.

”i have satoru and shoko…” he mumbles, just loud enough for you to hear. as if he’s tasting the words on his tongue, as if he can’t quite believe them himself. that’s how lucky he feels, sometimes.

a nod. ”they love you a bunch, you know?”

(they do. they’re both horrible at saying it out loud, but you know they do. you know that they love suguru, just as much as he loves them, even if none of them are good at putting it into words. perhaps they don’t really even need to, in the first place.)

suguru mirrors the soft nod of your head, bangs falling over his eyes as he does. ”and i love them, too.” his smile grows. ”they’re my best friends.”

absently, you reach a hand out, brushing away the strands of hair obscuring his vision. and suguru stirs, his gaze shifting until it falls on you. like a moth to a flame. there’s something indescribable in his eyes, soft and heavy and tender and true.

”— and i have you.”

a stutter of your heartbeat, a jolt throughout your chest. his stare almost burns, but you can’t avert your gaze — suguru looks positively lovesick. admiring you with a dreamy gaze, as if he can’t believe you’re real. 

he reaches a hand out; cradling your face with one big palm, the rough pads of his fingers smoothing down your skin so very gently. smearing his fondness from your jaw to your cheekbone, so loving your breath hitches in the back of your throat. 

a soft, content sigh spills into the air, like a prayer that doesn’t need any words. his smile is serene.

”my angel.” 

as the words fall, that peaceful smile of his changes shape, shifting into a big, giddy grin. it lights up his whole face. a chuckle leaves his lips, content and delighted. ”i’m the luckiest guy in the world.”

and for a moment, you fear that your heart will stop beating entirely. frozen, listening to the lullaby of your heartbeat resounding in your ears. 

suguru has always been frighteningly good at flustering you — but isn’t this a little unfair? you clear your throat, hoping to regain some composure. it’s tough, though. your words could never measure up to his, could never flow as freely, but they’re honest. wholly and thoroughly. and maybe that’s enough. 

”we’re the luckiest in the world, too, then,” you echo, smiling, words barely above a whisper. willing yourself to meet his gaze. ”since we have you.”

suguru looks into your eyes. there’s starlight inside them, he thinks, shining brightly, gleaming in the dark. with the hazy filter of intoxication clouding his mind, it’s all he can think. you’re his northern star, his lighthouse. his one and only saving grace.

(you’re so, so pretty.)

a pause. after a silent moment, spent etching your features into his retinas, suguru tilts his head. his expression is unreadable.

— he boops your nose.

you blink. once, twice, caught entirely off guard; and suguru giggles. soft, giddy little breaths falling from his lips like marbles, strewn over the sand of a warm beach. his eyes are crinkled at the edges, and his smile is sweet, meeting your surprised gaze with a honeyed coo. ”you’re so cute, baby.”

silence. you look up at him. 

then you sigh, exasperated, more flustered than you’d like to admit. god. okay, he’s really out of it. for some reason, you still thought you could get a good one-liner in, but of course he had to ruin that by being a little tease.

you grab onto his bicep. gaze fixed straight ahead, giving it a tug. your steps are more decisive now, and suguru follows you happily. ”alright, alright. c’mon,” you beckon, slightly gruff. ”we’re almost there.”

when you finally reach the familiar front door of your apartment, you exhale a deep sigh, laced with pure relief. limbs tired from dragging suguru up the stairs, mind muddled and sleepy and senses practically engulfed by a man still clinging to you like his life depends on it.

after fumbling with your keys and hearing the click of the lock, you take a victorious step over the threshold, and a familiar scent greets you. soothing, comforting, a blend between fresh laundry and leftover curry and blooming hydrangeas. filling your senses with a fervent kind of bliss. of course, suguru’s does the same; intimately intertwined with the scent of home. that everlasting, never-changing blend. 

with him clinging to you like this, it’s almost suffocating — but you truly don’t mind. suguru’s warm, and sweet, and being close to him like this makes you feel at peace. his hands rest on your hips, his jaw on your shoulder, and he adamantly refuses to let go of you for even a second. it’d be annoying if he wasn’t so cute, if he wasn’t suguru geto, if you weren’t so horrendously weak for him.

what you don’t know is that suguru has an agenda. one that isn’t just i want to hug the love of my life, although partially that as well. suguru has a plan, one he’s been absentmindedly dreaming of for the past five minutes; he’s a man on a mission.

but he’s patient. always has been, always for you. so he waits, and waits, for you to hang his jacket up, for you to kick your shoes off your feet. and when you’re finally, finally finished, suguru leans in to kiss you.

— you block his mouth with the palm of your hand.

a moment passes. silent, almost tense. in his stupor, suguru’s mind can’t quite seem to comprehend the situation before him; he doesn’t understand why he isn’t pressing a kiss to your lips, right now, why he’s kissing the skin of your palm. he doesn’t understand why you look so troubled, a faint guilt simmering in your eyes. he just doesn’t understand.

all he can do is blink, dumbly, surprised. a question written on his features clear as day. 

”well, it’s just…” you sputter, sheepishly. avoiding his gaze, a little guilty. ”you know. since you’ve been drinking, and all…”

and it hurts, you think. it hurts a lot more than it should. it hurts to reject him, hurts to see the way he deflates at your clarification. like a big kicked puppy. like you just threatened to throw him out into the street.

suguru removes your hand, gently, holding it in his own as he speaks. those amber eyes are downcast, and a soft pout rests on his lips. the sight alone feels like a dagger to your chest.

”but…” he frowns, voice awfully meek. he looks so sad. ”i wanna kiss you…”

a soft sigh leaves your lips, before you can think to hold it in. oh, he’s being so unfair. guilt clings to your mind, an itch you yearn to scratch, and all you want is to kiss his pout away. but you really, really don’t want to kiss his alcohol-soaked lips.

so you settle for the second best option.

”’m sorry, sugu,” you coo, reaching a hand out to cradle his cheek. he leans into your touch, still pouting, and you tug a little at his bottom lip. wasting no time in closing the narrow distance between you.

the kisses you press against his skin are soft. peppering kisses all across his face; ghosting your lips along his jaw, trailing towards his cheekbones, and settling on his forehead. tiny little pecks, wherever you can reach. your voice is soft, muffled into his skin between butterfly kisses. ”tomorrow, okay?” 

and suguru seems to brighten up a little, melting under the contact, exhaling in pure bliss. he fervently returns the treatment, planting open mouthed kisses all over your face, respecting your wishes and avoiding your lips. they’re a little sloppy, but you don’t mind.

it does make you a little flustered, though. with his palms cradling your face, engulfing you, there’s nothing you can do except drown in his affection, the love he showers you with. it tickles — and suguru’s smile only grows, at the sound of your soft giggles. his cheeks are starting to hurt.

the state he’s in is just a little bit hazy. despite his initial dejection, he no longer minds that he can’t feel your lips against his, disappointment warded off by your smile and laughter alone. he thinks you’re so, so cute, and all he wants is to kiss you forever. 

but you have other plans.

and before you know it, you’re both curled up in bed, limbs all tangled up beneath the blankets, bodies pressed together as suguru cages you in. he squeezes you tightly, hugging you close, practically melting into you. usually, it’d be so easy to fall asleep like this. with suguru cradling you, covering your body with his own, warm and safe. he’s like a furnace. 

but right now, it’s a little tough. you’re kept awake by open mouthed, ticklish kisses pressed against your skin, supplied by the love of your life. it’s sweet, but he’s being far too distracting — as soon as your consciousness begins to fade into the fuzzy realm of sleep, he leaves a sloppy kiss against your collarbone, and you’re jolted awake once more. 

”suguuu,” you whine, dragging his name out with childish inclination. ”we need to sleep…”  

”sorry,” he only murmurs, muffled into your skin. he doesn’t stop, though, planting a wet smooch on your cheek, and then another. you squirm a little in his hold, and he emits a shaky breath. ”jus’ love you so much…”

suguru knows that he needs to stop. he knows that both of you need to sleep, that you need to rest up. that he needs to recover from the intoxicated state he’s fully aware that he’s in — but he just can’t seem to follow through with it. every cell in his body burns with a certain desire, a need to shower you in love, and it’s unendurable. with every kiss, every giggle he manages to pull from your lips, suguru’s heart fills up just a little more. 

your presence surrounds him, like a weighted blanket, and he clings to it with a desperation he never knew before you. 

in the midst of his feverish consciousness, you’re all his muddled mind can think about. the way you fit together with him like a puzzle piece, like he was formed in the shape of someone meant to hold you. like you were formed in the shape of his embrace. with you pressed up against him, limbs tangled with his, everything feels so right.

but it’s so overwhelming. 

you’re so, so close, so close he’s practically engulfed by your scent, your touch, everything that makes his heart burn with devotion. it’s beating so viscerally in his ribcage, stirring the protective instinct inside him; he just wants you to stay close, by his side, wants to keep you safe and happy. wants to make you feel loved. 

suguru’s heart feels wet and raw and bare, fully exposed for you to see. beating just for you.

with the alcohol inside his veins, and the nostalgia of the summer evening on his mind, everything weighs on him just a little too heavily. everything feels just a little too much. every sensation, every emotion, every sappy thought. all of it together is almost too much for him to handle.

all he can think of is you. how lucky he is, to have met you, to have gotten to know you. how much you’ve changed him, changed him for the better, how much of him is directly tied to your existence.

suguru never truly appreciated his name until you came into his life. it was always no more than a simple fact, a gift from his parents that he hadn’t asked for. something natural, that he didn’t question, didn’t think about. 

but you say his name with such warmth.

he wants to hear you say it, over and over again, forever. suguru — in that sweet, lovely voice of yours. better yet, just sugu, a cutesy, silly nickname he could never bring himself to actually hate. he just wants to hear you call out to him, with that warmth of yours, the one that never fails to soothe him. no matter how tired he is, how stressed. how much everything else weighs down on him. 

at the end of the day, he’s simply your sugu. and that’s all he ever really wants to be.

with a hazy filter clouding his senses, coaxing him into closing his eyes, suguru should give in. he should fall asleep, let you fall asleep. but he can’t bring himself to stop thinking about it; he just loves you so wholly. who you are, what you do. as an equal, an individual, a little galaxy tucked into a body made of flesh and blood. no matter what you’re doing, no matter where you are. 

and right now, you’re here, with him. curled up in bed, in your shared apartment, inhaling the same air, exhaling at the same time. by his side, when you could be anywhere else in the world.

his heart is yours. that’s all suguru can bring himself to think, the only coherent thought he can cling to and echo in his head. his heart is yours. forever and ever. 

he makes no attempt to stop the tears from pooling in his eyes, even as he feels them cling to his lashes, even as his breathing clogs up in the back of his throat. they’re proof of his devotion, his carefully nurtured love. growing over the years, into something almost sacred, a kind of faith. something so fervent he wouldn’t dare deny himself of feeling it.

he can’t hold in a faint sniffle, either, just barely audible. one that breaks your heart in two. it aches, aches, aches. suguru is gazing at you with glassy eyes, a sight you aren’t used to seeing — but he also looks so genuinely glad. his tears aren’t ones of sadness. you know, because you know him. 

”aw, honey…” you coo, the pads of your fingers reaching out to cradle his cheek. despite your efforts, your voice wavers when you speak, little more than a whisper. ”don’t cry... you’ll make me cry, too.”

suguru places his larger palm over yours, choking on another sniffle. the sight renders you completely helpless — you want so desperately to stop his tears from falling, but a part of you is too touched to speak. too mesmerized by how beautiful he is, translucent tears illuminated by softly flickering moonrays, lashes glimmering like shooting stars.

all you can do is smooth a thumb right under his eye, wiping away a stray tear with enough tenderness to stitch his heart back together. suguru emits a shaky breath.

”’m sorry,” he sniffles, closing his eyes. nuzzling into the crook of your neck. ”i’m just so happy… love you so much… you mean so, so much to me, i…”

an exhale, a little breathless, tears soaking through the material of the shirt you’re wearing. his shirt. that realization makes him cry even more, a shuddering breath that shatters like glass when it drops from his tongue. 

and then, in a voice so quiet you barely hear it, a soft whisper worth a million words:

”i don’t know what i’d do without you.”

and it hurts. your heart aches so sincerely, thorns curling around your ribcage, because suguru is crying, and he’s telling you all this. with such an honest intonation that you don’t dare doubt him, even for a second. heavy thumps of blood rush through your veins; he’s still clinging to you, sniffling into your neck, and you’re so in love with him that you almost can’t comprehend it.

all you can do is press a kiss to his shoulder, chaste and tender, and hug him just a little tighter. echoing his words, in earnest, desperately trying to keep your voice from breaking apart. ”i love you, too. more than anything.” a sigh, full of wonder. little butterfly kisses scattered across the expanse of his neck. ”you mean the world to me. honestly.”

with a smile against his skin, you hope so tenderly that the soft kisses will comfort him, will stop the tears from falling. 

”my sweet boy,” you murmur, lovingly, because he is. the sweetest boy you’ll ever know. suguru shudders when you press your lips against his jaw. ”i’m so, so lucky.”

with the combined efforts of your kisses, the alcohol slumbering inside his veins, and the tears running down his cheeks, suguru begins to feel awfully tired. sinking into sleep’s embrace, like a sailor lost at sea. comforted by the glimmer of a lighthouse, just out of reach.

everything feels right. he’s safe, and happy, and in love. so hopelessly, blissfully in love.

the exhaustion creeps up on him, tidal waves embracing a shore, beckoning him into closing his weary eyes. a yawn leaves his lips, and he shifts a little in your hold. you’re smoothing down the back of his head, almost protectively, and sleep is only a flicker away for the both of you. with the last of his strength, suguru snuggles just a little further into you, nose pressed up against your neck, close enough that he feels the flutter of your heartbeat. 

”wanna be with you forever,” he murmurs, sleepily, stifling another bout of yawns. his smile is sweet and dreamy. ”gonna marry you one day…”

a moment passes.

for a second, you think your heart does actually cease beating entirely.

swallowing a gulp, you allow yourself the luxury of an inhale — and fresh air fills your lungs. grounding. all you can hear is the rapid beating of your own heart, heavy thumps reverberating in your ears. warmth flows through your entire body.

marry.

the word is spoken so casually, so sincerely, as if he’s said it countless times before. as if he’s repeated it, over and over again in his mind, just to get used to the idea. as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. marriage. something so foreign, so scary, enough to send shivers down every narrow of your skeleton. such a large step to take. 

(but suguru says it with such tenderness.)

”… okay,” you whisper, at last. breathless. ”i’ll be waiting, then.”

there’s nothing else to say. you don’t know if suguru is even conscious enough to hear you, let alone understand the full weight of your words, of his own words. but you don’t mind. 

a soft smile lingers on your lips, as you stroke his hair, mind hazy and limbs heavy. nuzzling your cheek against the side of his head, full of affection. dripping from your hands down to the column on his throat, through his windpipe, down to his heart.

”goodnight, sugu.” you press a kiss to his messy hair, tender and chaste. ”i love you.”

an incoherent mutter leaves his lips, in response, one you can’t quite make out — but you don’t need to. because you already know what it means, in the same way you know that the sky is blue.

(an echo buried deep within his subconscious, voiced without effort, as easy as breathing.

i love you, too.)

the sizzling of a pan and the whirring of a coffee machine form a beautiful morning symphony, bouncing off the walls of your kitchen. to your ears, and your still sleepy brain, it’s a soothing sound — coaxing soft little melodic hums from the depths of your throat.

with such a tantalizing aroma in the air, a blend between espresso and pancake batter, you can’t help but buzz with a mellow, groggy kind of joy.

honestly, you're beginning to understand suguru’s fondness for the morning hours. waking up to his soft snores and content expression was more than enough to give you the energy you needed to get out of bed; all sleepy and relaxed and pretty, with hazy morning sunrays kissing up his bare skin, caressing his messy bedhead. 

a rare sight, awfully precious. a part of you wanted to stay in bed and admire him all morning, but the thought of taking care of him coaxed you into leaving. it’s the least you could do, really — after seeing him so sincere, so open and vulnerable. 

hopefully, his headache won’t be too brutal when he wakes up. you left some hangover pills on the nightstand, courtesy of shoko’s advice: just get him ibuprofen and coffee. works like a charm. are you a little worried about her nonchalance? maybe. but you trust her judgement. they’re a handful, but you love them — even when they’re drunk or hungover. 

which is why you’re standing in the kitchen, engulfed by the morning sunlight, in front of a sizzling pan. trying your very best not to burn the pancakes you’re making, patiently waiting for the coffee to be done. 

in your blissful stupor, caught up with thoughts of suguru and breakfast and forevers, you don’t notice another presence coming up behind you.

two arms wrap around your waist, and a jaw attaches itself to the curve of your shoulder. you startle, a little, jolting at the contact — but then you recognize that telltale scent, the familiar weight of his arms, and immediately melt into the embrace.

suguru breathes out a raspy chuckle, amused at your surprise. 

a sigh slips from your lips, content. ”good morning,” you hum, placing the palm of your hand on his forearm. suguru shifts a little, getting more comfortable as he leans against you. tenderly, not too much weight. he’s delicate like that.

”g’morning,” he rasps, leftover sleep clinging to the syllables. the usual smoothness of his voice is coupled with a deep, rough kind of tilt, one that always accompanies it in the morning. your heartbeat picks up, silently.

suguru smiles. dreamy, giddy, because you just looked so pretty, in the morning light, hair still a tad messy. humming happily, swaying slightly side to side. so irresistible. he’s beginning to understand why you love sleeping in so much; getting to wrap his arms around you like this, instead of the other way around, doesn’t feel bad at all.

he squeezes you just a little tighter, hoping it’ll convey his gratitude. there are holes in his memory, last night no more than a blurry sequence of still images, but some bits and pieces remain intact. he remembers getting drunk in a way he hasn’t since he made that bet with satoru back in high school — and he remembers that you were there to take care of him.

a smile tugs at his lips. a little giddy, butterflies erupting in his chest. he’s so damn lucky.

”thanks for taking care of me yesterday, sweetheart.”

a hum. you smile, sheepishly, patting his arm. ”don’t need to thank me for that. how do you feel?”

suguru smiles. you feel it, against your skin, a chaste kiss on your neck. ”better.”

the low purring of the coffee machine has stopped, but the sizzling of the pan remains. from beyond the opened windows, you can hear the chirping of cicadas, melodic and serene. singing a summery tune. both of you soak in the preciousness of the moment, the fragile silence, before suguru breaks it.

”everything from last night is kinda fuzzy,” he admits, clearing his throat. just a tad sheepish. you simply hum, a low noise of acknowledgement, and he continues. ”i don’t really remember anything… ’m sorry, baby. i hope i didn’t make you uncomfortable.”

your lips curl up into a tiny smile. such a sweetheart — always worrying about you. always so caring and attentive. eager to reassure him, you smooth over the skin of his arm with your thumb. ”not at all.”

then you’re taking a couple steps back, moving from the stove, and suguru follows. you turn yourself around to meet his gaze, his arms still attached to your waist, a comforting weight.

a grin blooms on your lips, a little teasing, and a flicker of mischief shines in your eyes. ”you were cute, you know.”

suguru blinks, before emitting a low chuckle. a raspy little thing. ”was i?” he drawls, as you brush his bangs away from his face. 

”mhm,” you chirp, eyes crinkled as they meet his own. you just can’t help but want to tease him, a little bit. just a smidge. ”kept going on and on about how much you love us.”

hands moving to cup his face, you squeeze his cheeks softly. and suguru lets you, too tired to resist, only giving you a lazy raise of his brow. there’s a sense of amusement in his eyes, and something in you knows he likes the attention. your teasing words buzz with endearment, akin to a purr. ”my sweet lil’ sugu.”

all he does is lean into your touch, allowing himself to melt into the tenderness of the physical contact. even as you pull at his cheek, earning you a very gentle pinch to your side. but he lets you have your fun. you’re warm, and sweet, and he’s so in love with you he’d probably let you tug his body around however you please.

still, your words leave him just slightly perplexed. he’s still smiling with half-lidded eyes when he asks you to elaborate, basking in the feeling of your thumb smoothing over his cheekbone. ”us?”

your grin widens, by a tad, something deeply amused glimmering in the depths of your iris. ”yep,” you answer, popping the p. for some reason, suguru dreads the teasing edge to your voice. ”me, and shoko, and satoru.”

a moment passes. he stiffens, for a second or two, mind processing the words. then he groans, softly, squeezing his eyes shut.

it makes you laugh, soft and amused, and he can’t help but smile along. despite the dreadful realization you present him with. no wonder he was met with so many notifications when he tapped at the screen of his phone — he didn’t read through any of them, but now he’s apprehensive to do so at all. shoko and satoru can be so goddamn obnoxious when they feel as if they have blackmail on him.

he can see it now, in his mind’s eye; shoko nagging him to run her errands, satoru reminding him of his words every time they have a slight disagreement. 

(grab me a coffee. three shots of espresso, one cube of sugar. got it?)

slacker.

(we both know i’m right. don’t be so stubborn, suguru! it’s okay to be wrong sometimes.)

asshole.

(c’mon. you said you loved me, right?

so mean. and here i thought you loved me!)

idiots.

(he does love them. more than anything. even when they’re being absolutely insufferable.)

suguru just sighs, deep and fatigued, already anticipating his doom. ”they’re never gonna let me live it down, are they?”

a giggle slips from your lips, and his heart flutters helplessly. ”probably not. my condolences.”

another sigh. it only makes your smile widen. there’s something awfully delighted, in your eyes, as you cradle his face in your hands. ”well, i thought you were very sweet!”

”yeah, yeah…” he mutters, vaguely amused. placing one of his large palms over your hand, where it rests on his cheek. ”i won’t be doing that again anytime soon.”

a chuckles bubbles up from within your throat. ”aww,” you pout, giving way to a teasing grin. ”that’s a shame. i wanted to hear you talk about how much you love me again.”

suguru blinks. 

then he smiles. a very particular smile, characteristic, one you’ve come to associate solely with him. resting somewhere in the intersection between a soft grin and a teasing smirk. a flicker of mischief shines in his eyes, and you realize your mistake.

you can tease suguru all you want; but he'll always turn the tables on you, at the end of the day.

”oh?” he chuckles, fondly, thumb smoothing over the lines of your hand. his eyes gleam, looking straight into yours, shining with something mildly devilish. ”i don’t need to get drunk to tell you that, baby.”

in a smooth motion, one you can’t help but silently envy, suguru intertwines his fingers with yours and brings your hand to his lips. he never once breaks eye contact, gaze heavy as he basks in your flustered expression, planting a soft kiss against your knuckle. reverent.

”i love you. more than anything,” he purrs, lips still lingering on your skin. warm enough to burn. ”you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

a pause. heat crawls up your spine, and a flush rises to your cheeks. you couldn’t stop it if you tried.

”my everything,” he continues, intent on flustering you as much as humanly possible. voice low and smooth, honeyed and deep, and worst of all; terribly earnest. lips trailing over your knuckles, against every knot, so soft that you barely feel it. ”my entire world.”

”okay, okay!” you sputter, an embarrassed hue to your cheeks, your gaze landing on the windowpane to your right. his stare is just too heavy, too deeply in love. overwhelming. ”point taken. nevermind.”

suguru laughs, genuine and full. warm and amused, deep and real, and you catch yourself thinking that you don’t want to go a single day without hearing it. even if it’s at your own expense.

a coo rests on his the tip of his tongue, but he bites it back, opting to lean forward instead. he trails the pads of his fingers along your jaw, touch like a butterfly, lifting your chin up ever so slightly. then he closes the distance between you. 

in your throat, your breath hitches.

— but he doesn’t kiss you. suguru stops right in front of your lips, so close you can feel his breath on your skin, taking a moment to simply look into your eyes. and despite how flustered the close proximity makes you, you can’t bring yourself to look away. heart fluttering madly, a string of staccatos against your parted ribs.

a tilt of his head. amber eyes gleaming, crinkled and fond. ”can i kiss you, now?” he asks, grinning softly. hand smoothing down your hip, big and warm, teasing. ”i made sure to brush away all the alcohol. or do you still not want to?”

you pause. 

”hey, what happened to not remembering anything?” you pout, narrowing your eyes. the corner of suguru’s bottom lip twitches upwards.

but he only shrugs, feigning nonchalance, a playful glint in his eyes. ”guess i was just that disappointed.”

a giggle flows from your lips. he drinks it in, gazing at you with pure contentment.

”alright, alright... c’mere,” you coo, smile honeyed and sweet. tracing your fingertips along his jaw, brushing a silky strand of hair behind his ear. you take in the sight of him, meeting his lovesick gaze. he squeezes at your hips softly, a little impatient — so you finally lean in.

suguru’s lips are warm, when they meet yours. they taste like sunlight, devoid of any alcoholic flavour, just like he so kindly assured you of. and it’s a little amusing, the thought of him in front of the bathroom sink — desperately scrubbing his teeth, just to get his kissing privileges back. such a dork. 

he’s your dork, though.

suguru sighs into the kiss, smiling giddily, satisfied at last. a sound you can’t help but mirror. he deepens it, ever so slightly, fingers squeezing gently at the plush of your waist. a hum of approval buzzes in your throat, and his smile only grows.

when he pulls away, that smile is all you can see, along with the ever so slight flush to his cheeks. a hint of peach dusting his skin, framed by the sunrays caressing his jaw, highlighting his handsome features. breathtaking. 

before you have a chance to protest, he’s leaning in again, to press one more chaste kiss to your lips. your heartbeat picks up.

everything finally feels just right.

the warmth of the sizzling pan, the fragrance of freshly made coffee and now-burnt pancakes. the light of the morning sun, scattered across the open space of your apartment, splotches of life painting everything in a heavenly glow. the love in the air, all soft and light and comfortable.

domestic bliss. with suguru, who never seems to change, no matter how many years go by. if you could live in this moment for the rest of your life, forever and ever, you’re sure you’d die happy.

and wow, is that a heavy word. forever. 

(but suguru makes it feel so very, very light.)

forever feels a lot more real, like this. cradled in the midst of a drowsy morning, bumping elbows with the man you love most, after getting to take care of him in his most vulnerable state. accepting every part of him, and having him accept you just as fervently. 

just this moment alone is worth far more than you could ever comprehend. 

suguru, with his warm hands, his familiar embrace. your shared laughter, bouncing off the walls of the kitchen as you try in vain to save your scorched pancakes. and his smile, his fervent devotion, coaxing him into eating them even though they’re burnt at the edges and don’t taste even a quarter as good as his. because you made them, for him, and that makes them taste sweeter than anything.

you stare at him, from across the table, admiring the sight you’ve grown so used to; suguru, with his slightly tousled hair, mug in hand and smile painted on his handsome face. drowned in sunlight, pink petals flitting in through the opened window. you don’t want a single day to ever pass without you seeing this. what does that mean, exactly? you think you know. 

it means forever.

(forever, forever, forever. what a pretty word.)

marriage. you think of it, again, let it linger in the depths of your skull, bounce around until you grow just a little more used to it. and it’s a scary thought, for sure. a terrifying thought, even, something so foreign that it makes you nervous. but you truly wouldn’t mind doing this forever — not one bit. not if it’s with him.

and, unbeknownst to you, maybe that promise of forever isn’t all that far off.

maybe it’s only a couple rooms away, hidden within the depths of a certain drawer, until suguru finally gets the courage to bring it out. and maybe, just maybe — that day isn’t all that far off, either.

(suguru smiles at you, from across the table. he thinks you look ethereal, sipping from your morning coffee, blinking tiredly. so sweet and angelic.

all he can think of is forever.)

[blindmagdalena]

Guilty Pleasures

18+ 3.3k homelander x plus size f!reader. workplace harassment, stalking, voyeurism, masturbation, lite humiliation kink, sublander flavored. nebulously takes place post s1. part 1/4. AO3 link. | Chapter Directory

Homelander is on top of the world. He can say or do whatever the fuck he wants, and the sycophants around him will bend over backwards to make his word law, with few notable exceptions.

He never expected you to be one of them. When you put him in his place after a workplace incident, he becomes fixated on the promise of a firm hand alongside a soft body.

It’s Thursday, which means Homelander is currently bored to tears less than ten minutes into Vought’s weekly digital marketing meeting. These monotonous discussions of percentages and trending graphics gradually begin to feel like a drill pushing slowly into each of his ears, but they’re a necessary evil if he wants to have input when it comes to his image.

He taps his fingers impatiently on the armrest of his chair. The tapping pauses, however, at the appearance of a new presenter.

You.

You’re a far cry from the dime a dozen jackass in a suit that had been presenting before you. He’s sure he hasn’t seen you before, which means you’re new. His gaze drifts from your round face to the sensible cut of your blouse, the garment buttoned nearly to your throat. Anything less would be considered lewd given the size of your breasts. He wets his lips absently, adjusting himself to sit a little straighter.

He’s completely lost track of what you’re talking about in favor of watching the way your hips sway each time you walk from one end of the board to the other, tactfully engaging each observer. You have a resonant voice, commanding attention without sounding harsh. With a rack like that, you must have to fight to have a word you say heard by anyone with even a passing interest in a good pair of tits.

Not that the cheap fabric of your bra is doing them any favors. Silk would be better. He’s always liked the shine of it. Softer, too. It wouldn’t scrape against your shirt the way he can hear that cotton blend you’re wearing is doing. 

Curious, he focuses his vision to peer through your blouse. Your undergarments are plain and sensible. Boring. Still, it elicits a distinct pang between his legs. His mouth waters slightly. Even from where he is, he can smell you, fresh and clean, slightly sweet smelling–like vanilla. Your clothes may be pedestrian but at least your perfume is nice.

Letting his gaze slide lower, he admires how the curves of your body flow into one another. He can tell just by looking at you how soft you would feel against him, under him. How good you would feel to grip and hold in place, sink into and lose himself in. Your voice has a soothing quality to it that lets him easily imagine you’re breathlessly singing his praises instead of rattling off bullet points in a presentation.

Fuck, he’s getting hard, his cock throbbing lightly against the cup of his suit. It’s the only thing that allows him to fantasize as freely as he does. The best part of it is that he’s fairly certain he can sense something warm and wet throbbing between your thick thighs.

He suspects he’s not the only one fantasizing.

The room is quiet for a second too long, and Homelander abruptly tunes back in to realize you’re staring directly at him, expectancy in your gaze. He pulls a blank, realizing he hasn’t processed anything you’ve said. “Say again?”

There’s a flicker of irritation in your eyes before you tightly school your expression back into polite professionalism. His lips slowly split into a devious smile that he consciously fine-tunes to be more neutral. How close you came to some sort of heated response was kind of… cute. It makes him want to give your proverbial pigtails another tug just to see what else he can evoke.

The thought of pulling your hair is good. The thought of you pulling his hair is better, though.

“I asked if you have any feedback for our campaign leading up to the premiere,” you say, though Homelander finds himself more interested in the flash of your tongue he gets as you run it along your teeth afterwards. Your temperature is up a notch, too. You must not be used to such direct attention from someone like him.

“Nope,” he says glibly, turning on one of his patented knock-out smiles. “Looks good to me.” At that, he pointedly looks you up and down, meeting your gaze with a quick wink. 

Judging by the slight tic at the corner of your mouth, you aren’t charmed by his response. Still, he waits in preemptive satisfaction for you to appease him by returning his smile.

You don’t.

Instead, you say nothing more than a terse “Wonderful,” the singular word barely passing for civil, let alone professional. You move on, and Homelander finds himself taken aback. You don’t meet his eye for the remainder of the presentation, and while that gives him plenty of opportunity to ogle you, it bothers him.

Towards the end of your time, he clears his throat. Everyone looks at him.

Everyone but you.

“Thanks so much for your time,” you say to the committee, smiling, finishing your piece with a small incline of your head. You go sit, and there’s a slightly awkward pause before the next presenter takes center stage.

Homelander sits in stunned silence. The idea that you, some fresh faced nobody, think you’re in any position to blow him off is laughable at best. Who cares if he didn’t pay attention to your little presentation? That’s not his job. You’re lucky he’s even here, lucky that someone like him would think to give you time out of his day.

By the time the meeting concludes, you haven’t spared him so much as a glance. Indignation builds hotly in his chest. He’s had more than enough of being snubbed lately. He’s not going to tolerate it from the likes of you.

You should be on your hands and knees begging for his attention.

He watches a handful of your peers congratulate you on your first presentation, though plenty of others cast him wary glances and decide not to approach you. They know better. They know who’s really in charge around here. Naturally, they all skitter away like roaches when he strides towards you.

“Not bad for your first presentation,” he tells you, his smile toned down into a thin, lopsided smirk.

You look around yourself, no doubt taking note of how the other little insects around you have scattered. Maybe now you’ll realize your mistake.

“Thank you, sir,” you say, your body angled slightly away from him, as if you’re ready to bolt at any second.

“Got a lot on my mind, though, so I don’t think I absorbed as much as I could have,” he says, laying on that boyish charm a little thicker than usual. “Would really appreciate it if you could stick around and run that by me one more time.”

Your gaze flickers away from him–he wishes you would stop doing that–to the others who’re filtering out of the room, slowly leaving the two of you behind. “As I said during the presentation, all the documents will be available online,” you say, finally looking back at him. You actually have the audacity to look annoyed that he’s talking to you.

“I don’t have a computer,” he replies, his own voice beginning to flatten.

“I’m sure someone in IT can help you with that,” you say, undeterred by his attempts to corner you. 

His smile tightens minutely. “Do you have some kind of problem with me?”

Your heart jumps. He finds satisfaction in that, at least.

“No, sir,” you say sharply, a barely discernible hitch in your voice. “What I have are deadlines. If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to meet them.” With that, you manage to squeeze by him. Despite the steady confident tap of your shoes against the floor, your heart races rabbit-like in his ears.

He contemplates you as you go, momentarily stupefied by your flagrant disregard for him. You weren’t entirely unaffected by his presence, though. If you’d had less of an avenue for escape, would you have been so flippant? He continues to focus on the beat of your heart as your steps carry you further from him. It doesn’t slow. You’re still full of adrenaline, the scent of it lingering alongside your perfume. He inhales a slow, deep breath, the leather of his gloves creaking as he curls and uncurls his fist.

Homelander finds himself wondering what your agenda is, what makes you so desperate to break from the norm and catch his attention. It’s clear to him that’s what you want. Why else would you be so stubborn where anyone else would yield? He scoffs to himself. 

God, it’s so obvious in hindsight.

He has no doubt that your brazen attitude would shatter if he pressed in closer, if you felt the heat of his breath on your lips. He could part your soft thighs and paint the face of God on the ceiling above you with his tongue inside you. You couldn’t dismiss him so easily then, could you?

You’re so determined to be noticed that it’s almost pathetic. He shouldn’t reward this kind of behavior, and yet he feels strangely inclined to commend it. What you’ve done is brave in a way. Insolence and sycophants he can’t abide, but a touch of bravery? Well… That can be rewarded.

Your heart thunders in your ears as you make a beeline for your office. You can feel a terrible burn crawling up your chest and into your cheeks, the reality of what just happened finally allowed to sink in. You had spent all morning preparing yourself for presenting your work in front of not only your new peers at Vought, but in front of the world’s most prolific superhero. You were solid, you were ready.

Until you felt the gravity of his gaze on you. The weight of it made you stutter where you shouldn’t have, lose your train of thought mid-sentence. Every time you dared to look at him, he was looking at you like he was going to swallow you whole. Never have you felt more acutely aware of yourself than you did beneath his stare, feeling the way he was picking you apart as keenly as you would feel his hands undressing you.

It left you as furious as you are flustered.

That arrogant bastard!

You close the door behind you with a rough breath, closing your eyes. You can’t even sit, you have to pace your office instead, shaking your hands out as you walk. You know you weren’t imagining it. He confirmed as much for you when it took a solid eight seconds of silence for him to tear his gaze up from your chest, smiling as wickedly as any devil and caught elbow-deep in the cookie jar.

You couldn’t look him in the eye after that. It was humiliating to be reduced so thoroughly and obviously in front of your peers. Worst of all, he seemed damn pleased by it. 

Though that isn’t the only reason your heart is still racing. You’re not quite ready to address that yet. You’re fairly certain if you’d been forced to speak to him any more than you had, you would have said something that would cause you to lose your job. You just need space to breathe, to collect yourself, to–

There’s a brisk knock at your door. Great. What now?

“Just a m–” You’re stopped dead in your tracks by a familiar flash of red, white and blue as Homelander lets himself into your office, closing the door securely behind him. 

“Howdy,” he greets. He looks cartoonishly wide and brightly colored against the neutral colors of your office, even more larger than life than he’d seemed in the conference room. He has a smile that looks like it belongs in the mouth of a shark about to take a bite of you. It sets you off kilter completely–not that you’d been much on it to begin with.

You gawk a moment before managing to close your mouth. “Homelander,” you say, your voice curt in your own ears. You have no idea how to address him, still frazzled from not only the presentation, but your interaction that followed it. You should ask him what he needs. 

“What’re you doing here?” That came out ruder than you meant it to. Not that he doesn’t deserve it. Still, you’re trying to keep this job.

“Are you always this pleasant?” He asks, cocking his head slightly as he comes to a stop in front of you, his arms held behind his back beneath his swaying cape. “Or did I catch you on a bad day?”

Is he serious?

“Your conduct today was inappropriate,” you say flatly, settling your hands on your hips.

Homelander scoffs lightly. “Oh, relax. You gonna ‘#Metoo’ me over a wink? Christ, you’re done up tighter than that blouse of yours,” he says, his gaze dipping. A chill rolls up your spine as you watch his tongue roll along his teeth. He’s like an animal anticipating a meal.

Your jaw drops, cold shock settling in your gut alongside that blistering heat. Of all the things you had prepared yourself for before coming to Vought, Homelander being a misogynistic sex-pest hadn’t been on your list.

Well. Not the sex-pest part, anyways.

You point to your office door. “Get out.”

He blinks, zero comprehension in those deceptively charming baby blues. His smile turns incredulous. “I’m starting to think you don’t understand what’s happening here,” he says, his tone taking on a precarious edge. He lets out a breathy, mirthless laugh. “You know, most people in your position would be begging for my attention.”

There it is.

You suck a noise through your teeth, nodding slowly. "Oh, I understand exactly what’s happening here,” you say, shifting your weight like you’re winding up for a pitch. “I know you think you're special because you're famous, or a supe, or both. I know you think I should be grateful that you’d even look at someone like me, but you’re not special, and I’m not grateful. The reality of the matter is I can get dick whenever I want it–good dick–and I can get it without being humiliated at my job.”

The silence in the room is deafening. Homelander looks stupefied, but you decide that you’re not done.

“You're not blessing me by making entitled passes and crude remarks while I'm trying to work. You’re being a nuisance,” you say, your heart beating in your throat. “So please, would you kindly leave?” You ask, voice firm despite the friendlier nature of your phrasing.

Finally, Homelander is the one left gawking. He looks like a fish with the way his mouth keeps opening and closing, but it’s the dismissive, aborted little scoffs he makes in between that really sell his wounded bewilderment. You can see tension lurking just beneath the surface, an anger that skulks in the creak of his leather gloves.

Fear begins to creep up the back of your throat, burning like bile, but you hold steady as he seems to be deciding what he’s going to do with you. The longer the quiet stretches on, your focus entirely on the subtle spasms in his expression, the more sweat begins to prickle at the back of your neck. You refuse to fill the space, you refuse to back down.

For all his power, he’s still just a man.

Eventually, he swallows. “Okie-dokie,” he says, his tone unlike anything you expected. He sounds confused–a little dazed, even. He walks to the door, and after one hesitant look back at you, he leaves.

The door closes with a soft click that still makes you flinch, the sound of it loud in the silence of the room. You blink several times, the abruptness of his departure making the whole encounter feel like some sort of fever dream. 

What the fuck just happened?

You’re not special.

The impact of those words struck Homelander’s ears like a loud, painful ringing that follows him as he walks out of your office. He feels off balance, each step leaning slightly to the right.

It’s a ludicrous statement. Objectively wrong. Who in the fucking world could be more special than him? He’s a literal god, and you’re no one. A faceless, nameless cog in Vought’s mechanism that hoists him to the top of it all. That’s your job. To elevate him. Worship him.

Instead you spoke to him as if he were nothing. He could have cut you down where you stood for that. He could have put your head through your office window, snapped your neck, held your skull and burned your eyes out of–

He shakes his head sharply, swaying. He all but stumbles into the bathroom, surprising one of the worker drones washing their hands. “Get out,” Homelander says gruffly.

“Uh, sir–”

“Get the fuck out!” He snaps, startling the man so badly he immediately rushes off, fumbling with the door on his way out. Homelander slams it shut and lets out a ragged breath, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes, then his temples as he paces the bathroom. His reflection taunts him from his peripheral vision.

He hasn’t been able to look himself in the eye since he snapped his Doppelganger’s neck while he knelt before him.

That’s what he wants from you, isn’t it? Mindless desperate praise and worship. Why, then, does the thought od it make his stomach churn so violently he can taste the burn of bile? He tugs compulsively at his suit collar, the press of it against his skin uncharacteristically hot and itchy.

“I can get dick whenever I want it–good dick.”

He shamefully palms himself through his suit, confusingly hard amidst a swirling turbulence of contradicting thoughts and feelings. He could be good for you, too, if you’d fucking let him. He knows he could make you crumble, take apart that carefully constructed demeanor of professionalism and make you see him for what he is. He can prove himself to you. He will prove that you’re wrong about him, and then you’ll show him the love respect he deserves.

Hurriedly, he unzips his pants. His eyelashes flutter as he shoves his hand into them, roughly grabbing hold of his cock. He braces his forearm against the bathroom door and lets his head drop forward, watching his crimson glove pump the leaking head of his dick. His mind bounces between scenarios. He imagines himself in your place, fully on display for you to ogle. He imagines you’re watching him even now, staring him down with that unaffected look of indifference, of irritation, of disgust.

He bites back a whine, gritting his teeth. He wants so badly to imagine his face buried in your soft tits while he fucks the plush space between your thighs, but he knows you won’t let him. Not right away. You’d make him earn it, wouldn’t you? You’d make him watch you please yourself before he ever got so much as a taste.

The glassiness in his eyes begins to sizzle, the moisture burning away as crimson light flares up in them. Would you laugh if you could see him now, or would you scold him for touching himself without your permission?

Homelander comes hard, tipping his head back with a loud moan as he paints the bathroom door with ribbon after ribbon of come. He barely manages not to blow a hole through the ceiling, the light of his eyes flaring and softening in time with each euphoric wave of release. He pants through it, head falling forward and thunking lightly against the door, resting there while he catches his breath.

“Fuck,” he exhales eventually, sighing. He wipes his hand on the wall and then carefully tucks himself back into his pants, his mind swirling hazily on the best high he’s had since…

Clearing his throat, he puts himself back together before leaving the bathroom. Clearly, the thing that he’s been missing is a challenge. 

Luckily for him, you’ve kindly volunteered yourself.

( chapter two )

[ceilidho]

prompt: ex special forces ghost working as a “travel companion for hire” and reader hires him because she’s too nervous to go solo travelling

-

It’s not the first time you’ve been somewhere on your own, but it’s the first time you’ve realized that maybe solo trips aren’t for you. 

It’s in Germany, three drinks in and stumbling back to your hotel room, paranoia gripping you every time you pass a dark alleyway or take a right onto a deserted street. It’s the man walking your way on the same side of the street that has you stuffing your hand into your purse, clammy fingers gripped tight around your keys. 

On the flight home, you’re wiped. Beat. Finally untethered from a week’s worth of anxiety slowly reaching a boiling point. You’ve traveled on your own before, but it’s the first time you can remember being acutely aware of your vulnerability. Granted, before this trip, it’s not like you’d traveled all that much on your own, especially outside of the country. 

Ghost comes as a recommendation from a friend of a friend. You’d hemmed and hawed about the whole ordeal the Monday after getting home from your trip—working the front desk at an auto-body shop means that there’s no shortage of people to talk to. The guy picking up his car (fender bender, a wicked crack down the front that’s since been fixed) listens to you gripe with an absent look on his face, but you’ve learned to tune those out. People will listen to you even in spite of their indifference when there’s nothing else to do. 

“Y’know, I know a guy that does stuff like that,” he says, cutting you off halfway through another half-baked rant about airline fares these days. Your mouth puckers into something quizzical. Tell me more, it says without saying. “Ex-special forces. Left because of some medical thing, I think. Dunno. Anyway, he’s been all over the world—built like a brick shithouse, that one—and last I heard he was, uh, renting out his services.”

“Services?” 

“Like, he’d go with you, hang back while you do your thing, but basically the muscle. There to back you up if someone fucks with you.”

You’re just fresh enough off your vacation (an entirely miserable week, lest you explain the whole thing all over again) to give him your number. He promises to put you in touch with the friend of a friend who’ll put you in touch with one Simon Riley. He then gives you shit about the price on his bill and you knock ten percent off begrudgingly because the piece of paper with your number written on it is still crumpled in his palm.

No good deed goes unpunished or whatever.

“He’s not actually in the country right now,” Laswell, the friend of a friend, explains over coffee, Biscoff cookies spread out on a little tea plate between the two of you. “Or the continent.”

“Where is he?”

“For the rest of the month? Indonesia. He’s supposed to be back on the ninth. Should I let him know that you’re interested in his services?”

It’s a toss up at first. The thought of sacrificing your dignity (he would be more or less your babysitter) for adventure is tricky. With the way the dates line up—when you plan on traveling and when he gets back to the UK—you also won’t have much time to make his acquaintance before setting off. 

But there are places you want to go, sites you have scribbled down in a pocket-sized notepad folded up in the inner lining of your backpack. So you give her your permission and promise to join her and her wife for dinner sometime (repayment, and also it’s only been a few months since you moved, so you currently have a dearth of friends in your life anyway). 

The first time you see him when he stops by your workplace, you can’t help the double take. It just doesn’t seem possible. You know from Laswell and the guy at the body shop that Ghost is ex-military, but you’d been expecting some buzz-cut, slightly smarmy army reserves guy, maybe six-foot and decently muscled. What you don’t expect is the tatted beast that’s near twice your size. Only the top half of his face is exposed, the rest hidden beneath a black mask; you think briefly of asking him about it, but chicken out under his withering stare.

He doesn’t seem impressed when he meets you. “What’s your list?”

“Um…just around Europe. I haven’t thought about it too much.”

He stares down at you. “You wanna hire me just to run around the continent?”

“I haven’t thought about it!”

“Well, best give it a think fast, doll. Haven’t got all day for you to figure it out.”

You do have to think fast. He doesn’t leave until you’ve spelled out exactly where you want to go, until he’s watched you book plane tickets over your shoulder, heavy at your back while sweat beads at the nape of your neck. He’s entirely too intimidating to be looming over you like that. 

You watch him whip out his phone and fire off a couple of texts; your phone pings with an email telling you that you’ve been reimbursed for his flight and when you protest, he brushes you off by saying that he’ll invoice you for everything at the end of your trip.

Then what was promised falls into place. Free of burden, free of anxiety or restless energy, new possibilities open up to you: countries where you don’t speak the language; countries where the sites you want to see are spread out across a wide enough area that it warrants having a man packed beside you in a too-small taxi, his thigh a hot line against yours; hiking trips through national parks, where you don’t feel like you might slip down a hill and twist your ankle, stuck without water or cell service. 

You only have two weeks worth of vacation, so you use them wisely. A week traveling across Switzerland and Austria, and then a week in Cairo to see the pyramids. 

Ghost hangs back most of the time while you traipse around and do your own thing. You can feel him at your back when you approach the stands where the local vendors have set up shop, perusing silver trinkets and jewelry, only returning to your side when someone stands too close to you. 

He fists a hand in a pickpocket’s shirt when they try for your purse, giving them a shake and sending them off. 

“You didn’t have to do all that,” you mutter in his direction as you watch the young man scurry away. Not sure if you’re blushing or sunburnt. 

“You hired me to deal with this shit my way. Don’t get mouthy now.”

You think it might be the former because while you might not be the best at reapplying sunscreen, Ghost has been gentle-parenting you this whole trip. He pulls you off into corners and growls down at you while squirting a dollop of sunscreen into the palm of his hand to spread across your face. You close your eyes when his rough hands trace over your face and breathe out heavily when he spins you around, big hands engulfing your shoulders and spreading down your back.

You don’t think it could get worse. It gets worse. 

He won’t spring for his own room. You stare at him in disbelief in the lobby of the two star hotel where you’ve booked a room with a single bed. There’s a vending machine in the corner of the lobby that only sells coke (all of the other buttons are broken). One of the ceiling lights flickers on and off, an ominous buzz filling the room. Ghost doesn’t so much as blink.

“You didn’t tell me—I didn’t know that was my job,” you rebuff, anxiety a fist in your throat. You’ve already asked the front desk for another room, but they’ve been sold out for weeks, the woman at the front desk informed you with no small amount of pity. It’s the busy season; even two-star hotels get booked up in the dog days of summer. 

He cocks an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Never had to before. My job isn’t to book shit.”

“I sent you my itinerary.” 

“That’s not how I work, love. Where’s your room?” 

It’s nothing short of humiliating to have him follow you back to your shabby little hotel room. Your hands shake when you unlock the door, opening it to something no bigger than a closet. You’d purposefully gotten a smaller room than you usually would, anticipating the cost of Ghost's invoice at the end of your trip. No good deed goes unpunished. 

He ushers you into the room with a hand on your back, shutting the door behind him. You flick on the only light in the room, a bulbous thing hanging from the ceiling. No bedside lamp. 

When he settles on the end of the only twin bed in the room, the bedframe groans under his weight. Your hands are already clammy. He’s already making himself at home, unbuckling his belt with a single hand; it makes you almost dizzy to look over at him so you try desperately to avert your eyes.

“At least wait until I’m in the other room,” you hiss, rifling through your suitcase faster to get your clothes for after your shower. 

“Quit moping, love,” Ghost scolds, resting back on his elbows and toeing off his boots. “We’ll make it work. Just gonna have to get comfortable together.”

You scurry off to the bathroom with your pajamas clutched tight to your chest, paying no attention to the fact that he doesn’t sound as upset as you thought he might.

[circeyoru]

Collection of Overlords _ Part 7 = Requested

[Alastor x Soul Owner of All Overlords!Reader]

Part 1 — Part 1.5 — Part 2 — Part 3 — Part 4 — Part 5 — Part 6 — Part 7 (here)

Song Used: "They're Only Human" ; in Death Note: The Musical (I've attached a link here, but there's also a video format later on when that part comes)

You hummed a tune while reading through a book and laying on your black cloud platform like a beach chair. Your little moment only cut short when your book was suddenly snatched away. You tilted your head up and saw a pair of silver wings with golden highlights before you saw your book burst into flames in the robber’s hand

“You sure took your time.” You teased as you got up from your comfortable position, opting to sit on your platform. “Trick.”

“Come on! Like you don’t know why!” The being exclaimed enraged with their wings getting puffed up, they took a deep breath and sighed deeply. “Your little Hell made too much of a commotion, Sil. And I told you to call me Noir!”

You shrugged, “That’s not fitting for a character such as yourself, Trick sounds better anyways.”

Trick was similar to you. Actually, he was your opposite. You being the true ruler of Hell makes them the true ruler of Heaven. Of course, unlike how you keep your identity in the shadows, theirs was more well known. Trick was the God that everyone made a big deal around

If one were to see you two together, they’s say the two of you were night and day, good and evil, yin and yang. Not in terms of element, but in appearance as well

While Trick has a pair of lovely giant wings, you had none and would use a black cloud platform to ‘fly’ in some sense. While Trick has hair above the shoulder, you had hair below it. Trick’s eyes remain opened while yours are closed. Trick dons a causal and chill look while you had a more formal and elegant look

Still, whatever you two may appear, those weren’t important as the personalities you two had. If Trick’s name wasn’t an obvious indicator, they are not the holy entity the humans and angels painted them to be

Like you, Trick is absent from a direct presence in your respective realms. However, they love playing around with ‘divine interventions’ or ‘sacred messages’ from the God of this world. Truly, no one was aware of a balance. Even there’s Heaven and Hell, and God is in Heaven overseeing ‘his children’, what of hell?

Yes. You are the ‘God’ of Hell. Though either of you like that title. Since Trick was the one more in the open, you love teasing them about it every time you meet. To you, it’s truly entertaining to see them groan and whine over it

“So~ How was the sleep? Good?” Trick leaned over as their wings flapped from time to time to keep them hovering in the air. 

“Like Hell it was, you put me out of commission for no reason and with no warning! I have souls to watch over unlike your lazy holiness.” You snapped with your eyebrows furrowed.

Trick raised his hands in ressurender, “Hey, I was out of commission as well! It’s not a one-side thing.”

Your eyes squeezed even tighter as if you’re glaring at the jerk of a partner. “You started it!”

The two of you were Supreme Beings of your realm and entities as holy and cursed element. You can’t have one without the other. While it’s true that you were weak to holy powers, Trick was weak to cursed powers. You two were each other’s weakness no matter the situation

And the two of you aren’t as immortal as people would think. The two of you can be killed and healed by each other. Killing involves falling into a deep sleep when one side dies and healing involves transfering the other’s wounds onto themselves to heal more naturally as wounds can only be done by the opposite element

If one asks how to describe the two of you. You both were inseparable, can’t have one without the other. The concept of yin and yang comes to play

You are yin, in darkness there’s kindness. You are the unknown, you are negativity, you are darkness. You collect and control the souls marked for Hell without letting them go so long as they worth something to you. Even when you do it wasn’t for mercy and you’ll cage them into a torture unlike any other

Though, you were kind. You offer advice to those that deserve it and give opportunities for people to change. Why else would you let a soul be redeemed and let it leave Hell to go to Heaven? Why else would you allow Alastor to remind at the hotel even after your presence is back? Why else would you give Husk that little hope at a better future?

Trick was yang, in light there’s evil. They are the known, they are positivity, they are light. Trick judges and provides the souls marked for Heaven without letting them feel any negativity and only joy and happiness. Giving those worthy souls that lived life accordingly to enter a paradise fitting of Winners

Though, they were wicked and twisted. They enjoy a good trickery here and there, opting to let their high ranking angels deal with everything rather than rule as the ‘God’ they were named. They cared for none but their own interest and entertainment. If anything, Trick doesn’t see souls to be worth anything. To them, souls were nothing but actors on a stage to perform a good show for beings that was you and them to enjoy watching

“Fine, fine. I won’t do that again, unless you want a little rest.��� Trick smirked as he looked your way. “So how’s your collection?”

“Hm… There will be some changes with what I have now. It’s a work in progress.” You told as you thought it over, “How’s your Emily?”

Trick’s smile widened, “Oh, miserable. But admirable. The sweet thing. She found out about the exterminations and sided with that Hell Princess during court! I told you she’s worth paying attention to.”

You hummed, “That’s what you said about Lucifer and he ended up falling to Hell. I wonder if Emily will be casted out as well.” You sensed the dark aura around your dear long-time friend spike and you turned your head over, “Don’t worry, I know not to accept her into Hell. She’s your prized one. Even if she’s casted out, I’ll push her back into Heaven.”

Trick huffed, clenching and unclenching his fists, “Good. Cause I will so remove those stupid higher angels if they did that to the only worthy angel in Heaven.” He looked over to you as well, “Don’t worry, it’s the same for your collections, I won’t let them into Heaven unless you want them do.”

Your smile widened, “Oh, I’ll never let them go~ But thanks for that safety net.”

You both picked your focus. While yours was on a hand-picked group, Trick focused on that one. Your little soul owning had one amazing benefit that none knew. It was the protection against angelic weapons

Back then when Alastor was hit by Adam’s attack in the chest, the slash should have eaten away at his body and soul. The angelic weapons or steel was created to aim directly at the soul of a being, that’s why it could kill both demons and angels. There was nothing angelic to it, merely a combine of yours and Trick’s power to create something that kills the soul

Now, your protection that to limit the effect of the wound till they can reach you for healing. But the best part was that your Overlords have no soul within their bodies so they wouldn’t be killed! Even if their head was chopped off by an angelic spear, it will just take time to grow back

You’ll never tell them that benefit nor do you plan to let them know about it. That’s why you made your appearance at the hotel. It was the sole reason of healing Alastor on your own terms. You thought of leaving soon later but you just couldn’t leave the poor deer when he was that desperate for your presence

The thing you can’t understand was why Trick only picks the one being to care for. Emily was what their supposed to be honestly. If someone met Trick and it was revealed that they were the God, no one would believe it. There was so much chaos and twisted nature in them that it was impossible that they were God

Yet you as the one by their time since the beginning of time knew the change was because of time. Time changed their view on the world and humans. So many time, they were disappointed that they just gave up and decided to laugh at all the misery. Maybe, you and Trick could switch places

But Trick will never agree because they never liked what you have set up in Hell already, plus there wouldn’t be an ‘Emily’ there. It was proposed once, and Trick shot it down without a thought. So to cure their boredom, there are meet-ups like this

Of course, the two of you end up going to Earth to see what the humans were up to while marking souls on whether they go to Heaven or Hell when they die

Trick smirked and flapped his wings to fly over, and gestures to the humans minding their own business in the city, ♫ Look at how they crawl around, upon the ground, like little ants ♫

♫ Yes, but how they fascinate, ♫ You floated over with your smokey platform, slapping away his hand to touch a mortal, ♫ Confusing fate, With what is merely chance ♫

♫ Isn’t it a laugh? ♫ Trick nudged you.

You pushed him away, ♫ Isn’t it a shame? ♫

♫ Thinking there is someone in Heaven to blame ♫ Trick pointed at themselves. 

You rolled your eyes, ♫ Yes, but even while blaming fate for the lives that they lead. They hope for the lives that they need ♫

Trick snapped their fingers, both of them appearing in a cemetery with a heavy mood in the air. They carried a white umbrella while you carried a black one, staying at the back of the group that was grieving while a coffin was lowered, ♫ Living every day ‘til the day they die. Never getting answers ♫

♫ Yet still asking why ♫ You snapped your fingers and appeared on the roof of a building that oversaw a group of religious individuals praying, ♫ Going through the motions as if there will be a reward ♫

♫ While we stay, ♫ Trick made a bored and disgusted face at the scene, grabbing your hand so the two of you fall, ♫ Eternally bored! ♫

♫ They’re only human. They don’t see ♫ The two of you sang, Trick with their signature smirk and you with a bored look. ♫ Who they are is who they’ll always be. Only human, after all ♫

Trick brought you to a scene in front of a murder scene, ♫ So they push and they shove ♫

You showed Trick a scene with a romantic couple on a date, ♫ With this thing they call love ♫

♫ ‘Til they fall! ♫ You both watched as soldiers fall and their souls going to where they were picked to.

♫ Isn’t it a farce? ♫ Trick shrugged while the scene changed to that of a hospital room with a weak man on the bed.

♫ Isn’t it a waste? ♫ You eyed the crying humans around the man, listening as the monitor beep softer and longer with each pause. 

♫ Struggling to Face what can never be faced ♫ Trick leaned against the wall with crossed arms. 

♫ Yes, but maybe Death can release something more than we share ♫ You blinked at the man as he tried his best to hold the closest family member of his.

♫ I really don’t know ♫ Trick came over, their wing slapped at the man over the face and the lifeline fell flat, ♫ and don’t care ♫

You shook your head while the room bursted in tears and doctors and nurses rushed in, Trick was as indifferent as already with his grin on his face, ♫ They’re only Human. Standing still. Doomed to live pushing boulders uphill. Only Human, after all ♫

With a snap of Trick’s finger, the two of you arrived at a temple with a number of offerings, Trick picked up one and threw it to you then took one for themselves, ♫ So they give and we take ♫

You caught it with one hand and eyed it, then to the elderly women that was bowing to statue, ♫ Hoping someone will help break their fall ♫

Trick brought you to a gang meeting of sorts, the topic seemingly deciding on someone’s death, ♫ They will pray, curse, live, die. Never knowing their Truth is another Man’s Lie ♫

♫ Eat, sleep, love, hate ♫ You changed the scene to one where a group of friends were enjoying themselves in a forest, ♫ Like a Leaf blowing in the Wind ♫

Trick switched to a scene where students are forced to pick a career for the future, gesturing to all the troubled humans for you. ♫ Watch them all vacillate! ♫ 

The both of you sang, ♫ They’re only human. They can’t see ♫

♫ All the fun they could give you and me ♫ Trick laughed darkly while you smiled at his amusement.

♫ Only human, after all ♫ You both continued as you two picked out a wave of souls destined for Hell without another thought while Trick only picked a small group of them.

♫ So they give and we take ♫ You had your palms opened at the vast souls that would be doomed for Hell under your thoughtless choosing.

Trick nodded approvingly over your future collection, a twisted smile forming, ♫ ‘Til their silly hearts break ♫ 

♫ Looking down from above. I’m intrigued by their love ♫ An equally dark smile appeared on your face as you took Trick’s offered hand for a short sway. 

Trick suggested while taking you into their arms. ♫ So let’s play! ♫

You nodded along, ♫ Let’s play! ♫

Trick chuckled while dipping you down, “Hmm, let’s enjoy ourselves with these foolish souls.”

Since the beginning of time, there were two beings. A being that symbolizes light and a being that symbolizes dark. They were two sides of the same coin and co-exist together contary to what humans would theorize or write in their little works of art

“So I’ll assume you want me to put Heaven’s little business on hold? Not that they can do much with a redeemed soul in their ranks.” Trick smirked at you, their wings flapping at their little jab at their realm’s higher ranked angels. “So Hell gets some peace for the moment.”

Your smiled back, eyes peeking open to that revealed a cosmos from within, “Yes, that is much appreciated. There’s gonna be some interesting change in my collection.”

“Love it when your eyes does that.” Trick’s wings opened up to show the view of a night sky.

“Yours is not too bad. Quite the sight.”

“Only a sight for the two of us though. None is more worthy of it.”

“I’ll agree.”

Everything happening on these two beings’ whims and wants, nothing’s done with clear purpose, and anything’s fair game. As divine and just as the humans painted them to be, they are nothing like the holy one that cares for all’s interest from above. As cruel and evil as the humans painted you to be, you are anything but the cold and heartless tormentor of prisoners of Hell

Note: New character!! I'll get to the request that were about this concept in a bit. First! The character design for Trick and you will be out in a moment~

Now then~ You guys feeling op yet?

Oh yeah!! I'm more interested with the song format too!! First time trying this, what you guys think???

Circe Y. 

My Works: MASTERLIST

Taglist: (those that don't specify to being in all the works' taglist will automatically be assumed to be in whichever series they comment on)

@aconfusedwonderland @crowleysthings @donustellaron @mistpurpl3 @lucifers-silhouette @fluffy-koalala @plutobots @ray-rook @thealienartist @serenity-songbird @galaxydreamer468 @raynerrold @wen01203@hikari-michiko @colecreo @myromanempiree @xsamkuro @yourdoorisunlocked @clavelina @jono723 @cursedcattalastor @an-idyllic-novelist @flamiohotman2024 @rea-grace @myromanempiree @veroneverleft @lousypotatoes @crazysuityouth @jellyedkazoo @wat4r @kiraisastay @thealienartist @chefysawesomeideas @wtvbabes @patronizingbitch @koshi-kazu @craftyperfectiontragedy @scr4luv @chrollobb @mysterypotatoink @callmefe

[citrinae]

aphrodite.

sanji x reader

contents; self-indulgent fluff where you doubt your role at the sunny. he helps you wind up by preparing a bath. sprinkled with some explicit content here n there, worship, established relationships, mythology references, afab!reader, 1k. be gentle fam i'm rusty n down bad for this fool.

The muscles around your shoulders grow taut as you lower yourself into the tub, lukewarm water reaching just below your chest.  Steam climbs up in ribbons and rolls in droplets off your forehead, off white tiles, off the fogged mirror that lingers at the grasp of your wingspan. Usually, it’s no news that it takes you longer than most to loosen up, but there’s been something about this day that rendered you specifically heavy. 

Heavier. 

Sanji’s arms wrap themselves around you, fingers pressing into skin with an eerie gentleness, and you expect your body to tighten even more at the touch, but it doesn’t.

“There,” he rests his chin between your shoulder and neck. “doesn’t this make you feel better, sweetheart?”

(It was him who came up with this, naturally. 

After finding you slumped across some barrel by the docks, he deliberated that a meal alone wouldn't be enough to put you back on your feet. Exhaustion was swirling and defocusing your vision, “Maybe this life isn’t for me.” And who could've blamed you for it? You owned feet that weren’t made for running. Fists that couldn’t break through anything. Worse still, a mind that failed any attempt to deceive. You weren’t sure what it was exactly that interlaced your fate with that of the Straw Hats’. So when their captain had offered you his earnest smile and a place on his ship, you couldn’t help but look back with a raised eyebrow. “This has to be a mistake. You must be joking.”

Right?

And now, as the hissing sound of lighter snapped you back to reality, you remembered part of why you were still willing to try. 

Sanji exhaled through the mouth. “It wounds me to know you like this, dearest,” he said, his eyes shut. “Is there anything I could do to see the sun cast its light upon your lips once more?” 

Your gaze rolled to the side, but there was no hostility there, no strained tone asking to be left alone. He eventually made up his mind by informing that something shall wait for you at the inn the crew voted to rest at for the night. You let him place a peck on your forehead, watched him back to his chores while humming a tune he knew you’d enjoy.) 

A blue blossom floats by your left knee; you fix it absently as you drag your legs closer to your chest. “Maybe, a little,” you admit, leaning your head against his. He smells of nicotine and peach shampoo. 

“I’m glad,” he tells you. It comes out in a prolonged sound that feels like relief. He needs you unscathed like a priest servicing their temple. “Aphrodite,” you remember him confessing, once, as you lounged together on the white-hot flooring of the deck. “Gods carved your face from the foam of the sea and blessed me with the touch of your gaze.” 

(But that was at the beginning of everything. Back when his intentions towards you were uncertain and you knew better than looking too deeply into speeches he pathetically coaxed every woman with. He could be like that, you know—hospitable when no one asks for it. The Moirai, all three, could come aboard swaying their hips in his direction and he’d send them home with a box of chocolates and a piece of poetry each. 

Sanji’s ovations were not sentiments; they were habits.

Yet after weeks of hovering in your proximity, you could tell that, unlike the others, you were cherished in silence—as if you were a shrine to be visited by him and him alone, un chef-d'œuvre, “j'peux pas détacher mes yeux de toi.” 

Then you began to shamelessly spend time in the kitchen, and you enjoyed watching his elbows move above the cutting board, chains shifting across his hips as he stretched to grab a jar of something from the upper shelves. Sanji began, in turn, to wait for you with morning notes attached to cupcake liners and picks of your favourite teas steaming from the stove, his shirt loose with one more button unfastened and spices reorganised near the counter you usually sat on. Before you noticed, each segment in his kitchen would be placed to harmonise with you.

And at lunch you would instinctively search for his gaze, only to notice he was already memorising you down to each curve, pore, line on your face. You’d find yourself pinning it on clumsiness when, under tables, the tip of your shoe brushed his ankle ever so slightly. 

How often did you try to convince yourself he looked at you the same way he looked at any other. Because you were. Like any other.

Soon the same ovations would fall like honey from the tip of his tongue as he pressed you against the wall of the storage room, mouthing thanks for stretching your folds so well around his fingers and for the expectant look in your eye as his touch was searing the skin under your shirt. His breath would catch by your breast when he heard your voice cry out so delightfully sweet for him. And you would have him, kissing your tights, devouring your slit like prayer; because why wouldn’t you? 

How could you deny you this, when he was making you feel like you were the only living being in the Universe?)

“Sanji,” you start, unsure how to continue from here, urging him to turn his head at the sound of his name. “Thank you. I—” lifting your hands over his. “I really needed this.”

Silence; Sanji takes it graciously as he reaches for the sponge across from you and soaks it in the water. 

“I understand if you don't want to talk about today,” he says, softly caressing your back. “But please know I’m here, always, if you ever need an ear to listen.” 

“Heard and heeded.” A smile sprouts at the corner of your lips. “But for now, just stay with me,” and it takes you a minute to get to the last part. “Please.”

And this isn’t something he would admit out loud; maybe just in the dimness of your bedroom dazed with your legs pressing around him. But he yearns to feel needed just as much as you need to acknowledge your worth. 

“Darling,” Sanji stops the sponging to leave a small kiss on your shoulder. “I can’t recall when that was ever a struggle for me.”

[actual-changeling]

i cannot resist a piece of good, painful angst, so have a little something inspired by this post by @quoththemaiden and the tags i left on it

-

Aziraphale returns to heaven in a haze of heartbreak and fear, his lips still tingling with Crowley's kiss, his fingers twitching with the urge to reach for him. The white sterility welcoming him only encourages his mind to drift further, allowing him to tune out the Metatron's words and focus on simply setting one foot in front of the other. If heaven has not changed in the last few thousand years, and he knows very well that it hasn't, there will be more than enough paperwork detailing anything and everything he is being told.

"Any questions, Aziraphale?"

They have stopped in the middle of a long, empty corridor, his eyes stinging with the bleach-dry air, and Aziraphale blinks, the smile on his face never wavering; it is a mask he knows he will not be able to drop for quite some time.

"Do I have an office?"

"You can make yourself one if you deem it necessary. I will leave you to it, then."

With a small flash of light, he is gone, and Aziraphale is alone. Right.

A few hours later, he has an office no miracle in the world could make cosy, enough paperwork to last him an eternity, and a persistent itch in his left hand. It is more irritating than bothersome, an anchor keeping him from floating away into the land of celestial regulations and legal frameworks, and he is trying (and failing) to keep himself from thinking about Crowley.

He needs him to deal with this, that much is clear without knowing anything at all about how exactly the second coming is going to transpire, but for the first time in six thousand years, Aziraphale finds himself wondering if Crowley will be waiting for him when he reaches out.

Absently, he scratches the back of his left hand, the itching seemingly working its way to the surface, and picks up the next folder.

'Re: The matter of opening a direct communication line between the Department of Miracle Accounting and the Department of Miracle Archiving.'

"You'd assume they'd done that ages ago," he murmurs, opening it with a sigh and squeezing his eyes shut when he sees the first document dates back to 3076 BC. A sudden wave of sympathy for Gabriel washes through him, which disappears rather quickly when he remembers he is probably having the time of his life on Alpha Centauri.

(Even if this all ends up in a puddle of burning goo we can-- go off together.)

(Go off together?)

Aziraphale slams the folder shut and pushes it to the side, creating a new 'unimportant/for later' pile since the other one is already structurally unsound and he'd rather not have to reorganize it when it inevitably collapses under its own weight.

He scrubs a hand down his face (I could always rely on you) and forces himself to take a deep, steadying breath (You could always rely on me) before reaching for the next one, halting when a shimmer of gold draws his attention.

(And I would like to spend-)

On his left hand, in the exact spot where the itch is… was Aziraphale corrects himself, and in its place, curled around his ring finger and weaving its way towards his wrist, is a golden snake. No, not a snake, he slowly realizes, it's Crowley's snake in all its glory, uncurled and with wide open, unblinking eyes, staring up at him.

"Fuck," he breathes, his right hand rapidly furling and unfurling. After not spending more than an hour or two in heaven at a time for millennia, he had completely forgotten about his angelic markings, which had looked very different before Eden. The exact images are hazy, washed out by time and apparently a fundamental change in his essence, because the snake lazily sliding around his wrist and closing its eyes as if to nap is both new and strangely familiar.

(Listen. Do you hear that?)

Tremors run through his body, fine and yet strong enough to keep him from opening the file, from reading, thinking, planning, his mind filled with fire-red hair and golden eyes and the taste of love on his tongue.

(I don't hear anything.)

Aziraphale cradles his marked hand against his chest, pressing his knuckles to his lips and trying to recall the few seconds during which he had felt whole. Happy.

(That's the point. No nightingales.)

The snake hisses quietly, or maybe he is already starting to lose his sanity, and its glittering scales provide what little comfort he can access in heaven, missing the white noise of London, the dusty quiet of his bookshop, missing Crowley, Crowley, Crowley.

[bobby-r2d2-floyd]

The Nanny (Hangman x Reader)

authors note: so, hangman won by a long shot in the poll, but for the few that voted for the rest, they're still coming! i have to deal with the bs with my basement and i am a college student, so i have to deal with my coursework as well.

inspired by @roosterforme

this will be a mutli part series, im not sure how many parts though

pairing: jake "hangman" seresin x benjamin niece!reader; established mav x penny

warnings: some swear words and an inaccurate depiction of how social workers handle dropping a baby off to its living, absent father. also cyclone is a dad bc jon hamm if a dilf.

not proof or beta read, we die like men.

summary: Hangman wakes up one day to a social worker and an infant on his doorstep. the infant? his 3 month old daughter.

word count: 1.9k

-----------

It was the one day that the Dagger squad had a later morning (11am, per Maverick’s request), so when the pounding on Jake’s door woke him up at 8:45, he was a little pissed.

He stumbled out of bed and the arms of some red head whose name he definitely doesn’t remember, throwing on a shirt along the way to his front door where the pounding is originating from and reverberating through his skull. “I heard you the first fucking time,” he curses out, throwing the door open and preparing to unleash verbal hell on the person standing at his doorstep.

All the words die out though when he sees an older woman standing there with a sleeping baby in a car seat at her feet. “Jacob Seresin?” she asks and his eyes bounce between the infant and the woman.

“Yes?” he asks, voice cracking a bit as he looks back to the woman.

“Do you mind if I come in?” he nods and moves aside as she picks up the car seat and steps inside. “My name is Caroline Husband, I’m a social worker for the state of California.” she tells him as she sets the seat down on his coffee table, “and this is Avery. Your daughter.” 

Jake feels his heart stop as he looks down at the little girl, “what, what do you mean?” he sinks down to the floor on his knees, heart racing and Caroline gives him a small smile.

“Her mother-” she looks down at the paperwork she was holding, “Samantha Barnes, passed away from complications shortly after birth, you were listed as father on the birth certificate.” 

Samantha Barnes… Jake remembered her with a small smile. They were briefly exclusive before she had disappeared one night, leaving behind the memories and a note saying she needed to go back home to help with her ailing father, her last living relative that she still spoke to.

“H-how uh, how old is she?” he asks, taking her small, but definitely bigger than a newborn, hand in between his finger and thumb.

“She spent some time with a foster while the state was waiting for you to return stateside. She just turned 3 months old.” Caroline forms him, which makes sense as he was just in the middle of the ocean for the last five months. “I have some supplies in my car that her foster mom put together for you, should you choose to keep her.” 

“Choose to?” he asks, as if there was any other option for him. The second he found out Avery was his, there was never any other option.

“You can alway sign your parental rights away, there’s plenty of families looking to adopt babies.” she says and he shakes his head.

“No, she stays with me,” Jake says as he stands and Caroline smiles up at him.

“Well then, there’s all the information that you need. Her old foster mom made a list of information for you, her pediatrician, what formula she was feeding, how to prepare bottles...” she goes on to tell him more necessary information about Avery but tunes her out as he watches the little girl start to wake up and look around, well, as much as a 3 month old can, he supposed. “Here’s my card, it has my personal cell phone number on the back should you not be able to reach me at my office in the event of an emergency.” 

He takes it with a smile and a thank you before walking Caroline to the door to help her bring the items in from her car and as quickly as she was here, she was gone. Leaving Jake to sit on his couch as he stares into the eyes of his daughter. 

He kicks out his guest after 15 minutes of sitting there before he’s googling how to put a car seat base securely into the back seat of a F-150. After fighting for what felt like an hour (only 10 minutes) he has his daughter secured in his car before driving way under the speed limit to The Hard Deck, only 45 minutes late to meeting up with the rest of the Daggers but as soon as they see him walk into the bar with a car seat, all the teasing for being late blows out of there mind. 

“Do we need to call the police?” Bradley teases and Jake lets out a nervous laugh.

“No.. no police needed.” Jake says as he sets his daughter’s car seat and diaper bag in the middle of the pool table the team was surrounding.

“Well, then who is this?” 

Jake takes a deep breath before answering, “this is my daughter, Avery Seresin.”

Immediately the team has plenty of questions for the team’s resident playboy. He explains the situation as best he can with the information he got from Caroline.

“I never even knew Sam was pregnant. She never said anything and then she was gone.” Jake says softly as he looks down as his daughter in his arms, sleepily drinking from the bottle he made and Penny gives him a smile.

“You seem like a natural already.” she says, snapping a photo of the daddy-daughter moment and he smiles.

“Yeah, I was still around when my sisters started having their own kids, all girls too, ironically.” he responds with a small laugh and the movement of his chest startled Avery awake and she starts drinking more steadily again.

The squad takes the rest of the day before the bar opens with turns holding the newest member of the team. Aside from Jake, Bob and Natasha were the only other two who seemed comfortable enough to hold her without needing any instruction on support for her head. 

“Does Cyclone know you have a kid yet?” Mav asks as he takes his turn holding Avery, seasoned from when Bradley was a baby and he used to watch him while Carole and Goose needed alone time. 

“Fuck, no not yet.” Jake groans as he rubs his hands over his face. “I need to go see him.”

“Go see him now, between Penny being a mom and me dealing with Bradley as a baby there’s plenty of experience here to watch Avery for a bit while you try to get some time to adjust to dad-life.” Mav says and Jake looks over at him.

“You’re serious?” 

“Yeah, besides, Avery is already better at 3 months than Rooster ever was.” Mav teases and Bradley makes a couple of offended noises before being slapped in the chest by Natasha. 

Jake nods, “okay well here’s her-”

“Hangman, get out of here. I did all this with Amelia.” Penny says as she pushes him towards the door and Jake pulls her into a hug.

“Thank you so much, Pen.” he says, meaning it too since Penny is the closest thing to a mom that he has since he hasn’t talked to his real mom in years. 

The drive into base wasn’t a long one, but felt like it was with how often he was checking his backseat and not seeing his daughter before remembering she was safe with Penny and Maverick at the bar. 

Walking into Admiral Simpson’s office, Jake broke out into a nervous sweat. “Um, excuse me, sir.” he says as he knocks on the open door.

Both Admiral Simpson and Admiral Bates looked up at him from where they were sitting at the desk discussing some news that they received from higher ups. 

“Can I help you, Lieutenant?” Cyclone asks and Jake nods, taking that as an ‘okay’ to walk into the office.

“Yes actually, I uh.. I was wondering if I would be able to get leave, sir. I had a surprise visit from a social worker this morning and-and my infant daughter.” he says as he straightens out his back and rolls his shoulders back.

“You have a child?” Cyclone asks, closing the folder that he had open to focus more on Jake. “Since when?” 

“Well, as of 9am this morning, sir. Her mother passed away after she was born and no other living relatives so… She’s currently with me. Well, not with me Captain Mitchell and Penny Benjamin are currently watching her.. sir.” 

Warlock and Cyclone share a look and Jake stands there nervously, “I know that this is short notices but all I’m asking for is a week to figure things out, find a sitter, get some kind of a routine started for-”

“Okay.” Cyclone says and Jake looks at him instead of the spot that he had been looking at on the wall. “You only want just one week?”

“I can have more, sir?” Cyclone nods, having recently become a father himself and knows how important bonding is for parents. 

“Unless something urgent comes, how does three weeks sound?” he asks as he pulls something up on his computer and begins to type.

“I would greatly appreciate that.” Jake says with a small smile and Cyclone nods, ending the conversation and Jake starts to walk out of the office.

“Seresin?” Warlock calls out and Jake turns around, “congratulations.”

“Thank you, sirs.” 

Jake drives back to the bar already feeling lighter than he had in the last 6 hours, and upon walking back into the watering hole, he sees a red faced Avery and a panicked Rooster.

“Bradshaw what did you do to my daughter?” 

“What did I do? She threw up on me!” he says, holding the infant safely, and at an arm's length away. 

The rest of the team is laughing behind him and Jake just takes Avery and lays her against him so her head is on his shoulder, “well I’m sure you deserved it.” 

Bradley glares at him before wandering away to the bathroom to clean up. Jake smiles and rubs his daughters back as she babbles in his ear.

“How did talking to the boss go?” Penny asks and Jake smiles.

“Really good, actually. Said I can have three weeks as long as nothing urgent comes up that’ll need the full team's attention.” 

“Well, if you ever need a nanny so you can have a break and none of us are available, my niece just moved to the area and is looking for work.” Penny says with a small smile as Jake moves to sit next to her. “Plus she has a degree in early childhood and special education.” 

“Okay, yeah I’ll let you know.” he says with a nod.

“Well, you can meet her tonight, she’s supposed to come and help me out here for the night since Jimmy can’t make it in.” Jake just nods and Penny pats his shoulder that Avery isn’t sleeping on while she stands to start opening duties for the bar. 

Jake didn’t end up meeting Penny’s niece that night, or any time in the following week. In fact, it wasn’t until the last week of his leave that he met her. 

Jake was holding Avery as he walked into the bar before it opened, she was babbling up a storm and he took his sunglasses off to put on the top of his head when he saw someone new behind the bar, head thrown back and laughing at something that Bob had said. 

You look over at him and he swears his heart stopped, “Hi! I’m Y/N Benjamin, but you can call me Saturn.”

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next part

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taglist: if you want to join the taglist for all my future works, shoot me a message and i'll be happy to add you :)

@mandylove1000

[mypoisonedvine]

𝔞𝔯𝔯𝔞𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰 (part III) | frater imperator x reader

(part I) (part II)

𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔰𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞𝔯𝔶 | your first trip together ends on a sour note as some of your suppressed concerns about your relationship begin to show, but a delayed wedding reception might turn it all around.

𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡 𝔠𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔱 | 6.7k (fucking hell)

𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰 | jealousy/insecurity, MORE heathers references for some reason???, alcohol consumption/slight intoxication, nothing too bad but I swear the slowburn is almost... burnt, or whatever just bear with me

The next day of your visit to Brussels was mostly boring meetings; you almost wanted to ask him why you both had to travel all this way to do the same things you always did, but ultimately you did understand the value of this trip even if it wasn’t especially exciting.  And though you weren’t really capable of assisting with any of the business side of things, you figured out after a while that you were mainly here just to be here— because it would be weird if you weren’t.  Because it would be, for lack of a better word, suspicious if a newly-married couple were traveling separately.

So, you were here, sitting beside him as he and the clergy of the local church discussed various important topics— mission work, ministry, how best to spread the message of Satan and bring in the age of the antichrist… you know, the usual.

His hand rested on your leg again— maybe a little higher than before?  You weren't certain, but it made you smile to yourself as you tuned out the boring conversation going on around you.

You glanced down at the leather-covered hand by your knee, his fingers moving slightly; the silver grucifix embossed on the back shined in this light.  Absent-mindedly, you traced it with one finger, not even noticing that it made him look over at you— not even really appreciating that his hand was still under there, and could probably feel you drawing shapes over his skin.

“Frater,” a clergyman interjected sternly, “do you have a response?”

You'd both totally zoned out, and were quickly brought back to reality; Copia jolted in his chair and cleared his throat as he sat up straighter.  Worst of all, he took his hand off your leg to clasp them both together in his lap.  “I-I’m sorry?” he coughed.  “I fear I lost my train of thought, could you repeat the question?”

“Don’t ask Frater Imperator so many complex things so early in the morning,” Comis scolded his fellow cardinal, “he didn’t get much sleep last night— non?”

He wore a lopsided grin as he playfully elbowed Copia in the side, who nervously reached up to run his fingers through his hair.  “Oh, well— eh— I just lost focus for a moment, is all…”

“Sure,” Comis agreed sarcastically.  “Maybe we should take a break, anyhow.  Give us all a chance to stretch our legs.”

“That sounds nice,” you agreed quickly, mainly just jumping on any chance to get out of this stuffy room and personal conversation.

The meeting room had a sort of lobby outside— or maybe it would be called a parlour?  A sitting room?  You weren’t really sure, but it was fancy; there was tea and little cakes and things, the whole place was so detail-oriented like that.

Copia was busy making small talk with some clergymen and women, while you were nursing a cup of lemon-water just to have something to do with your hands.

You heard someone coming up the stairs but didn’t think much of it at first.  “Sister Imperator,” a Sister greeted you— though you didn’t really process it until she reached out and touched your shoulder, making you turn around.

“Consortia,” you added once you realized she was addressing you.  “Sister Imperator Consortia.  Sister Imperator was my mother-in-law.”

“Oh, yes— I’m so sorry for your loss,” she offered gently.

You realized they were under the assumption that you knew her much better— maybe you would’ve if you’d been dating Copia before marrying him like, you know, most people do.  Instead of trying to explain, you just accepted her sympathies with a nod; it was a loss, after all, just not as personal as she might’ve imagined.

“I thought you might want to visit our convent,” she suggested.

“O-oh, um,” you stalled, nervously glancing over your shoulder at Copia as he sipped on a glass of water, “I—”

“He’ll be just fine,” she promised, leaning into you and lowering her voice.  “He knows meetings like the back of his hand.”

And he’ll probably fare better without me touching the back of his hand…

Nodding in agreement, you slipped out of the sitting room and followed her.

The woman introduced herself as Sister Nomina and guided you through the winding halls— Cardinal Comis had shown you the wing that housed the convent the night before on his tour, so you knew where it was, but you hadn’t been inside yet.  

“We keep a garden,” Sister Nomina explained, “and we have some outreach programs— an orphanage, a literacy program.  But nothing compared to what your church is doing!”

“Oh, yes,” you replied, “I suppose our reputation precedes us…”

“It must be very exhilarating, being in the Church of Ghost,” she presumed with a wide smile. 

“Well, I wish I could take more credit for all the work that's been done,” you 

The two of you arrived at the convent; visually it was similar to the one you'd been living in up until recently, but the inhabitants were quite different.  For one, they dressed a bit differently, and seemed to be more lenient with uniform (Sister Imperator would've never let that fly back home…).  And for another thing, they were much more excited to see you than anybody in your convent would've been on any given day. 

Actually, a group of nuns flocking to you excited reminded you of that day of the fateful clergy meeting— it felt like a lifetime ago already.

“Ladies, Sister Imperator Consortia from Linkoping,” Nomina introduced you to the group of women surrounding you, before reversing to introducing all of them to you.  “Sisters Mila, Lascivia, Camille, Perita, and Triette.”

“Lovely to meet you all,” you nodded, smiling warmly. 

“Give her some room, ladies, please!“ Nomina scolded gently, shooing them back with her hands until they took a few steps away from you. Admittedly, you appreciated the extra breathing room.

“Everybody's been looking forward to your visit immensely,” Nomina justified. “I hope you don't mind answering a few of their questions.”

“Of course not!”

Sister Camille piped up quickly: “As Sister Imperator Consortia, what responsibilities do you have?”

“W-well, I'm not qualified to serve on the clergy,” you explained, “because I wasn't nominated by the clergy— I was nominated, well, by my husband. So, mainly my job is to support him…”

“Did you grow up in the church?” Sister Perita asked politely.

“Well, yes and no,” you replied.  “I wasn’t raised a Satanist, so not in the traditional sense— but I ran away to join the church when I was still just a teenager… ever since then, up until rather recently, I was living in convents much like this one.”

That seemed to surprise Sister Triette.  “You really were another Sister of Sin, just like us?” she observed.

It wasn’t until then that you realized they didn't just find you interesting, but that they looked up to you— a role model of sorts, a Sister like them who was perceived as achieving some kind of greatness; it was sweet, even if you felt their admiration was misplaced.  “Yes, I was,” you nodded.

“Did you work closely with the Papa?” Sister Mila asked.

“No, my role mostly involved stewardship, administration, occasional gardening—”

That seemed to confuse them.  “So, then, how'd you fall in love?” Sister Perita wondered.

Your eyes widened; maybe you should've seen some of these questions coming and had answers prepared, but you were completely caught off-guard in that moment.  “O-oh, um, it's not a very interesting story…”

“No no, please!  We've all been dying to know since we heard you two were coming!” Camille insisted.

The Sisters leaned in excitedly in anticipation; you hadn't realized the news of your marriage had so much impact.  Then again, Copia was technically a celebrity— you just weren't used to his popularity outside of your own church.  “You're not all just trying to get pointers to seducing clergy so you can get a promotion, right?” you wondered with a frown.

“No!  We just want to hear how you two met,” Perita explained, “and how you realized you loved each other— and how he proposed!”

They all clapped and giggled excitedly, but all you could manage was a nervous grin.  The real story was definitely not going to satisfy them; you felt guilty imagining disappointing them with some clinical explanation of it all.  “W-well, how we met is sort of… obvious, I guess.  We met in Mass, when he was the Papa— he served me communion.  I didn't know him as a cardinal, I hadn't moved to his church yet, but he… well, I was pretty intimidated by him.  You can't blame me— it's the Papa, after all…”

Up until then, you had told the truth— but you started, for lack of a better term, winging it at that point.

“The first time we spoke— it was an unexpected thing, you see.  We bumped into each other, literally; I wasn't paying attention and he was rushing to get to a clergy meeting— I helped him pick up some books he’d dropped.” 

Clichéd?  Absolutely, but you felt like that was ultimately what they wanted to here: a too-good-to-be-true story about how an ordinary Sister was swept off her feet by such an important man.  Why the Papa would be running around carrying a stack of books is an absurd question for another day…

“We got to talking… we had more in common than we expected.  We bonded over—” you fought back a smirk as you figured out an easy lie— “slushies, actually. He said that traveling with the band meant hardly ever being in the same place, but that there was almost always a convenience store with slushies wherever he was. They became a comfort, I suppose.”

You decided not to go on and say that the two of you had played strip croquet together… probably too obvious of a reference.

“We were just friends for some time, but eventually we started to grow real feelings for each other,” you concluded simply.

They broke out into a collective aww; “What's he like?  You know, when he's not in front of so many people.”

“Um… he's not that different, I guess,” you mumbled, “maybe not as dramatic.  But he's so sensitive, too, and gentle…”

“I’ve always thought he would be that way,” Sister Lascivia agreed, “but intense, too, you know— like, dominating.”

You choked on your own throat for a second.  Why were you thinking about him at all?  “U-um, what makes you say that?” you wondered.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged, biting back a grin, “he just seems that way.”

“Y-you mean, on stage?” you pressed, but the line of questioning shifted suddenly when Sister Perita interrupted.

“And the proposal?  It must have been some fantastic gesture!” she assumed.  “Only fitting for a rockstar, right?”

“You’d think, but he doesn't really act like that… he's so humble.  Actually, it was very intimate,” you decided.  “He knows I can get a little overwhelmed with those big crowds, so instead we went out in a— um, little rowboat onto the lake nearby our church, right around sunset, and watched the stars come out… he played a little guitar for me, just to be nice because he knows I love how he plays— and then under the full moon, he told me that, uh…”

Why was your heart racing?  Why could you picture it so clearly in your mind, as if you weren’t just making it all up as you went along?

“That meeting me had made his heart whole,” you concluded.  “That he couldn't go on unless he knew we were going to spend the rest of our lives together… and he showed me the ring and— and, you know, all that.  Of course, I said yes right away.”

“Oh wow,” Sister Mila cooed— she looked as close to having heart-shaped irises as you’d ever seen anyone in real life.

But of course, another had to chime in as well: “And you don't get jealous, knowing how popular he is?  Plenty of people would kill for your spot, you know.”

You willed your eye not to twitch.  “He's, um… he's never given me any reason to be jealous,”   He's loyal, he always has been, even when we were just dating.  B-but we didn't date very long before we married…”

You realized you couldn’t retroactively ascribe some kind of fidelity to him— after all, he’d been a rockstar (as Perita had put it) on tour… 

And he’d been to this church before.  Your heart almost stopped as the sick thought entered your mind that he could’ve, potentially, hooked up with any of the people in this room; certainly Sister Lascivia would’ve probably jumped him if she got the chance, but she was far from the only candidate.  Come on, he was Papa fucking Emeritus the fucking IV, he had his pick of the litter if he so desired.

You knew it shouldn’t make any difference to you, you knew it was none of your business and you had no right to worry about it— but just the idea of him with one of them— with anyone—

“I guess he married you so quickly because he loves you so much,” Sister Nomina smiled.

You smiled back, even if you felt like you were still trying to keep bile down.  “Yes, I guess so.”

“And now you’re married to the head of the clergy; it’s like a fairytale or something!” Sister Mila beamed, clutching her hands together.

What kind of fairytales is this girl reading? “It all really has nothing to do with his status— Frater, Papa, Cardinal, he could be a janitor for all I care,” you assured her.  “I married him because he's the most patient, talented, generous man—”

You noticed the way many of them seemed to straighten up suddenly, the way Sister Perita’s eyes widened, and you spun over your shoulder to see Copia sauntering up behind you.  He had a good poker face, but there was an obvious smugness to it.  “What’s that they say?  Speak of the devil?” he mused as he leaned against the doorway.

“Oh, hello… dear,” you blurted out— seems you’d used up all your creativity on that fake meet-cute and proposal, didn’t have any left for a good term of endearment.  

“You’re not telling stories again, are you?” he asked, approaching you slowly, the slightest swagger in his step.

“Everyone’s very curious about you,” you explained.

“No, I don’t think so,” he denied, “they already know about me— they’re curious about us.”

Us sounded so nice when he said it like that.  He touched your shoulder for a moment, sliding his hand down to clasp at your upper arm.  Paradoxically, he acted more confident with an audience; you couldn’t tell if this was for your benefit, or theirs.

“Don’t go running off without me, hm?” he scolded sweetly.

“Yes, Frater,” you answered politely, wondering afterwards if it was too formal.

It didn’t seem to deter him: he brought his hand to your chin and held it delicately, keeping your head tilted up towards him.  “I worry when I lose sight of you,” he explained.  “We have to get ready for Mass soon, will you meet me at the chancel before the service begins?”

“Of course,” you agreed, smiling a little as he looked down at you so… lovingly?  Could that be the word?

You wondered if he would kiss you right then— you hadn’t kissed in public since your first kiss, and you thought you wanted to keep it that way… but wouldn’t it be a little fun, to show him off just a bit in front of these ladies?  Wouldn’t it be the best way to rub it in that he chose you?

Instead he only stroked your jaw with his thumb for a second, before letting go of you and stepping back.  He gave only one moment of attention to the women around you— with a quick bow of greeting and a polite “Sisters” — before spinning on his heel and departing.

You pressed your lips together and kept your eyes on the door even after he was gone; there was a heavy silence until the echoes of his steps down the hall faded.  Then they all broke into the squealy, girlish reactions you were expecting.

“Great Belial below!” “He’s so sensual!” “You can tell he’s completely enamoured with you!”

“O-oh, enamoured?” you repeated sheepishly.  “I don’t know, he’s just— like that…”

But your face warmed and you had to reach up to partially cover it with your hand— you didn’t want them to see your growing smile, in case someone asked why you were so giddy over a small interaction with your own husband.  

You departed from the convent not too long after that, knowing you didn’t have much time before Mass began and wanting to give yourself time to navigate to the chapel.  A walk through the church alone would’ve been a nice opportunity to clear your head, if your head was actually capable of clearing— but no, instead it was swirling with memories.  Memories all the way back as that first time he served you the body and blood, when he’d apparently taken an interest in you which eventually lead to this; memories as recent as the way he’d touched you just before.

Did it still make you feel a little nauseous knowing Sister Lascivia— and likely tens of thousands of other people— were somewhere out there thinking about how dominating he must be?  Yes, but you also felt a little proud of yourself… because that’s all they had, their thoughts.  You actually had a shot at finding out for yourself.

If you ever found the nerve, that is; regardless, you tried to push that thought process aside and actually listen to the priest as he officiated Mass that evening.  Of course, you really weren’t able to do that until being mentioned by name got your attention.

“And we have some visitors this Mass!” the priest announced.  “Frater Imperator and Sister Imperator Consortia—they’ve come all the way from the church of Ghost in Sweden!  Give them a warm welcome, will you?”

As the congregation applauded, Copia stood up; you followed suit quickly, getting a good look at the sea of people in pews all looking at you both.  You hadn’t seen a crowd like this since your wedding.  

Your smile was genuine but flustered when Copia placed his decorated hand on your shoulder; it already made your heart tremble when he did it in front of a few Sisters of Sin, this was on a whole new level.  He guided you a little closer to him, tucking you into his side, and you looked out over the massive crowd before glancing at the glove on your shoulder— namely, the wedding ring on it.

Then you looked at his face, at how polite and distinguished he looked standing before all these people.  “What do I do?” you asked your husband in a whisper.

“Hm?” he pressed, only briefly glancing at you.

“With all this attention,” you clarified, “what am I meant to do?”

“Just smile,” he encouraged.  “All they want is to see you.  Just give them a smile, maybe a little wave if you’re feeling generous.”

He was a showman, he knew what he was doing— you tried to copy him, with moderate success.  It was comforting, somehow, to see him in his element.  Unfortunately, how comfortable he was here only served as kindling for the flame of insecurity in the back of your mind.  Because he’s him, and you’re just… you.

And there in that sea of congregation members were plenty of those people you’d had mentioned to you before: the ones who would kill to have your spot.

~

“You should be proud of yourself,” he grinned as he took his seat across from you on the jet once again— it felt like so much had happened since the last time you were here.  “You shouldn’t be so adverse to social engagements, you’re a natural.”

“No, definitely not,” you laughed a bit, “but I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would.  You made it easier for me.”

“They love you already, darling,” he promised, and the casual affectionate name made you smile even more, though you tried to hide it from him.  “So does everyone back at our church— anyone who knows you would, really.”

Your heart swelled, but you just hummed and looked away in lieu of responding.  

Of course, as soon as your heart was happy, your brain had to pop in and ruin it: that smile on Sister Lascivia’s face, the way she was so clearly picturing your husband in some kind of compromising way.  And the horrible, sick idea that maybe she didn’t have to just imagine it.

Copia was already prepared for a quiet flight— he had his legs crossed and a book open in his lap, his chin resting on one of his hands as he read.  You looked at him for a moment, appreciating how calm he seemed to always be; sometimes it was hard to believe he was the same man with that rockstar reputation, but you knew it was too naive to assume just because he could be quiet that he must not have lived to the fullest in his time as the Papa.

You managed to distract yourself by watching out the window as the jet took off, but once you were high enough to break through the clouds, the view was basically just white light and was not nearly interesting enough to keep your mind occupied.

It shouldn’t have even mattered!  So what if he was a bit more intimately acquainted with someone you’d met on that trip?  It didn’t make any difference now.  Yet, it was all you could think of, and even knowing it would only bring you pain, you compared yourself to her— she was quite pretty, after all, even with that habit covering up most of her.  Maybe she was more his type… maybe she was exactly his type.

By that point you’d basically convinced yourself it was true, without any evidence at all.

You swallowed the lump in your throat, but for some reason you couldn’t seem to hold back the words forming there.  “Do you know any of the Sisters there?” you heard yourself ask before you could stop yourself.  “I-I mean, did you know any of them before today...”

“Eh… no, I don’t think so,” he mumbled.

“But you’ve been to the church before,” you recalled, “you know Comis.”

“Well, yes, he’s their main ambassador— Sisters come and go, you know.”

You nodded, and he looked back down at his book.  You let the moment rest for a few seconds that felt like an eternity.  “It’s just that—”

He sighed a little and shut his book.

“They seemed to be so fascinated by you,” you explained.  “I think you had quite a few fans there.”

“Fans?  You mean, the band?” he raised an eyebrow, and you nodded.  “Then that’s not me, is it?  I just sang for a while— I’m interchangeable, by design.”

“But still— you were, are, so popular.”

“Eh… if you say so…”

“Come on,” you tilted your head, a bit of frustration leaking into your tone, “don’t be like that— you know what you’re doing.”

He looked a little confused, if not almost hurt by the implied accusation of deceitfulness.  “What are you asking me about?” he pressed, narrowing his eyes.

“Did you fuck any of them?”

Your eyes widened when you heard yourself say it— you really couldn’t believe you’d just word-vomited it out like that.  He seemed a little shocked, too, but much more amused than anything.  You didn’t like it at all, the way he smiled; it made you feel even more stupid for asking it, for thinking it even.

“I’m sorry,” you said instantly, “I shouldn’t have—” I shouldn’t have started this conversation while we’re trapped together for four hours, for one thing— “it’s not my place.  Forget I asked, it doesn’t matter.”

“Now now,” he cooed, “if it concerns you, then it matters.”

He was teasing you— dangling it in front of you.  “It doesn’t concern me,” you assured, “in every sense of the word— it’s none of my concern.”

“You look concerned.”

“Yes, but… that's my problem, not yours.”

He sighed, looking at you as if he were a little disappointed for some reason.  “Do you remember our vows, tesoro?”

You swallowed thickly.  Not really, I'm pretty sure I was in the middle of an anxiety-induced blackout.  “Uh…” you stalled.

“We agreed to care for each other, to share our hearts forever,” he reminded you.  “That means that if something upsets you, then it upsets me.  Even if you think it's silly— and from what I can tell, it's not.”

“Of course it is,” you rolled your eyes.  “It's silly to ask a famous musician if he slept with any fans— of course you did.”

“I did,” he admitted, “but surely not with the frequency you're imagining.  And not with anyone in Brussels, if that's any comfort.”

You crossed your arms over yourself self-consciously, looking out the window even though the cloudy scenery hadn't changed much.

“Of course I've had lovers before— you have too, I know.  I hope we won't hold that against each other.”

“Yes, of course,” you sighed.  “Obviously I never expected, or even wanted, either of us to be virginal or something, Satan forbid.  And there's nothing wrong with you meeting women on the road, either… it's just… is it wrong that thinking about it makes me kind of want to strangle someone?”

He laughed; “No,” he assured, “I don't think so.”

Unfortunately, he was right— that talking about it made you feel a little better.  

“Is it wrong that I think you're especially sexy when you're jealous?”

Your throat caught and you looked away from him quickly, holding your face in your hand as an excuse to cover it, but he obviously noticed the way you crossed your legs tightly.  His eyes raked over you, you could feel it somehow even when you were refusing to actually look back at him.

“I don’t think you have much right to be so shy, after asking me such personal questions,” he purred.  

“I-I’m not being shy,” you denied in a mumble, “I just didn’t expect you to say that.”

“I hope it doesn’t offend you—”

“No!  No,” you assured quickly, letting go of your heated face to look down into your lap.  “You’re being sweet, thank you.”

“It’s only the truth,” he insisted.  “Let’s always tell each other that, alright?  Just the truth.”

You nodded in agreement, finding the strength to meet his gaze again; the look in his eyes was just like the one he’d had when he found you in the convent.  It must not have been just for show, then… 

“Promise you’ll get some rest while we fly,” he sighed, “we won’t be landing until the late evening and we have quite a day ahead tomorrow.”

You only remembered it right then: your wedding reception.  As if you hadn’t had enough excitement for a lifetime in this week already.

~

It was a unique reception in a number of ways, probably too many to count.  First of all, most receptions happen right after the wedding, of course— but late night Masses left little time for that.  Secondly, receptions usually have speeches and sentimental things for the families of the betrothed; while Copia’s family of phantasms were in attendance, they didn’t have much to say, and what could they say?  They didn’t even know you.  So, instead, your reception was much more of the good stuff: dancing, eating, drinking, and good old-fashioned partying.

And then there was, you know, the demonic statues and sacrifices.  But that, to you, wasn’t so out of the ordinary.

You were seated at the head table with him, watching the crowd in all their merriment, feeling an odd sense of pride— of responsibility for all this joy.  It wasn’t like you’d planned this, it was a gift from the clergy who had done the work of putting it together, but technically you were half of what was being celebrated.

Maybe it was just appreciation for home, after your trip to Brussels.  It was always nice to see familiar faces filled with joy.

He leaned in closer to you so you could hear him over the music as he spoke, and you felt his breath on your shoulder.  “I'm sorry we didn't have time for this sooner,” he said.

“Oh!  I wouldn't have known what to do if we'd done it any sooner,” you admitted with a laugh.  Not that you especially knew what to do now— but you at least, by now, knew how to fake knowing what to do.

“And I’m sorry we couldn’t do something a little more traditional,” he added.

“Traditional?” you repeated with a laugh.

“What’s that American thing, where they feed each other the wedding cake?” he raised an eyebrow.  “Maybe we should have done that… I’ve always thought it looked sweet.”

You had no idea he had any opinions about things like that; it was endearing to imagine he ended up watching wedding videos at some point and wanted something like that for himself.  “Well, we can still do that another time,” you offered, “when there aren’t so many people watching.”

Again, you didn’t quite put together how that sounded until he cleared his throat and his cheeks pinkened at bit; of course it sounded suggestive when you phrased it like that, how could you have not seen that coming?!

Before you could correct yourself, though— or decide if you actually did need to correct anything— the ghouls on the chancel began playing a familiar song.

It didn’t sound the same, of course, with another singer filling in, but you could so easily hear Copia’s voice in those words:  You'll soon be hearing the chime, close to midnight…

He stood up suddenly, and you looked up at him.  “May I have this dance, cara mia?” he asked with an extended hand.

You took it with a smile; “I think one of the privileges of marriage is that you don't have to ask me that.”

Guiding you to the dancefloor, it felt like one of those movie scenes with the way the crowd parted for you on their own.  Was there a spotlight on you or was that just your imagination?

One of the few things you'd known about him before marrying him was that he was quite a dancer— what you hadn't known until now was how much you enjoyed dancing.  He made it easy, guiding you through the moves so well that people would probably think you had more experience than you did.

You had every right to be nervous, and you were, but for the first time it felt sort of… good?  Surely the alcohol in your system was aiding you, but it wasn’t just that.  Your heart was racing but you didn’t feel the urge to run and hide; he was smiling at you, he was pulling you closer, and for just a few moments you were suddenly fearless.

I just wanna be, wanna bewitch you in the moonlight

I just wanna be, wanna bewitch you all night

He spun and dipped you, making you laugh with exhilaration.  When he pulled you back up, the look in his eyes almost took your breath away… so determined, yet romantic and vulnerable.  A look you felt like only he could pull off.

If the song’s lyrics were some sort of manifestation, then it was working: you were totally bewitched by him.  It was just the two of you and the music playing, it was just his hands holding and guiding you, it was just this perfect moment that you could hardly believe was happening to you.  Weren’t you just an ordinary Sister this time two weeks ago?

You knew when the song was nearly over, and when he spun you one more time and pulled you into him, your hand came up to the side of his face, your leg lifted to slightly straddle his side… your eyes drifted down to his lips.

Just one more split-second and you would’ve kissed him.  Not just any kiss, you would’ve kissed him like you never had before— like nobody ever had before.  

But the crowd of people around you instead began to proudly clap and cheer, and it tore you out of the moment; honestly, you’d sort of forgotten you were surrounded by all the guests.  You looked away from Copia and smiled at the people who had watched you dance, hardly even noticing that he never stopped looking at you.

It went by too quickly— not just the song but the whole night.  All too soon, you were back in your room; ears still ringing, heart still thumping, and (less enjoyably) feet still a little bit sore from dancing in new shoes despite having changed into your night clothes and comfy socks already.

As Copia walked to his side of the bed in his own signature embroidered pyjamas, you fell back on the bed limply, laying your arms out wide and staring up at the ceiling with a sigh— a happy sigh of course, a does this night really have to end? sigh.  “That was wonderful,” you announced with a beaming smile.  “I didn't think I'd enjoy it so much, but it was perfect.”

“I hoped you would,” Copia agreed.  “You've seemed so tense— I'm not sure I ever saw you looking so relaxed, and joyful… you look so beautiful that way.”

“Y-you don't have to flatter me,” you mumbled, pulling your arms back in towards yourself as tilted your head back to look at him— upside down, but still at him.

“Of course, I never would,” he assured, laying down carefully on the bed beside you.  “It's just the truth.  I bet everyone was as taken with you as I was… but only I got to dance with you.”

You smiled a little more softly, admiring how sweet he could be— a side of him you felt privileged to see so close.  You wanted to say something, but you really had no idea how to respond to a statement like that, or even how to just take the compliment.

“Can I tell you something?” he asked quietly.

“O-of course,” you answered, “you can tell me anything.”

“I-I'm a little embarrassed,” he admitted with a soft laugh, “but I… I've seen Heathers.”

You tilted your head, laughing in confusion.

“I don't know why I lied to you before,” he shook his head, “I know it quite well— I saw it in theaters when it was released!  I just— I thought— I'm not sure.  I guess I liked you explaining it to me.”

Your heart jumped, and you looked down at the bed under you sheepishly, as if your finger tracing the pattern on the quilt was fascinating all of a sudden.

“I wanted to give you an excuse to talk to me,” he added.

“You… you could've just… talked,” you told him quietly.  “It wasn't like I would've ignored you.”

“Yes, I know,” he sighed, “but the moment never felt right.”

“How does the moment feel now?” you asked shyly.

“Oh, tesoro, everything about tonight feels perfect.”

Your heart skipped a beat; everything?

You wondered, of course, if he would try something again; it was hard not to imagine that, since this was such a similar set of circumstances to that very first night.  But it felt so different, too— it felt less terrifying, for one thing, and less confusing.

But instead of letting yourself wonder about that for too long— afraid he’d somehow see it on your face, and know what you were picturing— you sat up a little bit and propped yourself up on your elbows.

“I asked why you chose me already,” you began, “but I never asked the bigger question, did I?  That is, why you got married at all.”

He sighed shortly before he answered.  “My mother, she asked me to get married.  At first, I thought it was just the will of the clergy.  I understand now it was much more than that.”

“She wanted you to be happy,” you assumed.

“Yes, yes…” he trailed off, looking to the side.  “She knew I didn't want to be alone anymore.”

Your heart twisted a little; “I figure the Papa himself never has to be alone,” you mumbled through a sheepish smile.  “You could take anyone to bed you wanted, a new companion every night.”

He chuckled a little.  “I think you know that's not what I mean— I learned better than anyone that being by oneself and being alone are different things,” he explained.  “Even if I did find the time and energy for a thousand lovers, I would've still been lonely without a real partner… something to call my own.  But I never had the time— or, I told myself that, to justify why I didn't have anyone.”

You understood that better than he could know— better than you wanted to realize.

“My parents loved each other, but spent most of their lives apart,” he explained.  “I don't want to be like that.  I don't want to have something beautiful and let it go to waste.”

He looked at you right then, and it seemed like it meant something but you wouldn't let yourself imagine what.

“Could I kiss you again?” he asked softly.  It sort of completely caught you off-guard, not what he said but the way he said it: the unsureness in his voice, the slight flush on his face.

You didn't answer with words, you simply reached up and brushed your fingers through the hair at his temple, where it was turning silver— another reminder of how long he'd been alone. 

You moved your hand in to cradle his face, leaning closer.

There was something shockingly comfortable about it, like you'd known each other for years.  You had grown to care for him, you couldn't deny that, but you surprised even yourself by how you pulled him closer as he kissed you.

It brought back memories of your wedding night, of course, and you couldn't decide if it felt like just yesterday or months ago.  All that fear and anxiety you'd been nearly crushed by then— it was only a distant memory, to the point that it was almost hard to believe you were the same person who had felt all that.

In some ways, you weren't.

His hand gently rested on your side, before carefully moving around to your lower back to keep you pressed against him.  Why did that feel so perfect?  His head tilted a little more, his kiss deepened a little more, you sighed a little heavier. 

As he pulled away, he looked into your eyes; you saw something new and totally indescribable in them.

If he kisses me again, I won't be able to say no to him, you realized.

He only smiled at you gently, his fingers brushing over your cheek.  “Goodnight, darling,” he offered quietly.

You were still in shock just a bit as he kissed your temple softly, before pulling back and turning to face away from you as he climbed under the covers.  Blinking quickly, you wondered if you would've asked him not to stop if he'd given you a chance.

Slowly laying down yourself, you faced towards him and sighed a little as you looked at the back of him.

You stared at him for so long that night, watching him sleep, willing yourself to just reach over and wake him; to run your fingers through his hair until he stirred and turned to face you.  And then you wouldn’t have to say anything, you could just kiss him and he’d understand.  All you had to do was lift your hand and touch him… then his arms would be around you, his lips would be on you, his weight would press you into the bed…

You fell asleep before you ever found the nerve.  But that’s not to say you fell asleep quickly; no, not at all.

[norman-fucking-reedus]

GROWN UPS 💋 (18+)

summary: “Ya’ really think tha’ bothers me? ‘M a grown ass man, woman. Ain’t ever afraid of a lil’ hair”

era: pre-negan alexandria

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

slightly submissive daryl x female reader (the juicy shit: unprotected sex, rough sex, riding, biting, choking, hair pulling, pet names (Darling, sugar, allthat), cunnalings, cumming untouched)

Disclaimer(s): This is not only my first tumblr post, this is my first x reader so forgive me if its bad </3

Considering that I am a black writer I want everyone to be included in the wonderous x reader experience which is why I have some drafts with neutral appearances and plus size so stay tuned if youre interested babe <3

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“Hold on there, big guy. Take your shoes off” A giggle rested on your lips as you watched Daryl huff and haphazardly toe his boots off, keeping his hands firm on your hips. As soon as his socked feet were on the ground, his lips landed back on top of yours, licking deep into your mouth.

He had been out on a run for what felt like weeks, even though it was only a few days. After dropping off his findings to Rick, he went straight to find you.

Daryl’s hands roamed and groped your body like a starved man, grunting and moaning into your mouth. He had you pinned right against the wall in the living room, pressing your bodies as closely together as he could.

He practically had you trapped there, holding you in place as his kiss-swollen lips began sucking and biting at your exposed throat, pulling breathy moans from your chest. One of his strong hands slid up your shirt to grab a handful of boob, which he squeezed through your lacey bra.

You so badly wanted to take this session upstairs where you know you’ll get your core guts rearranged, however for the past few days you’ve been having a small insecurity, and that was your recent lack of shaving.

Even though you are in the middle of an apocalypse and razors have become a lot more scarce, it still made you feel a little bad about yourself, considering you did have thicker hair down there. As these negative thoughts began to cloud your mind, you started to get turned off, absent mindedly humming under your boyfriend’s touch. You didn’t want him to think that you were gross.

He took note of this and withdrew his hand from under your shirt, and brought it up to your face, redirecting your focus onto his face. “Ya’ alright there, plum?” Part of you wanted to say yes, but your head was already shaking no. “I’m sorry it’s just…” His blue eyes stared into yours, patiently waiting for your response. “I haven’t been able to shave in a while” You mumbled, tearing your eyes away to try to ease your embarrassment.

After a few moments of silence, Daryl scoffed, as if he just processed that you were being serious. He stared at your face for what felt like forever until he finally tilted your head back to look at him, studying your face closely. “Ya’ really think tha’ bothers me? ‘M a grown ass man, woman. Ain’t ever afraid of a lil’ hair” His voice was raspy and dark as he spoke, and oh, how you loved yourself a bold man.

His words shot straight down your core and to your cunt, which had begun to throb again. With his words still fresh in your head, you pulled him by the collar up the stairs to your room, where you would get exactly what you wanted.

You swung your door open and slammed it shut, giggles and moans falling from your lips as Daryl scooped you up and dropped you onto the bed, ready to continue his earlier attacks on your body. This time around, he took your shirt completely off, frowning at your bra. “Quit pouting. Help get my pants off and I’ll undo my bra” You spoke as you readjusted yourself to grab at the hooks, while Daryl tore your pants off your long legs, hands immediately going for your underwear. “Nope. Your mouth is gonna be real busy tonight, since you’re such a man” Daryl smirked as he settled his hands obediently on your hips before he hooked his teeth onto the waistband of your panties and pulled them down, taking them out his mouth and stuffing them in his back pocket. “Fer later” He said as he looked at the amused look on your face. “I’m confused why you’re talking and not eating me out” Daryl licked his lips as he pulled your legs further apart, eyeing your hairy cunt for a bit longer than you’d like. He on the other hand was enjoying the amazing view.

He tightly gripped your hips and pulled them upwards, giving your clit a wet lick as he deeply inhaled your natural scent. It was so intoxicating to him as he really started to go down, licking and sucking at your clit. His spit trickled down and mixed with your slick, and he began to tease your fluttering hole with his finger. Your bottom lip was caught harshly between your teeth, as moans rumbled from your chest, some being a little higher than others. You moaned especially loud when two thick fingers began sliding in and out of you, curling into your sweet spot and scissoring open.

Daryl himself was painfully hard in his pants and had been working up to his own orgasm, as he literally couldn’t get enough of you. The feel of your skin under his burning palm, the taste of your wet cunt on his tongue, cheeks turning red from a combination of pleasure, and your pubic hair rubbing against him. It was so overwhelming for him, as his dick twitched harshly in his pants. Pathetically, he began to grind down on the mattress, groaning erotically against you as he did. Your plump thighs tightened around his head when his relentless attack on your clit became stronger, his tongue hardening up against the bundle of nerves. “Fuck my baby that feels so good” Your fingers tangled in his brown locks, tugging at his scalp in a way you knew he liked.

Little did you know your short tugs would throw him over the edge, body trembling roughly as his cock throbbed in its confinement, shooting ropes of cum in his boxers. His moans vibrated against you, and you could feel yourself nearing the edge, unaware of your boyfriend's situation. You had started to grind down on his tongue and fingers, legs tightening and shaking as you climbed to your peak, moaning lewdly when you tumbled over.

Daryl pulled off you, and his face was a wet deep red mess. His hair was disheveled and your eyes landed on the dark spot in the front of his jeans. “Would you like some help with that sweetheart? How pathetic that you came from only eating me out” You tugged him forward by his vest collar, which you prompted him to take off. Your hands moved to unbuckle his pants as he leaned down to kiss you, the taste of yourself still lingering heavy on his tongue. You tossed the belt onto the floor and yanked at his pants. “Are ya tha eager ta see me naked, darlin?” A smug smile landed on his face as he kicked the offending piece of fabric off, spoiled underwear following suit.

When your eyes landed on his thick cock, engorged tip looking just so damn sensitive, you nodded your head as your dark gaze stared into his. “Get on your back” You placed your hands on his shoulders as you rolled him over, straddling his strong hips and leaning over the bed to snatch his belt up. “Hands.” You snapped the leather in your hands, staring down into his core. Holy hell did he love it. He loved the feeling of you tightening his own belt around his wrists and pinning them above the headboard by wrapping the extra leather around a post. He was an absolute sight for only you.

Your mouth watered as you stared down at your man, who was on complete display for you to gawk at, as you ran a lean hand up his chest, capturing his lips in yours before slamming down onto his cock, high gasp coming from him as his swollen tip bumped your cervix suddenly. You were only getting started as you placed both hands on his chest, grinding your hips skillfully and bouncing steeply, pulling yourself back down when he was only halfway out.

It drove you both crazy, Daryl even more so as you kept saying dirty things to him in an alluring tone. He had a brief thought that you were some type of sex demon attempting to fuck his soul out, which it was definitely working.

Daryl couldn’t keep his head up to watch the pornographic way you were riding him, his hands had began to tug at their restraint.

“Does that feel good baby? I wish you would look at me so I can tell” He whimpered in response, eyes rolling back when you increased your pace. Your fingers traveled up into the front of his hair, which you tugged forward to raise his head. The action went straight to his dick. Your fingers trailed out his hair and down his face, back down his chest.

“Keep your eyes on me, my sweet. Do you feel good?” You tilted your head as you ground your hips down, his dick blissfully bumping your sweet spot. “S’ so good, please let me touch you, sugar, please?” His voice sounded weak and pathetic to his own ears, but it went straight to your cunt, a smile creeping on your lips. “Earn it. My poor legs are tired.” You cooed, making a pouty face at him as you rocked slowly back and forth. “Gonna pound ya’ from underneath, ‘mma make ya’ feel real good” His senseless babbling encited a moan from you, especially when he planted his feet on the bed and lifted his hips, immediately started a rough pace.

He was so desperate to fuck the shit out of you. As he panted heavily, watching intently as he quickly slid in and out of you. He had been so focused that he didn’t feel you undoing his restraints until his hands were guided to fat hips which he gripped tightly and flipped you onto your stomach, lifting your hips up before ramming back in, one hand going up the headboard to steady himself. Even with the position he had you in he still felt compelled to do what you say, deep whimpers falling each time his sensitive tip roughly bumped inside you.

From where his hand was on the headboard, it had began to slam into the wall at the same harsh pace as his hips, which he angled up to hit your sweet spot and slide that much deeper. Fuck, he was starting to become dizzy with pleasure. Your erotic moans filled his ear as he leaned down over you, burying his face in your neck to inhale your strong smell, somehow increasing his pace. “Daryl baby I’m so close… you make me feel so fucking good” You mumbled into the comforter, the hot sounds of your boyfriend’s breath and the banging headboard filling your ears. A calloused finger trailed down your stomach and rubbed your clit in quick circles, Daryl’s strained voice right in your ear. “Cum fer me, darlin’ please let me make you feel real good, fuck- please” You could tell he was much closer to the edge than you, his voice had raised by an octave, his strokes had gotten short yet stronger, and he was practically panting like a dog. You reached a hand back and yanked his hair harder than you intended, crashing your lips together. You felt your body shake as Daryl’s strokes had become sloppy as his second orgasm hit him like a fucking truck. It was so strong that he couldn’t help but pull away and release a harsh whine that burned in his chest. Your own release had you pulling Daryl back down for a kiss, harshly biting his bottom lip. His finger slowed to a stop on your overly sensitive clit.

When you pulled away, it felt like you couldn’t get enough oxygen, breathing heavily as Daryl rolled onto his back, groaning as he pulled his soft cock out. Your hips landed on the fluffy comforter and Daryl’s cum had started to leak out of you, heating your sweaty face a little more.

After a few minutes, you felt soft lips on your back and a warm towel between your legs, followed by Daryl climbing back into bed and pulling the covers over you, wrapping big arms around your lower back as he pulled you closer. Laughter rose from your chest as he peppered you with kisses. “Told ya’ ‘m a man” He mumbled sleepily, and you scoffed. “My big strong adult man” You kissed his chest, and he hummed, already falling asleep. In the back of your head, you made a mental note to check the damage that was done to the wall in the morning.

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A/N: this was way longer than i intended it to be but i hope y’all enjoyed!! <33

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[lexical-lushes]

A Lesson Learned

“Sit still, dear, this is delicate work.”

I do my best to obey, trying to shut out the tickle of my Maker’s tools like I would any other sensation. It doesn’t do me much good – my phylactery is sensitive in a way my vessel isn’t, and no matter how hard I try to ignore it the work of sealing the little cracks in that vibrant purple gemstone buzzes inside me like an electric arc.

Despite myself, I fidget restlessly, and my Maker’s patience grows thin.

“If you can’t sit still on your own, I’ll need to disconnect your phylactery entirely. Now behave, dear.”

The threat of being pulled into that absent blackness does its job – I find it in me to ignore the buzzing, jaw clenched, teeth grinding against each other. My Maker gives an approving little noise, then continues on with her work, tone softening once more.

“There’s a good doll. You know what would have happened if you’d succeeded.”

I give the slightest nod, still focused on keeping still, on not flinching away from the sizzle her iron makes as it carefully and precisely seals the cracks in my phylactery, whispering the artifact whole again. If I’d succeeded, I’d be dead.

“I’m nearly done, now, dear. Just a moment longer to make sure the mounting is still set correctly.”

I close my eyes, let the ticking of my metronome provide me some meager stability. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, the buzzing in my soul fades and I can feel my Maker pull away, feel her satisfaction with her work.

“There. You can relax now, dear.”

With a gentle sigh, I open my eyes again, let my jaw relax, let my breathing resume. I take a moment to reaffirm my surroundings – sat on the edge of a workbench in my Maker’s studio, stripped of my clothes, one arm wrapped in a brace to prevent the spiderweb of fractures that reach all the way up to my chest from worsening. My Maker is sat turned away from me on a tall stool, carefully replacing the iron in the appropriate drawer.

Turning back towards me, she slips one of many tuning forks out of her work apron, twirling it between her fingers. I say nothing, but I feel a blush creep across my face, warmth tinging my cool porcelain skin at the thought of what must be coming next.

“Yes, dear,” she says, catching my reaction. “I’m going to need to tune you.”

“Just stay relaxed and let yourself sink into it... there’s a good doll...”

She taps one talon against the tip of the fork, sets it singing, and leans in to gently press it into one of my aetheric hooks – I can’t help but do as she says, sinking, sinking, feeling my consciousness pulled inwards towards my phylactery, leaving my vessel a hazy afterthought.

I can feel her winding one of my threads, feel the tune of her fork vibrate into me, her intent a hypnotic, drowning tide that pours in along the thread, filling me up until at last I can take no more, resist no more, and I fall inward, into the comforting warmth of a trance.

...and then I’m wide awake again.

“Such a good doll...” my Maker reassures me, gently stroking one hand through my silver hair, cupping my cheek. I realize I must have been crying – my face is wet against her hand.

“W-what...” I stammer, trying to gauge how long I was entranced. It can’t have been too long – the beam of sunlight that enters the studio through it’s tall, narrow window has only inched across the floor.

“Shh, shh, it’s alright dear. I just had to make a few changes to you. I can’t have one of my dolls hurting herself, now, can I?”

I frown. Hurting myself? Had I...? No, no, that would be silly. Even the thought of it made me recoil instinctively, the fear of a rebuke sharp in my mind for considering the mere possibility.

...Wait.

Oh. Of course. I realize immediately what my Maker meant by her words – I’d had a new rule implanted in me.

Something must have shown in my expression, because my Maker nods softly, tipping her talons beneath my chin and raising my violet eyes to meet her brilliant amber ones.

“Most of my dolls know better than to damage themselves all on their own,” she explains, “but sometimes these things happen. Do you remember why I needed to repair you, dear?”

I start to shake my head, then stop, pausing to examine myself. My right arm is fractured, kept safe in a brace. I experimentally test my fingers, and find them stiff, barely responsive. The mechanisms must be quite damaged. I close my eyes and trace my self-image up from the near-paralyzed arm, up and up, across my chest where the cracks spread and blossom...

I try to imagine what might have caused this sort of damage, but nothing comes.

“...I don’t remember,” I finally admit uncertainly.

My Maker smiles softly, nods. “Good. I’ll tell you, but I didn’t feel it appropriate to leave you with the memory itself. You beat yourself to breaking against a wall, dear. You wailed and wailed and smashed yourself, and then you tried to smash your phylactery. I found you, afterwards, all pulled into yourself, and I took you home to fix you.”

I can hardly believe what she’s saying. I... I tried to destroy myself? Why would I... how could I? A doll should never harm herself.

(Dimly, I remember that that last part is a recent command, a compulsion implanted deep into my soul. It doesn’t matter – I feel it strongly all the same.)

Finally, I find the words to ask my Maker why I had tried to... to kill myself.

She answers with a question of her own, and once again I’m frozen as I realize I don’t know the answer.

“Dear, do you remember why you sold yourself to me? Why you had me make you into a doll?”

How... how could I forget something like that? How could I forget when it had only been a few months? I can vividly recall my life as a human, recall the process of being made into a doll, the blissful feeling of my soul being gently pried from my body and nestled snugly into my phylactery, of my vessel being transfigured from flesh and blood into ceramic and glass and brass, given life by my Maker’s magic...

But when I tried to recall what had driven me to such a permanent decision, I found only a dull ache of longing surrounding a hazy nothingness.

My Maker waits patiently, and under her gaze I feel compelled to try harder to provide a satisfying answer to her question.

Biting my lip, I try to feel out the space around the haze. I remember being... dissatisfied with my life, with who I was, and at how little my attempts to change it seemed to matter. I remember a feeling of elated certainty that this was the way, this was what I had been looking for. I remember... remember...

She must have been very careful in excising the memories she’d asked me to locate, because when I finally find an answer, it’s only in the outline of what’s missing.

The look of pained realization in my eyes proves all the response my Maker requires of me; gently, tenderly, she pulls me to her chest, lets me cry and whimper against her, whispers gentle reassurances. It would be too painful, she tells me, to make you bear those memories. You know everything you need to know about what happened.

I fight it at first, recoil at the idea of being left with a hole in my memory like this. But as she cradles me close and kisses my perfect silver hair and fusses at my broken arm, promises to make me good as new, I realize that she’s right.

Her talons stroke me gently, trailing up and down my spine in a lazy circuit as she hugs me close. Her voice is like a lullaby at this point, drawing out the ache and tension until I feel my springs start to unwind, feel a comfortable weight creep into my vessel as all my strings go limp.

“You’re a good doll, dear... such a good doll. You have a purpose now, alright? Dolls all have a purpose. And you’ll never forget that.”

I nod tiredly, sniffling, aware I’m leaking all over her apron.

She doesn’t seem to mind.

Before long, I’m at peace.

[darcydarlingdabbles]

Epilogue

Human Hotel Trip ~ Part 7/7 ~ 6.2 k

Hazbin Hotel ₊⁺⋆ Charlastor ₊⁺⋆ EventuallyVERY Explicit

Part 1 ⚜️Part 2 ⚜️ Part 3 ⚜️ Part 4 ⚜️ Part 5 ⚜️ Part 6 ⚜️ Finale

// A few months after the trip to Earth that changed everything, Charlie and Alastor are still working out the kinks of their newly defined relationship. Well, Charlie is. Alastor has his fully figured out. //

⊹❀⊹❀⊹✨⊹❀⊹❀⊹

Charlie Morninstar’s brow furrowed in concentration as she hunched over her desk in the dim back office. 

Her crayon scratched against paper, leaving a hot pink streak over her next lesson plan, her tongue darting out between her black lips. The clock on the wall ticked steadily, the sound echoing in the after-dinner quiet of the Hazbin Hotel. 

“Come on, brain!” Charlie muttered, digging her fingers through her hair, before rolling up her sleeves and flexing her cramping fingers. “These sinners are counting on us to keep them on the path to redemption!” 

Her gaze drifted to the bright mug with its cheerful ‘Oh Deer’ barely readable in the low light—she’d forgot to turn the overheads as it got darker and dark out. Charlie reached for the coffee absently, then winced when the stone-cold liquid hit her lips. 

“Whoops,” she chuckled, how long she’d been fixated on her lesson plan. 

But, as the coffee hit her tongue, Charlie made a soft sound of contentment. It was just right—not too sweet this time, and just the way she liked it.

Alastor had finally figured out the balance between his bitter preference and hers. 

She could picture him now, almost, up in the radio tower that was his private domain. His voice was smooth as silk as he broadcasted to all the denizens of Hell every night. Part of her longed to tune in, to hear his charismatic tones in his element. 

But screams punctuated his shows and made her shudder. 

Charlie sighed, turning back to her papers and plans, thinking it was better that she could pretend he was just playing music up there. 

The blonde picked up her crayon again with renewed determination. She sketched out team-building exercises and self-reflection activities. Tomorrow was another chance to help lost souls find their way—and she wasn’t going to let them down. 

Charlie leaned back after a few hours or so, stretching her arms above her head with a soft groan, when the silence of the room was suddenly broken with the familiar crackle of static. 

“Hey, Al.” She hummed without turning around. A smiled tugged at her lips as she felt his presence looming over her shoulder. 

“My dear, were you expecting me?” Alastor asked playfully, his radio host’s voice bright and gleeful. 

Charlie opened her mouth to say yes, that he always managed to find her before either of them retired for the night—when she caught sight of the clock on the wall. “Uh, no, actually. Isn’t your broadcast still going?”

“Indeed, it is,” Alastor replied smoothly, just as she felt deft fingers smoothing out the mess she’d made of her hair over the last few hours. “A delightfully improvised jazz number is currently serenading our listeners.” 

Eerie green flames sprung up around the ‘Oh Deer’ mug, making her heart skip a beat. But before she could voice her concern, the fire vanished as quickly as they appeared. 

And steam rose in little spirals from the now piping hot coffee. 

“Thank you, Al,” Charlie breathed, touched by the little gesture. 

She reached for the mug as soon as he released her tamed hair. The warmth of the rich coffee spread through her, chasing away some of the weariness that had settled into her bones. 

“My pleasure, darling.” Alastor purred, his fingers curling around her shoulders as she felt a gentle nuzzle against the side of her head—something he would never admit to, but he did all the time. “Though I must tsk tsk at you working so late. What would your father say about such poor time management?”

Charlie rolled her eyes at the teasing lilt in his voice. “Because I have to get these lessons right—souls are at stake here.” 

Alastor chuckled at her ear, sending shivers down the back of her neck. 

In a blink, he was perched primly on her desk, sweeping her papers out of his way with a flash of his shadow tentacles. 

“Now, really my dear,” He said, folding his hands neatly over his knee as he leaned close. “There’s no need to over exert yourself for some lowly sinners.”

“Alastor,” Charlie scowled, but before she could launch into her usual defense of redemption and how every soul was worth saving—when he held up a hand, his perpetual grin widening. 

“Because,” he said in a sing-song voice. “Your fumbling first efforts have succeeded once before, have they not?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence…I think.” Charlie said as she leaned back slightly from him. 

For some reason, her heart warmed just a bit at even this backhanded compliment. The Radio Demon was rarely straightforward, but she was learning to read between the lines. 

And, in his own twisted way, this was probably Alastor being supportive. 

Charlie nearly jumped as she felt something brush against her legs. She looked down to see Alastor’s shadow pulling up a stool behind her. Before she could react, she felt his microphone staff was pulling her legs out from under her, making her sit back. 

“Come now, take a break.” the demon insisted, his voice a mixture of concern and command. “Even the Princess of Hell needs a rest.” 

Charlie huffed, gripping the stool to sit up a little straighter. Alastor’s smile took on a smug glint as she relented. 

“Alright, Al, why are you trying so hard to get my attention?” she asked with a hint of suspicion. “ I mean, if I didn’t know better I think you were…well..” She trailed off, her cheeks blushing a brighter pink. 

The thing with Alastor, was there was always a thing with Alastor. 

He never outright said what he wanted, and even when he showed up at her room in the middle of the night—sometimes it was just to sleep next to her. 

Other times, he wanted more. And Charlie wanted a lot more. 

In a blink, Alastor vanished from the desk in front of her. She looked around the room for his tell-tale darkness, almost feeling like she should apologize. The only constant in the demon’s behavior was that calling him out on his escapades made them stop cold. 

“Al, wait—” 

Long fingers curled around Charlie’s waist, pulling her back against his chest in a delightfully familiar way. 

Instead of asking, she leaned back into him, relieved when she felt the brush of his cheek against her temple. 

“To speak plainly,” he murmured, his breath warm against her ear. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to capture your attention these days.”

Charlie shivered delicately, wrapping her arms around his and grabbing the sleeves of the Radio Demon’s coat. “If you’re frustrated, we can—” 

“Your little hotel has become quite the attraction for all of Hell’s wretches these days, hasn’t it?”

Wait, was he jealous of the time she spent with the residents? Was that what this was about? 

“Our hotel,” Charlie corrected firmly. “This is our hotel, Al, and we should both be proud—” 

Before she could continue her rant, Alastor vanished again. Charlie turned towards the empty room, only for the dapper demon to re-materialize directly in front of her. 

The blonde was forced to lean back on her elbows, gripping her desk as he invaded her personal space. 

Charlie had to admit that she lost whatever the hell he was saying when he was this close, leaning over her with his hands neatly behind his back. Something about ranting about the constant stream of sinners seeking redemption—while her mind was preoccupied with how her legs had to part to accommodate Alastor’s sudden proximity. 

“…and the cacophony of those pathetic little dance parties that Angel Dust likes to throw is deafening. I must say, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to focus on my own endeavors with all the—” 

Charlie felt a lightbulb click on over her head. 

Alastor’s incessant chatter, his need to be close, his complaints. He was trying to tell her…that he needed her. And he was terrible at it. 

Charlie reached up to slide her hands under the lapels of his scarlet coat, causing the man to stumble mid-sentence. Before he could react, she wrapped her fingers in Alastor’s suspenders and pulled down to his level to press her lips against his. 

The kiss stunned Alastor into silence, just long enough for Charlie to worry that she had indeed misread this situation, when the switch flipped and Alastor melted into the kiss. 

His arms wrapped around her, pulling himself closer as he returned affection with a fervor that took Charlie’s breath away. Alastor’s ears, which had flattened in shock, slowly lifted into a relaxed position. Her fingers carded through the hair below them with a smile. 

“Al,” she murmured, her voice soft and sweet for him. “If you need something…you can just ask me.” 

Alastor’s left ear flicked before his vulnerability was covered with his usual smirk and a flourish. 

“Dear girl, I assure you that I don’t need anything from anyone,” he protested, his voice carrying its usual lilting cadence. “I am entirely self-sufficient, as always.”

Charlie raised a playful eyebrow up at him, glancing at his arms caging her against her desk still. 

Alastor’s grin widened, leaning in closer to get to her ear. 

“However,” he purred. “I came to extend a special invitation. To my Radio Tower, after the broadcast.” 

“But you don’t allow anyone up there?”

“Yes, yes,” Alastor interrupted with a dismissive wave. “But you are not just anyone, and I wish to give you a…private preview of a new record I am working on.” 

Charlie’s expression mixed with curiosity and concern. “It’s not…more screams of tortured sinners, is it?” she asked hesitantly. 

“Far from it, darling.” Alastor laughed, the sound coming out of him like a hum more than a crackle of his usual static. “I promise that you will find it quiet...interesting.” 

Charlie bit her bottom lip. As tempting as the offer was, she couldn’t help but feel just a little bit wary of what he had in store. They had very different definitions of what was interesting...or horrifying. 

Still, the eager glint in Alastor’s crimson eyes was hard to resist. 

“Alright,” she agreed. “I’ll come up after your broadcast.” 

“Splendid!” Alastor clapped his hands together, his face lighting up and his grin stretching impossibly wider. 

Before Charlie could say a word further, the demon leaned back in to steal another kiss. Then, with a wink, he melted back into the shadows. 

“Until later, darling.” he said as his voice fading into echoes as he disappeared, leaving Charlie with only the lingering warmth of his kiss. 

And, to wonder what exactly she had gotten herself into. 

The princess sighed and shook her head, returning to her papers across the desk. 

⊹❀⊹❀⊹✨⊹❀⊹❀⊹

Charlie made her way to the far side of the highest floor of the hotel, but still hesitated at the door to Alastor’s radio tower. His broadcast had just ended, and his smooth voice still danced around in her mind. 

Though he had invited her up to his tower—she hesitated at the door. 

It felt forbidden. Even if they had been close as two people could physically be, there were still things she didn’t know about Alastor. And she certainly didn’t know what he was up to. 

But, after Charlie had hyped herself up, she reached up to to knock on the door to his tower. Only to find it was unlocked. The door creaked open slowly, like a haunted house beckoning her on to the staircase that spiraled up into the dark. 

Just as the Princess reached the bottom step, Alastor materialized before her with his ever-present grin. Comforting and unnerving all at once, but still making her jump. 

“Darling,” he purred, despite the fact that he hand to grab her arm to keep her from stumbling. “Shall we?” 

“Oh, yes!” Charlie said, her tone brightening as he kept her hand. “I still can’t believe you invited me up here, Al.”

“You should indeed consider yourself part of an incredibly exclusive club, as I would eviscerate anyone else who dared come up here.” 

Charlie gave a little awkward laugh. But part of her knew Alastor wasn’t joking. 

They ascended the winding stairs as he kept her hand, Charlie’s anticipation building with each step. Alastor’s radio tower had always been off-limits, a mystery she’d longed to unravel.

As they reached the top, Alastor dramatically swept open the door. “Welcome to my sanctuary, darling.”

 The space was intimate, nothing like the grandiose room she’d imagined. Deep crimson walls were adorned with black accents, creating a cozy atmosphere she hadn’t expected from the Radio Demon.

“It’s... beautiful up here,” she breathed.

A lime green fire crackled in the fireplace, casting an eerie glow that reminded her of the bayou in his hotel room. Another place she’d only rarely seen—Alastor always visited hers. 

Charlie’s gaze was drawn to the wall of windows, offering a breathtaking view of Pentagram City’s deep red night time sky, just before the stars came alive. “I’ve never seen the city like this before.” 

Alastor sidled up behind her silently, but his breath was warm on her neck. “It’s quite the sight, isn’t it? A blend of beauty and chaos.”

She turned to face the demon, and was surprised by the softness in his gaze despite his grin. 

Maybe it was how personal this space was. Having Alastor share a part of himself no one else had ever seen. Charlie softened to him in turn. 

“Thank you for showing me this,” she said softly, reaching for his hand. “I know it means a lot to you.”

“The pleasure is all mine, my dear.” Alastor’s grin widened, a hint of genuine warmth creeping into his expression. “Now, shall we make ourselves comfortable?”

Charlie nodded, still taking in the intimate surroundings. Alastor guided her further into the room, his hand resting lightly on the small of her back.

“Can I offer you a drink, my dear?” Alastor asked, gesturing to a small bottle of deep amber liquid. “My personal favorite whiskey, aged to perfection.”

“Of course,” Charlie smiled, always eager to share more with him. 

As Alastor poured two glasses, Charlie’s attention was drawn to the bookshelves lining one wall. Her eyes widened as she approached, fingers trailing along the spines, wondering what Alastor was reading. 

“Curious kitten, aren’t you?” Alastor chuckled, handing her a glass. 

“Sorry!” The blonde jumped guiltily, feeling her face get pinker. What did he just call her?

“It’s fine darling, I was teasing.” He smirked as he tilted his whisky back to his lips. To Charlie’s rapt attention. 

She cleared her throat, looking back at the bookcase to seize on any distraction. “Is that…a real crocodile skull??”

“An alligator, but, yes, it is indeed real.” Alastor’s grin widened. “A momento from my mortal life.” 

Charlie nodded absently, tilting the glass to her lips—the smokey flavor warmed her throat right down to her core. Alastor was watching her, his expression greedy. 

“Come, my dear. I’d like to show you where the magic happens.” He hummed as he gently steered her towards the expansive broadcast control panel. 

Alastor’s fingers curled over her shoulders, applying enough pressure to seat her at a piano bench before the desk. Her eyes widened as she took in the array of buttons, knobs, and switches all before her. 

“How do you keep track of all this?” Charlie tried to keep her enthusiasm from bubbling right over. This place felt like it should be kept quiet unless he was on air. 

Alastor chuckled, sliding onto the bench beside her. “Practice, decades of it.” 

Charlie couldn’t help but be impressed—the only piece of equipment she recognized was a record player in the corner. Though it was far fancier than any she had seen. 

Though it did remind her of something he said before. 

“So, what was that about a song you wanted to show me?” She turned to him so quickly, her blonde hair swayed behind her. 

“Ah yes, of course! I’m delighted you remembered.”

He reached over, his lengthy arm easily spanning the distance to the record player. With a flourish, he selected a vinyl and set it on the turntable.

As the needle touched down, a sweet melody filled the air. It was soft and lilting, almost like a lullaby—not the kind of music she’d expected from Alastor at all.

Though her brow furrowed as a familiar note was struck. 

Suddenly, recognition dawned on Charlie’s face. “Wait a minute,” she gasped, turning to Alastor with wide eyes. “This is the song you played for me on the last night of our trip to the hotel!”

Alastor’s smile grew impossibly wider, a mix of pride and something else Charlie couldn’t quite place. “Indeed, it is, my clever girl. I’m impressed you remembered—as you were more than half asleep at the time.” 

“How could I forget?” Charlie felt a warmth spread through her chest at his praise, and the memory of cuddling up to him on that balcony. “It was a beautiful.” 

Alastor nodded, his eyes never leaving her face. “It is. However, it is far from complete. Merely a melody, lacking harmony or accompaniment.”

 “Oh? What are you planning to add to it?”

A wicked smirk played across Alastor’s features, sending a shiver down Charlie’s spine. Without breaking eye contact, he elongated his  hand, reaching for the control panel.

“Allow me to demonstrate,” he intoned, his fingers hovering over two sliders. 

Charlie watched, transfixed, as Alastor began to slowly push the controls upward. Her heart raced with anticipation, wondering what new element he was about to introduce to the hauntingly sweet melody.

Soft sounds filtered through the speakers, growing steadily louder. Breathy pants, a low groan, a mumbled word she couldn’t quite make out.

Charlie’s confusion only grew, worried that she was going to hear some tortured screams—when a clear sound cut through the air.

 Her own voice, unmistakable, whining out a name. “Al... Alastor~”

She whipped her head towards the Radio Demon. “Is... is that me on the recording?” she stammered, her voice barely above a whisper. A terrible thought struck her, and she felt her stomach drop. “Were you... were you recording us together?”

Alastor’s grin stretched impossibly wider, his sharp teeth glinting in the soft light. But then he spoke, his voice smooth as silk. “Oh Heavens, no, of course not, my dear.”

Charlie exhaled shakily, relief washing over her. But confusion quickly took its place. “Then what...?”

“This, my darling, is merely an imitation of the sweet sounds you make for me. I’m quite talented at replicating what I’ve heard, you see.” Alastor chuckled, a low, dark sound that sent shivers down Charlie’s spine. “Alas, any discerning ear could tell the difference.”

Charlie’s mind reeled. 

“You…so you recreated my voice, I mean, my sounds…while we were…?”

“Yes.” Alastor’s scarlet eyes glinted with satisfaction. 

Charlie felt her face grow even hotter. It was mortifying to hear herself like this, and yet... a small part of her couldn’t help but feel flattered. The idea that Alastor had paid such close attention, had committed her most intimate sounds to memory...

“I... I suppose it is impressive,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. “In its own way, but, Alastor—” 

“You needn’t worry, my dear, I assure you.” Alastor said as he leaned in, his arm sliding around her back. “I would never dream of sharing such, intimate sounds with anyone else.” 

Charlie’s breath hitched as his pointed fingers deftly untucked her shirt. His touch was cool on the skin of her hip, because her entire body was flush with heat. 

“You promise?” The princess asked softly, biting over her bottom lip. 

“Of course,” Alastor soothed, his fingers drawing circles now over the small of her back. “And, should you ever permit me to record during one of our…encounters. I can assure you no one else who heard it would live to tell the tale.” 

Charlie gaped. 

The idea of being recorded was both terrifying…and secretly thrilling.

Alastor’s knowing smirk told her he was well aware of the effect he was having on her. His fingers traced lazy circles along the base of her spine, and his nose was starting to nudge along her cheek. 

Charlie bit her lower lip, fighting back the impulsive answer she wanted to blurt out. 

Alastor was just waiting, ever so patiently, his lips and teeth grazing her ear with not near enough pressure for her liking. 

Taking a deep, shaky breath, Charlie whispered, “Do you promise? Promise you’ll never share any recordings. Or the imitations?”

 “My dear Charlie, you have my word.” Alastor pulled back slightly, meeting her eyes. His grin softened into something almost gentle. “And as you well know, I always keep my word.”

Charlie bit her lip for a moment longer, feeling a jumble of vulnerability and exhilaration at the idea. 

Until she finally nodded. 

✧✦✧✦⚜️✧✦✧✦

Alastor could not contain his delight when Charlie acquiesced to his request. He surged forward, capturing her lips with his own. 

The darling girl leaned into him at once, as she always did, her arms thrown around his shoulders. Alastor slid his arms around her waist, his shadow tentacles helping ease her into his lap, thrilling at the familiar feeling of her thighs caging his on the bench. 

Charlie shifted closer to him as their lips drag together. Wriggly little thing she was. 

Alastor’s hand slid up along her back, long fingers cradling the back of her skull to keep her still—so he could let his razor-sharp teeth graze her bottom lip. Earning him a delightful gasp from the Princess. 

Reminding the demon to send a tentacle up along the console and set the recording going, greedy to capture every sound. 

He hardly minded when either of them were a tad too enthusiastic with their kisses. He thrilled whenever her fangs met his flesh, but she didn’t enjoy the taste of blood as much as he did. 

Alastor held Charlie where he wanted her as he worked his mouth down the column of her throat.

He popped open the black buttons of her white shirt as he made his way down her collar, knowing that despite her distaste for blood—Charlie loved the marks he left on her. For as long as they lasted. 

Alastor ducked his head to suck a mark into the crook of her pale neck and shoulder, eliciting a quivering moan from Charlie that sent shivers through the Radio Demon. 

Her slender fingers found their way up under his coat, dragging along the line of his suspenders as he worked his lips and teeth over the bones of her collar. Alastor rolled his shoulders back, flicking his wrists to drop the red fabric in a pool behind the bench, without pulling his attention from the task of undressing Charlie. His long fingers made quick work of the rest of her buttons to revel in the white skin beneath. 

Charile was undoing his bowtie and sliding it from his collar as he dragged his nails along her silky torso. 

Alastor had been concerned, preoccupied, that he might hurt her with his sharp claws and sharper teeth—but practice had built his confidence in his ability to touch her softness without hurting her with his pointed edges. 

He drew his fingers down the contours of her body, dragging a single claw up from her belly. With just enough pressure, he sliced the fabric between the cups of her bra. 

And the garment fell away from her body. 

Charlie gasped as cool air hit her skin, pebbling her nipples before his darkening eyes. Just so he could hear the indignant way she said, “Alastor!” 

He hid his smirk by taking her entire breast into his mouth. 

He sucked her tenderly, so she could feel the edge of his teeth grazing her flesh, leaving marks that wouldn’t last until morning. 

“Alastor,” Charlie huffed, making his grin widen over her skin. “You ripped my bra.” 

The demon just chuckled against her chest, clearly more intent on worshiping every inch of her than addressing her transitory concerns. 

Charlie was not mollified. He felt her give an irritated tug at his hair. 

Alastor pulled back with a drag of his tongue. “Yes, love?” He cocked an eyebrow, mischief quirking his lips. “I’ll mend it later.” 

Her breath caught at the endearment, but he distracted her by lavishing his attention on her  breast. 

Alastor flicked his red thumb over her nipple, feeling the way Charlie shivered and goosebumps erupted over her skin. Her hands were back to threading through his hair and ruffling it up. 

His ears flicked with anticipation. 

Charlie was distracting him from her chest with the teasing of her fingers. They had always been, sensitive, but he had never realized  until the princess discovered his weakness for having them petted. 

Alastor would only allow her to stroke him like a contented house cat—forgetting his ministrations and the sounds he was trying to pull her. His own moan was muffled in the valley of her breasts. His forehead pressed against her rabbiting heart. 

So…distracting. 

With a rumbling growl, Alastor lifted Charlie up by the hips, depositing her back on his broadcast desk. As he sent the bench seat tumbling with his heel.

The rest of her clothing vanished with a flash of his shadows. He’d shred them in his impatience otherwise—and he caused a delightful little yelp from his Princess. 

Alastor locked eyes with Charlie as his fingers curl around her milky thighs and push her legs apart. Smirking from ear to ear as he ducked his head to drag his tongue through her slick folds. 

Sweet thing that she was, practically trilling under his mouth. 

Her fingers scrabble over his head, before finally grabbing onto his branching antlers. Alastor’s answering moan reverberated against her pussy, causing her hips to cant to his tongue again. 

“Al, what…” His ears turn towards her, but he refuses to give up his treat just yet—until she insisted with a tug on his ear. “The controls, I don’t wanna, lay on them and—” 

Alastor growled, promptly shrouding the machinery in a dark shadow. 

“Darling,” he chided, his voice smooth despite the slick coating his lips. “Quite rude to interrupt a man while he’s eating.” 

“You did not just—” Charlie’s entire face was consumed with the most brilliant shade of red. 

“I did.” Alastor smirked, shamelessy, before returning to his meal. 

The blonde is a trembling mess beneath his tongue. Her hips jerked up against him, because she just couldn’t stay still the closer and closer she got to the edge. 

His antlers were growing under her grip. Wildly now. 

Alastor didn’t lift his head from sucking on her clit as he summoned his shadows. The tendrils wrapped around her hands, giving something safer to hold on to as his hands held her open. And still. 

Charlie’s musical pleas filled his ears, begging so sweetly for him, because she was so close. 

Without pulling away from her, Alastor conjured another tentacle to squirm its way up between them. Charlie’s hips bucked desperatly as the tip of the shadow found her entrance, fucking into her fast and shallow as he worked her clit. 

Charlie arched off of Alastor’s desk with a cry as she came. 

The way she said his name had him shuddering above her, fingers clawing into the wood either side of her hips. 

His lips curled into a satisfied smile as he pulled away from her clit, knowing the little numb was sensitive with her release, but his shadow tentacle continued to work her, drawing out every last shiver and whine of pleasure. 

Until Charlie fell limp against his desk. 

Alastor hummed as he leaned over the Princess, pressing tender kisses to her temple and along her cheek. Her heart was pounding against his chest. 

The demon smirked against her lips. 

Charlie gave a little whine into his mouth, reaching for him like her limbs were drenched in molasses. 

Alastor ducked to her hand to meet her touch. His lips and teeth skimmed her palm, her wrist, letting her trail idle fingers over him as her body calmed. 

When she tugged at his blood red shirt, he hesitated for only a moment, before pulling it off. 

Scars littered the Radio Demon’s torso. The most prominent of which the Princess had seen that first night they were together. The slash across from an angel’s blade, still tinged gold from his brush with the divine. 

Charlie’s eyes were heavy-lidded with desire, to his continuing relief, and she bit into her black bottom lip. 

“Again?” she whispered, her voice just loud enough to be heard. 

“Again.” Alastor’s grin swelled with his ego. 

He loved it when she asked for more. When she surrendered her self so completely to his touch…to the pleasure he gave her. 

Alastor pulled his tentacles back, and flipped Charlie onto her stomach, caging her in with his arms as he pressed his chest against her back. 

“Al…” Charlie started a protest, only to give a squeak of surprise as he conjured another tentacle. “…fuck.”

He purred, pushing her hair aside to expose the nape of her neck. “Yes, darling, that is indeed the idea.” He leaned down to press a soft kiss to the bite he’d left earlier, just as the second tentacle joined the first—plunged deep inside her. 

Charlie grabbed for his wrist and clinging to him as the two tentacles worked along her inner walls. She mewled beneath him, her hips bucking back, and her ass rutting against the straining fabric of his pants. 

Alastor was achingly hard. But he held back, because he wanted to swallow every sweet mewling cry she gave. His clenched teeth pressed against her neck as she squirmed so enticingly beneath him as she neared another peak. 

He panted against Charlie’s ear as her legs trembled until her hips stuttered and faltered. Rewarding Alastor with her most exquisite sound yet—her pleasure, dripping down her thighs onto the floor in front of his desk. 

“Good girl,” Alastor crooned a litany of praises into Charlie’s neck. 

✧✦✧✦⚜️✧✦✧✦

The console’s red light blinked in time with Alastor’s pounding heart, recording every sound and sigh that escaped Charlie’s lips as he heled her close. 

He kept his arms around her, his chest pressed to his back, her  head nestled into the crook of his shoulder. It took longer each time for Charlie to recover. But he was happy to wait—getting her like this, just for him, was as satisfying to the demon as getting off himself. 

Charlie panted softly, her golden hair spilled over him like a waterfall, tickling under his chin with every gentle stirring. 

He tasted salt on her cheek when he kissed it. And her pulse fluttered under his lips. 

As Alastor let her doze against him, he couldn’t help but trace his fingers over her hips, her waist, rounding her breasts, and carefully avoiding her delicate core as she recovered. Marveling at how she responded to even his feather light touches. And lingering kisses when she turned her head to him and demanded them. 

The demon tilted his head back with a smirk. “Another?”

Charlie shuddered delicately in his arms, pulling a chuckle from the man’s chest. 

“Is that a yes?” 

“Al,” Charlie whined, her movements even more sluggish as she tugged at his hair. “You’re…you’re gonna wear me out before you even fuck me.” She lamented so prettily, he almost gave in then and there. 

But Alastor kept his grin as he dragged his fingers over her thighs. “Sweetheart,” he drawled. “ You know that outcome will suit my fancy just as well.” 

The Princess whined throatily in protest.

She wriggled in his hold, squirming until Alastor had to help her turn in his arms and settle back on his lap. 

Charlie looked absolutely, deliciously wrecked. Her makeup smudged and her eyes dilated with want and her hair a mess as she threw her arms around his shoulders. 

“Alastor,” she began plaintively, her voice low and desperate as her lips nudged insistently at his chin and along his jaw. 

“Yes, darling?” He responded with a teasing lilt, even as his hands slid down the curve of her back. 

“Please?” The Princess begged, and Alastor shuddered. He so loved it when she begged so prettily. 

“Please…what, my dear?” He grinned his widest grin. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific in your request.”

Charlie let out a groan so exasperatedly that Alastor nearly broke and laughed at the sound of pure frustration. 

The Princess gripped to his shoulders, and he tilted his head as she turned around and glanced at the blinking ‘Record’ button on his console. 

Alastor cocked his eyebrows up as he waited. 

“Al…” Her voice was just above a whisper, her hand cupping his cheek as heat erupted across hers. “Take me back to bed and fuck me, please.” 

⊹❀⊹❀⊹✨⊹❀⊹❀⊹

Alastor’s smile was instant and predatory—like he was going to ravage her right there all over again. And Charlie’s heart fluttered in her ears, unsure of which she wanted more. 

“As you wish.” 

His arms wound tighter around her, and they were swallowed up in his deep shadows. Charlie gasped as she felt cool air on her skin, and the soft satin of her bed on her back.

The Princess pushed herself up on her weak arms, searching for him in her dark bedroom, the only light coming from the black sky outside, littered with scarlet stars. 

“Al…” She hummed as her eyes adjusted, and she finally caught sight of him. 

Alastor’s clothes had been left behind. And Charlie had another moment to just admire the tantalizing sight that was usually concealed under so many layers of fine clothes. The slim contours of his torso, his grayish skin littered with marks she wanted to memorize with her fingers and lips, if he’d ever allow it. 

Though, right now, she’d be happy to just get her mouth on his straining cock. He never allowed that. 

“Had your fill of staring, darling?”

Charlie’s gaze snapped back to the dark-red sclera and scarlet irises above his wickedly gleaming teeth. 

“Never,” she decided, already reaching for him, pulling him down on top of her. 

Her fingers curled into his hair at once, her body cradling his, eager to have him impossibly closer. Inside her. She needed Alastor like she needed to breathe. 

And seemed to finally have sympathy for her plight. 

He kissed her just as desperately, groaning against her when the length of his cock raked against her soaking folds. 

“Al….” Charlie arched her back off the bed, ready to plead with him one more time, but it seemed even Alastor had enough teasing at last. 

Finally, he slid inside her with a shuddering groan, and Charlie curled her legs around him to feel every inch. Alastor’s long fingers sunk into the bed on either side of her head. As her fingers tangled in his hair. 

Though he’d worked her into damn near a frenzy, she couldn’t bring herself to rush Alastor now. His movements were deliberate, each thrust sending waves of pleasure cousing through her tingling nerves. 

Charlie clung to him as they moved together. His eyes were so bright red they were glowing in the dark as she felt the sweat beading on his brow and the tension in every muscle as he held himself back—savoring every moment. 

Just as she was reveling that she could hold the Radio Demon so close. Not the demon, but the man underneath it all, who let his smile slip as he kissed her with ragged breaths. 

His hips stuttered, every movement more desperate and wild as her hands found his ears again—only to feel the familiar weight of a tentacle slithering between them. 

The shadowy appendage didn’t just find her clit. It thrummed against her frazzled bundle of nerves, drawing pleasure from her one last time. Coaxing her to giving in one last time. 

Her head fell back into the pillows as Alastor found his release with her name on his tongue. 

After, might just be Charlie’s favorite part. A pile of limbs just panting in each other’s arms, a mess of sweat and sweetness that she craved. 

When it felt like Alastor was at his most sincere. 

He fell back onto the disheveled pillows, his arm draped over his eyes, his chest rising and falling slower and slower. And hardened his smile finally faded to nothing but softness. 

Charlie inched her way back to him, curling into his side. “Will you…stay with me tonight?” She asked faintly, drawing her finger under his chin and over his skin. He sometimes left before dawn or right after she fell asleep. 

Either way, she missed him at once. 

Alastor lifted his hand, his red eyes fixed on the canopy of the bed. “Of course I will…for as long as you’ll have me.” 

Charlie beamed like the sun had risen at the witching hour. 

“Better get comfortable.” She said as she pillowed into Alastor’s chest. “Because I’ll always have you.” 

Alastor chuckled, and she could hear the smile return to his voice as he murmured. “Yes, my dear.” 

⚜️ Thanks for Reading ⚜️

[writtenonreceipts]

Rowaelin Month Day Ten: Concert @rowaelinscourt

Month Masterlist // Hey, Neighbor Masterlist // AO3 Link

a/n: blargh 2.0  The last few parts may play out rather quick development-wise. This is part 12 of 15. I may end up cutting out a part 15 though...

Warnings: mild angst, ~2.2k words.

.*.*.*.*.

Hey, Fool

For the first time since she was fourteen years old and about to have her first kiss with Chaol Westfold—Aelin had butterflies in her stomach.  It was disgusting.

The butterflies, not the kiss.

The kiss had actually been pretty good.

But the butterflies that were hurtling through her gut at breakneck speed were the exact definition of putrid.  How did anyone function like this?  Hell, why was she even reacting like this?  It was just a night out with a group of…friends…having fun.

Still, the nerves were getting to her.

“You look like you’re going to be sick.”

Elide sat perched on the bathroom counter watching with vague amusement as Aelin got ready.

“I think I am,” Aelin admitted.  She wrapped another section of hair around the curling iron, trying yet again to banish her nerves.

“Why?” Elide asked. “It’s just drinks and music.  Plus, Rowan’ll be there.”

That did not help Aelin’s stomach.  For many reasons.

“Yeah, but he didn’t invite me,” Aelin explained again. “And it just feels weird.”

“But you want to go?” Elide pressed.  She was absently twisting her own hair into a braid, not bothering to fix the strands if they were uneven or she missed a section.  She was mostly just present because Aelin had begged her to come over.

“I do,” Aelin agreed.  She bit her lip, setting the curling iron aside.

“You wish Rowan had asked you to go out instead,” Elide surmised, a slow smile growing on her face. “Right.”

Aelin scowled, re-sectioning her hair. “It’s not like that, Elide.”

“Sure, sure,” Elide said.  She grabbed one of the many tubes of mascara sitting on the counter and started fixing her own lashes. “So then why are you wearing your little black dress?”

Sometimes being friends with a hyper-observant individual was the worst.

“I like this dress.”

“You can’t wear a bra with it.”

“Exactly why I like it.”

Elide met her gaze in the mirror. “Have you, y’know, tried telling Rowan how you feel?”

“How I feel?” Aelin sputtered. She nearly burned her fingers on the iron as she picked it up again.  “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’re an idiot.” Elide said. “You’ve been hanging out with him the last six months, calling in favors, introducing you to your parents—I don’t care what the circumstances were, you did it—Aelin, he’s not just some guy.”

“He doesn’t like me like that,” Aelin said. 

She finished the last section of her hair, arranging the curls around her face.  The strands were silky in her fingers as she separated the curls and shook them out a little.  Her make-up was still immaculate, thankfully.  She didn’t think she could stand still long enough to fix it up.

The motions were rote and easy.  They almost distracted her from Elide’s words.  Almost.  Because…Elide was right.  She didn’t have strictly platonic feelings toward Rowan.  And she hadn’t for a while now.

Maybe that was part of why she’d accepted Rowan’s invitation.  To show she wasn’t averse to going out.  But she’d accepted the invite from one of his coworkers, his friend.  Had she mucked this up for herself?

“Stop over thinking it,” Elide demanded.  “Just because you like the guy doesn’t mean you’re gonna marry him.  Go out tonight and see what happens.  Even if another guy invited you.  It wasn’t strictly a date.”

“I’m going,” Aelin said.  She straightened her shoulders and nodded at her reflection in the mirror. “And you’re coming with me.”

“Ah hell.”

.*.

East of Eyllwe was one of the only good things to come out of the bar, Rowan decided.

The band, composed of four main musicians, could actually hold a tune and write a good song that was more than a repeated phrase and kitschy base line.  The lead singer, Nehemia, was also a pretty cool person to talk to when she wasn’t inundated with fans.  Even though they were local, playing shows in the surrounding counties, Rowan was pretty sure they’d one day rise to a bigger stage.

For now, he’d appreciate the music while he had it.

As a whole, the bar was a decent place to hang out, as well.  It was one of the oldest bars in Terrasen with all the original fixtures still in place.  Even the old oak flooring hadn’t been redone.  The bar was also well known to most service men and women.  As it was a central location to both the fire station and police station, and the hospital was just a few blocks away—The Mistward always had a crowd.

Rowan entered the bar, later than intended, and shook off the chill from outside.  The promised storm was nearly at their doorstep, lingering just in the distance.  The snow had stopped at some point in the afternoon, leaving behind a desperate sort of chill that sank into your bones.  Soon, the floodgates would open and there’d be hell to pay.

For now, he embraced the warmth of the bar and the familiar scent of whiskey and wood.  It had been a while since he’d joined the rest of the crew for drinks.  Mostly to avoid being the subject of razzing.  They all knew his trials with Aelin and all enjoyed making a show of it.  If not that came the quest to get him a date.  And if all else failed—drunken pool.

The music filled the bar like a heavy weight.  The guitar and drums hitting out a steady beat that begged listeners to get up and move.  On the small stage Nehemia was at the mic, her long hair twisted into neat box braids, dark skin alight in flashing blue lights.

And this flood, this flood is slowly rising up

Swallowin’ the ground beneath my feet

Tell me how anybody thinks under this condition

So I’ll swim, I’ll swim

As the water rises up, sun is sinkin’ down

And now all I can see are the planets in a row

Suggestin’ it’s best that I—slow down

It was one of Rowans favorite songs they sang, he even had it downloaded on his phone.  It was made all the more enjoyable with Nehemia’s strong voice and the way she could slide from a low alto into a soprano without missing a beat.

And then Rowan saw the dance floor and who occupied it.

His attention glazed over Fenrys to the woman he was dancing with.  It was impossible not to notice her, with her tight fitting black dress that clung to her curves, hitting barely past the tops of her thighs, and her long blonde hair hanging in loose curls, that glowing, golden brown skin of hers—Aelin was impossible not to notice.  Especially when she smiled like that.

Rowan was sure he could only count on one hand the amount of times he’d seen her smile and laugh like that.

When they’d gone rock climbing, her parent’s dinner party, her impromptu dance party, when he’d been dressed as damned Santa Claus—

And they all seemed to pale in comparison to this.

The song faded away into a small piano riff as Nehemia announced a small break from the bad. As the music ended, a dull silence flooded the bar before natural chatter picked up. It felt like a weight was lifted from the room, but not in a comforting way.  Sometimes, that heady lull of music was the only thing that could keep you together.

Rowan felt that distinctly.

He watched as Aelin and Fenrys lingered on the dance floor, Fenrys leaning in to say something and Aelin letting out a laugh before punching his shoulder.  The sight had his gut clenching and a distinct flurry of…anger?  Irritation?  He didn’t know what it was only that it left a sour taste in his mouth.

Thinking about it too closely wouldn’t do him any good. 

Instead, he headed straight to the bar.  He needed a drink.  It hadn’t been a good day, even with the cookies Aelin had brought over.  He’d even had a few of them and, yes, they’d been delicious.  But that didn’t dull the exhaustion from being dragged through drills all afternoon.  In the snow. 

He reached the bar and signaled for a drink.  The bartender knew who he was, even if his record was spotty for coming it.  But Asterin had a sharp memory.  He leaned against the bar, trying to avoid where Aelin and Fenrys were still talking.  He instead landed on the sight of Lorcan sitting with a petite brunette on the other side of the bar.

That alone distracted Rowan enough from Aelin.  Lorcan hadn’t dated anyone, let alone shown interest in dating, since his ex left a year ago.  He’d be shocked about it later, he decided.

Asterin returned with his drink which Rowan accepted.  He downed most of it in one gulp.  The burn of the alcohol slid all the way down his throat and settled in his already roiling gut.  He should just leave.  No one had seen him yet anyways.

“Buzzard!  You made it.”

Aelin appeared beside him, one hand trailing across his back to settle on his shoulder.  The easy, gentle, way she touched him threatened to send a shiver racing over his skin.

“Surprised?” he asked looking up at her.

If he’d thought she looked good before, it was nothing compared to the up-close view.  Her make-up was flawless, the smokey shadow of her eyes and dark liner making her already vivid eyes pop.  Her cherry red lipstick hadn’t even begun to fade.  A sheen of sweat only made her skin glisten beneath the shadowed lights of the bar.

He was a fool, an idiot.  Ridiculous for even thinking he could keep his thoughts about her neutral.  Another reason he shouldn’t have come.  And why he should disentangle himself from her as a whole.

“Maybe,” she said, sliding onto the stool beside him.  She smiled as Asterin dropped a beer off for her. “I hear you don’t join the boys that often.”

“The boys?” he asked.

Aelin shrugged. “Fenrys and Connall are quite the pair.  And then Lorcan’s over there trying to hit on my friend.”

From the looks of it, Lorcan was actually having some success.  But Rowan wouldn’t say that.  He had a feeling Aelin was more than willing to rip Lorcan’s throat out at a moments notice.

“They’re good guys,” he said, because it was true and she deserved that confirmation. “Even Lorcan.”

“Jury’s still out on him,” Aelin admitted.  She took a slow pull of her drink as she looked him over. “How long have you known them?”

“Few years,” he admitted. “Even before moving to Terrasen, I did trainings and rescue missions with Lorcan and Gavriel before.”

“And Gavriel’s the captain?” Aelin asked, glancing over her shoulder to examine the crowd.

“He’s not here, he doesn’t come out with us usually,” Rowan explained.

“I didn’t think anyone liked people less than you,” Aelin said.

Rowan rolled hiss eyes while she smirked. 

“Smart ass,” he muttered.

“My ass is pretty great.”

“Great at getting into trouble.”

It was worse that she was so easy to talk to.  Worse that he wanted to talk to her.  He’d learned the hard way that the easy things, weren’t necessarily the best for you.  Maybe Aelin wasn’t Lyria.  And maybe she wasn’t prone to walking away, leaving people behind—but he wasn’t sure he could risk that.

He had a lot of issues and Lyria was only part of that.  But he couldn’t drag Aelin into any of that.  So maybe, maybe, he shouldn’t even try to get closer.  It would only make it worse for the both of them.

“C’mon,” Aelin said.  From the stage, a guitar chord indicated the music would start up again.  She reached out and took Rowan’s hand, her fingers lacing perfectly with his. “Let’s go dance.”

She took another pull of her drink before slipping off her stool and tugging on his hand.  There was something about her standing over him like that, with that small smile and the curve of her body—Rowan wanted to give into her.

But he couldn’t. 

If there was anything Lyria and his past in general had taught him it was that he didn’t get the happily ever after type ending.  It just wasn’t in the cards for him.

He stood, knocking back the rest of his drink before pulling away from her. 

“I can’t,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching out, from pulling her back against him.

Aelin paused, staring at him with wide, confused eyes.

Over the speakers Nehemia started singing a cover to The Fray, the most random song she could have picked for The Mistward.  The piano was slowly joined by a subtle beat on the drums, keeping a calm, if tense, atmosphere building, building…

As he goes left, and you stay right Between the lines of fear and blame You begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend

“Fine,” Aelin said.

And then she was gone, lost to the crowd.

Bile rose in his gut and Rowan was sure he was going to be sick.  Fenrys soon replaced Aelin, looking just as confused, if a little upset.

“What the hell’d you do?” he demanded.

Rowan only shook his head and left the bar.

Outside, the snow began falling. 

.*.*.*.*.

songs included are "dark blue" by jack's mannequin and "how to save a life" by the fray.

[wonderingsoftly]

His Little Sister

so theo and charlotte have kind of become a lot more than i expected them to, and i also wanted to draw and write some wlw wg stuff too (though not quite in this chapter yet), so prepare to meet his little sister.

but it's still got a lot of exploration on theo's feelings and the liberation being fat has brought him. and this will...inevitably rub off on his sister and her girlfriend. it ended up growing (fattening? ha) into several chapters...which, for someone who's into this kind of stuff, kind of makes sense.

next

---

Chapter 1

Theo stared ahead blankly as Charlotte walked in through the front door, keys jingling while she absent-mindedly hummed a tune. He could feel her look at the couch, where he knew she would find him, but she slowed to a stop when she saw his frozen, almost-horrified expression.

He was sitting rod-straight near the edge of the couch, a very unusual position for him given how he usually preferred taking up as much of the cushions as possible. He fidgeted nervously with his slacks, his dress shirt still buttoned, instead of undone and relaxed–and he could feel her demeanor change.

“Theo…?” Charlotte asked in a way that made his stomach drop. He knew never looked like this. At least, not in recent memory.

Theo didn't move, almost scared to really acknowledge her entrance. “Hey, Babe,” he made himself reply, beyond distracted.

“Is everything okay?” Charlotte moved to Theo’s side, gently running her fingers through his short, curly blond hair and then carefully caressing his fat cheek. Her touch briefly shook him from his agitation, but it wasn’t for long.

“Yeah, I, uh,” he started to stammer, gripping his pants hard. “My sister. She, uh, got in touch with me.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened and she moved her hand to Theo’s huge, soft shoulder.

His family was a part of his life he had left behind by the time he had first met Charlotte. But he had made the mistake of giving his mother the benefit of the doubt when she reached out to him a few years ago–a while after he had started gaining weight.

His mom was displeased, to say the least. Theo quickly remembered and Charlotte quickly discovered why he went no contact with his parents when he left for college–but unfortunately that meant he had to leave his little sister behind.

There was a significant age gap between them, Theo being a whole 10 years older, but he still deeply cared for her and in a part of his heart, hidden and locked away, he yearned to see her again.

Charlotte bit her lip. “...Rachel?”

The sound of his sister’s name coming from his beloved wife’s mouth was like a shock to his system. What had happened right before Charlotte came home was very real. And becoming very scary to Theo.

Theo nodded absently, still looking straight ahead. He could feel himself starting to tremble.

“Theo, isn't that a good thing? You said your parents kept her from talking to you…” she tried to give his shoulder a comforting squeeze. “So if she reached out, that means she’s not living with them anymore. Or something else changed in a big way.”

Theo’s eyes started to dart around, like he was looking for the next words to say.

This was not lost on Charlotte, whose own concern was becoming rather unbearable.

“Theodore. Talk to me.”

The use of his full name somehow snapped his attention to her face, and his eyes were wide with fear.

“I…I somehow–I don’t know why–invited her to come see us this weekend. She’s close by, actually living with her girlfriend.”

He saw the tension in Charlotte’s shoulders quickly deflate and she let out a relieved, almost choking sigh.

“Well, company is nothing new for us, we have our friends over all the time,” she said with a small smile.

He tried not to groan. She still didn’t understand why he was terrified. He almost didn’t understand why he was terrified. It shouldn’t have been affecting him like this. He thought he had long-outgrown this part of himself.

Theo’s eyes remained frightened. “Char, I haven’t seen her in years.”

Charlotte tilted her head in confusion. “Yeah, and?”

“Years, Charlotte,” he repeated, emphasizing each word, his eyes now full of fear and expectation, silently begging her to connect the dots.

And then with a flash of surprise on her face, it hit her. She looked down at Theo’s enormous body, his fat leg now bouncing nervously–making all of him tremble, and trailed her gaze all the way back up to his face.

There was a little relief for Theo in Charlotte’s realization, but his heart was starting to ache from the fear in his chest.

The last time Rachel saw her big brother, Theo was most certainly not the mountain of fat he was now. Big, sure, but not like this.

Her confusion gave way to heavy realization and she nodded, a grimace trying to take over her lips.

“I invited her over, Charlotte, what kind of an idiot am I? I told her I’d put on some weight, but I didn’t tell her I’m the size of a house now…” Theo put his head in his hands and groaned.

He was panicking like he used to when he was lighter. Scared. Insecure.

He could feel Charlotte’s heart began to break. And that made him feel even worse.

“Hey, hey, Theo,” she knelt down to be level with Theo’s face, gently slipping her hand past his and onto his cheek. She pulled his face to look at hers, giving him a sympathetic smile. His eyes were burning, tears starting to blur his vision. “Do we need to make a change?”

His stomach dropped at the question. Theo’s eyes moistened with more tears and he gripped Charlotte’s hand in his–warm and soft. This broke the dam of his emotions and now he found himself able to articulate why he was so scared.

“No, no, I’m sorry, I’m not making sense…I don’t want to change us. I like being this big, I just…” he trailed off, giving Charlotte’s hand a hesitant kiss. “I don’t want to scare her. She was 10 and I was already way bigger than her when I left, and who knows what kind of stuff Mom’s told her about me since…you know.”

A grim flash of an abandoned memory entered Theo’s mind, but he quickly stamped it down.

Charlotte nodded in understanding, moving to plant a little kiss on Theo’s forehead. She let her lips linger on his skin, warm and agitated from his nerves. He could smell her soothing, citrus perfume on her neck and chest.

“Was she happy to talk to you?” she asked, pulling away enough to see his face.

He nodded quietly, looking down at the floor for a moment.

Charlotte gave his fat cheek a soft pinch, making him respond with a brief smile. “And were you happy to talk to her?”

“I was. Which…is why I invited her over. And her girlfriend, too. I just wanted to see her again and didn’t think it through very far.”

She replied with a laughing hum, which started to soothe Theo’s frayed nerves. “So…it’s not the weekend just yet, right? Do you want to tell her the details about who you are now? Or should we cancel until you’re ready?”

Theo gave her a rueful smile and nod, reaching his pudgy hand for her thigh and giving it a squeeze. “Well, when you make it sound so simple like that…”

“You miss her. She probably misses you, otherwise she wouldn’t have called. And if she wants to see you, she deserves the chance to decide for herself what she thinks of her big,” Charlotte grinned and emphasized by giving his belly a squeeze, “big brother.”

Theo was disarmed by Charlotte’s squeeze and laughed, making his belly shake.

“Ugh, sorry,” he sighed after a moment, feeling a bit embarrassed and rubbing his eyes. “I haven't been like this in a long time, huh?”

Charlotte shook her head, playfully and gently pulling at the small, blond curls on his head.

“You got worried, it’s okay. You care a lot about your sister. You finally get the chance to reconnect…I’d be nervous too.”

Theo quickly wrapped a fat arm around Charlotte and pulled her into a hug, planting a kiss on the crown of her dark head.

“What would I do without you?” he murmured, nuzzling her hair.

“Do you want me to message Rachel and…warn her about your size?” Charlotte’s voice was tender.

Theo gave her head another grateful kiss. “No, I’ll do it. I’ve gotta be brave. I’m the big brother, after all.”

***

Rachel paced back and forth in the living room of the apartment she shared with her girlfriend of two years, Lee. Her long, blond curls bounced around her shoulders with every step she took.

“Nervous, Doll?” Lee, a tall, lanky woman with long, pin-straight, dark brown hair, teased. She was reclined on the couch, her feet propped up on the coffee table in front of her.

Rachel merely gave her a withering look before coming to a stop in the middle of the floor.

“Why am I so scared to see him again? It's Theo…he’s always been so nice to me…” she groaned, sliding her hands over her hair and pulling it back behind her neck.

“Cause it's been ages since you've seen him. It's normal.” Lee reached her hand out to Rachel, giving a pleading pout for her to come sit next to her.

“Lee…” Rachel whined, shuffling over to her around the coffee table and landing with a soft crash. Lee’s long, straight hair fluttered with the air sent from Rachel’s descent. Lee wrapped her arm around Rachel’s shoulder and she pressed a kiss to her temple.

“And he said he’s gained a lot of weight since I last saw him…like why would he warn me about that? Won’t he still look like himself? Why would he say that?” Rachel gestured a little wildly, shaking herself against Lee’s body.

“Oh, my poor little worrywart,” Lee teased again, gently stroking Rachel’s curls.

“Come on…” Rachel whined again, burying her face in Lee’s chest. “I mean, my mom said all that stuff about him being fat and useless…”

Lee replied with an unimpressed grunt. “And, pardon my language, you remember that your mom’s a piece of shit, right? Wouldn't let you talk to him forever?”

Rachel gave Lee a conceding moan, muffled against Lee’s shirt.

“And so what if he’s fat? He’s still your brother, and you wanna see him again. ‘s all there is to it.” Lee tilted Rachel’s head up to peer at her and give her a toothy smile. “Besides, guys look better with some meat on their bones anyway.”

Rachel gave Lee a pout and a sigh. Lee tried to catch her gaze, but Rachel looked away in childlike defiance.

Lee snorted and shook her head. “He’s happily married too, yeah, and has a good job? Obviously things are working out for him.” She finished by kissing Rachel’s nose, grabbing a little of her attention again.

“Plus, he invited us over for dinner, so if he is fat, then the food’s gonna be killer!” Lee added with a goofy waggle of her eyebrows.

“Lee!” Rachel said with humorous indignation, batting a balled fist at her arm.

“What? You were the one talking about it! I’m just giving you some pros to balance out whatever cons you got rolling around in that pretty head of yours.”

Rachel rolled her eyes and sat up away from Lee, wringing her hands together. Lee let out an apologetic sigh, sitting up and scooting close to her.

“I know this is important to you. I’m sorry. But he invited you to see him not even five minutes into your call. I don't know the guy, but it's obvious he still loves you.”

Rachel looked at Lee, taking her hand and intertwining her fingers in Lee’s long ones.

“Forget anything your parents ever said about him. I’ll be there with you, too.” Lee gave Rachel’s hand a squeeze.

“Yeah,” Rachel replied, her heart racing just a little bit slower now.

***

The day had arrived. Theo sat nervously on the couch, acutely aware today of just how large he was. He fiddled with the end of his unbuttoned shirt, taking a deep breath to try and settle his leaping stomach.

He glanced at Charlotte, who was walking back and forth between the kitchen and the dinner table, proudly setting huge dishes down. The smell was amazing, Charlotte pulling out all the stops to impress her sister-in-law (and perhaps soothe Theo once they were all seated at the table.)

A sudden knock at the door made Theo jump to his feet with a substantial thud, surprising him and Charlotte. He looked at her with reluctance and nervously patted his belly.

Charlotte laughed and waved Theo to the door, giving him a reassuring nod.

Theo waddled himself to the door, taking one more large breath in and out before turning the knob and opening.

She looked older now, but it was unmistakably his little sister–her curly blonde hair was unforgettable and her big, round eyes and full cheeks made him feel like he was saying goodbye to her again all those years ago.

A nostalgic, longing feeling grabbed his heart and he let out a sharp exhale.

“Theo…?” Rachel asked nervously, looking up at him, her eyes wide with shock–though Theo wasn't sure if it was the reunion itself or his gigantic body that was causing her reaction.

“It’s good to see you, Rachel,” Theo finally spoke, embarrassed heat prickling the back of his neck. He looked at her, unsure of what else to say.

With a grunt, Rachel practically slammed into Theo’s belly, hugging him tightly. Theo’s heart leapt into his throat as he processed what was happening, but wasted no time in wrapping his huge arms around his little sister.

He could feel her gripping the back of his shirt, muffled weeping starting to shake her body against his. He carefully stroked her hair, a warm smile creeping across his face.

He then realized that there was another, taller figure nearby and he looked up sheepishly at Lee. She was smiling, her long hair and blunt bangs curtaining her face.

“Sorry, you must be Lee,” Theo said warmly, patting Rachel’s head as she continued to cling to him.

Lee chuckled, shaking her head. “No worries, it's nice to finally meet you. Rachel’s been wearing a path in our carpet all week cause she’s been so excited to see you.”

Theo heard Rachel groan, her face now half-emerging from his pillowy chest.

“Lee…likes to tease me.”

He laughed, making his belly bounce as he patted Rachel’s head again. He offered a hand out to Lee, who took it in a firm handshake.

“Please come in, Charlotte’s got dinner ready on the table.”

***

Rachel managed to peel herself from her brother long enough to walk into his and Charlotte’s roomy home and wipe the sudden tears from her eyes.

All the anxiety she felt during the week seemed like a distant memory now. While she was shocked for a split second at the size of the man who opened the door, she immediately recognized him as her kind, loving brother.

He was so soft and warm, moreso now than any memory she had had told her. His deep, gentle voice, his short, curly hair; his kind, dark eyes.

He was still Theo. There was just way more of him than there used to be.

She felt Lee place her hand on her lower back in reassurance and smiled. Rachel watched as Theo waddled himself to the dining table and then as Charlotte came out from behind him, her dark, wavy hair billowing out around her head–a wide, excited smile on her face.

Charlotte pulled Rachel into a surprisingly firm hug, Rachel catching the smell of her citrusy perfume before she released her and went to hug Lee.

Rachel looked at Theo, who lovingly watched Charlotte, and smiled.

Maybe that was the biggest relief of all.

He looked so happy. So content. He held himself like a man who was totally fulfilled. The huge belly and body seemed to suit Theo very well, Rachel thought.

“Come, come, let's eat! Theo’s been so nervous he hardly ate any lunch, so I know he must be starving!” Charlotte laughed.

“Char, come on, I’m sure they didn't need to know that…” Theo replied, his cheeks turning red.

Rachel smiled wide, glancing at Lee, who had a pleased smile of her own, and took her to the dinner table.

***

Rachel slowly followed as Lee let out a happy moan walking to their car, hand in hand.

“Told you the food would be good,” she grinned, glancing at Rachel.

Rachel’s expression was pensive, which was clear Lee noticed when Rachel felt her hand get squeezed. They stopped and Rachel looked up at Lee.

“Everything okay?” Lee asked quietly, sidling up to Rachel and tucking some blonde hair behind her ear.

“I can't believe…I let my parents keep me from seeing him for so long.” Rachel didn't feel sad–just a bit of regret for a slightly different life that may have happened in some other universe.

Lee let out an affirmative hum. “Come on, tell me about it in the car on the way home.”

Rachel nodded, giving Lee’s hand a squeeze. She got settled in the car, with Lee at the driver's seat and she let out a long sigh as the lights began passing them in colorful blurs.

Years and years of missed emotions and feelings welled up in Rachel and she began to cry.

“Lee, he was so happy…he’s been happy.”

Lee simply nodded and gave Rachel a glance.

“And yeah, he's way bigger than he was when I last saw him, but he’s so happy…why didn't I try harder to see him?” Rachel started to blubber, messily wiping tears from her face with her sleeves.

Lee glanced at Rachel again, letting out a sigh. “Rachel…you know none of that matters now, right?”

Rachel was quiet, save for her sniffling.

“...Yeah. I know,” she finally conceded.

“You’ve got his number, and he invited us over again next weekend, so you have nothing but time to reconnect with him.” Lee reached a hand over to Rachel’s thigh and gave it squeeze. Rachel smiled at the warmth of her girlfriend’s hand and placed hers on top of it.

“Plus, his wife was so cute, huh?” Lee added with a goofy grin, swiftly poking a hole in Rachel’s tension. She laughed in response, shaking her head. “They make a cute couple.”

“Very cute. And a great cook…no wonder Theo got so big, I’d have given in too.”

“Oho,” Lee said in the teasing tone Rachel was very familiar with now, “you saying that my cooking isn’t that good?”

“Yes. Your cooking is average,” Rachel teased back. “But so is mine.”

Lee hummed back in an unusual way, making Rachel curious.

“What?” Rachel asked, looking fully at Lee now.

Lee simply gave a faux-oblivious shrug and a knowing glance back at her.

“What?” Rachel pressed again, now fully aware that Lee seemed to know something she didn’t.

“You didn’t notice because you spent most of your time talking to Theo–which is totally good and normal and great–but you didn’t really see the way she would hold onto him.” Lee chuckled. “I think your brother’s weight is a little more on purpose than you might believe.”

Rachel scrunched her eyebrows together. “What the heck are you even talking about, she’s just madly in love with my brother, that’s all.”

Lee shrugged a shoulder, smiling back at the road.

“Just a thought I had.”

Rachel playfully huffed at Lee, leaning back in her seat and looking out the window again. But now she couldn’t deny the idea was peeling at something in her mind.

She remembered Theo going to the gym often–usually to be away from their parents–and he was usually pretty conscious about not overeating to avoid the ire of their judging parents. Granted, no matter what Theo did, Mom and Dad always had something to belittle him over. And the last conversation he had with Mom…

She closed her eyes, bracing herself for the memory.

She was 16 years old. He had actually shown up at the house, not looking too different from what she remembered–not that she got a very good look at him before he left for the last time. Mom made her stay inside, but she managed to get a peek at him through the window.

Lots of unkind words from Mom. Lots of insults at him and at who Rachel now realized must have been Charlotte. Dad didn’t even get home before Theo left…which was probably for the best.

Then, years later, Rachel remembered letting slip that she was dating Lee. She got into her own screaming match with Mom. Plenty of unkind words for Rachel, just like she had for Theo. Shortly after that, Rachel moved in with her and ignored the angry attempts at her Mom trying to get her to come back.

And then, amazingly enough, she found out that Lee’s apartment was close to her long-lost brother.

And now here they were, after a year of building courage.

She thought about the way he held himself. The way he warned her about his weight. The way the couch cushions had a very Theo-shaped crater in them. The extra-wide doorways, the sturdy furniture, the incredible amount of food he ate–Charlotte had even refilled his plate several times and fed him a few bites of food herself.

Rachel quietly cursed, making Lee glance at her and laugh.

“I hate when you’re right,” Rachel explained with a playful pout. “You get so smug.”

“Ha, you can kinda see it now too, right?”

Rachel went silent, trying to process the idea that Theo had gotten so large on purpose. Was it rebellion? A kink? Some combination of reasons?

She still believed he wore his enormous weight well, but now she began to realize that he had probably been wearing it for a while now. And he had at the very least, made peace with it.

She sighed, suddenly not wanting to speculate any further than that tonight.

“Hey, I…I wasn’t trying to sully the image of your brother or anything,” Lee said apologetically. “I honestly thought it was pretty cute that he’d be into something like that with his wife. I like a big brother-in-law better than a skinny one, anyway.”

She looked at Lee, who now had a rather severe expression on her face, which didn’t quite match the last thing she had said.

“No, you didn’t, don’t worry,” Rachel sighed again. She went silent again, hoping to let Lee sit in the presence of her own big mouth for a moment. Lee squirmed a little in her seat, pitifully glancing at Rachel.

Rachel had a small, devious grin. “You think it's pretty cute though, huh? Him getting fat for his wife?”

This made Lee blush and glance nervously between Rachel and the road for a while.

Rachel let out a loud, chirpy laugh in response–pleased at Lee’s squirming. This made Lee relax again and she looked gratefully at Rachel.

“Guess I should have told you I was a big weirdo sooner then.”

Rachel chuckled, shaking her head. The darkening blush on her girlfriend's face was not lost on her, however. A new, tiny, devious thought whispered something to her that made her ears burn.

“Would you still like me if I was big like that?” She asked as nonchalantly as possible.

Lee was quiet for a moment before she responded with a raspy laugh that gave Rachel goosebumps. “No question to it. More of you? More for me to love.”

“So you're also into big…well, fat people?” Rachel mused.

“Doll, I go wherever my heart takes me…which, right now? Happens to be totally in your hands.” Lee’s response was surprisingly more poignant and tender than Rachel expected. Butterflies began fluttering in her stomach.

They fell into a warm, content silence, the radio playing softly.

Rachel started humming along absently to whatever song was playing, now letting her mind wander to just how soft her brother was when she hugged him.

[caustinen]

hii talented person!! your hollywood au has me HOOKED & i love how in character you’ve made them!! your brain >>>

this is super random but i couldn’t help but think of an au (idk if it’s within this one or just a similar one to this one) where buck can like sing & i just feel like it’s just so him in a way to like express his feelings completely in song & like say everything he can’t quite say to bucky the way bucky does to him through that.

and again completely obsessed with you and your content, appreciate it sm!!

(so this unexpecedly turned into hollywood au drabble for a significant first in the relationship, i hope you like it despite it going a bit off the rails 🥲) so here goes:

hollywood au first ’i love you’ hc:

ooh i love this idea!!! i’m instantly thinking about this in terms of another amazing au, but to first incorporate it into the hollywood one:

while i don’t see gale maybe being a musician/writing the songs himself in this au, i headcannon him being very good with words, no matter if it’s about being eloquent and adjusting his speech to fit any context, but also appreciating well phrased text in any form, be it lyrics or poems or scripts or books or whatever. at the start of their relationship bucky would be constantly thrown off as the man he still perceives as somewhat quiet/soft spoken (at least compared to himself) can just out of nowhere say something very profound or just state the simplest of things in unexpectedly beautiful and inspiring ways, wether it was telling about his day, wanting to read quotes out loud from the book he’s working through that move him or kind of telling him he loves him without the actual worss in creative, genuine ways that leave him in awe.

and ahh thinking about the first time bucky hears gale sing!!!!! it’s early in the relationship still, and maybe it’s along to a tune from the radio or humming absent-mindedly while cooking or something but it stops bucky on his tracks — gale would NEVER sing at the karaoke or anywhere in public and maybe he assumed he’s just not musical like that or doesn’t know how to sing and doesn’t see the appeal of making a fool of himself like some others do — but this is how he learns that he infact has a beautiful, soft voice and a good ear to stay in tune, and since gale loves a good text, whenever he sings along to a song he really likes he knows the words and sings them with passion despite never being loud. it only makes it more special to realize buck’s probably never been comfortable enough to sing with anyone else, and the fondness and the feeling of being special to someone almost makes him choke back happy tears.

he doesn’t want to point it out in case gale would become self-conscious about it, but one sunday morning when they’re lazing in bed, john’s cheeks mushed against gale’s chest as the other is sitting up against the headboars and playing with his curls gale suddenly starts to sing ’can’t help falling in love’ so softly john can tell he’s completely lost in thought and just looking at him has made him sing it subconsciously, and this thought combined with listening to gale’s heartbeat breaks a dam in him. he sits up suddenly enough that gale yelps in surprise even before being pushed to his back on the bed and getting a lapful of bucky pressing wet kisses all over his face, and despite being confused gale starts to giggle.

”wha-” ”i love you.” this makes gale still, it’s the first time either of them has said it — it’s been right there, in the air, on the small silence after saying goodbye on the phone — but it still makes him hitch. john keeps pressing little kisses all over his face, and he seems so nonchalant about it, but by now gale can tell he’s nervous. after one more beat of being stunned to stillness he finally gets his wits back and next time john leans to kiss him he takes his face between his when he leans back.

”yeah?” he rasps, and john lets out a heavy chuckle, almost desperate sounding. ”yeah. huh. i love you.” gale’s breath hitches again. he can count with fingers of one hand how many times he’s been told these words by anyone before this moment, and now john has said them twice, and it send him on a loop. john seems to notice, and he looks almost apologetic, and that’s not what gale wants at all, so he sits up, john still sprawled in his lap, and hugs him tight, pressing his face to john’s neck and breathing heavily. john presses his face to gale’s hair and rubs his hand clumsily over the smaller man’s back and tries to not crush him under his bigger frame.

”you don’t have to say it back,” he whispers gently, ”i just, i don’t know. you know how i am. it came to me and it felt so big in my chest that i couldn’t contain it. and i felt like i wanted to tell you, no matter what, because lately i want to tell you kind of everything. and because i really do love you.”

gale twiches and makes a sound that is a mixture of sob and a whine. then he mutters something against john’s collarbone where his face is still pressed tightly against, but john has no idea what he said, can only tell he even said actual words by the tickling of his lips against skin. ”what?” he says, easy laugh on his breath, and that’s the final encouragement gale needs, because he knows what the feeling he gets is everytime he hears that laugh.

he turns his head so that it’s his cheek and not whole face against his neck now. ”i love you too,” he mutters again but it’s intelligble this time, and john’s heart actually flutters, he can tell because they are so tightly pressed together and while his lower body is losing sensation under his boyfriend’s weight he can feel everything else very fucking fine right now.

it’s silent for a while, just them hugging each other in the sunday morning sun, until bucky says ”cool.” and gale tries to fight him after that and they wrestle until they’re breathless from lauging and kissing and the addicitng high of being in love, and after that john isn’t afraid to ask gale to sing for him even tho it gets him an eyeroll every single time.

(idk what it is about this au that i can’t be normal about and everything turns into a minific IM SO SORRY but also i think there’s a lot of potential in singer!john songwriter!gale and john doesn’t know gale’s the one writing all these lovesongs his company is pushing for him to perform there’s so much cute miscommunication and realization right there!!)

[spidrzfall]

Masks, messages, and secrets ⤑ Peter Parker.

finally, i have time to write again. Oh my goodness. enjoy this one, you guys! Sorry if it's not like totally action packed honestly this is a slow burn, and with a ton of small ideas, im working on, so bare with me, please. Im trying, i promise, but this is bound to have some just generic normal people living life scenes, so yeah! Sorry if this is disappointing, though. love you all xoxo - A.

☆° Peter Parker x Male Reader

☆° part two of Tough Night.

☆°• FLUFF - just some banter splice of life stuff babes.

°•▪︎ Fem readers DNI ♡♡

♧ warnings: Language, all characters are 21+ ♧

♡ READ PART ONE : Click me!

♡ Part Three : Coming Soon !

(M/N) didn’t have the gulls to tell Eugene he was secretly texting Peter on the side, after their small dispute the week after, it was almost impossible to even bring up the subject of Peter. It wasn’t hard to see that Eugene was little to not a fan of Peter at all, talking (M/N)’s ear off about how much of a push over he was and he wasn’t someone he wanted his brother to be associated with. Eugene since a young age cared deeply about his brother, from the second his parents brought him from the adoption center a part of him felt the spark of keeping him close, that brotherly instinct to care more about the other and teach him to fend off for himself. Even at a young age Eugene made sure (M/N) knew how to protect himself, not be a pushover to anybody and especially not take shit from anyone. 

Home life wasn’t easy on the two, Their father was a drunk who actively threatened their lives and well beings whilst their mother aside from being absent anytime she was in their lives she only instigated the yelling and mental drainess that came along with even living with their father and an absent mother. Eugene always made sure to protect his brother from then, basically taking him into his own care with making them food, getting supplies for their classes in school, driving (M/N) half across Queens to school because the two were enrolled in different schools, making sure his brother didn’t endure everything that happened at home by taking every yelling from their dad. Even with taking bullets for the other he basically trained (M/N) to defend himself, times where he influenced him to not be a pushover…

Everything he claimed Peter was, he never wanted his brother to be. 

Was it a surprise to anyone when (M/N) was secretly texting Peter behind Eugene’s back? No. A part of (M/N) was rebellious, whilst he did appreciate Eugene’s protectiveness he couldn’t help but admit sometimes it was overbearing, he knew Eugene had good intentions but there were times he felt he couldn’t even become friends with anyone because of his brother. That of course struck rebelion, the rebellion of (M/N) Thompson. Secretly being a lot more sympathetic, being friends with (what his brother called) losers, not mixing in with the crowd, letting his heart weave the way into life and not his judgment. He allowed himself to be free, something Eugene couldn’t be. Though (M/N) knew why, it was how the guy was born it wasn’t like he had a choice but be a close minded and rough guy. He let his own anger and judgment cloud his decisions and way of expression that was toxic and cruel, which (M/N) would be lying if he said his brother wasn’t changing those old ways now that he was an adult. But that was just still in the works.

Another ding came from (M/N)’s phone, as he slurred in his sleep before another one came through…and another..and another. As he groaned, putting a pillow atop his head trying to tune out the noise, knowing it was probably Eugene texting him something stupid or a string of memes, though it came to the slight realization that (M/N) had Eugene muted on his phone. As he slowly peaked his eye from underneath the pillow as he tiredly grabbed his phone, groaning at the light immiting as his eyes adjusted before checking his notifications Peter’s contact showing through as he looked at the time, what the fuck was this guy doing up at 5 A.M.

(M/N) chuckled as he rolled his eyes before grabbing his phone and rolling over to get comfortable as he opened up his phone and went over to messages, taking note of the 10+ notifications from Eugene’s silenced contact as he ignored them before going to Peters contact, a stiff laugh leaving his lips as he replied.

(M/N) set his phone back down before settling back into bed and drifted into his deep state of sleep. The room, dark some hints of the sunshine occasionally shining through but not enough to separate him from his sleep, his snores echoing in the four walls of his bedroom as the slow quiet hum of the apartment's A.C can be heard. The cold breeze substituting the once warm bedroom.

It wasn’t that late by the time (M/N) woke up, shuffling out of bed and grabbing his towel before tiredly making his way to the bathroom and beginning his day with a fresh cold shower, the cold water that hit his skin slowly dissolving the fatigue from his body and into a state of mind where he was finally ready to start the day. Stepping out the shower and into his towel as he dried himself and put on clothes that were much more comfortable yet presentable as he dried his damp hair, adding some coconut oil just to enhance his hair's health and get rid of any damage. Putting on his shoes before tackling his messenger bag that looked like it was massively decorated by a 5 year old who was handed unlimited access to pins and buttons, stepping out the door and to the more lively part of where he lived. Eventually stumbling across his favorite breakfast joint, SoBal Forest Hills, stepping inside as he ordered his usual which was an Acai Bowl, eating it peacefully before stepping out only for somebody to bump into him, making his breakfast splatter on his shirt, staining it a magenta color with sprinkles of the granola that laid atop of it. 

“Watch it! God dammit this was my favorite shirt..” (M/N) mumbled as he tried to take off the remains of the now ruined food. Turning to the guy he had bumped into only for a flash of red and blue to pass by him, Spider-Man. Of course, only the one person who bumped into him the whole day was a criminal being chased down by the well known vigilante, looks like he wasn’t getting an apology anytime soon. Deciding to live with the stain as the salvaged the little of acai left in the bowl as he ate it up before throwing it away and making his way towards the small supermarket nearby as he picked up some food he thought he needed to survive the next couple of weeks before finally going back home, stepping inside, placing the groceries onto the wooden dining table and quickly taking off the stained shirt, dragging himself into his bedroom before placing on a brand new shirt, shuffling out his jeans and into some basketball shorts before going to unpack his groceries. 

Nightfall not taking to long to arrive before he heard his phone buzz in the midst of him ordering some food ,feeling too lazy to cook,  as he looked at the notification, falling in from Peter who was asking him to call which (M/N) gladly accepted as he looked at his phone that had an incoming call as he accepted, a loud windy sound coming from the speaker as he chuckled. “Dude, where are you? A giant fan?” (M/N) was the first to speak as Peter let out a dry laugh “No, I’m just running. Mother hubbard, I’m exhausted.” Peter panted, his voice partially muffled which (M/N) assumed was the sound quality as the windy sound finally came to an end, most likely from him stopping to take a breath. “So Acai bowl huh?” Peter continued after finally catching his breath, a small pant still leaving his lips.

“How’d you know?” (M/N) leaned against this counter, as he crossed his arm. His phone on the counter and on speaker, Peter's voice echoing from the phone's speakers. “I was doing some outdoor photography for work and I saw you, I was gonna call out but you seemed frustrated so I let you be.” – “Could’ve bought me another Acai bowl, just saying could’ve put me in a much better mood.” (M/N) joked as it managed to get a laugh out of Peter which made the other smile. “SoBal Forest Hills, right? It’s near where we live so I might at some point, when I’m feeling nice.” Peter replied. “Oh when he feels nice, what an honor.” 

“yeah yeah, don’t get flustered on me now- shit I gotta go, sorry man. I’ll text you! Bye- Hey!” Peter had a small outburst before the call hung up as (M/N) stood in his kitchen, a confused look on his face before shaking his head and continuing to order his food. Awaiting for it, cuddling up into a blanket on his couch, Forest Gump playing on his television, his attention drawn away as a small knock came from his balcony. As he raised a brow, not sure if he heard it before it happened again as he stood up and cautiously peeked through the curtains. A glimpse of red and blue shining from outside as his eyes made contact with the familiar almost diamond oval shaped lenses as he took a double take. Opening the curtains as it revealed Spider-Man on the other side which caused (M/N) to rub his eyes before opening his balcony.

  “Spider-Man?” (M/N)’s voice was laced with uncertainty as he looked at the masked vigilante who waved at him, the other hand behind the hero's back. “You’re the guy the car thief bumped into this morning, right? Acai bowl guy.” Spider-Man finally spoke as he faced (M/N) settling on the edge of the balcony, the question earning him a nod from the man. Spider-Man’s hand came out from hiding to reveal an acai bowl, “Here. As an apology for this morning.” The hero handed him the small bowl as (M/N) hesitated but took it. “Thanks…How’d you know I live here?” There’s a question the hero didn’t expect as he let out a nervous laugh, it’s not like he could tell the other he was Peter so he came up with an obvious lie, “It’s a part of the powers.”

“The powers?” (M/N) crossed his arm over the other as he raised a brow, skeptical. “Yeah. the powers.” Spider-Man repeated, affirming him. “So where does my friend Shane live?” (M/N) asked as he eyed the hero who scrambled for a reply. “Okay it’s not the powers but I have my ways to know these things.” – “So a stalker.” – “No, gross. I’m not some weirdo.” Spider-Man scoffed as he waved his hand as a dismissal. “You’re a guy in red and blue spandex who can thwip out webs from the wrist and climb walls, I don’t think you get a pass from not being called a weirdo.” (M/N) replied. “I take it back, i want the bowl back.” Spider-Man joked as he extended out a hand to take the bowl back. “Hey! No. this was an apology gift” (M/N) replied, laughing. “Well i take back my apology.” Spider-Man protested, enjoying the familiar banter.

“You are so much more rude than what people let on.” (M/N) spoke before temporarily going inside to put away the acai bowl. Going back outside where he had left the vigilante. “Only when I need to.” The other replied. “Your voice sounds familiar…has anyone ever told you that?” (M/N) asked as he leaned against the railing of the balcony “Only a few dozen people, I have a handsome recognizable voice, probably a celebrity.” 

“Yeah? You’re probably some celebrity named Andrew Garfield or something weird like that…”

“Andrew?Jees no. ”

“Is your name Andrew”

“You’re off by a landslide.” 

The two laughed, before staring at each other. Quickly interrupted by a knock coming from inside as (M/N) stepped in for a while hearing it again, “that’s my dinner…say do you wanna split..it…” (M/N) paused as he turned around only to see nobody looking back at him, the hero long gone as he frowned before closing the balconies glass door and curtains and getting his food, thanking the delivery person, in the midst of it all finding himself wishing the hero stayed longer. A text interrupting his thoughts, It was Peter, telling him he was home from his run as (M/N) texted back a ‘glad your home safe’ only for a request of a call to come in which he accepted. Eugene on the other line, “You’ll never guess who came by tonight” (M/N) began interrupting Eugene’s hello. “Who?” Alex adjusted himself on the floor, chewing his food quickly and swallowed it before replying back to Eugene.

“Spider-Man!”

“Bullshit.” Eugene laughed. “He brought me an acai bowl.” (M/N) replied before adding another piece of food into his mouth a satisfied hum leaving his mouth as he savored it. “Why?” Eugene asked as he can be heard shuffling, blankets rustling given he was most likely on his bed. “Some guy ran into me this morning throwing my breakfast onto my shirt and he felt sorry so he brought me some.” Eugene only hummed in reply “How’d he know where you live?” 

“His powers.”

“His powers?”

“Yep. His powers.”

credit :: enchanthings - dividers !!

@darknessbringer the ideas !!