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hellishjoel · 1 year

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little black dress

10k / pairing: bartender!joel x f!reader

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summary: You’re breaking things off with your douchebag situationship at one of your favorite little dive bars because lord knows you’re gonna need a drink or two. The bartender, Joel, is happy to offer his assistance.

warnings/information: MA 18+ (minors DNI), no outbreak, swearing, alcohol consumption, slight angst, toxic ex-boyfriend putting hands on you, dom!Joel, dirty talk, pet names, oral (f receiving), titty attention, unprotected p in v (wrap it up pls), I think that’s it!

A/N: I’ve held this in my vault for WEEKS. Thank you to @strang3lov3 and @macfrog for helping get this piece to completion! I quite literally couldn’t have done it without them and without their input and encouragement. Also -- this is my first 10k fic! how exciting!!

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Your breaths grow heavy with impatience, waiting to feel him. Him soaking up your slick wasn’t enough. He finally got the hint as your hips rutted back into this touch, hearing his hellish low chuckle at your desperation. “So-” your breath hitches as you feel his tip nudge in, “fuckin-” you clench your eyes closed as his first few inches break you in two, your jaw dropping, “tight.” He bottoms out in one swift thrust, filling you up to a level you didn’t even know you possessed. “Joel!” A broken cry unleashes from the depths of your throat, you didn’t need to see him to know how big he is. You can fucking feel every single inch of him.

You had never gotten dressed up for a breakup before.

As you looked yourself over in the mirror, you were reminded of what you discussed with your friends last night.

You felt a little on edge when you revealed to your friends over a girl’s night that you wanted to break up with your short-term boyfriend Chris. The relationship was only a couple of months old, but the guy was a douchebag. And you realized it too late.

“He was such a waste of your time.”

“Oh my god, he was an asshole to you.”

“Girl, I hope you do a revenge breakup on his sorry ass.”

“A revenge breakup?”

Ahh, yes. The revenge breakup. For wasting your time, efforts, and emotions on Chris, you deserved to have a little fun in the form of revenge. You’d put on your favorite little black dress, do your hair and your makeup, wear a red lip, and show him that you don’t need him.

But now as you stood in front of your bathroom mirror, you felt like you were playing dress up. You weren’t really this confident, this bold. But your pouty red lips said otherwise. Your favorite perfume said otherwise, as well. After a slow turn in the mirror, long legs on show with a short black dress adorning your curves, you decided you would be a man-eater tonight.

You would have preferred to break up with him over text, but you decided you were together for a little too long not to break things off in person.

Despite what you looked like on the outside, your heart was a tangled mess of emotions.

When you first met Chris at one of the fancy bar lounges on the east side, he was the standout of his friends. Tall, blessed with dark blonde hair, perfectly clean-shaven, still dressed in a work suit to join in on the Friday night happy hour. You quickly learned a lot about him. He had an apartment in the city, but his permanent residence was in the neighboring state. He liked golf, basketball, and football. He was a family guy, close with his parents. After buying you a drink, he told you he worked at a finance agency, a large one at that.

The professionalism in itself made you swoon. You couldn’t help it, he seemed put together and men who had a plan were attractive to you.

Needless to say, you went home with him after he was whispering in your ear all night long, his large hand planted possessively on your hip, derailing any other guy in the room who thought about trying a conversation with you.

It could have stopped there, should have stopped there. But he was smart, and his face wore a permanent smirk that put you in a destructive tailspin. So you kept seeing each other. He took you out on lunch dates, got you into the trendy clubs, and put the two of you up in hotel suites from time to time for a nice weekend away.

It was fun while it lasted. His charm eventually wore off, and you realized he was just… a completely selfish douchebag.

You were ready to break things off.

And so it was decided. You looked hot. Too good for him. Your roommate insisted that she could come with you for moral support dressed as a casual bargoer, watching the show for herself behind a bar menu. The idea made you bubble up a laugh, but you really wanted to do this yourself, for yourself.

Your stomach was in knots the entire Uber ride over, leg crossed over the other as you drew shapes into the material of your clutch. You wanted to arrive a little earlier than the set time with your soon-to-be ex-boyfriend-fling, needing a drink or two of encouragement.

The Blackbird was a corner bar that had survived the rapid changes of downtown for the past ten years, or so. Initially around when there was a small gas station on the opposite corner, now it was neighboring a family diner and a video rental shop.

As soon as you enter down the cement stairs and through the dark green door, you’re greeted by a stage to your right where local bands came in and played. After walking past the pool tables that desperately needed new felt, you pass an old golden jukebox that was playing 80s dad rock. It fit the atmosphere, you had to admit. Some Guns N’ Roses started to play after just finishing a Twisted Sister song.

Maybe it was the fact that you were entering into a small dive bar, easily becoming the best-looking person there by a mile and a half, but it was the confidence you needed.

Eyes were on you, a small smile fluttering on your lips at the discovery.

Cigarette smoke filled the air, your heels clicking casually against the hardwood floor as you used the space as an off-duty catwalk. Pool balls clattered, matching the fast-paced beating of your heart.

The Blackbird Bar offered little lighting, aside from the bulbs that hung above the pool tables and a few old neon signs. The walls were decorated in well-loved decor like old license plates and tacky bar signs. There was a $1 bill hung up in a frame, most likely the first bill the bar had ever made. It's a crowning little achievement in all of its dust-covered glory.

The bar stools could use new upholstery and a fresh coat of paint might do the wall wonders, but people didn’t come here to enjoy upscale aesthetic and fruity drinks. They came for cheap booze and company from the regulars.

An empty string of barstools waited for your company at the end of the long bar, your eyes adjusting to the darkness the bar was veiled in.

Your fingernail traced over the slight scratches on the bar’s surface, someone clearing their throat knocking you loose from your thoughts.

“What’ll y’ have?”

Your head was so clouded with what you might say during your impending breakup that you didn’t think of what you wanted to drink. You could really use some liquid courage.

“Uhm..” You paused as you looked over the bartender, your eyes adjusting as you watched him clean a glass with a rag before he tossed the cloth over his shoulder.

He was older, a little shaggy looking. He wore a tattered dark green henley with a waffle print, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

You ordered your go-to drink, slowly swirling your straw around the ice as you anxiously watched the clock tick closer and closer to your planned time.

“Hey beautiful.” Shit, he was early.

Your eyes widened as you quickly set down your drink, signaling to the scruffy bartender and tapping at your glass to request another.

Chris entered your space with a charming smile, his pungent cologne instantly piercing your senses as your eyes gazed over his square jawline.

“Hey.” You teetered on your seat, adjusting the hem of your dress, feeling that it was all of a sudden far too short for the evening. Like it was shrinking up your body.

Chris quickly picked up on your not-so-warm greeting, his head cocking as he set down his jacket on the bartop.

“Interesting pick for the bar. I could’ve taken you somewhere uptown.”

The comment made your gut clench, especially since the bartender was right in front of the two of you, making your drink as he silently listened to every word.

“I actually really like this spot. Feels less pretentious than uptown.” You bit back, maybe a little too much venom in your comment.

Chris playfully threw up his hands in surrender, smirking down at you as he took in your appearance. Slightly smeared red lipstick and an all too tight black little dress.

“Alright, uptown is pretentious now, I’m glad you updated me.” His comment was snide but laced with a hint of teasing, your hand instantly reaching for your drink once it was crafted by the bartender. You mutter an apologetic thank you.

“Hey,” Chris spoke up as he raised two fingers to flag down the bartender. “Can I get-”

Before he could finish, the bartender had walked off further down the bar lane, grumbling under his breath as he went to fulfill another customer’s order. Chris scoffed and tried to brush it off but it made you smile. Well deserved.

Once Chris finally did receive his drink, a corona with a lime, he started to tell you about his week in the office. Unprovoked.

Apparently his coworker was brutally fired, his department was on their third secretary within the year thus far, and he was up to his ears with his end-of-the-month reports.

You weren’t sure what drink number you were on. The bartender kept giving you glances every time he poured your glass back up, his eyes signaling to Chris as he kept speaking over you. He looked just as annoyed as you felt.

“And Chambers is just.. all up my ass about finishing it ahead of schedule but I keep telling him, y’know, Dude, it’s not due until Monday. Get off my ass about it. Right? Right?” Now he was laughing like his life, and his story was really all that interesting. Like everyone was hanging onto every word he ever said with enthusiasm.

He kept wagging his beer around in his hand as he spoke, using mannerisms to go with his exquisite storytelling.

You muster up a noise to give him some sort of implication that you were interested. However, the more you drank, the more you realized how uninteresting he actually was. Who talks at someone like this for 45 minutes? When did he ask you a question about you? Did he know shit about you?

“Hey,” your voice sounded power drenched which quickly captured his attention. His eyebrows raised as if you were interrupting his train of thought.

“Do you remember what I told you I studied in school?” Your head cocked to the side, eyes narrowed on his. Despite the volume in the bar, you could still feel your heart thumping in your ears.

He tried not to look phased by your question. After a pause on his end, he mustered up an awkward chuckle before clearing his throat, shifting back and forth on his feet.

“How long have I lived in the city?”

You watched as his eyes flicked off to the side, his lips parting as if he was hoping the right answer would just come to him.

“Uhm..”

“Uhm?” You mocked, a nasty smirk on your lips. It was taunting.

The more he couldn’t answer your questions, the angrier you got. You mocking him seemed to get his blood boiling.

“What do I do for work? What are my hobbies?” Your red lipstick kissed the straw as you took another sip while you waited, crossing your leg over the other as your foot casually bounced while you watched him squirm.

You continued to roll out question after question. You enjoyed watching him writhe under your scrutiny, finding out that he didn’t fucking know you at all.

Someone you considered to be so put together, so refined, and so charming was really just a douchebag clown masquerading in a suit.

The grip on your drink tightened, and you’re not sure if it was the alcohol or the anger you bore, but something gave you the nerve to throw the remnants of your drink on him.

The liquor splashed across his white button-up shirt first, your half-melted ice cubes followed by pelting his chest.

Satisfaction and surprise filled your gut, your hand coming up to cover your mouth as you tried to hide a laugh. The crowd of regulars watched from a distance, a few gasping while a few others snickered.

He looked furious.

“You fucking-- bitch! What the hell!” He was still shaking off ice cubes, pieces of his blonde hair falling down and presenting him as disheveled.

“If that wasn’t answer enough for you, I don’t want to see you again. We’ve been on countless dates, and you don’t remember a damn thing about me.”

You didn’t care that people were watching, you were putting on quite the show for them in your little revenge dress.

Chris scoffed at you in disbelief, shaking off the liquid that clearly stained through his shirt. You could feel your chest swell with a sense of pride and courage. Your body felt warm, stained with confidence as red as your lipstick.

“You’re fuckin’ sick, you know that? You’re a fuckin’ psycho!” He was nearly laughing at you, the insults scraped at your throat and made your confidence cut down an inch.

“Just-- get the fuck out of here, I don’t want to see you again.”

Suddenly, something you weren’t expecting was his hand tightening around your forearm. It stung, his iron grip burning into your flesh so hard that your fingertips already felt numb from the lack of circulation.

You let out a whimper of discomfort, your big eyes looking between his talons pressed into you then back up to his twisted face.

He yanked you into him, your heels scraping the bottom of the floor-- or maybe that was the screech of his barstool he pushed out of his way on the hardwood.

“You really think you’re all that interesting?” His eyes were narrowed in on yours. “You were just an pair of open legs.” He muttered in disgust.

Your eyes hardened, jaw tightening shut as both anger and sadness twisted inside of you until it created a damaging tornado. You couldn’t believe you saw interest in him or anything at all.

“Hey-” A voice so low and booming broke you out of your thoughts, both of your heads snapping to the bartender who was staring daggers into Chris.

“You don’t touch a lady like that in my fuckin’ bar. Get the hell outta here.” His voice relaxed in volume, his scary stature and piercing eyes were enough to thrust a splinter of fear into Chris. But of course, being the cock that he was, he wouldn’t let it seem like the bartender phased him.

“This doesn’t concern you, man. Best if you just drop it-”

“Or what?” The bartender’s words cut quick as his head cocked up, eyes narrowed on Chris’s. Challenging him. Goading him to fight back. The bartender even stepped closer to the bar’s edge, making Chris step back a foot or two despite the bar being a direct barrier to the two. Chris’ hold didn’t slack, it became stronger. Your nails started to try and pry away his hand from you, but his grip was solid.

You looked to the bartender, a silent plea for his help behind your eyes as you were still lightly fighting against the grip Chris had on you. The anger Chris felt towards the man reflected in his hand around your forearm, a short cry coming from your lips as his fingertips bruised into your delicate skin.

“What did I just fuckin’ say?” The bartender was rounding the bar towards the two of you, Chris quickly dropping his hold on you as the man neared closer. This idiot had never been in a fight before in his life, and he surely wasn’t going to start with the tall, broad bartender who probably beat up drunk assholes every other night.

You were so hypnotized by their interaction, the feeling of the bartender’s hand gently on your back before he became a barricade in front of you. His broad arms crossed in front of his chest and he was still looking for a fight out of Chris.

He looked scary, but in a more protective way now. Now that he was so much closer, you had a better look at him.

His flesh was seared with the signs of life, soft lines on his forehead and by his eyes-- probably from the permanent scowl he wore like how people put on their glasses every day or a watch around their wrist. He had a speckled beard, but a prominent mustache on his upper lip, both the hair on his head and his facial hair wore a brief streaks of silver.

His nose was aquiline, it fit him perfectly. He was long in the torso, broad in the shoulders, and drawn in at the waist. The henley shirt he wore looked like it could barely fit around his biceps, the material stretching to accommodate. He was handsome for a stranger you had paid little attention to all evening.

“You alright?” You could tell he was talking to you without looking, his voice more serene.

“Yeah.” Your voice sounded shakier than you wanted it to, the whole interaction being a shock to your system. Your hand delicately stroke over where he held you, the ghost of his grip still aching on your skin as small bruises were sure to form later.

The bartender’s attention was back on Chris after being assured you were alright.

“You heard her. Get the hell out of here.” The bartender’s head cocked behind Chris and to the door. Once the bartender got involved with your fight, you could feel the presence of the tough pool table guys pause their game to make sure the situation was handled.

Outnumbered, Chris scoffed before he yanked his ice-covered jacket from the bartop, his eyes on you as he shook his head, his nostrils flaring. “Keep her. She’s not worth the fuckin’ trouble.”

The bartender had enough of Chris thinking he was in charge of the situation. He planted his hands at the top of Chris’ chest, giving him a harsh shove that had him staggering backward, still trying to maintain his balance as he was shoved out the door repeatedly.

“I don’t usually ask twice, consider yourself lucky.” The bartender’s words were cut with steel. He looked so calm and unbothered like he picked fights with random guys every other night and it was no big deal.

The crowd of regulars at the bar cheered him on until Chris was swiftly shoved out the door and you could hear his body scuff against the cement steps outside.

You finally felt a flood of relief course through your body, the adrenaline had come and gone, but the racing of your heart hadn’t subsided.

You let out a hot puff of air as you brought the scattered barstools back to their home under the bar, seeing a pair of hands help you align the last one. It was the bartender, and he was watching you with eagle eyes.

“I’m sorry-” you quickly blurt, shaking your head and pressing your hand to the side of your neck to find some sort of relief. “I didn’t mean to cause a scene or put you in a situation-”

“You didn’t do nothin’ wrong.” He was quick to cut in and assure you, your bunched-up shoulders slowly relaxing as he resumed his spot behind the bar.

You sort of wanted to leave. You hated the unwanted attention your hot-headedness created. Even though he was the asshole, you still felt like it was your fault.

“Sit down.” His voice demanded, your eyes softening as your head whipped back up to look at him.

“I’ll remake your drink, just… sit down.” You shifted on your uncomfortable heels before giving in and satisfying him with a little nod, returning to your barstool as he came by and made you another drink.

“Can you-” your voice perked up and tapped at your glass gently. He paused his motions as he looked down at you. “Can you make this drink as responsibly strong as you can?”

His lips tightened, trying to hide a smile poking out from the corner of his mouth.

“Sure, Trouble.” You watched as he tipped the alcohol in, letting it fill up with the ice before he added only a good splash of mixer. Thank god.

The breakup with Chris was warranted, but it was hard thinking about having to start all over with someone new. Hopefully with someone better. You weren’t one to drink by yourself like this, but the burn of the alcohol sliding down your throat felt better than the ache you felt festering in your chest.

As the night went on, the bartender didn’t seem keen on being more than a few feet away from you. He’d fulfill a patron’s order on the other end but always end up back by you, meandering himself to keep busy. You had watched him clean one beer mug three separate times now. Sometimes you made eye contact, only for a fleeting second before he looked away.

He kept asking if you were alright. Yeah, I’m alright. If he could do anything. You’ve already done more than enough. Thank you. Finally, he broke.

“So… you wanna tell me who that guy was?” He asked, topping off your drink as you sighed and swirled your straw around.

“He was... I don’t know. A boyfriend, I guess.” You waved around your drink as you spoke, your eyes meandering around the bar.

“Whatever we had, it didn’t last long.” You tutted up a short laugh at your little joke. You took in a deep breath through your nose, your shoulders rising before they dropped on the exhale.

The bartender shook his head, almost looking inquisitive.

“Why d’ya laugh?” He asked curiously, his arms spread as he planted his palms into the bar for balance as he kicked back one of his boots to rest behind the other. He was so broad and handsome.

“Oh,” you paused and covered your face for a moment in embarrassment that he called you out on it. “I said it didn’t last long, the relationship, but like.. Y’know.” You trailed off and shyly smiled, setting your hands back in your lap as you caught his eye contact, however, now he was holding it with you.

“What?” He pressed further. But he knew what. He just wanted you to say it.

You let out a short nervous bubble of laughter, shaking your head. Oh, fuck it. The alcohol was helping you relax, and frankly, you wanted to laugh at Chris. You didn’t owe him anything.

“He didn’t last long. The relationship didn’t last long, and he didn’t last long. Y’know. In bed.” You felt the need to over-clarify now, taking another sip from your drink, your eyes clenching closed slightly as the strong alcohol made your face tense.

The bartender’s mouth chipped up into a crooked smirk, shaking his head as he looked over you for a moment. You remembered what you were wearing, your little black dress doing wonders for your cleavage resting just above his bar.

“‘S’a damn shame.” He finally said, shaking his head as he threw a white cloth up onto his shoulder, his attention fully on you now as the bar had begun to die down throughout the night. All that was left was a set of people playing pool and one cigarette smoker on the other end of the bar, his eyes tiredly captured by the random game show on the television.

“What is?” You ask curiously, your straw slurping ice now as you sighed and pushed the glass away, shaking your head at him to signal you were done for the night.

He paused before answering you, taking your glass from the bartop and throwing down the ice into a tray then the glass into soapy water. He shook his head and shrugged as he wiped his hands.

“Jackass twenty-somethings not knowin’ how to make their pretty girlfriends finish. Damn shame.”

Your lips parted, your doe eyes on his whiskey-colored ones. Your stomach twisted, a tug between your legs so strong it felt like you were battling an internal fire.

Finally, you just laughed. It was out of shyness and shock, but it was a laugh.

“Is that so?”

“So it is.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

He didn’t let you go another second without it. “Joel.”

Your head cocked to the side, your confidence bubbling up as you sighed quietly. “Joel.” You repeated back to him, the two of you slowly nodding to one another. Now you were the only thing his eyes would look at. You sort of wished he would look somewhere else, to let you fucking breathe.

But he pinned you right there in your barstool with his gaze, in his bar. It was crazy to think something fruitful might actually come from the train wreck that was tonight.

Maybe put together looked something more like Joel. Someone a little older, experienced. No wedding ring, a barely-there smile that seemed to only come out on special occasions. He amused you, even if it was just for tonight.

“So, Joel,” your hand reached out, pointer finger gently grazing over the top side of his hand that was planted in front of you. His skin was warm, your nail grazing the soft hairs by his wrist, and the band of the watch he wore. “What are you trying to say?”

His expression didn’t break, if anything, there were minute details you noticed. His jaw clicked tighter like there was someone slowly turning a tight wheel that controlled it behind the scenes. His shoulders bunched a bit more at his upper back, his body tall and looming and strong. But his eyes stayed on yours, consistent, dark, and beautiful.

“I can show you better than I can tell you.” His words were laced with a promise you were begging him to fulfill. You weren’t sure how much longer you could last with this nagging feeling between your legs begging for relief.

Your intimate conversation was cut short with the final clatter of a pool ball, the black 8 ball sinking into a pocket.

You finally let out a breath, one you didn’t know you were holding in. You glanced to the side, away from Joel’s protective gaze as you watched the men hang up their pool cues on the wall mount, grabbing their leather jackets as they came to set their empty beer bottles on the bar top and thanking Joel before they exited.

His hand came up in a subtle wave, not even shaking his hand back and forth, just throwing his hand out there to say a silent farewell.

Your breath quickened at the thought of him alone in the bar with you. If it wasn’t for the chain smoker dulling both of your fantasies.

Joel caught your wandering eyes, following them down the lane to the final patron.

“Paul, do you know how late it is?” Your eyes fell to Joel’s fingers as he covered the clock behind the counter methodically.

The smoker, who you learned was Paul, finally pulled the cigarette away from his dry and cracked mouth, glancing around to see how empty the bar had become. Besides you and Joel.

“Your wife is probably waitin’ for you at home. Best if you start headin’ out.” Joel said as his head tilted to the door next to him, the man nodding with wide eyes.

“Oh, she is gonna kill me. That woman,” he mumbled something else you couldn’t quite hear from your end of the bar, smiling as Joel snuck a glance at you as he ushered Paul out. He’d stay here all night if Joel didn’t tell him to head on home.

Your nerve finally made your long legs move, heels landing on the hardwood as you slowly walked the length of the bar, your fingers dancing along the top. You felt a few chips and divots in the wood, years of wear and tear exposing itself to you.

Joel flicked the lock on the door and flipped the sign. Sorry, we’re closed!

The action in itself made you feel spoiled. He wanted you to himself for the rest of the night, he didn’t want anyone interrupting. Goosebumps flooded your skin as you leaned back against one of the pool tables, the light above you making you have an angelic silhouette.

Your eyes followed him as he walked to the jukebox, the only thing eliciting noise in the otherwise silent bar. With a push of a button, the music halted.

“What? No music?” You asked. Your voice had a slight echo now.

His heavy footsteps loomed closer, his eyes on yours and never straying.

“Rather hear you.”

Well, there went any remaining ounce of respect you had for yourself.

You initiated the first contact, needy at this point. Needy for someone to take care of you just for tonight. Joel was more than willing to take on that role. A means to an end.

Your soft hands landed on his exposed forearms, moving upwards until they hit the rolled-up sleeves of his dark green henley. You had to force yourself to breathe when you felt over his biceps, your warm palms coming to rest on his broad chest.

“I could have handled it you know. Before you intervened.” Your words elicited a slight grumble from the man in front of you. From Joel.

“I’m thankful, but… I had it under control.” Your fingers continued to dance over his upper half.

He let out a gruff and shook his head. “Not from where I was standin’, Trouble.” His voice was curved with cockiness. This was the first time you really took hold of his southern accent. It came out when his voice was lust drenched.

He challenges you, and your attitude matches his stubbornness.

Joel’s hips are against yours now, you can feel his jeans against your thighs that your dress doesn’t quite reach. His hands are a warm welcome on your hips. They’re gentle on you in the same way they’re possessive, eager to have you but wanting to approach you with a sense of tenderness.

“I had it.” You were persistent. Your arms moved to wrap up around his neck, intertwining your hands and feeling the soft curls on the back of his head.

“Sure.”

The distance was closing between the two of you now, his body moving with a flirtatious sense of stealth.

He watched you with a stoic face. He seemed so unphased. Your touch alone was often enough to have gentlemen attempting to take you home. You were methodical in that sense. But maybe so was Joel.

He was a total stranger, but knew little things about him. Stiff, silent, impossible to read, a human shield, a protector. He would have knocked Chris out with a single swift swing of his heavy fist if he didn’t let you go, you knew he would have. Because he was watching you both all night like he had a gut feeling.

Joel’s tundra-cold voice broke you out of your thoughts for the third time tonight, his large hand coming up and pushing a loose strand of hair out of your eyes, tucking it behind your ear before he cradled your cheek. His actions were soft, his words were filth.

“You got a real mouth on you, y’know that?” His eyebrows were furrowed, the indents on his forehead and eyebrows exposing themselves.

A proud smirk danced on your lips, your arms tugging Joel in closer. He could choose to stay still, he’s strong enough to resist your tug. But he lets you. Because he wants to.

“So I’ve been told.”

You can feel a breath leave through his nose, a sigh of contemplation. Teetering on the idea of falling down into the unknown with you.

Your breath hitches in your throat as his hands tighten on your hips, hoisting you up to sit on the pool table’s edge. The position makes your dress roll up your thighs, a broken gasp leaving your mouth as he finally fills the void between the two of you with a heavy kiss.

It’s tongue and teeth at first, meshed and mangled as you both searched for dominance. His tongue danced with your own before you were tugging on his lower lip. You swallowed Joel’s low grunt, his hands falling to the outside of your thighs with his thumbs pressing into your skin.

Fuck, he was spreading you further. The dress rolled to the very top of your legs, his body sliding through the opening as his warm body consumed you. He tasted like mint. He was probably tasting the alcohol he was pouring you all night.

You fisted his hair at the nape of his neck to hold onto some sort of control, but he was persistent.

Joel was invading your senses on all fronts until finally, you had to wave your white flag.

“Joel,” Your voice came out in a desperate breath on his lips, his head quickly nodding as if he already knew what you needed before you had to ask.

“Lie down, baby, lemme take care a’you.” He kissed you once more before pulling away, his head nodding up once, instructing you to lay back.

You felt bashful as your shoulder blades hit the pool table, still spread perfectly for him.

His expert hands pushed the dress up your hips, lifting your ass off the edge to let the material pool around your stomach.

His warm and possessive hands claimed the lower half of your body. He bent down to take you in, pouted lips kissing your naval while his heavy eyes studied your reactions.

A breath was caught in your throat as you felt his hands on the inside of your thighs, brushing over the front of the red panties you wore. He was thinking the same thing you were, you could see it the way he dropped a small grin. Same color as your lipstick, pretty girl.

“Fuck,” you whispered, using the strength you had left and sitting up on your elbows. You were too turned on not to watch him work.

Your fingers wound into the salt and pepper curls atop his head, biting down on your lower lip as his fingers continued to ghost over cotton.

His thumb began to teasingly stroke over you, brushing over your covered clit and sending electricity through his touch to your core.

Joel hooked his thumbs into the sides of your underwear, bringing up your legs to take them off with ease. You scoot closer to the edge of the table, scoot closer to him.

“What?” You ask, his bemused grin now eliciting one from you too. “Think I’m desperate?” You ask, a little on edge for his answer.

A man of suspense, you watch as Joel shrugs off the question.

You watched as his eyes came down to admire what was previously concealed, your lips parting as he let out a hum in reaction to seeing your soaked core. All because of him, all for him.

Sinking down on his knees before the pool table, your hips rutted forward a few more inches to close the distance. His toying with you was aggravating.

Joel hooked one of your legs over his wide-set shoulder, his large hand coming up to pry the other one up and open. One of your heels nearly sunk into one of the pool table pockets. You whimpered out as you eventually kicked them both off, hearing one pair clatter to the floor on the left of Joel, then the other on the right.

His lips were on you like a magnet, a heavy sigh leaving your mouth as your eyes fluttered closed. Your gut was tight, feeling it create its own knots as Joel licked an exploratory stripe up your glossy slit with his tongue. You gasped at the estranged feeling.

“Fuck,” he moaned out, a short yelp leaving you as the vibrations were shot up your center. “Taste too good not to go down on.” The compliment left you in a swirling heat, feeling your walls flutter desperately for him.

“Joel, you can just-” you paused, not realizing how frantic your words sounded. You sounded frantic enough for him to stop his tongue in his path and look at you like a deer in headlights.

“‘Somethin’ wrong?” He asked, hesitant concern crossing his features. “You alright?”

As much as you liked his attention, you felt awkward about him tasting you. Only one or two guys have ever done this for you before, neither making you finish. You just remember moaning their names until they stopped, letting them think they had succeeded. Good oral sex took experience, trial, and error. You just didn’t want him to waste his time on you.

But now that his tongue was gone, you realized how good he was making you feel. It made you realize that your slick was already devoured by his lips and his taste buds purely because he wanted to. But you still had that nervous gut feeling that it was out of some sort of chivalrous act. I’ll do it because it’s polite, because it’s only courteous.

“You just- you don’t have to, okay? I understand if you don’t want to, is what I’m trying to say.” Despite your words being laced with little pants of trying to collect yourself from the pleasure, you still offered him a respectable out. “We can just fuck, get to the good part for both of us.” Your heart thumped in your chest, looking to him with shifty, sympathetic eyes.

Your statement made his head roll to the side, his lips parting. He almost looked disappointed.

“You don’t want me to?” He finally asked, your heat still begging for his attention. You could feel your thighs trembling under the warmth of his palms spreading your legs apart.

Meekly, you finally push an answer up and out of you. “No.” Your words were breathy, eager, desperate. “Don’t want you to stop.”

Joel gave you a slight nod, his eyes looking over you for a moment before he settled back down by your core. He kissed up the inside of your thigh, his beard hairs scratching after the soothing touches of his mouth.

“Good. Now let me make you feel good.”

His words made your stomach clench, your walls fluttering and begging to be filled. By the look in his eyes, he had seen it. The way your arousal was quite literally dripping and becoming sticky on your skin.

You could feel his hot breath fanning over your core again, your hips chasing the feeling. You decided to lay back once more, just wanting to relax with Joel’s head between your legs.

His palm on your leg moved to plant your hip down into the pool table, halting your movements and holding you still. The anticipation was all too much, and you let him know that by whimpering out his name.

He wasn’t exactly slow, it’s like he was learning. With each lap of his tongue, letting it move up to your clit and then down to your entrance, he was taking the time to learn you.

You purse your lips as your eyes flutter closed, letting out a genuine gasp as he began to suckle on your clit. The motion eluded something deep in the pit of your stomach. It wasn’t exactly gentle, but it didn’t hurt. Feeling his mouth suck and tug on your aching clit, his teeth just lightly grazing your sensitivity felt like powerful lighting strikes setting a wildfire loose in your core.

“S’that feel good, pretty girl?” He whispered, trying to learn what made you tick.

“M-mhmm,” you whimper-moaned shakily in response, not finding it in you to lace together more than a few syllables.

One of your hands braced the edge of the table while the other fisted his hair, gripping the dark strands and keeping him in place. As if he was going anywhere.

You could feel Joel slowly untying the knots you had made in your stomach, plucking open one and then the other with each stroke of his tongue.

He liked your taste, he liked pleasuring you, he liked that you liked how good it felt to be given this type of attention. Attention he was sure you hadn’t rightfully experienced before.

You were eager for more but shy to ask. Joel, being the mind reader that he was, moved his hand that was dedicated to holding down your hip and brought it to glide up your slick. His wet tongue made slow figure-eights around your clit, broken moans tumbling from your mouth as you let your eyes dip open and then closed as waves of pleasure began to consume you in an even rhythm. Joel’s rhythm.

His mouth kissed at the inside of your thigh once more, having to bite down into the flesh to conceal his excitement. It made you smile and whine. You wanted the marks of his teeth, you wanted the prints of his hands on you. His were welcome.

He slowly sunk a finger into your pleading entrance, letting a breathy sigh enter the air above the two of you. The only sound in the empty bar was your eager moaning.

His mouth gave you much needed relief, your pussy taking his finger to the knuckle while his tongue continued to create generous circles around your sensitive bundle of nerves.

That’s when you felt it. The it no one had given to you before. The it that left your mind blindsided.

He was only one finger inside of you but his tongue was working magic. You started to mewl out feverish moans of his name, the hand in his hair clenching tighter and causing a sting to radiate across his scalp. The leg hiked up on his shoulder was shaking, your heel digging into his back to guide him even closer if that was humanly possible.

“Joel, holy shit,” you whimpered, head coming up to look down at him. His lips and mustache were glistening in your slick. “I’m s-so close.”

You didn’t have to convince Joel like you had to convince the others. Your moans were authentic, your cries of passion genuine.

Joel listened, he kept his pace, the pace that had you shattering like a freshly broken mirror.

“J-.. Fuck Joel, your fingers,” you whimper, your walls fluttering around where he was pumping into you with just the one.

“Mhmmm?” He elongated in a questioning tone, not freeing his mouth from you to respond. He wanted you to say it. You threw your head back in frustration and nodded quickly with your chin to the ceiling.

“A-Another, another finger.” You groan out. You could feel his smirk plastered against your clit, feeling his cheeks raise with his smile against your shaking thighs.

You don’t need to ask twice. Joel’s inserting a second finger and you can feel yourself stretching for him. He picks up his pace again and the it you’ve been fantasizing about is happening.

Your toes curl, the heel of your foot still indenting into his back as you let out heavy pants into the air. Your back arches as your walls tighten around his fingers while Joel curls them in the perfect spot, your hand fisting the edge of the table as you searched for words to resemble how good he was making you feel.

Joel kept untying your knots, plucking open one after the other, after the other, until-

“Holy f-fuck! Joel!” Your body convulsed with your orgasm, your hard nipples peaking in your dress as your lower half started to grind against his mouth for the ultimate finish. You were seeing white, your moans and the squelching noise your wetness made filled the room.

His fingers worked you down from your orgasm, your chest rising and falling as you came back to life. Freshly resuscitated after a life-altering orgasm. And one you didn’t have to fake.

His fingers were covered in your cum-mixed arousal, he didn’t waste any time sucking them clean as his eyes connected with yours. An exhausted whimper left your throat. Your lips were pouty, eyes as wide as a doe as you sat up to face him.

He pushed himself off his knees, your leg dangling free from his shoulder.

Your foreheads came to rest against one another, both taking a breath to collect yourselves. His beard definitely gave your thighs a little burn rash, but with how good he made you feel, the slight pain was worth all the pleasure.

“I’ve never had someone go down on me on a pool table.”

Your fingers aimlessly drew circles in the felt, your other hand reaching up to swipe your thumb clean across his bottom lip.

“Ever been fucked on a bar?” His eyes dark and tantalizing, his voice lacking true emotion and replacing it with grit and lust. Good. That’s the last thing you want right now. You don’t need emotions tonight.

“Mm-mm.” You said as you shook your head, the two of you wearing matching smirks.

You were glad you and Joel were on the same page. Neither of you seemed interested in anything more than sex tonight.

Joel was about to help you down from the pool table, a wave of heat splashing your already warm face. He turned back when you dropped hold of his hand, lightly squirming on the table.

“Just-” You’re a bit embarrassed, you don’t want him to feel sympathetic. “I need a minute. For my legs.” You gave him a shy smile, and he wore a crooked cocky one in return.

You glanced down as you tested a foot on the floor. Your stems felt like jelly, as if you had just run a marathon, but really, Joel was just pulling an earth-shattering orgasm from you.

Joel was quick to shake his head, his body coming back to yours.

“Don’t need you walkin’ barefoot on the floor. I’m a little behind on cleanin’ up the place.” His words made you stifle a laugh.

He was okay with eating you out on the pool table and fucking you on his bar, but god forbid you might step on something sticky.

You wonder if it’s because he feels protective of you. He wasn’t going to let some dickhead break your arm tonight. Not in his bar.

“I’m fine.” You say as you haul yourself up, planting your palm into his bicep for leverage while you put on one heel and then the other. You could walk on your own.

“You wanna fuck me on your bar, baby? You do this with all the girls?” You ask as the heels clicked on the floor, one after the other.

His pace catches up with you, dark eyes watching your every move like a predator meeting prey. It would scare you if you didn’t know how good he was with his tongue.

“Only the real pretty ones with delicious tasting cunts.”

Your lips parted at his words, merely watching as his pace kicked up a notch. You felt your back slam against the bar as Joel consumed your front and he was kissing you once more.

His kiss was magnetizing, commanding. Open your mouth for me. Let me taste you.

You obeyed, feeling him slip in and have his taste. Your hands reached for your dress that was bunched around your stomach, pulling your lips from Joel though he was apprehensive to let you do so. The material tangled your hair but you were quickly tossing your dress aside, eager to have him back in your space.

His eyes lingered on your tits, his mouth on yours, but now his hands- god, his hands, they were massaging and cupping them in his palm.

You let out a strangled whimper as he pinched your nipple between two fingers, still sensitive from your orgasm across the room.

He enjoyed watching you squirm, your jelly legs already coming back.

“So fuckin’ greedy.. Can barely hold yourself up.” Joel’s words were gritty, lost in the depths of his heady lust. You wondered how big he was, you could see the heavy outline through his jeans.

While he played with your tits, his mouth now slobbering on your nipple and making your core tremble, your hands were on his old leather belt. Pulling the excess to the side and flicking open the pin.

He takes over, pushing down his jeans to the tops of his thighs. You smile seeing his dark green briefs, the same green as his henley.

“I guess we’re both matching tonight.” You teased, snagging your pointer finger into his briefs and tugging until it snapped back into his waist.

“Turn around pretty girl, wanna feel that pretty pussy around my cock.”

Your stomach was already bottoming out, all those knots Joel had untied on the pool table were now forming again.

You whimpered as you eagerly turned around, your saliva covered tits now plastered to the bar as you bent over it. The bartop gave you a shiver, considering how cold it felt while bare.

You whipped your head to the side when you could hear him shifting out of his boxers, his belt clattering with his movements. You flicked your hair out of your way as you tried to get a look at his lower half but he was flushed behind you in no time at all.

Joel wrapped his hand around his base, his other hand on your hip as he guided you to stand between two barstools. He slid his tip in your fresh arousal, smirking as he watched you grip the edge of the bar.

“Such a pretty fuckin’ girl. Need a man to make you feel good, not a boy.”

His words released a whimpery moan from you while you nodded, each time his tip teased your entrance made your heart race just a beat faster with anticipation.

“Need you, Joel.”

He nods, his open palm splayed on your lower back and right hip as he admired the curve of your ass.

“So-” your breath hitches as you feel his tip nudge in, “fuckin-” you clench your eyes closed as his first few inches break you in two, your jaw dropping, “tight.” He bottoms out in one swift thrust, filling you up to a level you didn’t even know you possessed.

“Joel!” A broken cry unleashes from the depths of your throat, you didn’t need to see him to know how big he is. You can fucking feel every single inch of him.

Your cunt was in shock, your tight walls clenching desperately around him as you began to flood over him with your arousal.

You began panting into the wood of the bar, the pain greeting you in a hot flash.

“Oh f-... god,” your knuckles were white gripping the backside of the bar. You could hear Joel behind you, moaning at the way your walls expanded graciously for them.

“Good girl, alright baby, come on, baby,” His voice was heavy, wrapped up in his lust as he hiked up one of your legs and set it on the barstool. “So fuckin-” his heavy breath fanned across your back as he pulled he retracted his hips, “perfect for me.” He said as he reeled them back in, filling you to the max.

Your leg up on the barstool released a new angle for the two of you, your eyelashes fluttering as Joel found a previously undiscovered spot.

He started slow, letting your body adjust to him. How could someone as good-looking as Joel be humble about a dick like this? And he knew how to fucking use it.

You were trying to moan his name, but they just kept coming out in hot pants.

“Joel, Joel, fuck Joel!” The pleasure had now replaced the pain, a sweet sting at your core every time he ground his hips into you just right.

Joel’s thrusts never wavered, they were deliberate and calculated as he filled you to the brim. His cologne was invading your senses, mixed with his sweat.

He collected your hair in a loose ponytail, peeling your face off the bartop as your chin angled up to the ceiling. The pool table may have been for you, using his mouth to get off. But now, this was for Joel. Joel was using you good and hard, and you fucking loved it. You loved that you were what he needed tonight, and vice versa.

The sound of Joel’s hips clapping against your ass echoed throughout his bar, your hand coming back to grip onto his forearm for some sort of leverage. Some sort of control. Some sort of… anything.

But Joel made it clear that he was in charge tonight.

His tempo edged you. Once you fell close to another crashing orgasm, his thrusts feeling like they were hitting you at a million miles an hour, suddenly slowed to the flow of bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic. It was torturous the way he had you mewling out his name in desperation one moment and then the next, he had you whining for more. But every time you neared the finish line, the overwhelmingness of it all was stronger, and you knew Joel felt it too.

Joel didn’t want you just to feel good, he wanted to change how you saw sex. No more laziness from a partner, no more vanilla positions, no more faking orgasms. This was what it felt like to be fulfilled by the real thing.

No matter how hard he tried, both of you were losing strength to put up with the passing of another orgasm.

“J-Joel-” He could barely hear his name with the sound of his front snapping into your behind. “I’m so- fuck me,- I’m so c-close,” You were sure to have bruises on your hips tomorrow, the wooden edge of the bar being nailed into you. “I’m close, please!” you whined, beginning to throw yourself into each of his thrusts which worked up a good grunt from him.

“Feel so fuckin’ good around my cock,” you twisted your head back as you felt his arm snare around your hip, his fingers slowly circling around your sensitive bud. You were gasping for air, seeing stars as he actually fed you what you wanted. He was ready to let you cum.

Your eyes weakly watched him as he fucked you over his bar. Eventually, you had to push yourself off of the front because it was pinning your hips into numbness. Your leg came down from the barstool, your back still bent over as you used your palms to flush against the edge of the bar to hold yourself up. Your head whipped back again as you became obsessed with observing him.

“You like watchin’ me fuck you, sweetheart? Little fuckin’ troublemaker.”

There were no words, it was too late. Your head dropped as your nails chipped into the wood, letting out a cry of his name as Joel continued to untie the knots in your stomach, all of them falling loose until you came.

You heard him let out a long and low groan, your barely-open eyes turning back to watch the sight of Joel finishing.

Joel could feel your walls pulsing desperately around his swollen cock, his fingers getting a little messy with your clit but he kept at it, he wasn’t going to disappoint you. That’s when it hit him, where he couldn’t hold on anymore.

He spilled his white hot cum into you, rope after rope until it was coming out in shorter streams inside your cunt. You and Joel were moaning in unison as you both finished together.

After a few moments to breathe, you gently pat his hand that was rubbing lazy circles in your clit, feeling his warm palms move to your hips as you slowly straightened out together.

You flipped your messy hair out of your face, smirking tiredly as you looked over him while he tugged his jeans and briefs back up on his hips, your eyes hypnotized by watching his rough and calloused hands easily secure his belt on.

“Uhm..” You paused as you shyly searched around for your dress a few barstools down. You went to retrieve it, Joel taking it from your hands and slipping it back on your body. You watched his face, his eyes looked through you.

Your thumb came up to his lips, watching as he did a minute flinch with how fast your hand invaded his space.

“Relax,” you tease, swiping away the red lipstick of yours that melted on the edge of his pretty mouth. He slowly relaxed as he watched you clean yourself from him, his warm palms still holding your aching hips.

You sighed, your body and mind tired from being completely blown out. Your feet were sore from your heels, you were ready to take this dress and makeup off for good tonight.

You watched with a teasing smile as Joel did a shitty job with a wet rag cleaning up where you were thrust against his bar, shaking your head at him.

“Missed a spot.”

He tutted dryly. “Funny.”

You collected your clutch and your other belongings, seeing the spot at the end of the bar where the ice you had thrown at Chris had long ago melted and was now a puddle on the floor.

“Come on, I’ll walk you out.” Joel’s voice erupted from behind you.

Your hand clutched the stray 8 ball on the pool table Joel had you laid out on, dragging it to the corner pocket before you went to meet him at the door. He unlocked it to let you out, even going up the concrete steps with you.

“It’s fine, Joel.”

He shrugs and shakes his head, looking past you once more.

“I know. Just wanna make sure you get in the cab alright.” He waved up his hand and stepped into the street, signaling a car until one pulled up to you both. You didn’t know what time it was, how late it had gotten. You probably had several missed messages from your friends to hear how your revenge breakup went. You couldn’t wait to tell them how tonight turned out for the better. Because of Joel.

Finally, he was really looking at you. And you had no idea what to say. Your lips parted, looking up at the older man who sort of saved your night.

Your eyes said it all. Thank you.

He just nodded and cocked his head towards the cab.

“Night, Joel.” You tugged open the door to the cab, tossing your purse in the backseat before sliding in as gracefully as you could. You should forget about being graceful at this point after what you’ve done.

“You gonna tell me your name before you go?” How could his question come from curiosity but his voice was as cold and bare as ever. His hand was in the window of your cab, as if holding it in place from taking off on him.

His interest made you smirk, your hand playfully plucking his fingers free from his grip on the window before giving a little shrug and not saying a word.

His eyes stray from yours and look down the road, seeing him cross his arms in front of his broad chest before he continues. “Alright, fine.” He said with a little nod. “Do you think I don’t pay attention to ID’s when I check ‘em?” He says your name, testing the waters as a shy smile creeps on your lips, his cocky little smirk was enough to make your eyes roll. “That’s alright, I’ve been calling you Trouble all night anyway.”

You sighed tiredly and smiled, tapping the cab window. “Goodnight, Joel.” You say before falling back into your seat and giving the driver your address.

“Goodnight, Trouble.”

Joel saw you off before disappearing down the concrete stairs into the Blackbird, your fingers gently ghosting over your red lipstick as you watched the city fly by.

---

here's my masterlist!

follow hellishfics and turn on notifications to see the next time I update! after sept. 1, there will be no more taglist!

@jrrmint @gracieispunk @macfrog @strang3lov3 @notjustjavierpena @bastardmandennis @joelslegalwhre @casa-boiardi @nostalxgic @cool-iguana @joeldjarin @unsteadyimagines @pattwtf @lune-de-miel-au-paradis @schnitzelwnoodles @flippittygibbitts @turtles-all-the-way-d0wn @cartoon-garbage04 @alltheseperfectimperfections @sunnywithachanceofjavi @kyloispunk @hopplessilse @toxicfics @angelicnotifs @iquitedislikeithere2 @livingdeadmaria @emmalandry @worhols @radsanchez @pedritoferg @lucyeyelesbarrow @nobodycanseeinsidemysoul @pastawench @kittytiddywinks @slut-for-bucky-barnes @mendessi @aphterthoughtt @chyannealaniz @pedrotonin @barbierat @chicville03 @alejaa-a

#joel miller #joel miller smut #pedro pascal #pedro pascal the last of us #pedro pascal joel miller #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller one shot #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x female reader #tlou #tlou fic #the last of us #the last of us fanfiction #hellishjoel #joel miller x reader #joel tlou #bartender!joel

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halohalona · 1 month

Text

Fair

"It's what my heart just yearns to say In ways that can't be said"

Logan reflects on his life, sense of self, and his relationship with you

Logan Howlett x Reader

this was inspired by the song "Fair" by The Amazing Devil. You can listen to the song while reading but it isn't necessary. i wanted to capture the song's emotion in this fic, and hopefully, I did.

ok this is take 2 of posting this 'cause the first time had a shit ton of typos and could not live with myself letting ya'll read a fic with typos (especially when i wanted this to be very emotional), partially beta-read, hopefully, it's not as typo-filled as before

masterlist

warnings/tags: emotional hurt/comfort, takes place after the events of DP&W, logan cries, reference to "Beanie" (drabble i wrote), a glimpse of domesticity, and i honestly don't know what else to tag.

Sunlight pours into the room through the gaps of the curtain as Logan stirs awake on your chest. You’ve been awake for a while now, just playing with his hair and humming the first song that came to mind.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” you softly greet him with a warm smile. He looks up at you, his own tender smile gracing his lips. A smile reserved only for you. He doesn’t say anything, too busy admiring your bedhead, appreciating how beautiful you looked in the morning.

He buries his head into the crook of your neck as his smile widens. “Where have you been all my life?” he murmurs softly against your skin.

“In another universe?” you reply playfully.

His smile slowly fades at the thought. His face is still in the crook of your neck as he mumbles “It’s not fair,” hoping you wouldn’t hear, but you do anyway.

“What’s not fair love?” you ask.

“It’s not fair how the universe hid you away from me,” he joked. You gently hug his head and chuckle. He said it jokingly but you know that’s not what he really wanted to say.

It was Wade who introduced you to each other during one of his many parties. You were his neighbor across the hall. After some mildly uncomfortable introductions and comments from Wade, Logan irritably told him to shut the fuck up which led to him eventually leaving you two alone.

You never met the Logan of your world, and Logan never met the you in his world. Sometimes you wonder if you ever did meet the Logan of your word, would he be the same as the man you’re lying with right now? Probably not, and you think it’s for the best.

He stays quiet for a while before releasing you from his embrace and sitting up.

He stares at the wall, pondering about you, your relationship, this world he’s in, everything.

His mind wanders back to the time when you made that odd-looking hat because you said it reminded you of his hair—he couldn’t help but smile, realizing in that moment that he would cherish everything about you, no matter how unusual it was. He remembered the night you two were watching a horror movie on the couch and you were so scared that you somehow found a way to burrow yourself between his back and the couch to get away from the horrifying scenes unfolding on the TV. In that moment he felt a deep and instinctive need to protect you from anything that would frighten or harm you, real or not. And then there was the time you went out of your way to get him the watch he had been staring at in the mall; it made him realize just how much you cared.

Maybe fate brought you to each other, though he’s not entirely sure. But he was sure about one thing: he wants you. He wants this life he’s created with you. He has never felt so content, calm, and happy. Yet, he’s convinced himself that he doesn’t deserve any of this—especially not you.

“Love? Is everything alright?” your voice laced with worry brings him out of his contemplation and back to the present.

God knows he wasn’t a good man, and he’s told you so many times but you stand by him. If he hadn’t already lost everything, he would be willing to do so, if you asked. And that’s what he tells you.

You move to straddle on his lap and cradle his face in your hands.

“Hey, it’s me,” you say softly. “You may not be a good man, and as you said, you’ve done bad things. But what’s happened has happened, and you can’t change that. Even if you could and you did, we wouldn’t be here right now. You may think you don’t deserve me but isn’t that also up to me? I want you, and you want me. Let’s keep it that way, alright?”

He wraps his arm around your waist, holding you close. Afraid that if he moved even the slightest bit you would disappear along with his reason for everything. You don't say anything. You let him hold you until his heart and mind stop racing.

Running your hands through his hair and hugging him against your chest you whisper, “It’s not fair,” echoing his words from earlier. “It’s not fair how much I love you even when you piss me off and act like you don’t need me.”

You settle onto his lap, and softly press your forehead against his. A tender smile graces his lips as he gazes into your eyes. “Well, if that’s the case,” he murmurs, his voice soft and sincere, “you have no idea how unreasonably in love I am with you. With everything you do, with just… you.” he pulls away, holding your wrist and laying his head in your palm, more tears threatening to fall, "You make me feel normal when I'm with you.”

Fighting back your own tears, you whisper, “I love you, and I want you to remember that. I love you so much it hurts. And it hurts me as much knowing you don’t believe that you deserve it, because you do. I love you, so please don’t push me away” you bring your lips to his in a soft and tender kiss.

"I love you more than words can say, and I promise I'll never push you away again.”

“And I’ll stay by your side, no matter what happens,” you added, holding him close.

#logan howlett x reader #hugh jackman #deadpool and wolverine #deadpool & wolverine #logan x reader #wolverine #wolverine x reader #logan howlett #xmen #marvel #mari cliffgate's writing

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mothdruid · 2 years

Text

Concerned Neighbor

pairing: bradley “rooster” bradshaw x fem!reader

summary: Bradley and you are neighbors, sharing a duplex owned by Mav. But Bradley never realized how paper thin the walls really were until one night. He learned the difference between your moans, from true pleasure and fake pleasure. He makes it a point to show you true pleasure when with someone.

wc: 4.5k

warnings: 18+, smut, mdni, protected sex, penetrative sex (p in v), oral sex (male and female), vaginal fingering, jealousy, listening through the walls, possessive!Bradley, degradation and praise kinks

a/n: this idea was brought to you by @emerald-chaos and it's also unbeta'd, so don't mind my mistakes pls. and yes, I'm using the same Bradley gif I use for all my Bradley fics.

When Mav first brought up renting out the other half of the duplex, Bradley was hesitant. He had been reminded that it was Mav’s decision and to 'play nice' with the other tenant. And how could Bradley not 'play nice' when you were the person he was sharing a wall with. He would never forget the first time he met you, your smile bright as you awkwardly tried to open your door while carrying a box. That's where Bradley came in, offering to help carry the box. And that was where your friendship began.

Bradley did admit it was nice having you there. You watched his cat while he went on leave, making you its mother practically. Him mowing your side of the lawn, you collecting his mail while he was gone. It created this odd relationship, which created your now bi-weekly dinner date the two of you had. Sharing your company for a little while every so often made him not feel as lonely. Reminding him he still had the proper skills to interact with more than just fellow aviators.

Everything was just going swimmingly until he heard it one night. That's when he started to curse the fact your bedroom was next to his. Only a thin wall separating the two rooms. Bradley assumed that his room lined yours, but this was a confirmation. At first he wasn’t sure if it was all just in his head. He hadn’t been physical with anyone for a long time, so maybe it was his brains way of saying he needed to get a fuck in. But then he heard it again. And again.

It was the sound of you, moaning in pleasure. Bradley wasn't quite sure when his hand had drifted down to his grey sweatpants, palming his growing erection. He hadn't realized how paper thin the walls were, your breathing was almost audible to him. Hearing every moan and gasp you had to offer.

The thought of you touching yourself, vibrator on your clit, or maybe even a dildo inside of you had Bradley biting back groans. It wasn't like he never thought of you as attractive, cause God you were to him. The image of you laid out for him, touching yourself or eagerly taking his cock had him fisting his dick. Your mouth would be hanging open, those moans he was hearing falling past your lips.

It was obvious when you crept closer to your orgasm, moans getting louder and more frequent. So he timed it perfectly, thrusting into his hand and groaning when eventually he heard you hit your climax. He followed suit shortly afterwards, hot spurts of cum covering his stomach. Bradley laid there staring at the ceiling with his hand still wrapped around his cock, wondering how he would ever face you again.

A few days passed and he didn't see you, not really leaving the house in all honesty. Even though he wasn't seeing you, he was still hearing you. Every night he would hear your moans. Bradley couldn't help but take advantage of them every night, fucking his hand and wishing it was you instead. Then one day, he was greeted by a new car in your driveway. He assumed it was a friend, until later that night.

It was almost like a schedule. He would get in bed at 8pm every night, wait about ten minutes, then hear your moans, signaling it was time for him to shuck off his sweatpants. But tonight wasn't like that. He didn't hear anything from your side of the wall until about 8:40pm. He knows because he checked his phone. And the noises he heard tonight weren't the same.

The sounds he heard tonight were a different pitch, not sounding like you. They sounded forced, fake. Bradley even got out of bed to check the driveway, still seeing that unfamiliar car in your driveway. He honestly couldn't bear the thought of it. You fucking someone was fine, but not being pleased and full of pleasure? Hell no, you deserved more than subpar sex. He hadn't even heard the usual climax ending you had every night.

Bradley didn't know how to approach the situation though. It's not like he could just bring it up to you, explaining that he could hear you through the walls. You would definitely move out after that confession he figured. So, Bradley decided not to ignore you anymore. He would come over daily and ask how you were and if you needed my help around the house. Hell, he even mowed your half of the yard. But it got him nowhere.

Bradley was yearning for your bi-weekly dinner, only a week away. He wanted something to happen that night, hoping you'd give him some form of opening. He saw that same unfamiliar car five days before your dinner, making him irritated. Bradley knew he wouldn't be able to take another night of your fake moans, so he left and went to the local bar for a few hours.

When he came home the car was gone and the lights on your side of the duplex were still on. Bradley slipped into his own side, finding his way into bed quickly. He laid there for a few moments, ruminating on the idea of you getting fucked by some random man that didn't even know how to please you properly. After a few more moments he heard it though. Heard you.

It was those soft and pleasure filled moans he loved to hear. They immediately went to his cock. His hand palmed at the front of his boxers, as he listened. Every moan was something angelic yet sinful. Bradley craved to hear them without the barrier of the wall so bad. His hand pumped his cock as he heard your moans pick up.

A heat was rising in his chest and cheeks, his mind thinking about how good you would look splayed out. Legs spread wide, one set of fingers working your clit, while your other hand pumped a dildo in and out of your greedy hole. Bradley bit back a groan, thinking about what it'd feel like to be inside of you. Bradley paced himself with your moans, waiting until the last moment to follow you over the edge. As he laid there on his bed with his spent cock resting against his abdomen, he wondered how he was going to face you at dinner.

The bi-weekly dinner came faster than what Bradley expected. Five days passed in the blink of an eye. But he had heard you every night, and that car never showed back up. He hoped that the car would never show back up again. He wanted you to be taken care of, hoping he would be the one to do it.

You were currently on his living room floor, twirling a stick with ribbons attached to it across the floor for his cat. His cat, Twix, aggressively chased the blue curled up ribbons back and forth on the floor. Twix was a stray that Bradley had found, the short haired tabby keeping him company and not completely lonely. Bradley watched the two of you play as he continued with dinner. He wasn't sure when you noticed him watching, but he couldn't help but smile when he caught your gaze.

God, you were going to be the death of him.

Bradley got out a can of cat food, distracting Twix from the toy you had. After Bradley plated Twix's canned food, he made up both of your plates and took them to the table. There was just small talk through the entire dinner, Bradley not wanting to ruin it with the main topic on his mind.

"You okay, B?" Bradley nodded with a small smile.

"Yeah, I think so." You tilted your head.

"Think so?" You shot him a questioning look. "You know you can tell me." Both of your plates were empty, signaling to Bradley he could finally bring up the subject.

"Who did you have over this week?" Bradley didn't mean for it to come out so demanding. But it did, and there was no way of taking it back.

"What do you mean?" You narrowed your eyes at him.

"There was a car in the driveway."

"Why does it matter?"

"It doesn't matter."

"I can see who I want to see."

"I know you ju-"

"Sorry, I'm not like you." Bradley's eyebrows knitted together, his hazel eyes staring at you intensely.

"I'm sorry, what?" You knew you ticked a nerve.

"Bradley, you know what I mean."

"No, not sure I do. Explain. Now." The tone in his voice sent a chill down your spine. You straighten your posture, interlacing your fingers and placing your hands on the table.

"Well you just. All because you don't bring anyone home doesn't mean I don't have to." You thought it'd be awkward, but it wasn't. Something in his stare had changed, it wasn't intimidating anymore. It was something more playful. A smirk pulled at one side of his mouth.

"Even if he can't get you off." Your eyes grew wide.

"Wha-"

"You think I don't hear you?" You stared at him. A heat started to rise in your cheeks, as well as between your thighs. Bradley had been listening to you? The thought of him fisting his cock while listening to you fuck someone else plagued your mind. "Hear your little moans every night?" That's when it dawned on you. Your room shared a wall with Bradley's.

Bradley took notice of the way your face changed. It wasn’t shocking, more akin to something else. He watched as you took your lower lip between your teeth, gaze looking away from him for a moment. You took your hands from the table, placing them in your lap. Your thighs squeezed tightly as you felt his eyes crawl over you. You had always found Bradley attractive, but never considered the possibility of him coming on to you. The thought of him jerking off to your sounds plagued your mind, showing you just how desperate he actually was for you. Your eyes flicked up to meet his blazing hazel orbs. A surge of courage ran through your veins.

“How many times did you hear me?”

“All of them.” A heat blazed through your body like a forest fire. “You should fuck someone who actually makes you feel good.” Bradley leaned across the table, playful smirk on his lips. “Someone that has you moaning like when you finger fuck yourself.” Your insides clenched at his words, thighs squeezing together once more.

“Is that what you want?” A tension was swirling between the two of you now. The both of you knew exactly what each other wanted.

“Just a concerned neighbor is all.”

“If you’re so concerned about this problem, then fix it.” You emphasized the T at the end of the sentence. Bradley quirked an eyebrow. The two of you stared at each other for a while, only the small bell on Twix’s collar filling the silence.

“You sure you want that?” Bradley asked. “Want me to ruin you for anyone else? Make you come crawling back?” Bradley stood up, taking a few steps until he was standing next to you. You turned and looked up at him, eyes unwavering as you answered him.

“Show me what a ‘concerned neighbor’ can do.” Bradley’s hand moved to your chin, taking it between his thumb and pointer finger. A smirk adorned his face, eyes scanning your face.

“God, you’re so fucking pretty.” Bradley’s fingers started pulling on your chin, hinting at you to stand up. You made your way to your feet, a fire surging underneath your skin. His fingers drifted down your jaw, hand moving to cup the back of your neck. Bradley leaned down, lips barely touching your earlobe. “I can’t wait to hear those pretty moans. The ones you make while you touch yourself.”

Teeth and lips clashed together, neither of you sure who kissed the other first. Bradley’s fingers tightened around the nape of your neck, pulling you closer towards him. His hand grabbed at your hip, kneading the flesh underneath your t-shirt. One of your hands threaded into his honey locks, tugging lightly. They were softer than you had ever imagined.

“Fuck.” Bradley whispered, his hot lips traveling down your jawline to your neck. The hand on the back of your neck disappeared, ghosting down your side to your hips. Rough hands grappled with your waist, kneading at the flesh under your shirt. The tiny hairs of his mustache prodded at your skin, urging you to keep up with him. It was as if Bradley wanted to consume you, know everything your body had to offer.

Bradley needed to know the exact things that made you moan. One of his hands grabbed your ass, pulling you flush against him. A hardness pressed against your abdomen and pelvis, letting you know Bradley was enjoying this. Your hips rocked against his, the hand on your ass trailing to the small of your back. He kept you pressed against him like that as he backed you up towards the wall.

A hand was now pressing on your core, rubbing you over your pants. Bradley pulled back to watch you, listening to your gasps and moans while he provided you with minimal pleasure.

“Must have thought about this for a while, with the way you’re moaning.” Bradley sneered. It wasn’t a lie, ever since you had moved in he plagued your mind. He was your main source of masturbation material, the idea of him being more than just your neighbor.

“What if I have? Thought about this before.” The words were like honey to Bradley, sweet and just what he wanted. Both of his hands went to the front of your body, one moving to work at the button of your pants while the other kneaded your breast.

“Is that what you thought about when you fucked yourself? Wishing it was me deep inside of you?” His hand slipped down the front of your pants and panties, fingers slipping between your folds. A groan tore through Bradley’s throat. “Fuck, how are you this wet already? This wet and we still have our clothes on.”

“It’s been a serious problem.” He covers your neck with hot and wet kisses, fingers circling your clit. They were tight and quick circles, ones that made your abdomen tense up. You knew you would last long, especially at this pace. It’s like Bradley already had a map of your body, with each sensitive spot marked with an ‘x’.

“Should have let me fix it sooner. Not have those useless dudes try to fix it.” Bradley’s tone had your insides melting. All you could do was stare at him, lips parted while moans fell from them. Without warning he removed his hand from your pants, turning you around and pressing you against the wall. His hands hooked into your pants and panties and pushed them down to your knees. His hand returned, this time his fingers tracing your entrance.

“God, this hole is so needy for me.” Bradley pressed two fingers into you, filling you up just the way you needed. He draped his body over yours, pressing your chest to the wall. His mouth nursed at your neck, nipping at the tender spot below your earlobe.

“Only for you, Bradley.” A soft growl came from him, his fingers thrusting in and out of you, stretching you open. A wave of pleasure ran over you as his fingers brushed that special spot inside of you. “Fuck! Ri-right there.”

Bradley added another finger at your words, zeroing in on that one spot inside of you. He could feel your walls clenching, tightening around his digits. He knew you were close and so did you. The tightness in your abdomen was almost unbearable, waiting for the tension to snap. A mix of swears and his name were pouring out of your mouth.

“You sound so fucking good moaning my name.” Bradley’s cock twitched every time you moaned his name. He never realized how much of an effect it would have on him. “Only my name, nobody else's. Nobody can make you feel like this, only me.” Bradley whispered in your ear.

“Only you, Br-Bradley!” You stuttered at his name as you came. The tension in your abdomen finally snapped. Your walls tightened around his digits and he helped you ride out your high. A groan came from him, his forehead pressing tightly to your shoulder as he just felt and listened to you.

A shaky breath passed your lips when he removed his fingers from you. Bradley’s hands found your pants and panties that were still around your knees, pushing them down and helping you fully remove them. He pressed kisses all the way up the back of your legs, biting at the meat of your ass eventually. As your legs regained consciousness, he gestured for the two of you to go to his bedroom.

“If I’m fucking you right, I’m fucking you in my bed.” You nodded, still a little blissed out from your first orgasm. You took the hand he had held out and followed him.

You immediately climbed onto his bed, not waiting for him to direct you. He shucked his shirt off once reaching the bedroom, just in time to watch you. Bradley stood at the foot of the bed, watching you put on a show for him. The skin of your back slowly became more exposed and you dragged your shirt up your body. His eyes scanned your skin, taking it all in as territory that he finally was able to claim. He couldn't help his hand drifting towards his pants, rubbing at the strained fabric covering his cock. He saw the bubblegum pink bralette, making him wonder if your panties were matching. He didn’t pay much attention to them when he took them off you. Your hand trailed up your sides, grabbing at the band of your bralette and tossing it to his floor.

Bradley bit his lower lip, coming around the side of the bed to see you. You turned to him, letting him see you completely bare. Bradley started to kneel at the edge of the bed, his hands moving out to grab your legs. He pulled you closer to the edge, pushing your legs apart and putting your cunt on full view for him.

“Look at you.” Bradley said as he dove between your thighs. He drug his tongue up and down your slit, flicking it against your clit. He brought a hand around your thigh, using his fingers to open your folds even more. You propped yourself up on your elbows, moaning and whining as he feasted on your cunt.

It was as if he was a mad man and this was his only purpose. His mustache rubbed against your clit as he licked lower, your hips stuttering at the sensation. Your back arched when you felt his fingers prod at your entrance again, pushing inside of you while his tongue worked over your clit. Shivers ran through you as the tension in your abdomen returned. Bradley groaned against you, the vibrations making your legs shake. You brought a hand to his locks, threading your fingers through them.

“You taste so fucking good.” Bradley groaned as you tugged at his hair. The tension in your abdomen was tight, threatening to snap at any moment. His lips wrapped around your clit, sucking just enough to push you over the edge. His tongue never left your clit, flicking as your body shook with pleasure.

“Bradley! Fuck!” Your legs went to squeeze shut, the sensation becoming too much. But Bradley stopped them, grabbing the inside of your thighs and forcing them open. Your entire body was tight, your orgasm feeling like it was never going to end. “It’s too much! Bradley, please!”

Bradley pulled back after you begged him to stop, letting you finally catch your breath. You laid on the bed, chest heaving from each breath. This was the first time you had ever felt like this, this blissed out from a man. You had enough trouble getting off once during sex with most men, let alone twice. But here was your neighbor, easily pulling to orgasms out of you because he was jealous. That’s when you heard the sound of a zipper, pulling you back from your post-orgasmic thoughts.

Bradley was standing up now, jeans low and open on his hips. His hand was pushed down past his waistband, working his cock through the fabric of his boxer briefs. Steadily you sat up, legs draping down off the side of the bed. You reached out, pulling at the waistband of his jeans. You pushed them down his legs, him kicking them off to the side. Next your fingers trailed around the waistband of his boxer briefs.

“Don’t get all shy on me now.” Bradley joked as he watched your fingers slip into the waistband. You flicked him a glare as you pushed them down his legs. His cock was red and angry, standing at full attention. You had always assumed he was big, but this just confirmed your suspicions. You wrapped a hand around the base stroking lightly. Bradley watched with his mouth agape, tongue running over his lips.

You pressed your lips to the tip, licking softly before taking the tip into your mouth. Bradley let out a deep groan as he watched your lips part, taking him into your mouth. He let his head fall back, trying to focus on the feeling of your hot mouth wrapped around his cock. This was a moment he had dreamed of since hearing your moans. But he didn’t know if it was enough. He wanted to be in you, fucking you until you couldn’t take it anymore.

“I can’t.” You gave him a curious look, pulling off of him. Before you could ask him he spoke, “I need to be in you now.”

Bradley pushed you up the bed, draping his body over yours. He reached over into his bedside table, grabbing for a condom. You watched as he tore the wrapper with his teeth, tossing the wrapper to the floor. He rolled the condom down his cock, running his cock between your folds. Every time his head rubbed your clit you quaked, shocks of pleasure rolling through you.

“God, you’re gonna look so good taking me. Letting me ruin you for everyone else, making sure you only want me.” Bradley settled between your legs and lined up, pressing the head of his cock in your entrance.

A moan fell from you as he pushed in you, stretching you with only the head of his cock. Inch by inch he eased into you, rocking his hips slowly. He nuzzled into the crook of your neck, kissing at your clavicle. When he was fully seated inside of you he paused, listening to your breaths. He pulled back to look at you, a look asking for permission on his face.

“Fuck me, Bradley. Make me yours.” Bradley groaned. His hips pulled back, slamming back into you in an instant. He set a brutal pace, heavy deep thrusts as he filled you. He kissed down your neck and chest, kissing at your breasts before taking a nipple into his mouth.

“You’re so fucking dirty, fucking other men while wishing they were me.” His words were intoxicating, speaking truth that you didn’t know he knew. You clenched around him at his words, letting him know he was right. “What a fucking slut. But that’s okay, I have you now. Gonna fuck you so good.” Bradley continued to babble on, talking about how you were made for him and that he was made for you.

“Bradley, you- fuck!” Bradley adjusted, changing the position slightly. He sat back on his heels, grabbing the underneath of your knees and holding your legs out. He thrusted inside of you, immediately hitting that spot inside of you. Your back arched hard, walls clenching around him. Bradley didn’t like to be a two minute man, but the way you were squeezing around his cock was making it hard.

“You feel so fucking good! Fuck! It’s like you’re sucking me in.” Bradley pushed your legs together, leaning over you. He practically had you folded in half as he pounded into you. “Say it, please say my name.” It was almost like a plea when he asked.

“Bradley! Please!” Bradley knew you were close, he could feel how close you were. He was close too, had been close for awhile but was trying to hold out for you. It was all becoming too much for you. You were on the edge of your third orgasm, the spot inside of you being hit over and over again. Bradley let your legs fall apart, finding your clit with his fingers and rubbing it. That was it.

His name was all you said as you came, clenching his cock impossibly tight. Bradley held out for a bit longer, helping you ride out your orgasm. He leaned down and captured your lips with his, a small taste of you still noticeable. You moaned as he pounded into you a little bit more, your arms wrapping around his shoulders.

A groan ripped through him as he came, his thrusts stuttered as he unloaded into the condom. He rested his head on your chest, the both of you trying to catch your own breath. You started tracing small circles on the expanse of his back. A comfortable silence settled between the two of you for a moment. Bradley was the one to break it as he shifted, pulling out of you.

“So, problem fixed?” He asked. You rolled your eyes and rolled onto your side.

“I think so.” You responded while yawning. “But I would like to keep it fixed.” Bradley smiled as he stood up, taking the condom off and tying it. He leaned over, placing a kiss on your temple.

“Good, cause I don’t think I can give you up now. Plus, I think Twix would be mad if you stopped coming around.” He helped you stand, the both of you making your way to the bathroom. You sat on the toilet as he cleaned himself with a wet washcloth, leaving it sitting in the sink when he was finished. Twix mingled in between your feet, meowing at the both of you. You gave him a small scratch on the head before leaving the bathroom. You went back to Bradley’s bedroom, crawling into the bed and under the covers. Bradley followed shortly afterwards, cuddling you from behind.

The next thing you knew you were waking up, a heavy weight on your chest. You looked up to find a cat on you, Twix specifically. You didn’t remember falling asleep, but you and Bradley must have. Which made you look over, seeing your neighbor in bed next to you. His eyes were closed, mouth slightly open as he slept. A warmth spread in you, knowing that all your problems were fixed.

#bradley bradshaw #bradley rooster bradshaw #rooster #bradley bradshaw smut #rooster smut #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw x f!reader #bradley bradshaw x female reader #rooster x reader #bradley bradshaw fic #rooster fic #top gun fic #top gun smut

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its-all-stardust · 2 months

Text

Sugar || 9

Masterlist || Part Eight

Steven Grant/Sugar Mommy!Reader

Word count: 2.2k

Series Summary: You meet Steven in a museum gift shop and feel an instant connection. Before you walk out the door you decide, perhaps against your better judgment, that you need him to be your sugar baby. Now you just need him to let you treat him right.

Note: this chapter is very late and fairly short. tbh i could have added a lot more, but seeing as it's been 2 months since the last chapter, i wanted to get something out. But I am still working on this fic!! I'm going to finish it i swear, so please please yell at me to get my ass moving!!

When you called the next day, Steven didn’t answer. You waffled about whether to leave a voicemail and ultimately decided not to—not on that call, anyway.

On the second call, later that day, Steven still didn’t answer. That time, you left a message asking if he was feeling better and asking him to please call you back.

He didn’t. There wasn’t even a response when you sent his payment for going with you to the auction, something entirely unlike him.

By the third call, another day later, you were afraid of once again being too much, too needy. Yet you left another message anyway. You tried to keep it professional, not wanting to let on how upset you were.

“Steven, I still haven’t heard from you. I was just checking in. If there’s an issue with our business arrangement, please let me know as soon as possible.”

You wonder if he’s sleepwalking again or whatever disorder is causing him to blackout. Perhaps it’s like that first time, and Steven will come back confused but well and whole. You try to tell yourself that’s what’s happening now, trying to remain positive.

But, of course, the worry still creeps in.

What if he’s lost?

What if he’s hurt?

Should you call someone and report him missing? Is he missing?

There’s a chance you could be taken seriously, but you also know you could be seen as a psycho jilted ex-lover.

You contemplate the merits of hiring a private investigator or going to Steven’s apartment yourself to see if he’s there.

You can’t go in, you don’t have a key, but you could knock. Maybe even ask his neighbors if they know anything.

You simultaneously try to convince yourself that nothing is wrong and something is.

If something has gone wrong, he needs you, and you can’t get to him. If it hasn’t, then he’s purposefully avoiding you for whatever reason.

You remind yourself you shouldn’t feel this way. Shouldn’t feel so attached.

By Sunday evening, you’re a bit of a mess. If you bit your nails, they’d be gone by now. Instead, your anxiety manifested outward. Your apartment is both chaos and order.

You went on a bit of a cleaning spree. Normally, once a month, you hire someone to come deep clean your home, moving furniture and putting in more elbow grease than you typically care to. These last few days, though, you attempted to take matters into your own hands. And while you were already cleaning, you figured you might as well sort through your cabinets, closets and shelves to see if there is anything you no longer feel the need to hold on to.

As a result, the bathrooms and Steven’s bedroom are spotless. The living room and the kitchen have been destroyed. Only your bedroom is untouched, but that’s only because you got distracted after going through the walk-in closet.

You would have kept going until something in you snapped, or everything was back in order if only the hunger pangs weren’t so distracting. It was a blessing in disguise that your nerves never seemed to affect your appetite.

You’re at your kitchen table, barely tasting whatever leftovers you had in the fridge and staring off into the middle distance when your phone rings.

At first, the sound doesn’t register, drowned out by the constant static filling your head the last few days. But then you realize what it is and lunge toward the counter where you left your phone.

Your heart stops when Steven’s name flashes on the screen. You don’t have to think before pressing the phone to your ear a second later.

“Please tell me it’s still Friday,” Steven blurts as soon as you answer. “Or even Saturday, and I got really drunk on champagne last night.”

Relief fills you, but it’s quickly overshadowed by worry.

“Baby, it’s Sunday,” you tell him gently, sinking back into your chair at the table.

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Steven says, dejected.

For the past few days, you had thought, perhaps, that Steven was going to end your relationship. That he no longer wanted to be your sugar baby and didn’t know how to tell you. But his losing time, unable to recall anything during his blackouts, is much more frightening.

“It’s like I’m losing my mind,” Steven continues. “First, I’m losing days, and now Gus regrew a fin.”

That catches your attention. “Gus what?”

You distinctly remember Steven talking about his pet goldfish only having one fin. “Goldfish don’t regrow body parts, Steven.”

“Well, it’s either that or someone broke into my flat, stole Gus, and replaced him with an imposter,” Steven says, his voice bordering on joking and hysterical.

As ridiculous as it sounds…

“You’re sure you don’t remember doing any goldfish shopping?” you ask feebly. Someone replaced Gus after who knows what happened to him, and the most likely culprit would be Steven himself. Not that any attempts at regaining blackout memories have proven fruitful, nor is there an obvious explanation as to why he would do that in the first place.

“Not that, at least,” Steven answers quietly.

“You remember something?” you ask quickly, excited. Whatever it is, it might help you both figure out what’s happening.

“There’s…something alright.” He’s hesitant, like he isn’t sure what to tell you. Perhaps afraid you’ll think him crazy or maybe be disturbed by what he does remember.

“Can I…come over?” Any confidence Steven had around you seems to have been washed away by whatever happened while he was gone. In its place is the same uneasy timidity he had when you first began your relationship when he wasn’t sure what he could and couldn’t do.

“Steven, you never have to ask.”

When he walks through the door, Steven goes straight for your embrace, desperately, it seems, needing your arms around him. He breathes a sigh of relief, melting into you.

You don’t say anything and simply enjoy the feeling of Steven in your arms again. Before, you could survive a few days without him next to you. Now, you can’t imagine letting him out of your sight.

You don’t know when that change happened.

“Do you need anything?” you finally ask, your voice breathless. A mixture of relief and Steven squeezing you a little too tightly—not that you’re complaining.

“Just you,” Steven mumbles, his face buried in your neck. A pleasant heat fills you.

The two of you stand there for a moment longer, tangled up in each other, relishing in the comfort. You want to move to the couch to hold Steven properly but don’t want to be the first to let go. You don’t want Steven to think for even one second that you’re abandoning him in any way.

Steven shifts, lifting his head, and presses his forehead against yours, closing his eyes.

“At least I know you’re real,” he mutters more to himself than to you.

You have no idea what that means. It’s likely a part of what he has to tell you about the last few days.

“What happened?” you ask softly, prompting him.

Finally, Steven stands up straight, his arms loosening around you but not completely letting go.

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Then, with a slight shake of his head, he says, “I don’t even know where to start.”

With your hands on his arm, you lead Steven to the couch. “May I?” you ask, and with Steven’s nod, you continue. “Let’s start with the auction. You seemed fine at first, but something happened to you.”

Steven’s brow furrows in concentration, trying to remember what happened just a few short days ago.

“I remember going. We met your friend, but then…” He shakes his head. “It’s blank. Part of me didn’t feel right, but… I don’t know how to describe it. One second was with you, and the next, I was dreaming or something before waking up in my bed.”

Steven’s eyes widen, apparently realizing something. “Oh God, I didn’t just leave you there, did I?” he quickly asks, eyes searching yours.

“You didn’t,” you assure him. Even though Steven has the right to walk out on your arrangement anytime he wants, aside from your assumptions after the auction, he’s never shown any sign of wanting to do so. “You had me take you home, though. Do you remember that?”

Steven shakes his head. “When did that happen?”

The best place, you decide, is the beginning. Instead of guessing at what Steven doesn’t remember, you replay the whole night for him—even the parts he’s already mentioned himself.

“I thought you didn’t like being there. Maybe you were bored, or the crowd was too much for you. You got so quiet. And then you asked me to take you home.”

“I don’t…feel like myself.”

You weren’t sure what he meant at the time, but now it makes sense that that was when Steven’s memory started going blank.

“I don’t remember that,” Steven says softly. “Did something happen afterward? When did I leave?”

“Leave?” you repeat, slightly confused.

Steven continues, not hearing you. “Did I say where I was going? Or…or did I sleep in the spare room?”

That’s when you realize that Steven didn’t think of his apartment when you said you took him home. He thought you meant yours.

“Steven,” you say, interrupting him before he could keep trying to fill in the blanks himself. “I didn’t bring you back here. You had me take you to your apartment. Something about you needing to be there.”

Steven’s face scrunches up in confusion as if that course of action doesn’t make sense to him. He goes silent, and you let him think.

You want to ask about what he said that night, what it could have meant. What it was about himself he couldn’t tell you.

But you don’t. He didn’t want to talk about it then, and there’s a reason he wouldn’t know what you were talking about if you did.

An eerie feeling washes over you. At the time, you knew something was wrong, but looking back now and realizing that something inside Steven had changed, and he was no longer remembering what he was doing leaves you unsettled.

Whatever is happening to him, you need to help figure it out. The problem is, as far as any doctor could tell, it wasn’t anything physical, nothing that left an outward sign of its presence, leaving you at a loss.

“I followed you in,” you tell Steven, needing to say something about what happened in his apartment. “Pretty sure you didn’t want me to. You kind of…ran, but I needed to know you were okay.”

“Well, now I know something was definitely wrong with me. I would never run from you if I were in my right mind,” Steven tries to joke, but it comes out weak, without much feeling behind it.

It’s nice to hear nonetheless, especially with how this whole ordeal had left you feeling.

“I didn’t stay long,” you continue, no longer meeting Steven’s eye and instead turning your attention to your still interlocked hands. “It didn’t seem like you wanted me there.”

It was Steven, yet not Steven, sitting awkwardly at the table as you made him tea. Though he didn’t seem to hate you, he was clearly uneasy with you being in his space. Your heart pangs in your chest.

Before you can stop yourself, before you can even think, words spill from your lips.

“And then you wouldn’t answer my calls. Now I know why, but I thought I had done something, and maybe you didn’t want me anymore.”

Steven’s breath catches.

No, no, no, you weren’t supposed to say it like that. You should have practiced the words beforehand.

You lo-like Steven, but your relationship doesn’t have room for that. You’re in this position specifically, so you don’t get caught up in feelings. You don’t want them. They’re messy and complicated and leave you hurt more often than not. You pay people to avoid feelings, and it’s always worked so well.

Until Steven.

It shouldn’t matter if he wants you, whatever that entails. As long as he’s happy to accept your money for his services, you should be content.

The last thing you want is to pressure Steven into anything, which means keeping any and all ill-advised emotions to yourself.

You don’t want this relationship to end; admitting anything is a surefire way of making that happen.

“I thought you didn’t want to be my baby anymore,” you correct. Your first admission is true, but it’s best if Steven thinks this is what you meant, and you can pretend it doesn’t sound just as desperate.

Steven squeezes your hand and doesn’t release the pressure, making you meet his gaze.

“When I woke up, I saw you had called,” he starts, his voice quiet, eyes intently looking into yours. “I was so scared, I didn’t listen to them. I just needed to call you. See you.” He takes a shaky breath. “And…I think I’ve known for a while, really, but I realized something just now.”

Your brow furrows, wondering what he’s thinking.

“I have…so much I still need to tell you, but I think I need to say this now.” He starts talking faster as if he thinks if he doesn’t get the words out quickly enough, they won’t come out at all. Then, in a rush, he says, “I don’t want to be your baby anymore.”

Your heart stops beating, and pain fills your chest.

“I’d rather be your boyfriend.”

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petrichor-han · 4 months

Text

the debt of existence; choi yeonjun

PAIRING | ghost!yeonjun x gn!human!reader

CAST | choi yeonjun, kang taehyun, seo changbin (mentioned)

WC | 18.2k

GENRE | angst, (slight) fluff, horror, ghost!au, non-idol!au

WARNINGS | mentions of death & dying, explicit language, mc had abusive parents, flashbacks to said abuse (physical and verbal), smoking, ghosts/spirits, childhood/unresolved trauma, mentions of hoarding, mentions of murder & suicide, descriptions of a crime/murder scene, gore/blood

SYNOPSIS | you remember your childhood home as a landmine, filled with metaphoric bombs just waiting to go off at any possible second—there was a reason you never came back home to visit after you moved out at the ripe age of eighteen. years later, your parents are dead and gone, and you realize that you have inherited that very same house—complete with the spirit that has haunted it since before you were born.

A/N | hello everyone!! this is my addition to the monster beside me collab hosted by @decembermoonskz!! super late, the collab was unofficially dissolved ages ago, and not my proudest work, but i wanted to finish this fic anyways since i was mostly done with it before my hiatus lol. slightly inspired by the webtoon my boo by jeongseo. please reblog and leave feedback/comments, it would be much appreciated!! 🫶

request to be added to current and future taglists HERE!

listen to the playlist HERE!

MASTERLIST | THE MONSTER BESIDE ME

JULY

The end of July is always slightly uncomfortable, you think. It’s the midst of summer, but perhaps that contributes to its unease, to the realization that everything in life is fleeting and temporary, but it is not a sad thing to think of, as it just is. That is how it always is and how it always will be. July is a reminder that everything comes to an end, even things that seem everlasting, like the pesky mosquitos that suckle at your plush flesh in the warm muggy evenings and the flashing memories of childhood that you can’t seem to forget when you eat a cheap cherry flavored ice pop.

Or, that’s what you think a relatively normal childhood would seem like. Not that you would really know.

Your childhood summers were a dull thing to look back on, and most of what you could gather from your scattered memories, presumably locked away because of how much you hated it, was an image of you sitting in your one joy from your bleak youth: the large bay window that overlooked the front yard of your house. The yard could have been beautiful, you’d always thought as much. It was a large, pretty space with endless room for growth. You often daydreamed about the fresh vegetables, the pretty flowers, the vines and greenery of your dreams that could have flourished there if given the chance. Your parents didn’t seem to share the same daydream, instead doing the bare minimum to upkeep their lawn. The grass was not dead nor was it suffering, but it was nowhere close to being soft and supple like your neighbors’ lawns, that much you could tell though you were never allowed to tread upon it. This was another thing that your beloved bay window was good for: looking at the neighbors.

It wasn’t a creepy thing. You were a child. Your neighbors had children too, and they seemed to have a much more colorful childhood than you did. During these endless summer hours when it seemed like the sun would never set, you watched them with one small hand pressed to your window, your breath fogging up the already condensated glass, small pearls of water forming from the mugginess, forlornly watching the other children play amongst themselves. Whether it was dress-up or tag, or simply rolling around in the soft green grass of their pretty lawns, you wished that just once you would be allowed to go there with them. It seemed like a separate world to you, as if your window panes were a television and you were watching a show about a happy childhood. You felt like a stranger looking in. You were a stranger looking in.

Once, and just once, you were invited to come down and play with them. You remembered it. That summer was a particularly harsh one, in terms of temperature, and your parents’ creaky old house had no relief provided. The most that you could do was sit by your window and hope that a breeze would come through. This was the only time you were allowed to open your window. Unfortunately for you, though your window was cracked open, there wasn’t the slightest bit of wind. The blazing sun seemed to shrivel up everything in sight, heat waves visible in the air. It made you feel drowsy as you slumped against the wall, pushing your window open more and more even though you weren’t allowed to do so. You kept thinking that maybe if you pushed it open just a little more a small breeze would come through and tousle your sweaty hair… maybe it would send a nice breath of relief through your clothes.

“Hey!”

You jolted out of your daydreaming, your half-slumber.

“Do you want to come play with us?”

You look out of your window, heart catching in your throat. A few kids that you recognize from the neighborhood stand right outside your front gate, one of them even daring to lean against the old, chipping, white wood. The one that shouted at you is holding a soccer ball in her hands, the white patches more gray now than anything, a sign of a well-used, well-loved toy. She turns it over in her hands as she stares up at you, eyes twinkling with playfulness. You’re panicking now, just slightly; you’d never been asked to play with them before and you don’t want to mess it up. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she says doubtfully, the corners of her lips now slightly downturned in a frown, as if she were worried about hurting your feelings. “We like to invite new kids sometimes. But you don’t have to come.”

“I want to!” you find yourself shouting back, though your heart pounds loudly in your ears with adrenaline. You swear you can feel your own blood coursing through your veins in your arms and legs, your ears burning with excitement. “Are you sure it’s okay if I come?” Even though they were the ones that invited you, you still find yourself worrying that they don’t want you there, and you play with your fingers as you lower your gaze, half-expecting them to laugh and say that they didn’t want you there after all.

“Of course,” the same girl says matter-of-factly, and you like her right away with her no-nonsense aura. She seems to be the leader of this small group, and you want so badly for her to like you, for her to take you under her wing. You lick your chapped lips as she gives you a small smile, motioning for you to come down. “What’s your name?” she asks, and just as you part your lips to give her a response, your heart soaring through the thick, humid summer air, you find yourself being pulled backwards roughly, your sticky t-shirt pulled up against your throat as you choke and gag at the harshness. Your small fingers scrabble at the fabric that’s pulled up against your neck, and you are thrust aside onto the wooden floor. You can feel the skin of your left elbow dragging against the bare floor, skinning it effectively, and you cry out, cradling your sore joint.

“They can’t come out to play,” your mother says roughly, before slamming the window shut and turning back to you, her eyes blazing. “What the hell were you doing? You know you’re not allowed to leave the house when we’re not home. Do you want to get kidnapped?” She’s still in her work uniform, beads of sweat appearing on her moist forehead; clearly, she had had a rough day at work.

You feel yourself curling into a ball involuntarily, afraid of your mother’s rough tone. Your elbow stings and you just want her to leave so that you can look at the damage. “I’m sorry,” you say, your voice hardly above a whisper. “I was wrong.”

“No shit,” she scoffs, and she runs a hand through her hair, eyes shut as she sighs, annoyance clear in her tone. “Don’t let me catch you doing that again. This is what’s best for you, and you’re making me look like the bad guy. It’s for your own safety.”

“I won’t do it again,” you promise, guilt pooling in your stomach. You don’t dare to stand up, for you know that she could very well physically kick you down again. With the look on her face, it wouldn’t be far-fetched. And you do feel horrible–she’s right, after all, you think. They don’t give you many rules to follow, and you’ve read stories where people are hurt by their parents daily. They have never broken your bones or hurt you when you didn’t deserve it. Your skinned elbow was your fault.

You think that your mother might give you a good spanking anyways, even though you were sorry, but instead she just looks at you with her upper lip curled in exasperation, eyes narrowed at you as if you were a bug that were squirming around on her floors, and leaves your room, slamming it shut behind her so hard that you can hear the hinges groan. The tell-tale click of a key slipping into your lock tells you that you won’t be allowed out for a while. You swallow hard and pick yourself up off the floor, tears burning the backs of your eyes as you try to hold them back. Your elbow is bleeding, and you don’t have any bandages so you press a piece of tissue to it even though it stings to have any contact. You sit yourself back on the edge of your bay window and stare at a new crack on the left side of the glass, something that would always remind you of that bleak July day when your mother once again dashed your hopes of having friends in the neighborhood—all in the name of your supposed “safety.”

You can see that same crack from the front gate, which is where you currently stand. You fumble with the old skeleton key in the pocket of your jacket, feeling the humidity make the material stick uncomfortably to your skin. Your fingers smell like old metal and rust when you retract them from your pocket, and it makes you feel slightly ill as you back away from the house.

Not yet.

Instead, you walk back to your car that’s parked on the side of the road, reach into your other pocket that holds your car keys, and unlock your door. You can still feel the cool air that had been blowing; you’d left the car running when you went for a quick look at your childhood home. You slide into your seat and close the door behind you, sighing as you grip the steering wheel tightly with both hands and press your sticky forehead against the top of it. You feel like you’re melting into the vinyl seats, like your skin is stuck to it like a pest to flypaper, and you shift uncomfortably as you look up, eyes darting between the empty road in front of you and the house that holds some of your most repressed memories. You thought that you had the confidence to waltz in there and clear it out as soon as you got the call from the bank, but seeing it now made your blood curdle. Clearly, there were some unresolved issues that you didn’t even know you were dealing with, and they were preventing you from going inside and just taking a look around the damn place.

You shift the gear and back up out of your subpar parallel parking job on the uneven, cracked road. Your GPS says that the coffee shop you’re due to meet Taehyun at is fifteen minutes away. That’s fifteen minutes to clear your damn mind and convince him to give up his next few weekends to do you a huge favor. As you drive away from the old house, it feels like a weight has been lifted off your chest.

You can do this.

An old pop song from the past decade erupts from your speakers, and you reach over to turn it down even though the nostalgia rush gives you waves of calmness, in a way you hardly remembered. The singer’s voice—you don’t remember the name of the one hit wonder—is warbly and slightly out of tune, but it’s just because of your shitty old car and its apparent inability to play songs in the right key. You tap your fingers against the steering wheel as you slow to a stop in front of a light, the bright red glare stopping you dead in your tracks.

The unfortunate thing is that you remember this road all too well. Years of driving down the same old street in your beat up family car with your parents spitting insults at each other had carved every crack, every pebble of this paved road deep into the grooves of your brain. You don’t think you could ever forget it; you could probably drive through it with your eyes closed.

The light turns green, and the distant sounds of your mother’s sobs and your father’s cursing dissipates as your tires grind against the old asphalt, stalling for just a moment before advancing.

The rest of the drive is more relaxing, less familiar. When you were a kid your parents didn’t ever stop by these coffeehouses, telling you that all they did was guzzle money that could be used on better things, and the teenagers that both worked and frequented there were bad influences anyways. You, being a naive child, agreed even though you didn’t really know what the hell they were saying. And you had to pretend that you didn’t want to go inside those cozy looking cafe’s, with fires blooming inside that fogged up the windows in the most delicious way possible. Instead, you followed your mother’s lead as she tugged on your arm, leaving behind the physical warmth that you so craved in place of emotional warmth from her.

You think of this as you mutter curses to yourself under your breath just like your father used to, trying to find a parking spot. Some jackass in an old silver car has parked over the line, and you roll your eyes as you realize it’s your jackass; as Taehyun steps out of the car and winces as he looks at the crooked parking job. He spots you and waves before climbing back inside and backing out sharply, nearly hitting you in the process, and re-parks—not nearly a perfect job, but much better than before. This also allows you to take up the second spot that Taehyun had taken over before, and you rub your eyes tiredly as you finally unbuckle your seatbelt.

Cicadas chirp loudly at you, and a distant hoot echoes in your ears as you stare into the thicket of trees on the other side of the coffeehouse. “Rough morning?” Taehyun asks as you step out of your car.

“Sort of. Kind of. Maybe. Not really?” You lean against the trunk of your car after walking around, pursing your lips as the sun-warmed surface bites at your exposed legs. Your shorts ride up your ass and you can’t help but think about how annoying summers in your hometown can be, sensory wise.

“I mean, you look tired. That’s all.” Taehyun shrugs as you shake off your denim jacket and toss it in the backseat of your car, the mugginess finally getting to you.

“What a nice thing to say to a friend,” you say sarcastically, locking your doors. “You look like shit too.”

“I actually was up all night, so you’re not wrong,” Taehyun admits, jerking his head towards the coffeehouse, and the two of you start walking towards it. It’s much different than your distant memory of the cozy atmosphere during a childhood winter. In the summer it looks like a cool solace, shielded by old trees with decades of memories and gentle indie guitar music that can be heard from the outside as you get closer to the entrance. It’s charming, you think, as you run your fingers along the raw wood railing, the old stairs creaking as the combined weight of you and Taehyun makes it groan. “I always think I’m gonna break these damn things,” Taehyun says, as you successfully make it to the front entrance.

“They’re always that creaky?”

“Always. But they’ve never failed anyone yet, so I guess we have to trust them.” He opens the door for you, and a small golden bell above the door is triggered and it jingles as you walk inside. A rush of cool air seems to quench your thirst as it washes over your uncomfortably warm body, and you sigh with relief as the scent of iced coffee and fruity mixtures pleasantly enters your senses. You realize that it seems to double as a bookstore, as multiple shelves are crammed with both old and new books, lining the walls of the shop.

“I’ve never been here before. What’re you getting?” you ask, squinting at the menu while you fan yourself with your wallet.

“I always just get an iced Americano. You know me,” Taehyun says. The young couple in front of you finishes ordering and moves out of the way, and you let Taehyun go first so that you can scan the menu at least one more time before you’re put on the spot.

The teenager behind the counter has two big buns twisted messily atop her head, and a sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks and nose bridge make her look younger than she probably is. A pen on each side secures her buns, and she takes one out, making the left bun flop down. “What can I do for you today?” she asks, and even though she isn’t annoyed her voice carries a tone that makes you squirm uncomfortably, as if you’d interrupted her. Her hair-accessory-slash-pen is twirled between her fingers as she looks at you.

You blink at her stupidly before saying the first thing on the menu, and she asks if you want it iced or plain, and you wonder if having a plain drink was always an option before blurting out iced. She writes it down, smacks her gum loudly, and you move aside to let the elderly person behind you order next.

“What did you get?” Taehyun asks, as his name is called and his iced americano is slid across the counter. He picks it up and takes a sip.

“Something with iced tea, I don’t even know.” You glumly stare at the other teenager that’s busy making drinks, and your name is called just a few moments later. You pick up something with iced tea and honey and sparkling water (you think) and sit down with Taehyun at a slightly sticky table full of pastry crumbs. He sweeps them away with a brown napkin made of eco-friendly materials, and you sip at your drink, which surprisingly isn’t that bad, as he sits down across from you.

“So why are you back in town? Didn’t you just get a job offer from that city a few hours away?” Taehyun asks nonchalantly.

You grit your teeth; you didn’t expect him to get to the topic right away. But then again, it’s Taehyun. He’s always been more straightforward and blunt than most people, and you couldn’t say that you didn’t appreciate that about him. In fact, it was something that you did like about him. You use your paper straw to push around at the ice cubes in your drink, looking down at the shocked wood that your table was made up of. “It’s kind of a long story.”

“I have time.”

“Well my parents died, and they left their old house to me. So now I have to clean it out and either sell it or keep it.”

“That wasn’t a very long story.”

You manage a laugh, but you don’t really mean it or find any of this funny. “I know. It was just hard to say.”

Taehyun sips at his coffee. “Well, that must be rough. I’m sorry.”

“No need to be sorry. But if you really want to make me feel better, help me clean it out. They had so much shit crammed in that house that we never needed.” You smile at Taehyun’s eye-roll.

“And that’s why you asked me to hang out.”

“‘Course it is. You know me and my ulterior motives.” You use air quotes around this, and Taehyun has known you long enough to understand that this was something your late father insinuated about you a lot. He laughs, a pity laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. You pretend not to notice that your joke made him uncomfortable, and pull out a book on the shelf closest to you. If you still had time to read, you think you might have taken it home, but you don’t, so you put it back and play with your paper straw some more before looking back at Taehyun. “You don’t have to, by the way. I can do it myself.”

“No, I’ll help. Besides, I think you need my help if it’s as bad as you always said it was.” He finishes his coffee and stands up. “What are we waiting for? Let’s just go now and get some of it over with.”

Again, you feel slight unease at his eagerness to get on with the tasks at hand, but you push your drink aside and shrug. “Okay, why not?” you ask, though something in your brain is nagging at you to leave it to another day. You stand up, taking your half-finished drink in hand and tossing it in the garbage, feeling only a little guilty about it, and follow Taehyun out to the parking lot. “Want me to send you the address?” you ask, pulling out your phone, but he shakes his head.

“Nah. I know it already.” It’s a nod back to the day he helped you move out while both your parents were at work, the day you turned eighteen. It’s a bittersweet memory, and you push it back into the void of your mind as you manage a smile towards your dear childhood friend, and then walk back around to your own car, sandals smacking against the uneven asphalt.

You sidle back into your car seat, adjusting the air conditioning so that it blasts your sweaty face and neck, and exhale loudly as you start pulling out of the parking lot, spotting the old, beat-up, silver car that he got from his dad back in high school. You follow his lead even though you recognize the way back as soon as you get back onto the main road, away from the forbidden coffeehouse of your childhood, and you want to pretend like you’re completely oblivious to the familiarity. But instead, you let your thoughts guide you, and the weight of resurfacing memories rests heavily on your chest, tempting you to reach up with one hand and place it over your heart, squeezing gently at the fabric of your shirt as if that would relieve the tension.

Taehyun has taken the parking spot that you had earlier, in the street in front of the old house rather than the driveway, which you reluctantly pull into. The sloping pavement makes your old car groan as you park it and step out, keys jingling in your hands as you switch it out for the singular rusty key you’d received in the mail a few days before; the only way to get into the old house. Your parents hadn’t bothered with modernizing it any, and since it had been built well over a century ago, its age was definitely showing, especially now that your parents were gone and the minimal upkeep that they did had diminished completely. You stared at the bland front lawn with distaste, the complete lack of any landscaping still leaving a bitter flavor on your tongue as you remembered the vibrant gardens of your neighbors in your youth. Though plain, it was now completely overgrown with weeds, the grass growing dark green and lush from the frequent rain, which only added to the muggy climate. You felt your skin crawl, already imagining all of the insects that probably called that jungle of a lawn their home, and you reached down to slap a pesky mosquito off of your ankle as Taehyun’s footsteps approached, crunching the loose gravel scattered across the driveway. “How long has it been?” he asked carefully, though you wouldn’t have really cared if he’d been blunt about this as well.

“I got the key a month ago. I don’t know how long it's been since they actually died. Or if they’d lived like this even before they passed. All I know is that my mom died first and my dad died a little bit after.” You frown before brushing past Taehyun and using the key to open the separate garage, where your parents never kept any cars but rather an assortment of gardening and outdoor supplies that they never used, a hoard of untouched second-hand objects that you could use to tackle the mess outside. You puttered around until you found an old lawnmower, small enough that you were fairly confident you’d be able to use it even though you had little to no experience using one, and a few other gardening tools that you handed to Taehyun, which he immediately sighed at but ultimately knelt down and started pulling weeds using said tools.

You trudged through the grass, feeling the long blades tickle your shins, as you pushed the lawnmower across it. It had turned on after a few tries, and was now eating up grass faster than a herd of hungry goats, though you had to continuously empty the bag inside to keep it from clogging. The scent of freshly cut grass reached your nostrils and it was gratifying in a way, to know that after all these years the front yard would finally look decent. It might not be fancy, but decently kept was good enough for you.

Taehyun stared up at the sky after he finished pulling the last weed from his side of the lawn and squinted at the bright sun that was beating down on the two of you. “Any chance your folks left refreshments inside the house?” he asked jokingly, and you laughed aloud, haughtily.

“It’ll be lucky if there’s no rotting food still left in there,” you said, turning off the lawnmower and stepping back to admire your work. It wasn’t the prettiest job ever, but the lawn was mowed, and the difference was clear. Already, the house looked better, even with the chipping paint and anciently styled structure. “But it wouldn’t hurt to check.”

Taehyun trailed behind you as you approached the front door, a queer feeling passing through your body as you felt an old familiarity drape over you like a blanket. You slipped the key into the hole and unlocked the heavy front door, the chipping white paint flaking off as it swung open, creaking all the way. You made a mental note to repaint the door when you could.

Pocketing the key, you stepped up into the house that housed your sadness for so many years, and immediately you felt guilt pooling in your stomach. It was clear that in your parents’ later years they hadn’t been able to clean very well, and a thick layer of dust covered nearly everything in the first few rooms you walked through, apart from frequently used items and the floor, which looked grimy and in need of a deep scrubbing session. There were piles of trash that had never been taken out, and boxes and boxes of more useless items that they seemingly never used. You wouldn’t call them hoarders, but rather collectors—they never gave up something once they got their hands on it, thinking it’d come in handy one day.

Now that you thought about it, maybe they were hoarders. You ignore that thought and immediately think to just clear out everything cluttered and clean the furniture as much as possible to stage it for possible buyers. You have no qualms or doubts about selling the house; you had no good memories associated with it, no positive nostalgia. And you had your own place and made enough money that you could get your own house if you so pleased—which you didn’t want to do just yet—without the bad memories.

“Wow,” Taehyun says, whistling at the mess. “We really have our work cut out for us, don’t we?”

“Just thinking about it is making my head hurt,” you grumble. “I’m checking out the basement for a second, do you mind scoping out the kitchen?”

Taehyun salutes you, a cheesy smile on his face as he turns to walk back to the kitchen, which is much closer to the front door, and you take it upon yourself to undo the chain on the door down to the basement and clomp down the old wooden stairs. It’s not a scary basement, especially in the daylight. It was mostly another place for your parents to stash old knickknacks and such, a storage room if anything. Windows lined the very tops of the walls, letting in just enough sunlight to warm the room and light it up so that it didn’t feel like something out of a horror movie. Though, you had to admit that it was creepy being down there alone—but you had that odd feeling upstairs, too.

You exhale loudly, plumes of dust flying up from the nearest box, and you sneeze as you pick up a box that looks to be full of books. “Jesus Christ,” you mutter, rubbing your teary eyes, “I need some god damn air.”

“So do I,” a nasally voice proclaimed, and you nearly jump out of your skin as you look around and spot a figure of a man in the corner.

“Taehyun!” you shout, throat straining, dropping the box. The corners split open and books spill out onto the floor as you rush for the stairs, collapsing against Taehyun as the two of you collide.

“Is everything okay?” he asks, concerned, gripping you tightly. His gaze falls upon the split box. “Did you hurt yourself when you dropped the box?” He examines your hands, your arms.

“Don’t you see him?” you whisper, and Taehyun’s big eyes seem to widen even more, if that’s even possible.

“See who?” he whispers back.

“There. In the corner.” Your voice is cracking, eyes welling up with tears both from the dust and the fear. “You don’t see him?”

“There’s no one there…” Taehyun says. His lips suddenly feel extremely dry, and his tongue darts out to wet them. “Maybe—maybe this was too much all at once. I think we should go.”

You wipe your eyes with your bare arm and nod, letting him lead you up the stairs.

“Wait! Don’t go!” the voice says again, and you look behind you, terrified, to see the man coming after you both. He moves oddly, his limbs jerking in unnatural ways as if he were not used to walking. You shriek, rush in front of Taehyun and drag him up the stairs, out of the basement, past the kitchen, out the front door and through the front yard. You don’t stop until you’re both hunched over in the driveway, sides aching and chests heaving.

The front door had slammed behind you both even though neither of you touched it, and you make eye contact with Taehyun. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to use words to let you know that he’s saying he’s never coming back to the house.

You wish that you could say the same, but instead your eyes say that you have to come back—just not any time soon.

The sun is setting when you and Taehyun leave the old house, and every time you blink you think you see the tall man out of the corner of your eye. It’s like he’s following you, and you can’t shake him off your trail. The only time you feel safe is when you’re out in the daytime, when his supposed presence is suppressed by crowds of other people.

But you can’t always stay safe. And so your last few July nights are filled with nightmares, the kinds that leave you sweating buckets into your sheets, the kinds that make you wake up with tears in your eyes.

There is nothing you can do about it—except go back and see him again.

AUGUST

Taehyun had taken up a summer job on the opposite side of town, and though he promised to keep in touch, you hadn’t really heard from him much. When he did message you, it was about mundane things, more often than not he talked about said summer job, in which he did nothing but keep the landscape of an old retirement home in shape. This reminded you of the work that the two of you had done on your own house, but the one time that you tried to bring it up to him he hung up on you and didn’t call you back until the next day. “It just freaked me out, okay?” he said exasperatedly, “just hire someone to clean out the house.”

You scoffed at that for two reasons: one, you didn’t have nearly enough money for that, and two, you had a terrible nagging feeling that these nightmares wouldn’t subside unless you got to the root of the problem. Which of course, was the house and whatever it was that resided in it.

You never really considered yourself particularly gutsy or brave, but the lack of sleep was starting to get to you, and though that job offer that Taehyun had mentioned offered to let you work remotely until the end of the year, you knew that the sooner you got this shit over with, the sooner you could move on with your damn life. So you hauled your ass to the hardware store and picked up a bucket of white paint that you were almost sure matched the shade of the front door, though it was almost impossible to tell for sure with how weathered and damaged it was, and the cheapest cleaning supplies that would still get the job done.

But as soon as you approached the gates once more, you felt the familiar drop in your stomach. It was not the biggest house, as your parents were not wealthy, but the aura that it emanated made it seem equivalent to a castle with unscalable walls. The house had two stories, with a triangular roof that came to a main point right in the middle. You recognized the window at the left as your old bedroom window, and swallowed past the lump in your throat. All of the windows were dirty and fogged up with grime, especially the ones on the bottom floor, which were covered in handprints from the outside, presumably from people trying to look in now that it was vacant.

The late summer sun was already beating down on you as you walked the short distance from the driveway to the front porch, weighed down by the cleaning supplies and paint. Though the weather was not the most agreeable, you could not call the experience unpleasant as you swept the floor of the porch and scrubbed at the windows, finally finishing with a fresh coat of paint on the door. You sat down on the slightly damp wood of the first step down, hugging your knees to your chest and picking at the drying paint on your skin. The lawnmower was still out on the lawn, and the grass was already growing back, though it was not remotely close to the length it had been when you first arrived. You reached down to pick at a few weeds that were growing taller than the grass, rolling over the rough stalks in your fingers as you breathed in the damp summer air. The day has been almost too peaceful, and you know that this will change as soon as you open the front door and step back inside. You know that the reason you saw him was because of what happened inside the house, not outside.

“I don’t know what the fuck to do!” you shout at your phone. Your hands are pulling at your hair, scraping at your scalp frantically as you breathe heavily, your lungs feeling like they’ve shrunk and are unable to take in as much air as you need. As the last syllable rings in your ears, the silence from the other end of your call seems to be louder than your screams. You stare at the small screen laying atop the desk of your hotel room, shaking uncontrollably.

“We know what this is coming from,” your therapist says gently. They ignore your outburst, which you are sure you’ll get complaints about.

“What?” you ask, voice quieter now.

“It’s because of the house. It’s because of your parents. It was just like what your friend said. It was too much all at once.”

“What, so just because I couldn’t deal with being in a fucking house for ten minutes I imagined a ghost?” you snap, unfurling yourself from your previous position. Your bare feet brushed against the wooden floor, sending chills through your whole body as you thought about it. A ghost.

“You’re still blaming yourself. It isn’t your fault that your trauma is resurfacing, you know,” your therapist says matter-of-factly. “Maybe this is a good thing. Next time you go back, why don’t you try talking to the ‘ghost’? They might have some perspective on what’s going on.”

“So your solution is for me to accept that I’m fucking crazy. And now I have to talk to this ghost, that you don’t even believe is really a ghost, because again, I’m fucking crazy and this is all in my head. You’re saying that I’m a psycho and this is all a culmination of trauma, and my parents, and a bunch of other bullshit.” You rub at your aching temples. You’re mad now, you’ve forgotten about your fear. Anger has replaced it wholly, a misdirection, a distraction from the truth that you don’t want to accept.

“You’re not crazy. But I do think that this ‘ghost’ is what you just said: a culmination of all of those things. It’s a ‘physical’ picture of your trauma.”

“So what, now I’m a schizophrenic?”

Your therapist laughs a little, drily. “No, you’re not. Schizophrenia isn’t something to joke about or be taken lightly. This is a trauma response. It’s very different.”

You don’t reply, mostly because you’re pissed off at your therapist for insinuating that this is all in your head, because you know what you saw. And now that you’d had a few days to really think about it, you knew that it was real, even though Taehyun couldn’t see it, and your therapist is insisting that it’s some bullshit trauma response.

The ghost in your house is real. You knew him all those years ago, and he still knows you now.

The once-cold drink in your hand is now warming quickly from the sunlight reflecting off of the glass bottle. It’s only half-drunk, but you already don’t really want it any more, mostly because of the unease in your stomach at the thought of having to clean out the inside of the house now. You only started on the outside to procrastinate; they had let you know that repainting and such was not on your end of the deal. That would be taken care of by professionals. And now that you stare at your subpar paint job on the front door, you completely understand why. It looks cheap and messy, even though you did everything right.

You’re staring at the door, trying to work up the courage to open it, when your phone begins to vibrate in your pocket, the sudden movement making you jolt. Plucking the device from said pocket, you immediately pick up the call, seeing Taehyun’s name flash across the screen.

“Hello?” you ask drily, thumping the bottom of your warming drink against the stair you’re sitting on, the mindless clanks mimicking an old song you used to like.

“Where are you?” he asks, “I’m at your hotel.”

Uncomfortably, you gnaw at your bottom lip as you quickly scan the area. A slight breeze whips through your sticky clothes, and you clear your throat awkwardly before replying. “Uh… went out for lunch,” you said dully, “remember that Thai place we liked back in high school?”

“Christ, you’re really bad at lying. Don’t you remember when it closed down four years ago?” You can hear Taehyun shuffle around and sigh deeply. “You’re back at the house again, aren’t you?”

“Fine, I am,” you snap. “What else was I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, maybe hire someone like I said? I bet there’s a bunch of idiots here that peaked in high school that would love to do it. It’s not like people like Seo Changbin have much to do after their football career crashed and died before they even got to college.”

“Why the hell are you so bitter all of a sudden? And Changbin was one of the nice ones, you ass. You know he’s happy now, fuck football for destroying his shoulder.”

“It’s not good for you to be back there!” he says, exasperated. “Forget Changbin, that’s not the point.”

You sigh loudly. “I… I know. But there’s something about this place that makes me feel like I have to figure some shit out—like, here. In the house.”

“Have you talked to your therapist lately? It’s your unresolved trauma on the phone.”

“And that’s why I have to resolve it now!” you exclaim, “Look, I’m going to be careful, okay? I’ll take it slow and if some more freaky shit happens I’ll leave. But you have to help me pay for a professional then, you owe me after I helped you score that date last year.”

“First of all, they ended up fucking me over, big time. Second of all, I feel like a date isn’t equivalent to money. But thirdly—fine. Just… let me know if you need anything, okay?” You feel a lump in your throat arise at the sudden empathy in his voice, and how it softened at the end of his statement. As much as you were annoyed with him, you knew that Taehyun only wanted you to be safe, and he out of all people knew just how much of a toll this process would take on you.

“I will. Now get back to work, your lunch break ended twenty minutes ago,” you tease.

“Ha ha,” he says drily, over pronouncing the words with a bitter tongue. “Call me when you get back to the hotel.”

You roll your eyes to yourself and hang up after confirming that you would, in fact, make sure to call him when you get back, and then you turn your attention back to the project standing in front of you. You know that it’s time to go back inside, and you have a new burst of energy thanks to Taehyun doubting you. Maybe that burst of energy is mostly from pettiness, but it’s there nonetheless, and you plan to make use of it.

You take out the key—that nasty old key—and slip it into the lock. The door opens much quicker than it did last time; there wasn’t enough time for it to stiffen as it did when it had been left alone for some time, and the door opens. It’s a little underwhelming, surprisingly. You weren’t quite sure what you were expecting—something big and dramatic? Something straight out of a horror film? But instead, it looks almost welcoming. You think that if you hadn’t had such horrible memories associated with that same front hall, you would find it warm and inviting. The air inside is stuffy and musty, but the sunlight that streams in through the open front door illuminates the dust rising from the ground in a way that makes it look like the air is full of glitter, and it takes your breath away as you stare at the golden flecks dancing in the slight breeze.

Looking around, you realize that your work might be easier than you previously thought. Though the entire house was grimy, and there were definitely boxes all over the place, most of their salvageable furniture and belongings had already been cleared out and donated—you having told the people in charge that you didn’t give a fuck what happened to any of it. It wasn’t like you wanted a floral patterned couch with an indent from where your father used to sit his lazy ass while he screamed his head off at you.

You decided that starting with the boxes of miscellaneous stuff would be your best bet—once you cleared those out, it would be much easier to clean the floors, without the hassle of moving dirty cardboard around all over the clean floors. For a moment you hesitate, but then realize that your clothes are already covered in paint and sweat—and honestly, more than a few stains from your lunch too—so you sit down on the floor, trying to pretend like you didn’t hear the sticky sound that it made as it stuck to your pants. You reach for the nearest box, and find that it’s full of nothing but old magazines, which you scoff at and immediately push into an empty corner, dubbing it the “trash” pile. You were already quite certain that most of if not all the boxes would be making their way to that very same corner from the looks of it.

It’s almost nice once you get into a routine. You rifle through a box, pulling out perhaps one or two trinkets you could donate, an old shirt here and there that isn’t in bad shape, and you even find a pristine lamp in one box, still covered in the plastic that it came in.

You aren’t even halfway through the boxes when you grunt to yourself as you drag a particularly large and heavy box out from underneath what used to be your dinner table, falling flat on your ass as you lose your grip and fly backwards. “Ow,” you mutter to yourself, as you relent and open the box right there, giving up on trying to get it completely out from under the table. Much to your surprise—it’s a box full of old records, and a majority of the weight seemed to come from the record player that was right on top of all the stacked vinyls. You cringe a little, hoping that none of them are damaged, and you exhale loudly as you set the record player on top of the table and fumble with the cord for a moment before plugging it in and watching it start to spin, without any music playing. You wipe the sweat from your forehead with a dust-covered forearm before wiping your hands on your filthy pants and starting to flip through the plentiful choices you have in front of you on the floor. You can see lots of your parents’ old favorites—when they weren’t being absolute shit parents to you, they would let you look through the box, and then list their favorites. You would always pick one of their favorites, just to make them happy. And most of the time it would, for a little while.

This time, you can’t help but select one of your mom’s favorites, and you silently slide the old vinyl out of its protective paper cover before carefully setting it down on the player, the needle silently spinning for just a moment before the song starts to play. It’s warped now—from so many uses or carelessness, you don’t know—but it’s that same song, and you can’t help but sink into a chair and just watch that black record go round and round in a circle as the lyrics you know by heart start to weave their way into your ears.

“That was her favorite one.”

No. You can feel it—that very same presence that was there on the day that you and Taehyun first explored the house—it’s cold, and it makes your throat dry up, and you feel stuck to the chair you’re sitting in.

“You used to play it all the time.”

“Who are you?” you whisper, shielding your face from said presence, even though its voice is coming from behind you.

“You really don’t remember me then, do you?” The voice is mournful now—or maybe mournful isn’t the right word. It’s almost whiny.

“Obviously not,” you hiss, starting to get annoyed for some reason.

“Can you look at me then?” his energy matches yours, exasperation clear in his nasally tone.

The fear has all but dissolved from your body now that you have braved an attempt at a conversation with this thing, so you turn your upper body around to face it straight-on, and there’s no hiding the shock that spreads across your face as you stare down the presence—no, the ghost—that you know all too well.

“I knew you’d remember me if you saw me,” he said, “I haven’t forgotten you, though.”

You hold a grimy hand to your forehead, breathing heavily as you think about it some more. Of course you knew this idiot—he was one of the only solaces in your entire childhood, apart from Taehyun, though he came into it at a much later time. Now that you think about it, this ghost was the only thing that came to mind when you tried to come up with any sort of happy memory before the age of fourteen or so.

“Yeonjun, I…” you trail off. Saying his name alone was too foreign on your lips; the way it rolled off your tongue left a bitter taste in your mouth. You couldn’t finish what you wanted to say, because to be quite honest, you weren’t sure at all what you were going to say. Sorry I forgot about you for like a decade, even though you were the only friend I had for forever. How’ve you been? How was it hanging with my parents as they withered away and died?

There was probably a way you could have sugar coated all of that, but you didn’t think about it too much as he just shrugged and looked off to the side. “Time passes differently for me, remember? I know it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you—even more so since we last talked, but I’m used to being alone, so it’s okay.”

You feel even worse after he says that, and he only makes it worse as he corrects himself. “Oh, wait. You don’t remember, right. Well you see, I’m pretty sure that ghosts, especially ones that have been dead for a while, process time differently than humans—”

“How did they die?” you blurt out, interrupting his rambling.

Yeonjun freezes, hands stopping their visual explanation along with the vocal part. You watch his fingers twitch before he lowers them, and he kicks at the floor and sighs, loudly. “Come on. It’s been like ten years, and that’s the first thing you say to me?”

“What am I supposed to say?” you ask, feeling guilty but defensive all at once. “What the fuck am I supposed to say to a ghost? A real, literal fucking ghost.”

“I don’t know, man! I’m not like—stupid. You could ask me how I’ve been, what the hell I’ve been up to all this time, literally anything about me instead of your fucking parents!” He’s yelling now, his voice bouncing off the dirty walls, and you crumple up, limbs folding in, head tucked close to your chest, as he shouts. But he lowers his voice after that, and runs a hand through his hair, which looks no different than it did all those years ago. “I mean, fuck, dude. You were the only thing I had. And then you left. And now you’re back and—and you don’t even remember me. You don’t remember shit.”

“I’m sorry.” It’s a shit apology, but Yeonjun seems to accept it as he chuckles bitterly.

“I am too. But… I know it’s not your fault and—and I’m really happy that you got out of here when you did. I’m even glad that you had that guy with you when you first came back, I know that he was important to you back then.”

“You mean Taehyun?”

“Yeah. I remember the day you met him, and you were so excited that you had a real, live human friend for once.” Yeonjun shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans and sighs. “I think that was when we slowly stopped… talking.”

Of course, you don’t remember that much yet. You hardly remember Yeonjun himself—you just know that he’s important. For whatever reason. But you slowly nod as if you remember, but it doesn’t fool him and one side of his lips twist up in a bitter sort of smirk.

“You don’t have to pretend like you remember, okay? Maybe it’ll come back to you. Or maybe it won’t, but either way, it’s fine. I’m just glad you didn’t yell at me and run this time.”

“Sorry,” you say again. “I was really scared last time.”

“You’re not scared now?”

“No, I remember you now. Not—not a lot—but I know that you were important to me, so… I guess you can’t be too bad.”

Yeonjun finally cracks a smile. “Damn straight,” he says, and the subtle twitch of his pursed upper lip sends a line of fire down your spine as you remember something so distant yet so tangible—and you can’t help but sigh with nostalgia.

“Really? Iris again?”

Your fingers fumble with the paper slip that your mother’s favorite record hides within as you jump at the sound of Yeonjun’s voice. “Yeonjun!” you scold, “I almost dropped it!”

Yeonjun chuckles and floats down to the floor, so close to touching the beige carpet that his semi-translucent shirt nearly drags across it. If it wasn’t for his inability to collide with solid objects, he would have been laying belly-down on the floor across from you to maintain eye contact, seeing as how short you were when you knelt down to rifle through the box of records beneath the coffee table. “Come on, sugar,” he drawls, “it’s your sixth birthday. You should be able to choose what song you wanna hear.”

Your little fingers tighten around the record, now half-slipped out of the case. “I don’t know…” you say doubtfully, hesitancy laced throughout your voice. “I’m never allowed to choose the music, you know that.”

“It’s your special day!” he exclaims, floating upwards and spreading his arms out, as if he were taking in the sunshine on a lovely summer afternoon. “If not now, then when?”

There’s something about Yeonjun that makes you want to listen to him. Not in the way that you feel with your parents—no, they’re demanding in a way that makes your stomach hurt when you’re around them, even if you’ve done everything right—but in an entirely new way. You know that he doesn’t have any malicious intent. Yeonjun just likes having fun with you, and there’s so little fun to be found around the house. And after all, he’s right.

It is your birthday.

So you set your mother’s favorite record aside, placing it carefully on top of the coffee table so that no one steps on it accidentally, and your stubby little kid fingers gingerly flip through the rest of the records before you settle on your favorite.

It’s one of the newest ones in the box, with undented corners that are still sharp enough to cut you if you aren’t too careful, and no fingerprints all over the shiny cover. Your aunt bought it for you and told you to only listen to it when your parents weren’t around, so that you didn’t get on their nerves. It’s loud and punk-y and it makes you feel like a real big kid. It’s the music that you hear all of the older kids in your neighborhood talk about when they walk down your street and their loud voices carry in the wind up to your open window.

There’s a rush in your head, and you swear you can hear the blood gushing through your veins with anticipation as your hands shake when you place the record carefully onto the machine. It starts spinning, and you drop the needle in just the correct place.

Funky instrumentals and the loud, clear voice of one of your favorite singers travels through your ears as you clap in delight, and Yeonjun starts dancing in a silly sort of way to make you laugh. “See?” he said over the music, “isn’t this nice?”

But before you could reply, you felt all of the happiness melt out of your body and disappear into the ground beneath you as you felt a large hand on your shoulder. Yeonjun’s eyes travel from where they met with yours, to the intimidatingly large figure that’s behind you.

“Why don’t we take that out now,” says your father, in a voice that is terrifyingly calm.

You don’t want to even look back at him for a second, so you quickly turn off the machine and pick up the record, trying to quickly put it back so that your mother’s favorite music can be put back on and it’ll be like nothing ever happened—but your father snatches the record from your hands before you can finish putting it back in the case, and you watch with shock as he snaps it in half with his hands. Little black plastic flecks fly through the air as he drops the halves onto the floor and uses his foot to crush them even further beyond fixing.

“That’ll be you next time,” he says quietly, before walking away and disappearing down the dark hall to his room.

You sit there in silence with Yeonjun as the first verse of Iris starts playing yet again.

Well, maybe you didn’t sigh with nostalgia. Maybe it was something more like rumination—something that left a bitter taste on your tongue. Either way, you remembered something about Yeonjun, and that alone made you crack a weak smile as Iris continued to warble in the background of your reunion.

—

It’s mid-August before you try to ask Yeonjun about your parents again. You don’t really know why you want to know so bad—it’s a bit morbid, really—but you feel a pull in your chest that won’t go away. It’s similar to the pull that brought you back to the house and back to Yeonjun in the first place, and that is why you decide to ask him just once more as you’re scrubbing the kitchen floor.

You’re on your hands and knees, working away at the sticky, dusty floor, and you already know that the knees of your jeans are completely soaked through from the way the denim is sticking to your skin. You’re using a sponge—one that was once a bright yellow, and is now an odd gray—to rinse away the sticky residue that clings to the linoleum. “You missed a spot there,” Yeonjun says, pointing to an uncleaned spot next to the refrigerator, and you roll your eyes and huff as you sit back on your ankles, wiping away the sweat from your brow with one soapy arm.

“I know you can’t technically help, but you’re really getting on my nerves,” you say, tossing the grimy sponge into the bucket of soapy water.

“I’m keeping you company!” he exclaims, “would you rather be alone?”

“No,” you say, sulking.

There’s a silence that settles between the two of you then, just for a moment. The only sound is the faint popping of bubbles in your bucket that sits beside you, until you take a deep breath and decide to just go for it. “Yeonjun,” you start, “if it’s okay… could you tell me what happened to my parents?”

Yeonjun stills. You watch his eyes lower and his mouth twitch before he sighs aloud. “Are you sure you want to know?” he asks, “I thought you didn’t care about what happened to them.”

“I don’t care about them,” you say quickly, “but… I just want to know.”

Yeonjun settles right above the counter, floating just an inch or so above the grimy granite, and crosses his legs, leaning back as if he could use the cabinets as a backrest. “Well,” he says, “I can’t say for sure, but I’m pretty sure it was the smoking that was the final straw.”

The small white and blue box of cigarettes sits in front of you on the coffee table. It’s about half-empty, half of the cancer sticks inside smoked away and settled in your parents’ lungs. You know that smoking is bad for you—you’d known ever since the second grade when there was a whole presentation about it at school, and a few of the kids had figured out that that bitter smell of tobacco was, in fact, coming from you. Thus, you endured a year and a half of kids teasing you about smoking, and when you protested and said that it was your parents that smoked and not you, it really only got worse—because for some reason, the kids found it comedic that you came from somewhat of a broken home. And worse, for some reason, even though this was completely, one hundred percent your parents’ fault, you still felt an urge to defend them. You lost count of how many times you pretended that your mom packed you your lunches, just like all the other kids’ moms did, when you were the one that had woken up before the sun had risen just to put together a sandwich and write a little note. “Have a great day, I love you!” the little pink post-it said, signed “Mom” with a flourish. You tried to mimic the way your mother’s handwriting looped and curved, how there were two little loops inside the ‘o’ because she always half-assed her cursive, and it ended up somewhere between print and script. Or, how you pretended that your father was to take you to the zoo the weekend after Shin Ryujin bragged that her whole family went on a trip to the aquarium.

None of it was ever true. And as you stared at that little box, all dented from being carried around in your mother’s purse, in your father’s pocket, you felt a rush of hatred towards it, more hate and negativity than your little self had ever felt before.

You snatched up the box, almost crushing—no, for sure crushing the cigarettes left inside—and you shoved it underneath the couch, huffing as you balled your hands into fists.

“What are you doing?” Yeonjun hissed, “they’re gonna go crazy looking for those!”

“Let them!” you whisper-shout, “I hate cigarettes! I hate how they smell, I hate how people think I use them, and I hate how my parents like them more than they like me!” You run past Yeonjun and towards the staircase, bare feet thumping against the stairs softly as your mother briskly walks past those same stairs, wondering aloud where her cigarettes were.

“Where the hell are they?” you hear her shout, and you feel guilt tug at your heart as you squeeze your pillow to your chest. Her footsteps approach, less than a minute after you closed the door behind you, and you side-eye Yeonjun as he stares back at you helplessly. “Did you touch my cigarettes?” she asks as soon as she swings open the door, with such force that the doorknob slams into the wall and leaves a mark in the white paint.

You’ve always been bad at lying, and this is why your mother grabs you by the hair and tosses you across the room, screaming that she just needed one to get through the rest of the day, and now she was fucked, absolutely fucked, all because of you.

And all that Yeonjun did was watch, unable to help you fight back.

It wasn’t like you wanted to anyways. You lay there on the floor where you landed once you were thrown, with silent tears trickling down your cheeks as your mother screamed at you, flecks of saliva spilling from her angry lips.

“So… when did you start smoking?”

“Shut up. I know you’re judging me.” You breathe out a cloud of smoke and rub at your tired eyes with your fingers that still smell like cleaning supplies.

“It’s literally what killed your mom,” he said defensively, “I just told you that.”

“Then let it kill me too.”

Yeonjun doesn’t reply, and you can feel his eyes on you as you sit on the stairs that lead up to the hell-house that you know you have to finish cleaning, puffing away at the one thing that’s never let you down before.

When you look back to ask Yeonjun why no one bothered to check on your dad after your mom passed, you drop the half-smoked cigarette.

He’s gone.

SEPTEMBER

September brings a slight chill in the air, an ever-so subtle reminder that summer is now over—technically, not officially. You thought that by finishing the ground floor before summer ended, you’d be off the hook for the colder months, but once you managed to break down the door to the basement again and find the hidden handle that led to the attic you realized you were kinda-sorta fucked. There was no way you’d finish this any time soon.

After the day that Yeonjun disappeared on you, he’d only appeared every now and then, his voice weaker and more mature now, losing that childish Peter Pan-esque edge that you now realize he’d always harbored. It was like he’d sobered up, realized the weight of what was happening, almost. But he was still Yeonjun after all—which you now understood was a good thing, after recalling more and more fond memories with him.

He’d guided you around and into all of the boxes that were stuffed against the wall in your living room and the kitchen, pushed up against the sides of the hallway, hidden away underneath both the kitchen and bathroom sinks, and you realized that even though you’d said you wished he would stop annoying you, the company was actually quite nice. When Yeonjun wasn’t making fun of you or berating you for smoking, he was good at holding a conversation. It was almost like you hadn’t been apart for over ten years, almost like he was a real, live person—your friend, that wasn’t a dead guy that inhabited your childhood home. Multiple times you caught yourself thinking that you should introduce him to Taehyun, that the two of them would get along quite well, before remembering what happened when they actually “met” that first and last time. It was bittersweet, remembering that Yeonjun couldn’t be seen by most other people, and even if they could, in fact, see him, there was a very limited number of things you could do with him, seeing as how he couldn’t leave the house or make physical contact with anyone or anything.

And once the ground floor was cleared out, sparkling like it was almost new, he was the one who showed you which kitchen drawer the key to the basement was kept in, almost identical to the key to the front door. You finally got around to getting a key ring for the two, even putting two charms on the ring alongside the old keys—one, a shitty little beaded trinket that you remembered making back in elementary school, and two, a little plastic ghost that you found at the dollar store. The day that you got it you showed it to Yeonjun, shaking it in front of his face as he glared at you. “It reminds me of you!” you said playfully as he sulked.

“I don’t look like that,” he insisted, “they’ve got it all wrong! What lame ass ghost looks like that?”

But you named it Yeonjun anyways, much to his distaste, and he eventually, begrudgingly, accepted it.

It’s a warmer day when you finally return to begin clearing out the basement, and you aren’t quite sure what to expect. Yeonjun had told you that it was pretty much the same situation as the ground floor, but a lot of them were opened and just filled with junk that was all garbage-worthy, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to get through even though there were plenty of them. You show up to the house whistling a tune that you can’t quite place, swinging your keys in one hand and carrying a bucket of cleaning supplies in the other.

“I was wondering when you’d show up.”

“Stop trying to scare me.” You glare at Yeonjun’s head that’s poking through the front door—now repainted once again, properly this time.

“Just trying to have a little fun,” he says, lips curling up into a smile. You can’t help but smile too as you roll your eyes—you’d missed his silly side. It had disappeared a little after he saw you smoking. “Are you starting the basement today?” he asks, floating beside you as you shut the door behind you and walk down the hall to the basement door.

“Yep,” you sigh, “and according to you… I have a lot to get through.”

“I’ll be keeping you company, don’t worry doll,” he says, saluting at you.

“If only you could help clean too,” you say drily, inserting the key into the large, golden lock and twisting. The door creaks open on its own once you take out the key, and you fumble around for the lightswitch, which you remember is right outside the door so that you can’t control the lights once you’re down there.

The lights switch on, yellow and flickering, and a faint buzzing fills your ears, the effort of working apparently a bit much for the old wiring. “Ready?” he asks, following your gaze, looking down the long, steep staircase.

“I guess so,” you reply, unease creeping into your mind.

To be quite fair—you didn’t know anyone that would enjoy a creepy basement, especially one in an old house like yours—even during the day. The bare wooden stairs are slippery with dust, and you make sure to hold on tightly to the railing for safety even though that too is filthy. Cobwebs and little piles of dirt and miscellaneous crumbs gather in the corners of each individual stair, and you keep an eye out for spiders or other little creatures that might be roaming the area, thinking that it was abandoned by humans and therefore the perfect home for them. The old wood creaks loudly, and you worry that it might actually give underneath your weight, but each stair holds, and you finally make it down to the nightmare-inducing basement. If not nightmare-inducing for all of the horrible memories that were starting to come back to you, then simply because of the sheer filth. Yeonjun had failed to warn you of just how thick the layers of dust and grime were.

“When was the last time anyone was down here?” you ask, coughing as you stir up particles by simply walking over to the nearest pile of boxes. You wave your hand in front of you, desperately trying to fan away anything that was threatening to invade your lungs.

“I was here just yesterday!” he protested, before wrinkling his nose and backtracking. “Oh, you mean someone living…” You nod awkwardly, placing the bucket of cleaning supplies on the floor as you start to open up the closest box, which you realize quickly is just full of old shopping receipts. “Man… it’s been years, then. They stopped coming down here once they realized there was no more room to hoard shit. Everything here is at least a few years old, so beware of food.” He wiggles his eyebrows at you at the last part, and you chuckle, taking it as a joke until you find a box of canned goods so old that several of the containers have exploded, leaking rancid juice all over the box and even onto the floor. It’s long since dried up, but it’s still sticky to the touch, and you gagged at the stench.

“I don’t even know what this originally was,” you complain, tossing the entire box into a large, heavy-duty garbage bag, “those idiots ripped off all the labels.”

“Maybe… beans?” Yeonjun guesses, though it’s unclear.

“Whatever, I’d prefer to live in ignorant bliss,” you declared, moving to the next box. This one, unlike most of the others, is taped shut, and you have to use the basement key to rip it open, having forgotten a pocket knife or any other tool that you could use to cut through something, especially something as tough as old duct tape. “Oh, Christ…” you mutter under your breath, as you pull out the trinket inside and hold it to the flickering ceiling light, “Jun, come here. Do you remember this?”

“How could I forget? You talked to it like it was real even though I was right here,” he grouched, after floating over curiously and realizing what you were holding.

“It has a name,” you sing, waving the little doll around.

Yeonjun stays silent, floating beside another wall of boxes. His expression looks almost pained.

“What’s wrong?” you ask, lowering the doll.

“You do remember why you named it what you did, right?” he asks. His voice is strained.

You sit down on the floor, ignoring the filth, and stare at the doll in your hands. It’s threadbare, grayed, and smelly now. It was all of those things back then too, but once you say its name you understand why Yeonjun is so upset.

“That isn’t even a clever insult.” You wipe your eyes and stare up at Yeonjun, whose arms are crossed as he stares down at you. You’re sitting on your bedroom floor, crying to yourself about the assholes at school that just won’t shut the fuck up about the way you smell—hence your new nickname, Smoky. “It’s actually laughable how stupid it is,” he scoffs, and a particularly loud sniffle from you prompts him to settle down closer to the floor so that he can look you in the eye. “Come on, it’s not that bad.”

“It could be anything,” you exclaim, “it’s just the fact that they use a name at all to call me out and stuff—it makes me feel singled out. It makes me feel like shit.”

“Don’t—don’t say that word,” Yeonjun says softly, “come on—want to play some music? Or we could—”

“No,” you interrupt, standing up and turning away from him. “I just want to be alone.”

You hear Yeonjun sigh. It’s deep, and long, and you can tell you’ve hurt his feelings. You feel guilt pooling in your stomach as he tells you he’d be around if you changed your mind—he was only trying to help, after all. But you can’t help it. You really just want to be alone. You climb into your bed and curl up into a little ball on top of your covers, staring at your old gray stuffed cat sitting next to your pillow.

His name is Smoky, too.

You slowly reach out to pick him up, and then you’re holding him close to your chest and sobbing. It’s stupid, and you feel like a goddamn idiot. It’s just a word, it’s just something that people are using to get under your skin, and you’re letting them. It sounded silly when you explained it to Yeonjun, and it sounds silly when you repeat it in your head. But it doesn’t sound silly when it counts—when someone yells it out at you when you’re walking down the hallway, or when you have to work with someone in class. And that is something that you can’t make sense of, and you know Yeonjun will never understand.

You’re shaken from your pity party when your door slams open—the door knob hits the wall in the same place it always does, further chipping away at the paint. “Are you really in bed right now?” your mother asks sharply, and you sit up immediately, wiping away your tears. She stands there in the dark hallway, one hand curled around the door knob and the other resting on her hip in a judgemental stance. “I asked you to clean the kitchen this morning.” Just like it always is when it comes to her anger, it’s quiet at first.

“I forgot,” you say drily, not in the mood to do any sort of cleaning—or be screamed at by your mother. But you instantly regret your tone when you see a fire alight in her eyes at this opportunity to punish you. “I’m sorry,” you blurt out, “I’ll do it now.”

“No,” she says, “you’re going to clear out the basement instead, and you can stay there tonight while you think about what sort of idiot would sass their mother. You really think that’s something we’re gonna allow? Do you like being punished or something?”

“No,” you say meekly. You start to stand up, but it’s too slow for your mother, and she grabs you roughly by your shirt and starts pulling you down the hall. All you can hear is the sound of her heels clicking against the floor and your blood pumping in your ears. You almost trip over your own feet as you’re pulled down the stairs, and your ankle rolls as your mother sharply turns a corner. You grit your teeth instead of crying out.

Your mother is breathing heavily as she fumbles with the lock for a moment before pulling open the door roughly, and she jerks her head, motioning towards it. “Go.”

For some reason, that’s worse than if she were the one to push you.

You step forward shakily, but with your bad ankle, you can’t catch yourself, and you tumble down the first half of the stairs, landing with a thud. You’re facing the wall, but you watch the light leave the room as your mother slams the door.

“Are you okay?” Yeonjun’s alarmed voice asks, and you suck in a deep, shaky breath as you push yourself up into a sitting position, shaking.

“What do you think?” you ask.

“I’m sorry,” he says, but you just shake your head.

“It’s not your fault.”

The door opens once more, and you look up to the light, seeing your mother. Since the light is coming from behind her, her entire front is in the shadows, and you can’t read her facial expression. She’s holding something in her hand. You watch silently as she holds it up, looking at it for a moment before throwing it down at you. It lands in front of you, and she slams the door again. This time, you hear the lock click before she walks away.

You can’t see anything, but you grope around for whatever it was she threw down. Your fingers brush against something soft and fuzzy, and you know what it is as soon as you pull it to your chest. Little Smoky, still damp from your tears.

Smoky never sees the light of day again.

“Poor guy,” is all you say as you stare at the limp cat in your hands. He smells like everything else in the basement now, reeking of mildew and rot. You wonder how you forgot about him, but then you feel guilty as you remember how you somehow forgot about a whole person—a whole ghost—and you slowly set him down.

“So you remember,” Yeonjun confirms.

“I’m remembering a lot these days,” you say honestly. “It’s—it’s shit that I haven’t thought about in years. A bunch of repressed memories.”

“Is it hard?” he asks, “remembering, I mean.”

“Most of it… yeah, I guess you could say it’s hard. It just reminds me of how miserable I was before I had my own life.” You smile, a little sadly. “But… that also makes me much more grateful for my happiness now, you know? I never thought I could be happy, and I proved myself wrong. It’s a good feeling.”

“Yeah?” Yeonjun asks, looking up at the horizontal windows that line the tops of your basement walls. “Can you tell me what it’s like out there now?” His voice sounds a little distant, foggy. “What’s changed?”

“That Thai place I told you about closed down,” you said, “and now that old store that used to sell handmade baby clothes is a Starbucks. There’s a new shopping mall, but everything there sucks and is way too overpriced.”

But that doesn’t satisfy Yeonjun, and you know it.

“The people—the people are still the same, Jun. Really. That’s partially why it was so hard to come back here and see everyone. It’s like I went back in time ten years. It’s like I’m still stuck here.” You swallow hard. “But really. I promise that nothing has really changed since you last saw it. Towns like these never do.”

Yeonjun seems to shake off whatever far-away thought had overtaken him and clears his throat. “Right, yeah. Thanks.” He hides his face from you as he turns to examine another stack of boxes. “There’s a shit ton of coupons in here.”

Your heart thumps painfully as you watch your friend try to hide his grief from you, and you feel bad for not thinking about what you said more. While working through your own feelings, you forgot to consider how Yeonjun felt, after all these years alone.

“Really?” you ask, your voice wobbling as you start to cry for him. “Let me come see.”

—

Unlike the basement, you were never allowed in the attic.

The attic was not a place you were forced into as a punishment.

Because the attic is gorgeous, you realize.

It’s by far the cleanest room in the house, though still covered in a thick layer of dust. However, it’s easy to sweep away and collect in a dustpan since there’s no sticky residue that it clings to, unlike the multiple layers of grease and other substances that had accumulated on the basement floor after years of neglect.

Cleaning the windows first was a smart choice, allowing natural sunlight to peek through the panes of bubbled glass, casting wavy shadows on the hardwood floor. Indeed, it’s especially beautiful in the late afternoon sunset, when the rays are bright and warm and golden, the entire room looking like it was doused in honey and maple syrup and everything sweet and thick. It’s then that you don’t mind spending long hours there at the house, forgetting all of the bad that went on behind closed doors. For in the attic, in that sweet sugary autumn light, it’s almost like you can imagine a different childhood in that house, one that was happy and sweet—one that you wanted to savor on your tongue, instead of swallow past as soon as possible.

Yeonjun flutters in and out of the room, making passive snarky remarks as you pull out vintage photo albums and memories that you hardly recognize. Really, you hardly even recognize them as something that your parents would want to keep around, not finding it to match the personalities that you knew so unfortunately well. They never wanted to make memories with you, not good ones anyways.

As you dig through old photo frames and trinkets, you realize there’s a surprising amount that you find intriguing, that you want to keep for your own. Naturally, you throw out all of the actual belongings, not caring about your mother’s high school yearbook or your dad’s old collection of Kangol hats.

“What’s that?” Yeonjun asks, appearing next to you as you use your thumb to rub dust off of an old vase, revealing intricate hand-painted patterns beneath the layers of dust.

“Something that belonged to my mom, I think,” you say, admiring it before setting it aside in a box, which is growing quite full of things that you want to keep. Yeonjun’s gaze falls on the box, and his expression hardens a little. “What?” you ask, frowning. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I wish I could come with you,” he says, finally, after a few moments of awkward, expectant silence. You feel a lump form in your throat as Yeonjun stares down at the box of things, his expression conflicted. “I—I know I can’t, but… I’m really going to miss you, when you’re done here,” he whispers, a crestfallen look on his face.

Your voice feels thick with emotion as you speak, but it comes out sounding almost monotonous. “I wish you could come with me too,” you say, even though you’re not sure how you would fare in life with a ghost tagging around constantly. Even if it’s Yeonjun.

He smiles, a little bitterly—you can tell that he’s jealous of your life, of the fact that you get to live and breathe and walk around. “No, you don’t,” he replies, sighing. “And I get it. Really, it wouldn’t be right… to hold you back like that.”

“You wouldn’t be holding me back,” you say, immediately, even though you know it’s not true—it was your initial thought.

“Be honest, okay? I’m not going to be offended. And even if I was, it’s not like I can do anything about it,” he says, chuckling now, his good-natured attitude returning.

“You’re already haunting my house,” you say, managing a small chuckle.

“Hey, it wasn’t always your house!” he retorts, laughing, but then both of your smiles fade, slowly. You’d assumed, of course, that Yeonjun had lived here before you and your parents moved in, but you never really thought about how or why he died here. You’d never asked either, thinking it was probably rude to ask a ghost how they died.

“But, uh… it’s yours now, of course. And it was yours for much longer than it was mine.”

“Was it?” you ask, furrowing your brow at him.

Yeonjun shifts uncomfortably, looking away.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” you say quickly, feeling guilty, “but… I guess, I do wonder.” You bite your tongue, hoping that wasn’t the wrong thing to say. But Yeonjun just sighs, and then looks up at you with a small, understanding smile.

“Remember what I said about not needing to hold back?” he asks, smiling crookedly. You again manage a small smile.

He bites his lower lip, running his tongue over it as he thinks. “I don’t know much,” he begins, slowly, “so I hope you’re not expecting details… but I do remember living here with my dad, long before you and your family moved in. I don’t remember how or when I died, but I remember a few things about what I was like as a person. That’s mostly it.”

“What were you like?” you ask, leaning back against a stack of boxes and looking at him, a soft smile on your face. You can’t help it—he does look pretty in this light, translucent and almost silvery in the waning sunlight.

“Like this,” he says, grinning, “just as handsome and perfect.”

You roll your eyes, and for a moment you fully believe that he’s a solid, real person and you can reach over and playfully shove him to make him stop being annoying. Your muscles twitch as you almost move to do it. “Really,” you say, smiling, “what were you like?”

His smile fades slightly, and he clears his throat. “Well… actually, I wasn’t as great. I was kind of a jerk, in school and everything. I had a lot of friends that were just as horrible as me, and we would go around and act like we owned the world.” He wrinkles his nose at the memory, displeased. “It’s really embarrassing to admit now…”

“So you were one of those people,” you say, unable to hold back your smug smile. “I knew it. You gave off that energy.”

Yeonjun groans. “Take that back. Please. I swear, I’ve changed.”

You again resist the urge to nudge him playfully. “I’m just messing with you. You’re nothing like that now,” you say, chuckling.

A cool breeze drifts over your bare arms, and you shiver, looking over at the open window. Night has fallen by now, and the warm syrupy light is completely gone. The room is only lit by a small lamp in the corner of the attic, with darkness creeping in every corner and crevice. Yeonjun looks truly silvery and translucent now in the moonlight, his features beautiful and sharp in the cool air.

“I should probably go,” you say, after a little while.

Yeonjun’s face doesn’t change for a moment, like he’s frozen in time, but then he just nods, so slightly that it barely looks like he moved.

Without any further acknowledgement, you stand up, dusting off the seat of your pants, and leave Yeonjun amongst the last few boxes in the attic that you couldn’t fit into your car. As you lock your doors and sigh, feeling the weariness settling in your bones from the long day of work, you pull out your phone as a queer feeling overcomes you. Though you’ve never felt the urge to before, you’re suddenly incredibly curious about Yeonjun’s past.

Is it an invasion of privacy? Perhaps. But like he said—he was already dead.

Quickly typing out a search of his name and the general area, you’re surprised when dozens of articles flood in, all dating back to the early 2000s. And then, you see it. The words flash before your eyes in stark contrast, the images only adding to the disturbances, with flashes of red in a dilapidated, neglected house.

FATHER KILLS SON. MURDER-SUICIDE. DEVASTATING LOSS TO THE COMMUNITY. WE MOURN THE LOSS OF CHOI YEONJUN, 18-YEAR OLD STAR FOOTBALL PLAYER WITH A FULL-RIDE TO AN IVY LEAGUE.

Your phone clatters to the floor of your car, slipping between the seats and leaving you in complete darkness. For a moment, you sit there in stunned silence before cursing under your breath and shoving your hand between the seats, feeling for the smooth screen of your phone.

You find it quickly, and see a flash of an image before exiting out of your search. An incredibly dirty and dingy room, which you now recognize to be your bedroom, with a blood stained mattress and other dark questionable stains on the once-white sheets and on the floors below.

OCTOBER

Eight. Eight times.

That’s how many times you’ve returned to the house since you found out how Yeonjun died, each time riddled with anxiety about having to face him and pretending like you don’t know the truth. Like you don’t have the answer that he’s been searching for all of these years.

But each time, he failed to appear. You finished cleaning the attic with no company, and it ended up being a much lengthier process than you originally assumed—mostly because you found your father’s birth certificate shoved into a random folder with pages and pages of expired coupons, and you nearly threw the entire thing away without realizing, which resulted in you feeling the need to go through all of the trash again, just to make sure.

Naturally, there were no other important documents in the trash that you’d already collected—and it ended up being a massive waste of your time. But it sent a wave of relief through your tired body, letting you know that nothing important had gotten tossed by accident.

After clearing out the attic, you thought that Yeonjun might come back—if not to talk to you and be your friend, then perhaps to see the progress on the house he inhabits? Yet, nothing happened. Nothing as you finished sweeping the floors, nothing as you moved the last few boxes out of the attic and either into your car or the garbage, and nothing when you stand by the front door for a moment, your hand hesitating before opening it and leaving—hoping that he would come to say goodbye.

It wasn’t the end—you still had your own bedroom to clean out. It was what you’d been dreading; both because it was a cesspool of bad memories in your own life, and also because of what you found out about Yeonjun’s past, and what had happened to him in that room specifically. It still sent a chill down your spine to think about the room, which was painted with dark red and other dark stains—a horrifying reminder of the crime that was committed there. You try your hardest to recall if you ever saw any stains or any signs of the disturbing event, but your mind comes up blank.

You know that the only solution, the only way to ease your mind, is to go back to the house and finally finish what you started. Just as it were so back in July, after you were plagued with nightmares upon your first visit back home, after so many years.

On a crisp autumn day in mid October, you return to the house, knowing that this would be one of, if not the last time. Just before you drove over, you’d been chewing your nails nervously as you spoke to Taehyun over the phone—you needed some last minute encouragement.

“Summer’s over, you know. What about that job offer again?” Taehyun asks, his voice muffled over the phone—he was driving to work, and on the way he passed under a tunnel which always made his service choppy.

“I got an extension, until the end of the year. They actually came to me about it, because they’re having a fresh start at the company come the new year,” you explain, as you pack up your cleaning supplies, preparing to head over to the house. “They said a lot of applicants dropped because of the sudden change in timeframe, but it worked out perfectly for me. Now I have until November to wrap everything up.”

“Not December?”

“Well, my lease for my new apartment in the city starts in December…” you trail off, realizing this leaves you with the rest of October and November, to finish cleaning, take photos, and actually put the house up for sale. The cleaning was just the first step—and you were lagging.

“… Right.”

You could hear the doubt in Taehyun’s voice, so clear that it made you squirm with shame. He was probably thinking that you should have hired someone—probably someone like god damn Seo Changbin—to just do the dirty work for you, instead of making yourself suffer through it.

“I only have one room left to clear out before I can officially put the house up for sale,” you say defensively, picking up on Taehyun’s attitude.

“I believe in you. You know that, right?” he asks gently, his tone different now—more pity, you think.

“I know,” you say, trying not to be awkward.

“It’s not easy. You’re doing a great job,” he says, softly. His voice crackles towards the end of the sentence, his service beginning to cut out more. “Hey, I’ll call you after my shift, alright? Let me know how cleaning the last room goes.” Through his spotty service and choppy voice, you can sense hesitation. You know he remembers Yeonjun too, but you haven’t mentioned him since the first day. Like your therapist, he probably assumed it was some sort of trauma response after all.

“Alright. Have fun with the elderly,” you say, cracking a smile.

“You know I won’t. That one old man keeps yelling at me because of the length of the individual blades of grass. He should just be happy I didn’t accidentally run anyone over,” he scoffs, before chuckling softly.

“They really should have hired someone more qualified. And more empathetic,” you tease, hanging up as you hear Taehyun start to protest. Smiling as you pack up the last few things you need, you head out to your car, the cool autumn breeze whistling through the crisp branches, loosening colorful leaves that fall down like raindrops around you. You shove the box of cleaning supplies into your trunk and slam it shut, sliding into the driver’s seat and starting your car. Loud, grungy music plays over the radio, one of your old favorites that makes your heart almost ache with nostalgia, despite the less-than-depressing lyrics and tune.

Which leaves you here—picking up the box of cleaning supplies and balancing it on your hip as you use one hand to grapple for the trunk, slamming it shut securely as you set the box down, breathing a heavy sigh. Luckily, it’s cooled down since July, and you no longer find yourself soaked in your own sweat from completing the smallest tasks—something that was purely impossible during the heat waves that torture your area during the summer months.

Picking up the box again, you readjust your grip to make it easier to carry as you make your way down the small path. The lawn is freshly trimmed, thanks to Taehyun, who was willing to do the lawn work all summer as long as it meant he didn’t have to actually step foot inside the house, and as long as he could speed home afterwards—this was what told you he hadn’t forgotten about the incident with Yeonjun, upon their first and presumably last meeting.

You're able to slot the big skeleton key into the brand new lock on the door and let yourself in, closing the door behind you with your foot. You trudge up the stairs step by step, making sure not to trip over your own feet and go tumbling back down.

Finally, you reach your bedroom. You know that if you hesitate any longer you’ll never bring yourself to do it, so you just reach out and turn the doorknob, opening the time capsule of a room and entering, just as you did every day in your youth.

Putting down the box of cleaning supplies, which had been getting steadily heavier in your arms the longer you held it, you take a deep breath, smelling the dust—there was hardly a hint of your old perfume, or your old laundry detergent—it was like a ghost inhabited this room.

Perhaps it did—you think of Yeonjun again.

“Yeonjun?” you speak softly, though you haven’t seen him since late September. For some reason it feels different this time as you call out for him—it feels like he really might appear.

“You’re back. I thought you were done.”

Yeonjun slowly passes through the door of your bedroom. He looks faint—or maybe that’s just the terrible lighting in the room from the singular flickering lightbulb, paired with the crappy natural lighting due to the setting sun.

“You thought I’d leave without finishing the job? Am I someone that abandons things that are half-done?” you ask, trying to make your tone light and playful. Yeonjun looks up at you wearily, not returning the favor.

“No… But it’s been so long. I thought it might be another ten years before I see you again,” he says softly. He drifts closer to you, slowly, as if it pained him to go any faster.

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” you say, your brow furrowing. “I wouldn’t leave… not without saying goodbye.”

“Is that what you’re here to do?” His expression darkens slightly, and he turns away, crossing his arms. “Are you done here?”

You hesitate, your hand twitching as you almost reach out to him to try and comfort him—almost. “After I clean out this room…” you begin, but trail off, not wanting to finish the sentence.

“You don’t have to sugarcoat things. I always knew this was coming, that you’d leave again—it was the plan from the start,” he says, harshly. “I’m not a baby either. I can take it. I know more than you think.” He flinches a little, as if he’s said something he regrets.

More than you think? You walk around him so that you’re standing in front of him, facing him. “You’re not just talking about me cleaning the house,” you say, softly, knowingly. “How did you find out? When did you find out?”

Yeonjun looks away, sighing. His eyes are dark and mournful when he looks back at you, his brow furrowing and his puffy lips turning down into a frown. “In one of the old newspapers in the attic… I was purposely looking through them after you laid them out that one day and left without throwing them away. I made the headline—and the front page, naturally,” he says, almost bitterly. “I didn’t want you to find out that I found out.”

“Why? Did you think I’d be mad or something?” you ask, confused. “Is that why you disappeared?” Anger starts bubbling up in your stomach—you’re not mad that he found out about his own death, you’re mad that he disappeared on you when you have so little time left together in the first place. Didn’t he know that you were both running on limited time? Did he not say that himself?

“I’m not ready to say goodbye to you!” he shouts, finally. This is the loudest you’ve heard him speak in a while, and it seems to take a toll on him as he folds over, breathing heavily. He looks back up at you after a moment, his eyes narrowed but sad in a way too. “You’re the only friend I’ve had since I’ve died. So you’re the only friend that I really remember, as the person—as the ghost that I am now.” His voice breaks. “It’s time for me to go, anyways. It’s not like we could have spent much more time together anyways.”

“What do you mean, it’s time for you to go?” you ask, your lips tightening into a thin line as you feel your heart drop into your stomach. “You said—you said you didn’t know how all that moving on bullshit worked.”

“I didn’t before, but now… I just feel it. I’m not supposed to be here any more,” he says, pleading with you. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

“I’m not mad,” you say quickly, your voice harder than you intended it to be. Recollecting yourself, you clear your throat, only for it to be clogged again with tears and mucus as you thickly say, “I’m just not ready to say goodbye to you either.”

Yeonjun manages a watery smile, and you lean forward to hug him, your arms simply cutting through his ghostly appearance. He smiles sadly down at you again, his fingers ghosting over the top of your head as he mimics stroking your hair soothingly.

“I’ve never wished for anything more,” you say, fighting to keep your tears back. You don’t want to cry in front of Yeonjun, not when he’s already crying hard enough that you can see shiny trails of tears down his pale, translucent face.

“What are you wishing for?” he asks in a choked voice.

“You know,” you say, laughing bitterly as you fail to hold back your tears, warm salty droplets pouring down your cheeks. “Don’t be an idiot.”

Yeonjun scoffs, looking away and crossing his arms before he looks back at you to smile through his tears once again. “And you know me. An idiot, through and through,” he says, roughly wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

For a brief moment, the two of you stand there and stare at each other in silence—Yeonjun as he remembers watching you grow up, and you as you recall all of the bearable memories with your best and only friend from your youth. There’s plenty of parallels between the two of you, as much as you hate to think about it—in a way, you almost represent what Yeonjun could have had, if he’d escaped his father like you’d escaped your parents. In the same vein, he almost represents the worst thing that could have happened to you, had you not gotten out when you did. As you two look into each other’s eyes, your lips still and unmoving as you communicate through language that’s deeper than speech, more intimate and knowing than any other form of communication known to man, you feel a sudden warmth. Your heart thumps in your chest, and you feel like this is it—the end of this torture, this fucking nightmare of a life. It’s like a weight is lifted off your shoulders as Yeonjun gazes softly into your eyes, fueling that warm and fuzzy feeling in your stomach.

It’s going to be okay. He’s going to be okay.

“I’ve always wanted to leave this house. I remember now,” he says softly. “But now, for the first time… I almost don’t want to.”

Wiping your tears, you choke out a laugh. Yeonjun looks down at you with a tender expression, one that radiates pure adoration, as he leans down to press his lips to your forehead.

You squeeze your eyes shut as more tears pour down your cheeks, not wanting to see the picture before you while being unable to feel it, but for a moment it feels real. You can feel the slight chapped skin brush against your forehead, the weight and warmth of his hand on the top of your head, before it all disappears.

And when you open your eyes again, Yeonjun is gone, and you’re standing alone in the bedroom you two unknowingly shared for as long as either of you could remember.

For the first time, you are completely alone in the house you were supposed to call home, and all you can do is sit down on the hardwood floor (ignoring the faint red stains by your bed that you’d never noticed before) and breathe in deeply, finally feeling at peace.

NOVEMBER

Clenching your jaw, you try to reach further, your arm burning as you try to sweep the last few inches of snow off of your windshield.

The first snow had surprised the town in the middle of the night. It had been unusually warm this year, the heat wave carrying on well past summer. Though it was nearly tradition at this point for the children of your hometown to trick-or-treat the day before or after Halloween due to the expectant snowstorm the week of the holiday, this year the children had been able to run free, without even the need for a thick winter jacket on top of their costumes.

November had proven to be quite warm as well, but then the weather switched up on you like it was the plan all along, and now you were brushing snow off of your car with a dead tree branch, struggling to reach the top few inches of your windshield because the stick you chose was just a little too short.

Giving up after a few more minutes of bending and stretching and cramping up your arm, you toss the stick aside and massage your aching muscles before getting into your car, grumbling to yourself. At least you hadn’t left your windows open overnight, like Taehyun had reportedly done—especially because your car is stuffed to the brim with all of your belongings. Finally, you’re heading off to the city to settle into your new place before you start your new job.

But first, you’re meeting Taehyun for coffee.

Driving down the same familiar roads, you feel new memories playing in the place of your old ones. Instead of remembering the way your parents would argue in the car and give you a headache, you remember the times you and Taehyun drove down this road together, loudly singing your favorite songs and not caring who heard. You can’t help but smile at the memory—you’ll have to remember to ask if he ever wanted to take a road trip together, when the weather is warm again and summer comes back around.

The creaky stairs groan under your weight as you hop up the old wood, but they still don’t collapse, even with their loud protesting.

There, Taehyun sits at a window seat with his iced Americano, scrolling aimlessly on his phone as he waits for you. He doesn’t see you until you stop in front of the table, smiling down at him as you unwrap your scarf from around your face. Your cheeks and nose are still a little flushed and raw from the cold, despite this.

“How’s the car?” you ask, sitting down as you remove your gloves and place them atop your folded scarf, on the table beside you.

“She’s fine, but a bit damp. And so’s the seat of my pants,” he grimaces, reaching down to feel the slightly wet seat of his jeans. “How’s the house?”

“Sold,” you say, crossing your arms and grinning proudly. “There were a surprising amount of offers. I guess horror fanatics don’t mind the possibility of ghostly roommates.”

Taehyun laughs, but then he rests his face in his palm as he props his elbow up on the table, looking into your eyes. “If anyone’s into it, horror fanatics would be… but was there really a ghost? I thought it stopped appearing after that first day.”

Outside, snow starts to fall again, the beginning of winter making itself known. The already thick blanket of white covering the landscape starts to grow even more opaque and blinding as thick snowflakes swirl down from the ash-gray sky and join the millions before them, transforming the landscape that was a healthy green field of flowers just a few months before.

“It’s a long story,” you say, your eyes twinkling.

“I have time,” Taehyun replies, smiling.

The little plastic ghost on your keychain rattles softly as you put the rest of your things down to settle in, and you smile softly at the namesake of your other best friend.

“His name was Yeonjun,” you begin.

DIVIDER CREDIT | @firefly-graphics

#kflixnet #k-labels #k-vanity #diverseinsertknet #collab:themonsterbesideme #yeonjun smut #yeonjun x reader #txt x reader #tomorrow x together #yeonjun #txt drabbles #txt imagines #txt smut #yeonjun imagines #tomorrow x together imagines #tomorrow x together drabbles

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wh1msic4lwasab1 · 3 months

Text

𝐃𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫'𝐬 𝐒𝐲𝐦𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐲 ☾⋆｡𖦹 °✩⋆

synopsis: being alone in the woods isn’t a great idea, but your village is in dire need for a savior, and who better to give you salvation than the sleeping soldier of Wallachia

tags: mentions of blood, violence, vampiric trancing, vulgar, explicit, fingering

wrd cnt: 1.5k

a/n: first ever castlevania fic w my favorite bbg

You didn’t support what happened to that poor woman. Lisa Tepes, the wife of Dracula Tepes.

Your town was always weary of the church, and the rumors of witchcraft. Fools, you said. Wherever there is a competent women, there must be witches?

The warning from the sky sent the entire country into a panic, soon enough your ears heard whispers rustling through the forest about a sleeping soldier, a savior who would end the terror of the night and vanquish Dracula and his army of demons.

No one was brave enough, but you were tired enough. Tired of locking the shutters so tight not even a sliver of moonlight could peak in, tired of sleeping so soundly not a single devil could hear your breathe, tired of the constant fear that bathed your body in a ghastly feeling.

But- there was so much to lose. The rumors- sightings of the creatures that stalks the sky’s, killing anyone who dares to venture out after dark.

You’ll sleep on it, but not for long.

….

You can hardly sleep with all the noise. The noise?

The shutters fly off the walls of your home almost fantastically, but not as loudly as the first scream of a mother. You weren’t safe any longer, and you had to make a decision now.

As you huddle in your home, praying for the dawn to come in a matter of seconds, you hear the second screams of your neighbors outside.

You know what it means - the monsters have come for your village. With your heart pounding in your chest, you grab a weapon, cross, bundle of garlic, and flee into the woods, hoping to escape the unspeakable horrors that stalk the earth.

As you run through the forest, tripping over roots and branches, you realize that you're lost. But you don't have time to worry about that right now. All that matters is getting away. You follow a particular light and hope it’s a fire, but you stumble upon a cabin, hidden deep in the woods. You dash towards it, hoping to find shelter.

The door swings open as you bash your shoulder in.

As you pant like a dog on the floorboards, you move your hair back behind your shoulders and survey the room.

Inside, you find the space lit by flickering candles. As you catch your breath and get up, you notice a strange object in the corner of the room - a coffin.

Almost in slow motion, you watch. A figure rises from inside, his eyes glowing in the dim light and his ears pointed, partly covered by his lengthy almost platinum hair.

'Alucard,' you whisper, your voice trembling. You've heard the tales of the sleeping soldier, a creature who is neither alive nor dead, son of Dracula and the Prince.

As Alucard approaches you, you can see his teeth, long and sharp, glinting in the light. You know what he is - a monster, just like the ones that have been hunting you. But as you look into his eyes, something strange happens. You don't feel fear anymore. Instead, you feel something else - something of warmth, something almost symphonic.

'You're not like them,' you say, your voice still but a whisper. 'You're different.'

“And you are?” He asks.

“Y/n-…That’s my name.”

“And why have you woken me, Y/n”. He says sternly, reminding you of the fact.

As you stand there, face to face, you can't help but feel a strange connection to him. You stutter as you try to find the right words to explain yourself.

'I-I was running from the monsters,' you say, your voice shaking. 'I didn't know where to go, and I saw your cabin. I just needed a place to hide.'

Alucard studies you for a moment, his glowing eyes never leaving your face. You can feel your heart racing as he steps closer to you, closing the distance between you. You can smell his strange, intoxicating scent, a mix of something sweet and something earthy. It's a smell that you can't quite place, but it fills your senses and makes your head swim.

'And what makes you think I'm any different from the monsters you were running from?' he asks, his voice low and husky.

You swallow hard, trying to find the words to explain what you're feeling. 'I don't know,' you admit. 'I just... I don't feel afraid of you. I feel safe.'

Alucard's expression changes at your words, and he takes another step closer to you. You can feel the heat radiating off his body, and you find yourself drawn to him, unable to look away. He reaches out and brushes a strand of hair away from your face, his touch sending shivers down your spine.

'You shouldn't feel safe around me,' he says, his voice barely above a whisper. 'I am a vampire, and you are full of blood that I can hear at this very moment coursing in and out of your heart like a little rabbit’.

Alucard's eyes darkened at the mention of blood, and he looked at you hungrily. You couldn't help but feel a little scared, but at the same time, there was something thrilling about being so close to a creature of the night. You could feel your heart racing in your chest as he leaned in closer, hoping he could hear it, his lips just a breath away from yours.

'I could take it all, you know,' he said, his voice low and menacing. 'I could drain you dry and leave you here to rot. Like a vampire.”

You swallowed hard, your throat dry with fear and excitement. 'But you won't,' you whispered, your voice barely audible.

Alucard smirked, his fangs glinting in the light. 'No, I won't,' he said. 'Because for some reason, I find myself intrigued by you, Y/n. I want to know more about you, and what makes you different from the other humans I've encountered.'

With that, he closed the distance between you, capturing your lips in a searing kiss. You gasped at the sudden contact, your body trembling with desire. You had never experienced anything like this before, and you couldn't help but wonder what had come over you.

Alucard's tongue explored your mouth, tasting every inch of you. You could feel his fangs brushing against your lips, and it only served to heighten your pleasure. You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him closer to you as the kiss grew more intense, feeling his hair envelope you.

As you kissed, you could feel yourself growing weaker, and you knew that it was only a matter of time before Alucard's thirst took over. And yet, you couldn't bring yourself to push him away. There was something about him that drew you in, something that made you feel alive.

Finally, Alucard broke the kiss, his eyes glowing with desire. 'I need to taste you, Y/n,' he whispered, his voice husky with need. 'I can't resist it any longer.'

You nodded, unable to speak. You knew what he was asking for, and you were more than willing to give it to him. Alucard's lips found your neck, and he bit down gently, his fangs piercing your skin. You cried out in pleasure, the pain mixing with the pleasure in a way that you had never experienced before.

As Alucard drank from you, you could feel yourself growing weaker, but it was a weakness that you welcomed. You had never felt so alive, so desired, and you knew that this was something that you would never forget.

And what followed was even more unforgettable.

As Alucard drank from you, you could feel the pleasure coursing through your veins. 'Don't stop,' you whispered, your voice barely audible. 'I don't want this to end.' Your legs were wrapped tightly around his waist, pulling him closer to you as he continued to drink.

Finally, Alucard pulled away, leaving a small wound on your neck, licking it gently to console you. You slumped against him, completely spent. He carried you to the bed, laying you down gently before climbing in beside you.But he wasn't done with you yet. His hand began to explore your body, tracing patterns on your skin that made you shiver with delight. You looked up at him, your eyes heavy with desire. 'Do you want this? Taken by a Dhampir?' he asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

'More than anything,' you replied, his eyes dark with desire. His fingers found their way between your legs, teasing you until you were begging for more. You gasped as he slid a finger inside you, causing your body to arch off the bed with pleasure. He began to move his finger in and out, slowly at first, but then faster and faster as he curled them up.

'Oh, God,' you cried out, your body on fire with desire. You had never felt anything like this before. And then, he added a second finger, stretching you wider.

‘The Gods are not here to save you. I am.’ He whispered.

You cried out with pleasure, your body shaking with the force of your orgasm. 'Don't stop,' you begged, your voice ragged with pleasure.

‘You’re quite demanding, could have fooled me.” He says, ‘If I help you- when I help you, we’d do good to stick together’.

Shit, you just remembered, the whole reason you left was to get help. Now you’re about to fuck the help.

whimsic4alwasab1 ™ - do not copy, translate, modify, or claim any of my work as your own.

#jo’s posts #castlevania fanfiction #castlevania smut #alucard #alucard smut #alucard fanfic #alucard fic #alucard imagines #vampire smut #vampire fanfiction #castlevania #adrien tepes #alucard tepes

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yeonjunsbxtch · 2 years

Text

I Feel Everything - Kang Taehyun

Summary: You loved Taehyun, but sometimes he was just a bit too cold. He wasn’t good at showing his emotions, which often left you wondering what was going through his head. Until one day, you snapped when he was late to your anniversary dinner. And he didn’t seem to care all too much. So you decided it was time to call it quits. Little did you know that was enough to trigger some emotion out of him.

Genre: angst, smut, slight fluff

Warnings: yelling, cold!taehyun, laughing during an argument, unprotected sex, marking, dom!taehyun, possessiveness, pet names, degradation, dirty talk, arguing, swearing, insults, angry!taehyun, choking, toxic, edging, cunnilingus, praise, Taehyun calls reader a bitch, reader is wearing a dress, insinuates reader is inexperienced, overstimulation.

Pairing: Taehyun x fem!reader

Word count: 4k+

Song Inspo: I Feel Everything - Amelia Moore, Die For You - The Weeknd

Reminder: This fic does not reflect Taehyun as a person. This is fiction.

"How could you do this to me?! Do you not realize how stupid I looked?!" Your lungs exploded as you busted through Taehyun's front door with Taehyun dragging his feet behind you. You were disappointed when your attempt to slam the door on his face failed.

"Can you not be so loud? I have neighbors." Taehyun said flatly as he gently closed the door behind him.

"Why?! You don't want people hearing how much of a shitty boyfriend you are?!" Your voice even louder now, purposely trying to get anyone you could to hear you. You walked further into the house, running your fingers through your hair in frustration.

"Y/N.."

"What!?"

"You need to take your shoes off."

Of course that is all he cares about. You glared at him, thinking for a moment he was finally going to show empathy.

You sent the shoes on your feet flying across the room, earning an eye roll from the asshole behind you.

"Are you happy now?!"

"Can you calm down?"

"No! Why don't you care about me Taehyun?!" You screamed at the pink haired boy now in front of you. Tears were streaming down your face as Taehyun stood still, not batting an eye. His blank stare burned through you.

"I do."

You wanted to rip your hair out with how monotoned he was.

No matter the argument, Taehyun never seemed.. bothered. He never expressed his emotions to you, which left you constantly wondering what he was thinking. Not even during the most intense arguments would he open up. At first, you thought he just needed to get more comfortable. But now after a year of dating, he remains the same. And you've about had enough.

"No! No you don't Taehyun! We had plans for our one year tonight and you don't even care that you were late! I've been trying to express to you how hurt I am and you don't even care! You're so emotionless while I'm left to feel everything!"

Your blood started to run hot as you saw a smirk form on Taehyun's face. Taehyun sneered at you, letting out a sardonic chuckle. You knew he never took you seriously. But you never knew the extent of it, until now.

"Are you laughing at me?" Your voice now quiet.

"Yeah I am. This is ridiculous y/n! I told you I had practice later than expected and you can't take that as an answer."

And even still, everything you said went over Taehyun's head. It wasn't that you couldn't take it as an answer. It was because you've taken it as an answer too many times.

"You always say that Taehyun. And I accept it every single time even though it hurts me. But what hurts me the most is how nonchalant you are about it! You don't even care that you had practice late! You don't even care that I was waiting at the restaurant by myself looking stupid for an hour! I even went out of my way to buy a brand new dress just for tonight and you don't fucking care! If you cared, I wouldn't always have to beg you to tell me how you're feeling or get any sort of comfort out of you!"

"Then why are you still with me?"

And that was when your heart shattered. You looked at him for a moment, trying to find any remorse in his empty expression. All you wanted was for him to comfort you. All you wanted was for him to finally open up to you. But there was no attempt to fight for you. And you knew there was no hope in trying to hold on.

"I don't know." Was all you could say. It felt like your chest was ripping open. You had given the man in front of you your all. All of your love had been poured into him while you got nothing in return. "I shouldn't have to beg to be loved Taehyun."

Taehyun continued to stare at you. You still could not read him. And you knew you were never going to be able to. So it was time you admitted defeat. Without saying another word, you turned around and headed upstairs.

You went straight to Taehyun's bedroom to start packing the things you had left at his place. Only now, you felt they were just a big waste of space.

You started going around the room, gathering your things one by one and throwing them into a duffle bag. You didn't care about knocking things over. You didn't care about making a mess. You just wanted to get out of there as soon as you could.

You made your way over to 'your' side of the bed, where various items of yours had made a home for themselves on the nigthstand. You swept everything into the bag at once with your arm, dropping a few things here and there. You wiped tears from your face as you kneeled down, frantically trying to pick everything up. You filled your lungs with as much air as you could, trying your hardest not to burst into tears again.

Suddenly, you heard the door crack open. You knew who it was and it took every ounce of your strength to ignore him. Your shaking hands continued to attempt to pick up everything that had fallen.

"Y/N, what are you doing?"

Your stomach turned, creating a nauseating feeling within you. You kept your head down, trying to not look at him.

"I'm packing. What does it look like I'm doing you fucking robot."

"Y/N, Stop packing.. please."

The sound of panic was pronounced in his voice causing you to come to a halt. Your eyes stayed glued to your bag, refusing to look at him despite his unfamiliar tone.

"Why should I stop? You're the one who suggested I leave you. So that's what I'm doing."

"Just... stop... please Y/N."

You finally looked at him. There he was standing by the door, hands wrapped around the back of his neck as he watched you anxiously. His eyes were wide and full of panic. You couldn't help but feel a little guilty in that moment, seeing him like you've never seen him before.

You had to admit, you felt bad for him. You never meant to make him react like this. But on the other hand, you were angry. Angry that it took you leaving him to make him show any emotion at all. And that anger within you was just a little bit stronger.

You looked back down at the bag in your hand. It took everything you had to put the last of your things in the bag. Standing up, you tried your best to avoid eye contact with Taehyun who had already closed the door, now standing guard of it.

"Please move Taehyun."

"No."

Your heart was beating fast. There he was, attempting to fight for you in some way, shape or form. But you knew settling for this wouldn't be good for either of you.

"Taehyun, I'm leaving. You need to move and let me through."

Taehyun kept his eyes locked on you as he hesitantly took a step to the side. 'Well that didn't last long.' You felt conflicted in this moment. You told him to move but why did your heart sink when he actually moved?

As you were about to reach for the knob, you felt your bag being pulled out of your grasp.

"What the fuck are yo-"

Before you could finish your sentence, you were shoved up against the door, both of your hands being pinned on either side of you. You struggled to get out of Taehyun's grip until your eyes inevitably met his. He stared down at you with a dark and narrow gaze. His jaw was clenched, face red with anger. Also an emotion you've never seen from him. You began to sweat, experiencing a side of him you've never seen before.

"Taehyun.. please.. let me go." You managed to breath out.

Taehyun inched closer to you. His chest now pressing against yours. He slowly leaned down to meet his lips with your ear as he tightened his grip on your wrists.

"You're not going anywhere."

His hot breath against your ear sent goosebumps throughout your body. You swallowed hard as you shut your eyes for a brief moment, taking in the sweet sensation of his lips softly grazing against your skin.

You twisted your wrists at one more attempt of escaping until you felt his breath flow down your neck. Your knees buckled underneath you and for a moment, you were actually relieved Taehyun had a hold of you. You couldn't believe how weak you were for him. Taehyun roughly connected his wet lips with your neck and it took everything you had not to moan out his name. You held your bottom lip between your teeth as he took his time placing harsh, opened mouthed kisses along the side of your neck. The feeling mixed between pain and pleasure as he ended each kiss with a harsh pull of your skin.

"Taehyun.." His name finally escaping your lips. You breathed out as he continued to savor the taste of your neck.

You squirmed underneath him, the tingling sensation traveling from your neck to your core. The unfamiliar feeling enveloped you as you tried your best to keep your strength. But you knew this was a battle you would not win.

"First you wanted to leave me.." you shivered at the sudden vibration of his voice against you. You felt Taehyun trail his tongue up your neck. He kissed around the shell of your ear before continuing his sentence. "Now you're moaning my name before I've even fucked you."

Taehyun then pulled back to get a good look at you. You gazed up at him with heavy lids, mind now clouded with only him. Everything that had happened leading up to this moment had completely left your mind.

"Now tell me what you really want princess. Do you want to leave.." He slowly dragged his finger up your body, caressing every curve until he got to your neck. He wrapped his hand firmly around your throat, earning a gasp as you briefly lost your breath. "Or do you want to be a good little slut for me?"

You couldn't speak. His manipulation tactics were something you could see right through. But that did not mean they didn't work.

"What's wrong? Hm? Bitch can't speak?" He tightened the grip around your throat just enough for your mouth to open even wider for his admiration. "You sure knew how to use that pretty little mouth earlier."

You felt the hold he had on you. You were hearing the words that were coming out of his mouth. You saw the rage in his eyes. The thought of not knowing what he was going to do to you was enough to make you tremble. And yet, you still felt a sense of security within this new side of him. And you couldn't lie, you loved it.

You were suddenly gasping for air as you felt Taehyun release his grip on you. He took a step back, disconnecting himself from you. Suddenly, you felt empty. A fire ingnited within you, frustrated that Taehyun had riled you up for nothing.

"Why.. Why did you.." You couldn't even finish your sentence. Your body was weak. Your voice raspy.

"Stop? You need to tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me I can ruin you."

All feeling in your legs dissipated. His deep voice echoed through your body, awakening a deep desire you had failed to realize you had before.

"Taehyun.. please.."

The end of Taehyun's lip tugged up, knowing the effect he had on you. He took a step towards you, towering over you as he kept his dark gaze locked on yours. You gazed back up at him with a pleading look in your eyes. The tension growing stronger by the second.

He inched closer, you could feel the warmth of his lips radiating onto yours. Your lips trembled, begging to be kissed by his.

"Please what?" His voice now soft yet still filled with so much desire.

You found your arms wrapping around him. His body felt hot under your touch as his arms stayed by his side, refusing to touch you until he has your permission. Your hand slowly traveled to the nape of his neck, caressing it softly as you saw him flutter his eyes for a moment. You pulled him even closer to you, his lips now brushing against yours.

"Please ruin me."

All hesitation faded from you as you pulled him fully into you, connecting his lips with yours. He wasted no time in returning the kiss, devouring you as he pushed you further against the door. His arm glided down your back, pulling you as close to him as possible. He pulled away for a moment, leaving you breathless as he tugged at your bottom lip.

Taehyun slid his hands down, taking a hold of your ass as he grinded into you. You could feel his erection pressing against you and you wanted nothing more than for it to be inside you. His hands made their way to the back of your thighs, swiftly pulling them around his waist. You wrapped your arms securely around his neck, holding onto him as your tongues swirled together.

It wasn't long until you felt your back hit the mattress. You let out a whine, missing the feel of his lips on yours. Taehyun stood over you, watching as your body squirmed, withdrawing from his touch.

"How bad do you want me to touch you?" He traced small circles along your stomach, teasing you every time he made his way lower.

"Really bad Taehyun.. So bad.."

"Mmm, that's what I like to hear."

He began to play with the hem of your dress, pulling it up to expose your panties. He let out a pleased sigh, seeing the wet spot that had quickly formed on your pretty underwear.

He smirked at the way you instinctively opened your legs the second he touched your skin. He slowly started caressing your bare thighs, his thumbs brushing around the inner lining of your panties. Each stroke of his hands causing you to tremble.

His hands slowly made their way up, grabbing a hold of your underwear and gently pulling them down. He took his time, savoring the way you shivered, feeling the way the cooler air hit your now exposed pussy. He pulled your panties completely off of you, throwing them who knows where. His eyes were only on you and the way your pussy glistened in front of him.

"Shit baby.. look at you." You cooed at the way he called you baby, a nickname you've been craving for a while now. Taehyun watched as your chest heaved up and down, growing impatient at the way he took his time. "You're so fucking wet and we aren't even halfway done. So fucking pathetic."

His voice sounded sweet but his words were like daggers that carved into you in the best way possible.

"Please do something Taehyun.. please"

Yeah, he was right. You did sound pathetic. But there was nothing more you needed than for him to ravish you.

"Be patient my love. Consider this punishment for your behavior before."

Your body shivered as you felt the warmth of his breath slowly approach your core. His lips just inches away from finally giving you the pleasure you craved. He lightly grazed the tip of his tongue up your clit. You sucked in a sharp breath as you bucked your hips, pleading for more. He followed with another lick, this time with more passion. You couldn't help but reach down and tangle your fingers in his soft locks.

He let out a low groan, loving the way you pushed him closer as he sucked on your clit. You glanced down at him, locking eyes with him as he was already watching the way you reacted to his every move.

"Baby you taste so fucking good.."

Moans were flooding out of your mouth, repeating his name over and over again as the sensation became more intense. You were practically suffocating Taehyun at this point with the way you wrapped your legs around his neck. He grabbed onto your thighs, squeezing them as he continued to flatten his tongue along your folds.

With the way you were moving your hips, he could tell you were close. The fire in your core grew as did the tension in your abdomen feeling every vibration of his groans.

"Ahh.. Taehyun.. I'm gonna cum.." Your words came out as whines as you rocked your pussy against his tongue.

You were about to come undone when Taehyun suddenly drew back.

"Ahh! Fuck Taehyun! What the hell!?" You cried out, needing the release more than anything. Taehyun then stood up, leaning over you as tears were falling down your face.

"Don't worry baby, you'll be able to cum soon."

He wiped a few tears off your face before proceeding to unbuckle his belt. He then pulled his pants down along with his boxers, finally freeing his cock. You watched as he swiftly pulled his shirt off, revealing his perfectly toned body.

"Take your clothes off and lay down on the bed. Now." Taehyun demanded. You instantly sat up at his command, unzipping the back of your dress and quickly taking it off. Taehyun watched as you unhooked your bra and threw it on the ground. He licked his lips at the way you crawled up the bed, laying your head down on the pillow per his order. You felt your face heat up. You couldn't help but feel a little shy, covering your body with your arms.

Taehyun got onto the bed, making his way up to you, not breaking eye contact for a second.

"Good girl.. but.." He gently pulled your arms off your body, laying them down at your sides. "Don't cover your beautiful body."

He grabbed both your legs and laid them over his shoulders. You watched in anticipation as he started stroking his cock, precum dripping out of the tip.

The tight feeling in your stomach returned as he began to stroke your slick folds with the tip of his cock, just barely pushing the tip in each time he slid down to your entrance.

"Taehyun.. Please just fuck me."

"Shh.. Let me take my time. I have some things to make up to you."

He then aligned himself at your entrance, finally sliding into you. You let out a long moan, feeling him stretch you out so perfectly. Your walls clenching around him, earning a hiss from him.

"F-fuck.. you feel so good."

He slowly started to move in and out of you, picking up the pace with each thrust. He looked down and watched the way he disappeared inside of you, loving the way you fit around him so perfectly.

Your pretty little moans were music to his ears and he couldn't get enough. He now hovered over you, keeping your legs over his shoulders as he rocked his hips harder into you, hitting your cervix just right. You felt like you could explode right then and there with the way he used your body.

"Baby you take my cock so good." He placed kisses along your forehead, comforting you from any pain you might have been feeling. You wrapped your arms around his torso, digging your nails into his back causing him to go even faster.

"It feels so good Taehyun.."

He kissed you once more, swallowing your moans. This time with passion unlike anything you've experienced before. He pressed your knees into your chest, hitting a spot you never knew was possible. You squeezed your eyes shut, drowning in total ecstasy. You didn't know whether to grip the sheets or Taehyun's strong arms as he pounded into you. Taehyun spewed low groans repeatedly as he continued to plunge inside of you.

"Fuckk.. baby you're so wet." Taehyun hissed, hearing the sounds your pussy made with each thrust.

"All.. for you.."

Taehyun let out a growl, hearing the words and moans that flooded out of your mouth. He pried one of your hands off the bedsheet, guiding it down to your clit.

"Rub yourself for me baby.."

You did as you were told, eagerly massaging your clit in a circular motion. Taehyun's hand made its way back up to your throat, this time gripping it just enough to keep your gaze aligned with his. You looked into his dark eyes, tears running down your cheeks as your stomach started to tighten. The pressure in your abdomen growing immensely. You tried to push back on him, feeling the pressure becoming too much. But your attempts failed as Taehyun held you down, your reaction making him fuck you harder, forcing you to experience the intense, unfamiliar feeling.

"Tae-Taehyun.. It's too much.." You whimpered out, squirming under his dominance. But just when you thought he couldn't go any faster, he did, thrusting his hips up into you in a merciless rhythm.

"Baby you're doing soo good.. ahh f-fuck.. you're almost there I can feel it."

That was enough for you to completely lose yourself. You screamed out in ecstasy, dissolving in pleasure as you reached your high. He watched your every expression as he felt your walls pulsating around him, your fluids soaking him.

And hearing you scream his name as your release saturated his cock was enough for him to finally come undone.

"Shit shit shit.. I'm cumming y/n.."

Taehyun's hips stuttered as he emptied himself inside you. He slowed down his thrusts as he rode out his high, making sure every drop of his cum was deep inside you.

All movements then came to a stop. The two of you laid in silence, catching your breath and gazing into each other, slowly coming back to reality. Moments passed before the silence was broken.

"I-I'm sorry.." Taehyun whispered out, swallowing hard. You saw his expression change, that panic look from earlier slowly returning to his eyes. He carefully slid out of you, leaving you empty and gently resting your weak legs on the bed. You could have sworn you saw a tear escape his eye before he turned away.

"Taehyun, are you okay?"

He embraced you, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck. Tears running from his eyes onto your shoulder.

"I'm sorry Y/N, I really am. I don't know what's wrong with me."

You weren't sure what to do since you had never seen him cry before. So you wrapped your arms around him, caressing his hair as he wept into you. Your heart ached for him.

"Taehyun, there's nothing wrong with you."

You rubbed his bare back, comforting him the best you could. Your fingers softly massaging the scratches you had left.

He placed soft pecks along the bruises on your neck.

"Does it hurt? I didn't want to hurt you."

You let out a soft chuckle.

"A little but... I actually liked it."

Taehyun met his gaze with yours once more, a slightly amused face peaking under his tear ridden cheeks.

"I didn't know you were so kinky." He teased, relieving some of the tension between the two of you.

A gentle smile formed on your face as you looked into his entrancing eyes. And there it was. A sparkle of emotion. The longing look you had been, well, longing for. A thousand words were laid out on his sleeve. There was no need for anything more.

"But seriously though, I'm going to try harder to open up to you, okay? You deserve the best and I want to be that for you."

You grabbed a hold of Taehyun's face, cupping his cheeks as it was now your turn to wipe some tears off his face.

"I know."

He leaned down, placing a gentle but heartfelt kiss on your lips. You immediately reciprocated pulling him into a deeper kiss.

The kiss quickly grew heated once more and it wasn't long before he was pushing himself back into you. Your body shuddered at the overstimulating feeling as he slowly thrusts into you.

"Tae... fuck.. again?"

You moaned into his mouth, earning a low chuckle from him.

"Oh baby, I told you I had a lot of making up to do.." He gently wrapped your legs around his waist, sinking his cock deeper into you. "I'm gonna be inside you all night."

I hope you all enjoyed !!

🏷 @zen003xx @storminacloud @stephaniekim15 @eneiyri @luvsoobs @letapostropheesgo @coochiecrawler @dilfjohhny @neozon3nha @moavill97 @bailies-me @julie03 @heartsforheeseung

I apologize if some tags don’t work !! 💓

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firsttimewriter92 · 1 year

Text

Neighborly shenanigans Pt. 1

Simon "Ghost" Riley x f! reader (Neighbor AU)

Part 2; Part 3; Part 4

Description: You´ve just moved in a couple of weeks ago, trying for a new start. A brief encounter with your neighbor gets your endorphins and imagination going. What is it about the mask?

Warnings: cursing, some dirty thoughts, fluff, a little pining

Word count: 1.917

A/N: Hi everyone <3 This is my very first Simon Riley x reader fic. I´ve written about several characters of CoD but Ghost was always kind of an enigma to me. I never knew how to make him the love interest. But and idea popped into my head after reading some characterization that made it much easier to write for him. So here you go :) Let me know if a part 2 is something you´d be interested in.

“Jesus fucking Christ” you swore as you tried your best to push your heavy apartment door open and balance your bag and groceries through the door. It was a struggle to say the least, but you were damned if you did second trips. Grumbling through your teeth you saw no other possibility than setting down your bag, holding the door open with your foot and grabbing your groceries a little more securely. Bending your knee, you gave your door a forceful push and slid through into your small hallway. Foregoing taking off your shoes you made your way into your open kitchen and set the heavy paper bags down on your kitchen island.

A sigh escaped you and you took a moment just to stand in your kitchen and take in the chaos around you. Half emptied moving boxes were strewn all around your living room, amidst not yet hanging shelves, plastic plants and several DIY projects. Another sigh left your lungs with a huff. Moving and starting anew had seemed like your only option a couple of weeks ago but now you dreaded the silence. You wanted this, ___, you thought. It was your decision.

Your new job was everything you ever hoped for, and training turned out to be smooth sailing. You loved it, you loved your apartment, even though it was far from being finished yet. But still, what you´d left behind still lingered in the back of your brain all too clearly at times. Especially when your heavy door closed behind you every evening and there was nothing but you, your DIY projects, an occasional phone call with your parents and then silence. Silence to wallow in, rake your brain and memories. Memories not even a good Podcast or music were able to drown out.

You weren´t as close with your colleagues yet as to be invited out to the pub after work but that was to be expected. The chances were good though. Maybe just a couple of days more and you´d have at least some kind of social interaction. One step after the other, you reminded yourself. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Your own impatience with yourself was yet again trying to make you feel like you´d made a mistake by moving. A humorless laugh bubbled from your lips as you shook your head. Calm down, you thought. This is your life, your pace. Relax.

A couple of minutes later your food was stored away, veggies and salmon steaming away and finally you sat down on your couch, glass of wine in hand and Netflix on your TV.

“Bloody hell” you cursed as a shot of adrenalin set your brain into overdrive. Your bag. You jumped off your couch and hurried over to the door. Swinging it open with a yank you initially thought someone had put out the lights in the corridor. All you saw was black and not a second later you collided with something solid.

Shaking your head, you realized three things. It was 7 o´clock on a warm day in July, so it couldn’t be dark out already. Your hallway had several windows and yes, the sun was still out. The black wall you just ran into turned out to be a massive chest.

Heat was ascending your neck as you took a small step back and lifted your head to look at the face this quite impressive physique belonged to. What the…?

Before you stood a man, several inches taller than you, frozen in place with his arm lifted as if he was just about to knock on your door. He looked down on you with impressive, hazel eyes. Honey blond, tousled hair adorned his head, falling slightly onto his forehead, wet tips clinging to his temples and a bead of sweat disappearing behind his ear. But that was about all you could make out.

Seeing people wearing a facemask had of course not been an unusual sight for the last three years but he wasn´t wearing one of those surgical ones. His nose, mouth and chin were covered in thick, black material, even spanning over his cheekbones and disappearing behind his ears. When your eyes caught his again you saw them narrowing just slightly and one blond eyebrow ticking upwards.

Something wriggly moved inside your belly.

The man slowly lowered his arm, simultaneously lifting the other slightly, holding out your bag.

“This yours?” a deep, calm voice broke through the silence and the wriggly something inside you spread out towards your chest, down your arms and into your fingertips. You swallowed, trying to gather your wits again.

“Uhm…yes. Yes, that´s mine. Forgot about it” you said with a nervous laugh as you took it from him. He hummed deep inside his chest in understanding. The sound only letting your eyes snap onto his again trying to decipher if the squinting was an annoyed one or an amused one.

Amused, as it turns out. He took a deep breath, the black material of his running shirt as you now realized it was, stretching across the expanse of his chest.

“You know, that´s how you get your identity stolen. Or at least your wallet.” Yeah, there was no question now, he was grinning behind his mask, his tone mildly rebuking but not at all belittling.

A small smirk of your own crawled onto your lips as you cocked out your hip and nodded your head.

“You´re absolutely right, Sir. I´ll cuff my bag to my wrist from now on so this inconvenience shall not occur to you a second time.” You want to be cocky, mister? Fine with me.

Your answer made him chuckle. It was short but genuine. One hand in his pocket he stepped back slightly and only now did you notice the heat that his body had emitted. With one last narrow of his eyes, making the edges crinkle ever so slightly he answered. “Not an inconvenience, Miss. Have a good evening.” He nodded once and walked away to your right.

“Y-you too” you cursed the way your words tumbled. To your surprise he halted in front of the door next to yours and your heart jumped into your throat as he took out his keys. Your eyes still fixed onto his side profile (you still couldn’t really make out any features), he gave you one last look before opening his door.

“And thank you” you rushed out.

He only lifted one hand to give you a small little wave that seemed way too juvenile for a man of his stature and closed his door.

Kind of shellshocked you turned around yourself and let your door fall shut behind you. Clutching onto your bag you didn’t even notice how long you were just standing in your hallway, trying to sort out the wriggling nerves. Who was that? Idiot. Your neighbor. Your neighbor that you´d never seen before. A man like him you´d remember seeing. There´d never been any noise from the apartment next to yours so you just thought it was either a very quiet tenant or one that only went there to sleep.

Sitting down on your couch again you stared at the wall behind your TV. He was behind that wall, doing…things. Existing. Why did that feel so exciting to you? Maybe it was just because that´d been your first real social interaction apart from talking to your colleagues?

Laughing incredulously at yourself you buried your burning face in your hands and giggled. No. No that wasn’t it and you knew it. It was stupid. So very stupid and weird and nerdy and…that damn mask!!

“Whhhyyyy…..?” you moaned grinning and rubbed your temples, finally letting all the pent up adrenalin and endorphins rush through your blood stream unstopped. What was it about men wearing those damn masks? Not being able to fully see their face. Having to find out what there was to them by just their actions.

The fist time you really thought you´d lost your mind was when you actually developed a burning crush on a literal tin can from the Star Wars universe. Oh yeah, sure. Give me a brooding, sarcastic, overworked loner with PTSD and give him a freaking child to protect. Watch him become a devoted, loving single parent. Of course! Yes, let me thirst after him. And did it stop there? Of course not. The pandemic hit and the lockdown had everyone in a chokehold.

The only chokehold you wanted to be in at the time however was one carried out by a video game character called Ghoul from “Call of Obligation”. Tatted up, burly, sharp, dutiful, loyal and fucking hot.

The only thing you were able to see of him? His eyes. Just his eyes and an occasional forearm here and there. Everything else covered in tactical gear and a scary facemask. God that character haunted your dreams almost every night. And now, you had his existing, breathing, heat emitting, real human equivalent living next to you. You felt your insides burn as another funny noise came from your mouth. There had to be something wrong with you. Why was half a visible face or even less, so damn attractive to you?

“Shit must be some kind of kink” you murmured to yourself as you reached for your wine glass.

Why was he wearing that mask anyway? People weren´t obligated to wear one anymore. Was it some kind of training technique while running?

Anyhow, you appreciated the encounter. Your mood instantly better even though the both of you hadn’t talked much at all. He seemed witty. Cocky almost and you liked that.

Emptying your wine, you put the glass back in the dishwasher and walked over to your bathroom when you heard it. The shower in the next apartment was running. Immediately you halted all movement and tried to not even breath. The situation seemed so delicate, like thin glass ready to break. You stared at the wall when something else caught your ears.

No. Did you hear this right? Was he…?

You walked carefully over to your shower and stepped in. Trying not to care about how crazy you must look at this moment, you turned your head to the wall slightly, closed your eyes and listened as hard as you could. There it was.

Low, melodic and absolutely captivating. Over the sound of the water hitting the tile you heard your neighbor singing. Your forehead hit the tile and you breathed as quietly as possible, marveling in the baritone sweetness that could be heard through the wall. All too soon, about a minute later it was over. The water was shut off, the singing stopped.

As if in trance you got your nighttime routine going and a couple minutes later, slid into bed. Knowing where his bathroom was now, you were positive that his bedroom had to be next to yours as well. You tried to hear more, but nothing else penetrated the walls. It made you glad actually. If you would be able to hear him in his bedroom, sleep would turn out to be an impossibility to achieve.

This way, you closed your eyes, got comfortable and let your thoughts drift and wander. Not long after, you were dead asleep. Your dreams yet again haunted, but now, the usual scary mask of Ghoul was replaced with a solid black one and instead of clawing at a fully clothed head between your legs, your fingers tangled into soft honey blond curls.

_____________________________________________________

I hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading. Please consider interacting with this post and give me some feedback. Comments and reblogs always help not only to push my work that I love, but also help to improve my writing and get my imagination going.

Thank you for considering it <3

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slytherheign · 1 year

Text

FEARLESS | tasm!peter parker

PAIRING: high school senior!tasm!peter parker x high school senior!fem!reader

WORD COUNT: 4.5k

SUMMARY: loving peter in secret for far too long becomes exhausting for you when you think he will never love you back. in order to distract yourself from your growing feelings, you start to follow a friend’s suggestion—not knowing that it will only cause you harm.

WARNINGS: cursing/swearing, manipulation, fire, unhealthy obsession/toxic ex, and canon-typical violence. let me know if i missed any warnings. [⚠︎︎RATING: 16+]

AUTHOR’S NOTE: inspired by taylor swift’s song with the same title + i mixed it with a plot from this request sent by @willowhaired (thanks for requesting! hope it’s okay that i didn’t follow some things in your request. i changed some parts in order to match with taylor’s song). btw, this is angst with happy ending. enjoy reading!

DESTINATION: Sweet Street | GO BACK TO THE STATION. CLICK HERE FOR ALL THINGS FEARLESS (reviews, commentary, etc. about this fic).

“Class dismissed!” you heard your teacher announce. The rain that was pouring down outside was heavy and your eyes widened when you realized that you forgot to bring an umbrella. Your seatmate, Peter Parker, who just happened to be your neighbor and your biggest crush, turned to look at you. He seemed to notice the slight panic in your eyes. “Come with me,” he offered.

“Really?” you asked.

“Well, I have an umbrella and a car. You don’t…” he paused. “Unless you want to walk in the rain by yourself. It’s your choice,” he teased.

“Oh no–please,” you laughed. “I’ll go with you.”

“Come on then,” he said, putting your notebooks in your bag and then picking it up before he stood up. There he was again, being the gentleman that he was, doing the exact same things that made you fall in love with him.

You and Peter weren’t best friends, but you two were close. Being neighbors since you were children played a huge part in that. You would never tell him, but he was actually your first crush. The first boy who made your heart jump since then and until now. When you were 6 years old, you told him you loved him while you two were playing, you were too young to know the deep meaning of the word “love” back then. In response, he told you that he loved you too because you were like a little sister he never had.

You remembered that response as you grew up, always reminding yourself that he would never love you back in the same way you loved him. And because you were too scared to risk and lose the relationship you two had, you were fine with being his little sister as long as it meant getting to be close to him.

It hurt you. Being close to him but never close enough to touch him in the ways you wanted to. You have seen him get in and out of relationships, let him cry on your shoulders when someone broke his heart. You have always been there through ups and downs, offering advice to him for his relationships to work. Little did he know, your heart shattered each and every time.

You had a couple of ex-boyfriends, both of them breaking up with you before the relationship could even last a year. One of those men was Harry Osborn, who just happened to be Peter’s best friend. You were sad, of course, but it was probably better because you knew that you couldn’t give your all to those relationships. You tried to find Peter in those men you dated, and it was probably why those relationships didn’t work out.

Peter opened the umbrella in one hand while his other carried your bag; his bag was on his back. He made a gesture for you to come closer and you did. The rain was harsh but you paid it no mind, there was a glow off the pavement as he walked you to the car. He opened the door for you when he reached the car, and you went in immediately.

The close distance between the two of you and the confined space of the car made the smell of him strongly enter your senses. The sensation of his presence made the hair on your skin stand up unsolicitedly. As you drove down the road, you wondered if he knew just how you were trying so hard not to get caught up with your feelings and just kiss him. He was just so cool, he didn’t even realize how he absentmindedly made you want him when he ran his hands through his hair. God, how could a man be this beautiful?

It could get better than this, you knew that. It could get better than you longing for him behind the curtains. But you were terrified. You were deeply in love with him, but you could never imagine him loving you back.

After that rainy day, Peter offered to drive you home from school daily. You were hesitant, scared that the more time you’d spend with him, the more you’d hurt your heart. But before you could say no, your mouth muttered the opposite of what you wanted to say. You agreed.

You wished for more than the road trips, but for now, you would settle for the slow drives from the school to your home, capturing and remembering every moment you were in his passenger seat.

You knew you could always tell him what you truly felt, but it was always a matter of fear.

If there was one thing Peter knew about his enemies, it was that they always come for the ones he loved the most. That was why he didn’t tell anyone yet that he was in love with you. The only person who knew except himself was his best friend, Harry. He liked to believe that no secrets existed between the two of them. They were inseparable since the first year of high school when they first met each other. Right now, they were seniors and everything remained the same.

He could not be any more wrong. See, Harry was madly in love with you. When you dated him, he felt like the happiest man in the world but he always noticed that you loved another man. And when he saw the way you looked at Peter, he knew. He made plans in secret to hurt the two of you. If he couldn’t have you, then Peter couldn’t have you either.

For a while, he was skeptical of his plan. He didn’t want to do it anymore. He loved you and Peter was his best friend, he didn’t want to continue his plan any longer. Besides, the only thing he knew was that you were in love with Peter, his best friend probably didn’t feel the same towards you…

But then Peter decided to tell him that he was in love with you, and… well, that made him angry.

He decided his plan would continue.

You remained friends with Harry even after breaking up with him. The breakup was mutual and there were no hard feelings. Just yesterday, he made a joke that you have been single for a long time and that you should download a dating app. You disagreed immediately, telling him that you were never a fan of dating apps. But then he said something that changed your mind.

“You should at least try. Surely, you can’t wait for that person forever?”

He definitely knew you were in love with his best friend. And with the tone in his voice when he said that suggestion, it made you think that Peter didn’t feel the same. If there was someone who would know if Peter was in love with someone, it would be Harry. You knew they never kept secrets from each other.

So you did what he suggested. You downloaded a dating app, and in an instant, you were already matched with someone named Nick. You talked to him for months, pretending to be interested in every conversation he tried to start. Nick was nice, you shared a few hobbies and interests but he wasn’t Peter. It was hard to find someone when the only one your heart wanted was Peter.

And then Nick asked to meet up with you. You didn’t want to. You told Harry about it and he said to give it a go. “If you never try, you never know, right? Just wear your best dress and imagine it was Peter,” he advised. You smiled in return, before texting Nick to accept his offer.

A week prior to your meetup, you found yourself constantly texting Nick, just talking about each other’s lives casually.

Can’t wait to see you next week 😉

You chuckled a little bit as you entered Peter’s car. Another school day has ended. Peter entered the car next. You put your phone in your lap as you adjusted your seatbelt.

Just wear your best dress, and I’ll take care of the rest ❤️

Unbeknownst to you, Peter got a glimpse of your text messages. He felt his mood change in an instant, but he tried not to show it to you. However, it was very obvious because he did not talk to you for the whole ride home. He would glance at you every once and a while but you were too busy exchanging messages with Nick on your phone to notice.

“We’re here,” he said with no enthusiasm in his voice. He got out of the car before making his way to your side and opening the door for you. You quickly shut your phone off and got out of the car. “Thank you,” you smiled at him but he just nodded. He didn’t even look into your eyes. Maybe he was just having a bad day, you thought.

You knew something was off when he didn’t walk you up to your door. “Pete, is everything okay?” you asked.

“Huh? uh–yeah. Just having a bad day. Don’t wanna talk about it,” he answered simply.

“Oh okay…” you proceeded to go into your house. Something inside you wanted to go back to him but you stopped yourself before you could even run to where he was standing and hug him right there. He didn’t want to talk about it, he probably wanted to be alone at the moment.

“Thank you!” you yelled, smiling as you waved him goodbye from the door of your house. Peter met your eyes for the first time that day, he smiled a little before waving in return. He left as soon as you closed the door.

“How’s your day?” your mom asked you the moment you closed the door. “All fine,” you smiled, walking towards her before hugging her. “That was Peter again, right? What’s going on between you two?” she teased. You didn’t answer, and instead ran up the stairs and went straight to your room. Your mother laughed at your reaction.

You locked your room and changed into a more comfortable outfit. You repeated your mother’s question in your head as you sat on your bed. What really was going on between you and Peter? To be honest, you didn’t know. You still loved him. Your heart still called his name. Nick was just a distraction—a distraction you hoped would be enough to stop your growing feelings towards Peter.

Suddenly, a notification popped on your phone. A new message from Nick and Harry. You first opened Nick’s message, it was just the location for your meetup next week. The next one you opened was Harry’s.

Did Nick send you an address yet for next week? Can you update me?

You quickly typed a reply.

What a coincidence. He actually just sent me the address but it’s unfamiliar to me. Why do you want to know?

You saw the three dots on your phone that told you he was typing. It stopped for a long while, it was almost like he was contemplating what he was going to send. The dots showed up again after some time until he sent a message.

I think I know where that address is. Should I take you there?

He didn’t answer your question. Nonetheless, you were glad for his offer.

Really, you would do that? Thank you! ❤️

A WEEK LATER.

Peter was doing what he always did, sitting on a rooftop ledge as Spider-Man, looking at the city as he waited for someone who needed his help. Everything was peaceful for a while, it was just him, the wind, and the buzzing noises from cars and people. His eyes caught something familiar. A car heading into a part of New York where not many people went. It didn’t take him a long time to realize that it was Harry’s car. He swung quietly through buildings, settling on one where he could see the car more properly.

There you were, sitting in the passenger seat of a car heading into an almost abandoned part of the town. His senses immediately alerted him of danger. He watched as the car stopped in front of an abandoned house. He saw Harry guiding you into the house and he sneakily entered it from one of the windows. He settled behind a table, a place where he could observe you without you noticing.

You were wearing a black dress that highlighted the shape of your body. You already were beautiful for him, but seeing you in that dress made him aware that you were the most beautiful girl in the world. He could spend his day just staring lovingly at you if it wasn’t for the current situation.

He saw the confusion on your face as you looked around the empty building. It was then the moment Peter realized that today was the day you were meeting up with Nick. The only problem was Nick wasn’t here and it was just an empty building, and he could tell by the look of your face that you were close to panicking.

Just as Peter started to stand up and walk towards you, Harry entered the building with a wide smirk plastered on his face. Peter quickly returned to his hiding position.

You pulled out your phone from your purse and called the number Nick gave you. At the exact same time, you heard someone’s phone ringing in the building. You turned to where the sound was. It came from Harry, he was laughing. And then he showed you a phone in his hand with your name on it as the caller. You ended the phone call, and the ringing on Harry’s phone also stopped.

“Harry, what’s going on?” you started to take a few steps back. “Where’s Nick?”

“There’s no Nick,” he admitted, a sly smile showing on his face. “I made it all up.”

“But–why?” you were starting to tear up. This place was not familiar to you. The more you looked around, the more you realized that escaping was not an option. There was one open window but it was far from your position. There was also a huge fallen table blocking it.

Peter stood up from his position and silently moved closer to where you were. He took advantage of the shadows and his spider-like abilities to move without having any of you notice it. Suddenly, he felt his foot touch a liquid substance. It was gasoline, it came from a hose that was close to his hiding spot. His eyes tried to trace where the hose came from but his spot gave him a limited view. He knew it was from outside the house but he didn’t know exactly where.

In just seconds, the house smelled like gasoline, and the floor was flooded with it. Apparently, the hose that Peter discovered wasn’t the only one. There were a lot scattered around the house and they released the liquid substance at the same time.

“Do you smell that?” Harry snickered. “I know you do. It’s pretty cool, isn’t it? I planned this all by myself. I even installed the hoses.”

“Harry, what the fuck are you doing?” you questioned.

“Taking back what’s mine,” he replied. “I love you, Y/N. I never stopped.”

He stepped closer. “Take me back. Be with me again,” he demanded.

“You’re fucking insane. Get away from me.”

“And if I don’t want to?” he mockingly asked.

“Harry–stop. Please. We’re still friends, right? W-we can still be f-friends,” you shakingly tried to reason out. He only shook his head.

“Say you love me and you can still leave this house breathing,” he warned.

“Harry–”

“Say it.”

You shook your head, frustrated tears were coming out of your eyes.

“Say. It.”

“No–” you whispered.

“No?” he asked.

“No,” you answered sternly. You would rather die than spend your life stuck with him.

“Then you leave me with no choice but to–” he pulled out a lighter from his jacket. Your eyes widened.

Someone from the shadows shot out a web to Harry’s hand, preventing him to move his hand and light the object he held. Spider-Man soon stepped out of the shadows. “Get out, Y/N,” you heard Spider-Man demand you and you instantly ran straight to the door. You didn’t even dare to question how he knew your name.

The door was locked as expected. While Spider-Man and Harry fought, you tried to look around for something that would help you destroy the handle. Your eyes caught a crowbar covered in gasoline laying on the floor close to a wall. You made your way to it cautiously, careful not to let yourself get caught up with Harry and Spider-Man. For a moment, you saw the lighter escape Harry’s hand as Spider-Man punched his face but your focus was on the crowbar so you just let them deal with themselves.

You did your best to hit the door forcefully with the tool when you returned, but it was hard to break since the crowbar was covered in gasoline which made it slip from your hand almost every time. All of a sudden, Harry was able to retrieve the lighter and flicked it. As soon as the fire showed itself, he threw it on the floor.

The next thing you knew, the house was on fire and smoke filled the air. It was getting hard to breathe, even Harry was coughing weakly. You tried to shift your attention to the door again. This time, trying even harder to open it. You kicked, threw your body weight on it, and hit it with the crowbar again, but it only managed to do little to the door.

When the smoke increasingly spread in the house, Spider-Man felt that his mask was suffocating him. To be able to breathe more properly, Peter decided to remove the mask from his face. He wasn’t worried about showing his face, Harry was already passed out, and you were busy breaking down the door. Besides, he was already planning on telling you he was Spider-Man some of these days, he might as well do it now.

After a more few tries, you eventually managed to break the door handle and kick the door open. You were about to call Spider-Man to alert him but the words got stuck in your throat upon seeing his face.

Peter looked up as he felt you staring at him. “Get out of here, Y/N!” he yelled.

It seemed that your feet were stuck on the floor and your mind stopped making rational decisions because you stayed there in shock. “Peter?” you spoke.

“Y/N, GET OUT! LEAVE!” he yelled again. His voice made you jump and you instantly followed his demand. You left the house still thinking of him. You were already starting to walk to your house when your heart ached out of being worried for Peter. “Fuck it,” you whispered under your breath. You turned back, making your way back to the burning house. You called the authorities on the way.

Peter was still inside when you returned. You squinted your eyes, hoping to see more of him through the fire. He was carrying Harry, trying to get him out of the house but he was struggling because of the fire that surrounded him.

This was the part where the brain fought with the heart. Your mind was pleading for you to go home, save yourself, and get a good night’s sleep. But your heart insisted on staying, helping Peter, and putting yourself in danger.

Your heart only needed to softly whisper Peter’s name, and you were already all in.

And so, you entered the house fearlessly.

You used your arms to cover your head from the falling debris as you made your way to Peter. His eyes did a double take as soon as he saw you. “What the fuck are you doing here? Didn’t I tell you to leave?!” he questioned, worry and stress showing through his voice.

You ignored his questions and instead insisted on helping him carry Harry out of the house. You were both silent even after the job was done. For a while, it was just you, Peter, a passed-out Harry, the house that was on fire, and the sky that decided to rain.

After a few minutes, you heard the sirens that alerted you that the authorities were arriving at the scene. Peter looked at you as if to ask if you called them, and you nodded in response. He put on his mask again.

You watched as the firemen dealt with the burning house. Peter, now back to being Spider-Man, talked with the authorities about Harry and what happened. Harry was still passed out and being carried to an ambulance that would direct him to the hospital to get treated before he would face the consequences of his actions. As for you, you sat in the ambulance getting checked by the medics. You didn’t have any major injuries, just minor ones. When they offered to get you to the hospital just to be sure, you politely declined them and insisted on staying with Spider-Man.

It was as if the universe decided to help with the burning house because the rain decided to turn into a storm. You found a bench close to the house for you to sit on. The storm was getting harsher, but you refused to leave the place without Peter. You just crossed your arms to cope with the growing cold the wind delivered.

After waiting for a few more moments, the house wasn’t on fire anymore and the authorities left the scene for the day. As soon as they left, Peter removed the mask and walked towards the bench you were silently sitting on. “I would offer you a coat, but I don’t have one,” he stopped in front of you.

You looked up at him, standing up so you could look at him properly. “You okay?” you asked, noticing a few bruises on his face. “Yeah,” he nodded. “Are you?” he asked softly.

“I’m fine… still kind of shocked though. Didn’t expect my day to turn out like this,” you told him.

“Why were you using a dating app in the first place?” he asked jokingly.

You knew he was only teasing, but his question struck a nerve in you. To forget you, you wanted to say. Sorry for the mess, I only wanted to fucking forget you. Sorry for trying to move on. Sorry because I fucking love you.

Instead, you answered with another question. “Why didn’t you fucking tell me you’re Spider-Man?” your voice raised unintentionally.

His eyebrows furrowed with the tone of your voice. He tried to get closer to you but you stepped back, rolling your eyes. “Why is your ex fucking insane?!” he matched your attitude.

You scoffed. “Why is your best friend fucking insane?!”

“I–stop. Y/N,” he said softly. He realized from the way you were shaking that you were probably stressed and traumatized because of what happened. His suspicions were confirmed when you suddenly broke down crying. He instantly covered your fragile body with his frame. He hugged you tightly, letting you sob all the stress and frustration away. It was still storming, but none of you cared.

“Shhh,” Peter cooed. When your crying stopped, he held your face with his hands. “Why did you go back?” he asked, looking into your eyes.

“Because I wanted to help you,” you answered.

“And? I know that’s not the only reason you did it.”

You debated on whether to tell him the truth or lie your way out of the conversation. But after the stunt you pulled earlier, you knew Peter wasn’t stupid and would realize the truth sooner.

“Because I care for you. In ways I cannot describe,” you answered truthfully.

“Why do you care for me?” he asked.

“Peter…”

“I need you to say it,” he whispered close to your face. Your nose was close to touching his.

“I won’t because I know you don’t feel the same,” you closed your eyes.

“Open your eyes.”

You opened your eyes.

“Look at me.”

You did what he said.

“Say it.”

It was time to tell him, without fear.

“I love you.”

Peter smiled, before pulling your face closer to him and kissing you hard. Your eyes widened, not expecting him to kiss you. All along, you thought your love was one-sided, but the kiss you were sharing right now proved otherwise. It was your first kiss with him and it was flawless. You closed your eyes and deepened the kiss, you only pulled away when you needed to catch your breath.

“How are you feeling right now?” he smirked. “Did I kiss all your worries away?” he teased.

“I don’t think there’s a word that could do justice to what I’m feeling right now,” you chuckled. “I’m so happy–I feel like my heart is dancing. I could dance right now.”

“Really?” he asked, a clever smile showing up on his face. Suddenly, he offered a hand in front of you. “May I ask you for a dance?”

You accepted his offer. The only music was the storm as it loudly poured on the pavement, but none of you minded it. You swayed with him, giggling as you stared fondly at each other.

You were wearing your best dress, dancing with Peter in a harsh cruel storm, taking each other’s hands as you both drag yourselves head first into your lives and hearts. To be honest, you didn’t how it would get better than this.

“Can I tell you something, Y/N?” he asked, gracefully turning you.

“Of course,” you smiled.

“My heart races for you so fast that I just need to let this out–I love you. I love you so much. I want to spend every day with you. When you’re sad, I want to be the one you run to. When you’re happy, I want to be the reason why. When you’re sick, I want to be the one who takes care of you. When you’re in trouble, I want to be the one who saves you.”

You stroked his cheek lovingly. “I love you too, Peter. I’ve admired you ever since we were children and up until now. When I think of my future and who I want to spend it with–it’s you. It’s always been you. I’m afraid of rejection, that was why I didn’t tell you the moment I knew I have feelings for you. I was always scared that you would turn me down. That’s why all these years I chose to love you behind your back. But now… now that all’s been said and done, I’m not afraid anymore. If what you’re asking me is to enter your life as your partner, then I’ll do it fearlessly.”

He turned you one last time, before putting a hand on your back and on the back of your thigh, gently bending you backwards so he could kiss you deeply once again. Each time he pulled you in his arms, you got a little more brave. As it turned out, all it took for your heart to not be fearful was Peter.

Love really was fearless.

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