#will eventually put this on ao3 but may take some days~ | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

swordsandholly · 19 days

Text

Across the Way

Chapter 4: New and Old Problems Alike

Retired!Ghoap x Fem!Fat!Reader

Ao3 | Previous - Next | Masterlist

MDNI | cw: fainting, some medical inaccuracies

Word Count: 5.8k

Summary: You go to Scotland with high hopes for your future. After all, you have the bakery you always dreamed of and a whole new life to live. Plus, the men who own the butcher’s shop across the street seem nice.

You haven’t texted them, even three days later. That little sticky note haunts the surface of your kitchen counter. It taunts you - tells you that you should text them and at least give them your number. That you’re being a terrible neighbor. They might need you too, after all. Even though you can’t figure out why they might for the life of you. On the other hand, you can’t help but feel wary about it. Men don’t take an interest in you - people in general rarely take interest. It’s hard not to feel suspicious, as pure as you’re sure their intentions probably are.

More so than any of that, you don’t know what to say. If it had been day one you could have just put your name, but now you feel like you need to explain. Or at least be funny or something. Tossing and turning on your designated rest day about what the hell you should do.

You’re overthinking it. You know that. You can’t stop, either.

They just seem so cool - so put together. So unlike you. You want to impress them. You don’t want to ruin the first possibility of friends in this new life you’re building for yourself.

Eventually you work up the courage to send off an initial text to each of them. Just to give them your name to save if they so choose - plus an extra thank you to Simon for giving you their numbers in the first place. Something simple and borderline cold. Too cold, maybe? Maybe you sound irritated. You hope not. You just want them to like you. Friends in new places are hard and to have someone around you who gets how it feels to need accommodations would just feel so… lovely. Your phone may or may not go flying onto your bed while you bury your face in your hands out of sheer nervousness.

You don’t expect it to chime about a minute later. Right as you’re staring to calm down, of course. It sends your heart violently pounding all over again.

J >> Bonnie lass!

J >> So glad u texted!!

>> Sorry it took so long lol

Oh, you could just slap yourself. You don’t have anything better than that? At all? Christ.

J >> Nah Nah

J >> No worries

J >> Actually I was wondering if u would mind if I came by tomorrow

J >> Just to chat

J >> need an excuse to get out of the house

“How the hell does he type that fast?” You scoff to yourself.

>> Yeah, come by anytime.

>> totally

>> yea sounds cool

>> rad, man

A message from Simon pops up mid your internal battle with how to respond, replying with a simple thumbs up. Very in character, you think. He knows how to be nonchalant. What would Simon say? Something casual, maybe a little formal.

>> If you like. You’re always welcome.

Okay maybe that was too much like Simon. You sigh heavily m before adding,

>> I’m trying out a new blueberry loaf

>> If you want to test for me :)

Better. That’s a little better. With another heavy sigh you decide to drop your phone into your nightstand for the rest of the day. Your heart really cannot handle this much emotional pressure.

~~~

You sort of end up just forgetting about the texts. With your phone out of sight and out of mind upstairs in your apartment it almost catches you off guard when Johnny comes striding through the door just before close. He’s dressed more casually than the last couple of times you saw him - having broken out the summer shorts and a graphic tee for some band you don’t recognize. It suits him, though.

“Hey, bon.” He grins.

“Hey.” You smile back, finishing with putting up your stocking baskets before dusting off your hands and turning around. “Simon closing up?”

“Aye.”

You hum. “Come on back, I’ll get you a slice of that loaf I mentioned.”

Johnny follows you quietly. Uncharacteristically quietly. That’s okay - you don’t have a problem with hanging out in silence. It doesn’t feel tense, surprisingly enough. He leaves Riley out front again. Should you get her a dog bed? Maybe if he comes by consistently. That would be nice. Maybe that’s wishful thinking.

“It’s sort of a pound cake but fluffier. I might make an icing for it but I don’t know if that would be too sweet…” You trail off, focusing on plating up the piece. You’re not sure what compels you to try and make it pretty for him. Probably something you could blame on your grandmother. She did have an obsession with presentation.

Johnny hums loudly after taking a bite, talking around the mouthful. “Y’should totally make an icing.” He swallows roughly. “Si would go crazy fer this.”

“Oh?” You smile. “I’ll send some home with you.”

There’s a lapse of silence while Johnny chews on his slice of bread and you pack up some in a paper bag for him to take home. The only sounds in the room comprised of your cutting and folding and the hum of the cooling oven.

“You’re being weirdly quiet.” You blurt, immediately covering your mouth with your hand. “I, uh, I mean that isn’t a bad thing! I don’t mind… I just, uh, was… sorry, never mind…”

“Well I did come wit’ a bit of an ulterior motive…” Johnny admits, glancing off to the side shyly. It’s a show, you think. Johnny doesn’t seem the type of man to have felt shy a day in his life.

You tilt your head. “Oh?”

He dusts off his hands and grins. “Let us take ye out! In celebration of yer first full month.”

Has it been a month already? “Oh - no, no you don’t have to-“

“C’mon! It’s a big accomplishment.” His smile is so bright that you almost believe his idea that you’ve done something great.

“…alright.” You give a tentative smile. It’s hard to believe they like you enough to want to hang out casually in the evening. Hard to imagine anyone liking you that much but you’re not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“There’s a pub down the street - the one on the corner. Want tae meet us there around six?” Johnny gives you that lovely smile. How could you ever say no to a smile like that?

“Okay.”

You spend far too long changing in and out of clothes and fussing with your hair. Up-do’s and buns and braids. A tank top then a sweater then a t-shirt. There’s no reason to feel this stressed over it. It’s not a date or anything. Besides, it doesn’t seem to make a difference. Either way you look like a frumpy dumpling. Eventually you land on jeans and one of your designated ‘going out tops.’ At least it’s a good excuse to wear something other than work clothes or loungewear.

Excitement and anxiety thrum under your skin like electricity as you make your way down the street. You feel painfully nauseous - stopping once or twice just to make sure you aren’t about to throw up for real.

The pub is surprisingly quiet when you enter. Obviously somewhere only real locals hang out - there’s no theme or really any decor in general. Just a bar, some booths and a couple pool tables. You scan the floor a few times, not seeing either Johnny or Simon (not that they would be hard to miss). Eventually you just grab a soda from the bar and slide into one of the booths closer to the back. A quiet spot facing the door where you can easily watch for them.

As time ticks on you begin to grow increasingly nervous. Did you get the time wrong? No, no you triple checked. You even wrote it down in your planner. Your leg begins to bounce furiously, heart nearly beating out of your chest. Did they decide to ditch? You wouldn’t really blame them. They’re way out of your league when it comes to friends. Maybe Johnny had an emergency? Should you call Simon? If he had an emergency it would make sense that they would forget to notice you. What if something really bad happened? What if-

The front door opens and Simon’s wide frame strides through, holding the door for Johnny and Riley to come in behind him. You let out a quiet sigh of relief, willing your leg to stop bouncing with a pinch to your thigh. Why are you always so damn dramatic?

Johnny lights up with an ear to ear grin when he spots you, bee-lining for the booth while Simon casually walks up to the bar. It’s almost comedic, the way he dwarfs the counter. Johnny leans on the side of the booth, waiting for Simon, you think.

“Glad ye could come out.” He looks you over, eyes flicking from your plain top to the very practical, not at all stylish up do that you landed on for the evening.

You do your best not to squirm under his gaze. “Me too…”

Simon comes back with two beers in hand and slides them onto the table. He scoots into the inner booth to give Johnny the outer edge. Riley happily sits beside his leg and practically grins at you in a near mirror image of Johnny’s. You’d never do it while she’s on the job, of course, but part of you wants to give her a pat on the head and coo at her for being so polite.

Johnny gives you an apologetic smile. “Sorry we were a bit late-”

“Johnny redid his hair about five times.” Simon butts in, not reacting at all to Johnny’s sputtering protest. He glances at your half-drunk soda. “Want me t’ grab you a beer?”

“Oh, no, I’ll just stick to coke.”

They blink at you. Simon cocks his head slightly. “You sure?”

You chew your lip. “Uh, alcohol tends to aggravate my symptoms is all...”

“Then why’d ye agree to drinks? We coulda gone somewhere else.” Johnny frowns.

You shrug. “I don’t mind. I… maybe this is over sharing but I’d rather go out and be kind of normal than just… not ever. Y’know?”

His expression softens. For having such icy blue eyes they are so, so warm. “I get it.”

“How’d you two meet anyway?” You blurt, taking a left turn to get the conversation off of you. It’s the first question that comes to mind. Maybe it’s rude - maybe you’re prying too much already.

“Military.” Simon grunts. “SAS.”

“Si retired wit’ me after I was discharged.” Johnny points to his scar the same way he did when you first met. “Russians scrambled my egg a bit.”

“Couldn’t do the time apart…” Simon murmurs, eyes locked on Johnny’s face. It’s vulnerable. More than he’s used to - you can see it in the way he tenses after saying it.

Something passes between them that a deep, wounded part of you desperately wishes to understand.

You can’t help but start giggling to yourself. They both give you an incredulous look. “Sorry, sorry - it’s just, that’s like… totally a romance book premise. It’s sweet. Really.”

“Och, aye. Wouldn’t know it t’ look at him but Si’s a real romantic.” Johnny bats his eyes at the other man, who just rolls his in response. The corner of his scarred mouth quirks up subtly.

“SAS…” You repeat, staring at your drink. “That’s like Navy Seal shit, right?”

“We worked with them a few times, yes.” Simon nods. There’s an air of ‘do not ask anything more specific’ in his voice.

“Huh.” You take that for what it is and sit back, squinting at them. “You don’t look it, honestly.”

Johnny laughs. “Tha’s just cause ye havennae seen Simon with his gear on. The Ghost.” He wiggles his fingers along as he makes a stupid, spooky sound effect. “I domesticated him.”

Simon scoffs but doesn’t deny it, just takes a quiet sip of his beer.

“Riley’s a vet, too.” Johnny pats her head. “Got too skittish around loud noises but she transitioned into a service dog nicely.”

“Now she’s just spoiled.” Simon rolls his eyes in faux annoyance. You get the strong feeling that he’s the one doing the spoiling.

You find yourself relaxing as the night goes on. Slouching in your seat rather than sitting ramrod straight and nervously twiddling your thumbs. They never press you to drink, never insist that you’ll be fine with just one. They take your statement as fact and it isn’t brought up again. That shouldn’t be as significant as it is, now that you think about it.

Johnny’s words begin to slur a little bit on his fourth, no maybe fifth, beer. You aren’t sure. It’s very cute, the little blush that forms across his cheeks. Simon loosens up, too. He slings an arm around the back of the booth and Johnny readily tucks himself into the open spot. You find yourself wondering about their military career again. You can’t picture either of them committing violence - especially Simon. Sure, he’s big and gruff but he looks at Johnny so, so softly.

Simon is the one to call it a night - though you have a feeling its because you nodded off a couple times. Not out of boredom, you try really, really hard to pay attention to Johnny rambling about the chemistry of different explosives. He makes it interesting, somehow. Really it’s just that you’ve been awake for… holy shit almost twenty hours!

“D’you need a ride?” Simon asks as you exit the pub, hands firmly shoved into his pockets.

“No, I’ll be fine.” You don’t know how to interpret the look he’s giving you. It’s intense, but not annoyed or displeased. He has such a weird knack for unreadable but distinct expressions. You wonder if you’ll ever get close enough to get good at deciphering them.

You jump when Johnny takes both your hands in, kissing the backs of them with a sloppy, drunk smile. “Thank ye fer comin’ out. “

Somehow your face feels hotter than a damn oven. You tuck your hands to your chest, kicking shyly at the sidewalk. “Th-thanks for the invite. We, uh, we could do it again sometime?”

You glance up hopefully, praying that you didn’t misread the situation. You’ve done that before - thought people liked you more than they did. Johnny just grins wider somehow and nods excitedly.

You watch them walk off in the other direction, hand in hand. Johnny giggles about something loudly and you can see Simon’s shoulders shake with a far more silent laugh. All the way until they disappear down the street.

The sheer amount that the image hurts your heart makes you feel evil.

~~~

The pub changed something. What, you don’t know. Either way, you fall into an easy pattern with Johnny and Simon over the next couple weeks. Exchanges of food, leftovers or morsels about to turn, little visits back and forth between your shops. Johnny continues to stop by after close, just hanging around with you while Simon closes up shop.

You can’t deny how much you look forward to hearing that door chime followed by a too-loud greeting from Johnny. How your heart flips in your chest when those bright blue eyes peek around the corner into the back room or light up while trying a new recipes you’ve been testing. You’re still a bit awkward - unsure how to react when he throws an arm around your shoulders or listens oh so intently while you talk about nothing important.

Things can’t ever be all sunshine and rainbows, though. Not for you. A new problem has arisen as summer truly sets in - the comfortable spring breezes giving way to nothing but bright, unfiltered sun. One you didn’t expect to impact you this much living this far north.

Heat.

It’s hard to breathe in the back room while you’re baking. Hard to keep your water and salt intake high enough to compensate for how fast you lose them. You might as well get a permanent saline drip attached to you at this point. You definitely didn’t google if that was physically possible. Your budget for liquid IVs and other supplements nearly doubles. Standing over the massive oven in the back room has your head swimming a few times. You end up resting longer on your weekends, unable to keep up like you could in cooler weather.

It’s okay, you tell yourself, the summer here isn’t like back home. It will pass quicker. Plus, you at least have methods of dealing with it now other than crossing your fingers and praying.

“Bonnie!” Johnny suddenly appears in your doorway - that charming smile splitting his face from ear to ear. “Ye made it up Main Street yet?”

“No?” You tilt your head and try to ignore the way your vision spots momentarily at the motion. “Why?”

“Ye dinnae hear about the summer festival?” He leans on your counter. You shake your head. “It’s a yearly thing. Not that big a deal but they have some fun games an’ it’s nice tae see everyone out an’ about. Si an’ I are about tae head down. Come wit’?”

You hesitate. The exhaustion in your body tugs at your spine. Your limbs feel heavy. This morning really got to you - out of towners who must have come for the festival flooded your shop the moment it opened on top of your Saturday regulars. Not that you’re complaining, really. It’s easily your best day so far. You want to go with them, though, despite the ache in your back and the sting in your joints. It sounds so fun and it’s never a bad idea to take part in your new community’s festivities.

“Yeah. That sounds nice.” You smile. You can tough it out for an hour, then come back home. Yeah, just an hour. You’ll be fine.

You hadn’t noticed Simon leaned up at the entrance to your shop. Your eyes lock on his arms. This is the first time you’ve actually seen him in short sleeves. You can’t help but stare at his half-sleeve tattoo - all skulls and bombs and other military motifs. Faded and sun worn. Yeah, if you’d seen that sooner you definitely would have picked up on the whole military thing. You bite your lip to keep from snickering about it.

You can hear the music drifting from the speakers down the street. A few kids run by with balloons and cheap carnival prizes. It almost reminds you of the Spring Fling back home, just missing the extreme American flag theming across every booth and vendor front. Now that you’re looking around, you can actually see several booths that have been sponsored by various businesses in the area. Even the post office has a snow cone stand. The deeper you get into the event, the more flamboyant the decor becomes. Multicolored streamers and pennet flags connect stands, creating an almost canopy effect.

Simon stops rather abruptly at a booth, waiting behind a few teenagers tossing rings onto bottles. You stop with Johnny about two feet away. What’s he thinking? Simon doesn’t seem like the type who would be too entertained by basic carnival games. Even so, he steps forward and passes over a couple bills to the vendor as soon as the teenagers leave.

“Si’s really good at these. Watch.” Johnny grins beside you.

“Aren’t they rigged?” You raise an eyebrow.

Johnny doesn’t answer, eyes locked on his husband as he lines up one of the rings. You have to lean slightly to see around the breadth of the man - the multicolor rings almost cartoonishly small in his hands. Cute. Your eyes get impossibly wide with each toss, every single one landing comfortably on the bottle necks as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. As if this isn’t one of the most commonly rigged carnival games.

“Holy shit…” You mutter, still staring.

“Aye, tha’s a SAS sniper for ye.” Johnny laughs. “Glad tae see it still comes in handy.”

Simon huffs out a quiet laugh at that. Almost more of a sigh if it weren’t for the shaking of his shoulders. You love it - their little dynamic. The bond between them that’s so strong it’s almost visible.

“‘ere.” Simon turns to you suddenly, holding out a cheap little carnival prize. You can’t even begin to decipher what it’s supposed to be - some sort of furry puff ball with big, embroidered anime eyes and two felt antennae sticking up out of it’s purple head… body… thing…

Your face heats. “F-, uh, me?”

He shrugs. “Suits you. Riley will just chew it up if we take it home.”

“Aye. She’s so good with everythin’ but cheap plushies.” Johnny snickers.

You glance down at the dog in question - her dark eyes glued to the toy in Simon’s hand. Her tail thumps against the ground where she sists dutifully, but you can see the desire to snatch the thing away in her twitchy ears and pleading eyes. You snort, taking the stupid thing and tucking it under your arm with the prayer that they don’t notice the heat now spreading from your cheeks to your ears.

“Thanks…” you murmur, already mentally deciding where to add it to the mess of stuffies covering your bed already.

Somehow you end up walking between them down the street - Simon on your left and Johnny on your right with Riley in tow. You stop at a few other games here and there. All pretty basic. Johnny absolutely kills at the dunk booth.

Simon tires his hardest to help you with your terrible aim, “Just visualize it. Y’have t’ account for the arc.”

You get to the point of sticking your tongue out in concentration. Even so you only manage to knock down a couple of the wooden ducks at the ‘Dunk-A-Duck’ stand. You do, however, win one of those rock candy sticks at the guessing booth. You just hand it off to Johnny. It’s probably not best to load up on sugar in your current state.

Johnny excitedly points to different buildings giving you a rundown of the history of his hometown as you walk. Simon seems to barely be listening. He’s probably heard this a thousand times. Prattling on about the old town square, the church bell that a bunch of teenagers spray painted one time (Johnny was not involved, how could you accuse him of that?)

You find yourself focusing on your feet - keeping each step even and fast enough to remain on pace with them. One, two, one, two, one, two. The air begins to thicken. Muggy and heavy on your skin. Your breaths become shallow and fast. You can’t catch it, the air seeming to get stuck in your throat rather than reaching your lungs. Spots begin to dance across your vision. You stumble over nothing.

Not now! Come on! You’ve been doing so well!

Riley presses against your leg acting as a counter weight. Your body moves on instinct to grab whatever you can - hands wrapping around something strong and covered with cloth. An arm solid as rebar. Hopefully it’s someone you know. All you can see are colorless shapes.

“Gonna pass out - don’t freak!” You gasp before your legs give out.

It’s not that you go entirely out - it’s rare that you fully black out. It’s more like being stuck. Limp and fuzzy and confused. Almost like sleep paralysis. There’s voices and people moving around you. Someone has picked you up, you think, based on the swaying motion and the passing shapes around you. Maybe that’s just vertigo. A door bell chimes.

You finally begin to really come to when something icy is pressed to your forehead. It couldn’t have been more than a handful of seconds that you were gone, but it takes much longer for the world around you to come back into focus.

“I’m sorry…” You murmur, eyes stinging. Even after all these years it’s so damn embarrassing. You blink, the distinct mural that decorates the ceiling of the post office slowly coming into view. Johnny said a big time traveling artist painted it back in the nineties.

“Ye alright?” Johnny murmurs, crouched down beside you. Riley sniffs at your hand, seeming satisfied when you finally move it on your own.

You nod slowly. “Overheated…”

“Give her this.” Someone says. An event medic, you think. The boys must have flagged them down. Fingers press to your pulse point, a light shines in your eyes and you follow it. A quick check of vitals. Johnny shoves a water bottle in your hand as soon as the medic decides you’re fine to move - the contents distinctly murky from some sort of electrolyte pack that’s been shaken into it.

“Up y’get. Slowly does it.” Simon helps you sit up with a hand on your back. It’s so gentle. You don’t miss how he cages in your body the way only someone intimately familiar with caretaking might. Fully ready to catch you if you go limp again.

You sip slow, eyes glued to the ground. You feel so fucking stupid. Can’t even walk down a street without creating some sort of scene. They’re never going to want to hang out with you again, are they? You can’t go out drinking, can’t walk around a festival for longer than a couple hours. You distracted Riley. What if something happened to Johnny while you were having your spell? She might not have alerted correctly because of you. She might have gotten confused and then he could have gotten hurt. He might have-

“Ye really should drink tha’ instead of glarin’ at it.” Johnny pulls you from your thoughts. He’s now sat with his legs crossed beside you. Riley’s head rests in his lap. She seems calm. Content now that the emergency is over and happily lying on a cool floor.

You hum, chugging the last bit of it quickly. “I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be.” Simon says curtly. “Does this ‘appen often?”

You shrug. “Not as much anymore… usually my medication keeps me stable.”

“Do ye need a doctor?” Johnny tilts his head slightly. There’s no judgment in his tone - in either of their tones. Just calm concern. It probably shouldn’t make you want to cry as much as it does.

You shake your head. “I’ve got liquid IV at home. Just need to sleep it off.”

Hopefully. In reality, a pain flare up is inevitable now. You just won’t know how bad until you’re fully in it.

“Let’s get ye home.” Johnny says, knees popping as he stands.

“I-I’m fine!” You insist, mentally preparing to get yourself up off the floor. “I can get home on my own - I don’t want to ruin your time.”

Johnny levels his gaze onto you, so serious it almost looks angry. It doesn’t match his face. “We’re not leavin’ ye tae get home alone like this.”

You’re caught off guard when an arm slides under your back and another under knees - lifting you like you weigh half of what you do in reality. Like you’re a paperweight instead of a boulder. You blink up at Simon, far too surprised to be embarrassed. At least at first. You splutter out a poor attempt at convincing him to put you down. Excuse and reason after reason and excuse. They roll off him like water off a ducks back. Your face burns as he steps out of the post office with you neatly tucked against his chest - Johnny and Riley in tow.

If you allow yourself to be honest, to give into that weaker part of you (or, at least, the part you consider to be weak) you could possibly admit that this feels nice. Being cared for feels nice. Having your body up against someone else feels nice. It’s been a long time since anyone touched you outside of a polite handshake or accidental bump. You sink into it despite yourself - relaxing against Simon’s chest. They were right, you wouldn’t have made it back. Your head is too fuzzy and there’s that telltale pain in your shoulders radiating up to your neck that signifies an oncoming Bed Day.

It doesn’t take long with Simon’s lengthy strides to get back to your building. You probably wouldn’t have been able to keep up to that running. Well, you can’t really run much at all so you definitely wouldn’t. A stupid, muddled train of thought that melts into the hazy bog of your current mental state. Even Johnny trails a few feet behind. Neither of them speak, marching in determined silence. You attempt to subtly check their faces for any anger. You’d understand if they were angry. Most people would get angry. You interrupted their day out with your useless drama. All you get is a wide, bright grin from Johnny when your eyes eventually meet his.

Simon puts you down with all the care in the world. As if you’re made of fine china. His hand stays on your upper back - planted firmly between your shoulder blades and ready to catch you if need be. Your vision swims a bit, your joints feel like jelly but you manage to dig your keys out of your pocket and unlock the door.

“Here.” Johnny plops the puff ball back into your hands just as you turn to say goodbye. To say thank you - to apologize profusely.

Your brows raise. You completely forgot about it while swimming around in a sea of embarrassment - he must have picked it up for you. You hug it to your chest with a quiet, “Thanks.”

You shift your weight side to side, psyching yourself up for the crawl up the stairs. Probably literally. You don’t think you could stay upright if you tried to walk them like a regular day, or even with an aid. Like a regular or semi-regular person. Fuck.

Johnny follows your eyes up at the staircase. He must sense some hesitation in you. “Do ye need help up?”

You bite your lip, staring at the ground. Standing in one place seems alright, but the thought of climbing is so daunting, even with the cane you have stationed at the bottom of the steps for that exact purpose. It’s embarrassing. You’re young, you should be able to walk up some damn stairs. It isn’t even that many. It’s barely a full flight. Just one story of stairs for fuck’s sake.

“Hey.” Simon touches your cheek, the action snapping your eyes to his in surprise. “It’s okay. C’mere.”

He picks you up again in the same fashion with barely a grunt, taking his time up the steps so as not to jostle you. How many times has he done this with Johnny? you wonder. That’s the only explanation for how good he is at keeping your equilibrium so even. You wonder if he practiced - if he took caretaking classes. He probably did. Does he keep up at the gym just so he can take care of his husband? Simon might be quiet and a little formal, but he exudes dedication.

“Sorry it’s messy…” You murmur when they reach the top of the steps. Glancing behind you, you see Riley sitting patiently at the bottom. Johnny must have told her to stay. “Haven’t gotten to fully unpack…”

You’ve been spending too much time in bed on the weekends. Fucking lazy.

Johnny just laughs. “Ye shoulda seen the first place Simon an’ I had.”

“Wasn’t that bad.” Simon argues, carefully setting you down on the couch. His hands hold your waist to steady you. They’re so warm… It feels wrong to be disappointed when he lets go.

“We hadnae figured out a system yet.” Johnny huffs, hands on his hips. “We ended up hirin’ a specialized maid service the dishes got so backed up.”

You scoff, laying back against the couch with that stupid carnival prize still in your arms. Like it’s the only thing grounding you to reality. The tears that have been stinging your eyes this entire time continue to threaten to spill - a myriad of blinks and careful breaths the only thing keeping them back.

Johnny sits beside you slowly. You can’t meet his eyes. “Do… do ye want tae tell us what it is? Ye donnae have tae - it’s up tae ye. Just if somethin’ happens again…”

“We’d like to be prepared.” Simon jumps in where Johnny trails off.

You chew your lip, still staring up at the ceiling. It splits and that coppery taste coats your tongue for a moment. “I, uh, it’s called POTS. There’s different types but basically my body can’t regulate blood flow and pressure right…” You shrug. “Like I said my medication usually keeps me mostly okay.”

It’s the pain that really gets to you usually, but you don’t need to start dumping on them about that. There’s no reason to spill your guts about things they can’t fix.

“Thanks fer tellin’ us.” Johnny smiles. You stiffen slightly when he reaches out to tuck some hair behind your ear. You tilt your head, still resting on the back of the couch, to meet his eye. “Get some rest, yeah? We’ll lock the knob behind us. Call if ye need anythin’.”

“Okay.” You nod, keeping your eyes down and picking at your nails. “Sorry… about all this… I didn’t - I don’t… I’m sorry.”

“Donnae apologize.” He says softly as he stands. “Never apologize. We’re your friends, aye? Friends help friends. Tha’s all there is to it.”

Simon gives you a discerning nod behind him, expression both soft and deeply serious.

Friends? They consider you real life proper friends? Really? You can’t help but beam up at him. “Yeah.”

A/N: I’ve re-read this chapter so many times that it’s total mush in my brain which tells me it’s time to be done with it.

Bonus: I made a Pinterest board for this fic

373 notes · View notes

nyonyen · 3 months

Note

may i request a smut to fluff fic with Nyen?? :3

MORNING CIGARETTE

nyen x f!reader | AO3 | 18+ ᴛᴀɢs: semi-public, dirty talk, creampie, vaginal fingering, s/m dynamics, lil bit of blood & choking, eventual fluff

Nyen pushed you against the wall, forearm pinned under your chin— causing you to drop the carton of eggs you were holding. You could smell his morning beer on his breath as he leaned to seemingly menace you, “What do you think you’re doing?”

You laugh slightly as you take in his usual disheveled appearance, and how you could never take Nyen too seriously with that silly hat on, “I was about to make some breakfast for everyone, and you?”

He hums, the corner of his mouth rising, “Oh, yeah? Then why’s my last thing of cigs stuffed in your back pocket?”

Shrugging, you roll your eyes, “How else am I gonna get my fix? It’s not like you guys let me go out on my own. Randal hates it when we go to that convenience store, anyways.”

“What exactly made you think…” Nyen fully smirks at this point, “That you could steal my shit?”

As his forearm digs even further into your throat, you find it difficult to return the same amount of playfulness— the lack of oxygen will do that to someone. Your lips fall apart slightly, and your breath comes out in short gasps. He loved seeing you in such a pitiful position and suddenly licks a stripe up your cheek.

“I can practically taste your guilt right now,” he whispers, eyes taking in every micro-expression of yours as you stay silent, “You don’t have anything to say?”

Your gaze falls downwards to look at the now cracked eggs spilled on the tile, but you quickly look back up at Nyen as he presses his lips against yours in a forceful kiss. It seemed he had bigger things to worry about than the groceries Luther had so lovingly purchased the day prior.

His limbs moved from pinning you to gripping your shoulders, and you were finally to take a real inhale, albeit through your nose. Your hands move up to grip his shirt as well, pulling him as close as possible to you. You felt his claws digging in, and you whimpered loudly into the teeth-clashing embrace.

“You’re such a fucking tease, (Y/N).”

Smiling in a daze, you hum, “What’re you gonna do about it?”

Flipping you around suddenly, with your cheek now pressed against the wall, you hear him practically growl, “Put you in your damn place, like you’re begging for…”

You feel your pants getting pulled down unceremoniously, the enigmatic pack of cigarettes falling out of them. He ignores this, despite their seemingly obvious importance to him, and instead focuses on your newly revealed panties. Nyen chuckles, flicking his wrist as a single claw rips the thin fabric from your hips.

You gasp, muffled, “Hey, what gives?!”

“Just shut up.”

Smiling to yourself at his callous words, you inhale sharply as two of his fingers roughly enter you, without any prior lubrication. Thankfully, your increased arousal by simply being near Nyen was enough to ease the pain.

He leans over your shoulder, nipping at your neck as his fingers stretch you open at a breakneck pace, “Knew you were gonna be this easy when I finally got you, such a slut…”

Groaning as his tongue flitted over the bites he left on your neck, you rock back to meet his fingers. Chuckling again, he curls his fingers especially harshly. Your knees shake as he continues, falling into the rhythm of it all.

Suddenly, he leaves you empty and wanting. The sound of him leaving your wetness has you shudder, now becoming acutely aware of your surroundings, “Hey, maybe we should go somewhere else— ah!”

He cuts you off with a slap to your exposed entrance, the sound even louder than the one you had worried about, “I told you to shut up. We’re doing this my way.”

You bite your lip, not wanting to risk his genuine anger, but also not wanting to risk Randal or Nyon walking in— or worse, Luther. Who knows what any of them would say? Pulling you from this disastrous line of thinking, Nyen unzips his jeans— hissing gently as the cool air meets his hardness.

He steps closer, rubbing himself against you while groaning, “Been wanting so long for this, you don’t even know…”

Pressing inside gently, you both let out your own unique choruses of noises. He fully sheathes inside of you, pressing his hips flush against yours with a contented sigh. His nails leave crescents in your waist as he begins to thrust— Nyen couldn’t help but stare at the way he repeatedly entered your warmth. He also couldn’t help but think about how long it had been since he had done this.

“You’re so tight for me,” he choked out a moan as you clenched around him even further, “Yeah, keep squeezing, just like that…”

His claws subconsciously flex into your flesh, drawing blood as you almost mewl at the mixture of pleasure and pain. Nyen bites his lip to hold back a moan as he starts to see the red drip from your skin, you were so perfectly vulnerable.

The angle at which he was fucking into you was perfect, his length aimed up to continuously meet that spot inside of you. You felt your knees tremble yet again, but his vice grip on you made sure you wouldn’t fall. Reaching down, you start to rub at your clit roughly, not caring if he would laugh at your desperation as you assumed he would.

In fact, he encouraged you— in his own special way, “That’s right, get yourself off while I fuck you like the slut you are.”

You mewl as his thrusts pick up, and you speed your movements up as well— both of you were close. Nyen moves his hand from digging into your skin up to pulling your hair, making you cry out loudly. He pulls enough to be able to lick the shell of your ear, nipping as he goes.

“Gonna finish all the way inside,” his breath is hot against your ear, “I know you want it.”

Nodding vehemently, you started to meet his thrusts to the best of your ability, “Please, please…”

“Fucking knew it,” Nyen grits his teeth as his pace becomes sloppy and rushed, so eager to finish deep inside of you.

You continue to cry out as you feel yourself coming apart as he fucks into you harshly— his constant mutterings of both insults and praise, let alone his painful embraces, had that knot inside of you unfurl.

He almost growls as he feels your release causing you to clamp down on him further, and he soon follows suit. His movements stutter inside of you, and he quickly lets go of your hair as he slumps against you. Nyen’s breath is labored as he slowly pulls out, arm wrapped under your waist so you don’t fall from the sudden change.

You craned your neck to look at him, and he was a sight: hat discarded, hair tousled, and skin flush. He leans to kiss you deeply as he lets you turn around fully to meet him— the two of you quickly redressing as you embrace.

Separating, your lidded eyes met his, “You’re gonna have to buy me another pair of panties, and another carton of eggs for the house, you know.”

“Alright, fine,” Nyen shrugs, zipping his fly, “But only if you give me back my cigarettes.”

Humming in faux thought, you smirk, “Maybe, if you help me make something else for breakfast, and have a smoke with me after?”

“I can get behind that.”

To sweeten the pot even further, Nyen helps you clean up the eggs he made you spill. It ended up being better, as he ended up burning the pancakes he insisted on making for the family. You opted to just set out some Eggo waffles on the table with the various toppings you knew everyone liked.

The two of you sat on the front porch, with him tearing open the fresh pack and you waiting with the lighter. You light the cigarette for him, and he lights yours as you watch the sun’s rays start to hit the morning dew.

Taking a drag, you gaze at the horizon with a question on your lips, “How long are we gonna keep doing this and not talking about it?”

“Not sure,” Nyen pauses in his drag, opting to instead flick out the growing ash, “How about we talk about it now?”

You turn to face him, and see the knowing smirk on his face as you opt to rest your head on his shoulder instead, “Let’s do more than just… this. How does that sound?”

His throat rumbles with a purr, reverberating throughout his body, “That sounds nice… let’s do that.”

He nuzzles the top of your head as you lean further into his shoulder, his hand coming to rest on your waist sweetly— caressing the beginning to heal claw marks. The pair of you sit there until the sun has risen just a bit more, basking in it and each other’s presence— until you hear Randal’s inhuman scream from inside at the sight of the chocolate chip Eggos. You share a stifled laugh until Luther opens the door to urge you back inside for the household meal.

#nyen x reader #nyen catman x reader #nyen ranfren x reader #ranfren x reader #✎

154 notes · View notes

frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe · 10 months

Text

it’s only three days late! here’s my entry for @thefreakandthehair's summer fanworks challenge!!

pairing: steddie | word count: 3,677 | rated: M | on AO3: it's a date

“These are the days where I miss when you worked at Scoops.” Eddie complains for the nth time that afternoon.

It’s hot, okay? Immensely so.

It’s so fuckin’ hot that it’s seeping into Family Video despite their normally pretty okay A/C.

He’s laid out across the front counter, one arm hanging loosely over it onto Steve’s side, and the other is holding his hair off his neck best it can.

Of all days to forget a hair tie.

Steve scoffs, “Yeah, you miss it, but that place was hell on my hair and therefore, on my game.”

“I still don’t understand that, who could resist Sailor Steve?”

“Apparently every person that came in could.” Steve pauses for a moment, “Except moms and grandmas. They all loved me.” he grumbles, leaning back on the far counter along the front window, arms crossed.

Eddie opens his mouth to respond with some sort of smart-alecy quip, but is interrupted by the chime of the bell above the door.

On instinct, Eddie peels his sticky skin from the green linoleum counter and slumps off into the aisles.

The government and Hawkins Police may have completely cleared him as a suspect for the spring break murders, but his presence in town is still not exactly welcome.

So, Steve goes into full-on ‘Prince Charming’ mode when the bombshell of a blonde approaches to ask about something, and Eddie meanders over to the horror section, trying his best to ignore the soupy jealousy in his gut for the girl at the counter, getting to be the center of Steve’s attention like that.

Eventually, she leaves, and from the way Steve’s eyes track the girl out the door and the droop of his shoulders once the door closes behind her, he struck out once again.

“I can’t believe I got to see the Harrington charm in action, live and in person!” Eddie says in imitation of a showman as he approaches the register, “And it failed! Where’s Robin’s board, huh?”

Eddie hefts himself half over the counter in front of him to hang over the other side of it, searching in vain for Robin’s famed ‘You Suck / You Rule’ board.

“Ha ha ha, Munson. You’re hilarious.” Steve pushes Eddie back to the floor with a hand to the face. “And I didn’t fail.”

He shows him a slip of paper with 10 whole digits written on it in a loopy hand, then promptly crumples it tight and tosses it into the nearby trash can.

Eddie somehow manages to keep his face from grinning at the action. ‘Just because he’s tossing her number doesn’t mean you have a chance, asshole.’ his brain tells him.

He puts on a confused face instead, to which Steve shrugs and says, “Not my type.”

Eddie lets out a low whistle. “Well that just sucks for her then. Never see how great a date with the esteemed King Steve would be.” Eddie says, clapping a hand to his chest in a half-swoon, straightening up again while Steve laughs, tacking on a: “Lord knows I’d want to.” in a low mumble. A guy can dream right?

“Would you now?” Steve says, still smiling.

Shit.

“‘Would I now?’ what?” Eddie manages to say before his mouth goes dry, tracking Steve’s movements as the other man steps forward to lean on his forearms next to Eddie at the counter.

His warm, toned forearm presses along Eddie’s, and he’s only half embarrassed that he doesn’t mind the added heat.

“You want to know how a date with me goes, huh Munson?”

Eddie gulps “Oh…y–yeah, sure; lay it on me Stevie, I’d love t’know.”

He had managed a facade of a cocky grin by the end of his response, but his throat dries right back up and clenches shut at what Steve says next.

“How about I just take you out tomorrow night and show you,”Steve says, then he’s leaning further into Eddie’s side, and whispering, “Maybe you’ll see how a date with me ends.” into Eddie’s ear.

Eddie slowly rears back to blink at the (beautiful) smiling man beside him.

Oh.

He’s fucking with him.

Of course.

Eddie rolls his eyes and shakes his head with a smirk. “Ha ha you’re really funny. You got all the jokes today huh?”

Steve just chuckles at him.

“I gotta run though,” Eddie says, pushing himself off the counter and heading to the door with a wave over his shoulder “Good luck with the babes, Steve-o!”

“Sure, Eds. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at six?”

He spins to face the counter again, “Oh yeah, sure you will, Big Boy. Sounds like a plan.” he agrees sarcastically, walking backwards out the front door.

Eddie goes through his normal routine the rest of that day and night; scrounge up some food, smoke a little, write out some of his campaign or song ideas, end up falling asleep around 9 am, waking up when Wayne leaves for his shift the next evening and deciding “Meh, might as well shower.’’.

So he does, and has just barely stepped out of the tub when the phone in the hall rings.

“Munson Residence, what’d’ya want?”

“Are you ready?”

“Hmm…ready for what, mysterious caller?” Eddie asks, shifting the phone to his other shoulder so he can continue scrunching the water out of his curls.

“For our date.” the caller (Steve, as he can now tell) says as if it’s obvious. “I’m about to head over so make sure you're ready.”

“Steve? Our date–wha?” he starts, but Steve’s already hung up.

“He can’t be serious..” Eddie looks at the clock. 5:30.

Oh shit.

There’s no time to panic about what to wear, Eddie just goes on instinct. He pulls on his one (1) pair of un-ripped jeans, the one (1) semi-nice button up he owns (both thankfully clean), and has only just managed to finish his eyeliner and put on his rings when he hears a knock from the living room.

Eddie scrabbles down the hall and nearly falls flat on his face when he trips on one of his discarded towels from earlier. He kicks it off his foot while trying to put his still damp hair up in a bun.

He exhales a shaky breath at the door, before finally opening it.

Steve stands there on his doorstep in plain, light wash jeans that look like they were painted on, Eddie’s (now, decidedly) favorite navy blue polo, unbuttoned all the way, and his gray Members Only jacket

“I didn’t think you were serious.” Eddie says, breathless.

“I know.” Steve grins, passing him a bouquet of roses, “You look great, Eddie.”

Eddie balks at the roses in his hand for a smidge too long, because Steve says, “So are you good? We’ve kinda got a timeline here...”, pointing to his watch.

Eddie feels his eyes widen even more (if that’s even possible), but quickly gets the roses shoved into the tallest glass of water he can, and follows Steve to his car, locking the door behind him.

Steve asks him about his day, and there’s nothing much to tell, but they continue to chat idly as Steve drives them through town.

“I thought you said we had reservations.” Eddie jokes as main street flies by outside the window and morphs into the darkening woods outside Hawkins.

“Never said reservations. Someone just assumed.” he says, looking over at Eddie with a smirk.

“Is that not what ‘We kinda have a timeline’ means?”

“Not always.” he smirks, then immediately follows it with: “Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do, Steve.”

“Good, close your eyes.”

Eddie raises a brow at the other man.

“Please?” Steve chuckles, and Eddie obliges, covering his eyes with his hand for good measure.

He feels the car pull off the smooth asphalt of the main highway, and the motions of their new winding path jostle him softly back and forth.

“And here the lovely people of Hawkins thought I was the ritualistic murdering satanist. You taking me out to the woods to sacrifice me Stevie?”

Eddie can hear Steve’s jacket shift against the leather seat when he shrugs. “We gotta make sure the upside down stays shut somehow.”

“Ah, so I’m this year’s unfortunate virgin?”

Steve’s responding snort of laughter is the best thing Eddie’s ever heard. “Yeah, I seriously doubt you’re a virgin.”

“Hmmm…I dunno Steve, you really think I have people clamoring over each other for a shot at all this?” he gestures down himself with his free hand.

“You know what? I hope not; I’ve been in enough fights already, I don’t think I can take an elbow to the face.”

Okay, of all things Eddie thought might happen tonight, Steve admitting he’d legitimately fight for a chance with him (HIm! Eddie Munson!!) wasn’t on the list.

Eddie doesn’t say anything, just grins down toward his lap, cheeks burning.

The car pulls to a stop then, and Steve says “Keep your eyes closed!” before he can even think about opening them.

Eddie’s seat sags a bit without Steve’s weight on the other end to balance him out. He hears him shuffle out and shut his door behind him, and doesn’t even get to ten whole seconds before his own door is opened.

“Give me your hands, but keep your eyes closed.” Steve says, grabbing both Eddie’s hands in his.

Steve helps him out of the car and leads them forward about 10 paces before pulling him down to sit beside him on something soft.

“Okay, you can open them.”

Eddie’s immediately blinded by the bright orange glow of the sun, just starting to set on the far side of the quarry before them.

“So no, not a restaurant...just didn’t want to miss this.” Steve says, a smile in his voice that pulls Eddie’s attention away from the blooming pinks and oranges of the sky.

Steve’s already smiling at him when he turns, then he gestures down at the blanket under them.

An honest-to-god picnic basket is set between their outstretched legs, a bottle of something leaned up against it. “So. We’ve got grapes, cheese, sandwiches, chips, pop, and even some wine.”

Holy shit. “What, no chocolate covered strawberries?”

Steve holds up a finger, flips open and digs into the bottom of the basket, retrieving a flat white box. He opens it with a “Ta da!”; a dozen chocolate covered strawberries.

“Damn Harrington, you really know how to make your dates feel special.” Eddie’s throat clenches around the words, as if he’s suddenly remembering this isn’t really for him.

“That’s the idea,” he winks

Eddie flushes red immediately, of course, stammering out a “So this is the King Steve Special, huh?”

Steve glances up at him while he unwraps some of the sandwiches. “Nope, this is the Just Steve Special.” He passes Eddie a bologna and mustard, his favorite (What the fuck??) “King Steve wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble. Would’ve just snuck in a window, made out in some random bathroom at a party.” he shrugs and picks up a ham sandwich for himself (Gross..), taking a bite. “Just Steve is trying all the things he probably should have been doing all along.”

“Well..I enjoy Just Steve’s choice of venue.”

“Even though it’s not a fancy restaurant?” There’s a glob of mayo on his lip (which Eddie thinks is‘Still gross, but also somehow super fuckin’ endearing.’)

“If you were at a fancy restaurant, you couldn’t touch the other person as easily.” Eddie proves his point by knocking a knee against the other man’s. “Also you’d have to wear stuffy fancy clothes.” Eddie shudders for emphasis.

“Says the guy who got dressed up in his nice shirt tonight.”

“Shut up… you’re not supposed to know this is my only nice shirt.”

“If that’s your only one, what are you going to wear on future dates?”

"Only need the one shirt." Eddie shrugs. “I wasn’t kidding earlier, Stevie. Breaking news! Local freak doesn’t go on dates regularly.”

“That just sucks for them then.” Steve places his hand over Eddie’s knee, “Never see how great a date with the Eddie Munson would be.”

Eddie’s face feels hot, but he can’t hold back the grin that climbs up his cheeks.

“Well then aren’t you a lucky guy then, huh Stevie?”

“Yeah Eds, I really am.” Steve is smiling back and holy shit, is he leaning closer?

‘Oh fuck, I am too…ShitShitShitHolySh–’

The klaxon alarms ringing in his head stall out immediately, when a firefly decides to light up the shrinking gap between their noses.

“Ah! Fuck!” Steve flails backwards, throwing himself away from the harmless little bug.

Eddie can’t help but laugh, “Oh come on, you can’t really be scared of a little lightning bug?” He cups his hands in front of the bug’s lazy flight path, catching it in one of his palms.

“Fireflies are weird as shit, man. And yes, I do mean even more so than the demo-whatevers.”

“C’mon Steve, just look at him!” He pushes his hand forward into Steve’s space and giggles a bit at his reaction, somehow unwilling to leave their picnic blanket, but wanting to get away from Eddie’s hand just as much has him practically laying all the way down on his back with his legs still crossed in front of him.

“I’m serious Ed, get that thing away from me!”

There's a hint of a laugh in his voice, so Eddie continues his teasing, sitting up on his knees to get closer. “OOOH what if I put it in your haiiirr..”

Steve’s laugh sounds hysterical, “No! Don’t you fuckin’ dare! Asshole!” he yells, batting at Eddie’s hand.

“Awe come on Stevie! What if he loves yo–and he’s gone.” the little guy flying away when Steve’s hand pulls at Eddie’s extended arm.

Eddie flops forwards onto Steve’s stomach with an “oof!” watching the little thing blink away from them.

“Oh thank god.”

He looks down and holy shit.

Steve’s smiling softly up at him, his hair all mussed from Eddie trying to grab at it and Steve keeping Eddie from grabbing it, but goddamn is he still beautiful.

Also: ‘Holy shit I’m laying right on top of him shitshitshitshit..’

Before he can do something stupid, like lean down and kiss the fuck out of Steve’s beautiful face, Eddie rolls onto his back and looks up at the sky instead, head pillowed on Steve’s arm.

They talk for hours like that. Lain out under the darkening sky. It’s the longest date Eddie’s ever been on.

By the time Steve says “I should probably get you home,” the other fireflies that had danced around them as the sun set have disappeared, the previously clear sky is rolling over with thin clouds, blocking the stars.

The strawberries are gone, the cheese is gone, half the sandwiches, and most of the pop. They hadn’t touched the wine.

Eddie sighs in disappointment. “Yeah, probably.”

They pack up the basket, tossing it and the blanket (wrapped around the unopened bottle of wine) into Steve’s trunk and head back to the trailer.

The ride back is a comfortable quiet.

Windows down to the cooling late summer air, Eddie’s hand dipping and diving on the air currents that fly by, radio playing whatever station Robin had left it on last time plays at a low volume..

Too soon, the wheels of Steve’s trusty beemer crunch over the gravel pad that is Eddie’s driveway.

“C’mon, I’ll walk you to the door.” Steve smiles, slipping out the driver side with a hand clasped on the roof.

Just to be a little shit, Eddie doesn’t move. Letting Steve get all the way around the hood of his car before realizing he’s still sitting there.

He stares at him in confusion, so Eddie clarifies. “Oh, I have to get the door myself this time?” he questions, opening the door to another loud laugh from Steve, “You might wanna remember to get the door for your next date, Stevie.”

“Sure Eds, I’ll remember.”

Eddie nods, walking past him and up the steps to the front door with Steve on his heels.

“So? What did you think? How was it?”

Eddie looks up to the ceiling of the porch while he pretends to think about it. “Hmmm…I’m kinda disappointed, actually.” he looks back at his friend, who’s already sporting a kicked-puppy look. “I thought you said I was going to find out how a date with you would end.”

Steve chuckles as Eddie heaves an over-exaggerated, put-upon sigh.

“I said you might, doofus.”

Eddie sighs again, “I didn’t even get a goodnight kiss..” and turns his back to Steve, pulling his keys out of his pocket..

He’s stopped from doing so, however, as Steve hooks a hand above his elbow and pulls Eddie back to him.

His other hand comes up to Eddie’s cheek and Steve leans forward, planting a soft kiss to Eddie’s lips.

Eddie blinks owlishly at him, sputtering as Steve pulls back, eyes blown wide.

So of course this is when he decides to panic. To run.

“So..” Eddie carefully pulls himself free of Streve’s grasp. “Thanks for taking me out tonight.” he manages to say, focusing on keeping his voice even while he turns away to unlock the door.

“Eddie–”

“Any girl would be lucky to go on a date with you.” Damn doorknob always gets jammed.

“Ed–”

“And I would know! I was just on that date, it was great!” Ugh, finally! The knob unlocks with a thick clunk.

“I don’t want anyone else!”

Everything around them freezes.

Eddie turns slowly to face Steve again. “...What?”

“I don’t want to take anyone else on any more dates! I don’t want the same awkward first date questions, I don’t want the kiss goodnight and that be it, I want something real with someone who knows me.

“I want you, Eddie.”

Warmth blooms in Eddie’s chest. Hope and affection that’s so damn close to that scary four-letter word already…he pulls Steve in for another kiss without even thinking about it.

Steve kisses him back, soft and slow, before Eddie pulls back enough to whisper “Would you care to see how a date with me usually ends, Stevie?”

Steve doesn’t need to know he’s talking straight outta his ass; Eddie hasn’t had a date that ended at his doorstep like this. No dates at all, in fact, but when Steve gives him a wide-eyed nod, he hauls him inside and down the hall.

Eddie all but throws Steve into his bedroom, slamming the door behind them.

He sidles forward to the perfect being in front of him and places both hands on his shoulders, spinning them both and pushing Steve backwards onto his bed.

“You wanna know what I’d want someone who took me out for a picnic at sunset to do to me?” he asks, already climbing into Steve’s lap.

“Yeah…yeah,” Steve’s voice is all breath, his hands coming up to rest under the hem of his shirt. “Tell me what you want.”

He leans in close to Steve’s ear, his heart clenching when Steve automatically wraps his arms tighter around him, “I want you to fuck me.”

Sex with Steeeeeve Harrington is something Eddie won’t soon forget.

The feeling of Steve’s hands on him, first his waist, his back, his chest…softly caressing his jaw. The feeling of Steve’s lips on his skin, his length sliding against his own, the feeling of fullness from Steve’s fingers, his cock.

The pace he took, one of a lover and not of just another hook-up. Listening to him, checking in with him.

Eddie silently hoped to whatever being out there that this wasn’t going to be something he’d have to subsist on by memory alone. That this was something he could have for a while to come.

Speaking of…

“Ah! Aw fuck—Steve, please..faster…”

“Fuck—yeah? You want it faster, baby?”

“Yes! Yes, just like that—oohhh fuck me.”

“You got it darling.” Eddie can hear the smirk in Steve’s voice even though he can’t see it; his head thrown back on his own pillow in pleasure. He can feel the muscles in Steve’s thighs move faster, harder, beneath his.

“I’m cu—oh fuck…Steve, I’m—”

“Yeah, yes, fuuuck me too, Eddie—shit—Eddie, Ed——

…die! Eddie!!”

“Wha–What?”

Eddie blinks.

They’re back at Family Video.

They’re back at Family fucking Video.

“You okay man? You were zoned out for a second.”

“Y-yeah,” Eddie clears his throat of the weird mix of sadness, arousal, anger, and embarrassment in his voice, “I’m good.”

“You sure? I showed you that girl’s number and you like, completely zoned out.” Steve waves the very much not crumbled and tossed little slip of paper around in his hand while he talks.

“Yeah, I’m good. She just looked familiar somehow, I couldn’t figure it out though.” Eddie lies.

He can’t quite make himself look his friend in the eye, so he only sees Steve’s shoulders sag slightly in relief out of the corner of his vision while he picks at a hangnail.

“I thought you got Vecna’d, dude. Was about to call a code red over the walkie.”

“Nah, I’m all good Stevie, promise. So where are you gonna take her? Maybe a picnic down at the quarry? Could be cool at sunset..”

“Dude, that's a great idea!” Eddie can hear the excited smile in Steve’s voice.

He risks a glance to the other man’s face and feels his insides screw up in shame. The heat that shoots through him at the sight of those kind eyes he just recently saw hovering over his own is too much to handle. Time to make excuses.

Glancing away immediately, he says “You’re welcome man, have fun.” before pushing himself off the counter and, in the strangest case of deja vu ever, heads to the door while waving over his shoulder. “I gotta run though, good luck with the babes, Steve-o!” he calls, cheerily as he can, not able to look back at the man that will never be his.

i hope you enjoyed lex!!! all i have to say is 😈

#eheheheeh #i cannot express how LITTLE this was proof-read #i'm sure i will find mistakes when i re-read after posting and fix them lmao #LexsSummerFanworksChallenge #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #st #stranger things #st ficlet #st oneshot #steddie fic #steddie ficlet #steddie oneshot #noelle writes #putting this tag at the bottom for spoiler-y reasons but: i've had this idea in my drafts called 'steddie psych out' since the end of may

477 notes · View notes

emmettworld · 3 months

Text

hello, my beloved whump community. this is Emmett. but you probably know me better as this blog:

or you may remember the blog before that:

you may have even been here since this blog:

...i'm not taking you farther than that. xD

my account was terminated without any warning today. March 25, 2024. all of my blogs are gone and i have lost everything i have on them. you won't even be able to see any comments or reblogs for me on any of your posts.

if you have commissioned me over Tumblr DMs and not Discord, please contact me here. i did not have a copy of my commission list saved. i do not know who hasn't paid and who already has. i do not remember who was on the list. i do not want anyone to be cheated out of their money.

i have no idea why this happened. i was not doing anything that could justify my account being terminated with no warning or explanation. i'm so paranoid about it that i won't even type the blog names; that's why they're images instead.

but at this point, most of you know the type of whump creator i am. one who creates whatever he wants, no matter how disturbing or explicit it may be. one who loves creating whump and content in general of the Not Safe For This Website kind.

getting one of my blogs flagged, and now losing everything, is not going to stop me. i'm not going anywhere. but i am going to be changing my approach to posting content.

this is my Language Key. i will be using a system of emojis for tagging instead of words, so please read this before you go on my blog and know which tags you need to block.

if you need to block my blog for any reason, go ahead. i don't want to disturb anyone by showing up in the tags.

all of my artwork that is Not Safe For This Website will be linked to an external storage website, MEGA. it is completely free to view and you do not need an account. there will be no cropped previews unless they are 100% Safe For This Website.

all of my writing that is Not Safe For This Website will be linked directly to where i post it on my AO3. it is completely free to view and you do not need an account. there will be no writing put under a read more unless it is 100% Safe For This Website.

trust me, i'll have a better pinned post up at some point explaining who i am and my multiverse of AUs, series, and OCs, and links to my commission page, and my Ko-Fi...and i'll do my best to finish the masterlists and, once again, build myself up from the ground up...

but i'm exhausted. i never saw this coming, and it's made me realize just how unsafe i am. i lost so much content that was only posted on Tumblr and not saved anywhere else.

believe me when i say that i am fucking devastated.

but i'm not going anywhere. i will die with this site when it eventually goes down, and not because it tried to kill me.

that being said, you can find me here on Cohost, which is where i'll migrate to when this place dies or where i'll communicate if i happen to get IP address banned (probably without warning) or something that prevents me from coming back.

if you don't want to refollow me here, i totally understand. i can't say how grateful i am to everyone who does, but like...i get it. it's tedious having to refollow me all the time, never knowing when a blog (or full ass account) is going to suddenly disappear. if you want to get off this crazy, unpredictable ride now, i don't blame you.

and if you decide to stick around, for however long, thank you. this day has been one of my worst nightmares and i don't think i would be handling this with nearly as much grace if it were not for my friends and everyone on my Discord server (which, by the way, is the only safe place where i share everything uncensored).

they were my first line of communication. they helped me get the word out. they rallied for me and kept me from having one massive breakdown over this, so my heartfelt thanks go out to them.

i'm using the whump community tags in hopes that more people will see this. i had hundreds of followers on my last blog, more than a thousand on the blog before that...i know this isn't going to reach everyone, but i hope it will reach some people.

thank you so much for reblogging this to help spread the word if you do. and thank you for reading. ❤️

#whump #whumplr #whump community #whump art #whump writing #whump creators #whump blogs #emmettworld

215 notes · View notes

justagalwhowrites · 5 months

Text

Run Rabbit Part 2

You, Joel and Tommy settle into your situation. A continuation of Run Rabbit Part 1, found on Tumblr here.

PLEASE READ ALL WARNINGS. Written as part of the @romana-after-dark Dead Dove December event (but posted late because it's impossible for me to make a deadline at the moment apparently.)

Relationship: Joel Miller x Female Reader X Tommy Miller

Warnings: DUBCON (reader is a captive, participation might be enthusiastic but consent is dubious under the circumstances.) Raider!Joel; Raider!Tommy; Captive reader; Canon-typical violence; graphic depictions of violence; graphic depictions of injury; attempted SA (not by Joel or Tommy); Dom/Sub dynamic but not an established relationship; Dom-ish Joel; Brat tamer-ish Joel; Sub-ish reader; DDDNE; M/F/M threesome; unprotected P in V sex; Anal sex; Oral sex; No use of Y/N; Minors DNI 18+ Only. This part is filthy, OK? There are two dicks. They're put to good use. The end.

Length: 17.9k (If I knew what the fuck my problem is, I'd tell you, I swear.)

AO3 | Fic Masterlist | Full Masterlist | Previous Part

You were oddly relieved when Joel and Vince came back the next afternoon. Tommy heard them coming, one ear cocked toward the door when the front step creaked, and he turned back to you quickly.

“They ask, you’ve been tied up til a few hours ago,” he said. “All my idea to untie you, OK?”

“OK,” you said, frowning a little but not arguing with someone else taking the heat. You didn’t want to piss off Joel. He seemed to run this whole operation and you wanted to stay on his good side. At least until you could get the fuck away from here.

But he wasn’t upset that Tommy had untied you. He seemed to expect it. Even though he did bind your wrists again almost the second he was in the door.

“Here,” he said once you were tied again, digging in his pack. He pulled out a few bottles of shampoo and conditioner and body wash and hand lotion, setting them on the table in front of you. “Thought you could use that. Might make you more comfortable.”

You frowned, picking up the shampoo as best you could with your tied hands. You looked at the bottle for a moment, as though it was going to reveal something to you somehow.

“Why do you care if I’m comfortable?” You asked eventually.

Joel shrugged.

“Don’t need you to be uncomfortable. Need you to keep us alive. Don’t have to be miserable while you do it.”

The books kept you busy for a few days, the men sticking close to home for a while. Joel had come back with a nasty cut on his leg that you needed to treat after a few days of him trying to tough it out. He unbound your hands for that and Tommy brightened a bit when he did only to deflate when Joel tied you up once his leg was stitched up. About a week after they got back, the men hauled in water from the rain barrels outside, layers of ice forming on the top. They warmed some up over the fire and partially filled the bathtub, Tommy untying you as they did.

“Gotta be quick,” Joel said. “Don’t trust you to not take off on us but we’re movin’ tomorrow, may as well get clean while you can.”

“Moving where?” You asked as Tommy gently pulled the last of the rope from your wrists. You stretched and rotated your joints before you absently traced the indentations in your skin.

“Not for you to worry about,” Joel said. “Just you and me to start. Vince and Tommy have some shit to finish up down this way first. You’ll be slower to travel with.”

“I’d be faster if you untied me and I could keep my balance.”

Joel scoffed.

“It’d be faster if you got with the program, little girl. You’re mine now, not gonna just let you take the fuck off no matter how hard you try.”

You glared at him but followed him to the small bathroom when he guided you there.

“I’ll be right outside this door,” he said. “Don’t think about tryin’ anything.”

“Yeah, because I’ll just climb out through a pipe,” you muttered, closing the door behind you. They’d put a lantern in the room so you weren’t in the dark, at least.

You got undressed, folding your clothes and setting them on the toilet that was now totally useless as anything besides a chair or a shelf. The fabric was stiff with dirt and sweat and signs of life after you’d lived in it for weeks and you doubted it would ever be clean again.

The water was warm when you lowered yourself into it, barely coming up over your hips and the tops of your thighs, but enough to get clean. You scrubbed every inch of yourself and washed your hair twice, the water gradually shifting to a sickly gray. You didn’t mind. You felt clean for the first time in well over a month. The last time you’d had a bath, it had been warm enough to jump in a river without freezing half to death. You tried not to think about how long that had been.

But, when you got out, you realized that you didn’t have clean clothes in the bathroom with you and you weren’t about to put on the old ones now that you were clean.

“Shit,” you muttered to yourself.

“Tryin’ to cause trouble in there?” Joel asked from the other side of the door, making you jump.

“No,” you rolled your eyes even though he couldn’t see you. “I just didn’t think to grab clean clothes before coming in here and my old ones are disgusting.”

“Oh,” Joel said, voice oddly gentle. “Um… just… one minute.”

“Can’t go far,” you muttered, trying to dry yourself as best as you could with the scrap of towel that they’d left you in the bathroom while trying not to freeze.

To his credit, Joel was quick.

“Got my eyes closed,” he said. “Open the door.”

You clenched your jaw a little but obeyed, trying to hide your body behind the the door as best you could. Joel held jeans, a flannel, underwear, a bra and socks out to you in a haphazard pile in one hand, covering his eyes with the other. You snorted.

“What.”

“Nothing,” you said, taking the clothes as best you could. “Thank you.”

“Yup.”

You went to close the door but jumped and shrieked instead. Perched on the edge of the tub was large mouse - or was it a rat? - trying to work its way down into the water without sliding in. You jumped onto the sink on instinct, half of the clothes tumbling to the floor while you clutched the rest to your chest as Joel came bursting in.

“What!” He asked, looking around for some kind of threat in the tight space.

“Rat!” You yelled, pointing at the thing on the stained porcelain. “There, on the tub!”

“Shit,” he grabbed the bucket next to the tub and moved for it but it saw him coming and took off, darting between his legs and into the main part of the house where it was met with a sickening thud.

“Got it!” Tommy called and you watched as the tension left Joel’s shoulders.

Your body relaxed, too, even though you flinched a little at the thought that you’d been living here with that thing for who knows how long.

“You alright?” Joel asked, looking at you. His eyes trailed down over you before coming back to your face and you remembered, suddenly, that you were naked, just a pile of fabric on your lap and held to your chest to hide the parts you’d want to protect the most.

“Fine,” you said, clutching the clothes tighter to yourself, your heart beating faster than you wanted when you realized just how close Joel was to you. “Just… surprised me, is all.”

“Right,” he said, eyes dropping to your chest again before quickly coming back up. “Get dressed. Be quick.”

He stalked out, slamming the door behind him, your heart still thudding against your ribs.

You got dressed quickly, too jumpy to properly savor the feeling of clean clothes on your clean body. When you emerged from the bathroom, Joel was nowhere to be found. You frowned a little at that as Tommy came back inside, hauling more water to warm over the fire.

“He stepped out,” he said. “Don’t gotta tie you up quite yet.”

“Right,” you said, folding yourself into a corner of the couch. Vince watched you from his place at the small table, finger idly tracing over the blade of the knife he was sharpening. You narrowed your eyes. “Can I help you?”

“No,” he sat back a little further in his chair. “Just clean up good.”

He adjusted his pants and you tried to ignore the sickening feeling in your stomach when his eyes stayed on you as he did.

Tommy finished refilling the tub and glanced out the window where it was starting to get dark before he looked back to you.

“Why don’t we call it a night early,” he said. “C’mon.”

You looked at him skeptically for a moment.

“If you’re not in here for him to tie up…” Tommy trailed off.

“Bed time it is.”

You followed him deeper into the cabin, no more hint of fear there when you were alone with Tommy. He’d had every opportunity to hurt you. He hadn’t done it. You weren’t sure if you were just desperate for someone to be attached to or if you’d have always come to trust Tommy. But that didn’t much matter. You had what you had.

“Gotta promise not to take off on me,” he said, his voice low as he sat cross legged on the bed, grabbing the deck of cards from the bedside table. He started to shuffle. “He really won’t let me get away with goin’ easy on you if we gotta go run you down again.”

“Why do you listen to him?” You asked, keeping your voice quiet, too. “You’re brothers, right? Just talk to him… or take over.”

He scoffed.

“Did take over for a bit,” he said. “Right after the outbreak. Did the best I could, little rabbit, but… didn’t go well. Miracle either of us are alive. But he wasn’t in any shape to figure shit out so that left me…”

“What happened?” You frowned as Tommy started to deal. “Was he injured? Is that why he wants a nurse around so bad?”

Tommy was quiet for a moment, staring intently at his cards, a hard look on his face.

“He… he was hurt in the outbreak,” Tommy said eventually. “Still got some of the scars from it. He wasn’t able to make decisions for a while. Had to carry him for a bit, make sure he stayed breathing. I… I’m not cut out for that. Especially not with Joel. It’s better that he leads, trust me.”

You looked at your hand, not able to picture Joel as anything but what he was. Cold and calculating and always in control. Picturing him hurt and weak made your chest get tight. You weren’t sure why.

“Game’s Gin Rummy,” Tommy said, clearing his throat. “Usual stakes.”

When you could hear Joel talking to Vince in low tones in the living room, Tommy folded his hand and gestured to the bed before lying down. You took your spot next to him, hands folded over your stomach.

“Can’t I go with you instead?” You asked quietly, head turned to see him.

He looked over at you before for a moment before turning his eyes back to the ceiling, settling down into the pillow.

“No,” he whispered. “Joel has his reasons. Just… Behave yourself. He’s not gonna hurt you. I know he seems scary but he wouldn’t hurt a woman if he doesn’t have to. Don’t push him.”

When Joel came in, you pretended to be asleep. You felt his eyes on you, heard the grinding of his teeth and, eventually, the creak of the floorboards as he settled in to sleep.

The two of you got started early, your hands bound in front of you almost as soon as you were awake.

“Not gonna get away with so much without my brother around,” Joel muttered as he wound the rope around you. “Don’t try and push your luck, little girl.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” you muttered, your attitude tempered by your meek tone. You were about to be alone in the woods with this man for who knows how long. You didn’t want to push him too far.

Tommy and Vince were outside when you left, getting ready to go do whatever it was they were going to do. You didn’t want to know. Tommy watched as you disappeared into the woods with his brother and you looked back over your shoulder at him, not ready to let go of the comfort you found in his soft, brown eyes.

“Shouldn’t get so attached, little girl,” Joel said after you’d been walking long enough that you were sure you were out of earshot.

“Attached to what?” You frowned, glancing back at him, breath rising in front of you.

“My brother,” he said. “Watch where you’re walkin’.”

You obeyed, looking ahead.

“What makes you think I’m attached?” You asked.

“Sure seem to spend a lot of time together if you’re not,” he said.

“What, you jealous?” You asked before you could stop yourself. You snapped your jaw shut after the words were out. You had to get your mouth under control. It got you in enough trouble before the world ended let alone when you were on the wrong side of a raider’s rifle.

Joel snorted.

“Just know Tommy,” he said. “Never found a broken thing he didn’t want to save and he just doesn’t know when to keep his fucking distance. Night of the outbreak I was bailin’ him out of jail because he beat up a guy who was roughin’ up a waitress. It’s a habit he needs to break if he’s gonna live through this shit. You’re just another symptom of his problem.”

That made your stomach clench. Part of you had thought - or maybe just hoped - that you meant something to Tommy. It bothered you that you didn’t. It bothered you more that it mattered. You shouldn’t care, beyond the fact that his affection for you might help you stay alive.

But, with Zach gone - Zach, who likely hadn’t cared all that much for you, either, given how he handed you over to these men so easily - you had no one besides Tommy. You’d never had no one before. Being so utterly alone was horrifying in a way that even cordyceps weren’t. You weren’t sure you could handle it.

“What makes you think I’m something he’d need to save?” You asked instead.

“Little girl…”

“Woman.”

“Little girl,” he said again. “All alone after traveling with some guy who was willing to trade her pain for his life? What about that don’t need savin’, desperate to know what I fuckin’ missed.”

“What’s wrong with a little attachment?” You asked instead of answering. “What, do you not have friends? No wife or girlfriend?”

“Attachment gets you fuckin’ killed, that’s what’s wrong with attachment,” he snapped, voice more bitter than you were used to hearing, enough that you looked back at him. His face was hard but his eyes were more raw than you’d ever seen them, the pain sharp and harsh and full. You stopped and faced him, searching those eyes for a moment. It was easier to see the resemblance with Tommy now that he wasn’t so closed off and guarded, the moment of weakness bringing his latent humanity to the surface.

“What happened to you?” You asked quietly, brows drawn together as you traced the planes of his face with your eyes. You’d never really looked at him before, not like this. There had always been a hardness to him that made you look away, like he was dangerous to even look at too closely. It reminded you, now that you thought about it, of something you’d read once about Chernobyl. How the nuclear material from the reactor was so radioactive it melted film and destroyed robots that tried to investigate, let alone what it did to mortal bodies. So poisonous nothing could survive being close enough to really look.

But, in this moment, he wasn’t that. He was just a man who had seen and felt and been taken apart too much. There were scars on his otherwise smooth skin, the most prominent at his nose and temple and you had the strangest urge to reach out and run your fingers over them, to cradle his face and trace your thumbs over the rise of his cheekbones and tell him to close his eyes for a while, to let it all go for a while.

You weren’t really thinking when you raised your bound hands to touch his skin but he didn’t let you get that far, snatching your wrists out of the air and ripping you harshly to him, making you yelp and stumble.

“I am not your fucking business,” he snarled. “And you’ll keep your goddamn hands to yourself unless I tell you otherwise.”

He shoved you back and you almost tripped over a root but you managed to stay standing, tears stinging the corners of your eyes.

“Move,” he ordered. “Eyes on the fuckin’ trail.”

You looked at him for another second, the cold cruelty of him back in his eyes. You sniffed but obeyed, turning and following the trail.

You didn’t say anything else until you stopped for lunch, in a valley that hadn’t gotten snow yet. He pushed you down onto a log and stood over you, broad and domineering.

“I go take a piss, you’ll stay put, right?” He asked. “Or do I need to do that right in front of you to keep you from fucking around?”

“I’ll stay put,” you muttered, not looking at him.

He went into the trees and you sat on the log, staring into space. For some reason, you felt - for the first time - that this was going to be your life now. That you’d always be with Joel and Tommy and Vince and that you’d be at their mercy forever, a tool in their arsenal of pain as they took whatever they wanted from what they called their territory. You’d be trapped and never have a chance at a semblance of a life again.

The tears came even though you didn’t want them to, spilling over and feeling hot on your cheeks against the cold air. You heard Joel start to return through the brush and you tried to will yourself to stop fucking crying but you couldn’t manage it, your body mourning the loss of any kind of life you’d hoped to have.

“The fuck is your problem?” Joel asked as you sniffled and dried your eyes on your sleeve as best you could with your bound hands.

“What do you think?” You snapped, voice wobbly and wet. “This is my life now, isn’t it? Until the day I die - which will probably happen when you get bored with me or decide I’m more trouble than I’m worth and shoot me for it - I’m just some… some… some thing that you haul places and use when you need and I’ll never have another friend or have anyone care about me ever again and I think you can fucking deal with me being upset about that since you’re the one doing it, OK? Just leave me alone.”

You pulled your knees to your chest as best you could from your place on the log and tried to bury your face there, anything to keep Joel from seeing your pain.

A few moments later, you felt the log shift below you and Joel nudged you gently.

“C’mon,” he said, voice oddly soft. “Need to eat something. Got a ways to go yet today.”

You sniffed.

“Not hungry.”

Joel was quiet for a moment.

“We can wait a bit,” he said eventually. “Making better time than I expected.”

You ignored him, still trying to force yourself to stop crying.

“Not gonna kill you,” he said.

“What?” You pulled your head from where you’d buried it, sniffling a bit.

“Not gonna kill you,” he said again. You frowned at him. “Just… you said you thought you were gonna die when I got bored with you or… I’m not gonna kill you. Well, you try to kill me or Tommy I might. Or you get bit. Or take off on us. But… short of that, not planning to kill you.”

“Great,” you sniffed. “Lemme know when plans change I guess…”

Joel huffed a small laugh.

“Not gonna change,” he said. “S’not that I really like killing people. Got better hobbies than that. And I try to avoid killing people who don’t deserve it and people I don’t have to kill. You don’t deserve it so I’m not going to kill you unless I have to, it’s simple as that.”

You looked at him for a moment, your tears slowing.

“Why do you do it then?” You asked. “The stealing and the hurting and the killing? If you don’t like it…”

Joel looked at you, his eyes searching yours again, a hint of the openness that was in them before.

“I’m not losing my little brother,” he said eventually. “So I’m going to do whatever I need to do to make sure he stays alive. Right now, that means hurtin’ and killin’ more than I really want. S’OK. I’ll pay that price, long as he stays alive.”

You watched him, eyes trailing over those scars again.

“You really think that’s the best way?” You asked softly. “All that killing? All that hurt? It’s got to hurt you, too, do you really think…”

“Better than the alternative,” he cut you off. “Shit like handing ourselves over to FEDRA for them to lock up in a fuckin’ QZ or being sitting ducks for other people willin’ to hurt and kill first. Better this way, little girl. Trust me on that. Keeps him alive, that’s the important thing. That’s why you’re here. Something happens, it’s not a death sentence. All that matters.”

You nodded slowly and sniffed a little. Joel reached forward, his hands still seeming so big, and gently brushed his thumbs below your eyes, drying your tears.

“You’re alright,” he said softly, holding your cheek in his palm. “S’not so bad. You’re mine now. Take care of what’s mine.”

You just looked at him, his eyes on yours for a moment, before he cleared his throat and pulled out the bag of jerky, holding it out to you. You tried to reach your bound hands inside but the opening was too small and you made a frustrated noise when he laughed a little.

“Hold on, I got it.”

He pulled a piece out and held it out to you. But when you went to take it, he pulled it away and you frowned as he put it just inches away from your lips.

“Open.”

You kept your eyes locked on his as you obeyed and he put the salty meat on your tongue slowly, pressing it down into the muscle. You waited until he took his hand back to close your mouth and you chewed, holding his gaze as you did. He got out another piece of jerky, holding it in his thick fingers until you swallowed. He held it up like he did before and you let your mouth fall open so he could feed it to you, his movements disorientingly delicate for a man so large.

He fed you that way until you had your fill of the jerky and he pulled out an apple and a knife, pressing the blade into the crisp flesh of it and cutting a slender wedge. He brought the first piece to your lips, the fruit balancing on his thumb and the harsh metal.

“Open,” he said, something low and gravely in his voice. You obeyed and he put the apple on your tongue, the juice of it brushing your lips and making you lick them as he pulled the knife away. He cut a slice off of his own and you watched as his mouth slipped dangerously close to the sharpened edge. He kept his eyes on you as he brought the knife back to the apple and cut into it again and you opened your mouth for him to put the slice inside, the blade that had just been against his lips brushing your own.

When it was gone, you just looked at him for a moment, watching as his thumb ran over the blade, wiping away all signs of the fruit on the knife before putting it away.

“Come on,” he said, getting up and grabbing a handful of fabric at the nape of your neck as though you were a disobedient kitten, hefting you to your feet. “Want to clear at least 10 more miles before we stop for the night.”

“Where are we going?” You asked as he picked up the overstuffed pack that was carrying all your supplies and his. “Why couldn’t we just stay where we were?”

“Not a great place to ride out winter,” he said. “Other spot’s closer to things we’ll need but far enough away that we shouldn’t run into much trouble. Stayed there last winter, too. Worked well enough.”

“And you’re, what, just hoping no one’s taken it since you left?” You asked as he nudged you forward. You looked back over your shoulder at him as he shrugged.

“Just take it back if they did,” he said. “Shouldn’t get there ’til tomorrow night, anyway. Expect Tommy and Vince round midday the day after. Watch where you’re goin’, can’t have you breaking your fuckin’ leg out here…”

“Tomorrow?” You frowned before looking straight ahead. “Where are we stopping tonight?”

“Somewhere that looks good,” he said. “We’ll be sleeping rough.”

“Do we have the gear for that?” You asked looking back at him to see him glare at you before you looked forward again. “It’s cold…”

“Thought you were some outdoorsy thing, little girl,” he said. “Can’t handle a little cold?”

You hated being cold. You didn’t say that.

“More worried about you,” you replied. “You drop dead on me out here, makes my life a whole lot harder. Have to try to cut myself out of these damn ropes…”

“Not dropping dead on you,” he said. “Keep goin’, don’t waste your energy talking to me…”

You rolled your eyes a little but pressed on, putting one foot in front of the other and trying to ignore the imposing man at your back.

Joel called for a stop hours later at a small indentation in a cliffside that was protected from wind. He set out the bed rolls and fed you again, just like he had at lunch, each piece of food going from his hands to your lips.

“Can’t we have a fire?” You asked, trying not to shiver as the sun set. Joel looked at you, incredulous. “What?”��

“Why do you think we can’t have a fucking fire?” He asked, brows raised.

You sighed.

“I guess it might attract people…”

“It would attract people,” he corrected you. “With Tommy and Vince around I wouldn’t give a shit but you? You’re a liability. Don’t much want to deal with trying to keep us both alive on my own. No fire.”

You tucked your hands between your thighs and shivered a little. Joel raised his brows at you.

“What?” You snapped. “I’m cold. It’s cold. Sue me.”

“Don’t think suin’ you would do much good nowadays.”

“Shut up.”

He snorted and laughed a little.

“Hold on,” he said, getting up and dragging his sleeping bag over next to yours before settling on top of it, sitting close to you. He held his arm out and you frowned. “Come on. Best way to get warm is to get close. Won’t bite and you’ll live, promise.”

You glared at him but tucked yourself against his side all the same. He was right, it was warmer there. Joel seemed to just emanate heat, even through his thick suede coat. He even smelled warm, like cedar and sharp spice and crisp apple. You wedged your hands between your thigh and his and Joel frowned.

“The hell are you that cold?” He muttered. “Feel like ice even through my damn jeans…”

He pulled off the glove on the hand that wasn’t on your arm with his teeth and enveloped your hands in his much larger one. He pulled them to his mouth and breathed into your tight fingers, the heat of his breath seeping into your skin.

“Don’t think we got more gloves but we can put some socks on your hands or somethin’ tomorrow,” he said. “No good to me if you lose your fuckin’ fingers.”

“I could put them in my pockets if you just untied me,” you said, an almost teasing edge to your voice.

“No good to me if you take off, either,” he said. You could practically hear him rolling his eyes. “Can’t trust you yet.

“You think I can trust you?” You asked, looking up at him as best you could from your position tucked against his side.

“No,” he said. “But I don’t need you to. You don’t get a choice here, little girl, I do. Don’t matter if you trust me.”

“It’d be easier if I did,” you said quietly.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Imagine so.”

You drifted off there, tucked against his side, and when you woke up, you were curled into his warm body, his arm securely around your middle, sleeping bag around you both. His breath was warm against your skin, his nose buried in your hair, his broad chest firm at your back. You weren’t sure what to do and were trying to figure out when he stirred, groaning a little as he adjusted his arm before sitting up.

“Gotta get you better cold weather gear,” he muttered. “Don’t know how the fuck you survived last winter…”

“Stayed to the south,” you replied. “Which you should do, too, by the way…”

“Lot more competition to the south,” he said. “Don’t feel like havin’ a big crew. Works better to stay up this way with just us.”

“Probably fine when you’re a furnace,” you muttered.

“Get moving,” he nudged you. “You’ll be warmer when you’re walking.”

You rolled your eyes but obeyed, getting out of the way enough that Joel could get up and pull you to your feet. He put socks over your bound hands and you tried not to laugh.

He sighed.

“What now?”

“Most fucked up sock puppets…” You wriggled your hand into the right position as best you could to give it a mouth and he rolled his eyes.

“Should never have told you I’m not planning on killin’ you unless you make me,” he muttered. “Just be insufferable now.”

You smirked a little as you walked and you felt like you made decent time that morning. Joel fed you again when you stopped for lunch, tracing his thumb over the plush swell of your lower lip to wipe away a drop of juice from the apple, but you didn’t talk like you had the day before. Beyond the intimacy of him feeding you, his eyes lingering on your lips and throat, he was distant, teeth grinding and looking off into the trees when he wasn’t watching you.

It was mid-afternoon when you heard it, the haggard pants and inhuman gargle of infected.

“Joel,” you whispered, whipping back to look at him. He grabbed your shoulder and all but threw you behind him, his rifle raised. You pressed tight against his back. “Joel, I don’t have a gun, I can’t…”

“Hush,” he said, hardly glancing back at you. “Told you, you’re mine and I protect what’s mine. You’ll be OK.”

You winced and tried not to cry, pressing your forehead into Joel’s back. He was warm. Solid. Safe. You had to trust that he was going to take care of you, you didn’t have another choice.

There was a snarl at your left and Joel turned so fast it made your head spin, his left leg coming back and catching against yours, forcing you to move with him so you were still protected by his large, broad body as he faced the infected head on.

The crack of the gun made you flinch and you tried to focus on the feel of Joel as you moved with him as he backed up, staying where his legs guided you, keeping you tucked safely against him as he fired round after round, the snarling getting louder and closer until, suddenly, you felt the harsh grasp of a hand on your elbow. It ripped you back into a body that was more like your own - about the same height, none of the almost inhuman broadness of the man in front of you - and the thing snarled.

“Joel!” You shrieked, trying your best to rip yourself away from it as it pulled your arms toward its mouth so hard it almost dislocated your shoulder. “Joel, please!”

The infected sank its teeth into your arm but didn’t penetrate the thick coat as you tried to rip yourself free. For a moment, you thought you had, the pressure from its jaw letting up. But it just roared, gripping you tighter and pulling you closer, searching for skin it could reach.

For a moment, as you watched what used to be a human woman stretch her open mouth toward your throat, you were almost surprised that this was how it was going to end for you.

It shouldn’t be a surprise. It was the apocalypse, after all. It should make sense that the thing that made the world end took you out, too. But it had felt all but impossible for so long. Like you’d survived so much, worked so hard, pushed for so long that it wasn’t coming for you anymore. Like, eventually, things were going to slot into place and you were going to have a semblance of a life the the reality you now called home. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. You weren’t supposed to end like this.

The butt of Joel’s rifle snapped you out of your own head, the stock coming down hard on the woman’s head and she shrieked, shoving you aside so that you fell flat on your back, and shifting her attention to Joel. He thrust her back and quickly snapped his gun around, shooting her in the head. She dropped where she stood and Joel lowered the gun ever so slightly, breathing heavy, surveying the woods around you both for any impending threats. After a moment, he slung the rifle on his back and all but ran to you, dropping to one knee at your side, his brown eyes wide as they ranged over you again and again.

“Hey,” he said once he’d looked you over, his gaze locking on yours. “You’re OK. Take a deep breath for me, you’re OK, I’ve got you, you’re OK…”

You realized then that your breaths were coming in short, harsh gasps, that your whole body was shaking. Joel pulled off a glove and took your face almost harshly in his hand.

“Look at me,” he said, giving you a rough shake as he did. “Just me. Infected are gone, there were just six of them and I got ‘em all. You’re OK, not bit. Neither am I. It’s OK. Just you and me. I’ve got you, just focus on me.”

You nodded in his grip, tears stinging your eyes, but you couldn’t seem to calm your breathing down. You just weren’t getting enough air and your body couldn’t calm down enough to slow your breaths. Your head spun and your bound hands found Joel’s bicep, fingertips digging into the muscle and the thickness of his coat. Something made a nearby bush rustle and your eyes darted, wide and frantic, not able to turn your head in Joel’s grip.

“Hey!” His voice was sharper, your eyes shooting to him again, afraid you’d pissed him off now. But he didn’t look mad, he looked worried. His eyes were still wide and they were warm and you had the passing thought that, maybe, dying wouldn’t be as bad if you got to look in those eyes when you went. “There you go, keep lookin’ at me, I’ve got you.” The hand that wasn’t clutched onto your head, fingertips clutching into your hair and skull, went to your chest. His palm pressed over your breasts, near your sternum, fingers splaying wide over your skin. “Gonna get you to breathe deep, just stick with me, OK? Out first…” He pressed down with firm, even pressure and you emptied your lungs. Just as your panic was going to kick into high gear, his hand relaxed. “And in, pull that air down low, OK? Focus on it, focus on me, follow my hand with your chest, you’re OK.”

You did your best to obey, pulling air into you and trying desperately to fill the empty spaces inside yourself, your chest chasing the heat of his callused palm.

“Out now,” he said, his voice so calm, adding pressure to his hand again and pushing the air from your lungs until they were empty. “Good, doing good, in this time.”

You nodded and breathed deep, chasing his palm, and started feeling calmer then. Your heart wasn’t beating quite so fast, the feeling that you were suffocating inside your skin fading.

“Feeling better?” He asked, his grip on you loosening. You just nodded. “Gonna help you sit up now…” He pulled you up, one of his large hands in the middle of your back, the other on your bound hands. “Take another deep breath for me.”

You obeyed and he carefully guided you so that your back was against a tree.

“Catch your breath,” he said. “We’ll take a few minutes, then move on. This time of year, shouldn’t be a much infected around here. Don’t think we’ve got more comin’.”

You nodded and breathed slow and deep, closing your eyes, concentrating on the prickle of the cold air in your lungs and then the warm fog of it rising in front of you.

“Think you’re ready to move?” Joel asked after a few minutes. You opened your eyes. He was still there, right next to you, watching you closely with those soft brown eyes.

“Yeah,” you said, voice shaky. “I’m… I’ve never been that close to one before, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have panicked…”

“S’OK,” Joel said. “They’re… well, they’re fuckin’ scary. It’s alright.”

You watched him for a moment and frowned a little.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” You asked quietly.

His brows knitted together, frowning back.

“Only as mean as you make me be, little girl. Never wanted to hurt you. Just wanted to keep you and I’ll be as mean as I need to keep you.”

He stood up and took your elbow, pulling you to your feet.

“Should get moving,” he said. “Got a miles to go yet and we don’t know what we’re walking into when we get there. Let’s go.”

You stayed close to Joel the rest of the hike, never going more than a minute or two without looking back over your shoulder to make sure he was still close even though you could hear him at your back.

It was nightfall when you reached the cabin that Joel had mentioned. The setting was idyllic, you could see why he’d want to set up long term. There were no obvious paths leading to the cabin that you could see, Joel routing you off an apparent dead end to the trail around through the brush and over a stream to get to it. The land around it was dense with trees to the point that it was hard to even see the cabin until you were at the right angle. The woodpile on the front porch was low and the windows were dark. Joel tucked you into a bush at the edge of the clearing made for what had once been a drive for the cabin.

“Stay put,” he said. “Don’t make me run you down.”

He didn’t wait for a response. Instead, he crept closer to the cabin, moving slowly and quietly up to the front door with his gun at the ready. He checked something at the hinge of the door and relaxed a little when he did, slinging his rifle onto his back and coming back for you in the brush.

“No one’s been here since we left in April,” he said, helping you through the rougher parts of the ground. “Should be safe. Left some firewood last time, enough to last us a few days at least…”

“We can have a fire?” Your face lit up.

Joel smiled a little.

“We can have a fire,” he said. “Can’t let you fuckin’ freeze to death, you’re useless if you’re dead.”

“Or frostbitten,” you said. “Also useless if I’m frostbitten.” You could almost hear him roll his eyes.

Joel built a fire and you sat in front of it, warming your hands at the flames and luxuriating in the heat as he went about setting up other parts of the cabin. You just checked to make sure you knew where he was every minute or two, being far from him making your stomach churn and your thoughts race. If Joel was far away, anything could happen and you’d be helpless to stop it. Without Joel, you’d be one of those things by now. Without Joel, you weren’t safe.

It was a ludicrous thought, some part of you knew that. He was the reason you were out here to begin with. He was the reason you were so spectacularly useless in a fight right now (not that you’d ever been particularly good at brawling.)

But he had protected you like no one else had. He’d protected you from Vince’s threats when you’d run away and he had every reason to just let the other man kill you. He’d put himself between you and half a dozen infected when he could have just let them have you while he picked them off. He took care of you, he looked out for you. You wouldn’t need nearly as much of either if he’d just left you with Zach but Zach had been fine trading you away to protect himself. Who knows how long you’d have lasted with him. And, while your survival skills were fine before the apocalypse, they were the kind that let you survive in the wilderness for a few weeks. They weren’t the kind that taught you how to fight monsters both human and inhuman. Joel might have literally tied you down but him and Tommy were the safest you could imagine being right now.

The thought made you dig your nails into your palms and you tried not to focus on it as you stared at the flames as they chewed at the wood in the fireplace. But you weren’t able to ignore it for long, not when you realized you hadn’t heard or seen Joel in several minutes.

“Joel?” You asked the darkness of the cabin. There was no response.

You got up and crept toward the back of the structure, toward the rooms you hadn’t been in yet. But you couldn’t bring yourself to open any of the doors.

“Joel?” You whispered. You gave him a second to reply and then headed for the front door.

Night had fully fallen and you could only see what was illuminated by the glow of the fire through the window, the tree cover too dense to let in much light from the moon. Did you dare leave the porch? You weren’t trying to run away but Joel didn’t know that. One of the exceptions to the “not going to kill you” thing was you running. But what if he got hurt? What if infected showed up at the cabin?

What if you were alone?

“Joel?”

“Thought you were cold?” His voice appeared from the side of the porch, making you jump. He walked around to the steps, water bottles in hand.

“You were gone a while,” you said, indignant.

Joel scoffed.

“I was gone all of five minutes.”

“It was longer than that.”

“Well, I had to clear out the water pump, hadn’t been used in a bit,” he said. “Got it goin’ good, well’s still set…” He trailed off and considered you for a second, brows raised. “Were you worried, little girl?”

It was your turn to scoff.

“No,” you rolled your eyes and looked toward the glow of the fire inside. “I just…”

“You were worried,” he smirked. “Don’t worry, not gonna let the monsters get ya. Head inside.”

“Only monster I’m worried about here is you,” you snapped. You regretted it almost as soon as you said it. Joel’s cocky smile sank enough that the dimple on his cheek disappeared and some of the softness left his eyes.

“Get inside,” he said. “Before I give you somethin’ to worry about.”

You sat by the fire, trying to check on what Joel was doing without showing that you were watching him. Eventually, he came and grabbed your elbow, pulling you sharply to your feet with a small yelp.

“We’ll figure out sleeping arrangements once Tommy and Vince get here,” he said. “For now, we’re bunking together. Don’t trust you to behave otherwise.”

He didn’t give you a chance to argue as he dragged you along behind him to one of the back rooms you’d been too afraid to open before. There was a king bed inside, made up with plush looking blankets and sheets. Joel helped you get your boots off but otherwise, you climbed in bed fully clothed on the side away from the door. He lay down, his back to you. You were pretty sure his arms were crossed and his back look tense.

“Joel?” You said softly.

“Hm.”

“When they get here,” you said, still whispering even though there was no one else to hear you. “Please don’t make me sleep with Vince. Please. I’ll do whatever you want but…”

“Not gonna make you share with him,” he cut you off, looking back over his shoulder toward you for a moment before looking straight ahead again. “It’ll be me or Tommy, not him.”

“OK.”

You were quiet for a few minutes but you were pretty sure Joel was still awake when you spoke again.

“Joel?”

He sighed.

“Hm.”

“Can I sleep closer?” You asked softly. He half rolled to try to look at you in the dark. “I just… I’m cold. You’re warm.”

He sighed again but rolled onto his back and held his arm out.

“C’mere.”

You scooted closer until your head was against his chest and he put his arm loosely around you. You took a deep breath and sighed contentedly, not able to help it.

“Surprised you’d want to be this close to a monster,” he said. He meant it to be wry, you could tell that, but there was a twinge on the last word that gave him away.

“Well,” you said, adjusting your tied wrists as best you could. “Maybe… Monsters aren’t all bad. And some are warm. So.”

He sighed.

“Go to sleep.”

Just as you were about to drift off, you felt his arm tighten around your shoulders, pulling you in closer.

Tommy and Vince made it the next day with more supplies than they’d left the last place with. But, while Tommy had made it in one piece, Vince wasn’t so lucky. His arm had been dislocated and he’d taken a knife to the arm. Joel untied you and you needed Joel and Tommy’s help to position Vince to pop his arm back into place. You made him a sling and treated the wound on his arm, doing your best to keep it from getting infected before stitching it closed.

You weren’t sure how bad the injury really was without the proper diagnostic tools but it seemed like Vince was making it out to be more than it was. You kept checking for signs of infection because he seemed to be constant pain, enough that Tommy and Joel were doing the bulk of the work to set up the cabin to ride out the winter. You helped where you could but Joel insisted on binding your hands again once Vince was patched up and you’d gotten cleaned up from the trip, so your skills were limited.

The four of you had been at the cabin for more than a week when you noticed a shift. You still weren’t party to the discussions the men had, the three of them sending you behind closed doors while they conducted business, but you were certain that Joel and Tommy were getting ready to leave again.

When you went to bed with Tommy that night, he confirmed your suspicions and your stomach dropped.

“Can I come?” You asked. He looked at you for a moment, brows raised. “I won’t be much good at patching you up from afar…”

“Hard to travel with you when we gotta keep you tied up,” he said, going back to gathering extra socks.

“I’ll be good,” you said quickly. “I’ll do whatever you want, just bring me…”

“Why do you want to come along so bad, Rabbit?” He asked. “Didn’t think you’d much want to be there when we raid groups…”

“I don’t care,” you said quickly, even though the thought of watching them kill someone the way they’d killed Zach made your stomach turn. “I’ll behave, just don’t leave me here with…”

Tommy’s head whipped around, his eyes narrowed.

“Vince do somethin’ to you?” He asked. “He say something?”

“No,” you shook your head, clenching your jaw. “Well, nothing big but I just… I have a bad feeling about him. I don’t trust him.”

“And you trust me and Joel?” He asked, skeptical.

“Not really,” you replied. “But… more than him.”

“He knows not to touch you,” Tommy said. “We’ll only be gone a few days, week at most. We know a place only about a day from here where we can reliably find what we need. Shouldn’t take too long…”

Your eyes went wide. A week. A week with just Vince. That was so much longer than you’d realized it would be. How were you supposed to avoid him for a week?

“Can’t you stay and Joel goes with Vince?” You pleaded. “Or you and Vince go and leave Joel here? Just…”

“Can’t,” Tommy said. “He’s still hurt and we’re low on supplies, we need to go now and we can’t risk bringin’ him. You really that afraid of him?”

You tightened your jaw for a moment before nodding once.

Tommy sighed.

“Well, he’s hurt. Don’t think he’s gonna do much to you when he can’t use one arm. You’ll be OK. Next run we’ll figure out somethin’ else, OK?”

You dug your nails into your palms.

“Yeah,” you said. “OK.”

Joel and Tommy left the next morning. You stood on the porch and watched their path long after they’d made it out of sight before sighing and going back inside.

“Just you and me now,” he smirked from his position on the couch. “You’re going to be a good girl for me, aren’t you?”

You didn’t answer. You just looked at him for a moment before heading back to the room you stayed in every night with Joel or Tommy and curled up in the middle of the big bed, the binds on your wrists feeling worse than they had in weeks.

For the first two days, it was fine. Mostly. You generally avoided Vince, the man humming Run Rabbit anytime you were within earshot, making your whole body tense. Instead, you were just hanging out in the bedroom and sleeping or reading or just staring at the grain of the wood walls wondering if this was just what your life would be now. What if something happened and Joel and Tommy didn’t come back? What if Vince just left you here, tied up, forever?

What if you were alone?

The third day, you started getting suspicious of Vince’s claimed injury. Given what you knew, he should be doing much better at this point but he’d kept claiming he was in too much pain to even use his arm. It wasn’t impossible, of course, and it was hard to see what kind of intervention he would need in a cabin without the proper tools, so you were hoping that more time did the trick. But when you emerged from the bedroom that afternoon to use the bathroom, you found him in the kitchen, both arms stretched to reach something on a top shelf. You frowned and stood there, waiting for him to notice you. When he turned around, he jumped before smirking, putting his arm back in its sling.

“Aren’t you a sneaky thing?” He asked, prowling over and standing just inches away from you. “See something you like?”

“Arm looks like it’s doing better,” you replied, nodding to it. “Want me to look it over?”

“Still hurts like a bitch,” he replied. “Just needed two hands so I lived with it for a minute. That OK with you, Florence Nightingale?”

You shrugged.

“Doesn’t matter to me if you fuck up your arm,” you replied. “Be my guest.”

You ducked around him to go to the outhouse but his hand closed around your arm, yanking you back into him with a small yelp.

“Think you’d be more invested,” he said, his face close to yours. “Only useful as because you can patch people up. Think the Millers will be so keen to keep you around if you can’t even do that right?”

“Right,” you said. “Maybe I should be worse at it so they let me go.”

“You really think they’d let you go?” He laughed. “You stupid girl. They’d kill you. Not gonna just let you wander around knowing where they like to hide out and what they have. You stop being useful, you’re dead. Just hope they let me have some fun with you first.”

You wanted to throw Joel’s words back in his face, that he said he wasn’t going to kill you, not unless you made him. But you weren’t sure how much you could trust any of it. It felt like you could believe what Joel told you but he was keeping you tied up in a cabin in the woods. How much could you trust anything he said?

Instead, you just pulled your arm away.

“I have to pee.”

He laughed once.

“Don’t go far,” he said. “Hate to have to run you down out there…”

He started humming Run Rabbit again.

The next afternoon, you knew he was lying about the arm.

You emerged from the bedroom to find something to eat and found him sitting at the small table, bag of jerky and a bottle of whiskey in front of him, sling hanging off the back of the chair.

“Good to see my medicinal skills are up to snuff,” you said derisively, going for the cabinet you knew held the jerky. “Guess I’ll live to bother you another day.”

“Know what?” He snapped, shoving back from the table and stomping over to you, closing the gap between you in just two steps. “Think I’m getting tired of your smart fucking mouth…”

You realized suddenly just how big Vince was. He was shorter than Joel so you didn’t notice it most of the time but, when he had you pressed back against the counter as you shrank back from him, you were suddenly very aware that he was large, more broad than he was expressly tall. Definitely big enough to do serious damage if he set his mind to it. His hand whipped forward and latched onto your jaw, his fingertips digging into your cheek, grip so tight you were worried he was going to dislocate it.

“Sorry,” you said quickly. “I’m sorry, I’ll…”

“Think I’m about done dealing with your shit,” he growled, the smell of liquor harsh on his breath. “Think it’s about time I got my due.”

He pulled you around, hand still on your jaw, and shoved you back, making you stumble over a chair. You scrambled back from him, looking quickly back over your shoulder, trying desperately to keep from falling.

“You don’t want to do this,” you said, looking back to him. “You really don’t want to piss off Joel and Tommy like that, please…”

He laughed once, darkly.

“You think they want you to themselves that bad?” He asked, prowling closer. “Nah, I don’t think they’ll much care. Besides, maybe I’ll just have my fun with you then kill you. Tell ‘em you took off. You already tried it once…”

“No,” you shook your head, trying to ignore how your throat clenched tight as he drew near. “No, you don’t…”

“Think I do,” he said as you backed into the couch. He was only about a foot away from you. Your eyes darted toward the door and you made the call, ducking below his groping arm and running for it.

He grabbed at you but you dodged it, all but ripping the door off its hinges as you ran out into the cold afternoon air. Dusk was on the horizon and you were going to be stuck running from him in the dark with your hands tied but it was better than the alternative.

You heard the gunshot a split second before you felt it, the force of the bullet sending you sprawling forward as you screamed in pain. There was a second of shock, of disbelief, as you lay face down in the dirt. You felt the warm wetness of your blood before you felt the sharp pain of a hole being blown through your body. You rolled onto your uninjured side and tried to assess it as best you could, not really able to reach the wound because of how your hands were tied. It was on the right side of your body, so far to the side that you thought it might have missed most major organs and just caught skin and muscle and fat. But you couldn’t be sure.

You tried to shove yourself up, side screaming in pain, the wound pulling, the muscle ragged, but Vince was on you too fast. He shoved you onto your back and kicked your legs apart before kneeling between them.

“No!” You shrieked, trying to scramble back from him but he grabbed you harshly at your waist, his fingers digging into your open wound and making you scream in pain.

“You’re mine now,” he panted over you. “This’ll be a lot easier on you if you just cooperate…”

You tried to shove him back but couldn’t get leverage, not with your hands bound. A strangled sob slipped from you as you tried to wrest yourself away but it didn’t work, Vince just slamming you down into the dirt before punching you across the face. The blow made your brain rattle in your skull and you lay there, blinking in shock for a moment as he started to fumble with your pants.

“Help!” You screamed, voice thick and wet. “Joel, Tommy!”

“Shut up,” he seethed over you, trying to force your pants down over your hips. You ignored him, still screaming, legs kicking uselessly. He punched you again and you went still and quiet, head swimming. “Shut up you stupid fuckin’ girl. Take what I give you and you’ll fuckin’ like it.”

“Joel!” You shrieked. “Tommy!”

It was desperate, you knew that. They said they’d be gone close to a week, it had just been days. This was it.

Vince’s hand latched around your throat, shoving you down into the earth. You tried to breathe around his fingers but you couldn’t manage it, his grip too tight. You clawed at his arms with your tied hands and tried to gulp in air, your vision starting to fade.

“Told you you should’ve cooperated,” he panted over you. “Should’ve fuckin’ listened…”

You could hardly see his face over you anymore, the world seeming far away, when the weight of him disappeared and you could breathe.

***

Tommy wasn’t thrilled about leaving you behind.

He hadn’t been thrilled about it before you talked to him. He’d been trusting Vince less and less over the last few weeks. He’d never been Tommy’s favorite person but he had decent enough skills, generally listened when Joel told him what to do and it was helpful to always outnumber pairs when hunting.

But ever since they’d taken you, Tommy was questioning whether keeping him around was smart.

Of course, he’d been conflicted about taking you from the beginning. He hadn’t gotten into this to take fucking captives, he’d gotten into this because it seemed like the only way to stay alive was to take. There wasn’t enough to go around so some people were going to have to go without. That’s just the way it worked. He just wanted to make sure the people going without weren’t him and Joel.

Survival of the fittest, after all.

But he understood why Joel had taken you. You had valuable skills, valuable enough that you were worth feeding and monitoring. It was worth it to go outside the norm for you. Even though he hated keeping you tied up. But he figured he’d wear Joel down on that eventually.

He didn’t like leaving you behind like this before you’d talked to him about Vince and all but begged him to bring you along. You had to really distrust Vince to want to come on a hunt like this. It made him uneasy.

So he was relieved when he and Joel had stumbled upon a small group of men traveling just two days after they’d left the cabin. It was a good haul, enough to set them up for a few months and get them through a stretch of winter. They’d need to head out again at some point - or just hunt and trap animals near the cabin if it looked like the ammo, fuel and battery supply would hold out - but they had some security for a while.

“I really think she’s gonna like some of what we got,” Tommy said as they were getting close to the cabin again. “Think the books are up her alley and they had medical supplies. Legit ones. That’ll make her happy.”

“Can’t get too attached,” Joel said, not for the first time. Tommy rolled his eyes. Joel glanced over at him. “I’m serious. It’s a risk. You’re gettin’ too involved with her and can’t afford you making stupid fuckin’ choices because you’re worried about her. She’s with us to make sure you keep breathing, not to be your fuckin’ friend.”

“Here to keep you breathing, too, right?” Tommy asked.

Joel was quiet for a moment.

“Right?” He said again.

“Sure,” Joel said. “Right.”

Tommy clenched his jaw but stared straight ahead.

He wasn’t sure if his brother was cautioning him because he was worried about Tommy or because he was worried about himself.

Tommy wasn’t a fucking idiot. He saw what was happening with Joel. He’d been there when Sarah died, saw the pain in his brother’s face as he held his daughter’s broken body. He’d clung to her until she went cold, on the ground where she’d died at first and then for hours as they tried to find a way out of Austin and away from the carnage of the outbreak. He carried her body until he couldn’t anymore, dropping to his knees on the east side of town with smoke in the distance.

Tommy had tried to find a way to bury her, even just a shallow grave, but infected put a stop to that. Tommy had to drag Joel away, screaming and fighting him the whole way.

He put a gun to his head that afternoon. It was a miracle he survived but, sometimes, Tommy wasn’t sure he really had. The Joel he knew, the Joel who he’d grown up with, the Joel who’d damn near raised him during his teenage years as their mother’s health declined, the Joel who lived for his daughter had died with her. In his place was the man he was now. Harsher, colder, and more like Tommy when he got mad than Tommy was really proud of.

But things had shifted with you. He’d bought Joel’s reasoning at first and, in hindsight, he thought it was because Joel believed it himself then. That you were too valuable to just let go, that you wouldn’t survive long on your own so keeping you was a kindness.

Now, though, Joel was attached. Tommy could see it, even if Joel couldn’t. He’d first noticed on a morning where Joel had been the one in bed with you. Tommy pulled a shirt on, you curled in on yourself in that way you did, and he caught Joel tucking the blankets in around your sleeping form. Tommy raised his brows at him and he just frowned.

“S’cold,” he said softly before ducking around Tommy and leaving the room.

It was the first sign he’d seen of Joel caring about anything outside of Tommy since Sarah died.

After that, it was obvious. He wasn’t sure how he’d missed it before but, the second he knew to look for it, he saw signs of Joel caring everywhere. He stopped Vince from finishing the jerky he knew you liked best and set it aside for you. He made fires on nights Tommy knew he wouldn’t bother otherwise because you got cold. He saw you struggling to tie your boots with your bound hands and brushed your hands aside, kneeling at your feet to tie them for you. You complained the whole time, said that you were perfectly capable of tying your shoes if he’d just untie you. Joel just rolled his eyes, tucking your laces behind the tongue of the boot before getting to his feet again.

“You know,” Tommy said. “May not be the worst thing. Getting attached.”

Joel just huffed.

“Just mean, life’s better when you’ve got something to care about, right?” Tommy pressed on. “What’s the point of fightin’ this hard if you don’t?”

“Care about you,” Joel shrugged. “Seems like plenty to me. Just… Keep going for family.”

Tommy was quiet for a moment.

“She could be family,” he said, glancing Joel’s way.

Before Joel had a chance to object, the sound of your scream cut through the cold air. Tommy looked at Joel for barely a second before the men were running, shoving brush aside and leaping over obstacles as they went.

“Joel! Tommy!”

Tommy wasn’t sure where he found the energy after days on the road but he pushed himself faster at the sound of your voice. You were so afraid it sent a chill up his spine. It had to be infected, he couldn’t think of what else would inspire that kind of terror.

He broke through the tree line before Joel and it took him a moment to realize where you were, Vince on top of you on the ground. Tommy didn’t stop to think. He was hurting you, he was a threat, he needed to pay. Tommy tackled Vince, catching him completely off guard and rolling away from you. They landed with Vince on top but he was disoriented and Tommy quickly threw him to the ground before jumping on him, forcing his knee into the other man’s chest before punching him, hard, across the face again and again.

Vince scrambled, throwing his arms up, trying to protect his head from Tommy’s blows but it didn’t matter. He grabbed one arm and broke it, feeling the bones snap under his fingers.

“Tommy!” Vince sobbed. “Fuck, please! I can explain!”

“No,” Tommy shook his head, his fist raised. “Warned you, motherfucker. Shouldn’t have touched her.”

He ripped Vince’s unbroken arm away and started punching him again and again, the sick sense of satisfaction that took hold when he solved problems this way settling over him. There was something about using his body, taking control with force, that brought him a sense of peace. He knew what was coming next. He knew it could be the right thing, that he could protect who needed protecting, because he’d set the rules.

After what felt like no time at all, Vince was still below his fist, his face a mass of blood and displaced cartilage. He wasn’t breathing. Tommy panted, staring down at him for a moment. It seemed like he should feel bad for this, somehow. He’d lived alongside this man, survived the end of the world with him, for more than half a year. He should feel some sense of guilt or loss at killing him. But he didn’t. He only felt justified and a twisted sense of pride at the fact that he’d protected you, even if that meant killing for it.

For a moment, he was relieved, the knot in his stomach that had been there since he’d left with Joel days earlier easing.

Then, he heard it.

“Tommy!”

His blood went cold. Joel’s voice was pleading and desperate. He’d heard him like this once before, just once.

“Tommy, help me!”

He left Vince on the ground and ran to Joel. You were in his arms, staring down at your stomach, your breaths coming in shallow, pained paints. Joel had cut your ties, at least, and your hands were braced against him, your nails digging into him. There was red blossoming over you and Tommy stopped dead in his tracks.

“No,” he breathed.

Joel shook his head.

“Gotta help me,” he said. “I can’t… You gotta help me, please, Tommy. Please.”

You made a pained sound and winced, your whole face drawing tight in pain.

“I know,” Joel said, looking back down at you, tightening his hold on you. “I know, I know, it hurts, it’s gonna be OK, I’ve got you, it’s OK…”

“It’s not too bad,” you said, your voice pained. “Just… I think it missed the major stuff and I think the bullet went straight through, just have to get the bleeding under control and stop infection, that’s all, I just need…”

Your voice broke off and you panted, the agony clear on your face.

“It’s OK,” Joel said, clutching onto you as Tommy seemed to find control of his body again. “It’s OK, just tell us what to do, we’ve got you, it’s OK…”

“Need towels,” you winced. “Gauze. Alcohol to flush it… don’t think the water here would be good, even if we boiled it…”

“Got it,” Tommy said, running to the cabin and finding the collection of towels in one of the cabinets, gauze from your medical supplies, the highest proof liquor he could find in the stash at the house and ran back out to you.

“Have to get this out of the way,” you said, unbuttoning your shirt and shrugging out of it on your injured side, hissing in pain as you did. You gritted your teeth and spoke again. “Need one of the towels, put it on the wound - both sides since I think the bullet went through - and hold pressure. It needs to be a lot of pressure, have to stop the bleeding. It’s going to look like it hurts but that’s OK…”

Joel and Tommy maneuvered the towel around your wound and clamped down and you gasped in pain, one hand flying to Tommy’s shoulder, your fingers twisting in his shirt.

“I know, I know,” Joel sounded pained, too. “I know it hurts. It’s OK, you’re gonna be OK…”

You just nodded, staring up at him with wide eyes as you struggled to breathe through the pain.

Tommy tried not to think about the night more than a year ago when Joel had said the same things to his daughter as she bled out in his arms. He tried not to think about whether or not Joel could survive that happening again, especially so soon to the first person he’d shown any kind of care for since then. He tried not to think about whether or not he could survive it, either.

You, at least, stayed conscious and knew how to walk them through patching you up. This time when Joel got up from the bloodstained ground with a body in his arms, it was still breathing.

He carried you, delicately, into the cabin, your head on his shoulder and your eyes closed. They cleaned you up as best they could before Joel tucked you into bed, setting you on your uninjured side and pulling the blankets up around you. You flinched in your sleep and Joel brushed your hair back from your face, thumb tracing your cheekbone.

“C’mon,” Tommy whispered, jerking his head toward the door. “Should give her space.”

Joel nodded and followed Tommy to the kitchen.

“Drink?” Tommy asked, going for the cupboard with the liquor. Joel just nodded. Tommy poured them each a sizable glass before sitting across from him at the table. Joel took the cup but didn’t drink it. Instead, he set it on the table and turned it in his fingers, his jaw tight.

“You OK?” He asked eventually.

Joel sighed, staring at the liquor for another moment before meeting his brother’s eyes.

“I thought it was gonna be like her,” he said quietly. “She was bleeding like she was and in pain like she was and I thought…” his voice broke. “I can’t watch someone else I…”

He shook his head.

“Someone else you what?” Tommy asked when Joel was quiet for too long.

“Someone else I care about die like that,” he said, not looking at him.

Tommy nodded slowly.

“‘Bout time you figured it out,” he said.

Joel glared at him.

“Told you, attachment is dangerous. Saw why tonight, if I weren’t fuckin’ attached to her then…”

“Then you’d have let him rape her?” Tommy asked. “Kill her?”

“No,” Joel snapped and then sighed. “But.. I wouldn’t have been afraid. I… I was so afraid, Tommy. I haven’t been afraid like that since… I can’t do that again. I can’t.”

“You think I can?” Tommy asked, brows raised. “Jesus, Joel. You think I wasn’t fuckin’ terrified tonight? Think I broke a bone in my damn hand taking it out on that fuck…”

Joel sighed.

“Should let her go,” he stared out the window. “See if we can’t find a way to get her to a QZ or something…”

“Yeah, because those are so damn great,” Tommy scoffed.

“S’not safe out here,” Joel snapped. “And if we suddenly care about saving her, that puts us at risk…”

“Don’t you think she’s worth a little risk?” Tommy asked. “You really think you’re gonna be satisfied with just me for the rest of your life? Because, no offense brother, I’m not exactly thrilled with the idea of having just your ugly mug around for the rest of my days.”

“She doesn’t want to be here,” Joel said. “Remember that? The fact that she’s been literally tied to us? You really want someone who you’re forcing to be there?”

“Doesn’t have to stay that way,” Tommy said. “Lot’s happened…”

There was a creak and Tommy looked up, over Joel’s shoulder to see you emerging from the bedroom, a pained look on your face.

“What are you doing up?” He asked, leaving his drink and heading for you. “Need to use the bathroom or…”

You shook your head as Tommy took your hand and you leaned against him, your body warm and soft.

“He’s right,” Joel said, getting up, too. “You need to be resting…”

“I know,” you nodded, wincing. “I know I do, but… I… I woke up alone and I just… it was like I could feel him there and I couldn’t calm down and… Could you sleep in the bed with me? Please? I think… I think if you’re there I’ll feel safe and…”

“Course, little rabbit,” Tommy said gently. “Which one of us do you want?”

His stomach clenched at that question. He wanted the answer to be him. He wouldn’t get in the way if it was Joel, of course, but he wanted to be your source of peace and safety. He wanted to be who you turned to when you needed someone. You looked up at him, your eyes wide.

“Could it be both of you?” You asked sheepishly. “Please?”

Tommy looked to Joel who looked baffled for a moment before he answered for the both of them.

“Whatever you want,” he said. “C’mon, bed time.”

The walk to the bedroom was slow and Joel and Tommy both helped you into the middle of the bed. Joel went to sleep at your back, Tommy at your front.

“If we bump you or something and we hurt you, wake us up, OK?” Tommy said. You just nodded, curled up like a rabbit. He looked to Joel who just shrugged, the two of them climbing into bed with you. When Joel was in his place, you adjusted yourself back until you were pressed against him. Tommy lay down slowly, facing you and leaving as much space between you as he could. But you reached forward and tugged him closer, until his front was only a few inches from yours. Your smiled in the darkness.

“Thank you,” you said softly, closing your eyes and relaxing. “This feels better.”

“We’ve got you,” Joel said, his voice rough. “Take care of you.”

Tommy wasn’t sure you heard him. He was pretty sure you were already asleep.

***

Joel didn’t tie you up again.

You were expecting him to, once you started becoming more mobile again. He didn’t mention it, didn’t even tell you to behave and not go running off. You weren’t sure if it was because he didn’t care if you left or he could tell that you weren’t going to try to escape them now.

Things were different after Vince. Joel and Tommy had gone from being the best parts of a bad situation to the people you needed to feel safe. You had to ask them every night, for the first week, if they would sleep in the bed with you. They never said no, alternating between who was at your back and your front. You just liked being between their large, firm, warm bodies, enveloped by their heat and their strength. Nothing could hurt you when you were between them, nothing. That much you knew.

The two men took care of you while you recovered. Joel kept the fire going in the living room and would carry you to it in the morning. Tommy read to you for a change and you drifted in and out of consciousness on the couch to the soothing timbre of his voice. They helped you change your bandages and brought you water and soothed you when you woke up afraid.

It took a few weeks before Joel said he wanted to go hunting.

“Animals,” he clarified when you tensed. “Not people.”

“Can I come?” You asked quietly. Tommy was at your back that night, Joel at your front. Tommy held you a little tighter.

“Don’t know if you’re up for it quite yet,” Joel replied, brushing your hair back from your forehead.

“I’m ready,” you said quickly. “I can keep up, I…”

“Ain’t worried about you keepin’ up,” Joel said. “Worried about you gettin’ hurt. I’ll go…”

He must have seen at least some sign of the disappointment on your face in the dark. He sighed.

“What, little girl?”

“I don’t want to be here alone,” you said softly. “I know Vince is dead but…”

“I’m staying behind, too,” Tommy said. “Not going to leave you by yourself.”

“But…”

You went quiet.

“But what?” Joel asked.

“But you shouldn’t be out there on your own, either,” you said quietly. “It’s safer if Tommy goes, too, and…”

“Not doing anything very dangerous,” Joel said. “I’ll be back before you know it. It’s OK.”

You nodded, even though you didn’t really believe him.

He left the next day and you spent the whole damn day worrying. Tommy tried to distract you, playing poker and asking you to read to him, but your eyes kept going back to look at the door, waiting for Joel to walk through it and prove that he was alive and well.

When he returned just after dusk that evening, you jumped up from your chair at the dining room table and flung yourself at him, your arms going around his neck as you pressed your body against his.

“What’s all this about?” Joel laughed a little, catching you out of the air.

“I was worried,” you said, voice muffled by his shirt. “I’m glad you’re home.”

He was still for a moment before he held you close.

“Me too.”

That night, you made Joel sleep at your front and you pressed yourself against him, your leg hitching up over his hip. His breathing stuttered but you didn’t move. Tommy kept his distance at your back before you half turned, grabbing a fistful of his shirt and pulling him against your back.

“Need you both,” you yawned, body finally relaxing after being tense all day. “Please, need to feel you both.”

Tommy hesitantly enveloped you, curving his legs around yours, his arm gently going around your waist. You smiled, drifting off surrounded by the men who protected you.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise when you started waking up feeling wet.

The first time, you damn near panicked, Joel and Tommy still asleep around you. You couldn’t remember any dreams that would have made you react that way, it didn’t seem like something that happened just before you went to sleep. But you were wet.

It wasn’t until Tommy pressed against you in the kitchen, reaching something on a shelf over your head, that you realized what it was.

You were turned on by them. By Joel and Tommy both. They were large, they were strong, they were handsome. Their bodies were warm and firm when they held you at night and you started wondering what they’d taste like, what they’d feel like as they slipped inside of you and put all that wetness to use.

But more than that, they were safe. For the first time since the apocalypse had really begun, you felt secure. Yes, they might have taken you against your will but they’d taken care of you the way no one else ever had. They were safe and good to you and handsome and strong. You wanted them.

More than wanted. Needed. Needed to feel them closer, needed them inside of you. Needed them so close that no one could take you away from them.

One night, about two months after the incident with Vince, snow was piling high outside. Joel and Tommy had spent the day chopping wood, making sure there was enough stashed to ride out a storm. The three of you sat down to dinner, pulling one of the last of the rabbits Joel had trapped a few weeks earlier from your makeshift freezer of snow outside and roasting it over the fire, knowing you’d be stuck with jerky for a while going forward. You had a glass of whiskey with them, not enough to get you drunk but just enough to loosen you up. Enough to make you focus more on what you wanted. Enough for you to forget exactly why what you wanted was probably a bad idea.

Joel was at your front in bed that night, your ass pressed back against Tommy as your chest was pressed against Joel.

“Think the snow is going to be too crazy?” You asked quietly as Tommy’s thumb traced your lowest rib.

“We’ll dig out if it is,” Joel shrugged. “We’ve got enough supplies to last us ’til spring. Ain’t too worried.”

“Just gonna have a lot of time to kill,” Tommy said. You could hear the smile in his voice. “Might actually read one of those books of yours, little rabbit, instead of listen to you read ‘em.”

The cabin creaked in the wind and you pressed yourself closer to Joel, your hand going back to Tommy to pull him closer, too. You nuzzled into Joel’s chest, the hairs there tickling the tip of your nose, and breathed deep. Even at the end of the world, he smelled good. Rugged, with a hint of sweat, like the wood he’d chopped and smoke from the fire he’d built. You wanted to be closer to him. You wanted to feel him. You wanted - needed - to taste him.

So you did.

You brushed your lips against his chest and you felt his breath hitch as you kissed him there. You let your mouth linger on his skin before you pulled back ever so slightly and licked your lips, tasting the salt of him on your own skin with a small, needy moan.

“Little girl,” he said, voice strained.

“Yes?” You asked softly, looking up at him.

“Don’t think you know what you’re doin’,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Yes I do.”

“You’re askin’ for trouble is what you’re doin’,” he said. “So why don’t you…”

“I know what I want,” you whispered.

“Yeah?” Joel asked. “And what’s that?”

“You,” you said. You felt Tommy start to pull away from your back but you grabbed him and held him to you. “Both of you.”

Tommy tensed behind you and you kept ahold of him so he wouldn’t pull away.

“Please,” you breathed. “If you want me…”

“Don’t gotta be worried about that,” Tommy said, a hand slipping around your waist and curling up toward your breasts. “But… well, we talked about it and…”

His voice trailed off.

“And what?” You frowned, looking between the two of them.

“We decided that it’s best of neither of us act on that,” Joel said. “Too much risk of someone gettin’ hurt out here as it is, don’t need to add jealousy to the mix…”

“Who said anything about jealousy?” You asked. “I want both of you. I want to feel and taste and experience both of you, please. Feels like I’ve wanted it so long it almost hurts, I promise I won’t ask you to choose between me and each other, I want you both, I want you both so bad and…”

Your voice cracked, desperation both pathetic and obvious and you were having a hard time caring.

“Who are we to deny a lady what she wants?” Tommy asked quietly.

Joel was quiet for a moment.

“You sure about this?” He asked.

“Think I can handle sharing,” Tommy said. “Worth the risk if I can get just a little bit of her…”

Your heart fluttered at that.

“Good,” Joel said, voice low and rough. “But wasn’t quite so worried about you, brother.”

“I’m sure,” you said, damn near panting now. “Please…”

“Then why don’t you be a good girl,” Joel said, adjusting so he could nudge you down onto your back. ��And let us have you.”

Joel started pulling at the buttons of your shirt, opening you up slowly to him as Tommy slid down your body to your panties. He pulled them down and opened your legs to him as Joel reached over to the nightstand and flicked on a flashlight, angling it away from the bed so there was just enough light to see each other by.

“Fuck,” he said as he pulled your shirt fully open, exposing your bare chest to him. He reached one large, callused hand forward and cupped your breast, cradling the weight of it in his palm before curling a thumb over your nipple and brushing over you, making you moan. “So fuckin’ pretty. No idea how bad I wanted to see you like this…”

“Even better here,” Tommy said from his place between your thighs. He ran his thumb over your slit, adding pressure when he reached your clit. You sucked in a breath in shock as you squirmed a little below him. “She’s got the prettiest damn pussy I’ve ever seen.”

“Think she tastes as good as she looks?” Joel asked.

“Gonna find out,” Tommy said, leaning forward, his tongue following the same path as his thumb had found just a moment earlier. He gently teased your clit with the tip of his tongue before pressing it between your lower lips, slipping down until he found your tight, wet hole. He dipped his tongue inside you there and he moaned, thrusting shallowly in and out as he toyed with your clit with his thumb. “Tastes so damn good, Joel. So fuckin’ good, like sunshine and honeysuckle and the best damn candy you ever tasted…”

“Bet she does,” Joel said, bending and putting his lips on your bared breasts. He held you gently in his hands at first before he sucked your nipple gently into his mouth. He moaned with it and you did, too, as he sucked you for a moment trailing kisses to your other breast and doing the same there. Tommy watched, almost awed for a moment, before going back to your dripping heat. You moaned when his tongue slid inside you again, your back arching. You felt Joel smile against your chest.

“Think she likes that,” he said. “Keep doin’ it.”

“Planning on it,” Tommy panted from between your legs before diving back into you. His tongue spread you open as his fingers worked your clit and you rocked your hips against his face, any sense of shame you had long gone.

Joel kissed up your chest to your throat, the brush of his lips and the scratch of his beard making you shiver and gush a little onto Tommy’s tongue as he ate you. He moaned as you did and Joel kissed up your jaw toward your lips but stopped just short of kissing you. You whimpered.

“Not yet, little girl,” he breathed, reaching to cup your breast. “Want you to kiss him first, after you fuckin’ soak him with your come. Want to taste you on your tongue when I kiss you the first time. Think you can do that for me? Think you can come all over his fucking face?”

You nodded, not fully able to form words. Tommy increased his pace and added a finger to where his tongue was working inside you, spreading you open wider, finding the soft places inside you to pet and press.

“Doin’ so good for me,” Joel said, sounding a little breathless and needy. “So, so good for me. Want you to give into it, baby. Want you to give in to me n’him. Give in and come, give yourself to us, you can do it, come on baby, come on…”

He pressed his lips to your throat just as Tommy added pressure to your clit and his finger was deep inside you and you started to come, crying out with the force of it as your walls fluttered around him. One of your hands flew to Joel’s thigh, digging into him with sharp desperation, while the other went to Tommy’s curls, twisting and tangling in them as you worked yourself against his face.

“There she is,” Joel breathed and you opened your eyes to find him watching you intently, pupils blown and face lined with want. “Good girl, comin’ so hard for us. Just let it all go, baby. Give it all to us, we want all of you, all your pleasure, just give it all to us, come on…”

Tommy ate you through your orgasm until you went limp. Tommy sat up, breathless, looking down at your exposed body for a moment before taking his place on the other side of you from Joel. Your half dazed eyes traced over his face and saw traces of your slick on his lips.

“Here baby,” he said, gently cupping your face and tilting your head toward his. He pressed his mouth to yours and you weren’t sure where the taste of you ended and the taste of him began as his tongue swept into your mouth. After a moment, he pulled back ever so slightly, just enough to look in your eyes for a second before pressing his lips gently to yours once more. When he pulled back again, he just watched as Joel turned your head toward his and kissed you, too.

It was soft and delicate at first but, as soon as his tongue pressed into your mouth, he became desperate, kissing you hard and deep, moaning as he did. Even though you just came, you could feel yourself getting hot and tight again.

He pulled away eventually, looking across you to Tommy.

“She does taste good,” He said.

“Told you.”

Joel laughed once before cupping your breast again, looking you up and down.

“We overwhelmed you yet, little girl?” He asked. “Need us to stop so we don’t break you?”

“No,” you panted, looking between them. “And… I think I’d be OK breaking for you.”

“Fuck,” Tommy hissed, sliding a hand down your body to the apex of your thighs to just cup your pussy. “Think she can take both of us at once? Don’t think I can wait my turn…”

“I bet she can,” Joel said, looking down at you. “You ever taken two cocks at once?” You swallowed hard and shook your head. “Think you can be our good girl and tell us if it gets to be too much?” You nodded. “Good.”

Joel took you by the waist and pulled you tight to his front before he rolled onto his back, taking you with him with a sharp little squeak. You could feel the thick of his cock through his sweatpants and you ground yourself down on it, moaning as you did. Tommy got out of bed for a moment, just long enough to take his sweatpants and underwear off and leaving him naked in front of you.

Your eyes went wide at his cock. Thick and long with just the right amount of curve, he worked just the head of himself, smirking a little at your expression.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Take real good care of you when we make it fit. Besides, not mine you gotta worry about.”

Your eyes got wider, looking down in shock at Joel, who laughed.

“We’ll make sure you’re good and ready, baby,” he said, pulling you up his body just enough that you were no longer half sitting on his cock. He reached low and shoved down his sweatpants before he kicked them off the rest of the way and you tried to get a look at it.

Joel had another idea.

“Here,” he nudged you so you were sitting up, your bare, dripping pussy on his stomach. “Get a feel for me, baby.”

He lifted you just enough that, when he set you down again, your core was against the root of him. You gasped at the feel of him against you, so long and thick that it made your head spin.

“Fuck,” you panted, your hands going to his chest as you started to grind down against his length. He groaned.

“That’s it, baby,” he said. “Such a good girl, get me all nice and slick with you. Think you can make yourself come on my cock before I’m even inside you?”

You just nodded, working your hips harder and faster against him. Joel moaned.

“Good fucking girl,” he said, his large hands finding your thighs, fingertips sinking into the flesh of them. “Want you to suck his cock while you do. Gotta get him all wet to go in that little asshole of yours. Think you can do that for us?”

You just nodded and sat up from Joel a little more as Tommy crawled toward you on the bed, working his dripping length as he did. Your mouth dropped open and you took him into it, sucking and licking his head before starting down the shaft, moving slow as you looked up at him through your eyelashes, relishing the look on his face before he dropped his head back and moaned in pleasure. You were doing this to him, you were bringing this strong, powerful man to his knees with just your mouth.

“Holy shit you’re good at that,” Tommy moaned. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, gonna come down that pretty throat of yours if you’re not careful…”

“Don’t push him too far, little girl,” Joel said, rocking his hips up into yours and making you gasp. “Want to take all of you, can’t wear him out too quick…”

“Fuck, her mouth Joel, Jesus,” his fingers went to knot in your hair as he started fucking into your throat and you swallowed around him. “Fuck, you try not comin’ in her here…”

“Save it,” Joel said, sounding a little close to the edge himself. “Imagine how good her ass is gonna feel…”

“Oh fuck,” Tommy said, pulling you off his cock and panting for breath. Joel kept fucking his cock up against your pussy, the thickest part of him working your clit and making you moan, your second orgasm building. Tommy cupped your face, watching your desperation as you got close to coming from his brother’s cock. “Fuck, so damn pretty when she’s about to come. Work of fuckin’ art…”

“Tell me about it,” Joel grunted, sounding almost pained. “Fuck, you think she’s close? Need inside her, can’t…”

“Oh she’s close,” Tommy said as you whimpered, the ability to form words far behind you. “You like what he’s doin’ to you, little rabbit?” You nodded urgently. Tommy smiled. “Good, good. Want him to go a little faster? Just a bit?” You nodded again.

“Fuck,” Joel panted, increasing his pace, pushing you closer and closer to your orgasm. He pulled back just far enough on one stroke that his head caught on your entrance and the tiniest bit of him slipped inside you for just a second but it was enough to set you off, every ounce of tight need that had built up inside you throbbing and pulsing over Joel’s heavy cock. “Jesus Christ… fuck, gotta feel so fuckin’ good to be inside her when she does that…”

“She’s so good for us,” Tommy said, watching you intently, his eyes locked on yours. “Doin’ so good for us. Just gotta do that one more time when we’re inside you, OK baby? Think you can do that for us?”

You felt on the verge of tears but nodded anyway, wanting nothing more than to feel them inside of you when you came.

“Good girl,” Tommy breathed. “Now do me a favor, get my cock nice and wet one more time for me…”

You obeyed, taking him in your mouth to the root and letting your mouth soak him. He moaned, holding the head of himself in your throat, before pulling from you slowly and gently.

“Bend over for us,” Tommy said, helping you adjust so you were down against Joel’s chest with your ass back in the air. He moved to be behind you, his legs over Joel’s as your thighs were around Joel’s hips. He ran a thumb from your leaking center to your ass and let out a low moan. “Fuck, every goddamn inch of you… fuckin’ gorgeous.”

“You OK if we try to get inside you?” Joel asked, his voice low and needy.

“Yes,” you managed. “Please, fuck, need you, need you both so bad…”

“I know you do baby,” Joel said, a comforting hand coming to the middle of your back. “Gonna start with me in your pussy then Tommy’s gonna take your ass, gonna make you feel so fuckin’ full baby…”

Joel adjusted you ever so slightly, reaching his free hand down to lift his cock and line it up with your entrance. There was some resistance, the thickness of him almost too much to take but he pushed past it until you felt his whole head pop into your hole.

“Oh fuck,” he groaned. “Fuck, fuck… Need just a second, baby. Gonna come too quick if we go now just… fuck…”

You just nodded against his chest as your body adjusted to the small part of his cock that you’d taken.

“OK baby,” he panted. “Gonna give it all to you now.”

He didn’t give you a chance to respond, he just thrust into you and you cried out with the almost brutal stretch of him pushing deep into you, your tight channel rippling over him.

“Fuck,” Joel hissed, his fingers pressing into the bared skin of your back.

“How’s she feel?” Tommy asked, sounding almost pained.

“So goddamn tight,” Joel groaned. “Like she was fuckin’ built to take this cock, my GOD…”

Joel’s hand slid down to your lower back and he put pressure there, holding you in place as his hips lowered so his cock was fully seated inside of you. You rocked your hips, desperate for just a little friction.

“Fuck, so pretty,” Tommy said, his thumb going from your stretched opening up to your tight bud. “Need you to hold still for me, can’t get inside you if you move too much…”

You nodded even though he couldn’t see it and stilled, the thick, heavy weight of Joel within you burning you from the inside out. You felt a warm drop of liquid on your ass and realized that Tommy was probably trying to lube you up with spit. His thumb worked gentle circles over your puckered ring of muscle.

“Anyone ever been in this tight little hole?” He asked, almost reverently.

“One guy,” you managed. “In college…”

“You like it?” He asked.

“Yeah,” you said, breath picking up at the thought of it. “Fuck, yeah, I did…”

“Gonna make you love it baby,” he said. “Now just relax for me.”

You did your best to obey but you were already stretched so tight there it was hard to imagine anything else fitting inside that half of your body. But you wanted it. Wanted to feel both of them deep within you, the three of you together.

Tommy pressed his cock head to your hole and spit one more time before he started pushing in. You whimpered at it and Joel’s hand ran in a soothing pattern up and down your back, the tight ring of your ass holding firm.

“C’mon, just let me in,” Tommy panted, pressing harder. “Just let me in, baby, make you feel so good when I do…”

“Relax for us,” Joel said in your ear, so soft you doubted Tommy could hear. “This was what you wanted, right? For us to take you, make you ours? Can’t do that if you won’t let him in, little girl. Just let him in, let us have you…”

Tommy’s cock pushed past the ring of muscle and he sank a few inches inside you with a strangled moan.

“Holy shit,” he panted. “Fuck, never… never felt something this tight, Jesus Christ…”

He pushed deeper, slowly, gently, and you pressed your face down into Joel’s warm, broad chest, moaning and needy. You’d never felt this full, never felt this stretched, never felt this overwhelmed. Never felt like you so totally, utterly belonged to anyone else.

“Almost inside you,” Tommy panted. “Fuck, doin’ so good for us. So so good…”

Another minute and Tommy’s hips met the plush of your ass and he moaned, his fingers digging into your hips as he did.

“Fuck, we’re inside you baby,” Tommy said, his head falling forward until it met the middle of your back. “So deep inside you, fuck…”

“Taking both of us, baby,” Joel whispered, just for you. “Really ours now, gonna take such good care of you…”

“I gotta move, Joel,” Tommy panted, sitting up again. “Fuck, I can’t… I gotta… fuck.”

“We’re gonna fuck you now,” Joel said, loud enough that Tommy could hear him this time. “You just take us and come on our cocks like a good girl.”

You nodded into Joel’s chest.

Tommy started to move first, pulling back slowly before thrusting in harder and faster. When he thrust in, Joel slid out until just the head of him remained inside your channel. When he pushed back inside, Tommy pulled back again. The men set the pace, alternating in perfect rhythm so you were never empty, giving you the mind-blowing combination of almost constant friction with constant stretch.

It didn’t take long before you started to tighten around them, their cocks working your holes in tandem, filling you and stretching you and claiming every inch of you. Joel had to push back inside with a grunt as your orgasm built, the tightness of your inner walls almost too much for him.

“She’s gettin’ close,” Tommy panted. “Fuck, already tryin’ to milk my cock…”

“Think we can get her there,” Joel said, breathless, thrusting somehow deeper than he’d been before, making you gasp.

“Fuck, need to feel her come,” Tommy said, gripping your hips tighter and starting to fuck in and out of you faster. Joel followed suit, thrusting in deep and hard on his final stroke.

“I’m… fuck,” you panted, your insides hot and coiled with pleasure so intense you could barely remember your own name. “I’m close, so close, want to come with you, please, want to come with both of you, please, please, please…”

You kept whimpering and pleading, mind foggy, as Joel and Tommy picked up the pace, Joel’s arms wrapping tightly around you, holding you close and tight to his skin as his and Tommy’s orgasms built.

“Gonna come,” Tommy said. “Fuck, gonna… I’m gonna…”

“Please, please, please…” You sobbed and they both thrust deep inside at the same time, stretching you to your limit, both throbbing deep and hard, triggering your own orgasm, walls clenching onto them tight and rippling over them.

“Did so good for us,” Joel whispered softly in your ear as your core fluttered around them, their cocks going still inside you. He held you close, one hand on your ribs, the other on the back of your head. “So fucking good for us…”

“Thank you,” you whispered. “Thank you, thank you, thank you…”

Your whole body went limp, nothing but an overwrought, dripping mess as Tommy slowly, gently, pulled himself out of you. You felt some of his come drip out after him but he scooped it with his finger and pushed it back inside, covering your tightening hole with his palm until it closed again.

“Belongs inside you, baby,” he said softly. “Gotta keep it where it belongs…”

He collapsed next to you and Joel and you whimpered at the loss of contact. You wanted - needed - to be touching both of them. Joel seemed to understand, rolling with you gently onto his side and nudging you back into Tommy. His arms went around you and held you as Joel pulled out of you, a trial of your come and his running between your thighs to his softening cock. He pressed close to you once he was outside your body again, his cock all warm and wet against your skin.

“That what you needed, little girl?” Joel asked gently, tracing the outline of your face with his fingertips. You couldn’t keep your eyes open, letting them fall closed with a contented sigh and a nod. Joel’s lips brushed your forehead. “Good. Gotta take care of what’s ours.”

A/N: Yeah so this will almost definitely be a longer series in the future but this is it for now! Sorry for the wait and for the fact that it's completely unhinged.

Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for being here! Love you!

Taglist: @pockcock

#fanfic #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x oc #smut fic #joel miller x female reader x tommy miller #dead dove december #dead dove do not eat #tommy miller x reader

349 notes · View notes

seiya-starsniper · 4 months

Note

"I love your smile" with dreamling from the gentle prompts

Hello I am 8 million years later answering this anon, sorry for the delay, I hope you enjoy it!!! 🥰🥰🥰🥰

Also available on AO3

----------------------

It’s the kind of perfect spring day that the poets used to write about. Cool in the morning and warm, but not hot by mid-afternoon. There are sparse clouds in the sky, and the air is fragrant with the smell of flowers, of new life, of new beginnings. The fact that this perfect spring day also falls on a Saturday means that Hob Gadling is out with his camera, photographing every leaf, every small creature, happy couple, and passing vehicle that catches his attention.

And of course, his boyfriend.

It may be a beautiful and warm spring day, but Dream Endless is dressed like it's still the middle of winter; black jeans and black Doc Martens paired with a black tee and black pea coat to complete the ensemble. Hob had managed to talk him out of wearing the black scarf, at least. He knew Dream ran cold even in the summer, but the scarf would have definitely been too warm for today. In contrast, Hob is out in just a plain white t-shirt, cargo shorts and sneakers, and he’s certain that the two of them must strike their own kind of picture walking side by side through the park. Perhaps he’ll ask someone to snap a photo of them on his phone later.

Right now though, Hob’s having too much fun taking photos of Dream. Dream feeding the ducks with the small bag of seeds he’d brought along for just this purpose, Dream stopping to admire the various sculptures scattered throughout the park, Dream stopping to re-lace his boots.

“You take far too many photos of me,” Dream tells Hob eventually, rolling his eyes as he stands back up.

“What can I say?” Hob laughs, snapping another photo of Dream’s unamused face. “I love your smile.”

“Hob,” Dream says, leveling a flat stare at him. Hob continues to click away. “I am not smiling in any of the photos you’ve taken.”

He’s right, but only by a technicality. Dream hasn’t smiled once while looking at Hob’s camera. But the ones where he isn’t paying attention to Hob’s lens, well. That was a different story. But Dream didn’t need to know that right now. Later in the day, maybe.

“I know this may be hard to believe since it ruins that whole tortured poet look you’ve got going on,” Hob quips back at his boyfriend, amusement clear in his tone. “But you do smile.” He says it like he’s sharing a secret, and Dream looks at him in disbelief, before he sighs in exasperation. It's a fond exasperation though, Hob’s learned to tell over the years.

“Come. We are missing the goslings. We must catch them before they swim away,” Dream says, grabbing Hob by the hand and forcing him to put the camera down to rest around his neck. They walk over to where the geese and their recently hatched chicks are idling, and Dream approaches them slowly, kneeling and eventually sitting on a patch of dry grass closest to the pond’s edge. The geese eye him warily at first, but then Dream pulls out some seeds from his pocket, scattering them away from his person and sitting still as a statue while they slowly approach him.

Hob stays back away from where Dream is sitting; geese seem to hate him for some reason, but Dream has yet to meet a bird that doesn’t instantly take to him. It’s one of the things that Hob had noticed about the other man.

They’d met a little over two years ago in this very park, and Hob had been enraptured by Dream feeding the pigeons. He’d only meant to snap one or two photos of the strange goth man, but then one of the pigeons had flown up onto Dream’s shoulder and cooed happily as the man fed it straight from his hand. Dream’s smile had been small, but absolutely radiant in that moment. Hob fell in love at first sight.

Dream, decidedly, had not. He thought Hob to be a nuisance, had thrown a fit about having his photo taken without his knowledge or permission when Hob approached him. Hob had promised to not post any of the photos anywhere, and even offered to delete all of them if Dream saw them and really hated them that much. It would’ve killed Hob to delete such stunning photos, but he would’ve done it.

Luckily for him, Dream had softened when Hob had shown him the photos, then demanded Hob print them for him for free. Hob agreed, and then, because he had absolutely no self control around beautiful people, had asked Dream if he’d let Hob buy him dinner as an additional apology. Dream turned him down, and then also refused to give Hob his name when asked. Hob was hopelessly charmed.

After bringing the other man the agreed upon photos a week later, Hob promised not to photograph him if they ever ran into each other again. Dream looked at Hob like he didn’t believe the other man, but Hob kept his word, and for a time they maintained a pleasant, but distant acquaintance whenever they happened upon one another on days when the weather was nice.

It was Dream, surprisingly, who decided to approach Hob with a rather lucrative offer a few months later.

“I’m interested,” Dream had told him.

“In me?” Hob asked, surprised and flattered all at once.

“In your photography experience,” Dream clarified, though his cheeks had pinked at Hob’s words. “My sibling is getting married in a few months and they have yet to find a photographer they like.”

“Well, I can give you my website so you can show them my portfolio—”

“They’ve already seen it,” Dream interrupted him, blushing all the way from the tip of his nose down to his neck. “I—they wanted me to ask you if you’d shoot for their wedding. Personally.”

The rest, they say, is history. Hob hasn’t stopped photographing Dream ever since—with permission, of course.

In the present, Hob watches Dream’s patience and gentle tenacity pay off. The goslings eventually crowd around him and chirp happily, while the parental (Mother? Father? Hob can’t tell) goose angrily hisses at every other passing person who gets too close. They seemed to have claimed Dream as one of their own.

Hob’s camera clicks away until he hears a low warning beep signifying that his memory card is full.

In hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have taken that 25 minute video of Dream feeding the crows the other day. But well, they’d all crowded around him and he’d looked so happy. The crows looked happy too, probably because Dream may as well look like them. It was cinematic art, and Hob would not be convinced otherwise.

When Dream eventually runs out of seeds, he bows his head and holds out his empty hands, a universal sign for the end of their interaction. The geese seem to realize quickly he will no longer feed them, and so they wander off into the nearby lake, the babies eagerly and awkwardly following their parent on tiny legs still unused to traveling by land. Hob waits until they’re all safely in the water before he takes a seat next to Dream.

“Have you finally tired of photographing my face?” Dream asks before resting his head on Hob’s shoulder.

“Never,” Hob answers with a small laugh. “I ran out of memory.”

Dream lets out a dramatic sigh. “Finally.”

“Oh hush, you,” Hob replies, jostling Dream with his shoulder. The other man groans at having been disturbed, and Hob takes the opportunity to wrap an arm around Dream’s shoulder, before planting a kiss to his hair.

“Show me?” Dream asks, reaching for Hob’s camera. “I want to see just what it is you find so fascinating about watching me feed waterfowl.”

Hob chuckles.

“Everything, love,” he answers honestly as he pulls up the photos for them to review on his camera’s tiny screen. “Absolutely everything.”

#dreamling #the sandman #sandman fanfiction #dream x hob #hob x morpheus #seiya writes #seiya writes dreamling

167 notes · View notes

musings-of-a-rose · 6 months

Text

All of You

Pairing: Javier Peña x f!reader (eventual wife reader)

Word Count: 2900+

Rating: Mature - 18+ ONLY!

Warnings: Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story.

Notes: I’m not sure who originally said it, but the wonderful @morallyinept shared this and I had to write it for her! A Boxing Day gift? Is that a thing (said in American)? Shoutout to @rhoorl for the nickname! This is not beta’d because I’m tired lol

Yeah... I'm not okay. I read a reblog comment which made me chuckle saying this is older, retired Peña who's being slowly overfed by his wife

**If you want to be added to the taglist, join here or let me know!

❤If you enjoy the fic, please consider giving me a warm beverage! (It is not required in any way!)

→Tell Tumblr this should be shared with others by reblogging! That's what the algorithm loves (it's how it works here. I don't make the rules!)

**Reader is not described

Main Masterlist

Javier Peña Masterlist

“I’ll be right with you!” I yell over my shoulder as the entry bell dings, boots casually walking across the hard floors of my little corner store bakery.

I slide the baking pan in my old oven, an antique to most but she works better than most of these modern ones. I set my timer and place it on the counter next to the oven, wiping my hands on my apron as I spin around to address the customer and am momentarily rendered speechless. A man casually peruses my glass display case, all dark hair and dark eyes, a slim frame but the broadest shoulders I’ve seen. His nose is prominent, a mustache that sort of reminds me of Burt Reynolds is neatly trimmed, and he leans down to look closer at something in the case.

Sexy would not begin to describe this man.

“Are those coyotas?”

I blink, his voice runs through my brain and makes my body shiver, goosebumps erupting across my arms.

“Y-yeah. Yes. Coyotas.”

He looks up at me, his eyes wide and round just like a damn puppy and I could get lost in those eyes.

“Could I have a few?”

“Absolutely. Anything else?”

He finally looks at me, pulling his eyes away from whatever memory the coyotas held and blinks, his eyes scanning down my body, the tingles from before starting back up.

“S-sir?”

“Huh? Oh. Uh yeah. I’m picking up an order for Chucho? Peña?”

I chuckle. “Chucho. My favorite customer! I have his order right here.” I move to grab a small bag with various pastries inside, making him a to-go cup of cafe con leche to accompany it.

“Would you like a cup?”

“What? Oh I don’t want to put you out.”

“You’re not. How do you like it?”

“Plain?”

I pour him a black cup of coffee, sliding the lid over it before turning to hand it to him, his fingers brushing against mine as he takes it and I feel my cheeks heat up at the spark that passes between us.

“Chucho normally comes to say hi.”

“Yeah he’s dealing with farm shit right now. Asked me to come.”

I nod. “And you are?”

“Oh shit! Sorry! I’m Javier. Chucho’s son.” He extends a hand as I say my name but does it too quickly, coffee spilling out of the cup that he had squeezed a little harder than he should have. “Fuck I’m so sorry. Let me help-”

I wave my hand. “I got it. Are you ok? Some of that got on you. Hold still.” I take a clean cloth from my apron pocket and run some water on it, turning back to Javier. I gently take his hand, placing it in mine, trying to ignore the heat that immediately sprung up between my thighs. I dab at his hand, hearing his breath come in short bursts.

“Am I hurting you?”

“N-no. Not..hurting.”

He looks into my eyes, his pinched together and round and we just stare at each other for several moments, getting lost in the other. Then the bell rings and the spell is broken, Javier jerking his hand back as a woman walks in and I wave to her, letting her know I’d be right over. I grab Chucho’s order and coffee, carefully handing the latter to Javier.

“Wait. I haven’t paid.”

I wave him off. “Don’t worry about it. I got it.”

“No. You deserve payment.”

“Javier, really. It’s ok.” My body braver than I am, I place my hand on his forearm, giving it a little squeeze, offering him a smile. Javier shifts from foot to foot before looking at me and nodding.

“If you insist.” He hesitates, opening his mouth to say something else but then the door bell jingles again and he closes his mouth, holding up the bag slightly in thanks.

Javier comes to get his dad’s order every day for the next few months. I’m fairly certain Chucho will have gained some major weight by now, with all the cookies and pastries Javier brings him. But I am not complaining - any chance to see this man, hear him talk. He doesn’t tell me much about the last few years, but I imagine he can’t, not really. His job has so much confidentiality involved but it’s deeper than that. I can see it in his eyes, the hardness, sadness, regret for things he must have had to do to take down an evil man.

So he asks me about me, where I’m from, how did I get so good at baking, all of it. I tell him how my “abuela” taught me the from moment I could talk, teaching me all the traditions that accompany each pastry. Even though we weren’t blood related, she had been really close with my mom, who reminded her of a daughter she’d lost. Javier listens with rapt attention, asking me questions to learn more as he sips his coffee.

But one day he doesn’t come in at his normal time in the morning. Instead, Chucho walks in, smiling and giving me a quick hug before making his usual order.

“No Javier today?” I ask, trying to be nonchalant. Which I guess I’m not because he smirks.

“Actually, I had business in town today. Javi is mending some things in the barn for me.”

The image of a sweaty Javier fills my mind and I shake my head a little. Focus.

“Oh. Sounds like hard work.”

There’s that smirk again. “It is. Hey, could you do me a favor? I owed him dinner and I won’t be home in time for that. Poker night at Robert’s house. If I call Rita’s, could you bring it to him?”

“I..me?”

“You close early enough?”

I’d close right now if it meant seeing sweaty Javier pounding nails.

“Y-yeah. I can do that for you.”

He smiles, handing me money for his coffee. “I’ll call Rita’s. Could you get it around 4?”

I pick up his food at Rita’s, ready and waiting for me at 4pm, and follow the directions Chucho had given me out to the Peña farm. I’d be lying to myself if I said I wasn’t nervous, getting to see Javier outside of the walls of my little bakery was something I’d only dreamed of. I figured if he were interested, he would’ve asked me out or something by now. Right?

Taking one last glance in the mirror to adjust my hair, I step out of my car, walking around to open the passenger door and grab the food, his drink secured in my other hand. I hesitate at the front door, mostly because I’m trying not to chicken out but also because my hands are full and my brain is not operating fully. I eventually decide to set his drink down on the arm of the porch chair and knock, waiting several moments. Only, no one comes and the house is quiet. I knock again, wait again, and still nothing. But then I hear a faint clink! Clink! Coming from around back where the barn is and I assume Javier is in there.

Grabbing up the drink, I take a deep breath and head towards the barn, where I hear some more banging and a couple of swear words. Nervously, I raise my hand to the wood door and knock, despite the door already being open. The pounding stops immediately and then he walks into my vision, Javier, sweaty, no shirt, jeans with some wear on them, and a tool belt slung low on his hips. He’s wiping his hands on a handkerchief as he walks towards me, head cocked to the side but his eyes wide and…nervous?

“Pastelito?”

I smile, clumsily holding up the food and drink. “Chucho said he was going to Robert’s and wouldn’t be home to get you the dinner he owed you.” Don’t look at his chest, don’t look at his chest. Don’t. Look.

His eyebrows pinch together in confusion. “Owed me? He doesn’t owe me anything.”

“O-oh. I..he just asked me and I said I’d help. But you look busy, I can take this back if you don’t-”

“No!” He steps closer to me, reaching for the food. “I mean, no. I’ll…thank you, pastelito.”

I hold out the food and drink, Javier only a couple of steps away. I finally manage to look at him and find him already looking at me, his eyes dark and bright, looking for something in mine. He takes the food, his fingers brushing against mine, only this time he doesn’t move away. His large hands pause over mine for several moments before his fingers start to trace little lines up my forearm, goosebumps pimpling my skin, my heart racing. No longer in control of my brain, my eyes scan down his shirtless chest and back up, heat flaring between my thighs. He grips my forearms, pulling me to him and I drop the food, my hands immediately coming up to touch his chest as he lifts my chin, his lips pressing against mine. Fuck, his lips are soft and he’s so warm, sweaty from his work and all I can think is how I want him to press me into this bale of hay and take me, let me take his worries away.

One hand slides down my back, the other cradling the back of my head as his tongue pushes gently forward, my lips parting, tongue coming out to meet his. He presses his body against mine, the sweat from his chest getting me wet all over. He walks me backwards until I bump against a beam. He starts to kiss a path down my neck and I gasp, whining a little when he sucks on some spot below my ear. His hands are wandering, sliding across my body, hoisting one of my thighs up on his hip, his stomach pressing in between my thighs and I moan at the feel of it. As he reaches my boobs he stops, pulling his head up so fast I’m dizzy with the motion of it.

“Javier?”

His eyes are nearly black, his chest heaving, and he shifts slightly where he stands. “I…I can’t.”

Ouch. “Oh. I..you can. If you need permission, you definitely have it.”

“No, it’s just-” He sighs, gently setting my leg back on the floor and stepping away from me and I feel cold despite the heat of the evening, and embarrassed.

“I’ll see you around then,” I have to get out of here before the tears come. But his hand gently closes around my arm, tugging on it lightly until I turn, swallowing hard.

“Paselito, it’s not you. Please, come sit? And I’ll explain?”

I nod, shaking my head to rid myself of the tears. At least for the moment. He sits on a bale of hay and pats the space next to him. I sit, wrapping my arms around myself for some sort of comfort. He looks at me, taking my hand in his and holy shit why are his hands so large?

“Pastelito…I..I normally rush right into the physical. Hell, that’s all I really had for the last 6 years.” He sighs. “But I don’t want to do that with you. I don’t want to rush it. I definitely want to, but I want to date you. Fuck, I sound stupid don’t I?”

“Not at all, Javier. I…I’ll assume this isn’t a line,” Javier chuckles at that. “But I would absolutely love to date you.”

We fuck at the end of the first date and through the remainder of that weekend.

10 years later…

Javier sets his utensils down, chewing the last bit of his dinner before taking a sip from his glass. “You need to stop cooking so well, mi esposa [my wife], or I may not be able to fit through the door.” He rubs at his stomach, softer and slightly more fluffy after a few years of early retirement.

“Never. I love cooking for my husband. He’s definitely earned it.”

“Yes but soon you may not want me.” He pats his stomach and smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, insecurity brimming behind it.

I set down my fork, pushing my chair back to stand up and walk over to him. His eyes follow my movements and I gesture for him to push his chair back from the table, which he does. I stand between his legs, looking down at him. I place my hand over his, where it rests on his stomach.

“You think I’d find you unattractive because of this?” He shrugs, a non committal answer.

“Maybe. I am not in the shape I was when we met.”

“Neither am I, Javi.”

“Yes, but you’re gorgeous.”

“So are you.”

He blows air from his lips, looking away from me. Much to his surprise, I decide to straddle him, his arms quickly hooking behind my knees to help hold me. I lean forward, kissing him hard and he kisses me back, his nails digging into my skin. I’m grateful I wore a dress today, especially because there’s less layers between us. I start to move my hips, slowly at first but the heat quickly builds as I grind along his belly, breaking the kiss to gasp. He watches me, eyes wide and dark as I rub myself on this area that causes so much insecurity.

“Fuck, Javier, you’re so fucking..ngh!” My hands grip his shoulders, digging into his skin.

“Yes, pastelito, use me. Fuck me how you want. Show me how you feel.” His chest heaves, helping to hold me in place still, but his hands are twitching, wanting to touch me. I speed up, grinding harder and then suddenly I come, his name spilling from my lips as I leave a wet mark on his shirt. Finally, I look down at him smiling, seeing his eyes like a damn puppy.

“I fucking love your body, Javi. All of it. I could fuck myself on all of YOU!” I scream out the last word as Javier suddenly stands, pushing me up and laying me on the table, somehow pushing dishes out of the way as he did, some of them clattering to the floor, to be picked up later.

His hands scramble up under my dress, yanking down my soaked panties and pulling them off, groaning when he felt how wet they were. His belt buckle clanks as he undoes it and drops his pants to the floor. He lines up, but I lean up on my arm.

“Wait.” I reach forward with my other hand and undo some of his buttons, Javi finishing the rest before yanking it off himself. I run my nails down his chest and over his belly, the damp skin there heating me up.

I meet his eyes. “You’re so fucking, hot Javi. I will never stop thinking that.”

He pushes me back down and into me at the same time and I yell his name as he splits me open, his fingers digging into my hips and pulling me towards him as he thrusts, an extra hard jut of his hips when he’s already inside, knowing how that makes me writhe and moan, my entire body like a livewire. He grunts with every thrust of his hips, baring his teeth sometimes with the force of it and all I can do is hold on, my fingers digging into his arms as I moan and yell his name.

“Yes! Fuck me, Javi!”

His hand moves between my thighs, touching me and my legs twitch. He smirks down at me as I chant his name. “Scream my name, pastelito. Make the neighbors know who I am.”

“Ye-YES! JAVI!” I come hard, yelling his name as he asks, stars in my vision and the sound of wind rushing in my ears, but not loud enough that I don’t hear him, grunting and panting out my name as he spills into me. His forehead touches mine, his nose nuzzling into me for several moments before he sits back up with a different groan, rubbing at his back for a moment before pulling out.

“Well my back definitely tells me I’m getting older.”

I chuckle, my breathing finally leveling out as Javi extends his hand to me, helping me sit up. He holds it, pressing a kiss to the back of my hand before placing it on his cheek, looking at me.

“So, you said you could fuck yourself on all of me?” His eyebrows are raised questioningly.

I nod. “Oh yes.”

His eyes darken. “Then show me.”

General Taglist:

@frankie-catfish-morales @chaoticgeminate @janebby @astoryisaloveaffair @balekanemohafe @greeneyedblondie44 @hoeforthefictional @marvelousmermaid @hauntedmama @giuliarogers @icanbeyourjedi @wretchedmo @sunnshineeexoxo @livingmydreams13 @adventures-of-a-noodle @sara-alonso @theewokingdead @punkerthanpascal @giggly-otter @f0rever15elf @phandoz @dirtytissuebox @gallowsjoker @lovesbiggerthanpride @sarahmilesbendrix @booksarekindaneat @mrsudontknowme @swol-bear @charlispersonallyhell @xoxabs88xox @amneris21 @gooddaykate @alindeluce @avengers-fixation @paintballkid711 @harriedandharassed @ladykatakuri @marrianena @practicalghost @Withakindheartx @batdarkladyvampir @justanotherkpopstanlol @mermaidxatxheart @alexxavicry @ichigodjarin @justreblogginfics @sullyosully @kmc1989 @veryprairieberry

221 notes · View notes

stickyspeckledlight · 3 months

Text

Despite Everything, You Still Exist [Yan!Aventurine x Reader]

The short moments when the world remembers you. Hypothetical HSR voice lines based on Sunrise, Sunset, My Destroyed Body In the Onset. Can be read as standalone, though.

Notes: Lol I had some thoughts and doing this right now will mitigate my uncontrollable hype for when 2.1 is out later tonight. (From the future: lol 2.1 is out now ahaha)

Ao3

The air rings with the sound of cranking slots, spinning roulette, fallen chips, and spilled cards. Some visit for reasons outside the sound; the bar's happy hour, a good meal at the buffet, and the venue where musicians of middling to great renown play. They merely chatter amongst themselves, occasionally sparing a look to the many games at play, perhaps spending a few credits if they want to test their luck. But the ones of note are always the ones playing the game. For some, the sound of a shuffling deck of cards is as familiar as the back of their hand, and they cannot stand to be away from it for more than a day lest they live with the emptiness of their soul. Some have already accomplished much, do not know what they want anymore, and are just here to pass the time. Some are fools, believing they can strike a fortune and climb to the heavens. They feel the most, celebrating triumph and wallowing in despair alike.

But those who stand out most are those who decide to test their luck knowing of destiny's inherent unjustness.

Chat: Limits

"Most people do all they can to live within their limits. Whether it be maintaining their mundane routine, keeping to themselves, or turning away from things that pose too much risk to them. When most reach their limit, they tend to completely shut down, and give up—they dread that risk. What most people don’t realize though is that in breaking limits, you go beyond them. My friend, if you ever see someone reach their limit...pushing them past it will yield something truly special or, if you’re lucky, a destructive yet breathtaking beauty."

Chat: Lovely Things

“What do I like? Trying to gauge my weaknesses now are we? …oh? You just want to get me something out of the sheer goodness of your heart? Aw, you’re too sweet; my friend, we’ve already established such a great bond, you and I, so there is no need to exchange gifts between us! And, gift giving always does bring about jealousy; you wouldn’t want to incite that, would you? Besides, I doubt you could gift me anything lovelier than I already have.

Chat: Change

“Change is a wonderful thing! It keeps things from getting stale and predictable and is the prime ingredient for anything unexpected. Change doesn’t necessarily mean massive shifts like how most people envision, and I wholeheartedly believe one’s own self can remain consistent even with change. Speaking of changes to one’s self…heh, no matter how happy they may be as and with their changed self, a part of them will always mourn the person they used to be…even if the person of old runs counter to their changed self. Hm? A distant look in my eye? Nonsense, my friend! Just think of this as some helpful advice, free of charge. I do hope you’ll be able to put it to practice—I think we’d both hate if I were disappointed, after all.”

Casinos are ultimately reprieve, but eventually, one must return to their obligations. One can’t gamble without money, and money must be made from working. Work comes in many different forms—some work aims to increase other’s gains, some to increase its own, others to retrieve the money which is owed. These individuals are not so hard to find at the casino—like moths to a flame they aim to win with the wealth accrued by another, only to find themselves stripped of it unwittingly. It is easy to rig the game when the opponent believes they are the master. Chat: Interesting People

“My work takes me all over the place, so I get a lot of opportunities to meet all sorts of people! Granted, it’s my work that also causes a lot of meetings to not be on especially amicable terms too. And some of the people I have to deal with are…well, there’s a reason I keep a pistol with me. The best meetings though are when you’re off the clock and free to just wander about! Souvenir shopping, trying out local cuisines and experiencing its culture can be pretty nice, and it’s when me and Numby are just out and about where we meet many. I’m sure you Astral Expressers can relate to that. But, as with all things, some particularly stand out even when you don’t expect. Like, a little while ago, I finally finished a project—a big one that had some of us Stonehearts coming together—and I met this rather pleasant individual. Nice, polite, and their sense of humor wasn’t half bad; even gave me some pastries they made! A short but sweet conversation. But…there was just something…off, about them. My instincts are pretty good when it comes to these sort of things; it’s like…they were keeping themselves at a weird distance. Even though I deal with that a ton during negotiations, this time it just felt odd in a particular way, yet quite uncomfortably familiar. But it was after we said our goodbyes and I saw them again. I don’t know what happened, but then I saw the expression on their face, and…I know what that odd feeling is now. Maybe I should reach out, that guy isn’t exactly…o-oh, sorry! I got a little carried away, didn’t I? And I did sort of lead you on with starting things so lightheartedly…here, why don’t I make it up to you? A few Aetherium Wars booster packs, maybe?”

How do people lose money like this, though? Many go into the casino with the belief it is fair and just, not understanding just how rigged the game is. “Shed any and all illusions of outwitting the system,” one is told, left with nothing when they could not draw an ace of spades.

They are here because for many reasons: circumstance, unfortunate luck and their own hubris. And in that last reason lies the penultimate behind their misfortune: ignorance.

Chat: Willful Ignorance

“Ignorance is a horrid malady, but like all forms of malaise there are multiple variations. The most common is unwillful—what most think of when thinking of ignorance. Cures differ from individual to individual of course, but they tend to be the most simple affair; simple pedagogy does wonders in establishing a baseline knowledge, and for matters of great specificity or those already with baseline knowledge, a few thorough lectures are the ultimate vaccine. Willful ignorance, however, is a much different matter. Its cause is not rooted in the absence of knowledge, but of cognitive dissonance—you find it especially amongst those who have aged, already set in their ways and unwilling to engage with anything to broaden their horizons. For this, treatment must be thorough and harsh; it cannot be absolved without stripping down a patient’s worldview, lens, and grip of reality. But this is not the most vexing form. The hardest ignorance to cure is the one taken on fully aware, knowing it is false and knowing of its folly but nevertheless live by it; you look confused, so I’ll put it in simpler terms: a patient who isn’t ignorant, far from it even, but still lives their life as if they were. Curing this places patients in a rather volatile state. This ignorance is often the patient’s way of coping with a situation, when they’ve exhausted all other forms of protection. …But, I am a scholar. Advancements are not made by talking, it is through action, and eventually, I will be the one to make it. …I simply hope I can make it in time.”

But nothing lasts forever. The patrons return home, drunk or penniless, and the sound drowns out. Staff emerge from their shadows and silently do their part in crafting the honey trap, but even they must leave, and the lights are shut.

#yandere #yandere hsr #yandere aventurine #Topaz #Dr Ratio #hsr dr ratio #dr veritas ratio #veritas ratio #dr ratio hsr #hsr aventurine #hsr topaz #topaz hsr #honkai star rail #Destroyed Onset #Yandere aventurine x reader

142 notes · View notes

celenawrites · 16 days

Text

After Hours: CH1 — Another Work Day

Pairing - Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!Reader, previous! Phillip Graves x F!Reader

Warnings - Office AU, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Eventual Smut, Slow Burn, Misunderstandings, Sexting, Praise Kink, Dry Humor, etc.

Summary -

Life has been out to get you ever since you found your ex cheating on you. To add salt to your wounds, your beloved pet dog goes missing while you try to recover from your nasty breakup and your company has been overloading you with piles and piles of paperwork you can never seem to finish; along with a bunch of babbling interns who can never take a hint when it comes to shutting the fuck up, along with a scary, firm-handed supervisor who seems oddly interested in getting to know you better, despite your reluctance.

Chapter Summary -

Just another day at work with your unique team.

Read on AO3? | Masterlist | Navigation

As you put up the final poster of your missing dog near a park, you ruefully recall how this wretched week had begun.

You were two months clean of your no-good, chauvinist manwhore of an ex when you decided to leave your beloved golden retriever behind at your empty one-room apartment as you set off for a long commute to work. Granted, your life has become lonelier than usual with the remnants of your estranged partner scattered around the space - like his red toothbrush in the bathroom stand, the ukulele still hung up on your cream walls, or the crystal ashtray he used whenever he decided to smoke a cigar and set off the smoke alarms in the small (you prefer to call it ‘cozy’, despite his many protests) living room, forcing you to open up the windows and air out your room, hoping that the neighbors don’t lodge a complaint against you in the RWA.

But you have set up a routine, which is not perfect by any means - yet you make do with it. It also helps that your dog Butters is just an absolute ray of sunshine, always up for a walk and playing fetch to cheer you up whenever you get off work. After a long day of work, playing with him was all you had been looking forward to - until you noticed your ajar door and felt your world come to a standstill. Fearing the worst, you burst inside and frantically check around for any stolen valuables you may have to report to the police. So much for a chill night after work.

Luckily, it had seemed no one had broken in and you had just forgotten to lock your doors in your hurry to catch the morning train. But the silence and the lack of your furry friends sets off alarm bells in your head. You quickly call out his name, hoping to catch a glimpse of that golden fur, but to no avail. Frantic, you rush out of your apartment as you yell for your companion. When you fail to locate him anywhere in your block, you resort to asking your neighbors in case any one of them had spotted him throughout the day. Some of them are peeved at you disturbing them, but they’re quick to pity your dejected figure, tears welling up in your eyes as the day catches up to your weary body.

With aching legs, you make your way to the park you often frequented with Butters and in the plethora of crowd of people and pets alike, you attempt to search for your dear doggo and it is all in vain. With defeat weighing you down, you quickly dial for the police and lodge a report for your missing friend. Noting down your case number and the names of the staff in-charge, you sluggishly go back home and prepare a half-hearted dinner of heated frozen pizza, which you eat with virtually no appetite to satiate and go to sleep on the hard couch with swollen eyes and a migraine blooming between your temples as the empty bedroom still haunted you with not-so-fond memories.

A week has passed since then, with no plausible leads to Butter’s whereabouts. The cops have even suggested you give up and get a replacement for him, which just made you all the more angrier at their blatant apathy. With each passing day, you lose your hopes of ever reuniting with your beloved fur baby; but you hope for Butters to be alright, wherever he is.

Whoever has him, please take care of my baby, you silently wish as you stare at the blank screensaver on your desktop, activated due to your prolonged inactivity. Snapping out of your thoughts, you quickly press on the spacebar thrice until the Excel spreadsheets are visible again. Sighing at the banal tasks assigned to you, you quickly check your phone for any texts. Family and friends and classmates you occasionally stay in touch with;they all have texted you something or the other - a greeting, a link, a meme. And then there’s your ex, who has left you ‘on seen’ after you texted him to come and grab his box of belongings two weeks after your breakup. Whether it is because he is in denial over you growing a spine and breaking up with him when you caught him cheating, or because he believes that you would come crawling back to him and beg him to grace your life with his presence(which is a tempting thought that you frequently entertain, especially during lonely nights when you crave rough hands to caress you into a lull), you do not know and you don’t have enough fucks in order to find out either.

“How’s my bonnie doin’?” a familiar Scottish voice asks, and you whip up your head to find Mactavish standing in front of your desk, all sunshines and smiles and mohawks as he greets you.

“Hey Johnny, I’ve been better”, you rub the sleep from your eyes as you look at him with a slow smile of yours. John ‘Soap’ Mactavish was the first coworker you had befriended when you decided to join the tech security company One-Four-One. Director Laswell had asked him to give you a tour of the place and help you set up your work devices and he had taken on that responsibility with a toothy grin and a loud pat on your back, promising to show all there is to be seen and help you out whenever you find yourself stuck. With his easy going attitude and helping nature, it didn’t take you long until you found yourself looking forward to attending office, if only to spend some time with your coworker-slash-friend.

“Worried about Butters, huh?” he somberly asks you, gently rubbing your upper arm in sympathy.

“Yeah, I am just worried about him. I hope he’s okay”, your nose prickles with the fresh onset of unshed tears in your eyes and you bury your face in your hands as you try to take deep breaths and calm yourself down. Crying at the workplace never really ends well for you.

“I know, lass. But I also know that Butters is a smart boy, he’d take care of himself just fine till he comes back home, yeah? So don’t you worry”, he consoles you, picking up your empty mug as he leaves you to collect yourself.

“I’ll get you a new brew, and we can talk for a bit, okay? Be right back.”

And then he leaves the common floor, hopefully going to the break room to get some new coffee brewing for the morning.

Seeing your distraught state, Kyle Garrick, the temp hire, gets up from his desk and drops off some raisin cookies at your desk to go along with your cup of oncoming java. When you protest, he winks at you and asks you to save the treat for yourself - all the more exasperated with Johnny and his grubby hands that are always eager to snatch away his snacks. That makes you laugh a little, and he smiles at you as he makes a beeline for the bathroom.

Feeling a little lighter, you decide to work on the neglected spreadsheets just a tad bit longer till Johnny comes back, each hand holding a cup of coffee and a grin on his face that tells you he has some much needed gossip to keep your mind off from your constant worries.

It is an hour before lunch break when Joseph, the new intern, approaches you at your desk.

“Hello-”

“No.”

“I didn’t even say anything!”, he whines out, and you are reminded once again that he’s still a college student, despite his monstrous height and unusually deep voice.

“You don’t have to”, you reply, your eyes barely leaving the screen as you typed away and responded to him, “I can tell you have come here to bribe me into doing your work again, and my answer is no. I am too busy to deal with you.”

“You don’t have to do anything, I swear! I already did the work!” he claims, and you turn to face him with an arched eyebrow and a speculative expression on your face that gives away that you’re having a hard time believing him.

Joseph is a nice enough guy - he always greets you and is kind enough to use his height to pull down things for you that are kept on the too-high cabinets, and he is intelligent enough to keep up with almost all the technical jargon being passed around by some of your haughty teammates during daily meetings and project discussions, as well as suggest some truly out-of-the-box innovative ideas that has transformed how the team worked for the better. But he’s a terrible procrastinator, often finding himself finishing tasks at the eleventh hour; while prolonging tasks until the last minute does lead to him coming up with amusing and original ideas, it leaves room for him to commit quite a few silly mistakes and errors that one might overlook on an initial run, unless a senior staff member is asked to review it.

And ever since Laswell went on leave and appointed Price as the acting Director in her stead, you have been swamped with towers of paperwork and meetings while also managing meetings, work sprints and other team issues - basically acting as Price’s right hand as he tries his best to manage the team without letting it implode on itself. Add in your messy personal life and you are already tired enough to sleep at your desk by the time the day is over and hope to never move. (Price has at times found you slumped up against your keyboard, softly snoring with dark eyebags as he noted how you probably needed a much-needed break from it all, despite knowing very well that your absence in the office for more than a day would probably cause unending chaos he won’t be able to manage on his own.)

“I have finished the report. I just need you to go over it once to make sure I haven’t messed up anywhere, else Simon would tear me a new one!”, he pleads with you, and you recall that his uncle, Simon Riley, is one of the founding members and is responsible for overlooking the interns they had hired and tracking their progress. You also remember how the behemoth of a man had almost made you pee your pants when Johnny first introduced him to you, all in his brooding glory.

You have half a mind to reject his request on that basis alone, afraid to attract his attention onto you. But then Jo looks at you with his puppy brown eyes(a complete opposite from his uncle’s brilliant blue eyes) and furrowed brows, his lips downturned as he looks at you with pure hope and you find yourself sighing as you finally acquiesce, “Fine, just mail it to me before you leave for lunch, and I will send you the finished file before the deadline.”

He fistbumps the air and promises to you, “I will pay for your coffee! And a snack too! For a week! You’re the best!”, before he leaves you to your own devices.

You sigh out in exasperation, leaning back into your ergonomic chair and feeling your back stretch in discomfort. You swear Joseph might give you a few gray hairs by the time his training period is done for good.

You check your drawers for spare snacks, well aware that you’d have to skip lunch if you want to complete your pending work and help Joseph out with his report.

Skipping lunch proves counter intuitive when you find yourself in the common break room and groan at the empty coffee jug, half-heartedly making a fresh batch for yourself and for your forgetful colleagues as well. While you wait for the java to slowly percolate and drip down into the empty pot through the freshly-changed filters, you look inside the freezer in hopes of finding some frozen food you can microwave, or at least find a spare ice cream for you to munch on.

Unsuccessful in your search, you instead nibble away at the granola bar you found stuffed inside one of the spare drawers, when one of your coworkers decides to join you in the break room. You pause as you see Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley, the cyber sec guy, enter the room and stand a few feet away from you as he eyes the whirring coffee machine with interest. You find it hard to even exist in his larger than life presence, as his giant stature almost compels you to hunch your shoulders and curl in on yourself - a poor attempt to hide away from his intimidating figure, like a doe-eyed prey trying to shy away from an apex predator, and futilely hoping for it to forget about you if you try your best to blend into your bland, uninteresting surroundings.

You always feel odd whenever you interact with Riley. Mostly, you do not know what to feel about him. He’s silent and deadly, and the horror stories you have heard from the fresh batch of interns about his anger and his need for perfection has cemented his image as a strong and fearsome, unapproachable figure into your mind just fine. Standing at 6’2 with broad shoulders and veiny arms visible thanks to his summer tees and thick thighs that bulge whenever he wears those tight black jeans that only makes you all the more curious-

The ‘mindless’ rambling aside, his appearance is enough to put the fear of God into you. Add his rough and not-so-friendly demeanor along with his deep voice, and you have got one very attractive asshole who you can never approach no matter how much you’re compelled to make a move on him. You almost thank him for it, because mixing pleasure with business will only ever land you in trouble, if you’re being honest with yourself.

He nods at you and you are forced to acknowledge him with a calm greeting, as your fingers silently drum against the marble island of the kitchen.

“Didn’t have lunch?” he asked you with his gravelly voice, and you wonder how many girls have swooned (and possibly gotten their panties wet) when he addressed them so casually. You’re pretty sure he can read a grocery list and make a girl wetter than the Atlantic just fine.

You shake your head, “Had some catchin’ up to do, sir.”

His eyes appear darker than usual, despite being his softest feature yet, “Skipping meals won’t do you any good, you know. Better to eat a proper meal than whatever you’re having right now.”

“I know”, you tell him, well aware that whatever excuse you use here would just land you in hot waters with the weirdly overprotective man anyway. You’d rather not get lectured by the man today.

Whether it is because he might make you cry, or turn you on - you do not know and are not eager to find out either.

The ceasing of the brew trickling into the glass pot allows you to divert your attention to the caffeine concoction you have just created. Pouring some of the hot liquid into your cup, you see someone push their mug beside it. Looking up, you see Simon standing beside you with an amused look on his face. You blink at him in confusion, and he gently shakes his glass, begging for some much-needed coffee.

He explains himself, “Had some of the early morning brew, tasted like dogshit.”

You laugh at his sudden crassness, finding it too funny to clarify that the morning brew was made by his beloved friend, Johnny. Mactavish would’ve chewed him out for that if he was there, but he’s having one of those few days wherein his meetings made it hard for his schedule to sync up with Simon’s.

Taking a slow sip out of white mug, he replies with a wry smile, “Yours always tasted better anyway.”

And then, he exits the scene and leaves you in a puddle of pure confusion, with one question looping in your mind - When has he ever tasted your coffee?

You’re thankful Simon has already left and cannot witness your flustered state at his sudden remark.

Author's Note -

Happy breaking out of writer's block to me!

Finally able to write and post something after a month of inactivity and contemplating about abandoning this blog all together. Glad I persevered through it though.

I came up with this after reading a dozen or so fanfics throughout the week while worrying about landing a job where I am interning. Very original, I know. I also think this would be a relatively shorter series, given how it is more lighter than some of my other works and WIP materials.

Also, I am hoping to stick to a schedule in order to hold myself more accountable and write more consistently. So expect new updates every 2nd and 4th Sunday/Monday :>

Until then, have a great week ahead. I have to sleep if I want to wake up on time and start work. ;-;

#call of duty #cod:mw2 #simon ghost riley x you #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #mw2 ghost #simon ghost riley smut #ghost x y/n #ghost x reader #call of duty au #call of duty smut #char.simon ghost riley #🖇️.after hours #celena.writes

73 notes · View notes

banjjakz · 3 months

Text

Seven Days at Granny Orimoto's Flower Shop ; Yuuta x F!Reader

My name is Okkotsu Yuuta. I am a recent graduate of a martial arts vocational school. I just completed a year-long internship abroad in Africa. Due to my recent re-entry into Japan, I am still in the process of setting up my phone and internet. I apologize for the inconvenience and I am extremely sorry for the burden. As a supervisor and business, you may benefit from the set of skills that I have to offer. I can lift upwards of 25kg. I am neat and detail oriented. Due to past life experiences, I am a fast learner and quick to adapt to new surroundings. I am accustomed to taking orders and delivering results. It is my utmost goal to ensure the comfort and satisfaction of those around me. I am eager to be of service. Please think of me kindly.

Or: An odd boy shows up every night begging for a job offer. Did you mention that he gives you handwritten letters? Do you have to report a workplace romance if the only other employee is your boss, who is currently dying? Asking for a friend.

notes: commission for the lovely mielle! thank you very kindly for 1) commissioning me!!!!!! and 2) putting up with my compulsion to surpass any and all word count specifications

warnings: general off-putting vibes, casual discussions of child death, implied stalking (at the very least), unethical(…? maybe ethically gray?) necromancy, etc. y'all know what's about to go down

♡‬ read on ao3 ‪♡‬

Life as a florist is every bit the dream that you’d hoped it would be.

The thought of working from nine to five in some cubicle for the rest of your life was enough to drive you out of university before even completing the feeble attempt you’d half-assedly made at a degree. While the path to your current state of employment had not been linear, easy, or even recommended, you cannot imagine ending up anywhere else.

You’re lucky enough as it is that Granny Orimoto was willing to take you on – perhaps, at first, out of pity – as a shop-hand. That day, all those months, is still as clear as unmarred waters in your mind. What a pitiful image you must have made: underfed, poorly clothed, with roving, vacant eyes.

Nevertheless, you adjusted quickly and gratefully to your new place of employment. Within months, your sense of self and purpose in life had been restored, watered and nurtured underneath the guiding light of Granny Orimoto’s flower shop. Like a corpse risen again, your days were once more filled with hope and aspirations.

Eventually, Granny Orimoto began bestowing upon you more and more responsibilities. You tend to think of your daily tasks as privileges more than anything else. You’ve graduated far beyond merely ringing customers up on the till – at this point, you’re somewhat of a budding horticulturalist. Or, at least, that’s what you’d like to think on your good days.

Recently, Granny Orimoto has even begun to entrust you to manage the shop on your lonesome for several days out of the week. It used to be the case that she would require you to work only hours that coincided with her own availability, so that you might fall under her constant supervision. Of course, this was back when you could barely keep a plant alive. Nowadays, things are quite different.

Quite different, indeed.

On this slow, Monday evening, managerial status finds its way to you once more. Closing the shop used to feel weird, without Granny Orimoto there to lay into you about your posture, or your clumsiness, or your naturally shy, stuttering nature. Now, it’s starting to feel eerily more and more like business as usual.

When the bell above the front door rings, you don’t think too much of it – this town is a bit of a tourist trap, so there are quite a few out-of-towners who aren’t used to respecting closing times. Usually, you’re too nice to shoo them out, but the weight of the day bears heavily upon your apron-clad shoulders.

But when you spin around on your heel, the polite-yet-firm “we closed four minutes ago” withers on your tongue like dead leaves crumbling away upon the unrepentant, earthen ground.

The most disturbing thing is not that he’s exactly your type of handsome: tall, gaunt, malnourished, with a strange, lost look in his wideset eyes. It would be easier, somehow, if your immediate and arresting attraction to the gangly stranger was the most of your worries.

Perhaps what unnerves you so, is the fact that you are powerless to do anything but devote the entirety of your attention to the odd young man. The terra cotta pot once in your grasp has suddenly been placed on the nearest shelf. The gardener’s gloves on your hands have now been stripped away and flung carelessly to the ground, the delicate flesh of your fingers on display for the world to see.

“Are you hiring?” He asks. The lights flicker. Granny Orimoto should really stop fighting you about calling an electrician – they aren’t that expensive.

No, is what you should say, because you don’t have the authority to answer this question and also the thought of having to train someone else when you are just barely getting the hang of your newfound managerial status is a terrifying prospect.

And yet, what ends up leaving your mouth is:

“Yes.”

His black hair is overgrown and in dire need of a trim. The bangs are in a liminal state: too short to part, too long for comfort. It dangles limply in his eyes. Those eyes. Big and glassy and dark, like a dead doe gazing up, unseeingly, at the sky.

“Okay,” he says. “Is there an application that I could fill out?”

Is he not cold? The weather chills significantly at night, and his layers look rather thin. Or maybe that’s just the way the clothes hang off of him. “No, it’s alright. You can just – um, you’re good.”

“I’m…?”

“You’re good,” you repeat and then you have to fight for control over your own body, so that you can turn around and break eye contact before it actually kills you. “When can you start? Do you have a phone number? Um, so we can get in touch with you about scheduling and training and verify your location and such and so forth.”

Okay, that last sentence was hastily tacked on. You’ll be the first to admit that much. But what kind of girl would you look like, asking a random stranger for his number out of the blue?

You hear more than you see him shuffle his feet, still lingering awkwardly in the doorway. “Um, no, sorry. I don’t have a phone.”

“E-mail?”

“Ah..no…would communication via letter be alright?”

What is his problem?

He shows up, four minutes past closing, poorly dressed and clearly in poor health, as well, to inquire about a job opening, and doesn’t even have a phone or any form of contact to provide other than handwritten correspondence?

Is this a prank? Are you being pranked, right now? You pause your fastidious, frustrated handling of today’s arranged bouquets just to surreptitiously scan your surroundings for any hidden cameras.

It’s like the man of your dreams has walked through the door. It’s almost too good to be true. You know you have eclectic tastes—and this is exactly why you’ve never had a boyfriend, before.

Because what living man could possibly compare to the fictional freakshows you stay up late at night reading about? Who would be worth fawning over, when you are already well equipped with a wealth of off-putting – and, quite frankly, disturbing – characters of ill-repute? Never has there been a living, breathing vessel capable of catching your jaded, heavy eyes.

Until now, that is.

“Sure,” you say, allowing the brain-rot to take control of your faculties. “Give me one second to write down our mailing information.”

But before you can cling desperately to another excuse to evade his magnetic presence, the strange boy speaks up, alluring you with the unsettlingly tranquil timbre of his voice: “That won’t be necessary. I can hand deliver the letters every day, around this time.”

You blink, sizing him up once more. Any normal human being would find this situation incredibly odd and even worth of a police report.

However, you’re comfortable in your own skin and are able to recognize that the screws you’ve knocked loose over time have, for better or worse, permanently altered your threshold for “red” or “green” flag recognition. For all you care, the flag could be purple. You aren’t thinking about flags right now. You’re thinking about his murky bangs, dark and deep, a rich obsidian, metastasizing over the smooth expanse of his alabaster forehead like a natural disaster.

“Okay. I’ll be waiting at this time every night, then.”

For the first time this evening, his gaunt face split into a tender grin, pink lips parting like spliced flesh. Somehow, he’s able to make the act of smiling something gory, something haunting. Your eyes are glued to the bone-white of his teeth. It’s like watching a car crash. You want, desperately, to look away. You cannot.

“I’m glad,” says the strange boy. “I’ll be here every night, right on time.”

A soft breeze stirs outside, just restless enough to tickle teasingly at the windchimes which dangle from the shop’s awning. Usually, the barrier of the front door dulls the melody. Tonight, you can hear the bells loud and clear.

Before you can think to demand (beg) that he reveal additional identifying information about himself – like, say, his name – the boy has all but disappeared from sight. Incredulously, you whirl around on your heel, scanning every visible inch of the shop for any possible clue as to where he went. But your searching is all for naught. It seems that he is, both in presence and absence, a complete mystery to you.

Well. There are certainly worse things that have happened to you. At least you got to chat with a cute, creepy guy for your trouble.

;

The next day, Granny Orimoto abstains from work yet again. Her modest apartment sitting atop the flower shop has kept her out of sight for many days, now. You’re no stranger to her fits and bursts of ill health, but you cannot recall the last time the brusque, full-hearted old lady has been bedridden for such a prolonged length of time.

You almost consider trying to drop by unannounced to bring her some soup and vitamins, but the thought dies immediately upon arrival. Memories of the last time you’d tried to caretake for her and were subsequently thrown out with indignant, irate gusto are enough to curb your momentary sympathy.

This means that you are effectively head of shop, once more. Over time, it gets easier to deal with the random accidents prone to any small, self-run business: leaks, clogs, jams, flickering lights, disappearing items, strange sounds at odd hours with an unlocatable source. All of it, you handle with def improvisational methods.

Even the spontaneously shattering bathroom mirror is no match for your handywoman capabilities! Really, Granny Orimoto should be lucky that it is you who happened to show up on her doorstep just as her health began to take a dive.

These are the kinds of thoughts buzzing around your skull as twilight descends upon the horizon like flies to a carcass. The death of the day is, as usual, a bloody affair: hues of bright vermillion spill across the sky, setting everything in the shop a brilliant, flagrant shade of fresh-burning red. The terracotta pots seem almost to be radiating with internal heat.

Night comes soon enough, bringing with it a brisk chill in the air. The wind rustles the windchimes, a forewarning of what is to come.

And sure enough, at 8:04 P.M., there he is, lingering in the doorway, daring to take not one step past the threshold, just as he’d done yesterday, that first night.

“Good evening.”

Clutched in his fingers is a wrinkled letter, wrapped in plain stationery. He offers it to you with both hands, politely.

The space between the both of you evaporates in the fraction of a second it takes for you to cross the shop and greet him back, accepting the letter with greedy hands and a greedier heart. “Good evening. Thank you for the correspondence.”

“Thank you for receiving it,” he replies, scratching the back of his head in a stupidly endearing self-conscious gesture. “I know the manner of communication is a bit unconventional… sorry about that…”

“It’s okay.” And it really is. You, of all people, are no stranger to unforeseen and harrowing life circumstances. That the young man does not possess a phone or email address is not so uncommon, anyways – you’ve had time to reflect on the situation, and for all his off-putting looks and strangely formal manner of speaking, he could easily be a country mouse who has recently relocated to a more urban area. Who are you to judge?

“Shall I have a response waiting for you tomorrow night?”

He bows, then, for a bit longer and a bit deeper than what is normally appropriate for two virtual strangers. “I’d be grateful. Thank you for the trouble.”

Once more, he evaporates seemingly into thin air, leaving behind not even the faintest trace of his existence. He appears to possess an uncanny ability to slip out of sight just as your eyes fall shut in the millisecond it takes to blink, to breathe.

Taken in stride with his dark-circled eyes and general aura of mysterious tragedy, the whole schtick is a little bit sexy, you have to admit. His vibe is that of a haunted family heirloom: beautiful, priceless, stained in generations of blood and cursed to doom those who dare to draw too near.

Your eagerness is almost feral as you tear apart the seal to the envelope in your hands, greedily pawing at the innards. What awaits you is a handwritten letter, complete with smudged pencil marks obscuring some of the more intricate kanji scribbled onto the page. Some of his radicals waver, lines bending or sprawling in odd and abnormal ways, as though he’d been shaking when we wrote it.

As though he’d been nervous. So nervous, in fact, that upon handing you the thing, he had to immediately abscond from the premises without another word.

Cute.

To Whom it May Concern,

Thank you very kindly for your willingness to take me on as an apprentice to your shop. Please allow me to introduce myself.

As a supervisor and business, you may benefit from the set of skills that I have to offer. I can lift upwards of 25kg. I am neat and detail oriented. Due to past life experiences, I am a fast learner and quick to adapt to new surroundings. I am accustomed to taking orders and delivering results. It is my utmost goal to ensure the comfort and satisfaction of those around me. I am eager to be of service.

Please think of me kindly.

Upon reading the very last word of the very last line, you discover that your bottom lip has been bitten so severely that a fine trickle of blood is descending down your chin.

There is no resume or CV in sight – just this handwritten, strangle little letter in which he divulges some most interesting truths.

Is he playing mind games with you? “Accustomed to taking orders”? “Eager to be of service”? Is he trying to tell you something? Outside of the hiring process, that is.

The note itself is perfectly polite and proper. It’s you whose mind succumbs hedonistically to the gutter. Oh, for shame.

At night, the shop tends to turn into a gnarly jungle of pots and leaves and vines and poorly-placed smatterings of soil; you wade through theses trenches, aided by no more than the moonlight attempting to feebly infiltrate through the shutters – as the lights are out, again. Should probably call someone about that.

In your frantic haste, it’s a miracle your hands aren’t sliced by a spare pair of shears lying forgotten on some counter or another. Before injury occurs, you’ve already located what you’ve been searching for: a usable pen and some clean, uncrumpled paper.

The matchbox in your back pocket proves useful as you strike up a flame and light a nearby candle, paying no mind to the potential danger of the wobbly column of fire in a room full of fauna.

Like a woman possessed, you feverishly scribble away at your reply. It takes you longer to draft this one particular letter than it had to complete your college entrance exams.

But it’s alright – the candle beside you burns throughout the night, neither the wick nor the wax diminishing even a wink.

Dear Okkotsu,

Your eagerness to work hard is clearly evident. Color me impressed.

As fate would have it, I am in dire need of some help with running the shop. The owner has been absent with illness for quite some time and the workload is starting to get unmanageable. The addition of a strong set of arms is more than welcome. Even when it was the two of us putzing around, we still wouldn’t have been able to do some of the heavier lifting.

I’m curious to hear more about your passion to serve. Was this instilled in you during your time at vocational school? What does “being of service” mean to you?

While we are ultimately a public-facing shop, the stream of customers is slow, and your daily tasks will often look like physical labor and horticultural activities. But, from your letter, it sounds like this will pose no object.

Overall, your enthusiasm is appreciated and your hard-working attitude is attractive to future employers.

You could start as early as tomorrow.

Please do respond at your convenience.

It was rather quickly with only a slight bit of panic running through your veins that you tacked on “to future employers.” Even while reading it back, you cringe a little bit. Too forward? Oh well. It’s written in ink and it’s much too late to go for hunting for another clean piece of paper in the shop’s opaque blackness.

Speaking of which… you really should call an electrician. And a plumber. And some sort of handy man, to help you clean up all the broken glass from the shattered bathroom mirror. And maybe it may also me a good idea to get in touch with a security footage company and inquire about their installation rates. It certainly can’t be normal; how many things go missing so frequently. Although you’ve spent most of your waking hours with an aging elderly woman up until very recently, you’re quite sure that dementia isn’t contagious.

Ah, well. These are all things to take care of tomorrow. Sighing, you tuck away the letter into your back pocket for safe keeping before you go about locking up.

You try not to think too hard about the lingering gaze you feel on the back of your neck. If anything, it feels better than being completely alone.

;

The fragrant scent of okayu fills your nose as you climb the stairs to reach Granny Orimoto’s apartment.

Usually, you would not dare to trespass inside her abode, despite it’s close proximity to the shop. She is a grouchy old lady who does not take kindly to meddling. And yet, you couldn’t ignore the seed of worry in the pit of your belly, which had blossomed over the course of the past few weeks into full-blown concern for her wellbeing. Besides her once-daily text message in the evening confirming the status of shop operations, you have not seen or heard from the old woman in what must be almost half a month at this point.

So, you’ve bitten back your pride and prepared a meal to personally deliver to her.

You are moderately concerned when there is no response to your three separate attempts at knocking on the door. Granny Orimoto hadn’t responded to any of your text messages, so you’d naively assumed she’d been asleep and hadn’t seen them. But is it possible to sleep through the ruckus that you’re creating?

The tension in your body only heightens when you try to the doorknob and realize, in shock and slight horror, that it’s open.

“Granny Orimoto?” You call out, haltingly yet loudly – loud enough to reach her wizened ears. “Granny, I’m sorry, I’ll be coming in now! Pardon the intrusion!”

Taking care not to jostle the still-hot bowl of rice porridge in your hands, you slip off your shoes at the Genkan and make your way inside of the apartment. Although you’ve only been here once before – and it had been an extremely brief stay before Granny Orimoto had shooed you off the premises – it still doesn’t feel all that unfamiliar to you.

It’s a traditional set-up, that much is for sure. Not much has changed, either. Same old floral blankets folded in various assortments and piles around the tiny room, same old plastic draining rack laid across the kitchen sink.

And, of course, there is that strange pair of guest slippers by the front door.

A bright, childish pink with the width and depth to accompany the foot of a young girl no older than six, these slippers had given you pause the first time you’d set foot in Granny Orimoto’s apartment. As far as you know, the old lady doesn’t have any living relatives with which she maintains contact. She spends every holiday alone, in her room, and refuses any offers of companionship between the two of you. You’ve always assumed something tragic must have happened, for a woman this advanced in age to have no one to visit or host during the New Year.

So why, then, does she keep a pair of children’s house slippers by the front door?

Although they are neatly placed and carefully aligned, the heels of the slippers face the direction of the household – as though they’ve been recently taken off and exchanged for outside shoes. Like someone has been here and left. Were they in that position when you stopped by before? Perhaps Granny Orimoto set them that way during her last cleaning.

Shaking yourself out of your reverie, you move past the entrance area and towards where you know the bedroom awaits. There is no overt stench of death and decay, so you aren’t afraid of walking in on her corpse. You’re, like, 85% sure that you could mentally recover from handling that situation, but it would be unfortunate and would likely mean an endless night for you and the poor EMTs who would be dispatched to the scene.

The bedroom door, too, is slightly ajar, and when you push it open all the way, you’re greeted by a sight that hits you squarely in the chest, knocking the wind from your lungs, stealing your voice, marring your eyes with shock and sympathy.

Granny Orimoto lies on her back, skin so pale that it is a near perfect match to the futon covers draped around her frail body. Even from this distance, you are able to clearly track the pathway of her veins as they course across her, the deep blues and greens standing out abnormally against the thin, alabaster flesh. Her hair, significantly grayer than the last time you’d seen her, has escaped from it’s usual, customary low-slung bun. You’ve never seen Granny Orimoto in any other kind of style – in fact, you’d begun to think – somewhat mischievously – that her hair had been surgically arranged to the nape of her neck.

But now, it sprawls around her skull in scraggly spirals, spilling across the pillow like leaking liquid. Thin and brittle, you’re sure that if she tried to gather it into a bun as she once had, it would split and break into a million fine pieces of ash.

“So, you’ve come.”

That hoarse voice snaps you out of your trance. You hadn’t even noticed that she was awake. One moment, you’d been gazing at her motionless body – and the next, you find her entirely unchanged except for the fact that her eyes are now open, peering at you. Unblinking. It’s disconcerting.

It looks like the effort pains her, to lift one hand and pat weakly at the comforter. “You came all the way here, silly girl. Might as well sit.”

You aren’t being kicked out?

Wow. She really must be dying.

Gingerly, you fold your legs beneath you and linger at the edge of the futon. “Granny, how are you feeling? I brought okayu. If you are feeling up to it, please eat. You must take care of your health.”

“Alright then,” says Granny Orimoto, mildly. “You’ll have to help me.”

“Of course.”

There is ultimately an insignificant amount of spillage down the front of her shirt, in the end. Still, you take it as an opportunity to encourage her to take a bath and change into fresh clothes, which you expect she has not done in far too long. This, too, requires your assistance. You don’t mind it at all. In fact, it brings you peace – to be able to care for the woman who had most probably saved your life by taking you in, all that time ago.

When it’s all said and done, Granny Orimoto lays back in the bed. The sheets could use some washing and the futon itself should surely be hung out in the sun to dry, but you recognize that this might be a bit too much excitement for her today. Having eaten and bathed, Granny Orimoto appears ready to return to her slumber.

You decide not to push your luck by overstaying your welcome. “Please rest well, Granny Orimoto. I will come back soon.”

It is when you are almost past the threshold of the bedroom door that you hear Granny’s whisper, faint as smoke and so soft it almost doesn’t sound like the stubborn, strong-willed woman you once knew:

“You remind me of my granddaughter.”

As though you’ve been struck by lightning, your body is immediately paralyzed, muscles helpless to do anything but twitch in confusion, overstimulation. “Oh…? I hope she is well…”

“She’s dead,” says Granny Orimoto. “The stench of death follows you.”

Ironic, coming from a woman who is quite obviously preparing to approach the far shore herself. “I see.”

“Whatever is hanging around you, get it taken care of. You’ll stink up the shop and the plants will wither.”

“Yes, Granny.”

“Are you taking care of my zinnias?”

“Yes, Granny.”

“Better be. How can you own a flower shop if you can’t take care of zinnias…”

You want to whip around and ask her what the hell she means by that, but the rumbling of her soft snores fill the space before you can get another word in edgewise.

As you make your way downstairs, Granny’s words continue to marinate in your mind – and not just her implication that the shop would be left to you. That she thought it fit to tell you that you remind her of her dead granddaughter was certainly an event that occurred in your life. But what exactly had she been on about, telling you that you smell like death?

In absentminded thought, your hand fiddles around in your jacket pocket with the latest letter from Okkotsu. You can’t stop thinking about his response to your last letter.

To You, Whom it Concerns,

Are you taking care? The seasons are changing during this time, so I hope your health is faring well.

I’m glad that my enthusiasm comes across as clearly as my physical capabilities. Sometimes I struggle to convey my intentions and inner thoughts. It seems like we can understand each other well, even while communicating through letters, which makes me happy.

To me, being of service means unobstructed and clear-minded dedication of the self, body and mind, to another’s fulfillment. Not dissimilar to pure love. This “pure” element is important to me. In fact, I believe total service is a form of pure love. Would you agree?

Maybe this is a bit strange to say, and you might hate me for it, but you remind me of a girl I once knew. She is long gone now. It has been nice to see some of her, again. Of course, it has been even nicer to get to know you.

Regretfully, I cannot begin formal employment just yet. The country re-entry procedures are taking longer than expected and things are a bit complicated right now. It is burdensome, but if you could please kindly allow for some additional time I would be very grateful. I’m sorry to trouble you.

In the meantime, it’s fun to chat together, like this. I’d be happy if we could continue.

Take care not to catch a cold.

The first time you’d read it practically had you squealing into your hands like a schoolgirl. Pure love? Expressing concern for your health? Expressing his desire to continue exchanging letters, even if he can’t formally start the training process?

At this rate, you’re on track towards a confession.

Which, of course, is the ultimate goal. You could never forgive yourself for letting the physical manifestation of all your wildest fantasies slip away. No, you’ve got to reel him in. You’ve got to ensnare him in a web of infatuation, so convoluted and intense that he won’t be able to find his way out. You’ve already decided that he is yours. It’s only a matter of time before things fall into place.

As has become customary, Okkotsu drops by the shop at precisely 8:04 p.m. and not one moment sooner or later. You’ve grown to anticipate the tinkling of the windchimes which herald his otherwise soundless arrival. Like an apparition, his visage manifests in the front door.

There’s something different about tonight: uncertain, he chances a foot past the threshold. “Could I trouble you to come inside?”

Oh. Oh! Are you finally past the stage of contactless letter exchange? You could cry tears of joy. “Please come in.”

“Pardon the intrusion…”

When he breaks past the entry area, it’s as though a wave of heat pulses throughout not just your own body, but the entire shop, as well. A light sweat breaks out at the crest of your brow. Is this seasonally appropriate? You aren’t sure if there is any season wherein a heatwave past sundown is normal.

Okkotsu looks at you like a lost puppy, floundering at what to do, what to say next. You yourself are no less awkward, but you take on the burden of breaking the silence first:

“It’s funny, you mentioned in your letter that I remind you of a girl you once knew. Today, my boss said that I remind her of her dead granddaughter. Wouldn’t happen to be the same girl, huh?”

You’re trying for lighthearted, but the joke falls flat when Okkotsu pales, white as a ghost.

Damage control, damage control! “Oh, I’m – I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“No, no, it’s alright,” he cuts you off, raising a hand. “I should’ve been forthright from the beginning. You aren’t too far off from the truth.”

Huh?

Okkotsu continues, “When I was a little boy, Mrs. Orimoto’s granddaughter and I were best friends. Her name was Rika. When she was six, Rika died in a car accident. I was with her at the time and failed to do anything to stop it from happening, or to save her. I’ve always been very sorry to Mrs. Orimoto, who raised Rika from a young age. By working at her shop, I hoped to repay some of that debt…”

You blink once, twice. Time seems to fall apart and reconstruct itself in the space it takes you to conjure up a response. What can you possibly say, to a story like that?

“You don’t, er, have to say anything,” mutters Okkotsu, as though he’s read your mind. “I know it’s heavy. But that’s the truth…”

“Okkotsu,” you say, voice tinny and faraway to your own ears. “You have a good heart.”

His downcast face shoots upwards, wide eyes seeking out your own with a desperate sheen to their dark, bottomless depths. “Huh…?”

“I mean it,” you press on, stepping closer as you do. He doesn’t even flinch or waver. You know this, because your senses are acutely aware of every fiber of his being. “Not many people would be that brave, or honor that sense of duty. You’re an admirable man. Has anyone ever told you that before?”

It seems you’ll be staying well past closing tonight to mop up the puddle that Okkotsu is about to melt into. His ears burn such a bright red that they almost glow in the dim lighting of the shop.

“I- I--!”

“So that’s the depth of your service,” you muse, your toes stopping just shy of his own, “or your ‘pure love’?”

Okkotsu’s eyes flutter shut. The sound of his gulp echoes like a gunshot. “Ah… er, miss manager, I—”

“Call me by my name. I’ve written it to you for a reason.”

Obeying your direct command, he feebly whispers your name, invoking you like he’s scared of what he’s about to summon. It sets a live wire alight at the base of your spine. Sparks fly throughout your body and it’s all you can do not to pounce on him then and there in this very shop, sleeping Granny upstairs be damned.

“Good. It seems you really are skilled at taking direction.”

His eyes are still closed when you nods, face flushed. Cute. You can’t help but want to tease him more, push him further. “Good job.”

His head all but hangs, now, as he resolutely refuses to make eye contact with you. In front of him, his hands are clasped suspiciously in front of his crotch – a detail which you take in ravenously, hungrily.

Curbing the overwhelming desire to do more, you settle with pushing your sealed envelope into his firm, solid chest with both hands, letting your fingernails press lightly into the muscle. “Here’s today’s letter. Read it and respond well.”

“Yes, I understand,” he says, eyes still shut, head still hung.

It requires you to stand on your tiptoes, when you try to lean into his ear and whisper: “You deserve a chance to make things right. Let me help you with this.”

You let him go, then, because you’re sure he’s about ready to burst at the seams. The last thing you throw his way is yet another bit of praise, because you’re a little bit awful: “I admire your idea of pure love, Okkotsu.”

Before tonight, you’ve never seen a grown man walk straight into a windowpane. Okkotsu reels back, nods and bows to you in acknowledgement before hightailing it out of the shop so fast that, as usual, you fail to actually see him go through the motions of stepping out and leaving. He’s always in such a rush. An odd one, he is.

Good thing “odd” just your type.

From that night onwards, Okkotsu starts making himself more available outside of his usual 8:04 p.m. haunting. Now, he’ll drop by early enough in the afternoons for his shadow to be visible against the door. Still, he resolutely avoids any times when current customers are present. You tease him, lightly, for this, asking how he plans to work partially as a sales attendant if he is afraid to interact with the customer base.

His response?

“I want to work here for two reasons,” he’d stated simply. “For you, and for Rika.”

Normal women would probably find an issue with their ideal man likening them to his dead childhood sweetheart. Fortunately, you are not normal. It’s flattering, even.

Clearly, Rika was another manifestation of his pure love. That you can even approach that category, let alone be mentioned in the same breath as her, is, to you, a vibrant green flag. You must be doing something right here.

So you continue intertwining yourself deeper and deeper with Okkotsu Yuuta: the letters are a constant in both of your daily lives, as well as his visits become more frequent. As an interesting development, he’s started to bring you homecooked food. Usually, it is you who does the caregiving. The first time he shows up with an obento made specially for you – complete with a heart made out of specially cut seaweed set atop the fresh rice – you almost start crying.

Admittedly, it’s all moving very fast. Hasn’t it only been four days, now, since he’d first darkened your doorway, pitifully asking for a job with no form of communication? And now, here he is, feeding you the food he’d prepared for you to enjoy as you go about your closing shift.

“Would you ever want to go out?” You blurt, and then pause, mortified at the overtly forward implication to your words. “Like! To a restaurant! Or a café! You always bring me stuff. Let me treat you.”

“Hmmm…”

Okkotsu’s wide, dark eyes roll upwards in thought. “But I really like staying here. I like eating here. No one else gets to see your pleased, comfortable face while eating except me. I don’t think I can share that. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you respond, dizzy. “You don’t have to.”

This is the right answer. Despite his soft, youthful features, the ginger grin he offers you is undercut by the ominous glint in his intense gaze. “I don’t have to share?” He gathers some pickled plum in the chopsticks, bringing them to your open, waiting mouth. “It’s all for me?”

“I am,” you say, and accept the bitter, delicious fruit on the tip of your tongue. It is pungent. It is sweet. It is overwhelming. You almost aren’t able to swallow.

Time spent with Okkotsu makes life seem so fantastical that it almost blinds you to the world of the living. That night, you cannot find it within yourself to leave the shop and go home after closing, instead opting to chat with this gaunt, ghoulish boy until you are startled awake in the morning by your phone’s automatic alarm.

When you come to, you discover that you’d all but passed out behind the front desk, where the two of you had sat, talking, for hours into the night. Okkotsu is nowhere to be found, but in his absence is a crisply folded piece of paper lying innocently upon the desk. Hastily, you scrub at your eyes and smack your lips, trying to wake yourself up as much as is possible before you unfurl the letter and dive into its contents.

To You, Whom it Concerns,

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to be apart from you?

If I could have, I would have stayed with you all throughout the night. I’m sorry to have left you by yourself. But you aren’t really alone. If you ever feel lonely, in the shop, please remember that I’m always there with you. Watching over you. Can you feel me?

Thanks for listening to me last night. It was a heavy story to tell, but now that I’ve confessed it, I feel so much lighter. And you accept me! Words can’t express how I feel, so please allow me to keep showing you.

Also, since Mrs. Orimoto isn’t well these days, can I ask that you don’t share with her that I’m here? The shock may worsen her condition. When she is no longer bedridden, I will tell her myself that I wish to remain and work in the shop. You shouldn’t be caught in the middle of my situation.

As always, I can’t wait to see you again. I miss you so much already, and I haven’t even left the shop yet. I’m writing this as I watch you sleep. Did you know that you snore a little bit? It’s cute.

Please think of me often.

On the one hand, you want to bury your face in your hands and scream and cry and maybe roll around and die a little bit. A love note! It’s a proper love note, this time. The thought makes your insides feel as though they’re being set alight with a bright, brilliant, inextinguishable flame.

On the other hand, Okkotsu’s mention of Granny Orimoto has brought to mind the fact that you haven’t heard from her in what is now two days. Usually, she’ll send you a message or two at the end of every day, making sure that things are in order and that you haven’t burned down the shop yet. But the last time you’d spoken to her had been when you brought over the okayu to soothe her sickly stomach…

Inexplicably, a chill overtakes your body.

Operating on autopilot, you pull yourself together – running a hand through your hair, smoothing your wrinkled clothes – and make your way out of the shop, to the external set of stairs running along the west wall.

With haste, you climb the steps, nearly tripping over yourself to reach the front door which has been left, once again, unlocked. The sense of wrongness occupying your faculties only heightens when you realize this must mean that Granny Orimoto has not been up out of bed since you’d last visited.

When you stop to toe off your shoes at the genkan, you notice that the bright pink pair of children’s house slippers are nowhere to be found, absent from their perpetual perch by the front door, as though someone – or something – has stepped inside.

Mind whirling a mile a minute, you push into the apartment and immediately reel back at the offensive scent of pure, unadulterated rot.

Oh.

Oh, no.

It could be the spoiled ingredients in the fridge, you think, desperately, as you hustle towards the bedroom. It could be anything. Anything but what it is you’re most afraid of.

Dazed, confused, scared, and still freshly woken up, your clumsy limbs somehow manage to collide with one of the low-sitting tables filling the living space. The abundance of knick-knacks and keepsakes cluttering the surface clatter in indignation, making an obscene ruckus as they fall over and to the floor. Upon closer inspection, you realize, to your horror, that it is an altar which you’d disturbed.

The only things left unshaken by your blundering blight are two framed photos: one of which displays the portrait of a young girl, no older than six, with long, dark hair and a serene smile. She seems to peer at you through the barriers of the picture frame, through the barrier of time. Her gaze hooks into your soul and invites you to step closer, to look harder. The longer you stare, the higher the gooseflesh on your skin raises in alarm. It’s an uphill battle to slide your gaze over to the picture beside her, which displays the likeness of a young boy close to her in age – presumably unrelated to her, given their distinct features, and yet, he is placed next to her on what is surely a memorial altar meant to honor and house the deceased.

While the personal effects and other supplicating items have all been disrupted and thrown off by your collision, the incense in front of the two picture frames still burns brightly, steadfastly. Oddly, it does nothing to quell the horrid stench of decay in the apartment. If anything, the altar seems to be exasperating the smell, which brings involuntary tears to your eyes and a pucker to your lips.

It's less so that the stench itself is what drives you to such a reaction; rather, the sensation invading your olfactory senses fills you with an abominable concoction of violent emotions: rage, pity, sorrow, envy, despair. You are drawn follow the source of these feelings, and your feet lead you to the bedroom, hands trembling underneath the sheer weight of all that you are experiencing as they push the slightly ajar door all the way open.

A gasp escapes you, unbidden. There, in that same, white futon adorned with layers and layers of her signature floral blankets, lies the corpse of Granny Orimoto. You can tell she’s dead because her skin has started to sag and bloat in strange and inhuman ways. This is the least surprising thing before your eyes.

Next to Granny sits a little girl – the spitting image of the girl in the portrait you’d glimpsed mere moments ago. Her gaze had once been trained steadfastly on Granny’s body, but now she looks up at you, unblinking, all-seeing.

“Hello,” says the girl, with a little girl’s voice.

“Hi,” you respond. “Do you live here?”

“Yes,” says the girl. “This is my granny.”

You remind me of my granddaughter.

She’s dead.

Granny Orimoto’s parting words to you echo in your head, rattling your brain, fizzling your consciousness.

“It’s nice to meet you, Rika. Granny Orimoto told me about you.”

Slowly, cautiously, as though you are approaching a spooked animal (ironic, given the fact that it is you who is shaking like a leaf), you crouch down and kneel on the floor, sitting on your haunches in a polite manner, mirroring the girl before you. Granny Orimoto’s body is the only thing separating you as you both sit, face to face, hands clasped in your laps, peering curiously at one another.

“I know,” says Rika. “Yuuta told you about me, too.”

Of course she would know about the conversations you and Yuuta have. This also might as well happen. At this point, after all you’ve just witnessed – first, the fresh corpse of your former employer, and now, the physical manifestation of a girl who died over ten years ago – there is very little left that could happen which would truly shock you out of your wits.

“Yes, he did. Have you been hanging out in the shop? Have you been lonely?”

The girl sticks out her bottom lip. “Yeah. You guys didn’t pay attention to me. Even when I was really loud, or turned the lights off, or broke the mirror. Sorry for breaking the mirror. I was mad.”

“It’s okay to be mad, but we mustn’t break things, or hurt others. I’m sorry for not noticing you sooner. Do you like plants and gardening? Like your granny?”

Rika nods. “Mhm, yeah. But Granny never lets me into the shop. Granny says all I do is mess things up. Granny says I’m no good. Granny says people died because of me. Did you know my dad is dead, too?”

“I’m sorry,” you say.

“It’s okay,” says Rika. “I wanted him to die.”

You blink. “Did you want Granny Orimoto to die, too?”

She takes a moment to contemplate before answering. “Granny had to die if I was going to play with Yuuta again.”

“What do you mean?” You ask, desperate to understand. When she begins to explain, you lean forward, forgetful of the fact that it is an old woman’s corpse which lies beneath you.

“Granny has already lived for so long. I wanted to come back. I died before my seventh birthday. Yuuta and I were supposed to spend it together. Yuuta never forgot about me. Yuuta talks to me every day. Yuuta went to Africa. Have you ever been to Africa? I went with Yuuta because he made a shrine for me there. Now Yuuta is back in Japan. Yuuta promised that we would play together again. Yuuta said he needed some time to prepare things. Yuuta is good at things like that – Yuuta can fight and do magic. Yuuta does jujutsu. Do you know jujutsu?”

“I know it,” you tell her.

“Yeah, Yuuta has powers. Yuuta knows a lot about dying and things like that. So, anyways, Yuuta said he would use his powers to help me come back so we can play together again. Yuuta said that me and granny have to switch places. I said ‘OK, Yuuta!’ and then Yuuta said he needed seven days. What day is it today?”

Somehow, you know the answer, even without looking at your phone’s calendar. “Monday.”

“Oh, so it’s been seven days. Yay! We can play together again. Do you want to play with us, too?”

“I would like to play together, yes.”

Abruptly, Rika unfurls from her graceful little seated position and makes her way over to you, crawling over Granny Orimoto’s corpse. You try not to think too hard about the graphic squelching that occurs underneath the childish palms of Rika’s tiny hands.

“Yay! Let’s go downstairs. Maybe Yuuta will be there.”

You don’t have the heart to tell her that Yuuta only swings by when the sun is out of sight. Her arms raise, clearly indicating that she’d like to be carried, and you are content to oblige her, as you scoop her up in your arms and make good on her direction. You exit Granny Orimoto’s apartment with Rika in your arms, her little feet dangling from your hip. The bright pink pair of slippers almost fall off as you make your way down the stairs, and you take care to remind her to make sure not to lose them.

When you get back to the shop, you must admit that you were mistaken in thinking Yuuta would not be there. As though he’d been anticipating this – which, you realize, he absolutely was, as this marks seven days from the first time he’d set foot in the shop – Yuuta stands by the front desk, wringing his hands before him nervously, sweat visible at his temples.

The both of you lock eyes, and he smiles, warm and fuzzy and entirely ill-fitting for the increasingly absurd scenario in which you find yourself. But you have little time to interrogate him about what the hell is going on – for Rika leaps from your arms and hits the ground running, screaming at the top of her little lungs, Yuuta!! Yuuta!!!, excited and so full of life, in only the way that children can scream in pure joy. Pure love.

He crouches and readily meets her, scooping the little girl up in his arms and sweeping her into the air, spinning round and round with Rika in his arms. Rika-chan!! Rika-chan!!! he cries – literally cries, that is, as you cannot help but spot the stray tear or two running down the swells of his flushed cheeks.

It is right as you are starting to feel a bit voyeuristic that Yuuta slows to a stop and finds your eyes once more. He comes to you, then, with Rika still perched on his hip, a chafingly tender smile splitting his face into two.

“I knew it was you,” he whispers with charged intensity, voice potent with unspoken feeling. “I knew you were special. I’ve always known. You never judge me. You always listen. You accepted me. And you accepted Rika, too.”

Have you? Accepted them, that is.

You shock yourself when you realize that you really have accepted all that’s transpired. Granny Orimoto saved your life when she’d taken you in and, for that, you must always be grateful. But from what Rika shared with you about how she’d been treated as a small child, and from what you’ve observed from Yuuta’s generally traumatized disposition and extreme reluctance to come face-to-face with the old woman, you realize, now, that there is a reason why Granny Orimoto had no living family to speak to or rely on when she was in her final days.

Whether or not her death had something to do with Yuuta’s apparent preternatural abilities (you remind yourself to ask about that later), it remains clear that she’d been in ill health long before you’d arrived at the flower shop. With no one to talk to. No one to care for her. You’d always felt pity. But, now, you realize that it may have been a situation of her own doing.

How could you argue with the living, breathing testament to that fact, who stand before you in fresh-faced, smiling glee?

“Of course I accept you both,” you say, earnestly, and mean it. “Rika is too cute not to love!” The young girl giggles, bashfully burying her face in Yuuta’s neck.

“And what about me?” Yuuta’s brows are quirked, his smile dipping into something a bit more cutting, a touch more heated than his simple joy from moments ago. “Am I cute enough to love, too?”

The answer is simple and requires no effort on your part: “I love you, Yuuta.”

You had more to say after that, but it proves a bit challenging to monologue your undying devotion to this man while said man is currently enveloping your mouth inside of his own. He kisses like a black hole: devouring, dark, impossibly comprehensive, and providing you without hope for possible escape.

He really is your type.

;

After those first seven days, Yuuta finally begins training at the shop. And Rika joins in, as well.

The three of you make an odd, adorable little family unit. After Yuuta had taken care of cleaning and renovating the apartment space upstairs, the three of you moved in without further delay. Your days are filled with home-cooking, raising Rika, maintaining the shop, and working alongside the man who has quickly made himself to be your life partner in every endeavor.

In fact, so much of your life is consumed with this newfound domesticity that there is little reason for you to leave the shop in the first place. Whenever you stray too far outside, you are prone to headaches, dizziness, fatigue, and even fever. It’s best to stay where is familiar, you reason. And Yuuta’s cooking is too good for you to want to eat anywhere else. He makes sure you eat three times a day, at least, and insists you finish your plate every time. Perhaps this is why you can’t stand life outside of this four, cozy walls – where else could you possibly find contentment such as this?

The business is re-named to “Rika’s Flower Shop,” which all three of you find quite agreeable given the current state of affairs. More customers than ever flow in, attracted by the colorful designs hand-painted by Rika herself on the building exterior. You generate enough revenue for additional renovations to be made on the shop. There is enough room in the budget to hire some part-time shop hands – local university students in the area looking to support themselves.

Everything is coming to fruition. For once, you truly feel as though life is blossoming.

And you can attribute all of it, every last bit of happiness, to them: Granny Orimoto, Rika, and Yuuta. The happiness is so overwhelming that you don’t ever want to leave their side, not even to run to the konbini, or to visit the post office. Why would you need to leave, when everything you’ve ever wanted is right here?

You have a family, a home, a life. You’ll remain in this shop with your loves until the day you grow as old and sickly as Granny Orimoto, and you’ll likely die upstairs, lying next to Yuuta, the both of you wrinkled and gray, curled together atop the futon, exactly where Granny had wheezed her last, bitter breath.

You wonder if Rika was there to watch it happen. You wonder if Rika will be there to see the both of you off, too.

You hope so. You really, really hope so.

You’re sure death will be every bit the dream you’re hoping it will be.

#okkotsu yuuta x reader #okkotsu yuta x reader #jjk reader insert #jjk x reader #okkotsu yuuta reader insert #okkotsu yuta reader insert #jjk ao3 #jjk fic #okkotsu yuuta fic #okkotsu yuuta fanfiction #okkotsu yuta fic #jjk fanfiction #my writing #mine #commissions

89 notes · View notes

ginnsbaker · 1 year

Text

In Losing Grip On Sinking Ships (2/?)

Chapter summary: You face your own struggles after the divorce

Chapter word count: 4k+

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Fem!Reader, Yelena Belova x Fem!Reader

Chapter Warnings: Brief smut, Fingering (r giving), Oral sex (r giving), only mentions of Wanda in this chapter, sorry

Author’s Note: Things will pickup considerably after this.

AO3 | Masterlist

Next Chapter: Three

----

Two

“Thank you for giving me the best years of my life. Goodbye, Wanda.”

You couldn’t escape that room fast enough. The room that kept the person you love most in the world–was your world. Natasha approaches you carefully after handing the check to your lawyer. Her brows are snapped together in what seems like a permanent frown whenever you’re concerned, and it puts you off more than usual.

“You alright?” she faintly asks, already knowing the answer. The part of you that refuses to die–the part that endlessly cares for Wanda and wants to protect her at all cost–inexplicably wants to send Natasha to that room so she could offer her comfort to your ex-wife instead. Wanda’s been left by you. She is alone for the first time in her adult life, without the same support you’re getting from Natasha. You give thought to the fact that you were Wanda’s best friend first, before you were her lover and eventually her wife. And it dawns on you that, maybe, Wanda's losses outweigh yours. It’s a sick form of victory for some, yet you certainly don’t feel like you’ve won anything.

“Honestly?” You groan and clutch your stomach, frantically scanning the hallway. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Natasha calls on a staff member to direct you to the nearest restroom.

You nearly miss the toilet in the first empty cubicle you find. Feeling the cold, hard tiles on your knees, you think it couldn’t get any worse than this. You’ve finally hit rock bottom, and you’re still alive–

–If the burn in your throat and the bitter taste of bile in your mouth constitutes being alive.

Slumped against the porcelain seat of the bowl, hardly a good place to deliberate one’s life choices, you try to figure out what’s next.

Following the divorce, you don’t last a month at your new job. Your newfound love of whisky before bedtime may have contributed to it when you only managed to be on time for work twice: your first day and your last.

In the beginning, not being able to see Wanda in the flesh helped. Being back in your beloved city and taking refuge in the small confines of Natasha’s spare room initially distracted you enough to carry on as normally as you would. That lasted a full twenty-four hours before you started seeing her ghost everywhere–on the subway platform while waiting for the train to arrive, on the street lining up for a morning bagel, and even in your bed, whereas she no longer has any business being in.

You briefly considered moving to a new state, but financially, it wasn’t the best option. With Wanda out of sight, there’s just yourself to deal with. And dealing with yourself gives you a strong urge to flee; to a place or time that would take away the remnants of yourself that stubbornly belong to Wanda.

“You can stay here as long as you like.” Natasha says when she catches you mindlessly scrolling through real estate listings in the neighborhood.

“You’ve helped enough, Nat. I can’t keep being your charity case.” you mutter, continuing with your search.

She raises her hand to aim for your temple, but thinks better of it and pulls it back. “You’re lucky I’m done with violence or you would’ve had your ass handed to you for saying that.”

You snicker. “I’m your golden ticket to heaven for being so good to me. Even my mom would’ve kicked me out by now.”

“You want to pay me back? Stay. Don’t argue anymore.”

“But, Nat–”

“I said drop it.”

Your mouth snaps shut at the forceful dismissal. Natasha’s eyes dart everywhere to avoid yours. You’ve been so caught up in your problems, you missed the obvious signs that maybe she needs you as much as you needed someone when your life was falling apart (and still is).

“Babe, are you okay?” you ask, keeping your tone casual.

“Babe,” Natasha chuckles at the nickname you haven’t used on her for almost a decade. “God, it sounds so weird, now that I’ve heard you call Wanda that countless times.”

You scrunch your nose, recalling also the times you’ve screamed that endearment during sex with your ex-wife. “Fuck, you’re right. I kind of want to barf all over this couch.”

“Don’t you dare.” You’re both laughing now and it feels really, really good.

“So,” you say once you’ve both recovered. “Is there something you’d like to share with me?”

Natasha pauses to think, and it’s more than enough to let you know she doesn’t want to talk about her own problems and feelings.

“I’m good. Now, where are we on: not abandoning your best friend after exploiting her?” she says, effortlessly putting you back in the spotlight.

Whatever it is she’s going through, you want to be there for her.

“Fine,” You already owed Natasha your sanity; you didn’t want to owe her money too. “But I want to pay rent.”

Natasha grins in satisfaction. “Deal.”

It was either you get drunk on alcohol, or you get drunk on memories of Wanda. Apparently, it only takes a while before they eventually mix up to mess with your head tenfold. One second you’re struggling to keep your eyes open to take just one more shot before you call it a night, and the next your fingers are inching towards the waistband of your shorts, your mind wandering to moments you’ve woken up in the middle of the night mid-orgasm, your wife’s head buried in between your thighs.

Nothing sobers you up more than the near mistake of touching yourself to thoughts of your ex-wife. You’re beyond disgusted that you still fantasize about a woman who’s no longer yours.

A woman who basically destroyed your ability to trust.

The bed of Natasha’s spare room is a double, and you’re still not accustomed to having all the space to yourself. After downing what’s left of the bottle of whisky, you place all the pillows on the unoccupied spot to your left and lay down on your side, waiting for sleep to take you.

The days that follow are a mere repetition of the day you officially quit your job. They mostly adopt a template that consists of three things: Netflix, pizza and housekeeping.

(In truth, it’s four things, but you keep the liquor in your room, where all the drinking takes place without your best friend’s knowledge.)

Apart from being a lifestyle that’s easy to maintain, it is also a far cry from your old life. You want to remove as much detail in your life that reminds you of Wanda, and this is what you’re left with. Your mother(and only living parent) who has retired in Montauk, is not pleased to discover that you’re reliving your college era–jobless and sharing a flat with Natasha. But at least she had more to say about your current situation than when you told her about your failed marriage over the phone.

“I did warn you about that girl.” your mother remarked frankly during that call, and then proceeded to flatly ask if you were okay, like she was reading a script on how to react when you find out your daughter is getting a divorce. In retrospect, it was the best reaction you could ever hope for considering her dislike of Wanda–a feeling she’s never attempted to hide at every opportunity. Wanda, to her credit, only ever respected and loved her through the side-eyes and snarky comments, and this capability of hers to do so surprised you given her relationship with her own mother. The way she loved your mother certainly felt like an extension of her love for you.

Right after letting your mother know you’re out of work, she wired you a ridiculous amount of money for your “allowance”. You tried giving it back, but she refused and alluded that you should take some time to enjoy yourself without the pressure of getting another nine-to-five desk job. You graciously relented, knowing it was her way of looking out for you and being sorry for what happened with Wanda.

And that is basically how you are able to keep up being a kermit in Natasha’s apartment. If it’s up to you, you wouldn’t change a thing in your routine, but Natasha has other ideas after finding her study tidy and uncluttered–which she often leaves in a state of anarchy.

“Here,” she says, handing you a purple key fob. “Go to the gym, and use up all your energy on lifting weights instead of ruining my order of things around here and wallowing in self-pity.”

You pause the television and put down the slice of pizza you’ve been holding to receive the key with greasy fingers.

“If I go, will you promise to leave me alone for the rest of the week?” you ask around a mouthful of cheese and pepperoni.

“Do it, and then I’ll think about it.”

You shrug and return to finishing a whole box of pizza by yourself and your eleventh re-run of Modern Family.

“One more thing,” Natasha says, tossing you a watch. You click pause again and look at the offending item on your lap. “Wear that so I’ll know if you actually do the workout.”

You groan and Natasha smiles in triumph at your agony. You don’t know what her deal is, but you’re actually thankful someone’s making sure you don’t stuff yourself to death with pizza.

The gym looks more like a hotel lobby than a place where people grunt and sweat and ogle their reflection.

By the counter near the elevators, a receptionist is wearing an ensemble that belongs more to a fashion magazine company. You had expectations that it would be a luxurious place due to it being housed on the penthouse floor of Manhattan’s newest skyscraper. It’s ridiculously aboveboard, however, and you’re starting to feel uneasy and out-of-place.

“Welcome back, Ms. Romanoff.” The receptionist greets you, flashing her unnaturally white and straight teeth. You respond with a timid nod before heading straight to the lockers in case she asks for ID.

After changing into a black sports bra and biker shorts, you walk straight to the lifting section.

There are only two other clients in that room, both of them male, and they’re not exactly subtle as they let their gaze sweep over you from head to toe.

Oblivious to prying eyes, you attempt to deadlift just a tad more than half your weight, but think better of it when your forearms feel like they would snap out of your elbows if you try to raise the bar a few more inches off the ground. Exhaling sharply, you drop the weights and it causes a resounding bang as it hits the floor, turning a couple of heads in your direction as a result. You hear snickering behind you, and sweat forms along your hairline as you duck your head in embarrassment.

Your eyes flit to the rows of treadmill to your right. That’s something you definitely can’t screw up. Hopping on one that’s situated in the corner, you are presented with a spectacular aerial view of the city.

The last time you’ve been to the gym was the day you learned that Wanda was fucking one of her students. While you haven’t lost weight (quite frankly, you’ve managed the opposite), you’ve lost all the muscles you’ve developed in a measly gym back in Westview. Your habit of googling everything led you to actually read a few dozen articles on how to heal a broken heart, and while their advice varied from developing a healthy habit to copious amounts of rebound sex, they all suggested daily exercise or taking up a new sport. Running was the only sport you fell in love with in the suburbs, but you found it hard to motivate yourself once you moved back to the city.

You and Wanda spent a lot of time in Central Park the first few months you began dating, and you knew how much she enjoyed taking random walks there. No matter its vastness and the odds of randomly seeing her during a stroll being less than ten percent, you can’t rely on your subconscious not to bring you to some of the areas that might result in an encounter.

Not that you haven’t thought about the possibility, on the contrary, you’ve thought about running into Wanda a lot.

You’ve thought about how you’ll feel and what you’d do. If you see her, should you say hello like two old friends meeting after a long estrangement? Should you apologize for not answering her texts and returning her calls? Would she apologize for it again? Are your interactions from now on, going to be awkward exchanges of hellos and sorries?

Will words be exchanged at all? Or will you be strangers passing each other on the sidewalks, like parallel lines that would walk the same paths but never intersect each other again?

How do you cope with knowing someone from the inside-out, only to cut them out completely out of your life?

“Excuse me?” you hear a female voice next to you, cutting your line of thought.

Speeding on the treadmill at eight miles per hour, you’re lucky to hit the stop button before you could trip all over your feet. Once you’re sure you won’t lose your balance, you steadily turn around to address the owner of the voice–

The girl is stunning, and–as cliché as it sounds–has the appearance of a Victoria’s Secret model. Her auburn hair is styled in an intricate braid and she smells too good for someone who’s just finished their workout.

“Can I help you?” you ask, suddenly feeling self-conscious about your own appearance and scent.

It doesn’t help your diffidence when she deliberately takes a step closer.

She must’ve sensed her effect on you, because she makes the bold move to place a delicate hand on your damp arm, then says, “I’m about to do some post-workout stretch, and I know this is gonna sound weird but I need your help.”

You swallow dryly. “My help… stretching?”

“I understand if you’re not comfortable with it. It’s just, I don’t want to ask a man to do this for me.”

You blink at her. Otherwise, you barely move a muscle in your face.

At your lack of verbal response, she gives you an apologetic smile and starts walking away. “I’m sorry for disturbing you, thank you for your time.”

You catch a whiff of her perfume, and suddenly your tongue finally catches up with your brain.

“Wait!”

Like a trained ballerina, she swivels gracefully on her heel, and you swear she looks even younger from this distance.

“I can help. Just tell me what to do.”

You’ve never done this. You’ve never done anything remotely close to this.

Not before Wanda, and certainly not in a semi-public place where anyone could walk in and hear you.

(Although in this case, they’d be hearing her.)

Her name is Charlie (or was it Lottie?) and she’s riding you on a bench in the women’s dressing room. Her towel has pooled to her waist, barely covering her ass as it bounces on your lap at the motion of her hips lifting and forcefully coming back down to fuck herself on your fingers.

You’re so mesmerized at the sight of someone’s pleasure, and the fact that you’re the one causing it. By your standards, it hasn’t been too long. But the nights you’ve woken up to a throbbing sensation between your legs and not once seeking release, had you acting on impulse when Charlie/Lottie kissed you as soon as you stepped out of the shower.

“Fuck, it feels so good.” she moans against your ear. “More, please.”

You don’t bother to ask what she’s asking for specifically, as you insert a third finger into her pussy, and push in and out of her at a speed that has your wrist cramping in a matter of seconds. She doesn’t last much longer after that. As soon as she starts coming, she buries her head in the area where your neck meets your shoulder; her teeth biting rather harshly at the flesh there while her walls flutter around you.

She kisses you softly after she comes down from her high, and it almost makes you cry.

“Thank you.” she murmurs sheepishly, and you try not to think about the last person who thanked you for an orgasm.

“You haven’t cum yet. Do you want–”

“Can I taste you?” you whisper, blushing at your own request.

She nods eagerly at that, and you gently lay her down fully on the bench. You take her towel off completely from her waist and place it over her chest in case she starts to feel chilly. Securing your own towel around you, you lick a trail down her body. The thing about Charlie (you decided to just call her that) is she’s inconceivably hot. Half of your thoughts are fixated on that one particular fact, and the other half is still fumbling with what’s already happening. Charlie’s thighs close around your head, causing your cheeks to rub against the smoothness of them. Her supple skin feels as expensive as it looks, her stomach is taut and defined, unlike–

Nope.

You’re not supposed to compare. You’re not supposed to even think about her at this moment.

When you reach your destination, you place an open-mouthed kiss at the top of her cunt before flicking her clit with the tip of your tongue in short, quick strokes. At the same time, your right hand travels to your own wet heat, and you groan at her taste and the relief of finally attending to your own needs. Charlie impatiently removes the towel covering her torso to grab her own breasts and squeeze them.

Moving lower, to the place where she’s ostensibly gushing, you stick your tongue in a slow but deliberate movement. The action causes her to abandon one of her tits in order to cover the scream that escapes her mouth. You switch up tactics. Flattening your tongue against her clit, you alternate between massaging and giving it little licks, all the while you mimic the same measures to your own nub. You start moaning against her pussy, sending subtle vibrations that add to her building climax.

You meant to tease her to no end, until she impatiently whines, “Hurry, my boyfriend’s picking me up soon.”

“Yeah, my boyfriend is on the way to pick me up.” Wanda said after you asked her if she’ll be okay on her own. Natasha had been ringing your phone for the last fifteen minutes, and it wasn’t going to stop vibrating in your pocket unless you got to the subway.

She’s the prettiest girl you’ve ever met, but the universe apparently had other plans and was telling you you’re in over your head.

You tried to contain your disappointment. “It was nice meeting you, Wanda.”

“Likewise, Y/N.” Wanda beamed and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. The faint glow of the golden hour hit the side of her face at the most perfect angle. Her bottom teeth weren’t perfect, but her smile was so carefree and so unrestrained, it lit up the empty hallway where the two of you were standing close together. A warm fuzziness seized your entire body, reaching the end of your toes and your fingertips.

It’s a mystery to you as well, but you genuinely hoped she was happy and properly loved.

With a grateful smile, you waved her goodbye.

However, just right before you turned a corner, you heard your name echoing in the hallway.

“Y/N?”

You turned around and met Wanda’s green eyes that pulled you like magnets. “Yes?”

“Do you, maybe, want to hang out sometime?”

You didn’t think you’d eventually find yourself at the other side of the equation. That someone would use you to cheat on their partner. Karma has a dark sense of humor, and you can’t do anything but chuckle in disbelief. Her revelation makes you freeze in all respects, and there’s no way you’re going to cum after knowing that you’re fucking someone else’s girlfriend.

“That was incredible,” Charlie murmurs in between pants. She reclines on her back, unabashedly naked like a renaissance painting. “I wouldn’t mind doing this again with you.”

You pick up her towel that has fallen on the floor, and carelessly toss it right at her face.

“I would.” is all you say, and start dressing yourself without another word.

You don’t remember much of the so-called walk of shame. One minute you’re eating a girl out, and the next you’re back in Natasha’s apartment, staring at the mirror and not recognizing the person staring back. You took another shower–a scalding one–when you got home, cleaning off the woman’s traces from your skin. What you couldn’t remove is the mark she left on your neck: a glaring purple bruise that will probably won’t go away for at least two days.

With a long sigh, you close your eyes at the detail that won’t leave you.

She had a boyfriend.

For a short moment you were in Vision’s shoes, even if you had no idea that she was using you for the very same thing that broke you.

“Y/N?”

You visibly jolt out of your stupor, and reach for the knob of the bathroom door to make sure it’s locked.

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

“No, it’s fine. Please don’t come out yet. I prefer saying this without you seeing me right now.” Natasha says, and you can tell she’s now standing just on the other side of the door.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, uhm…”

A pause. Two deep breaths drawn, and then–

“I’ve decided I’m going back.”

“Back…?”

“Back to work.”

“Natasha,” You say in quiet shock. “Does he know? You’ve talked to him about this?”

Natasha nods. “He said I can do whatever I want. We’re on a break, anyway.”

“Oh,” Your eyes drop to the floor, thinking of something else to say.

“You’re going to be okay on your own, right?” you hear Natasha whisper through the door.

You? She’s putting her life in constant danger once again, and she’s asking you. It just about makes you smile with boundless affection. You’ve been through countless conversations with Natasha, trying to talk her into a career that is not life-threatening at the very least. You used to think that Bruce coming into her life years ago would change her mind, but it seems her work is so etched to her identity that she could not just be without it.

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. When are you leaving?”

“The day after tomorrow.” she says.

You open the door this time. “Wow, they really need you that bad, huh?”

Natasha smirks. “Clint’s throwing me an impromptu send-off party tomorrow night. Will you come?”

“As long as you’ll pay for the drinks.”

“He’s got us covered,” Natasha says, and then her eyes zero in on the evidence of your earlier tryst. “Oh, and you might want to cover that up.”

You blush as your fingers automatically stroke the hickey on your neck.

“I–” you try to explain.

She doesn’t let you and only says, “Good for you. Sweet dreams, stranger.” with a knowing little wink, before retreating to her own room.

Good for you. Somehow that makes you feel infinitely worse.

You pad quietly towards your bed, and as you settle in it, you hear a vibration coming from inside the nightstand next to you.

It’s your old phone. The one you keep but no longer use. The one that Wanda’s been relentlessly calling and texting. It’s buzzing to notify you that its battery is at a critical level.

You still haven’t decided what you should do with it. When you were married to Wanda, you were naturally each other’s emergency contact, and so you’ve convinced yourself that maybe you should keep it for that reason alone.

Picking up the phone with the intention to plug it, you see one missed call from Wanda. Guilt, however irrational it may be, settles at the pit of your stomach as your mind returns to what happened in the gym. It mortifies you now to realize that you have touched Charlie the way you would touch Wanda when you made love to her.

Aside from the missed call, there’s a text message from Wanda that reads: Took Sparky to the vet today. He said there’s nothing to worry about. Maybe he just misses you.

Biting your lower lip, you think about responding.

‘I miss him too’, you begin to type. ‘I miss y–’

You quickly press the backspace button to delete it altogether. Deciding not to text back, you return the phone to its hiding place. The battery will eventually run out, and maybe then, you’ll be able to decide its fate.

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff imagine #wanda maximoff x you #ifiss 2 #ilgoss #wanda maximoff #marvel #natasha romanoff #unbetad #My writing #my fic

433 notes · View notes