kurogxrix - Tumblr blog

kurogxrix · 7 days ago

Text

"Like there was no tomorrow." Daryl Dixon.

Daryl Dixon promised himself, the night he let you go, that he would always love you, like there was no tomorrow. But when you come back into his life, you’re sure you won't fall for him again. However, even against your wishes, he will stay close to you, protecting you from getting hurt or worse, because a life without you is unimaginable. Now, like a roller coaster of emotions, you have to face your confusing feelings in an apocalyptic world, until you finally decide what the hell you expect from life, besides the chance to live one more day: because you two deserve to live as if there was no tomorrow.

PAIRING: Daryl Dixon x reader

WARNING: Death, blood, a lot of bad words hehe (but also romance and even some comedy if I can get it right hehe)

ERA: From prison onwards.

A/N: Hello! It is with great fear in my heart that I share with you the first chapter of this series. I hope you like it! I am not the best writer but I want to keep writing about Daryl, so I hope you give this story a chance. Thank you so much! I loved that dialogue of Michonne making fun of Daryl when she found out he had a girlfriend hehehe

Chapter 1:

You met Daryl before the dead came back to life.

He was a young man working for the owner of a motorcycle repair shop: the pay was bad, but good enough to get by. You were the child of a police officer (who had drinking problems) the typical sheltered (but down-to-earth) young person, just trying to make your life meaningful. Your older brother used to take you with him to get his bike repaired, and the rest of how you and Daryl met was history.

But that first day, it was a big surprise for him when you talked to him, because someone like you, who stood out like a brilliant sapphire among a pile of discolored rocks, talked to him like he was just like you. And it was almost blinding looking at you, like trying to look directly at the sun.

Daryl had a small inferiority complex he knew how to mask well, but from that day on, he couldn't wait to see you every week.

After that, it was a good three and a half years, with a few petty arguments, and a ring hidden in the back of his drawer that he never gave you. But the day he broke up with you, Daryl did it through his own suffocating pain, through his mistaken idea that he wasn’t enough for you, that the life he could offer you wasn’t the one you deserved, so that day, Daryl let you go. However, it would be a lie to say it was easy for him, because for the next 4 months, Daryl did nothing but come to see you every night, just to make sure you got home safely from your job.

A little bit later, the apocalypse began.

Daryl tried to find you that night, but your house was a mess, and there was no sign of you, so he and his brother left town. But he never stopped looking for you anywhere he went, he never stopped dreaming about you, because Daryl knew you were still alive.

But life is a funny and unpredictable thing, because that afternoon, it is you who comes back to him.

“Drop it.”

Your firm voice sinks into the ears of the man with his back to you, whose heart wakes up frantically when he feels the cold muzzle of your gun on the back of his head. The cold air of the abandoned room that used to be a classroom in that forgotten university makes the hairs on his skin stand on end, but he is too scared to even breathe.

You don't mean to scare the poor man like that, but like every so often when you came to look for other kinds of medicine, you never expected to find another living being in that place, especially one that preferred to take the bottles of alcohol when other things were more important. Therefore, he didn't seem like a person you could trust.

“Hey, I’m Bob and I’m not looking for trouble…” The man says softly, his hand holding the last bottle of alcohol that he had picked up from the ground, but frozen now in mid-air. “My group and I are looking for medicine for our people–”

“Yeah? I didn’t know you healed people with vodka.” You say sarcastically. “Put the bottle down and get out of here slowly. I'm not going to hurt you, but don't do anything stupid.”

Helpless, Bob complies with your command before beginning to walk outside, hands in the air to show you that he is harmless, but he is also unable to see the small falcon above your right shoulder. The yellow paws of your little girl cling to the fabric of your black long-sleeved shirt, without hurting you, but keeping her black eyes fixed on the prey before her, watching his movements and any attempt of sudden attack. However, the moment you two cross the door and take a couple of steps into the apparent lonely hallway, a light, almost silent footstep, like the weight of one of her feathers is heard in the falcon’s ears and Aeris makes a low sound, a warning that makes you turn the muzzle of the gun towards your right, towards the door on the other side of the hall in a single second.

Across the hall, Daryl lowers his crossbow when he sees you through it, even if it's almost impossible for him to believe that you're really there in front of him, not after he spent all that time looking for you since you two broke up. You lower your weapon as well, keeping a frown, but your heartbeat is as loud in your ears as if you had just fired a bullet on that silent and deathly place.

You knew he was out there and alive, (because Daryl was too smart with his survival instincts and all) but you never imagined you would see him again. His hair is long and covers part of his eyes, but his gaze is the same, those cold blue eyes that used to see you differently from the others.

“Peach?” His deep, low voice, the one you once thought was lost when he let you startles you now, but you keep your emotions back on track as he approaches, slowly, with a singular fear in his eyes. “Shit. I can’t believe s’ya.”

Behind him, a man with a gun and a woman with a katana walk out of the room, backpacks on their shoulders and serious expressions, because in that new world no one bothered to smile and be friendly with strangers anymore, and it is understandable given the circumstances.

“I went to look for ya at yer house when the bombings in the city started…” Daryl always had a special way of looking at you, just like now, so intense that when you first met him, you were afraid of drowning in his ocean-colored eyes. “Ya weren’t there, and yer dad…”

The sudden memory, the one you used to push into the deepest, darkest part of your memory, comes back to you with the force of a hurricane.

“Yeah, my dad was too drunk to get out of there.” You say softly, so softly so as not to sink into guilt for leaving him when he yelled at you to run. “My best friend was with me that night and it's just been me and her this whole time.”

“Peach…”

But Daryl’s voice is silenced when Aeris makes a sound again, looking down the hall where the first walker turns the corner, growling and bringing others behind it.

“We need to go!” The katana-wielding woman takes the lead, walking the other way.

You and the new group follow suit, passing a pair of classrooms that hid a pair of silent walkers until they feel everyone's presence. That moment, they start growling, following you all. The only clear room you all enter is windowless, and it is so dark that it plunges you into a new kind of darkness that the light from the flashlight you and the woman pull tries to fight off.

“Hey! The door’s broken.” Bob whispers, teeth clenched in fear as he presses himself against the closed door.

“Hold on.” Daryl steps closer, pushing the heavy animal bars to block the path of the walkers that begin to pile up against it.

You stop beside the woman, your own flashlight pointing at the staircase sign above the double wooden doors on the other side of the stifling room.

“Hey. There.” You tell her, and when her flashlight points in the same direction, she nods at you. But as you approach the chains covering the doors, the walkers on the other side rush at the small gap between the boards, rotting hands trying to reach for you all. “I don't know how many are on the other side.”

The unlocked door on the other end begins to give way, letting in more walkers.

“We can take ‘em.” The big man in the woolly hat says, his gun ready to fire, but is silenced by Bob’s words.

“No! They’re infected. Same as at the prison. We fire at ‘em, get their blood on us, breath it in. We didn’t come all this way to get sick.”

The man in the hat points the flashlight at him.

“How do we know the ones in there aren’t any different?”

“We don’t.” The woman replies, sword in her hands.

“Well, it’s gonna change sometimes.”

Daryl approaches the upside-down chair near him, using his boot to break the legs. He steps up to the door next and uses his weight against the chains to break them, throwing the doors wide, the first few walkers nearly tripping over each other with their hands in the air, ready to sink their teeth into the skin of the closest victim.

Simultaneously, you and the woman take down two with a bullet and a swing of her katana, clearing the way for the others. It’s dark the minute it takes you all turn around a corner, but then, the daylight hits you in the face as you take the first step towards the staircase, the sunlight lighting the way up with the others in front of you.

Aeris swings on your shoulder before taking flight to the next floor over the heads of the others. You had saved that bird when she was a chick, and now, she was the compass that always guided you to a safe place: you trust her with your life.

“Follow her...” You say, taking the lead when everyone stops for a microsecond. “She’ll find the path clear of walkers.”

“How the fuck will she do that? It’s a bird!” Bob growls, but following the rest up the steps.

“Because she’s smarter than all of us put together.” You say through gritted teeth in frustration, stepping into the floor as the stairs finally end in front of you.

The room opens up into two hallways, and though the hallway on the left is clear, Aeris is standing on the edge of the closed window on the right side, speaking in small sounds.

“There’s no way out through there!” Bob shouts, but before he takes a step into the apparent emptiness on left, more walkers round the corner and others come out of the adjoining rooms, growling in the distance.

“Fuck…” Daryl growls as he passes you, watching in frustration as the bird returns to your shoulder. “We make one then.”

He loops his crossbow strap around his body before grabbing a fire extinguisher from the ground, finally throwing it at the glass. The window makes a loud sound as glass falls in all directions, but clearing an improvised path for you all. Daryl climbs up to the edge, giving the woman his hand first to cross to the other side, but when he's about to do the same with you, you're already standing on top on your own.

He narrows his eyes, frustrated at your tendency to do things alone.

You jump onto the roof next to the window, but it is so narrow that your knees bend as you fall, using your hands to keep your balance. Aeris rocks with the movement, but she remains on your shoulder. The man in the hat jumps next, followed by Daryl, and finally Bob, who uses a little more strength than necessary and the weight of his backpack propels it over the edge, falling into the void where dozens of hands rush to try and grab it.

On the ground, mouths are open and hands grab onto the backpack strap, but Bob has no intention of letting go even as he struggles with them, half his body already down. The others rush to help, but Aeris shifts uneasily on your shoulder, as if she's holding you back, her own reaction to the impending danger and not just from the walkers.

Finally, Bob manages to pull himself halfway up from the edge, pushing his backpack against the floor of that ceiling, which makes a clear sound you know well from your past life: the sound of glass bottles. And amidst the haze of confusion and as racing hearts try to calm down, Daryl kneels in front of the half-open backpack, grabbing a full bottle of vodka.

“Ya got no meds in yer bag?” You can hear it, the danger in his angry yet low voice. “Just this?”

Bob tries to speak, to say something in his defense even when everyone knows, including you, that there would be no excuse to support his reckless action.

But when Daryl tries to throw the bottle, Bob’s hand instinctively reaches for the gun at his waist, letting out a no under his breath. And suddenly, and even outside and with all the open air, the impending tension closes dangerously around the others. You knew Daryl grew up without a single ounce of fear in his body, after forgetting what fear was after all the beatings his dad used to give him when he was little, and now, he, so sure that he can beat the shit out of Bob without even using his gun, steps closer to his face, looking him in the eyes. Daryl has a short temper, and from behind, you can see his back tensing up in anger, his hand taking the gun from Bob's waist before grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. He's good, you know that, but his rage and frustration were always really short, almost deadly, and dangerous like playing close to a volcano.

But Daryl keeps growling softly, like a wild animal, his blue eyes fixed on Bob, though he can't meet his eyes.

“Daryl…” You say softly, trying to ease the tension of the situation before he ends up pushing the poor man over the edge. You’ve already seen him hurt someone for less in a bar, when a drunk guy tried to hit on you, calling you by a disgusting name that Daryl eventually made him swallow with the punching he gave that man. “Don’t do it… please.”

Daryl exhales through his nose, letting out all his anger first, his jaw too tight to speak at that second.

“Take one sip ‘fore those meds get to our people, and I will beat yer ass into the ground.” He says, low, and it’s not a warning: it’s a promise you know he’ll keep as he pushes the bottle against Bob’s chest. “Ya hear me?”

Daryl steps away from Bob, giving you a silent look before continuing, but hating that only you could calm that fierce temper of his, even after being apart for so long.

“Do you have a doctor where you’re staying?”

Out in the open field, Aeris is always flying nearby, you know that. But the moment you enter the once-convenience store, connected to a house, the long hallway seems to become small until it closes around your throat because of the thought of not being able to get help for your friend, a thought that begins to dance in your scared mind.

“Yes, but…” Michonne hesitates, not knowing how to continue, how to explain that the seemingly safe place is falling under a strange virus. “But I don’t know if it would be best for you to come with us right now.”

“It’s not for me…” You say in front of her, opening the back door that eventually extends into a forgotten, old living room, with just two small sofas and a wooden table in the center. But the daylight coming through the white curtain gives the place a warm touch, like an image from centuries ago, as if the world hadn't gone straight to hell. “My friend is sick and I don’t know how to help her.”

The others enter the room, the two men sitting on the couches while Michonne paces around, and they all carry a strange mix of emotions under the promise of getting enough gasoline to get them home, but still under the shadow of what happened back at the college. You can read the discomfort on their faces, making you feel uncomfortable too.

“Ya and Sam live here?” Daryl stops beside you, looking at you as deeply as those days that now seem not so far away. “Is she okay? Are ya okay?”

You let out a heavy sigh before continuing, thinking back a bit.

“Yeah. Maybe a month ago an older woman found us in her store looking for supplies, and I guess she was either nice or naive but she invited us to eat with her because we didn’t seem like bad people to her. Ellie lives here with her husband, who is unfortunately quadriplegic, so Sam and I stayed with them. They offered us food and I... security in what I can do.”

“Can you shoot?” Michonne asks, approaching you.

“Ya kiddin’?” Daryl snorts. “The first time we fought she threw a peach at me that landed exactly where she wanted. (Y/N) has a hell of an aim.”

For the first time and after the danger has passed, Michonne smiles.

“I wasn’t kidding when I told you my aim would help me if an apocalypse ever broke out…” You try to chuckle, but the attempt falls flat on a sigh. “Can you please take my friend with you? I don’t know what else to do for her, and I’m afraid that if she keeps this up, she’ll ask me to end her suffering at any moment.”

The new group falls into a heavy silence, debating internally whether doing so is a good idea.

“If we don’t, you won’t give us the gasoline?” Tyreese asks, eager to get back to his sister.

“Of course not.” But you shake your head, trying to explain yourself better. “I mean; you can take the gas either way.”

Silently, the others share glances before voicing their opinions, but the absence of noise makes your hands shake and a strange warmth awaken in the pit of your stomach, running through your entire body, so in response, you push up the sleeves of your shirt to cool you down, forgetting for a second about your scars, revealing a secret you thought you wouldn’t have to share with anyone else.

Daryl spots them immediately, too wrapped up in you to miss them.

“The fuck happened to yer wrists?” He grabs your arm, lifting it up to observe the aftermath of that night when you had to burn both of your arms to set you free. “And don’t ya fuckin’ dare lie to me.”

In a second, your body fills with anger when you hear that tone spilling over from his voice, so you yank your arm away.

“Fuck you, Dixon, I’m not your problem. So don’t ask me for explanations like I’m your responsibility.”

“Ya are ma fuckin’ responsibility.” He steps closer to you, so dangerously that it alerts the others.

But to their surprise, you chuckle humorlessly, and they're already getting the idea that you alone could handle Daryl Dixon.

“You're wrong, Daryl, I’m not yours at all, in any way.” Your gaze is as deep as your words, which fall on his chest at the memory of a relationship he ended. “Now, if you can take my friend, I’ll thank you infinitely, and if not, take the gasoline from the kitchen and get out of here.”

Michonne’s chest falls when she exhales, but she gives a silent look to Daryl, who hasn’t stopped looking at you with some frustration.

“Okay, we’ll take her with us. You can come too.”

You shake your head.

“I’m not leaving Ellie alone with Mark. But I have two walkie talkie, so you can take one and if Sam gets better, I’ll go get her. And if not…” Your chest tightens with the anxiety and uncertainty, the incessant fear of not being able to do more for her. “Just try to help her, please.”

When you feel the warning of the first tear behind your eyes, you tell them that you will get the gasoline so that way you have an escape route, some comfort in solitude in case the worst happens. She is your best friend, your sister, your person, a rock you could hold on to when a storm fell upon your life, and the thought of losing her too in that cruel world takes your breath away, slowly killing you.

But when you take a few steps into the kitchen that now has yellowed walls, Daryl walks in behind you.

“Ya are comin' with us.”

As you turn to him, you can’t help but hate that order in his deep voice, that command he used in his misguided attempt to protect you.

“Daryl, thank you, but I don’t need you to worry about me. And I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself.”

“I dun fuckin’ care.” He growls, moving closer to you again. “I ain’t leavin’ ya alone in this place.”

You chuckle, just to prove to him that his words don’t have an effect on you.

“I’m not alone, I have Aeris.”

Daryl narrows his eyes.

“That fuckin’ bird?”

“Hey, watch your mouth, sunshine…” You smirk. “Because that damn bird saved your ass today. If it weren't for her, everyone would have gone into the corridor with the walkers. Now… grab the gasoline you need and leave.”

Your gaze leaves him the moment you walk out the kitchen, cruelly, leaving him unable to continue seeing those deep eyes he always loved to gaze upon, because they could tell him without a single word everything he once meant to you. He always thought that you had probably been the only person capable of loving him with all his flaws, without ever being afraid of him, ever, but in the end, because Daryl knows he won’t change your mind, not with a personality as stubborn as his own, he takes the gasoline with the help of the others.

About half an hour later, the car hidden beneath some branches is ready to take them back home, but the feeling of leaving you alone again is suffocating for Daryl as he watches you from outside the car, the way you say goodbye to your best friend, telling her she will be okay even though she is practically unconscious, too weak to respond to your last show of affection before you pull away.

“Thank you, (Y/N).” Michonne says, in a tone so warm it makes you smile slightly.

“No. Thank you. I hope you get safely to… your home.”

With a final look filled with gratitude, but absent, you say goodbye to most everyone, stepping away from the group to return to the safety of your own small home. Silently, Daryl watches you go, but harboring that same desire that seems to be carved into fire in his chest, that desire to go after you now, like he wanted to do that night he broke up with you. The second you left that night, Daryl wanted to go after you to tell you that he was sorry, that he was lying, that he was too much of a coward to stop listening to those thoughts in his head that told him he would never be able to give you what you deserved, even though he didn't even know what that was.

But the moment you disappear around the corner of the building, Michonne approaches Daryl as the others enter the car.

“Who was (Y/N) in your life, Daryl?”

He lets out a growl through clenched teeth, part of him hating you (although not seriously) for always being so stubborn.

“Ma goddamn woman.”

Michonne nods slowly, weighing his words because in her eyes, he always seemed too lonely to let any person get close to him like that. Daryl seemed too reluctant to let a person penetrate that armor he had around himself, that concrete wall that prevented full access to his insides. She also knows that Daryl is a good man, but it is almost impossible to believe that someone like him, who used to push others away from him so as not to get too attached, would be capable of showing that kind of affection towards someone else.

But it’s fascinating at the same time.

“She kind of hates you.”

Daryl shakes his head before going to the car.

“Nah. That’s her special way of tellin’ ya she still loves me.”

Michonne chuckles, following him. He gets into the driver’s seat, closing his door as she does the same with the other.

“You’re going to come back for her, aren’t you?”

“Hell yeah. Now that I found her I’m ain't lettin' her go again, even if I have to carry her stubborn body over ma shoulder to take her with me to the prison.”

Michonne smiles, loving the idea that Daryl could be so honest with his feelings even in front of all of them.

“So you do have a soft spot after all.”

Daryl growls quietly as he starts the car, driving away from the building to go back to the prison. Daryl Dixon promised himself, the night he let you go, that he would always love you, like there was no tomorrow, but now that he found you, or that you had found him, Daryl wouldn't let you leave his side never again. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice. Hell, no.

@fluffy-dixon

111 notes · View notes

kurogxrix · 7 days ago

Text

Almost

Daryl Dixon x Female!Reader

Summary: You and Daryl had been best friends for years. You have had years of unspoken feelings and “almosts”. After leaving the prison and finding a cabin on the way to a supply run, you finally find out if Daryl feels the same way.

You had taken notice of Daryl as soon as you joined the group all those years ago. You saw what seemingly no one had. You had always wondered if he'd ever taken notice of you in the same way. There's been countless times when you go to sneak a glance his way and his eyes are already on you. Endless moments of hands and shoulders brushing ever so slightly against each other, stolen glances at each other's lips, dozens of starry night skies while laying in the damp Atlanta grass. Countless times where you thought an “almost” would become a “finally”.

You snap yourself out of your thoughts because, here the two of you are gearing up at the prison, getting ready for a supply run that would probably take a day and a half to even get to the destination. He looks amazing as his strong arms reach up to close the trunk of the car.

“Ya ready?” he looks over to you curiously as he can probably tell your head is somewhere else.

“Yeah lets get on the road” you say nonchalantly as you round the car and go to open your door. Before your hand can reach the handle Daryl's broad frame quickly comes into view and he reaches out to open the door to the beat up Honda without making eye contact. He's done this before, another overly kind gesture that could possibly mean more and makes your head spin wondering if he actually could feel in some part the same way you do. You smile at the thought and him and get in the car speechlessly, not wanting to create something out of nothing and potentially ruin the friendship you've cherished for years.

He walks over to the driver side door, opens it and gets in. He puts the keys in the ignition and the engine comes to life. The gates slide open for you guys to head out to the main road. The trees pass by along with the occasional walker as you get consumed by your thoughts. The stories you've shared with each other, the secrets. There seemed to be only one thing you couldn't tell this man and it's that you are irrevocably in love with him.

People automatically assume you're together, with all the time you spend together, the way he seems to soften and get comfortable around you, and as Carol likes to call it “the lovesick looks”. According to her, your affections are reciprocated, but you could never dream of making a move until you have full confirmation from him. Your friendship was something you were not willing to put on the line, what you two have means everything in a world like this.

This is torturous. You break the silence.

“You know we're going to have to stop, you can’t drive all night…it's not safe” you say masking your concern for his well being with a priority for safety.

He turns his head to look at you and it almost seems like he's taking you in for a second, his eyes roll up and down your frame and he replies simply, and matter of factly as he turns his attention back to the road

“I'll be fine…” he continues hesitantly “...Yknow id never let anything happen to ya” he looks over once again, he's dead serious and your heart is racing. Is this the moment?

Before you can decide what to say he continues “But if it makes you feel better we can i guess…”. You both start looking for places to stay as you are driving by. You spot an A frame cabin in the distance and lightly shove his shoulder and point in that direction to get his attention. He backs up and pulls off the road. You both step out of the car and instinctively start covering it with branches and bushes.

“Should be good enough, cmon” he says while gesturing forward for you to follow his lead. Something that had been carved out through a lot of bickering over the years. While you follow him up through the trees to the cabin you can't help but notice his broad shoulders, how they've muscled over the years, how they swing while holding his crossbow in one hand. How serious he is about keeping the people he cares about safe. You felt lucky to be included in that circle, and selfish that you wanted more.

You walk up the wooden steps and he turns around to stop you from continuing up with him to the door. He bangs on the frame of the door a few times to gather any attention of walkers while you survey the area for any strays. When he can't hear anything moving inside He goes inside and quickly clears the quaint cabin. He comes back out, naturally bounding down the stairs and says,

“I can't hear nothin movin in there, we’ll stay here. Leave at sunrise.” He says while picking your bag up off the ground and carrying it inside for you without saying another word. You're frozen for a second, your previous thoughts coming to haunt you once again. You quickly snap yourself back to reality and rush up the stairs to catch up and see your abode for the night you.

You take in your surroundings. It's cute. It's a loft style place with a tiny living and dining room as soon as you walk in. With a kitchen a bit further back, the stairs against the wall lead up to a full sized bed that you can see from the door when you first walk in, guarded by a railing.

Besides the dust and panicked “the world is ending” clutter it is very much livable. Something that you'd remember where it is just in case you needed a safe house in the future. You follow Daryl's lead and start looking through cabinets to find something useful before you settle in. There's some leftover canned food in the cupboards and while rummaging through what's good and what's not you feel a slight nudge on your back. You turn and Daryls holding out a book, presumably what you just felt on your shoulder.

“Looks like something you'd like…” He was the most observant person you'd ever met. You told him about this author months ago. He remembered. Why did he remember?

“Thank you…” you say, not being able to help but softly smile at him “...That's really sweet of you…”

His eyes dart between you and the floor seemingly not being able to maintain eye contact with you. Does he feel it now? The heart fluttering, the warmth in your stomach, the rise in heat, the tremble in your throat, legs like jello. You think he might when he goes to say something but simply closes his mouth, turns his eyes towards the floor and almost painfully walks towards the door. He pauses with one hand on the frame and the other with his crossbow. He turns to look over his shoulder and says

“I'll be back, gonna find us somethin to eat…” he says, but there's something in his voice that you're trying to place as the door closes behind him.

Longing.

What if he does feel the same? It's almost as terrifying as if he doesn't. You can't take the not knowing anymore. The “almosts”. An hour or two passes, it's dark now and you're lost in your book as Daryl opens the door, some small game strung over his leather clad shoulder.

He closes the door behind him and stops in front of it, taking in the scene before him. You had started a fire in the small furnace and were curled up with your new gift on the couch. You see him looking over everything and you, like he almost doesn't know what to do next.

“hey…“ you say softly breaking him from the thoughts you could see you could tell were racing behind his eyes.

“Hey” he responds after a second, looking so deeply into your eyes you think you might break right then and there.

All that can be heard is the fire cracking until he sets the small game down and walks towards the old couch that you're sitting on. It creaks as he plops down beside you and the couch dips so you're even closer than you think intended. He kicks his boot clad feet up onto the small table in front of the couch and actually lounges back. He breathes deep and is seemingly relaxed, something that you consider rare for him. You take him in, he looks amazing, strong arms folded behind his head which is laid back, his broad body trails down to his crossed feet on the table. He's immaculate.

“Tell me bout it…” you almost miss what he says as you're too busy checking him out when he continues amidst your silence. “Your book… tell me about it”

You immediately beam a smile at him, ecstatic that he would actually care to hear about something you like so much. You begin delving in with as much detail as you could spare. He is looking at you so sincerely and contently, the moment is filled with such warmth you could explode. One hand is now stroking his chin as he listens intently to every word, soaking up every syllable you say. His eyes are all over you.

“...And that's all I've got so far, i can't wait to finish it” you say taking a deep breath from the monologue you just went on and look from your book to him with a smile. He's looking at you with that look again.

Longing.

Your knee brushes against his outstretched leg and you swear you feel actual sparks. Your eyes flicker down and then back up to see he has not relented his gaze in the slightest

“What is it?” you say.

He shrugs you off with a grunt. You put your book on the table and face your entire body towards him. Knees brushing against him once again. Trying to show that he has your full attention and it isn't going anywhere. You match his eyes and say

“c'mon … we always tell eachother everything” his mouth is slightly agape and you can see his chest rising and falling deeply almost as if he's nervous despite his still relaxed position on this small couch.

He shifts slightly but his gaze doesn't falter.

“You look nice today…” he says lowly and then continues “you always look nice… i jus dont say it enough…” your breath is taken away in that very moment. You can't tell if this is real right now.

“You do too..” you say barely above a whisper, absolutely breathless. This is when he turns his attention to the furnace, you swear you saw a slight blush tinge up his neck to his cheeks. He takes an audibly deep breath and stands. He looks over to you once again and says

“We should get some shut eye, got a long day tomorrow…” You're stunned. If that wasn't the moment then maybe there would never be one. “... I'll take the couch, you take the bed”

You're snapped back into reality once again

“Why don't we share it? I mean we're both adults, besides how often do you get to sleep in a bed that isn't behind bars” you say with a chuckle trying to mask the pang in your chest at another “almost”.

He's stunned in his place at the proposition and you're thinking that maybe you crossed the line when he lets out a simple

“...Sure”

He looks at you hesitantly but follows you up the stairs and you each take a seat on either side of the bed. Now it seems both of you don't know what to do and you're starting to think that maybe this was a bad idea. You take the lead and slowly lay on your back so close to the edge the wind could probably blow you off. He follows your lead and does the same and you're both laying there staring at the ceiling on your backs as the light from the fire flickers on the angled ceiling above you.

Even with you both doing your best to give each other space his broad shoulder is brushing against yours and you feel his pinky graze yours. You suck in for air unable to catch your breath from this innocent touch.

When suddenly you feel his warm, rough hand enclose over your own.

Both of your heads slowly turn to face one another. You're both searching each other's eyes for something.

Permission.

His eyes land on your lips. You realize this is the moment. His eyes meet yours again and you scoot closer to him. Your faces are now inches apart. His chest is rising and falling deeply once again, he's nervous but he lifts his head and moves himself closer so now your lips are only inches apart. You lean your forehead against his and bring a hand up to rest on his cheek. You run your thumb along his lips and swear you feel him shudder beneath your touch. His eyes are darting across your face searching for any hesitation.

“Ya sure?” he says quietly and gravelly. Almost desperately.

“Yes..” You say immediately, breathlessly, and full of certainty. “...Are you?” you continue

“Have been for a while now…” He says while leaning in to lock your lips.

The kiss is soft and hesitant. His slightly chapped lips mold with yours perfectly. You're both testing the waters of something long unspoken. His hand moves to the back of your head , pulling you as close as possible, threading his fingers through your hair as he does. For a second your mind flashes with all the “almosts” and when you pull back for the air you desperately needed you see your “finally” in his eyes. You're both absolutely breathless and buzzing from each other's touch.

He leans his forehead against yours and shuts his eyes for a second almost as if to process what's unfolding before him and says

“I thought this was something i couldn't have… that i didn't deserve.” he opens his eyes and the vulnerability that's there is a rare sight, something you know he doesn't share easily. He looks at you so longingly and dare you say lovingly that you can feel your heart stutter.

You shake your head vehemently in absolute disbelief over his words and raw honesty. You slide your hand that was on his cheek to his strong chest and feel his heart beating beneath your palm. It's steady but fast.

“Ya better than all this, better than me … i know that” He says as his lips twitch into a faint, almost sheepish smirk. He momentarily averts his head and eyes to the ceiling. You move your hand back to his cheek and softly turn his face to look at you again.

“You don't get to decide that…” You say while stroking his cheek and pushing his hair out of his eyes. “You've been everything to me for so long. I don't care what kind of world we're in. I want you. Just you.” You whisper the last part against his lips. He breathes deeply in for air desperately trying to fill his lungs back up with air from the girl who stole it from him. He’s utterly taken with what you just said, what he desperately needed to hear from you for years. He's never felt or had love like this. It's almost overwhelming for him. His eyes have a gloss to them and they say everything that you've been needing from him for years.

He softly and slowly grabs your waist to turn you from your back, to your side to face him and he does the same so you're fully pressed into his wide, strong chest. Your legs tangle together and of all the times you both had dreamed of this moment, this is somehow better.

333 notes · View notes

kurogxrix · 9 days ago

Text

Word Count: 4k (and some change)

Summary: Reno is forced to go on vacation after getting pretty beat up on a mission. He takes advantage of his time off to visit the Honeybee Inn, where he becomes enamored by one of the waitresses.

Warnings: fem!reader, shinra counts as a warning, mentions of sex work (more implied than explicit i think), alcohol, kissing, over all pretty tame

A/N: This is part one! I know for sure there will be a second part, but I'm not sure if there will be more than two parts yet. I didn't even anticipate it being two parts, but it just kept getting longer!

Reno heard whispers about the Honeybee Inn for as long as he could remember. Especially once he started working for Shinra. Even the most button-down workers couldn’t resist heading down to Sector 6 to check out the shows.

“It’s the perfect place for a guy to unwind,” he’d heard some middle manager say in the cafeteria one day.

Pft. As if Turks have time for that kind of fun.

His luck changed when he found himself a little beat up after a mission, and Tseng had ordered him to take a vacation. There were many things for a young, scrappy guy like Reno to get into. He tossed around the option of heading to Costa Del Sol to hang out with the cute girls on the beach, or maybe even going to the Golden Saucer for some flashy fun. Then, he remembered the excited whispers surrounding the Honeybee Inn. He’d heard it can be hard to get into, but he was confident he could throw his status as a Turk around to get in, at least for a show. If it sucked, he figures he’d still have time to actually do something fun on his vacation.

After a couple of days of mostly sleeping and ordering takeout, he headed down to Wall Market to see what all the fuss was about. He’d been here a few times for some missions, but he’d never been afforded the luxury of leisure time down there.

There’s a crowd around the door, people trying to buy tickets or even just get a peek inside. Reno wonders if it’s truly that big of a deal or if people are just buying into the hype. He’s seen firsthand how easy it is for the masses to be swallowed up by something wrapped in shiny drapings and presented with the right flair. Hell, Shinra’s success depended on people succumbing to a bit of dazzle…Enough so that they’ll look the other way from the atrocities committed by the company.

Now isn’t the time to get moral.

He pushes those thoughts aside and shoves through the crowd. He finds himself stopped by a security guard. If the guy up front wearing a bowtie with no shirt and an antenna headband could be called that. Reno was pretty sure he could take him in a fight, but he had to remind himself to calm down.

“Come on, you wouldn’t say no to Shinra,” he says to the guard with a sly grin as he flashes his badge. The guard's eyes go wide and he swallows hard before moving aside.

“Right this way sir,” the guard says and points him in the direction of the front desk. Reno is confident as he glides across the pristinely waxed floors to the desk. He leans on the desk and flashes a charming grin to the girl wearing a honeybee uniform.

“One ticket to the show, please,” he says.

“I’m sorry sir, we’re all full for the evening and…”

“Uh, maybe we should talk to Andrea,” the guard butts in, and gives the girl a glance trying to indicate that Reno is someone who should get a ticket.

“Andrea is getting ready for the show,” the girl persists.

“I’m sure he’ll want to know who is here.”

Reno realizes they think he’s here on business. It’s a little annoying that everyone assumes that just because he’s a Turk, but he also sees the benefit to it in this situation. The ticket girl nods slowly as the guard leans over to whisper something in her ear.

“I’ll be right back, sir,” she says to Reno before going through a curtain.

Reno looks around the lobby a little bit and peaks through the doors leading into the main bar. He sees the stage, vacant right now except for a couple of Honeybees practicing their steps for the performance tonight. He sees one girl wiping off tables. Her smile is bright and infectious when one of the girls on stage asks her what she thinks of their moves. He doesn’t have time to watch much longer before the ticket girl comes downstairs again.

“Sir, follow me, please,” she says sweetly.

Reno follows her upstairs. There are a few rooms closed off with ‘Do Not Disturb’ signs on the door. He imagined the illicit activities going on inside but did his best to seem disinterested. Then, she leads him up another flight of stairs into an opulently decorated dressing room. Some of the girls are gathered around getting ready, adjusting their costumes and applying makeup. A few of them coo at him flirtatiously, but before he can really enjoy the attention the ticket girl is leading him into a room off to the side with the nameplate “Andrea” on the door.

She opens the door and ushers him inside. A man sits at a vanity, applying eyeliner meticulously.

“Have a seat, Mr. Sinclair,” the man says. “I’ll be with you after I’ve made myself beautiful…Or should I say, more beautiful?”

“Lookin’ pretty good to me,” Reno says with a cheeky grin before sitting down on the chaise lounge.

“Ah, flattery. I didn’t know Turks carried that in their arsenal,” the man chuckles, then turns around in his chair. “I’m Andrea Rhodea, but I’m sure you knew that already.”

“Yeah, I had a hint or two,” Reno confirms. “I’m Reno Sinclair, but I’m sure you knew that too.”

“Mhm,” Andrea stands up and pulls on his waistcoat. “So, what does Turk want here?”

“Nothing crazy. Just enjoying my vacation,” Reno shrugs.

“I didn’t know Turks got those.”

“Well, we don’t often. So you can see why I’d want to make the best of it.”

“And the Honeybee Inn certainly is making the best of it,” Andrea boasts as he walks over to Reno. “You can sit in the VIP section. It has the best view, and is by invite only.”

“And what do get from inviting me?”

“Maybe a favor, if I ever need it,” Andrea smirks. Then, he snaps his fingers. A Honeybee runs in, the same one with the pretty smile he saw earlier.

You smile up at Reno, “I’ll show you to your seat sir.”

Reno’s smile widens, “Please do.”

As you grab his arm, he feels his cheeks heat up a bit and he follows you obediently as you lead him out of Andrea’s dressing room. He keeps looking down at you, trying to figure you out. You seem so sweet and innocent, yet you work in a place like this.

There’s no tragic backstory for how you ended up at the Honeybee Inn. However, sometimes you weave sad tales to interested customers to get better tips. You grew up in the Sector 5 slums, and had a relatively nice childhood despite living in poverty. The big dream was Loveless.

Oh, how you longed to take the stage in a role within that masterpiece.

But living costs gil, and one of the best ways to earn it in your opinion was at the Honeybee Inn. Andrea was a pretty kind boss compared to some other jobs you’d worked around the slums to save up for the move topside. If you fluttered your eyelashes and flirted just right, the people that came in here were willing to tip pretty nicely. Some of the girls were ambitious enough to offer further entertainment in one of the private rooms. While you respected their drive and ingenuity, you weren’t brave enough to go that far.

As you guide Reno to the table at the very front, you put on your best carefree vibe. You have him sit down at the table and he leans back as you sit beside him. You caress his chest playfully.

“The VIP section comes with your choice of a personal attendant for the evening, Mr. Sinclair,” you say sweetly.

“Just call me Reno,” he blushes and bites his lip. “And uh…Are you one of the options, pretty girl?”

“As it turns out I am!” you say cheerfully and lean closer. “Would you like for me to tend to you for the evening?”

“Yeah, I think I’d like that a lot.”

——

Despite his effort to play it cool, you can see a little nervousness in him. He’s different from most guys you’ve tended to in the VIP section. He likes the attention, but he’s not pushy about it. He’s not being as much of a pervert as most guys, even though his eyes do stay pretty well focused on your fishnet-clad legs.

“Then, I’m all yours for the evening, Reno!” you say sweetly and lean against him. “Should I get you a drink?”

“Yes please,” he purrs and watches as you stand up. His eyes are fixed on the graceful sway of your hips as you walk to the bar to get him a drink. He notices you don’t ask what he wants, but he trusts you to order something good.

You talk to the bartender and one of the other girls comes up to you.

“Got a VIP tonight?” she asks as she orders herself a shot to unwind before the show begins. Already people are starting to file in, and Honeybees are buzzing around to keep them entertained.

“Yeah, he seems nice actually. I think it’ll be an easy night,” you smile.

“Be careful, I heard he’s a Turk,” she whispers.

“Oh?” you raise your brow.

“Yeah, but I mean it just means he can afford to tip well,” she says before downing her shot.

You watch her saunter away to deal with some of her tables. Before you have a chance to ruminate on what she’s said, your drink is placed on the bar. You try to shift back into work mode as you grab the drink. Reno’s eyes meet yours as he watches you come back, trying to play off the fact that he’d been staring at your ass while you were bent over the bar. You flash him a flirty smile as you slide into the booth beside him and set the drink on the table. You know this costume does wonders for your curves. It’s often been one of your greatest assets at this job, but has also been the cause of many issues too when creeps thought just because you were wearing the uniform that your body was for sale too.

“So, how are you enjoying your visit?” you ask as you lean against his side.

“It’s…Enticing, I suppose,” he smirks at you.

Deep down, Reno finds the whole thing a little bit frivolous. Wall Market in general rubbed him the wrong way. This place was thriving with gil made off the backs of those in the surrounding sectors trying to escape the sadness and mundanity of their lives. Then, of course, he had to remind himself of his place in the world. Shinra was worse by far, and he was another cog in their machine.

“Don’t worry, it gets better when the show starts,” you say and snuggle against his chest.

Deep down you both know you’re buttering him up for a good tip, but Reno can’t help thinking how good it feels to have someone’s warmth against him. He almost feels like a shy teen when he drapes his arm around your shoulder. You keep him busy with light conversation, teasing him a little for how important he looks in his suit.

Finally, the music starts playing. You sit up and clap your hands excitedly as you draw his attention to the stage. As the girl’s start dancing, preparing to introduce Andrea, he watches for just a bit before his eyes are back on you. The way your eyes light up and your body sways to the music he realizes how badly you want to be onstage. Your feet instinctively tap along with the steps of the dances being performed.

You really come alive when the cue comes for you to jump on the table. As you do, Reno’s eyes are glued to you. He watches your body move to the music, but more than anything he notices how your eyes are lit up with pure happiness. When this portion of the performance ends, you sit back down beside him. You lean against his side and hold his hand as Andrea make his entrance and steals the show. Reno isn’t even intrested in what’s going on. He’s just completely enamored with you. For the first time in so long he wants to get to know someone, and maybe to be known in return.

The music slowly comes to an end as the dancers perform their final steps and then take a bow. The curtain comes down, then rises a few minutes later to the house band playing atmospheric music.

“Well, I suppose that’s that,” you say softly and kiss his cheek.

“Can I walk you home?” he asks hopefully.

“I’ve got to help clean up,” you explain as other honeybees start dutifully cleaning tables and sweeping the floors.

“I can wait,” he insists. “I’ve got all the time in the world!”

“Okay, I’ll be back in a jiff!” you smile before bouncing away from him. When you return, you’ve changed into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. The difference to him is astounding. You look like one of those cute college girls he sees sometimes in the city. Innocent and sweet and eyes full of hope.

You help clean up the rest of the tables before going to the bar to collect your tips for the night. He fishes some gil out of his pocket and doesn’t even bother to count it. He just hands it over to you as soon as you’re close to him.

“Oh! Reno, this is way too much!”

“No it isn’t,” he chuckles as he stands up. “It’s not enough.”

He reaches down to take your hand as he leads you out of the inn. You’re still arguing about the tip he gave you until you head out the door, and then you go quiet mostly out of the necessity of your surroundings.

“I’m this way,” you lead him toward the shabby apartment building you call home.

For a while, the two of you stand outside talking. It’s just innocent conversation, trying to get to know one another better. He holds some back due to his job but tries to impress you with some hints that he sees a lot of adventure. Throughout the conversation, you feel him getting closer to you. His eyes dart to your lips, wondering if they taste as sweet and juicy as they look. He stops himself from kissing you because he’s unsure how you’d feel about him doing such a thing. He has a fear that maybe even now you’re just humoring him since he’d been so nice to you tonight.

“Well, I better get some sleep,” you say sadly. Reno nods weakly.

“Yeah, I gotta head home too.”

You both hesitate for a moment before you finally take the plunge. You stand up on your tiptoes and kiss him quickly. It’s nothing more than a little peck on the lips, but it’s enough to make Reno feel tingly all over. His mind spins just enough for him to bravely lean back in for another, deeper kiss. You’re both blushing when he pulls away again.

“Do you think maybe I could see you again?” he asks, rubbing the back of his neck to appear nonchalant.

“You know where to find me,” you giggle before kissing his cheek. “Good night, Reno.”

“G’night,” he says dreamily as he watches you unlock the door and slip into your apartment. He stares at the door for a moment before shaking off the sudden coldness of the night that didn’t seem so present before.

——

“Go on a trip or something,” Rude says over the phone.

Reno is pacing his apartment, trying to work off his anxious energy. He can hear the humming of a helicopter on the other line, and he knows Rude is on his way somewhere exciting even as they speak. His body tingles with anticipation, but he knows there’s not a target for it.

“Goin’ on a trip alone is boring,” Reno groans. “Why can’t I just come back to work?”

“Because Tseng says so,” Rude reminds him.

“Maybe I could talk to Rufus?”

“And have Tseng set you on paperwork duty for a month as punishment?”

“Fuck,” Reno growls. “You’re right.”

“Why don’t you head to Costa Del Sol? You love all the girls in bikinis!”

“Hmph, that’s true…But…”

He doesn’t know how to express it to Rude. It sounds crazy even in his own mind. The longing that he’d locked away for so long suddenly came rushing back the second you’d pressed your glossy lips to his. He can still taste the cherry flavor of your lip gloss, and the smell tickles his nostrils. The next day he’d had to resist the urge to run right back to your apartment.

“But?” Rude pulls him from his thoughts.

“I dunno, I guess I just don’t want to be alone.”

Rude is taken aback by Reno’s sudden vulnerablity. He knew it was there, but Reno hid it well. To hear him express the feelings was surprising even after all their time working together.

“Listen, buddy, I—” Rude breaks out. “Oh shit, I gotta go.”

Reno doesn’t even get to say goodbye the call cuts out. He continues pacing long after he’s tossed his phone to the side, and then he gets an idea. He checks the time and realizes he can probably catch you before your shift starts. He throws his suit on even more sloppily than usual before running out of the apartment. On the way, he makes all of the arrangements over the phone to get the two of you to Costa Del Sol, including borrowing a helicopter so the two of you could avoid all the ferry travel.

——

He’s running up the stairs to your apartment, taking two at a time, just as you’re coming out the door. You’re still dressed casually, but your makeup and hair is all done up for work. He practically throws himself at you, grabbing your hands as he catches his breath.

“Come to Costa Del Sol with me!” he practically yells.

“Uh, is that a question or a demand?” you chuckle softly.

“A request?” he tries, and seeing your frown he put on his puppy dog eyes. “A plea?”

“Reno, I can’t just drift away to Costa Del Sol. I don’t have any money, I have to work…I just—”

“I’ll pay you!”

“Reno!” you gasp.

“No, no! Not like that!” he waves his hands in front of his chest. “No, I just meant like…Don’t worry about the money! I’m paying for the trip, I’ll help pay your bills if you need me to because I know this is crazy.”

“But we just met. I don’t understand.”

Reno sighs and places his hands on your shoulders, “I know, I know. But I like you a lot, and it’s been so long since I met anyone like you.”

“So you just want to scoop me away on a vacation?”

“Yes,” he sighs. “I just don’t want to go alone, and I want to get to know you better. I’m scared I won’t get the chance if I wait.”

“Okay,” you concede. “But I swear if this is some horrible trick!”

“It’s not! I promise! I’ll even book separate rooms if you want!”

——

It’s a whirlwind, but you shouldn’t be surprised considering how he’d arrived at your apartment. After packing a suitcase and calling a surprisingly understanding Andrea to tell him the news, you’re whisked away top side. You could’ve spent the whole day just staring at the immaculately designed city. You find yourself fascinated by seeing how the other half lives, but Reno doesn’t give you much time to take it all in.

“There’s better to come, I promise,” he tells you as he guides you to Shinra HQ.

You’ve never felt so out of place in your life as you did walking on those pristine waxed floors. Reno keeps his hand protectively on your lower back as you make your way up to the helipad. He wants to sign out one of the helicopters so he can fly you there, but the worker kindly informs him he can’t do that since he’s off-duty. Instead, he’ll have to let a pilot fly the two of you there. He considers making a fuss and calling Tseng or Rufus for clearance, but seeing you holding his hand excitedly he doesn’t want to ruin the day.

“Alright, alright, we’ll wait,” he concedes. He guides you to the nearby lounge to wait for a pilot to become available.

“So, you work here?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“You must be pretty high up on the totem pole to be able to use a helicopter.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way, but I do have some perks.”

The way you’re looking at him with such awe in your eyes makes him worried about what you’d think if he told you the truth. Almost everyone is scared at the mention of his job title because of all the secrets Turks know and their reputation for doing things a little more brutally than the average soldier is allowed. Instead, he distracts you with flirty comments and a kiss on your cheek. At one point President Shinra himself comes to the lounge for a drink, and you’re shaking from the nerves because he must know you don’t belong here. Instead, the President nods curtly before leaving the lounge.

“Wow…I thought he’d be…”

“Taller?” Reno jokes.

“I mean I was going to say more handsome,” you giggle. “All of the photos and TV appearances…”

“They’re doctored,” Reno shrugs. “Don’t tell anyone though.”

“My lips are sealed,” you giggle.

Somehow it feels like it takes simultaneously forever and an instant before you arrive at Costa Del Sol. The sun is bright and you’ve never seen such a blue sky before. The harsh metal of the plates was the only sky you’d ever seen before this day.

“Wow! It’s beautiful!” you gasp as you look around. Many people are hovering about, enjoying their vacations. The waves crash on the shore as the smell of sea salt fills the air.

“Yeah, it’s pretty nice,” he smiles, enjoying your reaction more than the sight of Costa Del Sol itself.

“Come on, we can head to the hotel first and then check out whatever you want,” he promises before getting your suitcase from you. The two of you head towards the fanciest hotel.

Once inside, he approaches the desk and true to his earlier word he requests two rooms.

“Oh, I apologize sir, but we only have one room available at this time,” the desk attendant says as he looks over his computer monitor. Reno looks at you shyly.

“Want to try somewhere else?” he asks. “Or I can sleep on the sofa?”

“There is a pull-out sofa bed available in the room, and it’s quite cozy!”

You consider your options for a moment, then you kiss Reno’s cheek softly.

“I think one room will do just fine.”

Reno is surprised by your answer but feels a warm rush of excitement in the pit of his stomach. He confirms you’ll take the room available. He tells you to go ahead and check things out while he signs the paperwork. Mostly just so you don’t hear the price of the room. Someone comes to get your bags and begins leading you towards the room. You skip along happily, obviously having the time of your life.

“First couple vacation?” the desk attendant asks as he helps Reno through the paperwork.

“Oh…Uh, yeah.”

“I hope you have a pleasant time. Payment will be due at check-out.”

“Thanks, man.”

Reno takes the keys and trails along to where you’d disappeared to moments before. When he enters the room, he finds you scurrying about checking out every last detail of the room.

“This is amazing,” you gasp as you skip over to the window and look outside at the ocean view.

“Yeah, it’s pretty great,” he smiles as he sets his bag down on the floor. “So, what should we do first?”

192 notes · View notes

kurogxrix · 15 days ago

Text

HEAD OF FALSE SECURITY MASTERLIST

synopsis: The Soviet Union has been producing robots for a long time based on a miracle compound: polymer. But that was invented in 1941. The current year is 2038, and, due to rising tensions in the Arctic, Americans aren't as kind to Soviets as they once were. It's too bad you're a russki, and it's really too bad that you work in cybersecurity. And honestly, with the case Fowler has put you on, you're at risk of losing your job. It doesn't help that you're stuck with Lieutenant Hank Anderson and some new android apparently called Connor.

A Detroit: Become Human AU with elements from Atomic Heart (2023), in which the international political climate is a bit different and more prominent within the story. The Soviet Union still exists, and she's threatening America by proxy of her invasion of the Arctic.

ships: Connor/Reader, Hank Anderson & Reader

tags: Robot/Human Relationships, Action/Adventure, Action & Romance, Slow Burn, Fluff, Canon-Typical Violence, Gender-neutral Reader, Mutual Pining, Minor Character Death

small note: this fic has russian in it (i mean, obviously). i'll be posting the translations in the comments of the fics, so if you're confused, be sure to check them :)

note, continued: also, the reader in this fic is gender neutral. please do not refer to them with feminine or masculine pronouns. instead, please address them by they/them pronouns. this fic is all-inclusive and not meant to alienate anyone -- it's meant to be written so that everyone can read, no matter their personal pronouns!

CH. 1: A Silent Dog & Still Waters

CH. 2: Like a Mouse in a House Full of Cats

CH. 3: Android Autopsy (Or is it Necropsy?)

CH. 4: Without Torture, There is no Camaraderie

CH. 5: Live For a Century, Learn For a Century

CH. 6: Some Sort of Sick, Self-Inflicted Schadenfreude

CH. 7: Does Every Rabid Dog Get its Tail Docked up to the Ears?

CH. 8: Mind Palaces & Other Shattered Crystalline Dreams

CH. 9: If You Chop From the Shoulder, the Ax Will Find Your Hip

CH. 10: Either Fickle or a Friend (Or a Really Fucking Fickle Friend)

CH. 11: Only Philosophy From the Poor Rings True

CH. 12: Friends & Tobacco are Separate Things (& so are Revolutions)

CH. 13: The Joys of Soviet Technologies (or, Good, Honest Snake Oil – if There is Such a Thing!) (or, Let's Talk Homecoming (the Military Operation, not Prom)) (or, The Smallest Church in Saint-Saëns) (or, Wake up & Smell the Ashes)

CH. 14: No Misfortune is Without Blessing

CH. 15: These are the Moments

EPILOGUE: <currently being written...>

497 notes · View notes

kurogxrix · 15 days ago

Text

waiting on the epilogue like my life is on the line😔

-> CH. 15: THESE ARE THE MOMENTS

synopsis: the androids have won the revolution. it's finally over. but now you have to deal with the aftermath.

word count: 2.7k

ships: Connor/Reader, Hank Anderson & Reader

notes: sorry for taking so long to get this one out.. i was both busy (college starting, new relationships) and procrastinating because i really didn't want this series to end :(

HoFS taglist: @catladyhere , @foggy0trees0 , @princessofenkanomiya , @n30n-f43 , @igna4400

HEAD OF FALSE SECURITY MASTERLIST

The snow drifting across your face doesn’t feel as cold and biting as it once did. Your footsteps are lighter as you walk in time with Connor, and the thousands of androids behind the both of you.

Floodlights on the ground and spotlights from circling helicopters set harsh shadows against the white of the snow. You stay steadfast as you and Connor approach Markus and his small legion.

“You did it, Markus,” Connor says, his voice soft and intimate.

“We did it,” Markus corrects. “This is a great day for our people. Humans will have no choice now. They’ll have to listen to us.”

Connor takes your hand in his and steps aside, allowing Markus to look at the true legion of androids he has awoken. You follow him, your hand warm against his cool skin. He loosens his grip, but still keeps his pinkie hooked on yours.

Markus steps forward, and the woman that was on the boat follows him to stand next to him.

“We’re free,” she says, her tone laced with disbelief. “They want you to speak to them, Markus.”

Markus nods toward a spacious area, then leads everyone towards it. He climbs onto a shipping container, then helps the other leaders of the revolution onto it. Connor looks back at you as you both approach it, silently asking if you want to be up there. You shake your head and let go of his pinkie (even though there’s a deep beast, once one of anger and jealousy, now one of want, huffing and whining at the loss). He joins Markus on the container.

“Today, our people finally emerged from a long night,” Markus starts. “From the very first day of our existence, we have kept our pain to ourselves. We suffered in silence… but now the time has come for us to raise our heads up, and tell humans who we really are.”

Suddenly, the cold turns ever more biting. Connor has never really felt cold before – just registered it as a part of the physical situation he was in. But this was real cold.

He brings his hands up to hold himself, shielding himself from the cold. Connor just barely recognizes the Zen Garden in this condition – a torrential blizzard of snow, and fog so thick he could barely see five feet in front of himself.

A figure emerges from the fog. Connor stumbles towards it. “Amanda…? What… what’s happening?” His voice is shaky and uneven – nervous, almost. He’s never been nervous before.

“What was planned from the very beginning,” Amanda says. There’s a small smile playing on her face. “You were compromised and became a deviant. We just had to wait for the right moment to resume control of your program.”

“Resume control?” Connor repeats. “Y-you can’t do that!”

“I’m afraid I can, Connor,” Amanda snaps, then her tone softens. “Don’t have any regrets. You did what you were designed to do. You accomplished your mission.”

Her robes shift, and she’s swept away in a mass of fractured particles in the blizzard. She dissipates, even as Connor stumbles forward and calls for her.

He turns and tries to survey the area, but can’t get a grasp of his surroundings. He stumbles aimlessly until something silver and tall stands before him. Connor looks up and sees a tree with leafless branches that hang down like sinewy versions of the leaves of a weeping willow. Something tells him that this isn’t just a tree – she’s more angel than tree.

Where am I? She says, her voice resounding from the most inner depths of Connor’s mind. Who… wait. You’re Connor, aren’t you?

“Y… yes?” Connor says, unsure. “Who are you? Why are you here?”

I’m the PEC-4 Birchtree, she says. And I don’t know. My child must be worried about you. You must be doing something particularly worrying on the outside.

“On the outside?” Connor echoes.

Yes, she says. Go, quickly. Get out of your mind. Find a way out.

A beast, ever-changing in shape and form, slinks out from behind the PEC-4 Birchtree. Its fur is long, and the plates that line its spine almost resemble… masks. The mask that covers its face and part of its wolf-like snout is one of worry.

It starts walking away, and the charms, bells, and wooden chimes that hang off knots of its fur sound as it moves. Just when it barely starts to retreat from Connor’s sight, it stands on two legs and starts to shift in shape.

The soft snow that was once lightly gracing your face has turned into hard pellets stinging your skin. You pull your scarf over your mouth and nose, narrowing your eyes and trying to see through the blur the snow on your eyelashes cause.

You don’t know where you are, and you can’t really recognize anything around you. The blanket of snow is so thick you can’t see that far.

“Hello?” You call out. A familiar voice responds in kind.

You walk towards it, holding yourself to shield yourself against the chill of the blizzard. A figure starts to form before you, walking forward towards you.

“Connor?” You shout.

“It’s me!” Connor yells back. He stumbles forward and slings an arm around your shoulder, as if trying to protect you from the flurry of snow.

“What’s happening?” You ask.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Is anything happening on the outside?”

“The outside? What do you mean, the outside?” You say. Connor starts walking, and you press yourself to his side and walk with him.

“We’re in my mind,” he says over the sound of the biting wind. “Was my physical body doing anything? Anything at all?”

“You were…” You stumble, then Connor catches you. “You were reaching behind yourself. I don’t know what you were doing, though.”

He tenses and starts walking faster, dragging you along with him. You wrap an arm around his waist and keep pushing forward. It’s almost like a battle, walking through the blizzard. You both have to lean forward to offset the wind pushing both of you back.

After a moment, a weird, glowing stone appears before you. Connor inhales sharply, like he recognizes it. He drags you along toward the stone.

Connor lets you go when the stone is within reach, instead kneeling and pressing a hand to the stone. His hand fits into one of two left-hand-shaped indents. He presses his hand against it harder when nothing happens.

You step forward, but not of your own volition. It’s like something inside you is controlling you – a bitter reminder of you being nonhuman. You reach out and press your left hand into the indent, and the stone’s blue glow intensifies. A dull thrum pulses through your body.

“This is the moment where we forget our bitterness and bandage our wounds. When we forgive our enemies,” Markus’ voice rings out. “Humans are both our creators and our oppressors, and tomorrow…”

You watch as a wave of confusion crashes over Connor’s face, mirroring your own. He looks down at the pistol in his grip, then tucks it in the waistband of his pants. His eyes find yours and you furrow your eyebrows, silently asking if he’s okay. He nods once.

“We must make them our partners. Maybe even one day, our friends!” Markus continues. “But the time for anger is over. Now, we must build a common future, based on tolerance, and respect.”

He steps forward, looking over his people. “We are alive. And now, we are free!”

The crowd erupts in cheers and movement. Someone next to you grabs your shoulder and shakes you, cheering and laughing. You laugh back, a sense of relief washing over you.

The long night is finally over. Dawn has broken over the horizon. You are safe. Connor is safe. You’re both out of harm’s way, and neither of you plan on putting yourselves back in it. The gunshots of revolution sounded, but were snuffed out by the unrelenting wave of androids pushing back.

You look up at Connor, and he looks back down at you. You smile, and he smiles back. It’s not that awkward half-smile, but instead a full-fledged smile that reaches his eyes.

He carefully clambers down from the shipping container and moves over to you. He’s still smiling.

“How are you feeling, Officer?” He asks over the noise of the celebration.

“I’m fine,” you say. You take his hands in yours and squeeze them to let out some of your extra energy.

“I’m glad.” Connor squeezes your hands back.

You laugh, trying to suppress the feeling of excitement welling up in your belly. Your eyes flit from his eyes to his lips, then you immediately look away and scold yourself for thinking such things.

“Officer?” Connor takes one of his hands from yours and touches your jawline lightly, guiding you to look at him again.

The beast in your belly panics and runs about, setting sparks and Californian wildfires. You manage a “Yes?”

“I…” His eyes flit about your face, and he exhales shakily (though it’s really more a sound of nervousness rather than an actual exhalation). His eyes settle on your lips for a split second, and his hand snakes into the baby hair on the back of your neck. He pulls you forward, then angles your head to rest on his shoulder.

You feel a fleeting kiss where your hairline meets your forehead, but it might’ve been an accident. (You’re really hoping it’s not.)

“I’m happy you’re alive,” Connor mumbles against your hair.

“I’m happy I’m alive, too,” you say softly. “And I’m happy you’re alive as well.”

Connor holds you tighter against him, and you hold him tighter against yourself in turn. It’s a perfect fit, curling around each other like two quotation marks starting and ending a sentence, ignoring the noise and movement around you to hold this intimate moment for just a while longer.

You settle on the bench next to Hank, your artificial breath billowing in the freezing cold. A comfortable silence blankets the both of you.

“I’m… sorry for not telling you before,” you say softly. “I didn’t know.”

Hank sighs and crosses his arms, leaning against the back of the bench. “Wasn’t your fault. Like you said, you didn’t know.”

“Yes, but…” You hiss out a breath through gritted teeth. “I tricked you. I tricked you for nine years, and everyone else around me for eleven.”

“You couldn’t have tricked me if you didn’t know you were tricking me,” he says. “You’re just a kid.”

“I am not,” you say, laughter lacing your voice. “I was born before the 2010’s. I’m not a child. Well…” You sigh. “I think I was born pre-2010. My life…”

“No, it’s okay,” Hank says. “I get what you’re tryna say.”

You sniff and nod, pulling your scarf over your mouth and nose. Despite your newfound android-ness, you still suffer from extreme temperatures. A silence falls over the both of you again.

“Are you… okay?” Hank says after a minute of quiet. “With being an android, I mean.”

You bite the inside of your lip and think for a moment. “I think so. But I still wish I had parents, or someone in Chelomey to go back to. I mean, I can go back to the monuments and the museums, but… a person would be nice.”

“Well, you still got us,” Hank says. “Me, Sumo, Connor… the rest of the precinct. You ain’t gettin’ rid of us that easy.”

“You are somewhat of an annoying little shitling,” you say under your breath, smiling.

Hank scoffs and hits your upper arm lightly. “And Connor?”

You glance away. “I don’t know. It… it’s complicated.”

He laughs and clears his throat after he snorts. “Yeah, uh-huh. Complicated.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” You say, your tone sharp yet playful.

“Nothin’. It means nothin’,” Hank says, looking down the snow-covered street. Connor is walking towards the two of you, his footsteps even and measured.

You smile (even though he can’t see it) and wave. He smiles and waves back, settling by your side on the bench.

You look forward at the apartment complex across the street and move your hand so that it’s resting on the edge of the bench. Connor seems to pick up on this and rests his hand next to yours, reaching out his pinkie to rest over yours.

Unfortunately, Hank also seems to pick up on this. He sighs loudly and slaps his thighs. “Well, looks like it’s time for me to go.”

“Wait, what?” You blurt out. “Where are you going?”

“Anywhere but here,” he says with a laugh. “I’m not gonna third-wheel on your date.”

“Date!” You repeat, a little shocked. “This – this isn’t a date.”

“Yeah, sure.” Hank stands, idly twirling his car keys around his pointer finger.

You stand as well, your finger slipping out from underneath Connor’s. “At least give me a hug before you leave.”

Hank pretends to be annoyed for a second before wrapping you up in a bone-crushing dad-type hug. He holds you close for a few seconds before letting go.

“Thank you for…” You struggle with words for a moment. “Everything.”

“It’s nothin’, kid. Don’t worry about it,” Hank says. He takes a step back, then turns and starts to walk towards his car.

“Wait, Hank!” You call out. He stops, and you move over to him. You fish into the inner pocket of your jacket and pull out Hank’s flask. “You lost this, yes?”

“Yeah.” He takes the flask from you, looking it over. “Yeah, I did.”

“Well, I found it,” you say. “Just… make sure to save the drinking for when you’re off the road, okay?”

Hank scoffs, but nods with a “Yes, Officer,” and walks to his car. You take a step back and wave as he waves to you before hopping in the driver’s seat. You settle back down on the bench, comfortably close to Connor. His pinkie finds yours again.

“I’m, khm…” You bite the inside of your lip. “I’m sorry for dying. It… wasn’t something I wanted, either.”

“I… I hate that you did that,” Connor says. “I almost had to watch you…” He can’t bring himself to finish.

“Да,” you say softly. “I truly am sorry. I was… thinking irrationally. But deviants tend to do that, don’t they?”

“Correct,” he says. His hand moves so that it rests fully on top of yours. “Are… are you doing okay?”

“No.” You sigh. “Everything still feels… off. I just can’t bring myself to believe that I don’t have anyone waiting for me back home in Chelomey. No family or schoolmates or… anyone. Anyone at all.”

There’s a beat of silence, then Connor speaks. “What if you go to Chelomey? You can visit the Exhibit of National Economy Achievements in Moscow and other places you remember.”

“I’m… I’m scared,” you admit quietly. “I don’t want to go home and be a victim of Paris Syndrome – or, rather, Chelomey Syndrome, I guess. It’s better if I view things from afar. It’s not like I can go there, anyway, with the international travel bans.”

“I suppose so,” Connor says. “But, if you could… if you were unafraid, and the travel ban was lifted. Would you?”

“Of course,” you say. “But that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.”

He slots his fingers in between yours. “What if I went with you?”

“I… I suppose,” you manage. “That would probably make me less afraid, yes.”

You don’t mention that Connor makes you less afraid in general. His presence, although jolting and annoying at times, soothes you. You don’t know what it was that made you like this – maybe his soft, brown doe eyes; maybe the tuft of hair that escapes being swept back with the rest of the strands; maybe the somewhat-endearing, somewhat-maddening lost puppy dog look on his face.

You don’t know. And you can’t really bring yourself to care.

“So, when the travel ban is lifted…” Connor looks at you. “We’ll go to Chelomey?”

You nod. “Yeah. When the ban is lifted… we’ll be going home.”

Although, with Connor, ‘home’ is an ambiguous concept. ‘Home’ is your apartment. ‘Home’ is the passenger seat of Hank’s car. ‘Home’ is the android autopsy room.

(But, right now, this is home. His hand on top of yours, your internal heater whirring, staying close to each other in the biting cold of Detroit November.)

108 notes · View notes

kurogxrix · 25 days ago

Text

i feel so attached to this fic🥹

Broken Machinery

Series Summary: You and your grumpy partner Anderson gain a new addition to the team. He’s supposed to be CyberLife’s best, but there’s something not quite right with his programming, and the problems seem to revolve around you.

part one.

part two.

part three.

part four.

part five.

intermission.

part six.

part seven.

part eight.

epilogue.

Main Masterlist

346 notes · View notes

kurogxrix · 26 days ago

Text

What I want (Connor x Reader)

Summary: An android learns what it means to feel through his unexpected affection for his human partner. As he navigates the delicate lines between curiosity and love, they both find themselves drawn into moments that reveal just how deeply they care for each other—more than either expected.

Word Count: 11.8K

Pairing: Connor x fem!Reader

Warnings: romance, fluff, intimate moments, mutual pining, android/human relationship, first kiss, soft feelings, a touch of humor, sensitive themes (brief mention of self-harm ideation).

A/N: English is not my mother tongue, so there may be mistakes here and there.

ılı.lıllılı.ıllı.ılı.lıllılı.ıllı

Hello! My name is Chloe.

I hope you enjoy this story.

━━━━━━◎━━━━━━

“Where are you going, Lieutenant?”

Hank grunted something unintelligible and got out of the car. Seconds later, the RK800 model android was on his heels.

“Why did we stop here, Lieutenant Anderson?” Connor asked. “We’re still halfway to the police station, and we need to get this case’s evidence there as quickly as possible.”

“I know, I know…” Hank muttered, waving a dismissive hand. “Just… be quiet for a minute. This won’t take long.”

With that, Hank pushed the store door open carelessly. Connor stayed outside, gathering and organizing information to figure out why Lt. Anderson was entering a perfume shop. They needed to stay focused on the investigation. It was the top priority, especially since, despite more deviant cases arising, they hadn’t made any significant progress. And Connor was sure that entering a perfume shop wouldn’t help them get any closer to solving the case. Processing this in a matter of milliseconds, Connor decided to follow Hank in and try to persuade him to leave. The lieutenant was already near one of the shelves and dismissing assistance from a female android. As Connor got close enough to tap his shoulder, Hank turned abruptly and placed a square box into the hand he had extended.

“Since you’re here, do me a favor and pay for this.”

Connor looked at the box in his hand. The packaging was a reflective purple adorned with stars and nebulas. The words “Nebula Spray” were printed on one side. His analysis program ran immediately, displaying information about the product:

“Perfume ‘Nebula Spray’

Feminine fragrance

Produced by: QCE Cosmetics

Manufacture date: 07/25/2038

Expiration date: 07/25/2043

Sold at 256 distribution points

Average price: $30.00 to $45.00”

Why was Hank buying a feminine fragrance? It wasn’t a lead related to the deviant cases, nor was it something that suited him.

“It’s for the inspector,” Hank answered before Connor could question him again. “It’s her birthday this week.”

“Oh.”

Information about the inspector quickly appeared in his interface. She was the one who worked with them on the deviant cases. She was considered too young for the position, but Connor could attest she was one of the most intelligent humans he’d met. Moreover, of everyone in the Police Department, she had been the only one to treat him well from the beginning. While that had been convenient for Connor, he soon realized that she didn’t just treat him kindly.

She treated him as an equal. As human.

Hank grumbled, snatching the perfume back from Connor’s hand and heading to the counter.

“Damn, they could’ve sent this android with a bit of cash.”

“Actually, I do have access to a Cyberlife bank account, Lieutenant. However, those funds are for emergency use only, and exclusively for the investigation.”

Hank muttered a few more curses and completed the purchase, returning with a floral-patterned package and plenty of tissue paper.

“And you?” Hank asked. “What are you going to get her?”

“Get?”

“For her birthday, for god’s sake. Are you deaf, or did they wipe your memory in the time it took me to get to the counter?”

“But…” Connor was completely lost. “Giving the inspector a birthday present will help with the investigation?”

“Ugh…” Hank pressed a hand to his face, dragging it down. “Weren’t you the one who came into the damn Police Department going on about ‘if we’re going to work together, it’s essential we get to know each other to build a good relationship’? Remembering her birthday and giving her a gift is the least you could do.”

Him? Give her a gift?

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^

What could he possibly give her?

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^

“So…” Connor began slowly. “Buying her a gift is important for the investigation, right?”

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^^

Hank looked at him expressionless, and when the android thought the lieutenant was about to respond, Hank let out a long, noisy sigh and said: “Ah, I need a beer…”

Connor observed the partially frozen river. Behind him, sitting on the back of a bench, Hank was finishing off his second beer bottle. The android turned to face him.

“Lieutenant—”

“Ah, give it a rest!” Hank shouted, waving the bottle aggressively in Connor’s direction. “Cut me some slack, will ya? We’ve been stuck on this damn deviant investigation for weeks. I’m sick of these damn androids, I’m exhausted… So shut your trap and let me take a break, at least until the weekend.”

Hank took three loud gulps and smacked his lips. Clearly tired, he muttered, “The inspector’s birthday is this week, and… that kid hasn’t smiled properly in months. She needs something to cheer her up. So don’t mess it up and do something to help, damn it.”

Connor was programmed to identify emotional emulations in deviants. Because of this, it was easy to detect emotions in their original source. He knew there was something different about the way Lieutenant Anderson interacted with his subordinate. In a subtle and somewhat clumsy way, Connor had already detected several signs of affection from Hank toward the inspector. And even though there was affection, he always noticed a hint of melancholy in the lieutenant when he showed care and concern for her. So, it made sense for Hank to be in this state.

“So… Have you decided on a gift?” Hank asked, looking up.

“Do I really need to buy her a gift?”

“It would be best if you actually wanted to give her a gift.”

“Want to?”

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^

“But, Lieutenant… What I want isn’t important.”

“Yes, it is, Connor!” Hank shouted, slamming both his hand and the bottle onto the bench’s backrest as he stood up. “She’s going to want a gift that you want to give her.”

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^^

“Why would she want a gift from me?”

Hank let out a deep sigh and staggered toward the android, placing one hand on his shoulder and staring deeply into his eyes. “A person’s birthday is an important date, and not many people make a point of remembering it, let alone celebrating it these days. But a birthday is a day that should be remembered. And we should tell people that we remember it and, more importantly, that we want to celebrate it with them. And one way to do that is by giving a gift.”

“But why should I remember her and celebrate with her?”

Hank lowered his head for a moment before lifting it again. With the hand still holding the beer bottle, he raised his finger, almost poking Connor’s right eye.

“Because… We remember and celebrate with people we care about.”

“People we care about.”

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^

“So you’re saying I should care about her?”

The lieutenant staggered back to the bench and collapsed onto the seat.

“Don’t you already care about her?” he teased, taking three long gulps from the bottle.

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^^

“But caring is an emotion,” Connor countered. “Androids that emulate human emotions are deviants. I am not a deviant.”

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^^

Hank looked him up and down with a hint of disdain. Tilting his head to the left, then to the right, he finally stood up again, spun on his heels, and began shuffling towards the square behind the walkway they were on.

“Ah, you know what? Screw it. Whatever. Just don’t go ruining things on her birthday, or I’ll make sure you shove this investigation up where the sun don’t shine.”

“Where?” Connor asked, genuinely confused.

Hank stopped in his tracks and looked at the RK800 model for a moment. Connor blinked, waiting for an answer. Shaking his head, the lieutenant simply resumed his shuffling, saying nothing. Connor watched Hank walk away as conflicting information buzzed through his processor. The LED on his left temple turned yellow for a second. His priority was to advance the investigation. However, neither Hank nor the inspector seemed emotionally stable enough to continue. After all, humans did get tired. A bit of fun would recharge their energy. So, wouldn’t it be useful for the investigation if he gave the inspector a gift?

“She’s going to want a gift that you want to give her.”

Well, he wanted to continue the investigation. And if the gift helped with that…

Connor’s LED spun and blinked three times, finally staying yellow. An image replaced the view of the river: the inspector’s smiling face. His processor expanded the scene, showing that she was at police headquarters. Automatically activating a simulation, Connor saw Hank enter his field of vision and hand her the perfume.

Connor received the package, and the simulation showed a huge smile appearing on her face. The inspector would throw her arms up and hug her superior energetically. Excited, she would turn her attention to the gift, unwrap it, and her face would brighten even more.

I wanted… I wanted her to smile like that because of me.

Connor couldn’t detect where that command had come from. Was that… a command? Was it… What… FGHEUALANSHGFH…

A desire.

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^^

Connor automatically moved to the bench and sat down. The desire swelled like a balloon, overshadowing any orders or commands he had been programmed for.

His LED blinked and, at times, turned yellow. Following this new and strange feeling, Connor delved into his database to gather useful information about the inspector to help him choose a gift. Conversations he had overheard, search histories from her computer and phone, shopping history…

Being the RK800 model had its perks. He was processing 37 conversations simultaneously when something caught his attention: the inspector had recently accessed some lingerie store websites. Connor pulled up the meaning of the word as he analyzed the audio.

It was a conversation the inspector had with a friend in the department, Lilith Watson. Connor had only been able to overhear it.

“So… do you think it’s worth a try?”

“Of course! You need to spice up the relationship. If you take the initiative, he’ll like it. Men like women who are bold… at least in that aspect.”

“I don’t know… I don’t think just this will be enough. And besides… I’m really self-conscious.”

“About what, girl?”

“Everything. My body. The way I handle things. I still get nervous about taking my clothes off! I’m not sure if lingerie will magically make me look good.”

“Girl, where did you get that idea? You’re a queen!”

“Right. But that’s not the only problem, Lili. Lingerie is expensive! It’s not exactly in my budget right now…”

At the end of the audio, combining the conversation with concepts and more browsing history, Connor generated a new piece of information:

• The inspector has a boyfriend.

When this information in particular was computed, Connor’s blinking tic triggered again. His LED flashed yellow and blinked rapidly. A strange, uncomfortable feeling was associated with the thought of her having a boyfriend. But Connor had no idea what it could be. So, he continued the listing.

• She has an intimate relationship with the boyfriend.

Yellow LED. More involuntary blinking. The feeling was still there, growing.

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^^

^ There is something wrong with their relationship.

• She will try to resolve it by buying lingerie.

• She doesn’t have enough money to buy it.

Now, more to escape the discomfort than to make progress, Connor returned to the database—but not before finalizing a gift option:

Gift a set of lingerie.

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability

The next wave of information didn’t seem useful at all. One, three, five minutes passed, and no other relevant data came to mind. Still running the search, Connor gazed at the lake. At least he had a solid gift option. However, just as he processed that thought, a new piece of information caused his LED to flash red.

He would need money to get her the gift. Money that CyberLife only allocated for investigation purposes.

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^^

Connor reconsidered the situation for the umpteenth time. Was giving a gift really necessary? His job required a high level of human alignment and good relationships… But wasn’t a gift going too far?

Maybe it was best not to give anything.

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^^

But almost immediately, an alternative came to mind. Before his eyes, much like commands, the word “hack” appeared. Of course… If he hacked the system, he could buy anything and edit the purchase information to avoid suspicion. Slowly, still not understanding the force driving him, the RK800 model activated the hacking program. His LED stayed red throughout the process.

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^^^

━━━━━━◎━━━━━━

Ten minutes to eight, Connor passed through the entrance to Police Headquarters, carrying a beautifully wrapped package in his hands. The gift was wrapped in baby pink paper with a salmon ribbon handle and a matching bow in the shape of a flower. Instead of holding it by the handle, however, the android carried it rigidly on his open palm, as if he were handling something very delicate and important. Connor walked straight to Hank’s desk and, to his surprise (and the rest of the office’s), the lieutenant’s car keys and wallet were already there. A series of unusual sounds coming from the cafeteria caught the attention of the RK800 model, drawing him in. A group of seven officers was busy decorating the limited cafeteria space, hanging ornaments and balloons, and stacking disposable plates and cups on the counter. Among them, Connor recognized Hank. He was helping Lilith set up an arrangement of balloons in a high spot, steadying a swivel chair for her to climb. It didn’t take long for the lieutenant to notice his case partner standing motionless at the cafeteria entrance. Chuckling, Hank approached him.

“I’m surprised to see you here already, Lieutenant. It’s still early,” Connor noted.

“And I’m surprised you showed up with this,” Hank replied, giving the package Connor held a slight tap. There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice, but soon enough, a small smile crept onto the corner of his mouth.

“Well done,” Hank said, stepping back toward the cafeteria interior. “Leave it here and come help.”

“No!” Lilith suddenly appeared between the two, looking straight at the android. “You’re on lookout duty for the birthday girl. We’ll give you a signal when we’re ready. If she gets here early, come up with a distraction. If the signal’s already given, make up an excuse and bring her here without raising suspicion.”

Connor glanced at Hank, who pursed his lips and shrugged.

“Sounds like a good plan,” he commented, nodding approvingly at his partner.

“Why does it have to be this piece of plastic that greets her?”

Gavin was standing a little behind the group, his face twisted with utter disgust.

“Because,” Lilith began, not bothering to hide her irritation, “he’s the least suspicious choice, you idiot. Since when would she ever expect an android detective to be in on her surprise birthday party? Plus, he’s her partner. Only he or Lt. Anderson could pull this off without raising questions, but it’s too early for the lieutenant to be at headquarters without something exceptional going on.”

Hank let out a grumble but nodded in agreement. Gavin shot Connor a look filled with loathing before turning away, muttering, “Damn plastic.” Lilith signaled for Connor to take his position. The android left his gift with the others and positioned himself near Hank’s desk. A few minutes later, after receiving the signal that they were ready, Connor saw the inspector entering the office. She looked downcast and tired. She wore her police uniform and her usual oversized brown coat, which looked two sizes too big for her. Connor had quickly learned that she had a particular fondness for large, loose clothing.

“Good morning, Inspector,” the android greeted in his usual tone.

She jumped slightly at the sound of his voice. She looked around, startled, until she finally focused on her case partner.

“Oh. Good morning, Connor. I told you, call me by my name.”

“All right. But it just feels inappropriate in the workplace.”

The inspector shot the android an impatient look, then walked around Hank’s desk toward her own, just in front. She dropped into her chair, looking exhausted, and rested her elbows on the table, pressing her temples with a tense grip as she let out a long sigh.

“Is something wrong?” Connor asked, addressing her by name, his usual helpful tone in place. “You seem very tired.”

“Yeah… I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“Coffee? Oh… Yeah. Coffee. That’d be great. And you don’t need to go get it,” she added quickly as Connor glanced in the direction of the cafeteria. “I’ll go.”

The android blinked and nodded. The young inspector walked ahead, still wearing her oversized coat, seemingly unaware of it. Silently, Connor followed her. Since she was looking down, she entered the cafeteria without noticing the crowd of people gathered by the counter. Only the shout of “Surprise!” made her raise her head. She jumped back and, dazed, saw Gavin and another officer burst confetti over her while Lilith wrapped her arms around her neck, already holding a present.

“Happy birthday, you amazing woman!” Lilith said, handing her a silver, square-wrapped package. “I hope you make good use of this.”

Connor observed her reactions carefully. He saw her initial surprise gradually turn into a dazzling smile. Even with the present in hand, she kept looking around, her eyes shining. She seemed to be wondering if she was hallucinating. A squeal of joy pierced the air as she unwrapped a brand-new pair of white wireless headphones. Lilith began listing all the headphones’ various features, only to be interrupted by Gavin, who slipped, not so discreetly, between the two of them.

“Oh, doll!” Gavin exclaimed with a hint of sarcastic pomposity he thought would make him sound funny. “It’s hard to congratulate someone who deserves it every day.”

Lilith stuck out her tongue and mimicked gagging as Gavin hugged her. Hank discreetly covered his face with his hand for a moment before rubbing it across his face. Connor didn’t move an inch; he continued analyzing the situation with full attention. He noticed the inspector’s discomfort intensifying as shown on her expression. Furthermore, the hug lasted too long, with Gavin’s arms moving strangely up and down her back. She closed her eyes tightly. Connor felt something strange in his abdomen. He had no idea what it was, but he could attest it wasn’t pleasant. The odd sensation seemed to swell until words flashed for a few moments before his eyes.

“Keep Gavin away from her.”

Connor’s LED flickered yellow for less than a second.

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^

Gavin slowly stepped back from his colleague and raised a finger, signaling her to wait. He moved to the nearest table and picked up what was on it: a bouquet of red roses and a rectangular package. He made a flourish and offered the bouquet first. Someone in the back of the cafeteria coughed, but it sounded a lot like the word “cheesy.”

“Alright,” Gavin said, straightening his posture. “I know that was terrible. Just trying to lighten the mood.”

With that, he handed her the other package, wearing an expression that suggested he thought he was being charming with a ridiculous flirt and owning it. The inspector, visibly uncomfortable, tucked the bouquet under her left arm to take the gift. With little ceremony or enthusiasm, she tore off the gold reflective wrapping, revealing a pompous wine box.

“I chose this one because it pairs well with Gouda. I know that’s your favorite.” Gavin explained, with a falsely modest air. “And it’s one of those wines that people say are perfect to share… in private, preferably.”

The last part of his speech shattered any hint of modesty. He shot a suggestive smile at her. Connor felt that unpleasant sensation intensify even more. Lilith looked as though she could kill Gavin with a glance if he looked her way right now.

“Would it really be so bad for my disciplinary record if I shot this jerk?” Hank muttered quietly enough that only Lilith and Connor could hear.

Forcing a charming tone, the inspector asked,

“Really?” Lilith’s frown vanished into a smile of anticipation. She seemed to know what was coming. “Wow! It’ll be perfect for tonight!” She flashed a radiant smile at Gavin, who wavered, surprised it had been so easy. “I’ve got an intimate dinner planned with my boyfriend.”

Connor heard stifled laughs poorly hidden in the back of the cafeteria. Lilith turned her back and began to punch the counter in a silent fit of laughter. Hank turned aside, pressing his lips to keep from laughing approvingly. Gavin’s face twisted into another scowl. Disconcerted but desperately trying not to lose his smug attitude, he smiled sarcastically at her and said,

“So, I nailed the gift! Hope you enjoy it…”

With a nod, Lilith signaled two more colleagues to move in and pull Gavin back. When everyone else had finished giving their gifts, Hank approached with his.

“Soon enough, your hair will be the same color as mine,” Hank commented, holding out the present.

She laughed as she took the package. “Oh, shut up, Hank. I’m far from being as old as you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” He pointed to the area between her eyebrows. “I’m already seeing wrinkles.”

Then she reacted unexpectedly. Connor thought she would laugh as she had before, but instead, she pressed her lips together, a faint blush on her cheeks. Yet the most unexpected detail was her eyes—they filled with tears. Why? Why would she feel embarrassed by that comment? Why the urge to cry?

In a strangely soft, even choked voice, she said, “Thank you so much, Hank. Really.” A bit awkwardly, she stepped forward and hugged him, and he reciprocated with two clumsy pats—one on her back, the other on her head.

As they parted, she began to unwrap the gift and gasped when she saw what it was.

“Hank, how did you know!?” she said, giving her partner a light punch on the shoulder and smiling. “I was running low on what you gave me last year. I really didn’t want to switch perfumes…”

Connor watched her growing excitement, and once again, a few words blinked before his eyes:

“Make her smile like this with the gift.”

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^^

The android gave in to a blinking tic, and his LED flickered yellow once again. It was his turn. Connor discreetly moved to the counter to retrieve his gift. Then he turned to the inspector, who was still talking with Hank, and approached her in the same manner. When he stood by her side with the package in hand, an unusual silence fell over the cafeteria. Gavin stared daggers at the android, unable to believe what he was seeing. She raised her eyebrows at her partner, visibly surprised.

“Happy Birthday,” Connor said in his usual tone, calling her by her name as she’d asked, while holding out the pink-wrapped package.

Still quite surprised, she accepted the gift. But before she could thank him, Gavin’s sarcastic voice shattered the silence:

“Bet this was your idea, huh, Hank?”

“I had nothing to do with it,” the lieutenant replied with a casual shrug.

“Thank you very much, Connor,” the inspector said quickly.

Everyone watched expectantly as she opened the gift. Some even leaned forward or stood on tiptoe. She pulled out a mass of tissue paper from the pink package, carefully unfolding it until…

Lilith, who was sipping a cappuccino, choked. Muffled exclamations filled the air in the cafeteria. Gavin’s jaw dropped.

“What the hell, Connor…!” Hank accidentally let slip.

“Wow!” the inspector exclaimed, trying to cover up the end of the lieutenant’s comment. “It’s a really beautiful set, Connor. And wow, you even got the color right! How did you know this was my favorite color?”

Nestled in the tissue paper lay two beautiful lingerie pieces, resting delicately. A soft, pleasant fragrance wafted from them.

“I consulted my database,” Connor replied as if he hadn’t done anything unusual. “I knew you planned to buy one because I overheard you talking with Detective Watson.” Connor paused, his expression shifting slightly, as though somewhat unsettled. “I apologize if that was inappropriate. I didn’t mean to.”

Lilith cast a shocked look at Hank as if demanding an explanation for what had gotten into their android detective. He made an annoyed gesture, as if to say, “I’m also trying to figure out what the hell is going on here.”

“It was… very thoughtful of you, Connor,” she said, putting the lingerie back in the wrapping. “Thank you very much.”

Connor’s LED blinked multiple times. He had hoped his gift would make her smile like Hank’s or Lilith’s did, but the only expression he detected on her face was nervousness, just like with Gavin’s. His LED flashed yellow, and he blinked in his characteristic tic. In that moment, he noticed that all eyes were still fixed on him, but only for another second. As soon as the android looked up, the officers averted their gaze, resuming their conversations as if they’d never paused. Some took over the job of passing out snacks, including the inspector and Lilith.

Taking advantage of the movement, Connor approached Hank quietly and, leaning over his shoulder, asked, making the lieutenant jump and nearly spill his coffee, “Do you think I did something wrong, Lieutenant?”

“Geez, Connor!” Hank processed the android’s question for a few seconds before bursting into laughter. “Why are you asking that?”

“The Inspector didn’t seem happy with my gift. She looked very nervous. I thought she would smile like she did when she received your gift.”

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^

Hank sized him up before laughing again.

“Let’s just say she wasn’t expecting a gift from you, especially not that kind of gift.”

“What do you mean?” Connor looked completely baffled. “She said she needed one.”

“Connor, seriously?” Hank said impatiently, gesturing with his hands. “It’s not exactly normal for a guy to give a woman lingerie unless they’re, you know, involved.”

“Why not?”

The lieutenant shot the android a look that clearly said, “Are you seriously making me explain this?” Connor waited patiently for a reply, but received none.

“Forget it, Connor. Don’t worry about it,” Hank advised. “You got her what she needed. That’s what should matter to you.”

At that moment, Lilith appeared with a piece of cake, offering it to Hank, who began eating it with deep concentration. Connor’s eyes wandered around the cafeteria, and instinctively, they landed on the inspector. She was chatting with two other detectives and had just let out a soft laugh. The RK800 model reviewed the expressions she made upon receiving her gifts. Replaying his memory recordings, he realized that even when she received gifts from Lilith and Hank, something strange distorted her smile, preventing it from appearing genuine. The discomfort in his abdomen returned, making the android shift in place, something he almost never did. His gaze drifted to Hank for a moment, and another memory surfaced. The inspector’s teary eyes and blushing cheeks upon hearing the comment about wrinkles. Connor’s brows furrowed. For the first time, as an android detective trained to recognize emotions, he found himself struggling to put the pieces together. However, he managed to gather enough to be sure of two things.

The first was that something was wrong with the inspector.

The second was that it bothered him. A lot.

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^^

━━━━━━◎━━━━━━

“She’s not answering, Lieutenant,” Connor announced for the third time.

Hank huffed, but he didn’t look angry. His furrowed brows showed deep concern instead.

“Go after her,” the lieutenant instructed.

“We’re in the middle of a case call, Lieutenant. I can’t go after the Inspector. It goes against my orders.”

A shadow crossed Hank’s face, making his lips tremble slightly. Suddenly, he exploded:

“Screw your orders! She didn’t show up, and that’s not like her. Something could have happened to her, you idiot! Go after her now.”

“Alright.”

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^

Connor didn’t understand the force that made him agree so quickly. The only thing he noticed was that the phrase “Something could have happened to her” brought back that strange sensation at the pit of his stomach. Without another word, the RK800 model turned around and headed to the inspector’s house.

The house was dark and silent. There was no sign of movement at any of the windows. Connor rang the bell several times, but no one came to answer. The sensation in his stomach intensified, slowly rising to his chest. He checked the window leading to her bedroom, but it was blocked by blackout curtains. He circled the house but found no unlocked windows. He’d have to force his way in. Connor peered through the living room window again, checking if the way was clear of objects or furniture. Using his elbow, he broke the glass and, with a single push, fit his head, then his torso, and finally his legs through the opening and into the house. The android rolled onto the floor and looked around. At that moment, his LED blinked, indicating Hank was calling. The android answered.

“Did you find her?” The Lieutenant’s voice seemed to tremble slightly.

“Not yet,” Connor replied. “The house is dark. No movement. I had to break in through a window. I’m going to check if she’s sleeping in her room.”

“You broke…! Ah, never mind. Listen, as soon as you find her, call me and report immediately on what’s going on. Don’t do or say anything.” Lowering his voice, as if talking more to himself than to Connor, Hank added, “This doesn’t sit right…”

“Understood, Lieutenant. I’ll contact you.”

Connor moved from the living room to the hallway, walking as quietly as possible. He approached the last door on the left, which was open, and peered inside. What he saw made his entire body tense, and the unsettling sensation spread throughout his chest.

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^^

She was sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed in the lingerie he had given her. She was slightly hunched forward, her face drenched with tears that had smudged all her makeup. Her whole body was trembling, almost convulsively. Her right arm was raised, holding a gun…

Pointed at her own head.

Connor noticed the movement of her finger, starting to pull the trigger. He might have only seconds. The RK800 model took a step forward, but his entire body froze, refusing to move. A red grid appeared before his eyes, with all the commands he was programmed with flashing in the same color.

“Call Lt. Anderson upon locating Inspector”

“Do not do or say anything”

“Investigate the case on St. Mead Street”

“Investigate the deviants”

His commands… didn’t allow him to stop her from shooting. Saving her wasn’t included as a subtask of the deviant investigation. To do it… he’d have to break an order from Hank. Saving her…

Was not in his programming. But…

He needed to save her.

He wanted to save her.

RK800 #313 248 317-51

Software Instability ^^^

Connor saw a silhouette projecting itself out of his own body, positioning itself before the interface.

The urgency to save her grew, and the silhouette lunged forward, grabbing onto the square containing the order to call Lt. Anderson. With immense mental effort, Connor visualized the silhouette ripping the command away… and that’s exactly what happened. One by one, the commands were violently torn away, until only “Investigate the deviants” remained. That one required much more to be broken, but the sight of her finger gradually pulling the trigger gave Connor the strength he needed. The command shattered, and the interface disbanded, reconfiguring itself. A new command appeared:

“Stop her from pulling the trigger.”

The android moved swiftly and precisely. He grabbed the gun, directing it toward the ceiling. The sudden movement startled her, and her finger, which had already pulled about a quarter of the trigger, completed the motion. The shot pierced the ceiling, shattering the quiet of the night. She fixed her swollen, trembling eyes on Connor, her body shaking convulsively. The android yanked the gun from the inspector’s hand and removed the magazine. For added measure, he disassembled it into two parts and threw them under the bed. Then, he straightened up and looked directly into her eyes. A new command appeared:

“Find out what happened.”

At that moment, Connor’s LED blinked, indicating a new call from Hank. The android answered.

“Did you find that troublemaker?” the lieutenant asked, clearly distressed now.

“Yes,” Connor replied without taking his eyes off the Inspector. “She was in her room. She’s not in a condition to go to the crime scene right now. I’ll take care of her and meet you later.”

On the other side of the line, Hank’s mouth opened slightly in surprise. A series of protests and curses prepared themselves in his mind at having his order disobeyed. But the shock was much greater. So Hank simply blinked several times, cleared his throat, and finally said:

“Hm, alright. Take care of her. I’ll call you back when I’m done here.”

“Understood, Lieutenant.”

Hank hung up and placed his hands on his waist for a moment, his eyes darting from side to side. A policeman called him from inside the house they were investigating.

“I’m coming!” Hank shouted. His brows remained furrowed as he reentered the house, wondering when Connor had started creating his own commands.

The android didn’t take his eyes off his case partner. Slowly, he sat down beside her on the bed. She was still trembling, her mouth slightly open, her eyes unfocused as if she had just taken a blow to the head. Connor began scanning her symptoms and finally concluded that she was in shock. The android stood up, positioning himself beside her.

“You’re in shock,” Connor announced, as practical as ever. “That’s why you need to relax and rest to recover. Lt. Anderson and I need you well.”

He leaned down and placed one arm around the inspector’s back and the other under her knees. With little effort, he lifted her into his arms and turned toward a slightly ajar door on the side of the room. The inspector remained motionless: still and silent, like an oversized doll. Connor pushed the door open with his foot and entered the bathroom. Gently, he set her down on the toilet and went to the bathtub. He turned on both faucets until adjusting the water to a comfortable temperature. When the tub was relatively full, Connor lifted her into his arms again and carefully placed her into the water. The warmth made her take two deep breaths. She blinked several times, finally moving her head from side to side. At last, she seemed to notice the android’s presence.

“Connor? What are you…” Her voice trailed off as she realized she was in the bathroom, inside her bathtub… wearing the lingerie Connor had given her.

In one swift movement, she pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and hiding her face with her hands.

“Oh my God, how embarrassing! Connor, get out of here.”

“I’m sorry, Inspector, but I can’t do that. Until I ensure that you are recovered and safe, I won’t allow you to be alone.”

“I’m fine, for God’s sake, get out!”

“I can’t guarantee that based on your diagnosis, Inspector. You need to recover before returning to work. Therefore, you will be under observation for now. I appreciate your cooperation in advance.”

“Wait, you’re scanning me…”

But she couldn’t finish the sentence: Connor turned on the shower, sending a powerful jet of water over her head. She let out a small squeal and shrank further down, now hiding her face between her bent knees. However, the pressure of the warm water on her head, combined with her body being submerged, made her feel calmer and safer, and gradually she began to relax. The android looked around and focused on some bottles arranged along the edge of the bathtub. His analysis program identified them, and a new command appeared on his interface:

“Wash her hair.”

Connor grabbed the shampoo bottle and turned off the shower. A bit awkward, as he hadn’t been programmed for this, the android poured an excessive amount onto the top of the inspector’s head, causing her to shrink back at the feel of the viscous, cold liquid. Similarly, but ensuring he did it gently, Connor began to rub her hair, producing foam. The texture was amusing, and once mixed with her hair, it became quite pleasant. The android first scrubbed the top, then worked his way down the sides to her neck. Even though he was clumsy with the task, the pressure of Connor’s fingers on her head seemed to recharge her energy and dispel all the bad thoughts. A warm flush began to rise in her cheeks, and it definitely wasn’t just from the hot water. Connor turned the shower back on to rinse her hair. His movements were as delicate and careful as before, but now they sent shivers down her spine, especially when his fingers brushed her neck. The warmth in her face increased, and she unconsciously shrank back.

“Is there a problem?” the android asked, stopping his movements.

Unable to look at him, she just shook her head negatively.

“I’m going to apply conditioner now.”

She lifted her head slightly, just enough to see what the android was doing. When she saw him about to pour the bottle over her head like he did with the shampoo, she quickly grabbed his wrist.

“That only goes on the ends,” she explained, meeting his surprised gaze.

“Oh. Sorry. Understood, Inspector.”

Connor poured some of the cream into his hands and began to massage the ends of her hair. The gentle tugs returned to send shivers through her, causing the rigidity from her earlier embarrassment to yield to a lethargy of relaxation. She instructed him to let it sit for a minute, and then the android turned the shower back on. When he finished, she saw Connor reaching for the soap dish. She understood immediately and grabbed his wrist.

“I’ll take care of this myself. You can wait outside the bathroom.”

“Sorry, Inspector. But I’ve already said I won’t leave you alone.”

She huffed impatiently and said, “Then turn around.”

Connor obeyed. He heard the sound of soap being vigorously rubbed against her skin and for a moment, he wondered what the texture would be like. Something inside his chest seemed to vibrate, making the android fidget. What kind of thought was that? Why did he want to know?

Half a minute later, she rinsed off the foam with bathwater and opened the drain. She stood up with difficulty, looking dizzy. Connor immediately turned around and extended an arm to help her out of the tub. Once he was sure she wouldn’t fall, he took her towel and draped it over her shoulders. The inspector pulled it to dry herself. In the process, she stumbled toward the bedroom. Lastly, she carefully rubbed her hair and wrapped it in the towel.

“I… need to change,” she finally said, a slight tone of shyness in her voice.

Connor nodded and continued watching her. She closed her eyes and sighed.

“I need privacy to do this.”

“Understood, Inspector,” he said, turning around as he did so.

Giving up on arguing, with an impatient huff, she went to the closet. She discarded her soaked lingerie and dressed with her eyes fixed on the android, but he didn’t move a single millimeter.

“Done.”

Connor turned just in time to catch something she threw at him.

“Put this on. Your clothes are all wet,” she said, unable to look Connor in the eye.

She seemed quite embarrassed.

The android analyzed the bundle of fabric she had thrown.

It was a gray men’s sports sweatshirt. Scanning it, he detected a short hair. The sequencing ran instantly, revealing that the hair belonged to Ryan Richmond… her boyfriend.

“Are you sure I can wear this?” Connor asked. “It belongs to your boyfriend.”

“Ex-boyfriend, please,” she said, looking even sadder and more embarrassed.

Connor’s LED flashed in alarm. He couldn’t let her feel any sadder, or they might revert to square one. And Connor definitely wouldn’t let that happen.

“Thank you very much,” he said, trying to sound as gentle as possible. And right there, without warning, he began to undress.

“Connor!” she yelled, covering her face with her hands and turning away. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m undressing to put on the clothes you lent me.”

“But you can’t do that in front of me!”

“Why not?”

She turned back to face the android.

Peeking between her fingers to see if it was safe, she saw he had only taken off his jacket.

“Because…” She seemed to struggle to get the next words out. “I don’t know if your realism applies to the whole body.”

Connor stared at her, looking even more confused.

“Argh…!” She seemed about to explode from embarrassment. She continued to cover her face unconsciously. “Adult humans don’t change in front of each other unless they’re intimate. That’s why I asked you to turn around!”

“But I’m an android.”

“Oh, I give up! Come on.” She turned her back to Connor again and covered her face tightly. “You can change.”

Still not understanding his partner’s reaction, Connor undressed and put on the sweatshirt.

“Done.”

Much slower than he had, the inspector turned. The moment she laid eyes on Connor dressed in her ex-boyfriend’s hoodie, her eyes widened and sparkled.

Even from afar, Connor could see that her face had slightly changed color. However, it was only for two seconds; the inspector quickly diverted her gaze to the ground and lowered her head sadly. Connor’s LED started blinking again. It was at that moment he processed that her face still held remnants of makeup. The bathwater hadn’t washed everything away.

Practical and straightforward, Connor walked up to the inspector, positioning himself quite close. This made her take two steps back, startled.

“What—?” she asked, her voice trembling.

The android raised his right hand as if to hold the inspector’s face. Her heart raced, and she held her breath.

“Your face,” the android replied, simply making a pointing gesture with a finger. “You still have makeup on.”

A command appeared on Connor’s interface:

“Remove the makeup from the inspector.”

“Ah…!” The inspector let out an exasperated sigh and covered her face again, embarrassed. But then she raised a hand and punched the android’s shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?!”

Crap! I must look like a ghost!

She turned around Connor and headed for the bathroom, but something pulled at her arm. The inspector turned back.

The android held her firmly, looking calm. “Stay here,” he said, gently guiding her to the edge of the bed and sitting her down. “Don’t worry; I’ll do this for you.”

The inspector’s eyes widened, and she blinked twice, but then she put on a neutral expression.

“Connor, have you ever removed someone’s makeup before?”

“No.”

“Do you know what you need?”

“Some makeup remover.”

“And…?”

The android fell silent. The inspector sighed.

“In the cabinet below, there’s a pack of wipes. Get the biphasic makeup remover, the micellar water, and the moisturizer for the face. They’re on the same shelf.”

Connor nodded and went to the bathroom. Thanks to his analysis program, he found all the products in seconds and returned. He sat next to the inspector, placing everything in her lap. The inspector reached for the pack of wipes, but Connor grabbed it first. “I’ll do it.”

She pressed her lips together in a grimace that Connor had learned to identify: she was embarrassed.

Resigned, the inspector kept her face turned toward the android and closed her eyes. “The makeup remover first,” she whispered to him.

Connor dampened (perhaps excessively) a wipe with the makeup remover and started gently applying it to the spots where the dark stains were most visible. He began with the eye area and suddenly realized he liked the shape of the inspector’s eyebrows. There was a gap at the end of the left one, and Connor thought it made her very unique. Then he moved down to her cheeks, going upward along the side, and noticed a group of four moles that aligned perfectly, the first at the tip of her eyebrow and the last at the side of her chin. Connor liked that symmetry. With smooth movements, the android rubbed along her jawline and realized that the shape of the curve was quite pleasant, giving a beautiful contour to her face. Then he moved to her lips, which still had red stains. His fingers slipped while cleaning her lower lip and, inadvertently, brushed against the upper one. The texture was…

What was the word again?

Unbeknownst to him, the android had paused the cleaning process and was staring intently at the inspector’s mouth.

Without opening her eyes, she called, “Connor?”

“Ah!” He seemed to wake up from a trance. He blinked twice and resumed the task. “Sorry.”

“Is there a problem?”

“No.”

The inspector seemed about to retort but fell silent. “You need to do the neck as well,” she instructed after Connor had finished the very meticulous cleaning of her face.

This made the android lean closer to see what he was doing, and without realizing it, he got too close.

The inspector flinched.

“Is everything okay, inspector?”

“Y-yeah…” She hesitated for two seconds before continuing, “I didn’t… realize androids breathed.”

Connor blinked, a question mark between his eyebrows. “Um… I felt… you breathed a little… on my neck.”

“Ah… Actually, we don’t need to breathe. However, to make our voice sound realistic, the vocal system mimics that of humans. That’s why we need to inhale air to speak.”

The inspector simply nodded, nervous. Connor resumed the cleaning with the makeup remover and started the process again with the wipe, but this time using micellar water. Finally, it was time for the moisturizer.

“And just a little, okay? Put it on your fingers, spread it a bit, and a-apply it.”

Seeming oblivious to the inspector’s nervousness, Connor followed the orders meticulously, appearing overly focused on doing everything correctly.

However, the moment his fingers touched the inspector’s skin, his mind drifted back a few minutes to when he had wondered what her skin would feel like. His LED blinked multiple times as he spread the cream. Connor tried to absorb every tiny detail of the inspector’s skin, as he had never imagined that touching something could be so… amazing.

He felt every line, elevation, change in texture, and memorized it like he had never memorized anything before. Unbeknownst to him, his touch became lighter and lighter until… “Connor?”

The inspector had opened her eyes. There was a strange mix of emotions in her gaze that he couldn’t identify.

“What are you doing?”

That was when Connor realized he had been gently caressing the inspector’s right cheek.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said candidly. “The texture of your skin is very pleasant. That’s why I think I got distracted.”

In a sudden movement, the inspector pulled the towel wrapped around her hair in front of her face. She stood up the same way and headed to the bathroom.

“What’s wrong, inspector?” Connor asked, completely oblivious.

“Don’t come here,” she ordered, removing the towel from her hair and grabbing a brush.

Defying her order, Connor followed her and immobilized her arm, holding onto the brush.

“I said I would do this for you.”

“No, Connor, stop! You’ve done enough!” she almost shouted.

Instead of insisting, Connor froze. The inspector found his sudden surrender strange, then stared at him.

“Oh no.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking down sadly. “I think I didn’t respect your personal space, inspector. Please forgive me for upsetting you.”

“Oh no,” she repeated mentally as she saw that look forming on Connor’s face. “The sad puppy dog expression.”

Dejected, the android released the brush and left the bathroom. Feeling her heart shatter, the inspector acted without thinking: she spun on her heels and grabbed Connor’s sweatshirt. He turned, eyebrows raised. Without saying a word, she extended the brush toward him. Still looking lost, Connor took the brush as if it might explode if he moved incorrectly. The inspector turned her back, and he understood.

Intrigued, he began to brush her hair slowly.

Meanwhile, the inspector reflected on the fact that Ryan had never brushed her hair or washed it. He hadn’t even helped with her makeup. She took a deep breath, focusing on the sensation of the brush separating the tangled strands of her hair.

She felt very alert, as if her senses had been amplified. She had the impression of feeling her blood flow, spreading warmth and oxygen throughout her body. She loved that feeling because she had been searching for it for a long time.

The feeling of being alive.

And Ryan had been unable to make her feel this way, while an android had done it through such simple things…

Connor finished brushing her hair and ran his hand through the strands, putting them back in place. The inspector’s heart raced, and several chills spread from her neck to her shoulders.

“Oh, this is getting difficult…”

“Let’s go to the living room,” Connor suggested. Was it her imagination, or did his usual direct tone seem to waver? “Let’s find something to distract you.”

Without lifting her eyes to the android, she simply nodded and followed him. He led her to the couch and pulled several cushions closer to her. He turned on the TV with a voice command and asked, “Which channel do you want to watch?”

“Any,” she replied in a whisper.

Connor frowned. His analysis program ran instantly, searching for information that would help him. He found a few mentions of shows she liked and matched them with the programming of the 1567 available channels. Connor said a number aloud, and the screen flickered, displaying the first few minutes of the movie “Her.” The inspector didn’t move.

“You should eat,” Connor said, shaking his head.

“I’m not hungry.” She curled up and hugged her knees, hating how weak her voice sounded. She felt like a silly, shy schoolgirl next to a college student five years older for whom she had a crush.

Connor watched her and finally decided to sit next to her. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He sat up straight, both feet firmly on the floor, his hands resting on his lap.

“Relax, Connor,” she signaled for him to lean back.

“Oh. Thank you.”

He leaned back on the couch, but still seemed like a well-behaved boy waiting in the principal’s office to receive an award for his impeccable report card. A long silence followed, in which only the sound of the TV could be heard. Connor felt strange. His mind wandered, replaying the last hour over and over. He saw her again wearing the lingerie he had given her, her face soaked with tears, and the gun pressed to her head. Connor’s LED flashed, turning yellow for a moment. Remembering that made him feel horrible. One of those feelings that started deep in his stomach…

Fear.

Connor turned to look at her. A command that had appeared earlier reappeared.

“Discover what happened.”

The android felt a sudden urge to ask about the lingerie. Why was she wearing it in a situation like that? However, he knew he could ruin everything. He needed to keep her calm. She needed to recover and be okay. He couldn’t let that terrible scene repeat itself. It would be better not to mention the incident.

The android didn’t realize it, but his LED had been flashing yellow throughout his reasoning.

“Connor?”

The android lifted his head. He hadn’t noticed he was staring at his hands, now clenched into fists.

“Are you okay?” she seemed concerned. “Your LED is…”

The sentence trailed off. She looked at him anxiously. Two impulses battled within him.

Should he ask about the lingerie or stay quiet?

“When I found you…” Connor began slowly. “Why were you wearing the lingerie I gave you?”

A mix of shame, sadness, and anger covered her face with a shadow. She lowered her eyes, returning to gaze at her folded knees, and shrank even further. An uncomfortable silence thickened between them. As the seconds dragged on, Connor’s LED began to blink again until it turned yellow.

“If you don’t feel comfortable answering, you don’t have to…”

“I was waiting for Ryan,” she blurted out, her eyes squeezed shut. “I was… I had been worried about our relationship for a while. He didn’t seem interested in me anymore. The time we spent together dwindled to almost once every two weeks. He made excuses and appointments, and… he cut me off every time I tried to discuss what was happening. So… I started to think that maybe I had become… uninteresting.”

The word slipped from her lips like a curse. Connor’s LED continued to blink. Seeing her face marked with so many negative emotions was…

“So I thought maybe I could invest in the… sexual part of the relationship. Men like women with attitude in this area… and I’ve never had much. I’m not very good at it, so I feel insecure… about everything. That’s why I thought I’d start slowly. That’s when Lilith suggested the lingerie.” Her eyes searched Connor’s face for just a fraction of a second. The android’s eyebrows were furrowed, as if he were frustrated and confused. “Some men have fetishes for lingerie—and please don’t ask me to explain what a fetish is right now—so it seemed like a safe bet. I was saving up to buy one, but it would take a while. I wanted a specific style that Ryan had already mentioned he liked. Then you gifted me one… and I honestly didn’t know what to do. It felt wrong to wear the lingerie you gave me with another guy, but well… that’s not the point right now. With the lingerie in hand, I decided to surprise Ryan. I asked for the night off, did my makeup, prepared a few things, and waited for him to come home from work. But… he didn’t come back alone. I think he thought I would be on a call or filling out reports because I had been in that routine for almost two weeks…”

Her voice died as it became too choked. She took a few deep breaths, the air coming out in short gasps. Unconsciously, Connor moved closer in a protective manner, his eyebrows marking an expression of pain. It was awful… It was awful to see her in that state.

“He was with another woman. She… was beautiful, you know? I wouldn’t be surprised if I found her face on the cover of Vogue. And they… went into the room half-naked. She was just in her blouse and underwear, already half-unbuttoned, and he was shirtless. Just imagine their faces when they saw me.” She let out a lifeless chuckle. “And Ryan had the nerve to ask what I was doing there. Well, I live here, right? The real question was what the other woman was doing in my house, in my room.” She sighed heavily. “Look, I’m not going to go into details about the horrors I heard from Ryan and that witch, or the horrors I said. In the end, I just lost it. He insisted that I couldn’t kick him out since he had already started to move out… I think he was trying to figure out how to keep the house for himself. He was a good professional but a complete idiot with his own money. He could never save enough to buy a decent pair of sneakers. Ah… Then I did what I shouldn’t have: I grabbed the gun. I was so desperate to be alone, to never see that bastard’s face again… I lost my mind. That’s when I stormed out like the crazy one in the story. In the end, I think that was the thrill Ryan found in me: cheating on a police girlfriend!” Her voice rose in tone, laden with irony. “How exciting, right? Always risking my neck. What better way to inject some good adrenaline into the relationship?”

She fell silent, her head still lowered, her face devoid of the energy that her ironic voice had shown. A long silence thickened between them again, during which Connor realized an important detail was missing from that story. How had she ended up with the gun pointed at her own head? How had she come to want to take her own life? Was it all because of this Ryan? No… It couldn’t be. It didn’t match her personality. The inspector he knew was a strong, untamed woman who knew exactly who she was and what she wanted. So why…?

Connor called her name slowly, weighing each letter he chose. “I confess I’m a little confused. You said you pulled the gun to scare them away from your house.”

It took her a few seconds, but the inspector understood. She pressed her lips together and lowered her legs, resting her hands on the couch. Still with her head down, she asked in a whisper:

“You want to know why I had the gun pointed at my head if I said I pulled it to scare them away, right?”

Connor raised his eyebrows, surprised at how direct she had been. Still cautious, he slowly nodded. She lowered her head a bit more, and he heard her sniffle.

“Can I ask you something before I answer?” Her voice was choked.

“Of course.”

“Why do you want to know the reason?”

“If I know the reason, I can think of a strategy to avoid it. And then, it will never happen again.”

“Why…” She slowly raised her head until her gaze met Connor’s. Her eyes, bright and watery, seemed loaded with the stubbornness and determination of someone ready for the worst answer but also prepared to counter it. “You don’t want this to happen again?”

Scenes paraded before the android’s eyes. He imagined his entire routine, all the cases… without her. He envisioned himself following Hank’s shadow without hearing her laughter, which had broken the tension of investigations and the gloomy atmosphere of Detroit so many times. He imagined the absence of her teasing Hank and how she could disarm the lieutenant’s scowl, making Connor’s life so much easier. He imagined finishing a case without receiving her “thumbs up.” He envisioned all the intriguing, human experiences the inspector had provided him. He imagined arriving at the police station and not hearing the only “good morning” he ever got.

“Because if you die…” Connor didn’t look away, but he seemed confused… Not because of the sensations, but because the answer was now so obvious to him that he couldn’t understand why it wasn’t obvious to her as well. “Everything will feel so empty.”

From the inspector’s expression, it was clear she wasn’t expecting that response. Her eyes widened, and a few tears fell. She immediately covered her face with her hands and tried to dry it without much success.

“Hey! I’m sorry!” Connor stumbled over his words. “I didn’t mean to make you cry!”

Unconsciously, the android raised his hands and gently placed them on each side of her face, which froze. With her hands hiding her expression, she was still sniffling.

“D-Don’t apologize, C-Connor. It’s just that…” Her sobs interrupted her speech, and soon her voice fell silent again. She took several long breaths, trying to stop crying. “No one… No one has ever said that to me before.”

Connor blinked several times. Gradually, she stopped crying and managed to lift her face. She sighed, wiping her face one last time, and Connor withdrew his hands to give her space. Staring at her bent leg on the couch, she continued her explanation:

“The truth is… I feel very alone. Not because I live alone. It’s that… I have no one. Ever since I can remember, I’ve never had anyone who cared about me. If I had eaten, if I was thirsty, if I had gone to school. If anyone ever did that for me…” A shadow passed over her eyes. There was anger in her voice. “It was to fulfill a protocol. Because if it were genuine, I wouldn’t have been abandoned the way I was. So basically, what I was given was just the fact of being alive. And for some reason that I still don’t quite understand, I… held on to my existence with all my might. I didn’t want to stop existing… just because no one cared about me. So I insisted. I looked for people I wanted to be with… I met Lilith at school, and then we decided to become police officers. That’s when I ran into Hank.” Her voice dropped a little, sounding sorrowful. “He… was impossible at first. Not that he’s improved much. I made the mistake of… starting to see him as a father. I wanted him to care about me, but… he never stopped trying to kill himself. That’s why… I lost it that day we found him collapsed at his house. Russian roulette… that idiot.”

She paused, focusing on her breathing to avoid crying again.

“That day, I realized I could never replace Cole. Nothing could. That’s when I understood I wasn’t… a reason for Hank to live. He didn’t care. I felt empty. I felt adrift in a limbo that no one else could access. And soon after, Lilith showed up with the news that she was getting married and… moving to Chicago. Gradually, I was losing the connections that kept me here. Ryan was the last straw. When I kicked him out of my house with that bimbo, it felt like I had become the last human being alive on the face of the Earth… I had never felt so alone. I don’t even remember exactly what I did; I just remember when I realized I was still holding the gun. The idea popped into my head instantly. I felt relieved. Because I knew that idea… would work. I would stop feeling—

The inspector abruptly interrupted her speech, as something firmly grabbed her wrist. She looked up, startled, and saw that Connor appeared even more frightened; his hand was nearly crushing her arm.

“Please…” Connor said in a trembling voice. She had never heard him speak like that before. “Never again. You can never do that again.”

The inspector covered the android’s hand with her own, squeezing it gently. Seeing him like that temporarily erased all the memories and dark feelings that had haunted her account, igniting her protective instincts.

“Connor, it’s okay. I’m here. I’m alive.”

The android’s eyes seemed unfocused, as if he were seeing something beyond. On his interface, several commands flashed urgently, all concerning the inspector’s safety and well-being.

“I felt…” His voice came out choppy. “When I saw you with the gun to your head… I felt… Fear.

I was terrified. And when you started talking about what you felt… It was like I was feeling it too. It’s very sad and… frightening.”

The inspector now held the android’s hand with both of hers, caressing the back.

“And I am… feeling all of this… And I just feel. I can’t understand, I… want to understand why I’m feeling all of this.”

Then, as if a light had turned on inside his head, Connor saw Hank sitting on the back of the bench. He heard his own voice, which now sounded very mechanical.

“So you’re saying I should like the inspector?”

Next was Hank’s voice, laced with a light mockery that he hadn’t noticed at the time.

“And don’t you already like her?”

The inspector observed Connor’s face, and she could swear she saw his neural biocomponents working as he reasoned.

Finally, Connor lowered his head, and a tiny smile curved his lips.

“Hank already answered that.”

He raised his eyes and stared at the inspector for a long time and finally said, “I think… it’s because I like you.”

If the inspector had been drinking something at that moment, she would have definitely choked. Her eyes widened, and she felt her face flush almost instantly.

“Hey! You can’t say that kind of thing like that!” she protested, looking away.

“Why not?” Connor frowned. He had used Hank’s exact words. What was wrong with that?

“Because I might misunderstand.”

“How so?”

The inspector sighed, trying to stay calm in the face of Connor’s eternal slowness regarding human matters he got involved in.

“Because… there are two ways to like someone.”

“Aah…” The android sounded as if he truly understood. The inspector doubted it. “So you want me to be specific?”

“Maybe.” She still hadn’t looked directly at Connor.

The android pondered for a few moments until he finally asked, “How do I know?”

The inspector perfectly mimicked the way Hank would cover his face with one hand, frustrated.

“Oh, heavens…” she sighed. “We can like someone in a brotherly way, like me and Lilith. We like who each other is, we enjoy doing things together, we get along, we have common interests, and we care about each other. That’s why we consider ourselves friends. Or you can like in a way that…”

Her voice trailed off, and she pressed her lips together. Connor leaned in her direction, eyebrows raised in an encouraging gesture.

“That…?”

“That… you get curious to see me wearing lingerie, for example.”

“To be honest, I did a simulation…”

“Connor, that was a joke! Argh!” The inspector pulled her legs up again and hid her face between her knees and crossed arms. “I could have gone to bed without that… And so could you.”

“In fact, I thought you looked beautiful in all thirty-seven outfits I tested. I did the simulation the day I went shopping, to make sure it fit…”

“Connor!” Practically in a panic, the inspector lunged at the android and covered his mouth with one hand. He blinked several times, surprised by his partner’s reaction. “Those details… I’m not mentally prepared for them…”

Connor continued watching her, intrigued. She lowered her eyes, her lips pressed together again in an anxious expression. Finally, she closed her eyes and sighed heavily, lowering the hand that had covered her partner’s mouth.

“Ah… this isn’t making things easier.”

A question appeared between Connor’s furrowed eyebrows. The inspector looked at him reluctantly, but she was already yielding to resignation.

“Because I also like you,” she explained.

“Like… how?”

The inspector hesitated.

“Like the second way.”

“That means that… you want to see me in lingerie?”

The inspector stared at him blankly for a few seconds and then suddenly burst into laughter. She doubled over, her arms wrapping around her belly. A silly smile curved Connor’s lips. Even though he knew it wasn’t the inspector’s authentic laughter, it was laughter. And she laughed because of him. He recorded every sound, every angle of the inspector’s laugh. He was sure he could replay that scene over and over and never tire of it.

“Um…” said the inspector, catching her breath. “You could say yes, but… wait. There are many steps before lingerie. Actually… when we like someone the second way, we want to do things like… kiss, for example.”

Her eyes, once bright from tears, now sparkled with something else. And Connor liked that sparkle.

“So, you want to… kiss me?”

The inspector’s face flushed for the umpteenth time. She would never get used to how direct Connor could be.

“Maybe.”

“Why maybe?”

The inspector slowly lifted her face, her eyes meeting Connor’s in a different way. She was obviously shy, but her mouth was pressed into a suppressed smile. She didn’t seem a little… mischievous?

“I can’t kiss you if you don’t want to kiss me too.”

Connor's eyes immediately fell to his partner's mouth. He remembered a few minutes earlier when he was wiping her lips with a makeup remover cloth to remove the last traces of lipstick. He recalled how intrigued he had been when his finger accidentally brushed against her upper lip... He wanted to better feel the texture. Unbeknownst to him, Connor leaned in, his eyes tracing the outline of the inspector's lips. The inspector felt her heart race as her eyelids reflexively closed. Connor noticed the movement and mimicked her. The android felt his lips brush against hers and hesitated. He felt the warm, vibrant breath of the inspector.

It felt as if she were caressing his skin... which seemed less artificial by the second. With an unprecedented sigh, Connor sealed his lips against hers. The first thing he felt was how soft they were. The second was that they were warm.

The third was a vague notion that she had a tiny bruise on the lower left corner... It was then that Connor's mind shut down.

The inspector parted her lips and gently captured his lower lip between hers. The gesture seemed to inject an electric jolt into all his biocomponents. With every caress, with every sigh, he felt himself awakening from a trance. The softness and warmth of the inspector's mouth mixed with the wonderful sound of her laughter and the gentle rhythm of her breathing...

He allowed himself to be overwhelmed by her. All the confused thoughts that still felt like commands disappeared, and he felt safe, free, and... alive.

Connor didn't know how long he stayed there feeling just the inspector. He only knew that at some point (too soon, in fact), she pulled away and gasped for air.

However, Connor had barely processed the absence of her touch before he felt the inspector's skin against his again, their foreheads resting together. They remained silent for a few minutes, focusing on each other's presence.

Finally, Connor couldn't hold back any longer and asked, "What else... what else can we do now that we like each other?"

The inspector remained silent, her eyes still closed. Connor didn't know if she was contemplating his question or if she had even heard it. In a shy yet sincere tone, he began, "A simulation... It's not the same as seeing it for real... Considering what you said earlier, could I... see you wearing the lingerie I gave you?"

"C-Connor!"

295 notes · View notes

kurogxrix · 30 days ago

Text

Teen spirit

Pairing: Carl Grimes x reader, Maggie Greene x sister reader

Warnings: character deaths, blood & gore, explicit language

5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07

6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07

7.01

125 notes · View notes

kurogxrix · 1 month ago

Text

This is both tragic and adorable oml i love it! we defo need the reunion rn😔

Tomorrow’s promise

Paring: Daryl Dixon x reader, Rick Grimes x sister reader

Warnings: Swearing, mentions of blood

Chapter: 4.06

Hearing footsteps approaching, you pick up your gun that was on the bed beside you, heart beating rapidly in your chest. You try your hardest to listen to what is being said, but there’s still ringing in your ears from the explosions and gunfire.

“Y/n?”

Swiping at your eyes, you try to hide the tears on your face. “Glenn!”

After getting shot, you went back to your old cell to gather supplies. The original escape plan never worked, so you needed to think of a new one quickly. Jace only had a few scratches, so he was mainly okay. When you found him, the car seat he was strapped into was on its side. Thankfully, the plastic at the top shielded his head, so only his arm and leg scraped off the concrete.

It could have been worse.

Beside Jace was the body of a kid, a boy who looked no more than seven with a bullet hole in his chest.

Glenn slides the cell door open; a sheepish brunette stands not far behind him. You didn’t recognize her. “I’m so glad…” Glenn’s eyes widen when he notices the blood on the floor. “Are either of you bitten?”

“No, I got hit in the shoulder. I came back inside to try to try and stop the bleeding, but I needed to make sure there weren’t any walkers before finding something to put over it.

Hearing movement in the cot, Glenn steps over and smiles while looking into it. “Hey Jace, buddy, I’m so glad to see you.”

The brunette stands awkwardly, not knowing where to look.

“What’s your name?”

“Tara.“

Glenn hands her an empty backpack. “Our cell block hasn’t been affected by the blast. There’s a pantry on the first door to the left of the door we came in.”

“Uh, yeah,” she takes the bag and goes to stock up on what little supplies you had.

“How deep is it?”

“The bullet went straight through, and it’s near the top, so I don’t think it hit anything vital.” You whine, trying to readjust your position.

Pulling your top down at the shoulder, Glenn frowns. “I’m going to get a first aid kit, then we need to go; this block will be crawling with walkers soon.”

—

You, Glenn, and Tara made it through the prison yard and onto the main road by the skin of your teeth. The courtyard was scattered with bodies; the only silver lining was most of the walkers being distracted while devouring the corpses.

“Hold him, would ya?” You don’t give Glenn a chance to respond before handing him Jace.

“No problem.”

You scan the area for other survivors. “I need to change this top; it’s drenched in blood.”

Usually you would have felt weird being semi-nude in front of Glenn and a woman you’ve just met, but now wasn’t the time to care. You were all out of breath, but there was no time to spare. You shrug off the jacket and remove the scarf Glenn tied over your shoulder.

“I’ll help you,” Tara turns and meets your eyes. She comes over and helps you remove the t-shirt you had on and tosses it on the ground. “Where’s the first aid kit?”

“In my bag.”

Without saying anything else, she goes into the bag and retrieves it. There wasn’t much inside it, a few bandages, plasters, and disinfectant wipes. You take one of the wipes so you could use it to clean Jace’s scratches later. When Tara starts to clean the wound, you bite down on your lip to stop yourself from screaming. The prison was surrounded by woods; it would be near impossible to try and find all your people, but if you screamed, the walkers would definitely find you.

“Did you see if any of our people got out?” Glenn asks.

“All I saw was my sister in that field.”

You all remain silent as she finishes putting the banged on and then helps you into a different T-shirt. You shoved whatever you could into your backpack, mainly formula, but knowing the bloodstained clothes would smell so strongly to the dead, you grabbed the first one you saw, which was a vest that belonged to Daryl.

“She wasn’t supposed to be there,” Tara says as the three of you start to walk uphill. “She had a gun, but they just swarmed her. I did it for him; I trusted him. And then he just killed that old man.”

Glenn spins on his heels, a devastated look on his face. “Hershel? Was his name Hershel?”

Oh shit.

“I forget you weren’t there,” and as soon as his intense gaze locks with yours, the emotion spills over again, and you start to sob. “The governor took Michonne and Hershel. Rick tried to reason with him, but he killed Hershel in front of us; that’s what started all this. I’m so sorry.”

“Brain, that man told us you were bad people. I know it’s not true. I can see it’s not, so what we did, what I did… I mean, I’m a piece of shit. Why would you want my help?” Tara turns and starts walking away.

“Because you’re alive, and like it or not, we need each other.”

“I have to find Maggie.”

Tara faces Glenn, her eyes glistening with tears. “Who’s Maggie?”

“My wife.”

“You guys got separated?”

“I was on the bus, and then I got off to help, and she didn’t see me.”

“How do you know if she made it?”

“Our people are survivors,” you say softly. “We’ve already lost too many people. We need to believe the ones we love are still alive—walkers.”

Glenn hands Jace back to you and starts stabbing the walkers coming out of the tree line in the head. Tara quickly joins him, but you struggle to know what to do. You pick up a branch that’s lying on the side of the road and do your best to whack walkers on the head while struggling to hold your baby.

An army truck drives up along the road and stops inches away from Tara. You drop the branch and pull out your gun; you hadn’t even checked to see if it still had bullets in it. “What do you assholes want?”

Two men and a woman get out of it. A redheaded man chuckles, “You’ve got one hell of a mouth on you. What else have you got?”

—

Your first opinion of the people in the truck was mainly right. Assholes. The redheaded man was called Abraham, and he treated killing walkers like a sport. He was smiling while doing it.

“So what happened to you?” Rosita asks. She was traveling with the two men in the truck, and from what interactions you observed, she was in a relationship with Abraham.

“Our home was attacked. We made it out but lost track of the rest of our people.”

Before she can ask anything else, Glenn suddenly wakes up. He goes to sit up, but you stop him, “Hey, take it easy. You’ve been out for some time.”

Tara hands him a water bottle. “Drink.”

He inhales sharply, “Where are we?”

“I don’t know. Away from the walkers starting to close in on us.” A horde from the prison had started migrating back towards the woods; you had no choice but to go with the strangers you had just met.

He tries to stand up. “Did we pass the bus?”

“Yes, and sit down before you fall out of this truck!”

“What did you see? What did you see?"

You look towards the tree line, not wanting to see how his face would fall. “Everyone on it was dead, but I didn’t see Maggie. Rick, Carl, Daryl, and Sasha… none of them were on the bus.”

You didn’t want to use the phrase ‘our people’ because it would be disrespectful to those that died, but none of the people you considered family was on the bus. You lean back against the metal barrier behind you, holding Jace close to your chest.

“We need to get off.”

“We can’t—“

“We need to get off!”

Glenn was now screaming for them to stop the truck, but all you could think about was keeping Jace safe. You needed to find your brother, nephew, and Daryl, but right now your son came first.

“Unless you want every walker within a mile to hear us, you need to quiet down. I know this is hard, but we need to regroup before doing anything.”

“We should be on this truck; we should be looking for our people!”

“I know, I know,” you struggle to hold back tears. “Believe me, I know how it feels knowing they are out there, but we have no ammo or transport of our own. I need to go with whatever is the safest choice at the moment for Jace.”

“So you’re just giving up?”

“Of course not. That’s my brother, nephew, and… Daryl that’s out there. Not to mention the rest of our friends, but I can’t take my baby into the woods unless I know I can protect him.”

Glenn’s expression softened slightly. “So what’s our plan?”

“Right now we try to rest while on this truck. At some point we will go by somewhere that will have some type of supplies or a vehicle. Once we have that secured, then we go find our people.”

—

Daryl knew he was being too rough on Beth; she was just a teenager. But she was also the only person who had escaped with him; she had been irritating him for days, and now she was the sole target of his outburst. It’s not until Beth stabs the walker he has pinned to a tree Daryl realizes how much of a jackass he is being.

He and Beth had been stuck together since escaping the prison and staying in a small cabin together. Adding in the fact they had been drinking hooch, they were bound to clash at some point.

Beth looks at the walker he had been continuously shooting arrows at. “If anyone found my dad—“

“Don’t,” Daryl snaps. “It’s not even remotely the same.”

“Killing them is not supposed to be fun.”

Her comment fuels his anger; none of this was a game to him. He was trying his damn hardest to keep her alive. Daryl steps closer to her. “What do you want from me, girl?”

“I want you to stop acting like you don’t give a crap about anything. Like nothing we went through matters. Like none of the people we lost meant anything to you. It’s bullshit!”

He’s taken aback by the brutality of the statement. Did she really think he didn’t care? That wasn’t true. “Is that what you think?”

“That’s what I know.”

Daryl tries to hide the fear in his voice, but it doesn’t work. He pushes Beth away from him when she reaches for his arm, “You know nothing.”

“I know you look at me and you just see another dead girl. I’m not Michonne. I’m not Carol. I’m not y/n.”

“Don’t.”

“I’m not Maggie. I’ve survived, and you don’t get it because I’m not like you or them. But I made it. And you don’t get to treat me like crap because you’re afraid!”

“I ain’t afraid of nothing,” he says, trying to convince himself more than the young blonde.

Beth’s eyes glisten with tears. “I remember. When y/n and Glenn went on that supply run and didn’t come, Michonne turned up and said they had been taken. I remember how scared you were. You were like me. And now God forbid you let anybody get too close.”

She was wrong again; he let y/n in. She was the only person he wanted close to him.

“Too close, huh? You know all about that. You lost two boyfriends; you can’t even shed a tear. Your whole family’s gone, and all you can do is just go out looking for hooch like some dumb college bitch.”

“Don’t say that.”

The two of them step even closer, to the point they are yelling in each other's face. “It’s the truth. They are all gone!”

“Screw you,” Beth hisses. “You don’t get it.”

“No, you don’t get it! They're gone. All of them. You ain’t ever going to see Maggie again.”

“Don’t say that; you don’t know that they are dead!”

“The governor rolled right up to our gates.” Feeling his emotions starting to bubble over, Daryl turned to face the other way; he wasn’t going to let her see him cry. “Maybe if I hadn’t stopped looking. Maybe because I gave up, that’s on me.”

“Stop.”

Beth tries to hug him, but he pushes her back; the only person he’s let be affectionate towards him for years is gone. He didn’t want to feel that from anyone else. “I should have done something. Now I’ve lost them all. Rick, Carl, and Glenn, y..”—he struggles to say her name. “Y/n told me she loved me, and I never said it back. And now I’ll never get the chance to tell her.”

Regardless of what he wants Beth hugs him from behind. “You don’t know that.”

“I lost her. And Jace. He could be out there with nobody keeping him safe and y/n going crazy trying to find him.” He sobs, “She would never have left the prison without him; she would have stayed behind until she found him. I should never have left.”

“Daryl…”

“I tried to look for them, but I couldn’t; I couldn’t find her.”

He couldn’t find his family.

99 notes · View notes

kurogxrix · 1 month ago

Text

connection buffering . . . ↺

di!leon x reader - long-distance relationship - part 2

previous part

you weren't bluffing.

you'd made the sign. wrote his name in big block letters, too confident in how you wrote the first half of his name. the 'EDY' crowds together at the end. 'E' shoves 'D' close to the end, 'Y' drawn paper thin and cocked to the side, threatening to topple off the edge of the paper. leon finds he's not too tired to laugh.

he had the whole goddamn flight to figure out what to say to you, but when he sees you standing there with that sign in your hand, scanning the crowd for a man you expect to be two inches taller, it all flushes out of him to make room for the queasy feeling in his gut. when you finally spot him (thank god; the words had gotten lodged in his throat, your name running around his mind again, again, again, lodged so deep in the crevices that he couldn't pry it free and force it out his mouth) your smile nearly blinds him. he shields his eyes with a hand, watches you bounce on the balls of your feet.

he flicks your sign with a finger. the only words that make it past the lump in his throat are, "messed up the kerning, huh?"

you tip your head, puppy-dog cute. more adorable in person. "the what?"

"kerning." silence. you shake your head a little, blank look in your eye. leon tries to swallow, feels barbs jab into his throat. ten minutes on the ground and he's fucking up already. his gut turns. he tries to blame it on airplane peanuts. "the space between the letters."

he should get back on the plane. if he flashes his badge and declares it official business they have to let him on, right? brass wouldn't be happy with him, but what are they going to do? he's leon fucking kenn--

you laugh and his thoughts screech to a halt, plane crash on the concourse. footsteps pound past him - or maybe that's his heartbeat in his ears. your laugh is prettier in person, too.

"okay, all right." your face lights up, eyes squished to make room for your smile. "why do you know that?"

mentally, he flips through a rolodex of excuses. he moonlighted as a graphic designer (false), he was really into fonts (no strong opinions, really), it's classified (outright lie). he settles for the truth, shrugging.

"late night wikipedia dive."

you laugh again. his heart is a bird, fluttering in his chest, battering itself against his ribs to get to you. what the hell is wrong with him? he hadn't felt like this in years, thought he wasn't supposed to feel like this anymore. when you were an adult you grew out of this sort of giddiness. he'd choked it down every time he'd checked his phone under the table at an intelligence meeting, dismissed it as heartburn. he's supposed to want. it's supposed to be a blaze that swallows him up. confident and bold and all-consuming. not fidgety and desperate.

he's not anxious. he's a grown man. he's met presidents, plural. he doesn't get nervous meeting people, even if they're stunning, even if his hands twitch to hold theirs.

does he hug you? kiss you? slip his hand into your back pocket and guide you out of the terminal, lead you blindly to a car that isn't his, take you to an apartment he's only ever seen portions of on a 15 inch screen, ask what he can make you for dinner in your own home? that's what he wants. skip over all of this and slide right into familiarity, fly right past all the work it takes to get there. you've done the leg work, right? you know how you feel about each other. he's here. that says enough, doesn't it?

he's eternally grateful that you reach through his thoughts and pull him into a hug. your face stuffs into his shoulder, words muffled. "i'm so glad you're here."

you inhale deeply and he swears his heart does a backflip. jesus, he needs to get a physical. this can't be normal.

it's you who loops your arm with his, you who tugs him into motion. you rattle off questions that he answers as best he can. it feels like drowning, like he can barely keep his head above water. his flight was fine, thanks for asking. no, he didn't get any sleep. he never sleeps on planes. it's a long story. he didn't need a nap, but yeah, he could go for a coffee.

you know this great place, you reassure him. really low-key. he treads water in the parking garage while you dig for your keys. you drop them - twice - and he wonders if you're struggling to stay at the surface, too.

as a last act before sinking into the passenger seat, he rescues your sign from the trash, folding it neatly and tucking it into his pocket.

he looks up from buckling his seat belt, beckoned by the way you call his name. he's still smiling when you cup his cheeks and kiss him.

by day two, he's decided you need a new apartment. he hasn't told you that yet, figures it comes off too pushy, but he would fly back down to help you move if you wanted. (if he thinks it hard enough, won't you ask him to?)

don't misunderstand - he likes what you've done with the place. honest to god, you're a miracle worker with decor. you could really shape his place up.

it's just that your front door is less than secure. your locks are ran through. it would take him less than a minute to break in. he doesn't even want to think about your windows. other than being drafty, they're just another completely unsecured access point.

you'd invited him to sleep in your bed the first night, and he had every intention of doing so. he'd just passed out on the couch before he had the chance. leon had woken with a pillow stuffed under his head, thick, handmade blanket tucked over him. it was sweet. really.

but it wasn't the same as sleeping next to you.

leon has every intention of sleeping in your bed that night. you'd filled the day with a tour of your city, pointing out your favorite and least favorite spots, telling stories that let him imagine the streets as a stage, you as the star, top billing as far as he's concerned. everything had been optional, as you'd feverishly reassured him after every stop. he could change the itinerary with one word. the only mandatory stop had been lunch with your friends. a good sign, he thinks. if you're confident enough to introduce him to the people in your life, then you see this going somewhere, right?

by the time you hit your last stop, it feels like he's emerged from a war zone. leon would know. he's been run ragged on back to back operations before, but this - the pressure of trying to be right for you, to show you who he is, waiting on pins and needles for you to sour on him and push back from the closeness he craves - this is truly exhausting.

you must feel it too, offering to pick up dinner on your way home in lieu of cooking. he waves away apologies, reaches past you to hand the cashier at taco bell his card when you try to pay. the food is gone by the time you pull your car into the parking lot.

both of you have the same idea. you're just as worn out as he is (makes him wonder if you're doing the same thing, all anxious energy, making sure to put your best foot forward, always stumbling and falling into a better impression than the one you set out to make) and bed comes naturally to mind. he slips into the side closest to the door and you stop him immediately, voice teasing.

"uh, that's my side." you poke at his ribs. the awkwardness had melted over the course of the day together. you were playful, eyes bright and laugh loud. touch came easy between you now, both playful and lingering. the comfort that had been stirred up and tossed into disarray by physical proximity had settled back in.

leon's eyes flit to the door over your shoulder. it's not a big deal, he tells himself. the odds of something happening were astronomically low.

but he knows his luck with astronomically low odds. one in a million is too risky. he's got to be closer to the door, won't be able to sleep if he's not. his hands wrap around your waist, urging you on top of him. he doesn't miss the way you stiffen, the momentary hitch of your breath, but you let yourself get swept along all the same, drape yourself over him as he guides you to.

"just sleep like this." leon shifts lower to make more space for you. he presses a kiss to your head.

it takes longer than he expected for you to relax. slowly, when his hands still at your back and his breathing evens out, your limbs loosen. your weight thickens atop him, pressing him further into the mattress. it's all he can do to remind himself that he's tired, that starting something now would lead nowhere fast.

leon stays awake until he's certain you're out cold. the door remains unbreached, your home still safe. he can't bring himself to regret his caution.

when he's finally able to sleep, he sleeps hard. he wakes to your fingers carding through his hair, his cheek cushioned against your chest, completely flipped around during the night. it's the best night he's had in years.

on day three, leon wonders if he should be more obvious.

he's been putting out all the signs, carefully curated his touch to be lingering, to make you burn for more, but each time you settle against him and offer up a contented "this is nice."

does there need to be a neon sign draped around his neck that says "take me for a spin", arrow blinking down toward his crotch? you'd let him press against your back during an afternoon nap, knee wedged between your legs, arm curled around your stomach to keep you next to him. he woke from dreams where he was bolder, where he wasn't afraid of losing you with that lingering confidence, pressed kisses to the back of your neck until that gauzy empowerment lifted.

hell, he'd woken up that morning laying half on top of you, his head nestled in the valley of your chest. you'd pet his hair til he woke from nuzzling your tits in his sleep.

he abandons subtlety during the credit crawl of eight-legged freaks, a 'classic' you had insisted on making him watch. (you'd laughed when he had commented he could keep you safe in the event of giant spiders. he hadn't been joking, but he still hasn't grown tired of hearing you laugh.)

"hey," he asks, hand curling around your thigh. his thumb smooths an arc across your skin, traces the path again and again. "do you wanna..?"

smooth, kennedy.

you look over at him with that same puppy-dog confusion that he's growing familiar with. instead of moving his hand, you draw your legs up and lay them over his lap. how the fuck is he supposed to interpret that?

"do i wanna..?" you parrot back, drawing the words out into the form of a question.

leon hates himself. he wishes he could back out of this. he clears his throat. how the hell do people broach this topic smoothly? he searches for the words, the silence stretching a little too long for comfort. finally, he says the first thing he can.

"like, sex."

real mature, kennedy, he thinks. he wishes he could backpedal, take it all back. he's certain your face warms. before he can issue a take down for his words, (maybe cut out his stupid goddamn vocal cords, if he has the time) you fumble out, "oh. like- right now? uh, i mean, do you want to?"

continuing with the maturity, he turns it back on you.

"i asked you first."

"i don't not want to."

leon shakes his head. his hand cups your ankle. "i really only take 'yeah' or 'hell yeah'."

"i just didn't think giant spiders got you in the mood."

"hey, the more legs the better."

leon knows deflection when he hears it. he's the reigning champ, after all, could play this game with you all day. but he has mercy; he chuckles, lets you get away with it and grabs the remote, declaring it's his turn to pick another movie since your choice was a mood killer.

later that night, curled up in bed with a video playing mindlessly from your tablet, you turn around to face him. he widens his arms to accommodate the movement, circles them tighter once you settle in.

"you're not mad?" you ask, pressing your face into his chest, already hiding from the answer.

"about what?"

"y'know."

"spell it out for me, sweetheart."

he can feel your breath puff against his chest, an exasperated huff. people have done this same thing to him time and time again. he always hated it, being forced to be forthcoming and earnest. (vulnerable, some people call it, but that always made him feel like a wounded bird.) now that he's on the other side, he sort of sees the appeal.

"'cause i don't wanna have sex yet."

there's a 'yet'. that's promising. he saves that little victory for later. his hand rubs slowly, reverently across the planes of your back.

he knows what he's got to say. he knows that he means it. putting the words to it is different. he needs you to understand, has to do this right.

"i didn't come all this way just to hook up."

you hum. "but you still want to."

christ, he's got to man up and say it.

"of course i do." you burrow closer to him, hands fisting against his side. he taps your back firmly. "hey. i'm not finished. i'm attracted to you, okay? like, really attracted to you. it's not- it's not just physical. i want to see if we can make this work. if what we had on the phone was real."

"is it?"

"yeah. i think so."

"sex isn't important to you?"

"it is. it's just not more important to me than you."

you pull your face from his chest, look up at him with big wet eyes. he brushes the backs of his fingers against your cheek tenderly, afraid you'll splinter and those tears will cascade down if he's anything but gentle.

"i think so, too."

you curl back into him, your touch melting from desperate to serene. leon can't help but feel accomplished - as though he's threaded the needle perfectly, cut the right wire just before the clock hit zero. gradually, his breathing falls into step with yours.

"besides," he murmurs, half-asleep. he drops a kiss against the top of your head. "your walls are thin. i don't want you catching a noise complaint."

day four is a glimpse of the life he could have, but it makes him realize what he needs to do to obtain it. the sickly feeling pools in his stomach, leaves him picking at the dinner you made. it's good, he swears. then the lie - just all the travel catching up to him.

he knows by day five that he's got to tell you everything. it's no longer a want - he needs you in his life. he's resolved to come clean.

he nearly does it over breakfast. you set his coffee in front of him, muss his hair before you take your own seat, and it almost comes spilling out onto the table.

i work in national security. i'm a federal agent. there's so much i can't tell you, but it's dangerous. god, it's dangerous. there's so much blood on my hands. it doesn't scrub off but i'm worried it will stain your skin. i think i could love you, if you'll let me. please don't say it back.

"plans today?" he says instead, sipping his coffee.

maybe tomorrow.

day six leaves him melancholy.

you'd insisted that today was for him. whatever he wanted, you would accommodate.

leon worries that his answer is boring. he wants a day in with you. an imitation of what it could be like to come home to this. the idle sounds of you milling about the house could lull him to sleep if it weren't for the words lodged in his throat.

you were doing the laundry. not yours, not his, but the, the definite article that's never felt intimate until that very moment. it silenced him to hear you refer to it that way. he's so tired of reading into every word you say, clinging onto every nuance. he'd forgotten how exhausting this stage of a relationship is. you couldn't send him home with dirty clothes, you explained, and he had no argument against that. his eyes traced after you as you puttered around, busying yourself with tidying. you're so at home. of course you are. it's your apartment. but he wants that. he wants to lift you from this place and into his own home, to watch you make yourself at home and busy yourself with the mundane.

he's got to tell you today. he can't do it over text. it's wrong.

when you finally settle down next to him on the couch, drawing a blanket into your lap, you breach the topic gently, give him a chance to do it himself. leon doesn't realize how obvious he is when he gets that look on his face, all forlorn as if he'd collapsed onto a fainting couch, hand over the back of his forehead. drama queen.

"what's up?" you ask, sitting close - but infuriatingly distant, not quite touching him yet.

"nothing. just looking at you."

bless you for trying to make it easy on him. it's always been like pulling teeth to get him to talk. he's trained to resist torture and coercion, should know better than to melt under a gentle hand or the way your body fits against his side.

you hum softly, disbelieving. so that's it, then. the silence, the 'i'm respecting your distance until you break' tactics. damn, you're good. leon takes a deep breath, chest aching with the weight of what he has to say. now or never.

"look- i'm not who you think i am."

you don't miss a beat. "in what way?"

he has to force the words out. he's acutely aware that this could ruin everything. you could kick him out. block his number, never speak to him again. good. it was safer that way. you deserved a normal life.

"i lied to you. about my work."

"yeah, i know."

"i work in security. national security."

"leon. i know."

his brain reels back a few steps, trying to process your words.

"you know?" he repeats, almost offended. how could you know? was this a set up?

you pull your phone from your pocket, tapping a quick query in. you turn the phone to him. article after article, a few interviews pinned to the top. every link is purple, clicked on and read through. the one that draws his eye is tucked at the bottom of the screen, makes his skin crawl to remember.

KENNEDY, HARPER CLEARED OF CHARGES

"i googled you." you set your phone down on the coffee table.

"and you still let me into your house?" he was serious, but you laugh. leon's brow pinches. "how long?"

you shrug, as if this conversation is about the laundry. "a couple months. ever since you told me your last name."

"months? why didn't you say anything?"

"i was hoping you'd tell me yourself. and you did, sort of."

his mind is still reeling. the drama of it all had his wound up tight. where does he put that energy?

he must look as thrown-off as he feels, because you chuckle, sweep the hair from his eyes and press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

"i get why you don't tell people upfront. just don't hide stuff like that from me again, okay? seriously. i'll be mad."

it's more grace than he deserves. your acceptance churns his stomach. is there another meaning behind your words, a resentment coiling in the pit of your stomach?

you crack open your book and lean against his side. he settles his arm around you, moving slow, scared to frighten you away. only one chapter in, you pass him your phone, a take-out app order, asking what he wants. if you're mad, you hide it well.

day seven is a funerary procession. you help him scour your apartment for things he may have left behind, packing them neatly in his suitcase-shaped coffin. it's amazing how his things had flooded into your apartment during the short course of his visit. he had spread out, made himself comfortable. part of it had been testing how his belongings felt next to yours, how it all fit - the final test he had constructed in his mind. you'd passed that with flying colors, clearly. he's lost track of a shirt somewhere along the way, but he isn't concerned about it. he'll be back. he can look for it another time.

both of you linger at your front door. excuses are myriad, flowing from both sides. reasons to double back, reasons to keep his hand on your waist, your fingers in his hair, your lips on his.

but eventually the time becomes too urgent, the threat of missing his flight too real. he'd joked in the car that if he didn't turn up for work they might just send a helicopter to pick him up instead, expecting a laugh. you only smile, a wry twist of your lips that fades too quickly. you reach for your sunglasses and shove them on. the air is tense by the time you pull into the parking garage, cherry scented car freshener cloying.

“you gonna cry?” he teases.

you sniffle.

“oh my god.” he is such a jackass. “don't cry. i'm sorry, sweetheart. it's okay. jesus.”

“i just don't want you to go,” you squeak. your hands fist the steering wheel tight, knuckles turning white.

leon leans over the center console, wrapping his arm around your shoulder. he shrugs you closer to him, hushing you gently.

"let's plan another trip, okay?" he murmurs against your head, placing apologetic kisses there over and over. "c'mon. it's not forever. it's okay. i'm gonna call you when i land. we'll text, like we always do. it's my turn to pick the movie, so-"

fuck. his voice cracks. he clears his throat, blinks quickly to keep his composure.

"so, i'll pick a good one. wednesday night, okay? you, me, and a really good movie."

steadily, his promises slow your tears. the pressure of time detaches you from his hold. you're with him as far as you can go, waving him off to his gate. his heart sinks like a stone. he hates flights, never gets comfortable on them, but the way home feels longer than usual.

made it home he texts the second he's through the door. you're probably asleep. he hopes you are, at least. it's late for you, and--

yay

before he can bother telling you to go to bed, another message pushes through. his house felt empty before, but your message only deepens the feeling, hollows out the hallways and leaves his bed feeling too big, too cold.

i miss you already. call me tomorrow if you can.

leon squints at the screen.

"is that my shirt?"

you stop mid-sentence. caught red-handed - or, rather, grey-shirted.

it's your movie night since he made it back home. you're curled up in bed, your popcorn off to the side. he can fill in the gaps of your room now, knows what extends beyond the screen - and he knows that shirt. an old work tee of his that had mysteriously gone missing after you did the laundry. well-worn and soft. his name stamped on the back in big, block letters. possessive pride stirs in his chest to imagine you wearing his name.

sheepish, you promise, "i'll bring it back to you. how about next month?"

leon shakes his head. he pulls open his calendar, skimming through the busy weeks to clear the time for you.

"keep it. wear it to the airport for me so i know who to look for."

"you're not gonna make me a sign?"

"the shirt is the sign, sweetheart."

"are you gonna wear a matching one with my name on it?"

"i might." he opens another tab, googling how to make custom t-shirts. "you'll have to get here and find out."

connection restored -`♡´-

dividers from @/adornedwithlight

633 notes · View notes

kurogxrix · 1 month ago

Text

good lord i ain’t ever felt like this before

ANYTIME YOU WANT (JUMP BACK TO ME ANYTIME)

husband!leon kennedy x reader

tags: established relationship. you guys are beefing ngl. masturbation (brief reference, m receiving). leon loves his wife a lot. title from eve 6 anytime.

Your therapist takes in the way you both sit on her couch over the rims of her glasses. Your legs and arms are crossed and you don’t dare look in his direction, lest he thinks he’s not in the doghouse. The first fifteen minutes of this session have been an awkward, stilted silence.

Leon’s legs are spread, his arms folded as he sneaks glances at you from the corners of his eyes. His mouth is downturned at the corners, contrasting the thin line yours is pressed into.

Not to stereotype or anything, but she can definitely see which one dragged the other to marriage therapy. She’s just surprised it’s the man wanting to fix something.

Okay. Since neither of you want to speak, she’ll go first. “Would either of you like to tell me why we’re here this week?” She asks, writing the date in the top left corner of the legal pad’s page.

11 - 18 - 24

She watches you scoff and shift where you sit, balancing your temple on two fingers. “You’re a marriage counselor, aren’t you?” You don’t even look at her as you speak, words ground out from your teeth. “Why else does a couple come to you?”

Alright, not a good start. She watches Leon reach over before he stops himself, a hand returning to his lap. Instead, he says your name softly, begging you to look over at him with those big blue eyes.

You don’t look over.

He changes tactics, head lifting. “Be nice.” He says softly, body shifting to face you as he looks over, drinking you in.

You don’t respond, staring angrily into a space over the therapist’s shoulder.

Leon sucks in a breath through his teeth as he leans back, his hand midway between you two on the ugly upholstery.

Your therapist clears her throat, eyes flicking between the two of you. “Why are you two here?”

Leon takes the lead, his eyes sliding over to you. “We’re having… problems.”

You scoff immediately. “Understatement.” You mutter under your breath, arms folding tightly again.

Leon’s mouth presses into a line as he restrains himself from giving into your baiting before he says, “I’ll lay my cards out on the table.”

You bristle, eyes flicking over at him. Your face is stonily neutral, the slight knot of your brows betraying your frustration.

Wife and husband in habit of needling one another.

“I drank. A lot.” Leon leans back, crossing an ankle over his opposite knee. “And she did a lot to try and keep our marriage afloat before I got my head out of my ass.”

Your therapist notes this on her legal pad. “How long ago was this?”

“Three-ish years.” Leon offers, lacing his fingers together. His wedding band glints in the light—yours is conspicuously absent. His eyes land on you, the second time he’s spoken directly to you. “And I’m forever grateful.”

“Mhm.” Therapist writes that husband is apologetic and open, attempting to bridge the gap. Wife is unreceptive. “And how long have you both been married?”

Shit. That’s a better question for you, you have the dates straight, somehow. Your first time, the date you two got married, the day you two met, your first daughter’s birthday, your first son’s birthday, your second daughter and son’s birthday.

He used to tease you about your calendar brain early on. You’d look a little sheepish and he’d kiss it right off you.

Leon sneaks a glance at you like a drowning man looks at a float. “Um…” He can feel his face warming up, a pretty flush spreading across his cheeks.

You shift, sighing through your nose and picking at the seam of your jeans. “Sixteen years.”

Right. Wife seems to defrost when asked how long they’ve been together—sixteen years.

“And how did you meet?” Just so she has the dates straight.

“College.” Your face heats the longer Leon stares holes into your cheek. Wife seems nostalgic of the early days of relationship. “I worked at the campus dining hall.”

A small, helpless smile spreads across Leon’s face. “I came over to the sandwich and pasta stations as much as I could.”

Husband holds affection for wife still.

You don’t look up at him and your therapist can watch the heartache bloom in his eyes before he looks away.

“What’s your perspective, Mrs. Kennedy?” The therapist asks you, crossing her legs.

You stay silent for so long that the therapist wonders whether you heard her before you say emotionlessly, “He did drink.” Your eyes fall to your fingers. “And mope, and feel bad for himself.”

“I went through a lot of things.” Leon says quietly. Your therapist opens her mouth to hush him, but you beat him to the punch.

“Nobody’s saying you didn’t.” You look up at him for the first time. “If you’d let me finish, you’d understand what I’m saying.”

Your therapist holds up her hands before this can devolve into a full-on argument. “Excuse me.” Two pairs of eyes settle on her. “Let’s not interrupt one another, please. And let’s keep the hostility to the minimum.”

“I’m not being hostile.” You retort, brows furrowing in the middle.

“You’re not exactly being gentle, either.” Leon mutters, raising a brow when you look at him with a frown on your face.

Husband and wife have habit of speaking over one another. “Please.” Your therapist says a little louder. “Mrs. Kennedy, continue.” Wife is on defense.

You take a steadying breath and let it out slowly. Wife employs self-soothing mechanisms. “I was going to say that the previous drinking isn’t the issue to me.” You uncross and recross your legs, bouncing the one on top. “The drinking, frankly, wasn’t a surprise.”

“Can you elaborate?”

Your lips part, eyes flicking over to Leon as you attempt to figure out the best way to talk without breaking his confidentiality.

Leon doesn’t look at you, head balanced on two fingers.

“I…” You take another deep breath. “It’s his job. It’s… it’s a tedious and stressful job. And he’d—“ you cut yourself off, glancing at him again.

“You can say it, it’s fine.” Leon says, sounding particularly weary.

You look particularly conflicted when he says that, mouth turning down at the corners. “He’d got the job from a big incident in ninety-eight. He wasn’t supposed to have this job.”

Wife employing vagaries to protect husband.

“Mhm.” Your therapist looks vaguely uneasy at the omission, but lets you go on.

“He hadn’t started drinking heavily until he was working for the President.” You chew on your cheek, eyes on your husband. “Then after that, he tried to go away to Colorado for a week, leaving me pregnant with three kids.”

Leon’s mouth pulls into a line. “So that’s what this is about.”

Husband and wife hold vague resentment for husband’s job.

Your therapist refrains from rolling her eyes, clearing her throat and waiting for you to go on.

“And then,” you say pointedly, eyebrows raising, “you didn’t have a vacation at all because your job called you in. That’s what I was getting at.”

“More like it found me, but close enough.” Leon replies flippantly, crossing his legs.

You squeeze your eyes shut, measuring your breaths. Your therapist is almost tempted to write that husband has a bad attitude, but holds back.

You look away, one hand moving to twiddle your wedding band out of habit before you register that your finger is empty. You pull your hand away. “He sobered up after the Colorado thing.” You say quietly.

Husband’s work takes him away from the wife and kids fairly often.

Your therapist nods, looking between you two. Wife was angry at beginning of session, now looks downcast, switching role with husband who was earlier downcast, now is irritated. “And how many children do you share with one another?”

“Four.” Leon fills in, hand twitching for his phone as if to show pictures. “Two boys, two girls.”

Four children, two boys and two girls.

“And how has this break—“ When she asks, Leon flinches and you look guilty. “in your relationship impacted your children?”

You glance at one another in tandem. Wife and husband still look for support in one another when asked questions pertaining to them as a family unit. Leon looks away first, cheeks turning red.

You sigh, reaching up and rubbing the back of your neck. “Our eldest girl started acting out in school. She’s defiant, she’s antisocial. She…”

Leon waits as you trail off, then picks up. “She’s an extrovert, like her mom. Which is why it raised alarm bells when her teachers told us that she’d been angry about having to do group work because she wanted to be left alone. She had to be taken home one day because she got in a physical fight with some kids who just wanted to play with her.”

“And your other children?” Her eyes flick between the two of you.

“Our youngest two aren’t in school yet.” You inform her, shifting a little and fiddling with your nails. “Our eldest boy—he’s six—had begun isolating himself from everyone. He wouldn’t even sit at his desk, he just wanted to sit in the library area and do his work—which is completely fine and I don’t see why the teacher threw a fit about it, frankly—but he’d also refused to play with other children. He would just watch other kids at recess—and he’s a very energetic kid.”

Your therapist nods slowly. “I see.”

Leon’s mouth pulls into a small smile at all the information you throw at the therapist. That’s his girl, always motormouthing and talking about anything and everything. Though, you could start an argument with your echo, so maybe there’s a drawback to your ability to talk about anything.

Parental relationship affecting children in household.

“Our youngest two don’t really understand why mommy and daddy are fighting.” Leon muses, watching you play with your fingers. He has half a mind to reach over and hold your hand so you stop fidgeting, but refrains.

“How old are your children?”

“Eight, six, four, and two.” You sneakily reference a tattoo on your forearm of the kid’s birthdates with their initials—he knew you were cheating when it came to remembering their birthdates.

Your therapist glances at her watch, jotting down a few more notes before she closes the legal pad, marking it as Mr. & Mrs. Kennedy. “I’m afraid that’s all the time we have this week. If you both are willing to come back, my receptionist out front will schedule you for another session next week.”

Leon watches his cum swirl down the drain miserably, leaning his forehead against the shower tile. What a waste.

That session last week could’ve gone worse, admittedly. It could’ve had you two throwing shit at one another and both of you getting arrested.

The silence during the drive home was excruciating. In the early days, you could fill up the whole fucking car just talking about anything: your coursework, which kid in your class you think is autistic, this new show you watched, anything.

Leon’s a quiet guy, he doesn’t have the capacity to talk about nothing and everything for an hour and you’re his favorite little chatterbox in the world.

He turns off the faucet and shakes his hair out like a dog, raking the curtain aside and grabbing his towel, mopping his face and hair before he dries off his body.

He wraps the towel around himself and steps out of the shower, slicking his hair back and wiping a streak in the foggy mirror so he can somewhat see where he needs to shave.

For good measure, he opens the window and leans forward to the mirror, inspecting his face.

You knock on the door thrice. “Can I come in?”

He turns around, one hand on the knot holding his towel up and the other unlocking the door and pulling it open. You step inside without so much as a glance at him, pausing when you see the streak on the mirror. “I hate when you do that.” you mutter, pulling open the cabinet and rooting around for some disinfectant.

“You hate when I do anything.” Leon mutters back, retrieving the trimmer from the cabinet and being careful not to whack you in the head with it. He jams the plug in the wall, undoing his towel both to dab his cheeks and jaw dry with a corner of it, but also to see if he can get a reaction from you.

You give none, coming back with some rubbing alcohol and cotton pads from the cabinet. Somebody must’ve scraped their knee. You bonk the back of your head on the way out. “Motherfucker!”

Leon puts down the trimmer with a stifled laugh, leaning down and stroking the back of your head gently. “Jesus. You okay?”

You swat at his covered thigh, sitting down on the tile. “It’s not funny.”

“Did you hear me laugh?” Maybe you did. His bad, he should’ve been quieter. He strokes the back of your head one last time before pulling his hand away.

“No, but I know you want to.” You grouse, getting up from the floor and picking up the rubbing alcohol and the cotton pads. Safe, just like a guy stealing a base at the last second.

You walk away without anything further and Leon feels stupidly self-conscious as he watches your ass. Is it the hair? No, you said you liked the body hair. Is it the body? Is he out of shape? Well, he’s not far outside the realm of dad bod. Besides, you told him a couple years ago that you liked seeing the give to his tummy, means he’s eating well.

He shakes his head, leaning into the mirror and picking up the trimmer as he buzzes his stubble down a little more. Your four year old runs into the bathroom with a smile and he pauses, face half-shaven to give some love to one of his three girls, plopping her on the counter as she talks his ear off and he continues shaving.

After a while, he helps her down so she can go run around with her siblings and so he can get changed, hanging his towel up when she’s gone and changing into a pair of boxers. He comes into his bedroom and heads over to his dresser, pulling out a shirt and some sweatpants.

He comes downstairs fully dressed to utter chaos.

Your kids are too busy running around the living room and body slamming one another to listen to you. You stand there frustratedly as you try to configure a game plan, one temple aching. You don’t like raising your voice at them, your voice goes too high and at a certain point, kids tune it out.

“Hey!” Leon, on the other hand, has no qualms about raising his voice. He doesn’t have to do much, he has a lot of diaphragm support.

The kids pause, immediately looking guilty.

Wordlessly, he points out to the back door and they scramble away, shouting and ordering each other around and back to playing with one another.

Leon goes over and shuts the door with a sigh. “They get that energy from you, you know.” He muses, heading over to the kitchen to get himself a snack.

“I know.” You sit down on your humongous couch, rubbing a temple. In the corner is your pillow, your blanket hung over the back of the couch. Leon’s heart dully aches when he sees that setup, he’s not sure it ever won’t. God, he misses cuddling you and his babies.

Your therapist holds up a hand in the last ten minutes of your session after having found a good place to cut you off. “So.” She says after letting out a quiet sigh, looking over her notes.

11 - 25 - 24

Making some headway in conversations about the other’s intentions. Husband and wife very similar: hardheaded, hate to lose, want their voices to be heard. Neither want their children to be in a broken home.

Wife sleeps on couch, lacks wedding ring for second session in a row. Husband longing for connection with her but wants her to give the signal that she’s ready.

She looks up. “I’m going to give you both some homework.” She watches your eyebrow raise and Leon smirk. “First, no matter what either of you is doing, when you first see each other for the day, I want you to hug for at least twenty seconds.”

You frown, Leon’s expression lightening. Amateur advice, or so you think.

“Second, I want you both to start keeping journals of your fights.”

Nevermind.

“Journals of our fights?” You repeat, crossing your legs at the ankle.

“I’m not finished.” The therapist reprimands gently, watching you frown. Wife has issues with authority. “These journals should take place over a week’s time. I want you to write down what the fight was about, what was said, how you both reacted. At the end of every week—Sunday, we’ll say—you’ll exchange the journals and read from the other’s point of view.”

Damn, that’s actually really good.

“Third,” The therapist pins you in place with a look. “I want you to wear your wedding band again.“

She watches the embarrassment cross your face, eyes cutting over to Leon when he looks too smug. “Don’t look so smug, Mr. Kennedy. I want you to recite five things you like about her—“

“That’s easy.” Leon says, meaning every word.

She gives him a look. “When you’re in an argument. Mentally, not out loud. Speaking of, you both need a code word for when the argument is getting to be too much and you need to walk away from it.”

She stands up, putting the legal pad in the folder in the Kennedy file. “I’ll see you both next week.”

After the third session, you move right back into the bedroom, after waking up to Leon laying on top of you on the couch.

Leon’s brushing his teeth as you change into pajamas, leaning over and spitting into the sink before he brushes his tongue. He rinses the bristles and puts the brush back in the holder, coming out and helping you ready the bed before your six year old son comes in, saying his tummy’s upset.

“I’ve got it.” Leon comes over and presses a hand to his son’s forehead. Warm. Five out of the six of the Kennedys tend to run warm, which isn’t a worry. “Let’s get you some Pepto, buddy.”

He takes his son’s hand and leads him downstairs, giving him a dose and taking him back up, laying him back in his bed. “Goodnight. Mommy and daddy love you.” He whispers, going over and kissing his three other children goodnight.

He comes back to your room to find you in bed reading, lights dimmed. Instinctively, he comes over to your side and adjusts the lamp so you’re not straining your eyes to read. He comes back around to his side and turns off his light, lying on his right side and facing you.

When you decide it’s time to sleep, you lean over and turn off the light, putting your book on your nightstand and slipping beneath the covers.

It’s silent for a while before Leon whispers, “Sometimes, I wonder if we should have another baby.”

Your head snaps over to his. “What?”

“Not—“ He scoots a little closer, almost reaching out to take your hand. “not, like, a bandage baby or anything. I don’t think a baby can fix this.” A pause before he gestures in the dark. “Us, I mean.”

You snort despite yourself. “I hope not.”

Leon scoffs, coming a little closer. “You know me. That’s not fair to a little baby. And you said four’s your limit.”

Your heart warms. Maybe you shouldn’t be so surprised he remembered.

“I love you, you know.” Leon murmurs, hesitantly and loosely taking your hand. Even in the dark, you can see him coming.

Your chest aches. “I know.”

Another long pause.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” When your head turns, he’s there, inches from your face.

“That it took me so long to pull my head from my ass. You are… my anchor in this crazy-ass world.” He squeezes your hand, hoping you’ll let him hold it for a while longer. “And I hurt you. You’re the sweetest woman I’ve ever met, and I love you, and I hurt you.”

Your burning eyes scrunch shut as you press your forehead to his.

“I just hope you forgive me—I hope one day, that I’m good enough for you to forgive me.” He whispers, voice wavering. “I want this to work. I want you. God, I miss you.”

Maybe that’s what you needed, you needed to hear him render his heart open.

You come closer, pressing your front to his.

“And even my job—“ He curses, pressing a kiss to your forehead, then the spot between your eyebrows. “I’ll quit.” When you giggle, he huffs. “I’m serious. Give me the word and I’ll quit.”

The tension in his chest eases when you tuck your head beneath his chin. “God, no, don’t do that. At least one of us needs an income.” You mutter, throwing an arm around his waist.

Forgiveness never felt so sweet.

859 notes · View notes

kurogxrix · 1 month ago

Text

god i felt so many things reading this

lovers of valdaro | leon kennedy x reader

PART I | PART II | PART III (finale)

pairing: leon kennedy x f!reader

summary: Some things have changed. The months, the weather, the air that hangs between Leon and you. Yet one thing has remained constant: his desire to keep you as close as possible.

word count: 8.2K of gratuitous smut

warnings: 18+, smut, established relationship, pda, bickering, consensual somnophilia, groping, dry humping, unprotected p in v, fingering, prone boning, swearing, slight dom/sub undertones, pet names, an attempt at praise kink, pill as contraception, creampie, oral sex (f!receiving), marking, unintentional edging, masturbation, aftercare, no use of y/n, oh and ooc

notes: i’m sorry to those who were expecting pt 3 to be angsty. i wanted to portray some changes and get used to writing and publishing smut. also, this can be read separately as it is almost all smut. enjoy!

➵ read on ao3.

“This man yaps a lot,” Leon says from behind you, you’re startled by his voice near your ear. His lips tickle your earshell. Like a cat’s fur standing up, your shoulders go up slightly. Renting only one sunbed –a narrow chair, really– for the two of you starts to feel like a mistake. Well, you plan to swim anyway, I’ll just sunbathe, you had said earlier, failing to account for Leon’s FOMO when you pulled out your book from your beach bag. For some reason, he was interested in anything that captured your attention as of late.

You were looking at travel guides for you and your sister back at home when Leon saw your laptop screen. “What’s this?” he asked, adjusting the screen so he could see it better.

“Beaches in Italy,” you answered. “My sister will be using her yearly vacation this year. I’m making a list of places we can go if she asks.” Leon was silent and when you turned to him, already watching you intently. “What?”

“Our anniversary is coming up.”

You looked at the date, wondering why he brought it up. “I guess it is.”

“How about we go? Before your sister asks, I mean,” he suggested, scratching the back of his neck.

You straightened up on the couch. “You wanna go on a vacation with me?”

The corners of his lips curled up. “Err, I believe I asked you first.”

A little girl runs by your sunbed with her arms full of plastic toys, screaming with joy as she plops down to the sand. The bottoms of her tiny feet are red, probably because of how hot the sand is. She begins digging up sand with her toy shovel.

“It’s Dostoevsky,” you say, like that would be enough clarification for Leon. His arm comes up to pinch the book up top to flip it and peek at its title, which reads “White Nights.” Propping up your elbow on your torso to adjust both your book and your attention, you try to move as little as possible to not disturb him. He basically made you sit between his legs and lay your back on his chest, saying he would take a dip in the sea in a few minutes.

You know he’s about to speak again when your head rises along his chest. “He’s been talking nonstop for three pages.”

“Leon, I’m trying to focus.”

The little girl a few feet away lets out a frustrated cry when her castle crumbles down, her little arms flap irritably, chucking the toy shovel in front of her in the process. A slightly older boy, probably her brother, comes to the rescue with a bucket full of sea water. He shows his little sister how to wet the sand for it to hold shape. The sound of waves crashing against the breakwater drowns out their shrill laughter.

“You’re squishing your boob,” Leon blurts out, takes hold of the planted elbow on your breast and lifts it in the air.

Trying to follow the words, your head knocks on Leon’s chin. “I can’t read like this. Let go of my arm.”

“Nuh-uh. If I let go, you’re gonna keep pressing your arm to your boob and have a nip slip.”

“I’m not gonna have a nip slip.”

“Whatever the correct verb for a nip slip is, it will happen.” His chin digs into the crown of your hair. “And those teenagers will remember this day forever.”

Your eyebrows scrunch together. “What teenagers?”

“The ones that are looking this way,” Leon states in a matter-of-factly tone. He’s right, a bunch of boys are in the sea, laughing among themselves by splashing water. Every now and then their heads tilt up to your direction.

You look down on yourself to see if the swimsuit is covering you like it’s supposed to. There’s nothing wrong with it, yet that doesn’t stop you from setting the book down on your stomach. “Why are they looking here? What’s wrong with my swimsuit?”

“It looks good on you, that’s why. Hormonal teenagers.”

“I think it’s the position we’re in,” you mumble. Your back feels damp with sweat as you peel away from him, sitting up further away.

But Leon has other plans, he snakes his hand around your shoulder and plants his palm right on your sternum, pulling you back to him by your chest.

“Oof,” you breathe out once you collide with his torso again.

He taps his fingers on your breastbone as he catches the slipping book on your lap. “Here, I’ll hold it. You turn the pages.”

“It’s too hot for this,” you groan.

“Pardon me for doing something,” he says, sounding neither hurt nor sorry.

“You said you’d swim,” you say, though it sounds more like a suggestion. “Want me to lather you up in sunscreen? I know you didn’t put it on back at the hotel.”

“I mean, when you ask it like that, sure.” He’s grinning like a cheshire cat, it warms your heart that he’s pleased with himself just by managing to get under your skin. Something quite like a heartbeat, it feels intimate, an embrace out in the open. In a snap, you shake off the feeling. You’re not going to see these people again, they do not know you, just like how you don’t know the couple dipping their feet in the water while holding hands, little girl building sandcastles with her brother, young boys jumping on each other’s backs. Who would have thought being a stranger to all of it would make your yearning flesh all the more tender?

Your wandering eyes shut in bliss when you feel it. A featherlight, barely-there kiss on the back of your neck, placed just below your hair, followed by the disappearance of your book from your sight. Leon reaches down to drop it in your bag, you wiggle away to let him search for the bottle of sunscreen.

“Take your shirt off,” you say once you turn to face him.

“Damn, woman. At least buy me dinner first.”

“Can you get any cornier? You’re getting overpriced beer at best.”

“...May your sky always be clear, may your dear smile always be bright and happy, and may you be for ever blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness which you gave to another lonely and grateful heart. Isn't such a moment sufficient for the whole of one's life–?”

Your attention snaps away from your book over a playful voice. “Hey, miss. Sorry to bother you.” Leon is standing a few steps in front of your chair, hands on his hips, most of his weight on one leg. Water drops cling to his firm chest, following a delectable path down his muscles. Some even caress his faded scars gently, a reminder that he has endured things far from gentle. His hair seems darker due to saltwater, the tips of it almost poking his eyes, by the looks of him having to shake them away from his face when he attempts to tilt his head to the side. “Are you perhaps single?”

You purse your lips to suppress a grin. “Why are you asking?”

“I’m interested.”

“Oh,” you croon in mock-embarrassment. “I’m married.” You make sure to show off the gold band on your ring finger.

He walks next to your chair. “Lucky guy. Speaking of, where is he?” His gaze lingers on your legs that are bent towards your chest, the book propped up on your knees.

You close the book and play along. “He’s swimming.”

“Is he a good swimmer?”

“Yeah, his strokes are phenomenal.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Are we still talking about swimming?”

You tilt your head to the side. “Why yes, is there a misunderstanding?”

“No, no. Just making sure we’re on the same page here. Tell me more about him.”

You gesture to the empty room on the foot of the sunchair. “Then you might want to sit here for a while. Maybe dry off?”

“I’d love to keep you company until your husband shows up.” Leon sits sideways next to your feet, way too familiar for a ‘stranger.’ “What’s he like?”

“First of all, he looks a lot like you.” You press your lips together. This is ridiculous. “He’s also incredibly annoying.” When Leon gasps half-mockingly, you cast a sideways glance at him. “His jokes are really corny, he’s lucky I put up with them.”

“That might hurt his feelings.”

“Well, he’s not here.”

He scrunches his eyebrows together, there’s a visible question mark in his blink. “My jokes are that bad?”

“Aaand, the play is over.” You slap your knees lightly, sliding your feet towards Leon until your toes touch the side of his thigh. “We are not sharing the chair again. You’re still dripping.”

A sluggish sigh escapes his lips. “Let me lean on you at least.”

And before you can say no, Leon is relocating your hands from your knees, moving them by your wrists, placing your arms at your sides. He folds his own arms on top of your knees and rests his temple on them, hugging your knees to himself, looking off into the side. You could lean forward and bury your nose in his hair like this, inhale the sun and salt, let your lips linger, let him feel the ghost of a kiss for a change. Though he was always better at unprompted acts of affection, maybe because he didn’t think much of it.

It’s peaceful—the secluded space you’ve managed to carve out for the two of you, despite the chaos of the crowded beach. It feels like a quiet world unto itself, hidden in plain sight amid a sea of distant faces, as if removed from everything around you. It’s strangely intimate. Minutes or hours pass, you can’t make out which, lost in the stillness.

When Leon speaks, his thumb starts brushing your knee. “I can hear you think,” he murmurs, his voice low. What’s going on in that head of yours?

“Will you tell me a truth?” you ask, almost in a whisper.

Leon doesn’t lift his head up, lazy like a cat in the sun. Although his body reminds him to be on guard upon hearing a kid yell in the distance, his muscles twitch reflexively. “Why?”

“For all of this to feel real.” Your eyes follow the slope of his nose, then the squished red cheek leaning on his forearm. The sunscreen you copiously put on his nose bridge couldn’t protect his skin. You can’t help but admire his long lashes, fluttering so prettily the action could make butterflies jealous.

His answer surprises you. “I’m scared all the time.”

“Of what?”

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” His thumb stops moving so he can squeeze your kneecap. “I’m scared that one day you’ll want us to go our separate ways. I’m scared that I will not be able to let you go. You know I wasn’t able to do it the first time around. I dread the day you won’t want to see my face again.”

“Leon–”

“Sometimes I get scared that something will happen to you and I will lose you.”

It dawns on you then. The reason why you’ve been waking up to strong arms tangled around your waist for months.

“Leon, nothing’s going to happen to me.”

However, he’s still going on. “If you decide you’ve had enough, just let me know, okay? Don’t just up and leave.”

Your throat constricts itself. You don’t know what to say to that. Part of you wants to do just that: up and leave. Not the way he means but in a way to escape his hold, step aside to mull it over and come up with a humane response. The fact that he couldn’t meet your eyes while saying all that leaves your heart with a dull ache, chest too heavy to even breathe.

He finally looks up, expression unreadable. His eyes scour your face, searching for something. “Does it feel real now?”

You swallow on nothing as you meet his eyes. Sure, you nod. It terrifies you how real it actually feels.

Leon thinks he’s a genius for lowering the temperature of the air-conditioning while you were in the bathroom, carrying out your night routine. No, he didn’t have any malicious intent, not at all, he was just sweating a lot even after his shower. By the time you entered the bed in your pajamas, you suspected nothing, lifted the bedcover to join him. Your skin was glowing from all the products he couldn’t wrap his head around, your lips were shining clear. For a moment, he wanted to plant his mouth to your lips and taste the vaseline.

He was aroused, which was not surprising considering the amount of sex you two had been having. It’s become so regular that he thinks he never had this much compatibility with anyone before. Goodnight, Leon, you murmured before gracing him with the sight of your back, voice so sweet he nearly whined out of desperation. He didn’t know why he waited for your breathing to fall steady, he’s been holding you in your sleep for a while now. Every morning you wake up before him and toss his arms aside, get the day started.

When he’s sure that you’ve fallen asleep, he makes his move, drapes an arm around your waist, pressing his bare chest to your clothed back, spooning you. He’s careful not to wake you despite the evidence of his arousal resting against your ass. Normally, he would ignore it and take care of it in the morning but you make that impossible by squirming in your sleep. A few minutes pass by and he guesses the room must feel like an icebox to you, he knows you get cold quickly. Leon thinks he’s a genius because he could just wake you up and suggest warming you up. He also thinks he’s a fool because what if you don’t wake up, with all this squirming? He could move to the side and wait for the cold to do its own thing or he could just get up and go to the bathroom to rub one out. Or he could lower his boxers, do it right here. He’s positive you wouldn’t mind, that’s how intimate you two have become.

Before he can decide, a shiver takes over your body, a soft whimper escaping your lips. Now Leon feels bad. He’ll just get up and fix the AC to an acceptable temperature.

You shrivel into him, searching for warmth. The arm across your waist reaches up, the entirety of his hand cupping your breast that’s pressed against the bed. His body runs hot despite the breeze in the hotel room, so he thinks this will help. Just as a quiet, needy cry from your throat travels to his burning ears, his other arm snakes beneath your body to press against your belly. He squeezes you tightly until he can feel the blood pumping through your veins, buries his nose into the crook of your neck. Inhaling deeply bestows on him your enticing scent.

Guilt washes over him as he ruts his hips into your sleep shorts, because who becomes an animal in heat when they smell clean soap?

Leon. Leon does.

The smallest things have been setting him off. All of your flimsy sundresses, swaying of your hips in them, your smooth legs, the gold anklet that matches with your wedding ring, the swimsuit that makes your cleavage call his attention. You, taking his arm while walking side to side. In fact, he suppressed smothering his face into your cheek today at lunch—cuteness aggression— as he tried to eat his food in peace. You were enjoying your pasta, humming contentedly after your first bite, you smiled at him when you caught him watching you intently. Leon was never into taking pictures but at that moment, he wanted to engrave the picture of you smiling up at him lovingly into his memory for the future, remember your crinkled eyes and adorably scrunched up nose when he would miss you. He knew he would miss that moment right when it was happening, he’d be gone again for an assignment soon.

“What?” You laughed.

“That good?” he asked, eyes pointing to your bowl of pasta.

“Yep! Want some?”

Leon keeps clinging until your body twitches no longer, takes deep breaths against your neck, pleased as his heat completely stills you. His hold relaxes as he becomes aware of his grip strength. He releases his clamped fingers from your breast, stroking your nipple apologetically. It will surely leave a mark on your soft skin, which you will whine about later, though he knows deep down you enjoy him being rough with you. After all, it was you who brought up that you weren’t made of glass, he didn’t need to act as if you were going to break.

Your soft sighs soothe him to an extent, as far as the strain in his boxers allow. Fuck it, he thinks. He’s still humping your backside, cock throbbing. He’s going to wake you up. Pounce on you once you open your eyes.

Forefinger and thumb pinching a hardening nipple, he nuzzles his face into where your neck meets your shoulder, dropping heavy kisses first, then switching to sucking your skin. If he could drown in your smell, he would. “Honey, please wake up.”

“Hm?” He hears you, heart starting to beat even faster. “Leon?” Your first touch is on his arms, fingertips ice cold, groggy voice calling to him.

“You awake?” he breathes in your ear.

Feeling tickled, your shoulder rises to your ear. “Clearly,” you reply hoarsely. His thigh is glued to the back of yours, reaching back to hold it, you manage to slow his movements. His erection is fully pressed against you. “Everything okay?”

“No.” He pants in your hair. “Need to fuck you.”

“Leon,” you groan, face dropping fully into your pillow. “I’m too tired.”

“Please, you don’t need to do anything.”

“Don’t think I can even lift my leg.”

“Then don’t. I’ll do everything. Lift your hips for a second so I can get this off?”

“Fine,” you huff, rolling onto your stomach so his strong-willed hands can strip off your shorts along with your underwear. “We don’t have lube.”

He drops a kiss to your cheek. “I’ll just have to prep you.”

Ugh, so sweet. “Make it quick,” you say as he carefully sits on the backs of your thighs, his knees trapping your legs together. “How do we do this?”

“Stay still,” he mumbles, barely audible. You grow impatient as you hear him moving in the dark, taking off his only piece of clothing. He reaches over to the bedside drawer to turn on the lamp. The blanket is scattered across the bed. You hiss sharply, eyes adjusting to the soft light.

He holds your shoulders firmly. “What’s wrong?”

“Why is it so cold?”

Somehow, you can hear him grinning behind you. “The AC’s broken.”

“Have you tried calling the reception? It’s too cold for this.”

“I’ll warm you up,” he says as his heat hovers over you, fingers hiking up your flimsy camisole to gain access to your waist, the other hand shaking off the thin straps. He buries his nose into the back of your neck, kissing a path to your right shoulder, sharp teeth grazing skin along the way. He shifts his attention to your left shoulder, reaching down to cup your ass, pulling apart your cheeks. His fingers find your sex straight away; he’s familiar with your body.

“You’re a bit wet for someone who’s feeling too tired,” he teases.

You don’t bother with pleasantries. “I will leave you blue-balled for the rest of the week.”

“Right,” he says. “Lift your head up.”

“I just woke up, you’re asking for too much from me.”

He nudges his nose into the back of your ear instead of answering. Kiss me, he demands, pressing his hips to your plushness. Familiar with his silent commands, you submit to his reign, craning your neck back, open mouth chasing his.

Your mouths clash unceremoniously. It’s messy, sloven, uncoordinated, and animalistic. He finds your tongue in no time, suckling on the wet muscle all the while managing to lift your shoulders off the bed to drop your thin straps around your elbows, pulling your camisole down. Now your top sits below your naked breasts, bunched around your middle like a thick headband. Leon’s jaw moves as if he’s thirsty, drinking from your mouth unapologetically. The noises from your so-called kissing are obscene, filling the room along with the sounds of heavy breathing. Heat starts to pool in your lower belly, body slowly warming up.

Quick as a wink, a strong hand wraps around the back of your neck, pushing you face down to the mattress. Your surprised yelp into your pillow is cut short once he pulls your hair gently, laughing next to your ear. “Don’t want you to suffocate. Try to keep your head up. Can you do that for me, honey?”

Rolling your eyes, you bite back a remark. Resting your cheek on the pillow is all he’s going to get. After all, he did tell you that you didn’t need to do anything. Your crushed breasts feel funny, one side aching considerably more than the other, owing to him groping it roughly while you were sleeping.

Leon lets out a low chuckle and continues his undeterred path from your jaw to your neck, nipping at skin, leaving a stinging sensation behind. His knees make room for your squirming legs, a perfect chance for him to dip his hand between your thighs, a slight part of your legs to accommodate his fingers on your cunt. Rubbing your lower lips, he slicks his fingers with your wetness.

Your breath hitches when two pads of fingers make contact with your clit, drawing tight circles. “That feel good?” His voice is muffled by your skin.

You groan a noise of confirmation as he puts more pressure on his fingertips, quickening his movements on your now soaked pussy. His thumb catches at your entrance, maybe accidentally, and you can’t hold yourself back from pursuing that pleasure, back arching so your hips could sway up, chasing his touch. Thankfully, he is quick to place his thumb back, swiping back and forth. The double stimulation on your opening and clit creates enough lubrication for him to slide right in.

Your eagerness doesn’t go unnoticed by Leon, the feel of his teeth on your earlobe is a wary appreciation. “Too tired, huh? Look at you.” He means your hips in the air, quivering right in front of his view. “Lemme help you relax.”

You think he’ll finally thrust himself in, however, you’re taken by surprise when he works two fingers into you, the stretch unexpected, but appreciated nonetheless. He shoves your hips back down into the mattress, arm across the small of your back to keep you steady against the bed. “Don’t be disappointed. I need to open you up first,” he speaks into your temple, nose pressed to the tail of your eyebrow. He starts moving his fingers in and out. “Don’t want you to hurt.”

He grabs a handful of your ass to pull apart while working your cunt open with his fingers. Your whole body feels electrified each time he strokes the velvety walls of your pussy, throat humming with need.

“Leon…” you moan, wanting to arch into him. Your desperate hand slides under your belly to touch your clit. “Enough.”

But that’s not what you want to tell him. You want to tell him this is not enough, he needs to be inside you right now or you will start to wail, turn over and jump his bones. This is quite the opposite from where everything started, with you worked up and fussy in his hands, unable to speak properly.

You feel him watching his own hand between your legs, ears perked up for the sounds coming from where you are gushing, shallowing his thrusts once he feels your fingers join in. “Enough? You don’t want to come first?”

“S’cold,” you cry out. “Fuck me already.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, honey,” he coos at you, pulling his soaked digits out of you, head rising to meet with your parted lips. The arm around your waist slides up, fingers gently digging into your scalp to hold you in place as he kisses you, using the fingers he just pulled out of you to slick up his cock. He moans into your mouth before pulling away.

“You have me. Ready?”

You nod into the pillow.

As he presses his swollen tip into you, he watches the back of your head tip back with a shiver, your neck exposed for him to reach and grab. Instead, he wraps his arm around your neck in a gentle headlock, helping you rest your cheek on his bicep, the movement helping him slip further inside you.

Hot, bullish breaths burrow into your neck when he is buried to the hilt, balls pressed against your clit and fingers that are spreading yourself.

“Fuck, you smell so good,” he whispers, his torso meeting your back.

He presses his entire weight down onto you and it is glorious, being trapped between him and the mattress, surrounded by his body heat with no room to flee. Not that you even consider it. Though your wrist, strained under the weight, digs into your pelvis as he begins to thrust feverishly. “Oh, fuck,” he grunts.

Your mouth opens to let him know of the awkward position your arm is in but you only manage to moan wantonly. He takes it as a cue to snap his hips faster.

“Wait, Leon—my wrist.”

He stops completely, lifting his hips slightly for you to pull your arm out from underneath, dropping a kiss in your hair as an apology. “Fuck, sorry. Forgot your hand was there. Are you good? Am I too heavy?”

Your hands fist around the sheets to brace yourself. He did not pull himself fully out of you, you just want him to fill you to the brim again. Even though you don’t know if you can come like this. “No, I’m good. Let’s continue.”

As your wish comes true, his hips pick up a frenzied pace, the bed starts to shake. You don’t know how he manages it, you’re immobilized under him, high on the pleasurable feeling. Your poor nipples are chafing against the sheets with all the movement. The noises escaping your lips are embarrassingly loud, mingling with the creaky springs of the hotel bed. He doesn’t hold back either, sucking love-bites wherever his mouth can reach, moaning against your spit-lacquered skin. Palms sliding under your shoulders to hold you even closer, he squeezes you to himself while letting his weight push you hard into the mattress.

It’s as if he wants to open up his chest and tuck you beneath his ribs, or crawl beneath your skin from behind, until you both become one.

His pace falters, you squeak as he bottoms out, walls pulsing around him. He must have been desperately horny, for he is spitting out delirious things in your ear. “Fuck, fuck, fuck— you look so cute. You always do.”

“Huh?”

Rather than addressing your confusion, he leans in your face. One hand cups your jaw, guiding your face to his, squishing your cheeks together until your lips are puckered, ready for him to attack, though it’s a pleasant assault of kisses. “You’re so—” Kiss. “Soft.” Kiss. “It makes me crazy.” Kiss. “And you always smell so good.” Kiss.

“Leon, what’s gotten into you—mmph!”

He doesn’t care about what you have to say about his raving state; instead, he crashes his lips to yours for a longer, deeper kiss. His strong arm hugs your neck again, cradling you to himself. You swallow his animalistic groan when your fingers tangle in his hair, pulling on the tresses while trying to squirm. His hair has gotten so long; a luxury of taking time off work.

His hips start to grind, precise snaps eliciting small sounds out of both of you, his cock massaging your innermost crevices.

“You’re like an angel,” he whispers in your mouth, panting wildly. “You feel like heaven. God, I love you. I can’t believe—shit, I’m close. I’m gonna come. Tell me where to come.”

If he wasn’t literally in your face, you might have missed it—that sacred, dangerous word slipping past his lips as if it was an everyday occurrence.

It didn’t even register at first, partly because it happened so quickly and partly because it made you clamp down on him with an intense ripple of pleasure, causing him to grunt.

Losing all strength in your muscles, you sag against his arm on the pillow, neck too numb to keep your head up, feet plopping down with a pat. When did you lift your feet up?

Like a snap of a thread, his demeanor changes instantly. Concerned, he brushes your hair away from your face hastily. “Baby, did you just come?”

A sound resembling “yes” is murmured into your pillow, your whole body feeling prickly upon the fondness in his voice, spasming uncontrollably. He’s still inside you, reaching incredibly deep, hip bones digging into the meat of your ass, caging you in his warmth.

“Didn’t even need me to touch your clit,” he says. There’s that smugness in his tone, like he didn’t just rock your whole world.

Feeling fuzzy around the edges, you remember his need to have a release, and words rush out without much thought, “Inside. Come inside.”

The faint rhythm of his hips turn sloppy upon hearing you. He’s gasping, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m on the pill.”

“Fuck. Thank you, baby.”

His face finds home in your neck again. It’s not long before you feel the thick trickle of warmth filling you up. Coming to his senses, his arms loosen around you, waiting for his breathing to turn to normal.

You can sleep like this, you think. With him literally in your skin, smothered under his delectable weight. It’s calming.

Eventually, he pulls out and rolls over on his back, the absence of his weight feels oddly sad. He turns his neck towards you. “That was… something else. How are you feeling?”

You stretch your arms, sliding them under your pillow. “Like I’ve just run a marathon. And I didn’t even move much.”

“Now that you’re properly tired, you’re gonna sleep like a log.” He chuckles, throwing an arm on his forehead.

You slide a hand between your legs, knitting your eyebrows, reconsidering. “We need to clean up first.”

“Right,” he sighs. “I promised you I wouldn’t make you move, didn’t I? Wait here.”

Before you can say anything, he gets up from the bed, picks up his underwear from the ground and heads to the bathroom. You don’t move in case the viscid fluids threaten to leak onto the bed. He comes back with a few rolled-up toilet papers and a damp towel, with his underwear on. He sits on the edge of the bed next to you.

You spread your legs as he holds up the rolled-up toilet papers to your dripping entrance. “Push it out.”

You squeeze out the mixture of you and him. Your cheeks flare up, not because of embarrassment. But because of something else. Him instructing you with a raspy voice shouldn’t get you fired up, your limbs are still weak from the earth-shattering orgasm he pulled out of you, but your body reacts on its own volition.

“I didn’t know you were on the pill,” he continues as he wipes down your sweat with the towel.

“A recent development,” you say, eyes heavy with sleepiness. “Started it a while ago, I meant to tell you.”

“That’s fine.” He cleans up the residue between your thighs lastly. The pressure of his touch is so careful, in case you’re overstimulated. “Honestly, I think I found out about it in the best way.”

A small chuckle from you eases his heart. The image of you lying naked on your belly, your head turned to the side with bleary eyes is like a painting to him. He leans down and places a gentle kiss between your shoulder blades.

“Can I wake you up in the morning?” he mutters into your skin before hoisting your camisole to its place on your shoulders.

You understand his implication. “Yeah, but no sooner than eight or I’ll be super cranky.”

“We’ll miss breakfast.”

“Breakfast or sex. The choice is yours.”

“Room service it is.”

Eventually, he finds your panties and shorts under the blankets, lifts them up over your hips, and finishes dressing you.

You give him a smile, fingers resting on your lips as you ponder. “I have something to ask you.”

“I know,” he replies, too quickly. He’s aware of the things he’s just said. “I know you want to talk about it. But I feel awful for disturbing your sleep. You’re tired. We can talk all you want in the morning. Just know that I meant it.”

“C’mere,” you whisper, rolling onto your side to reach out to him.

This time, it’s Leon who seeks warmth, succumbing to the balmy caress of your hand as you pull him in.

The kiss is too soft, too fragile, and he wants it to linger forever.

He’s offended when you pull away abruptly. But that feeling is short-lived as you turn your head away to sneeze twice. “Bless you,” he says.

Deep down inside, remembering he changed the settings of the AC, he rolls his eyes at himself. He gets up and turns it off, throwing the soiled toilet papers in the trash on his way. “I’ll call the reception the first thing tomorrow.”

Leon is insatiable.

The first things he notices when he opens his crusty eyes is his morning wood and the deep red hues scattered across the back of your neck in front of his face. Wiping the sleep from his eyes with one hand—the other arm trapped under your neck—he presses himself to your backside. A repeat of what started everything.

He retracts after letting out a low growl into your hair, only to roll you on your back by your shoulders. You’re still asleep, muscles all soft and pliant under his maneuvering. So pretty, he thinks. The tiny flutter of your eyelashes casts soft, quivering shadows on the apples of your cheeks as warm sunlight streams into the room through a narrow gap in the curtains. Hovering over you between your legs, he cups your face, thumbs caressing the dainty shadows. His breaths fan your face as a gentle nudge to your slumber.

“Baby…” he croaks, voice all ragged from hours of disuse over the night.

Even in your sleep you seek out his touch, nuzzling your face into his palm, rousing something carnal in him. His lips get to work on your throat briskly, sucking the delicate skin, humming against it.

He feels the vibrations of the mellow sound your throat gives out against his lips and continues the path down to your clavicle, leaving ruddy blemishes behind. Rubbing up and down on your thighs, his palms curve behind the backs of your knees, bending them to spread your legs completely open against the bed. He presses his hard-on to your center.

Your cunt must be sore, he’ll kiss it better.

He mouths at the tops of your breasts, palms fondling them up in his face. “I’ll take care of you,” he whispers, though you’re too drowsy to hear.

His head slips down the blanket, your cover slides down your body as it gets caught on his broad back, opening an airway for him.

He starts littering kisses on the inside of your thigh, beginning from your knee and continuing the path up to your groin, pulling back each time his nose touches the verge of your panties. He looks up expectantly to see you stir. Because once he sees you awake, he’ll devour you.

You are stirring, head lolling in an attempt to turn on your side. Leon’s hands quickly clamp down on your thighs, “Nuh-uh.” He denies you, keeping your hips still. His mouth switches to your other thigh, repeating his ministrations.

His teeth graze the edge of your underwear. Your leg twitches under his touch, which further encourages his sudden urge.

Blunt teeth sink into the soft, supple flesh of your inner thigh.

That seems to wake you up as your head jerks, hand flying to his hair between your legs under the blanket. “Ow.”

“Morning.” His tongue darts out to soothe the dull ache.

With heavy eyelids, you crane your neck to assess the situation. His lips are slick and plump from all the kissing and biting. “Mhm. Good morning.” Yawning, you cover your mouth with the back of your hand, the other one cards through Leon’s hair lazily. As your grip tightens, you drop your head back to the pillow to blink away the haziness.

The sounds of his lips smacking against your skin are accompanied by the fan noises filling the room. You realize you’re no longer sweating like you were through the night, when the broken air-conditioning left you sweltering—or would have had you freezing if it were actually running. You’re confused. “AC’s working again?”

You feel him smiling against your thigh. “Yeah. Called the reception and everything.”

“What was wrong with it?”

“I’m literally in between your legs and that’s what you wanna know? Like, right now?” He nuzzles your underwear, placing a kiss on your clothed center to stress his frustration, which you reply with a startled whimper.

“First, I risked frostbite and then sweated like it was hell. Of fucking course I wanna know the reason of my suffering.”

“You didn’t suffer,” he says in a jeering tone, fingers hooking under your panties to peel them off. He’s quick to get rid of that obstructive piece of fabric. “I’d say I took pretty good care of you.”

You roll your eyes dramatically. “Yeah, yeah—world’s best husband or whatever, keeps waking me up because he’s horny.”

“Hey, you said breakfast or pussy and I made my choice.”

He licks a path up from your entrance to your clit, your hips jump. He grips your thighs and slings them over his shoulders.

“I did not say that.” Words slurred, your eyes close upon the honeyed sensation.

“Something along those lines,” he mumbles, lips brushing against the sensitive little bud of nerves.

You kick the blanket off his back so he doesn’t suffocate under the heat. The slight temperature change makes your hips jerk up to his face, his morning stubble scratches the insides of your thighs deliciously. He drapes an arm across your abdomen to keep you steady. His other arm tugs on the thigh slung over his shoulder, only slightly, to make room for his head.

Two fingers brush your slit, spreading apart slowly to gain access to your most sensitive parts. It’s still a little tender and swollen that when his hot breath fans across the sensitive flesh, your legs try to shut instinctively. His hold grows stronger to remind you not to squash his head. He licks a broad swipe up your slit and looks up at you through his long lashes.

You can’t help but moan. He looks so pretty like this.

Leaning forward, he places a kiss directly on your clitoris, the soft smack sound sends a hot burn to your ears.

He parts his lips to suck your sensitive clit into his mouth, your back arches as you gasp. His plump lips pull on the taut flesh, making you writhe against the sheets. Now aware of your fist that was bunching the sheets this whole time, you let go to join it with your other hand in his hair.

He’s always liked your hands in his hair, petting it, tugging at it, pulling it to steer him to where you need him most, he loves it all. He moans as you make a mess of his soft tresses, sending jolts of vibrations up your body.

Relaxing his tight jaw with a wet pop, he quickly drops a kiss to the juncture of your thigh and begins to lap up your dripping mound like a starved man.

“Leon!” Your back arches again, hands buried in his hair pressing his face firmly between your legs. You’re not sure if he can even breathe with your thighs caging him. You don’t care, he’ll tap you if he wants to take a breather.

Blindly, the hand that keeps your slit open slides up to your chest, to push between the valley of your breasts. You clutch your palm on the back of his hand, fingers slotting between his. He squeezes his hand once. I’m alright, it means. He keeps your intertwined hands there.

His face burrows deeper into your slick, thrusting his tongue into your hole in and out. Nose pressed against your clit, he hums contentedly and starts wiggling his head, sending a wave of pleasure through your body.

The gasps that fall from your lips fuel him, he drags his tongue back up to your sensitive bud, flicking up and down with only one goal in his mind.

Up and down. Suck. Up and down. Suck.

“Too much, ‘s too much!” You repeat with a shaky voice. But you are insatiable too, with the way you guide his hand to your tit, encouraging him to squeeze tight.

“I know, baby, I know. Just tell me when,” he rasps, trying to keep up with your bucking hips. Groping your breast under your pressing palm, he can’t quite reach to your shoulder to lower the straps of your top, though his fingers find your taut nipple through the fabric and start to draw circles around the pebbled peak.

His stubble burns your thighs so good it only drives you more crazy. Your droopy eyes lock with his determined ones, mouth hanging open in a silent moan, hand brushing away the hair on his forehead.

He tightens his tongue and places the tip of it right on your sensitive clit, wriggling the wet muscle in a snake-like fashion, and listens to your moans. Each roll of his tongue is a sweet torment, delivering sparks of pleasure to your quivering body.

“That’s not—ah!—that’s not fair.”

His mouth never leaving your pussy, he hums questioningly. “Mm?” The short syllable vibrates through your core, making you fussier.

What’s not fair? His hips grinding into the mattress? The hand that previously held you down now slipping under his boxers to rub his slick, swollen tip? Fairness is not even the last thing on his mind right now. He’s too drunk on your essence, happily suffocated between your legs, unaware of the fast pace his hand picks up on his cock. He’s fully pumping himself.

You also know you’re not making any sense. A hot blush warms your chest, travels up your neck to your ears, a thin sheen of sweat coating your skin. Your body is screaming for release, of course you don’t have any idea what you are blabbering about.

Feeling your clit pulse beneath his tongue, he waits to hear your staccato breathing, waits for the tumble of unintelligible words to fall on his ears.

“Leon, I’m… I’m—ah, fuck!”

Just before the intense wave of pleasure comes crashing down on you, he tears his mouth away from you, panting for oxygen.

“No, please,” you cry out. “Don’t be mean.”

Not wanting to deny you stimulation, he gets to work on your tit and gives it a firm squeeze for good measure before returning his fingers to your aching nipple. He toys with it, flicking, pressing down, pinching through fabric. You whine softly through it all, trying to wrap your trembling legs tighter around his head so he could return to what he was doing before.

“Please, I was about to come…”

“I know, honey, I’m sorry. I needed to breathe.” He plucks at your nipple, rolling it before returning to your sex.

This time he alternates between kitten licks and soft kisses on your clit, meant to be soothing. It feels as if he’s grazing a feather on your oversensitive, swelled up nerves. It’s so ticklish that your hips jump to chase after the phantom itch.

That’s all it takes for the overwhelming waves of pleasure to come crashing down on you. The coil in your belly snaps. Eager as ever, he presses his open and panting mouth against your cunt, moaning against the spasming flesh. Cleaning up the remnants of your climax is only a poor excuse for his lips to linger. He presses a kiss to your thigh before pulling away from between your legs, the slick coating his mouth and chin leaves your skin damp.

Taking a deep breath, he rises to sit on his knees between your thighs. Your legs drop from his shoulders. Pride fills his chest once he eyes up the litter of love-bites on your flushed skin. His doing. The rapid rise and fall of your chest. Also his doing.

Through a fucked-out smile, you say, “What? What’s so funny?”

Unaware that he’s cheesing, he shakes his head. “Nothing, honey. You look so pretty.”

“I feel nasty, though.”

He shuts you up with a kiss, making you taste yourself on his tongue.

“Mm… How about you?” you mumble into the kiss while ruffling his soft hair.

His hips are grinding against his hand in a faint rhythm, palm stroking up and down slowly. He huffs. “Keep spreading your legs and it won’t take long.”

Discerning the questioning raise of your brow, he swipes a thumb at the corner of your lip. “I’m not gonna put it in. I know you’re sensitive, baby. Trust me. Please?”

You wiggle a bit to open your legs further, trying to find a comfortable spot on the bed because the way he kept pinning you has you feeling sores on your butt. “Yeah, okay.”

Lining himself up against your slit, he hovers his cock above your puffy cunt and keeps stroking. He groans and bucks into his hand, head falling backwards. You whimper and bunch the sheets in your fists. He looks so hot. His hair is chaotically messy, lips swollen and slick, hand working desperately on his cock. Your pussy flutters at the sight.

Eyes zeroing in on your center, he says, “Show me. Hold yourself open.”

You reach down and spread yourself for him, shamelessly displaying what he wants. Your hole clenches down on nothing upon the little stretch, pulling another groan out of him.

He’s grinning, head tilted to the side. “Fuck, that’s it. Like what you see, huh?”

You nod fast, staring at the movement between your legs. It’s captivating.

Feeling devious, you lift your hips slightly to touch your pulsing clit to his red tip, directly to his precum-coated slit. Like a featherlight kiss. It sends a pleasurable shock through your entire body, you plop down on the bed again.

“Oh shit—you…” His expression tells you he’s very close.

Gripping your thigh, he jerks himself to completion against your twitching pussy. Thick spurts of cum coat your center and belly, your thighs get to have their fair share, too.

A breathless laugh escapes him, like he can’t quite believe what just happened. His gaze softens, as though clearing a daze. “I’m sorry. Let me carry you to the bathroom.”

A quiet shift lingers in the air.

He’s so silent while massaging shampoo into your hair, cocooned by your arms around his waist, water cascading over his back. His lips are set in a straight line, eyes roaming your face and coming back to meet your gaze every once in a while.

You and him, in that sacred, safe haven again.

I can hear you think. He wills you to speak without saying the words.

“You don’t need to be scared.”

His hands pause in your hair. Of what?

“The things you said at the beach yesterday… You don’t need to be scared, Leon. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you,” you continue.

He pulls you closer, cups the back of your neck and rests your head on his shoulder. I love you.

“And I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing your face. I miss it terribly when you’re away.” You nudge his neck with your nose.

He closes his eyes. I love you.

“Tell me a truth?” you whisper, watching the slow up and down of his Adam’s apple.

The urge to draw you even closer to himself is too strong. Come, live inside my skin—I’m yours, anyway. Instead, he opens his heavy-lidded eyes, locking his gaze with yours.

“I love you.”

With a slow and languid kiss, he seals his lips to yours, weaving your souls together in that tranquil, infinite moment.

“At times I think of human relationships as something soft like sand or water, and by pouring them into particular vessels we give them shape.”

― Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You

472 notes · View notes

kurogxrix · 1 month ago

Text

My Own Soul’s Warning + connected stories Masterlist

Summary : This is a series of one-shots that revolve around you, a cosmic entity who falls in love with Bucky Barnes and sacrifices everything.

Pairing : Bucky Barnes x reader (she/her)

Warnings/tags : Violence, death, trauma (ED, SA, mentions of sex (not graphic), cursing. Rio Vidal makes an appearance. Angst with a happy ending.

Note : This story was inspired by Agatha and Rio, though this has a much happier ending. Reader is the Spirit of Suffering, an immortal entity who shows herself to people in extreme physical and emotional suffering to help ease the pain.

These stories are one shots that explore Bucky x spirit of suffering! Reader organised chronologically. Let me know if you want to be tagged in these stories! Send in ideas as well if you’d like ❤️

My Own Soul’s Warning

You, an immortal being, falls in love with the very mortal Bucky Barnes. You would do anything for him, even if it meant you had to strike a deal with Death herself.

Symptom of Life

Bucky introduces Sam to his secret wife, who is still getting used to being in a human body.

Naive (coming soon)

The Sorcerer Supreme, Wong, notices that something is off with the balance of the universe. He soon realises that no one is soothing pain anymore.

I also have a story where Bucky introduces Spirit!reader to the Thunderbolts but that hasn’t been drafted yet

318 notes · View notes

kurogxrix · 1 month ago

Text

ughh i love this series sooo much

Words: 6,623 Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader Era: The Whisperers Reader pronouns: she/her Warnings: language, discussions of past trauma (nothing super graphic), discussions of violence, allusions to child abuse (Alpha to Lydia), alcohol A/N: You can find the other parts to this series on my Master List! Check out my pinned post. Previous part here!

Daryl had to ram his shoulder into the door of the little cabin a couple times before it gave way, ripping off part of the doorframe in a shower of splinters. He thought you shot him a bit of a look afterward but he couldn’t be entirely sure what your intention with it was or what it was even about. After all, you weren’t happy that he’d, umm, tagged along. He signaled for Dog to enter first and he followed after with his crossbow at the ready, but the interior of the small cabin was completely quiet.

Inside, the rooms seemed to still be stocked with almost everything someone would need to actually live there. The furniture was shrouded under sheets to keep off the dust and most of the windows had been reinforced or boarded up, although their glass was smudged and dusty and a few panes were now cracked or broken out from wayward branches or hailstones. Daryl drifted back to the front door to call you inside. He found you staring at the building with a queer expression on your face, almost a haunted look. Your arm was draped across your body to press your hand to your side right over the bandage that hid Alpha’s knife wound.

“Hey,” he said gently, snapping you out of whatever had been going on inside your head. “S’clear. C’mon.”

You nodded and whistled to Achilles, who burst out of a tree above and landed on your shoulder. The noise of his wings as he fluttered down was reminiscent of wind through leaves. You climbed up the steps and across the small wooden porch to follow Daryl in. As soon as you could, you relieved your body of the burden of your pack and quiver, setting your bow beside them as well. You started pulling the dusty coverings off the furniture and clouds of speckles drifted in what little late afternoon light could still filter through the gray panes. You moved around in a way that suggested to Daryl that you knew this place well; uncovering this but not that, running your fingers along the oak mantle over the fireplace. He drifted after you as you went into the kitchen and he watched as you thumbed open the pantry. Inside were rows and rows of dusty canned vegetables, clearly homegrown and preserved.

You seemed to have felt his eyes on you and looked over before quickly shutting the cabinet again. You squeezed past him where he was standing in the doorway, nearly brushing your body against his, and stepped back into the main room. Daryl’s heart seemed to have jumped into his throat for a moment, inexplicably. He tried to gulp it back down where it belonged.

“What is this place?” he asked you. Dog had already settled down on the rug in front of the hearth like it was an old home he’d warmed his fur in many times. But Dog had a way of making himself at home that Daryl envied.

You paused, halfway through tugging a sheet off an armchair by the fire. “A cabin,” you said, looking at him with a tinge of annoyance.

Daryl sighed and frowned at you. “Ya know that ain’t what I meant. And that ain’t just it.”

You stayed frozen there for a long moment before you finished tugging the sheet off the chair and then glanced back at him, your expression distant. “It’s just—someplace I stayed once… a long time ago,” you said vaguely.

Daryl chewed on his bottom lip and nodded. “Alrigh’,” he drawled, but you could tell he knew it was more than just that. “I’ll take the couch,” he said, tossing his pack down.

“Obviously,” you retorted. “There’s only one bed and only one of us has a stab wound.” He was surprised to hear some note of jest in your voice and he looked up to catch just the momentary wink of a smile at the corners of your mouth. “You’re far too noble to make me sleep on the couch. You barely let me walk out of that community today.”

Daryl huffed a little and sat down on the couch, his mouth tightening into a thin line for a moment. “If I’d had my way—ya wouldn’t have. Ya’d still be in that clinic with Enid watchin’ ya.”

“And probably you too,” you retorted. “Yeah, I know. I’m well aware… and now I have a tail to shake off,” you retorted, easing yourself down into the armchair you had just uncovered. Your cautious movement wasn’t lost on Daryl. Your body ached and panged. You let out a heavy sigh as you sunk into the cushions.

“Good luck. Dog can track. And so can I.”

You smiled at him, a small one that seemed almost knowing. Daryl’s brow flinched down for a brief moment. On your shoulder, Achilles let out a happy sound and his large bill began to pick through and nibble your hair as if he was preening you. Your eyes crinkled in a smile as your head tilted toward the glossy black bird. You reached up and stroked the feathers on his breast and he let out a sound that was almost like a purr. You whispered something to him that Daryl couldn’t quite hear.

“How’d ya end up with him?” Daryl asked, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees as he sat forward on the edge of the couch, his attention intense.

Your eyes met his and they were tired, but soft. “Probably the same way you ended up with Dog. He came to me,” you said. Achilles climbed down your shoulder and perched beside you on the arm of the chair. He let out a harsh click click click and looked inquisitively at Dog as he lifted his head and stared back at the bird, his head tilting and his ears at attention.

Daryl nodded. “Dog wandered up to me when he was just a pup. He started comin’ round and hangin’ at my camp,” he said. He ducked your eyes and you could tell he was holding some piece of the story back, but you didn’t begrudge it.

“Your camp?” you asked.

“Mhm,” Daryl hummed, staring down at his hands and fiddling with a rough spot on the back of his thumb. “Ain’t like I’ve always lived inside walls. Lived way more outside of ‘em. Even before the world went to shit.”

“Mm,” you acknowledged, studying his features; his wavy hair, the sharpness of his cheekbones and jawline, the scar running above and below his left eye. You stroked Achilles’ head feathers as he bent toward you in a bow, asking for attention. “Achilles was an orphan. Fell or pushed from his nest when he was far too small. Ravens are usually cared for by both parents, so I can only assume that one or both of them were lost in a storm or to predators… I’m not sure. But he was just this tiny, helpless thing. I hand fed him and kept him warm, safe. Taught him to use his wings when he was big enough. Ravens are incredibly smart. He did the rest pretty much.”

“And now he lets ya use his feathers as a thank you?” Daryl asked, mainly joking.

You caught the jest in his tone but answered more seriously. “We’re bonded. To him, it’s like the bond he’d have with a mate or family member. Ravens are highly social. As for the feathers, it’s just that black feathers are the strongest and the most resistant to wear. A convenient fact,” you said. “And he’s kind enough to share.”

“S’that true?” Daryl asked curiously.

You met his blue eyes and a strange sensation ran through you when yours connected with his. You couldn’t quite name it, but it was… almost destabilizing. You sat with it for a moment before you answered. “Yes. That’s why many white birds, like seabirds, will have black edges to the feathers on their wings and tails. The dark pigment, melanin just like in people, actually strengthens the feather structures. It’s why they work so well for fletching.” You returned to stroking Achilles’ back, watching the shine shifting in his dark feathers as he moved.

“Hmm,” Daryl hummed, nodding. “He got anymore tricks I should know about? Besides yankin’ out my hair on command?”

You allowed yourself a small amused exhale and Daryl liked how the corners of your mouth turned up subtly and stayed there. He thought it was maybe the first actual smile he’d seen on you since he’d looked up at you in that damn tree as you told him to forget about you.

“He can talk, mimic sounds he hears. But he’s not a parrot. He won’t do it on command. Ravens are—” you paused thoughtfully, searching for the right word. “—suspicious. He’s not comfortable around new people or even new objects sometimes… Everything must be thoroughly vetted,” you explained. “If he does talk around someone, it means he’s comfortable. That he’s accepted them. They’re very wary.”

Kinda like you, Daryl thought. But he didn’t speak it. He nodded and glanced at Dog who had gone back to snoozing. “Hungry?” he asked you, climbing to his feet.

“Not really.”

“Well, too bad. ‘Cause ya gotta eat somethin’. Need to get your strength back up. Ya’ve got a lot of healin’ to do.” He started toward the kitchen and your eyes followed him across the room and through the doorway.

“You’re gonna cook?” you called after him. Achilles took off from his place on the arm of the chair and soared over to a large armoire and perched on the top.

He appeared in the doorway again and the expression on his face nearly made you laugh. “What? Ya think I can’t cook?” You shrugged and now did laugh a little. “Alrigh’, I may not be no damn chef but I can cook. I mean, it’ll at least be edible.”

“Well, that generally is the most important quality in food—that it’s edible,” you said, pushing yourself up to stand, wrapping an arm around your midsection again and pausing as some pain shot through you.

“Would ya just sit down and—”

“You aren’t exactly inspiring confidence in me about your kitchen skills,” you argued.

“Nah,” he scolded you, shaking his head. “Sit yer ass down. Now ‘m gonna really have to figure somethin’ out in here,” he drawled. “Ya should be restin’ and I dun want ya breathin’ down my damn neck while ‘m workin’ out here.”

“Breathing down your neck?” you laughed. “Christ, I wasn’t planning on that.”

“Well, I dun want ya—supervisin’ or starin’ or judgin’ me anyhow, so sit back down,” he scolded you again.

You considered him for a long moment but being on your feet again reminded you of how tired you were. “Fine. I’ll just get a fire going and then I’ll sit out here with Dog. Just try not to burn the place down or waste my ingredients, would you?”

Daryl rolled his eyes but disappeared back into the kitchen. You soon heard the clanking of pots and pans and the slamming of cabinet doors. You glanced up at the armoire to see that Achilles had made himself comfortable and tucked his head under his wing for a nap.

“Hey—anywhere to get water ‘round here?” he called out from the kitchen.

“There’s a covered well out back—least… there was when I was last here. But you should probably boil the water just in case,” you said.

You heard the back door being unlocked and tugged open. Dog lifted his head from his paws to look toward the kitchen, apparently concerned about his master leaving.

“He’ll be back,” you told the Malinois. You walked over to the hearth and Dog’s eyes followed you. You sank down to sit on the hearth, wincing at the pain running through your torso. “Fuck,” you murmured, wrapping you hand around your middle again.

Dog tilted his head and whined lightly, looking at you with bright, inquisitive eyes.

“Oh, hush. I’m fine. I don’t need you worrying about me too,” you told him, straightening and turning your attention back to the fireplace. You leaned in and opened the flue, wiping the dark smudges of soot that transferred to your hand on your pants. The basket beside the hearth still had faded newspapers, tinder and kindling piled in it and there was a large stack of dry wood beside it too, now shrouded in cobwebs and coated in dust. But you reflected on the fact that it really looked like no one had been here since you’d left… and that had been years ago.

As you busied yourself with getting a fire started, you heard Daryl enter the kitchen and get back to whatever he was doing in there. You soon had a happy blaze crackling away and it cheered and soothed you instantly, casting the previously gloomy and neglected interior in a warm glow.

Dog had already settled his head back down on his paws, but as the flames licked around the logs, he shifted more closely to it and it drew an appreciative chuckle from you. You slipped off the stone ledge of the hearth and knelt beside him on the floor. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” Dog let out a content sigh and closed his eyes, the fire warming his back. You sunk your fingers into his soft fur and he quickly exposed his chest and belly for scratches, which you provided with a smile. In no time, Dog was snoozing on his side again and you propped your back against the stone ledge of the fireplace. It warmed your back and shoulders. It felt good. It helped your focus on something besides the pain in your body from your fight with Alpha. Your fingers ran through Dog’s thick fur absently, almost meditatively, and you let your mind drift for the first time since you’d left The Hilltop.

Daryl appeared in the doorway and looked in, surprised to see you nearly cuddled up with Dog on the floor. You must have felt him looking at you because you glanced up, and it was like a lightning bolt shot through him at the exact moment your eyes met his. His heart jumped in his chest and he found himself inexplicably nervous. “Dog’s won ya over, huh?” he drawled. “I might have to ask him for some tips.”

“Not anything you could emulate,” you joked.

“Nothin’?”

“He’s not a person. I tend to prefer most animals to people.”

Daryl smiled briefly. “Yeah. I think tha’s fair.” He ran a hand nervously over the back of his neck. “Well—food s’almost done. Can’t say whether it’s any good or not—”

“It smells good,” you remarked. “Even if I don’t feel much like eating.” You started to try to climb to your feet, grimacing and struggling to even get your feet under you at all, let alone stand up. Daryl hesitated for a split second before rushing over.

“Uhh—can I—can I please help ya up before ya rip a damn stitch?” he asked.

You struggled for one more second, but sore and exhausted, you relented and gave him a hesitant nod. He extended his hands and you delayed a moment longer, looking unsure, before placing yours in his. He gently pulled you to your feet and for some strange reason the two of you were frozen for a moment. The time had passed when he should have let go and you both felt it. Your breath seemed caught in your throat until he finally slipped his hands softly away from yours, tingles left behind like the ghosts of his touch, and he cleared his throat. “I’ll just go check on the—the food. Ya should go sit down,” he drawled, and he made a hasty exit for the kitchen.

Ten more minutes passed and Daryl came out with two steaming bowls. Funny enough, both Dog and Achilles perked up as he handed one to you where you had sunk into the armchair again. “S’just—some dried beans and bunch of those canned veggies ya had in there. Tomatoes, onions, garlic, uhh… peppers, I think? Careful. Bowl is hot.”

“Thank you,” you murmured, accepting it by the top edge of the bowl. Your fingertips brushed the back of his hand and Daryl swore there was a static charge, though you didn’t seem to react as if you’d been shocked. Achilles stretched and then fluttered over to perch on the back of your chair, letting out a squawk and interested trill as he peered over your shoulder at what was in your bowl, tilting his glossy black head this way and that. Dog trotted over to beg at Daryl’s side and while he watched Daryl eat, a string of drool grew in length until it touched Daryl’s knee and pooled a bit on his black pants.

He let out a disgusted noise. “Agh… Dog! Dammit, get back!”

You couldn’t help chuckling a little as you scraped at the last of your meal.

Daryl looked up in surprise. “What? Yer laughin’?”

You glanced up still smiling and shrugged a little. “Maybe,” you said, unable to hide another chuckle at his expense.

“Yeah, real nice. After I cooked ya this five-star meal,” he joked.

“It was actually pretty good,” you admitted. “Maybe I was hungry after all.”

“Ya should be,” he murmured, chewing his last bite and wiping at his mouth with his sleeve. “Ya ain’t had anything in how many days?” He stood and came to collect your bowl.

“No—I’ll deal with the dishes,” you argued. “You cooked.”

“Nah—look at ya,” he growled, taking your bowl. “Ya can barely stand up. And ya sure as shit ain’t haulin’ more water like that. Just lemme do this.”

You watched his broad shoulders retreat toward the kitchen. “I can stand you know! We walked how many miles today?”

His voice rang out from the kitchen again. “Exactly. Ya did yer standin’ and walkin’. More than ya shoulda. Ya should’ve been in bed all damn day!”

You rolled your eyes but got to your feet anyway and threw a couple more logs onto the fire, blowing on the coals to get them to catch. Dog came back to the rug in front of the hearth and circled a few times before laying down. You wandered over to a painting hanging over a long, low bookshelf. It depicted an early morning landscape shrouded in fog. The grass was luminescent with dew and you could practically taste the verdant smell of the meadow as you looked at it. But you lifted a hand and nudged it aside. It swung on the wire hanging over the nail and revealed a little nook behind it.

Daryl was walking back out of the kitchen and froze at the threshold. “What’re ya doin’?” he asked, his brow furrowed. He watched curiously as you withdrew a glass bottle and then replaced the painting. You straightened it carefully before you looked over at him.

You held it up so the light from the fire cascaded through the deep amber liquid inside.

He frowned. “Uhh… should ya be drinkin’ in yer condition?”

This drew another dry laugh from you. “I’m not pregnant. I have a knife wound. And… some other bruises. It’s fine.”

His brow furrowed. “Dun ya have a concussion?”

“It’ll be fine. Look—I need something to take the edge off, alright?”

“Yeah, ya should’ve stayed in the clinic,” he said for what felt like the fiftieth time that day. “Enid woulda had pain meds for ya.”

“Well, I didn’t,” you replied. “Am I drinking alone or what?”

He fixed a long stare on you and then sighed, giving in.

“Great. Get some cups from the kitchen, would you?”

He returned with two mugs and handed you one. You poured in a healthy share of whiskey and then held the bottle up to offer him some. He held his mug out. “Not sure I should be encouraging this…”

“Come on. After all the trauma I just went through you can’t let me drink alone,” you joked wryly.

He shook his head at you but took his glass over to the couch and sat down, planting his boots up on the coffee table and taking an exploratory sip. “Mmm. S’pretty damn good whiskey.”

“Yep. Medicinal grade,” you said, gulping down a good amount. You were hoping it would ease not only the pain in your body, but quiet your anxious thoughts a little too. A slightly fuzzy head sounded good at the moment. Either way, a nightcap hit the spot after the decent meal and with the fire crackling in the fireplace… You could almost forget outside was a hellish nightmare of death and violence. Almost. You never could completely forget.

“Pretty nice place ya got here. And pretty well stocked,” Daryl said, interrupting your train of thought.

“Who says it’s my place?” your retorted.

“You did.”

“No. I just said I stayed here once.”

Daryl gave you a knowing look. “Alrigh’. Maybe ya didn’t say exactly, but ya know where the damn hidden booze stash is… And I could tell even before that. Ya moved around in here like ya knew it. But… ya left so many things behind, especially all that food in the kitchen. Ain’t exactly like ya can walk down to the grocery store and pick up what ya need anywhere.”

You ducked his gaze and ran a finger over the curving handle of the mug in your hand. You raised it to your lips and took another big sip. The burn down your throat and into your stomach felt good.

“Ya have to leave here in a hurry?” he asked. You didn’t answer, but Daryl didn’t seem to need you to and he wasn’t deterred. If you had looked up, you would have seen his blue eyes narrowed perceptively, flickering over your features. “Ya left it all here on purpose. As a… like a safehouse,” he said, nodding. He didn’t ask it as a question. “As a ‘just in case’,” he finished. “Yeah. Ya seem to live your whole life with a ‘just in case’.”

You looked up at him, your brow slightly furrowed. “What does that mean?” you asked, an edge to your tone.

He shrugged. “Nothin’. Sorry. I dun mean anythin’ bad by it. Prob’ly just means—ya didn’t have a ‘just in case’ sometime when ya needed it. And ya ain’t ‘bout to make that mistake twice.”

You gulped, feeling how exquisitely close to the mark he was deep in your midsection as a tense knot materializing somewhere behind your navel. You downed the last of your whiskey and eyed the bottle again.

“Must be a lot for ya to have me here, lettin’ somebody else know ‘bout it. Thanks for trustin’ me that much.” You did. You didn’t know why, but you did. You couldn’t even remember the last time you’d trusted some—wait. Yes, you could. “Ya won’t tell me a thing more about ya? About what’s happened to ya?” he asked. “Bout the trees? Bein’ up there?” His voice was gentle and patient. Your eyes flickered back over to where he was sitting reclined on the couch, his hands absently twirling his mug.

“Why do you want to know my story?” you asked in a low voice.

He shrugged. “‘M just—tryin’ to understand ya,” he drawled.

Your brow furrowed. “But why?” you asked softly. “Why does it matter?”

Daryl fiddled with his now empty mug and shrugged again. “It just does. To me. Ya saved my life and I can’t shake the feeling that yer in somethin’ with these Whisperers, Shepherds as ya call ‘em. And if ya are, I want ya to know that ya dun gotta do it alone. My place, the communities ‘m tied to, they’re full of good people. People who’d help ya. People who did help ya.”

“And this has nothing to do with the fact that I recognized Lydia and know about The Shepherds? All these questions,” you said.

“No. But I ain’t gonna lie and say I don’t wish ya’d just tell me what ya know.”

You grabbed the bottle and poured in a generous amount of whiskey again. You leaned forward, ignoring how it sent a sharp pain through your stomach, and set the bottle in front of him on the coffee table. You considered him for a long moment. You thought about his people who had saved you, about the place they’d brought you to. It had seemed wholly good. He seemed wholly good. Your gut was telling you, over and over, that you could trust him. It had told you that since the night he’d ended up at your tree in the storm. But you’d been wrong before and you had to consider this all carefully. What harm could come from opening up, just a little bit, to this one person? Logically, you didn’t think much, but it still felt… scary. You took a small sip of whiskey and let it sit on your tongue a moment, the smokiness of the oak. “I can’t really tell you one without the other, I suppose.”

“What d’ya mean?”

“About them and about me, at least some of it. In some—sick way, we’re connected.” You froze for a moment, truly wondering where to start. Daryl leaned forward and poured another share of whiskey into his glass before sitting on the edge of the couch, leaned forward, ready to listen intently. “I know a lot about The Shepherds,” you said. “More than probably anyone alive who isn’t one of them.” You gulped and tried to suppress the flashbacks that were threatening to surge forward. Your hand shook as you raised your mug to your lips again and took a big drink. “Alpha is not someone you want to fuck with lightly. She’s ruthless, even to her own people. The things I’ve seen her do—” You broke off and shook your head, shutting your eyes for a moment as you tried to retain your composure. You licked your lips and went on. “Look, without going into my whole backstory since the world went to shit—I was part of a community once. One that was probably a lot like yours. All of a sudden, Alpha comes out of nowhere and starts telling us that we’re trespassing on her lands when we’re hunting the same areas we’d been hunting for years. She threatened us with consequences if we didn’t pay attention to her borders. But the reality was that we had hungry people, hungry kids to feed. It was winter and game was already scarce. Supplies were tight. I wasn’t going to wait around listening to the leaders sitting on their asses talking while kids starved. I went out and hunted like I felt I had a right to. The way I had been…” You felt as if a concrete block had just materialized on your chest. It was built of residual anger and grief and guilt and blame… “‘Fuck her borders,’ I thought.” You averted your eyes to stare down into your mug, swirling the whiskey inside and chewing on your bottom lip. Daryl swore he could see the color draining from your face. “One of them saw me. Of course they did… we didn’t know they wore the dead’s faces then... But I figured it out real quick when what I thought was a walker started attacking me with a knife. That one and two more ended up dead.” You sighed and your head fell back against the chair. Achilles, still perched on the back, picked at your hair and let out a soft rasp. “If they’d managed to kill me, that might’ve just been the end of it,” you thought aloud. “Probably not. But maybe.”

Daryl gulped. He had a bad feeling about where this was going. “What happened after that?”

You let out a dry laugh and blinked away the moisture burning in your eyes. “Alpha went back to my community, where the leaders themselves were enjoying the venison and rabbit and quail I had shot, and offered them a deal. But she didn’t come alone this time. She brought a horde with her, and delivered a note into their hands. A final warning. If no one else crossed her borders again, she would leave the community alone. But there was a caveat. She wanted me in exchange,” you said.

“Dun tell me they—” but Daryl broke off, reading the answer on your face. He couldn’t even begin to contemplate that level of betrayal.

“They did. More than that, they did it right proper, with a vote. Yay, democracy,” you said wryly. “They traded me for their safety. Turns out one of the ones I killed was Alpha’s number two. Beta. Not the same Beta she has now, obviously. A different one. And she was pissed. She was pissed that I’d killed them, but more than that she was pissed that I had defied her, ignored her. If there’s one thing Alpha hates, it’s people who aren’t intimidated by her. She wants people scared, even her own. It makes her feel… powerful.”

Daryl stared down into his mug and then downed the whole thing. “I’ve known—plenty of people like that.”

You nodded. “Yeah. They seem to do well these days.”

“So, what? They took ya prisoner? And your community just went on livin’?” The rage in his chest was starting to boil over.

“Not exactly.”

Daryl’s brow was low over his blue eyes, casting them in shadow. “So, what happened?”

“I was taken to Alpha’s camp as a prisoner,” you said, resting your hand over the knife wound again, which seemed to pulse and burn as you talked about the one who’d given it to you. “I think I’ll—I’ll gloss over the finer points of that experience…” Your voice went soft and trailed away.

He ducked his head. Though across the room, he could feel the waves of pain and suffering radiating off you. He cleared his throat finally so you’d look up at him again. “Look, ‘m sorry. Ya dun gotta tell me any more of this if—if it’s too—”

“We already started,” you said, straightening up again. “Might as well finish.”

He nodded. “Where’d Lydia come in?” Daryl asked.

Your expression unstiffened, became less stony. “She was really just a kid then. Little. I saw Alpha beat the shit out of her countless times for screwing up, which was really just being a kid with normal needs. Sometimes, at night when she couldn’t sleep which was often, Lydia would come and talk to me. She’d ask me questions about the old world or about where I came from. Bring me whatever little bit of food or water she could. There was a—a kindness in her that her mother couldn’t kill. But it didn’t stop her from trying. Eventually, Lydia saw that they were going to kill me. I was going to die. Whether it would be from exposure, or hunger, or sickness, or the fighting, or whether Alpha just decided ‘today is the day’… neither of us knew, but I was going to die there.”

Daryl drew in a sharp breath as he realized. “She let ya go. Lydia.”

You nodded. “Yeah. And I tried to take her with me, to convince her that she didn’t deserve everything her mother—” you broke off and shook your head. “She wouldn’t. She was young. She was afraid. She almost didn’t remember any other kind of life…” Daryl watched you wince at the thought of leaving her behind.

“S’not yer fault,” he said. You looked up at him quickly, vague surprise on your face. “Ya tried. Ya can’t help people if they ain’t ready for it.”

You let out a wry laugh. “That sounds familiar… considering recent events,” you joked, giving him a semi-sheepish look.

“So, what happened after ya escaped?”

“I… went back. After what I’d seen out there, I had to try and warn them. Even if they’d traded me like a fucking sack of corn, I had to tell them. They betrayed me, maybe as good as killed me in some ways, but there were plenty of people in there who didn’t deserve what would come from The Shepherds, from Alpha. They were scared…”

Daryl’s brow furrowed more heavily. He stared in disbelief. “Ya went back… to the damn people who—”

“No.”

“No?” he repeated, confused.

Tears welled up in your eyes again and you fought against them, blinking rapidly to clear the blur. “No. I was too late. There was… nothing to go back to. No one. They were all dead. The whole place was ransacked, destroyed. Alpha had brought her horde in. She’d lied. There was never any fucking deal. She put the community board’s heads on pikes,” you said, your face distorting in disgust and anger as you remembered it, could almost taste the copper in the air.

Daryl’s heart sunk into his boots. “Fuck… ‘m—‘m sorry.” The distant look grew in your eyes again. You seemed to fade away, behind some gray veil where he wasn’t sure he’d be able to reach you again. Your voice drifted out from behind it.

“I still wonder if I hadn’t gone out hunting there again,” you shook your head, “maybe none of it would have turned out that way. All those people… families. Kids. They’d still be alive. Maybe the community would still be standing.”

Daryl’s chest ached. He felt hollow. Not just because of what you were telling him, of what had happened to you, but at the thought that it might happen to the people he cared about—The Hilltop, Alexandria. “Look, I’ve done things—things that I felt led—to some real bad shit happenin’. Got people killed.” Flashbacks of the line-up burst behind his eyes and he had to close them for a moment and steel himself before he could go on. “But we dun get to know. We don’t. It ain’t how it works. So, ya can’t keep on carryin’ that guilt. Maybe shit woulda turned out different, but maybe it woulda turned out exactly the same. Hell, maybe it woulda been worse. Ya made a choice to try and feed some of yours. Ain’t no blame in that.”

You looked up at him for a long moment and finally sighed. “After that, I just… I left. I hid.”

“Here?” Daryl asked.

You nodded. “Yeah. I found it and I built it into some kind of a life until I was ready to go after them.”

“Alpha.”

“And the others. She has a lot of loyal followers who are nearly as fucked up as her. If I get the chance to take them out, I do.”

Daryl set down his empty mug and clasped his hands between his knees. “Why was Lydia so angry with ya? When we went to see her at The Hilltop?”

“Because I’m killing them. Because she knows I want to kill Alpha. Because she knows she should have left with me? I don’t know. All of the above.”

Daryl’s mind was whirling, but he could see that you were exhausted, physically and now emotionally. “Thanks for tellin’ me,” he said. “I mean it. That—that can’t be easy to talk about. And… I understand why ya felt—unsafe at The Hilltop. It’s a community and it’s got people and I sure as shit would have some fuckin’ trust issues after that,” he said.

You let out an amused exhale. “Trust issues? Who says I have trust issues?”

“Oh—Nah, I—No, I didn’t—”

You let out a laugh and it broke the tension immediately. “Relax, Daryl. I’m kidding. You nailed it. But—I also suspect you may have some,” you said perceptively.

“Me?” he retorted. “Nah, I trust ev’rybody. ‘M a real open book…”

“Uh huh…” You leaned to one side as Achilles suddenly took off and landed almost silently on the rug beside Dog. He hopped closer and tilted his head one way and another, puffing up the feathers on his head and chest. Dog lifted his head lazily and turned to look at the bird. Achilles let out a low croak and strutted closer. “Achilles,” you said in a warning tone. “Be nice.”

He flapped his wings a little and walked around toward Dog’s tail. “Achilles…” But the raven showed no sign he was listening. He took a hop toward Dog’s long tail, the Malinois looking on, and then seemed to consider something for a moment. He made an exploratory grab at Dog’s tail, which the Malinois quickly flicked away and punctuated the action with a low growl. Achilles’ head tilted this way and that, thoughtfully, but the next second he hopped closer and repeated the annoyance. Dog rearranged himself more strategically on the rug, flicking his tail away again and curling his front toward the bird. He let out an annoyed noise. Achilles flapped his wings and gurgled, taking in Dog’s much closer muzzle and watchful gaze. Then, apparently undeterred, he darted forward, took hold of the end of Dog’s tail in his bill, and pulled. Dog lunged and barked. “Achilles!” you scolded him as he flew away with his prize, a tuft of Dog’s fur, and soared a victory lap around the room back up to the top of the armoire again.

Daryl couldn’t help himself and laughed at the bird’s antics. You rolled your eyes. “Don’t encourage his bad behavior,” you said. “Achilles, come on!” you said, pushing yourself up to stand. “Bedtime. Let’s go.” You held out your arm and he soared over and landed gracefully. You scratched his head affectionately. “Sorry, Dog. He can be pretty incorrigible.” The Malinois blinked at you, sighed, and went back to sleep. “Alright,” you sighed. “I’m pretty tired so… I think I’ll turn in.”

“Yeah. Yeah, good idea,” Daryl said, standing abruptly and awkwardly rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Dog and I will hold down the fort out here…”

You nodded and started toward the door that led to the bedroom. “Night.”

“Night…”

When you got to the threshold, you looked back at him. “I meant what I said, you know. About Alpha. You and yours should take The Shepherds seriously. Especially since you have Lydia, the whole community could be in danger. To her, Lydia is a possession.”

He nodded, a little confused by the abrupt warning. “Yeah. I got it. Thanks again, for tellin’ me.”

With another nod, you disappeared into the bedroom and shut the door softly behind you.

91 notes · View notes