#[ FINALLY GETTING STUFF DONE SNOW ] | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

a-aexotic · 2 years

Note

HEYYYY! So like every other mf on the planet right now I am in my hunger games era!!

Please could you write a Finnick x Reader where she is selected for the quarter quell (Maybe in her games she was lethal and killed like 10+ people?)

And when Katniss shoots the arena in catching fire she gets taken by the capitol (Like Peeta) and they torture her and shit? Then Finnick and her get there reunion she’s all like battered and bruided and it’s dead sad? Not sure if this made sense because i’m half asleep and dyselxic but let me know😭🤣

Maybe he says “It’s okay baby i got you” ??? x

hey of course i can! i hope u enjoy it babe <3 its a tiny bit long! my apologizes

cw's: angst, mentions of killing/dying, typical thg stuff, torture, ptsd, lmk if i missed anything

You were one of the youngest victors alongside Finnick, being only 15 and having won your games. You were also from District 4. You won the 68th Hunger Games, a few years after Finnick.

When you were reaped, Finnick and Mags were your mentors. Finnick came off as self absorbed and arrogant but once you started talking to him, the more you realized that was total bullshit. He wasn't how the Capitol portrayed him, he was much more caring and compassionate. He was very sympathetic to your situation, having gone through the same things.

During your time in the arena, you were one of the most ruthless tributes of all time. In the beginning, you were easily overlooked. The tributes weren't thinking that you were going to be much of a challenge because of your size and the way you carried yourself.

But that was exactly how you wanted to be portrayed. You tricked the Careers into thinking you were some naïve little girl, stabbing them in the back (literally) the first chance you got. The Capitol loved the turn of events, cheering you on.

When you had come back home, you had finally understood the intensity of what you had done. You had killed a whole group of people, ending their lives permanently. Those people had lives and family who loved them, and now they're gone because of you.

You suffered through months and months from never ending nightmares. Even getting consoled by your mother didn't help anymore; she doesn't understand. You didn't even feel worthy of food anymore.

You closed off Mags and Finnick when you had come home, driving yourself into isolation and depression. You rarely went out anymore, eating one meal a day and slept more than 80% of the day. Even sleeping couldn't mend the eternal tiredness you had, the void that filled your body.

Finnick had felt more than responsible for your pain. He gave you time before he realized he was just adding to your pain. Even when you didn't communicate back to him, Finnick visited you every day. He gave you advice and told you what he had went through after the Games as well. Eventually you opened up more to Finnick, and slowly, he had become your best friend.

He had told you that numbing it wasn't going to make it go away. He reminded you that you had him and Mags to help you with this process, and that you weren't alone despite of how you felt.

He helped you regain your sense of purpose again, your self image again. Finnick had singlehandedly helped you rebuilt your sense of self again.

He saw a part of you in him, that scared 14 year old boy who was trying to go back home to his parents. He never wanted anyone to feel that, especially you.

He promised you that he would never let anything bad ever happen to you again.

During your Victor's tour, Snow had suddenly deemed you desirable by the Capitol, wanting to sell you as he did with Finnick. Finnick couldn't risk getting involved, wanting to protect his family.

Every night in the Capitol, you were always consoled by Finnick. Every time you had to do a favor, you remember walking to Finnick's room to sleep, not baring the thought of having to sleep alone in the cold bed. He was always there, holding your hand comfortingly as you both slept.

The Capitol adored you both, nicknaming you the princess and prince of Panem. The more time you spent with Finnick, the more the media had speculated a relationship between the young victors.

You and Finnick had connected in many ways. Both having the same trauma, it was easy to talk to him and for him to understand how hard it was.

You and Finnick eventually got together a few years later, then getting married (in secret, of course) almost right after. You were both deeply in love.

Finnick found solace in the thought of always having you by his side, remembering that no one could tear you apart. That was until the Quarter Quell was announced.

You and Finnick were sitting at the edge of the couch, listening to Caesar's words carefully as he explained that this year's Hunger Games was going to be very different.

When it was announced that there will be only be Victors in this year's games, you heard dropped. You looked over at Finnick and he shared the same terrified look on his face.

When Annie's name had been called, you without any second thought, put up your hand. "I volunteer as tribute."

The crowd gasped and you looked over at Annie and you could tell she was a bit relived but still scared nonetheless. You immediately embraced her tightly, letting her let out a small sob. "It's okay, you're okay."

Mags looked just as terrified and you took her hand. When Finnick's name was called, you felt your stomach drop. Not only were you back in the arena, but you were with Finnick.

You looked over at Finnick and he looked prepared to fight. You both stood up and he grabbed your hand, raising it up in union.

The trainride to the Capitol was pretty uneventful. Finnick had wanted some time to think about the plan and so did you. A part of you knew what he was planning; he kill everyone else in the arena and then eventually himself, all for you.

As you sat on the bed, you felt the sadness and anger turn into numbness. No amount of crying was going to stop the Quater Quell and you had to be smart.

You didn't want to survive without Finnick. You were either winning with him or dying with him. Life would be meaningless without him.

Finnick knocked on your door slightly, before walking in. You looked up at him and he gave you a small smile. He took a seat next to and took your hand.

"I have a plan."

"Finnick, I know what you're thinking, and no. You're not killing yourself for me."

Finnick looked defeated. "One of us has to survive, Y/N. For Annie. For Mags."

You look a deep inhale, looking away from Finnick. "I don't want to life without you, everything would lose all it's meaning without you."

Finnick felt his heart burst into two pieces as he squeezed your hand. You felt your eyes watering again and you couldn't help but let out another quiet cry as Finnick pulled your head in, as he embraced you tightly.

"Shh, it's okay. I promise, I won't... I won't leave you."

It had all happened so fast, you couldn't even comprehend what had just happened. One moment, you were with Finnick trying to find Johanna and Katniss and suddenly there was big loud boom. You were relieved for a moment; Plutarch's plan had worked. Until you realized how far away you were from the others.

You were wandering, trying to find anyone until you heard people behind you. You turned and then you saw some unfamiliar faces; suddenly, your vision went black.

Then, you woke up in a white room. You felt like your stomach had dropped out of your body once the realization hit you; the Capitol captured you.

You were strapped down to a bed and you couldn't move or shake it off. The severity of the situation had hit you; even if by some miracle you did escape, where would you go? How would you find your way to 13 and back to Finnick?

You knew how ruthless the Capitol was to everyone who disobeyed them. Your worst fears had come true and there was no getting out of here.

You heard the door open and you saw some Peacekeepers come in and then you saw the person you dreaded to see most; Snow. You felt like your whole had come crashing down, how could this nightmare become any worse?

"Hello, Y/N."

You didn't respond, resorting to stare at the wall in front of you instead.

He tutted disappointedly. "Out of all the tributes, you were the one I expected least to be involved in this mess. You are the Princess of Panem... What a shame."

You still hadn't replied and you hadn't dared to look at Snow. Months and months you spent trying to heal the trauma he had caused you, you were sure if you had to look at him now, you would break.

"I want to take mercy on you, dear Y/N. If you tell me everything you know about the rebellion, I will make sure the Peacekeepers are gentle with you."

You shook your head. "No."

He let out a small chuckle. "Sorry, I couldn't hear you. What?"

"No." You said again, louder.

He hummed in disapproval. "Okay then, you leave me no choice. You are going to regret this."

He nodded to the Peacekeepers and walked out of the room. You were then met with Peacekeepers, loosening the straps then taking you to another room.

If Snow knew one thing about you, it was that being only physical with you wouldn't hurt you enough. He had to hit you were it hurt most.

They threw you in the seemingly vacant room and immediately locking it. You were confused until you heard it.

"Y/N, help me!" Finnick's voice screamed. "Please, help me! Get up and do something, they're killing me! Please."

You looked everywhere in the dark room, trying to find the source. It kept going.

"Y/N, please! Help! What the hell are you doing, just sitting there? You are such a disappointment!" The voice started shouting. "We should've just left you to died in the arena! You are useless!"

Now this was something new. Your body was filled with panic and fear and even though you knew it was fake, you felt like you were going to throw up from all the noise.

Suddenly, Annie's voice came in as well. Then Johanna's. Then your mother's. There was nonstop noise filled with screams for help, shouting with disapproving messages. Your body couldn't handle it; it was so overwhelmed with fear that you started shaking on the ground, putting your hands on your ears but that did little to nothing.

You wanted it to stop. It was too much, you were trembling. It felt like days, just sitting there in that room listening to all those demeaning voices of your loved ones. You couldn't even think straight anymore.

It was so bad you had started to pound your head on the ground, screaming and crying. You had have enough. And then, it all stopped. Silence was foreign for you; your ears were ringing.

You were sitting on the ground, almost lifeless as the Peacekeepers took you away. Your eyes hurt from the tears, your body sore, your ears ringing and your head was pounding.

But you knew that was just the beginning.

You were asleep in bed and you were awakened by the door opening, you instantly jolted up. You looked over to see a group of masked men in front of you and you had started to tremble again, silent tears rolling down your face, thinking that the Peacekeepers had come again.

"No, no, no." You started to mumble to yourself.

A man came up to your and took your bruised hand slowly, rubbing it gently in silent empathy. That was the first soft touch you'd felt in a few weeks and it almost stung.

"It's okay, you're safe now. You're going to 13 now."

You had to blink a couple times, trying to process what he said. Was this a dream? You went to pinch yourself but it was real life.

He then helped you up but you couldn't help but stumble; your legs were weak, you couldn't remember the last time the Peacekeepers let you walk for this long.

As you got into the hovercraft, you saw Annie. Your eyes widened as you both ran up to each other, embracing each other. She had started to cry a little bit and so did you.

That was when it hit you. You were going to see Finnick. You were going home. You started crying into Annie's shoulder as she held you. "We're safe now, we're safe."

You had seen Johanna as well but she didn't seem too responsive. Neither did Peeta. You fell asleep on Annie's shoulder on the ride back and for the first time, you actually felt yourself drifting off calmly.

There were lots of doctors and nurses looking at you and asking you all sorts of questions and you tried your best to answer them. You were still in shock; you were safe. They couldn't hurt you anymore.

"Y/N?" You turned around to see Finnick. You immediately got up from the examiner's table and ran into his arms, your eyes starting to water up again.

"Finnick," you sighed slowly. You pulled away, putting your hands on his face and touched him as if he wasn't real.

"Are you.. Are you really here?"

"Yes, I'm really here." Finnick looked at you and suddenly his voice transported you back into the dark room. You quickly twisted out of his embrace and his expression changed.

His voice was back and you heard all of the nasty things he had to you. You back away, stumbling into the examiner's table and your breathing became heavy. "No, no, no, please-please go away. No."

You slid down to the floor and you closed your eyes, putting your hands on your ears and rocking back and forth trying to get that voice to stop.

Finnick ran up to you and put his hands on your knees, trying to get you to look at him. His heart broke in half; he didn't know what the Capitol had done to you but now he knows it has something to do with him.

Of course the Capitol would try to ruin him. His eyes started to tear up at the sight of you, in so much pain and panic.

You opened your eyes, Finnick in front of you. You started to cry some more before Finnick slowly went up to you, wrapping his arms around you.

When he had started wrapping your arms around you, your instinct was to push him away but his warmth was welcoming and safe and you started to focus on his touch. The voices slowly drifted away, the sounds of your silent sobs only being heard.

You then gave into Finnick's touch, falling into him and putting your head in his chest as he caressed your back gently, shushing you.

"It's okay baby, I got you. You're safe now, they can't hurt you."

6K notes · View notes

dumblilb · 1 year

Text

I KNEW THEN

Ellie Williams x Fem!Reader

(Synopsis: You have loved Ellie since the moment she moved to Jackson. You just didn’t know it at the time. Inspired by Graceland Too by Phoebe Bridgers.)

(Warnings: SMUT 18+ MDNI, smut with way to much backstory lmao, switch!Ellie, switch!reader, oral (reader and Ellie receiving), fingering, friends to lovers, tlou!au, smoking weed, cursing, fluff)

(Words: 3629)

You had been in Jackson about a year before Ellie had showed up. So when her and Joel moved in next door, your parents practically shoved you out of the house to go invite them to dinner.

You knocked on the door messing with the hem of your shirt. Till it swung open and a scruffy looking man stood in front of you.

“H-hello.” You stuttered out.

“Hi there.” Joel says and you muster up your best smile.

“I live next door and me and my parents were wondering if you guys would like to come over for dinner?” You explain. You can tell the man is tired and you expect him to say no. But he gives a polite grin and nods.

“What time?” He asks and your face lights up.

“Six.” You smile.

“See you then.” He says and shuts the door as you walk off. You couldn’t help but feel giddy at the thought of him bringing the new girl in town over. You had seen her a few months back when they first found tommy. She was walking with Maria in town and you had bumped into them. The girl took a knife out of her pocket and held it to face you. You were so startled you fell back onto the snow covered floor.

“Ellie there’s no need for that.” Maria says and the girl lowers the knife as Maria helps you up.

“Sorry y/n.” She apologizes. And you dust your clothes off.

“It’s fine. I should have been watching where I was going.” You say as the girl next to her just stared at you. She had really pretty green eyes and freckles covering her frosty cheeks.

“Y/n this is Ellie. She’s a friend of Tommy’s brother.” Maria explains and you stick out a hand to shake. She looks at you funny but returns the gesture.

“Nice to meet you, I guess.” She says and you just smile ignoring that last bit.

“You too.” You say and they continue to walk leaving you to stare at the auburn haired girl.

You hadn’t been able to forget her since. She just seemed so cool and grown up compared to you. Even though you found out from your mom when they moved in that she’s the same age as you.

So as you ran home you thought of all the stuff you needed to do to get ready for tonight. You wanted her to like you.

You went into your room and shut the door loudly behind you. You stood in front of the mirror wondering if you should change your hairstyle up, or if you should put on some perfume. You changed your shirt twice and ended up laying on your bed, annoyed at the way your jeans fit, when your mom walked in.

“Are they coming over?” She asks taking in your newly messy room.

“Yeah at 6.” You say and she smiles.

“You better clean up then. What if she wants to see your room.” She teases you and you shoot up right. Looking around at the clothes scattered on your floor and the mess displayed on your vanity. You gasp internally. ‘Oh no’ is all you could think before you started to pile clothes into your hands and rush them to the laundry. Your mom just laughs before going to set the table. You finish up and rush to put on your earrings as you hear a knock at the door.

You dash past your parents and open it up. At first you only see Joel, who moves inside to greet your parents, which finally gives you a good view of her. She looked different than when you last saw her. Not really in appearance, but her demeanor. She seemed some how even more reserved. She had her hands in her pocked and a tired look on her face. All the work you had done lost all meaning in a mater of seconds and you felt humiliated realizing she probably wouldn’t care at all what you had done to look good, or how nice your room looked. But you mustered up the courage to give her a smile.

“Hi.” You say your voice almost cracking.

“Hi…” She says awkwardly. You move aside letting her in. She looks around as she gravitates towards Joel. Him and your parents notice this so as you shut the door your mom says-

“Why don’t you girls go hang out in y/n’s room as we finish up dinner.” Your heart drops as you stare at her wide eyed. Ellie just sighs and Joel nudges her in an attempt at getting her to be polite. You nervously lead the girl to your door and walk in. She stared at your posters that adorn your walls and the books and comics piled up by your bed.

“You wanna sit?” You ask motioning to the bed. She just shrugs and takes a seat. You doing the same.

“So uh, you like comics?” She asks breaking the silence and you look up at her.

“Oh yeah, I have a little collection. You like um too?” You smile and she nods.

“Yeah I had some but I couldn’t bring them to Jackson.” She says a little more comfortable than before.

“You can borrow some of mine. I’ve reread them like a hundred times so they could use some fresh eyes.” You say and she lights up.

“That would be really cool, thanks.” She says giving you a smile. It’s the first time you had seen her smile. Your stomach flipped at the sight. She was so pretty.

“So uh, do you like music?” You say and she nods enthusiastically. You spent the rest of the night getting to know each other. Talking about your interest and favorite things to do. You found out she really liked space and drawing. And you vowed to show her your favorite movies. You both were laying on your bed reading one of your comics in very loud and dramatic display when your mom knocked on the door opening it up.

“Dinner.” She says and can’t help but smile at the big grins on both of your faces.

Dinner at your respective houses became a weekly thing. And quickly a deep friendship was made. You were together all the time. You would sleep over in her garage all the time. To the point that you practically had your own drawer in her dresser. When you got old enough Maria had you and Ellie paired together on patrols. Ellie hated it. Not that she had to do them, but the fact that you got hurt so often. You’d never forget your first day. It was snowing and your feet hurt from the hours of walking in the heavy boots.

“Stay behind me okay.” She smiled moving some of your hair out of your face. You nodded and followed her around the corner towards a broken down fence. She was about to climb through when you both heard noise behind you. An infected was running straight for you. Ellie had spent weeks teaching you how to shoot. But it all seemed to slip your mind. You shot at it a few times before it tackled you to the ground. You grabbed a large rock that was next to you and tried to bash its head, but it was no use. Ellie ripped it off you stabbing it multiple times in the head. Blood splattered across her face as she did it. It fell dead to the ground and you looked up at her. The deep red lay against her frosty pale skin making your stomach flip. She kneeled in front of you and wiped away some that got on your cheek.

You had always thought Ellie was pretty. It never seemed weird to you. But in this moment you realized pretty wasn’t a good way to describe her anymore. It seemed too juvenile. Something any best friend would say. She was beautiful. When she looked at you it was almost polarizing. As she gave you a hand your grip trembled. Ellie would convince herself you were just scared after what just happened. But you knew it was the way she held on for a little too long after you got up that had your knees weak.

“Are you okay?” She asks rubbing your shoulders.

“Yeah, I’m okay…”You say not breaking eye contact.

From that day on you couldn’t help but notice little things about her. Like how she rested her hand on your waist when you would order for her at the tipsy bison. Or how she would kiss your forehead before leaving on a patrol you weren’t assigned on. Or how she was so protective of you when it came to the men in town. Little did she know they wouldn’t have a chance if they wanted one.

Ellie noticed things about you too. Like how you make sure to give her a compliment everyday. Or how you can’t help but cuddle up with her when you sleep over. Half the time leaving her aching as you sleep on her chest. Knowing it’s as close as she’s ever gonna get to what she wishes. She’s known how she’s felt about you since the first day she got here. You were just so gorgeous. It made her super nervous, so when you were so nice to her she couldn’t believe it. You began to get so close that she felt almost disgusted with how much she liked you. She even tried to date a little over the years to get over it. She dated this girl named cat who covered up her scars with a large tattoo on her forearm. But she knew that wouldn’t work out when all she could think about was how excited she was to show it to you.

The day of your 19th birthday you and a few friends went to the bar to do makeshift karaoke. Your parents, Joel, Tommy, and Maria all sat at a table in the back laughing at the sight in front of them. You and Ellie danced around like children as Dina and Jesse sang a horrible rendition of my heart will go on. When they finished up you got up and grabbed the guitar you borrowed from Joel. You start to strum and they all sit down.

You start to sing. At first all you could focus on was where you were putting your fingers. Knowing you weren’t as good as Ellie or Joel. But as you got farther into the song you looked up from the strings and at her. Whenever you heard this song you thought of her. You thought of her voice and how her skin feels against yours. You thought of how much she’s gone through and how many times she been your personal defender. You thought about how no matter what you did she was always the first and last thought you had each day. She consumed you. All you could do was stare at her as the words left you lips.

“Said she knows she lived through it to get to this moment. Ate a sleeve of saltines on my floor, and I knew then.

I would do anything you want me to.

I would do anything for you. I would do anything, I would do anything. Whatever you want me to do, I will do.

Whatever she wants, whatever she wants.

Whatever she wants

I will do anything

Whatever she wants

Whatever she wants…..”

The air felt thick as you both looked at each other. The others clapped and you got up walking towards her. You said nothing. Not one word. You just took a seat next to her and watched the next performance. She gripped your hand. Tight. And she didn’t let go till you got to her place that night.

You sat on her couch with a joint between your fingers and her legs entangled with yours. She ran her fingers down your thigh as she looked at you. She was humming the song you sang as you let out a puff of smoke.

You had shared endless nights like this. But the feeling that only can be described as understanding roamed through the air. You were terrified. Cause you couldn’t hold it in any longer. You turned to face her, just taking the moment in. She had changed into an old t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. Her hair was half tied up. And as she took the joint from your fingers to her lips, the sight of them parting made you squirm in your seat. She let out the smoke and you finally spoke up.

“Ellie.”

“Yeah?”

“I want you to know something.” You say and she hold your hand on hers.

“What’s up?” She says trying to play it cool. She can’t remember the last time she found anyone as beautiful as she found you right now.

“I- I think I’ve liked you from the day I met you.” You say in almost a whisper, causing her to chuckle nervously.

“I would hope so. We’re kinda best friends.” She jokes and you hold her hand tighter.

“Ellie. I’ve loved you since the day I met you.” You finally let out without falter. She went tense. But her face softened. You look at her trying to read her mind. You rub the back of her hand with your thumb. Causing her to shiver. She finally lets out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding in. And she smiled. She put her hand out to caress your cheek.

“God, you don’t know how long I’ve wanted to hear that.” She breathes causing you to let out a small giggle.

She moves her hand to the base of your neck. Pulling you towards her.

“Im glad. Cause you don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do this.” You whisper and gently press your lips to hers. She grins into the kiss as you run your fingers from her hands to her arms. Moving to where she’s slightly on top of you, she separates slowly. Placing small kisses around your face. You place one last kiss to her lips before you pulled her up to go lay down.

“I’ve gotta say this is probably my favorite sleep over we have ever had.” She smirks and you push her shoulder.

“You better shut up or I’m going home.” You threaten. Small laughs leaving your lips.

“Oh yeah sure. I bet you think the stuffed bear on your bed kisses better than me too.” She smiles now hovering over you. Her knees on either side of your hips as she kisses down your neck.

You grip her hips tightly messing with the hem of her shirt. Sliding your thumbs into the waistband of her boxers you tug a little causing her to nip harder at you neck. She stops for a second to remove her shirt. Causing you to stare up at her in awe.

You wrap your arms under hers and glide your fingers down her bare back.

“You’re so beautiful.” You mutter causing a pink tint to coat her cheeks. You pull her down and start to kiss a line down her chest. Returning the favor she had done to your neck. She lets out a shaky breath gripping your shirt in her hands. She pulls it off of you slowly to let the feeling of your lips linger on her skin a little longer.

“Fuck..” she whispers. A hot feeling pooling in her stomach as she looks down at your chest. She places her hand on your skin rubbing the plush of your tits softly with her thumb, making your head lean back at the feeling. Your hands rest in her hair as she leans in connecting her mouth to one. Her tongue massages the area causing you to let out a soft moan. A hand travels down to try and remove your pajama shorts. So you lift your hips to help her. Grinding into her slightly causing her to groan.

She traveled down your body leaving sloppy pecks to your skin as she goes. She thumbs the damp era of your underwear.

“Hmm.” She sounds and you look down at her. “Can I-“

“Please.” You say. Urgency in your voice.

She lowers herself to place her nose to your clothed core and she breathes in deep causing you to gasp at her actions. She tugs at the fabric helping you get it off you legs. Leaving kisses down and back up your inner thighs as she goes. Spreading you open with her fingers she plays with your folds painfully slow. Neglecting your clit on purpose just to hear you whine.

“Ellie-“

“Shhhh…” she whispers placing her lips to your cunt leaving small kisses the the area. The vibrations of her statement making you close your eyes.

She dips her tongue in grazing it up your slit. And gently sucking on your sensitive bud. You groan loudly making her grip your hips harder. Begging to move quicker she massages the area, making you grind into her face. You grip the messy bed sheets tightly as she brings a hand to slowly insert a finger into your cunt.

She moves at a delicate pace looking up at you. Your face was contorted in pleasure as you let out a moan. Your skin was starting to glisten from sweat and each time you thrust towards her, your chest would bounce. A wet spot was forming in her boxers from the sight. Your knuckles were white as you gripped her sheets. But as she moved slightly one of your hand released its grip and found a new place in her hair. Tugging slightly to direct her where you needed. She complied happily. The feeling of you clenching as she added another finger almost being enough to make her finish herself.

“Ellie don’t stop… I’m gonna…” You barley get out as she pumps her fingers in you rapidly. Running circles on your clit with her tongue as she goes. Your head rolls back as you place your other hand to palm your chest pinching yourself as a wave of release washed over your body. Letting out a string of curses as she lets you ride out your high removing her fingers. Happily cleaning you up with mouth. She kisses up your chest to your cheeks using her thumb to open your lips, she places the fingers she was just using to them. Letting you taste yourself.

“You did so good.” She smiles softly as she places a kiss to your forehead.

“I’m not done.” You say sitting up and flipping her on her back, causing her to look up at you in shock.

“It’s my turn. Whatever you want.” You smile sweetly leaving small kisses to her cheeks as you straddle her hips, locking her down.

“All I’ve ever wanted is you.” She whispers holding your face softly in her palms. Bringing you in for a kiss. It was needy. Like she was making up for lost time. Years of pent up frustration letting itself out in this moment.

You separate for a second to pull off her boxers. You notice the soaked spot but don’t say anything. Like it was a little secret all for yourself. You liked knowing that you had the same affect on her as she did for you.

You gripped her legs pulling her closer to the edge of the bed as you got down bedside it on your knees. You hoisted her thighs over your shoulder.

“God you’re so hot.” You groan as you run your palm down her toned abdomen. When you place your mouth on her slit you swear you hear her whimper out your name. She thrusts slightly on your face. Causing you to hold her down tighter. You start to move your tongue over her clit in small up and down motions, making tension build in her. You could tell she wanted to move quicker so you let her do just that. She used your face like a toy as you assisted her hips in ridding your tongue. She brought a hand down to play with her clit as you inserted your tongue in and out of her heat.

“You feel so fucking good.” She stammers out as you move her hand and replace the sensation with your lips suctioning the area and your fingers plunging in her. A loud groan escapes her lips. She couldn’t help but lean forward a little to watch you. You take notice to this and hover over her. Kissing her neck slowly. Her fingers grip your hair as your fingers continue to fill her walls. Your palm rubbing her puffy clit in the process. She becomes louder, letting out a string of curses her hips turn restless as you add another finger curling up slightly to hit her spot.

You can feel her clench around you tightly as her legs twitch. You feel her release. Cumming on your fingers making you smile against her. Kissing down her body, You remove your fingers with a steady motion. Licking her clean you drag it up to press your chest against hers. You leaned into the crook of her neck as she breathed heavily. Her chest moving up and down, mimicking yours.

You both got comfortable heads resting on her pillows as she connects her lips to yours. You feel something wet on your cheek and separate to look at her. She had small tears in the corners of her eyes. You brought your hand to caress her as she pulls you in tight, clinging to your body.

“Why are you crying?” You ask softly kissing away a tear that threatened to fall.

“I’m just so happy. I wish it wouldn’t have taken us this long to get here.” She sighs nuzzling her head in your chest with a big grin.

“Me too. Im so glad I have you.” You say running your fingers through her roots as she falls asleep in your arms. With a smile resting on her features.

#Spotify #ellie williams x female reader #ellie williams fluff #ellie williams x y/n #ellie williams x you #ellie williams oneshot #ellie x fem reader #ellie williams angst #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams #ellie williams smut #ellie williams tlou #tlou part 2 #tlou fanfiction #tlou2 #tlou fic #ellie the last of us #Ellie Williams x reader smut

695 notes · View notes

themisteriousentity · 11 months

Text

"Golden Deer is boring though it's lackluster, the characters aren't as strong as the other paths there's less conflict-"

You fool. You absolute buffon. Golden Deer is perfectly designed. Not only does it feed into the whole "alliance" theme well by having the characters still work together despite their differences and feelings well before hitting those A supports, but it's ALSO the only route that actually puts the focus on YOU the player. Or, rather, Byleth themself

Black Eagle is about whether or not you can agree to Edelgard's ideals of acceptable sacrifice and perspective that there's only 1 way to do things. The branching happens when you decide whether or not you agree, but ultimately it just explores opposing or agreeing with Edelgard. Anything more than that is really just incidental to that main concept, whether it's Crimson Flower or Silver Snow, the entire time you're focused either on helping Edelgard achieve her goals or you're focused on showing her how wrong she is alongside the Black Eagles who think it's their duty to correct Edelgard's wrongs (and I have a whole separate thing in regards to how the cast acts in Crimson Flower verses Silver Snow). It works really well for characters designed around an empire, a domineering form of government where (usually) a singular ruler determines the course and focus

Blue Lions is focused entirely on working on past issues and learning to bring yourself into the present, but it's done almost entirely through the cast more than the player. The Blue Lions themselves all have their own traumas and deep-seated past issues that hinder or help progress. While both Blue Lions and Black Eagles have a lot in common when it comes to traumatized characters and ideology, the ideology is front and center, while in Boue Lions, their interpersonal conflicts are front and center. This shows especially in the final (non romance) scene, where Dimitri decides that his personal attachment to Edelgard and past memories still matter, and he reaches out a hand, despite her immediately trying to kill him. It's fitting for a route designed around a kingdom, which is usually built entirely on interpersonal dealings between the ruling class

Golden Deer, however, is designed very differently. Unlike the other 3 routes, the player, or more specifically Byleth, is put as the driving force instead of the Lord. And this is actually what makes Golden Deer such a good route and one with the best ending of all of them. Claude has ideals, but he isn't a person who wants to force others to follow his path like Edelgard. Claude has lived a life of strife where his past motivates him, but it doesn't chain him the same way it does Dimitri. Instead, he works on understanding everyone around him and working together towards agreed upon goals, while taking on stuff that isn't agreed upon onto himself. But more than that, while all the Lord's value your opinion, Claude is the only one who actually takes what Byleth wants (rather than just what they think about specific matters) into consideration for his plans. Repeatedly you tell Seteth in Silver Snow that you don't want to kill Edelgard, but he pushes that you have no choice. Pretty much the entire first half of Azure Moon is Dimitri ignoring you. And in Crimson Flower, you've all but completely submitted to Edelgard's will with a couple of exceptions (which actually proves my point because it's specifically in regards to the Golden Deer because you can fight the entirety of Crimson Flower while sparing all of them except for Judith). But in Verdant Wind, Claude doesn't hide that he has a problem with the church and wants Rhea gone. In Golden Wildfire, without Byleth, he's more than happy to just get rid of her without a second thought. But when Byleth is the protagonist, he goes out of his way to accommodate your wants into his plans and goals. When you express as the player that you want to reason with Edelgard and ponder if you can't walk the same path, Claude agrees with you and says he'll make it happen if he can, with the other Golden Deer mostly agreeing. When that,can't happen you both lament the fact that Edelgard gave you no choice together. He makes finding Rhea a priority, mostly because as curious as he is in general, he wants to help you find out answers only Rhea can give you. And all of the Golden Deer do this to some extent, with each other but also with you as the player. I think Hilda and Marianne's A supports with Byleth show this best personally, but that's a personal opinion. And it just works so well for a route designed around the idea of an alliance, people coming together and agreeing to work towards a goal bigger than themselves

And that's not to say the other routes aren't as good as Golden Deer, they're all equally well written, but it just makes me sad when I see people giving the Golden Deer route grief just because the characters aren't the same when it does its theme so beautifully

#fire emblem three houses #fe3h #claude von riegan #claude fe3h #golden deer #byleth eisner #byleth fe3h #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #edelgard von hresvelg #blue lions #black eagles #crimson flower #silver snow #azure moon #verdant wind #edelgard fe3h #dimitri fe3h

529 notes · View notes

darkbluekies · 2 years

Text

You can't hide from me

Mafia!yandere OC x reader

Summary: how could you ever think that you could escape Silas? He'll always find you because after all ... you can't hide from him. He has eyes everywhere.

Warnings: kidnapping, yandere, unhealthy relationships, guns, panic attack(?), mentions of getting punished in the end, criminals, mentions of death, humiliation

Word count: 2.5k

Silas arms are lying around your waist like a cage, breathing down your neck. His chest is glued to your back with his hands tightly together over your stomach to make you stay in place. You can't breathe, but you're not sure if that's the chokehold he has you in or his suffocating presence. All you know is that you have to leave. He came home an hour ago, drenched in more blood than you've ever seen. He's showered twice because you forced him to fo it again when he came out claiming he was clean … but it still feels like he is covered.

You've been planning this for a while. You're going to break into Silas’s safe and take the money you need, take Silas’s car and go to the airport. You know that if you ever want to get away from him, you need to leave the country for a while. If he can’t find you, maybe he’ll give up after a while. Your moral tells you that you shouldn’t steal the money and the car, but the devil camping on your shoulder mutters that after everything Silas has done to you, you should be allowed to take something from him. After all, he’s taken everything from you.

You carefully pry Silas arms off of you. He grunts and hugs you closer. You squeeze your eyes together in frustration. The embrace causes your heart to beat quicker in pure fear. If they don’t leave you soon, you’ll start to have a panic attack and then he’ll wake up … and then you’ll not be able to leave. The second Silas knows that you’re not feeling well, you’ll have even more eyes on you. That’s the least thing you need now.

You try to pry his muscular arms off again. This time, you manage to get out of the bed. Silas start to move in bed, quickly noticing that something’s missing. With your heart in your throat, you look around for something to put in his grasp. You take your pillow and stuff it in his arms.

Every motion is quiet and terrified. You’re horrified you’ll turn around and see him stand right behind you with his death glare, ready to throw you back into the basement. You’d rather die than end up there again. You don’t think you can take another day, week or month in the basement. To be fair, you never know how long you’re down there. One time you entered when the snow was falling outside and came out when the first flowers bloomed.

You dress yourself in a pair of gray sweatpants and black hoodie, shove some necessities into your backpack, grab Silas’ keys and sneak out of the room, silently hoping that the floor planks won’t snitch you out. The only reason you’re able to sneak out of the room is because of how well you’ve been acting lately. You’ve finally gained Silas’s trust! He doesn’t lock the bedroom door anymore and doesn't keep you chained to the bedpost.

The house is filled with men ready to put a bullet in intruders heads … hopefully they won’t think you’re a thief if they notice you. Thankfully, the ones who aren’t asleep are working in the office. You run past and unlock the front door. When the door is unlocked with the key, the alarm doesn't go off. You’ve learned that the hard way.

You jump into Silas’s black car, put in the keys and start the engine. The car roars like a beast. You gasp loudly.

“No, no, no!” you breathe out. “Shh, please! Fucking monster car!”

Quickly, you drive out of the driveway, out onto the street. Most of the time you hate that there aren’t any buildings nearby, but tonight, you’re happy that there’s no one that can see you escape. No one that can snitch you out.

You pull up the map on the screen in the front of the car, following the GPS to get to the airport. Your hands are sweating on the steering wheel. Every car you see in the rear view mirror seems to be Silas’s men, but you tell yourself that you’re being paranoid.

You suddenly realize that the car can be tracked and that one of the cars behind you could very well be one of Silas’ men … or Silas himself. You shiver at the thought. When they track the car to the airport’s parking lot, you need to be on the first best flight.

As soon as you park, you run through the airport, going through security and booking a last minute flight to who-knows-where. You didn’t even check. You cover your face with the hood of your black hoodie to hide your face, scared that someone, anyone could recognize you. You know that Silas could have contacts anywhere. Anyone could work for him.

When you slump down on one of the benches in the waiting area by your gates, you can finally breathe out. Everything’s going to be okay, you tell yourself, you’re going to be safe now. Soon, you’ll be out of the country, away from Silas.

You look at the clock. Three am. Your flight to who-knows-where leaves at five. With a yawn, you cross your arms and sink down in your seat. A few minutes of sleep shouldn’t do much harm.

“Boss, wake up!” second in command shouts and slaps Silas across the face.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” he shouts and grabs the man by the collar, wrestling him down into the mattress. “Slapping me, are we? I’m going-”

“Silas, wait, wait! Listen! Y/N’s gone!”

He freezes and quickly looks around the empty room in horror. “Gone?”

“Yes, when the men looked at the security footage this morning, they left the house and took your car!”

“My car?” Silas hurries up from the bed and grabs a pair of black pants and white shirt. “Where did they go? We have to find them!”

“One of our colleagues just messaged us that they were seen at the airport. They work there at the cargo department. Before you freak out, they’ve banned their passport. They can’t leave the country and if they try to leave the airport, the security on our side will take them aside for you.”

Silas smiles cruelly. “My stupid, little baby thinks they can escape me? How silly. I’m going to make them regret being born. Let’s go get them home.”

“You should eat something.”

“Geetting this fucking treatment when waking up is better than an energy drink. Shut up now and go get the other car. I’m not wasting a single second.”

You can see the sun rise outside the big windows and the airplane coming to the gate. When it’s boarding, you walk over to the lady by the check in. She scans your passport and frowns.

“I’m sorry, but it seems like your passport has been blacklisted”, she says.

“What?” you ask in confusion. “No, it shouldn’t be. I haven’t done …” Realization kicks in. “Shit!”

“What?”

“N-Nothing.”

You grab your bag and back away, heart hammering in your ears. Someone recognized you! You’re not safe here. You have to get out of here quickly before they alert Silas.

Just as you’re about to run, you can see two security guards marching over to you. In horror, you stumble backwards, shaking your head as tears start to run down your cheeks.

“N-No, please!” you shout in desperation, voice breaking with panic.

The other passengers look at you with pity in their eyes. For them, this is just another airport freak out … but for you? The end of the world. The men grab your arms firmly.

“Be nice now”, one of them says. “Come with us without resistance and we won’t have any trouble.”

“Hell no!” you shout and start to kick. “Leave me alone!”

They start dragging you with them. You make yourself as much of an inconvenience as possible. You make yourself as heavy as possible, you kick and scratch and twist. They don’t budge. Panic is spreading like fire in your veins when you realize that they’re not using a taser on you or anything that could ‘calm’ you down. They’re definitely working for Silas.

They drag you throughout the airport until you reach a closed off area used for staff only. An empty white room. You’re thrown into the corner.

“You’re a little bitch, aren’t you?” one of the men says, massaging his hand. “Got in a few scratches there.”

You curl up into a ball in the corner of the empty, white room, wishing that you could melt into the walls. Your body is shaking as you hug yourself tightly with tears running down your cheeks.

“You work for him, don’t you?” you whisper with a thick voice, not looking up from the floor.

“What a little genius you are”, the other man says.

You’re silent for the next thirty minutes. If people didn’t know better, they’d think that you were a statue. When the men leave the room, you glance up at the closed door.

“Good morning, sir”, one of the security guards says.

“Good morning”, he says shortly.

You gulp at his harsh voice. He’s going to kill you.

“Are they in here?” he asks.

“Yes, they tried to run away, but we managed to catch them”, one of the security men says.

“Are they hurt?”

“No.”

“Good. Stay here, I’m going to talk to them alone.”

You flinch when the door handle presses down. Quickly, you look away and start to tremble again. In the corner of your eye you can see a pair of legs and the bottom of a black coat entering, closing the door behind. He sighs heavily, making you whimper involuntarily.

“What am I going to do with you, hm?” he murmurs and squats down in front of you.

You turn your head away and press your body closer to the wall. He reaches out and removes your hood, the only shield you have. You start to cry heavily now that you’re all vulnerable to him. He cups your cheek with one hand and you squeeze your eyes shut tightly, whimpering.

“Did you really think this would work?” Silas asks, trying to meet your eyes. “You can’t hide from me, baby. I will always find you.”

“I-It’s not fair”, you spit through gritted teeth, glaring at him with a blurry vision. You have come to the part where hiccups crash through your voice. “Y-You have thousands o-of people working for you! I h-have no one!”

“And that’s life, little thing. I don’t play nice.” He tilts his head. “Haven’t you learned that by now?”

“F-Fuck you, Silas. I hate y-you.”

He scoffs and pulls you into his arms. You try to push him away with your hands and feet, but he’s stronger, trapping you against his chest.

“Let me go!” you scream, voice getting muffled into his clothing.

“Stop resisting”, he growls, pulling you closer.

You scream and shake your head. Silas locks your head into his shoulder with one hand and wraps the other around your waist.

“Shh, baby”, he hushes loudly, rocking back and forth. “Shh, calm down. I’m going to take care of you. We’ll make sure this never happens again. Shh, shh.”

You continue to fight, but grow tired quickly. All these hours spent awake and on edge have caught up. It’s no use fighting against him, you’ll never win. You’re sitting limp in Silas’ arms and all you can do is cry into his shoulder. You were so close to getting away. If only you had been a bit more careful.

“There, there, little thing”, Silas whispers in your ear and kisses your temple. He runs his hand over your back. “I have you, you’re safe now.”

He hugs you tighter and exhales, satisfied over having you back into his arms. You fit so well in his embrace.

“Let’s go home”, he says and is about to stand up.

“N-No!” you say, grabbing his coat. “No, please, Silas-”

“Listen, baby, you have two choices. Either, you come with me like a good little pet and don’t cause trouble. That way, your punishment will be much lighter. Or, you can continue to act like a brat and I’ll knock you unconscious and throw you into the basement until you grow mold. What do you say? Are you going to behave?”

You clench your jaw, muttering something he can’t hear.

“What was that, baby?” he asks with a smirk on his face. “Can you repeat?”

You mumble again.

“Louder, baby”, Silas says mockingly. “Use big words.”

“I’ll behave …”, you mutter.

“Good job.”

He stands up and pulls you up on your feet by your armpits. Silas removes his black coat and hangs it around your shoulders, caressing your wet cheek quickly. He hangs your backpack over one of his shoulders. You stare at the hand he offers for you before hesitantly taking it in yours. He opens the door and brings you outside. The security guards avoid looking at you now. The second in command must have warned them.

“If you make any noise, I’m going to use this”, Silas says and shows the hidden revolver tucked in his shirt. “Got it?”

You nod quickly. Together, the four men take you out of the airport by the back door.

“Oh, right, baby”, Silas says, turning to you. “My keys.”

You pull them up from your hoodie pouch and dump them in his hand with a glare. He smiles, thanking you. Silas takes you to the car you escaped in and sits you down in the front seat while he takes the driver's seat. His second in command drives the other car.

“You should try to sleep a little”, Silas says. “You are not going to sleep for quite some time.”

“What are you going to do to me …?” you whisper.

“Oh, I’m going to torture you. Badly.”

You give him a wide eyed look and he chuckles, eyes disappearing into half moons.

“Okay, not badly because you did come with me without problems”, he smiles to calm your nerves. “However, I’m going to make sure you know who you belong to. When I’m done with you, you’ll only know me. You should start getting comfortable with the basement because you’ll spend a lot of time down there.”

You gulp.

“You’ll never try to leave me again, will you?” Silas asks and takes your hand in his.

“No”, you say quickly, shaking your head.

“Good.”

You turn your eyes out the window, taking your last look at the outside world. You can feel how Silas lifts your hand to his lips, giving it a kiss. Oh, how you hate how he doesn’t take anything seriously. You’re terrified and here he is making jokes. It makes you sick to your stomach. Silas is a sick man. How could you ever think that you could escape him?

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere drabbles #yandere x you #yandere imagines #yandere fics #yandere stories #yandere mafia #yandere oc x you #yandere x darling #yandere ocs #yandere oc x reader #yandere oc #yandere male #yandere oneshot #silas oc #yandere x y/n

2K notes · View notes

honeygrahambitch · 5 months

Text

"Since laryngitis is not contagious I told Will he should definitely come to work today. Especially now that the Ripper dropped a body. He doesn't need to talk much. He can do his thing and then write a report on it." Jack explained to Hannibal as they arrived at the crime scene. "No one gets hurt and we get even closer to catching the Ripper."

"It's quite cold today." Hannibal commented as a tiny snow flake landed on his palm. "Will agreed I suppose?"

"He did, yes. But we have only been texting so I am not sure what state he actually is in."

Will was already there, next to Beverly, looking around the crime scene, examining something in particular. He was so focused that he didn't even hear Hannibal and Jack.

"Will." Hannibal greeted him. To that Will and Beverly turned to them.

"Will can't speak. Like, at all. I am doing the talking for him today." Beverly explained. Will rolled his eyes helplessly. "He is not thrilled about it but I can do a pretty good job."

"He definitely should not force himself." Hannibal agreed, frowning in concern. If Will was not making any effort to talk then it definitely meant his voice was gone. His usual strategy of ignoring any symptoms he would have did not work in this case.

Jack sighed loudly, probably understanding that Will should have indeed stayed home to rest instead of standing outside in negative temperatures.

"He wants to say that your coat looks majestic, Dr. Lecter." Beverly commented. "Jack, I'm not allowed to say what Will thinks about you at this very moment. I really want to keep my job."

Will didn't protest to any of the things Beverly said and pulled out a little bottle of pills. Hannibal was wondering if Will knew that aspirin won't help that much with getting back his voice. Was his throat sore as well? Probably. Will wouldn't complain about stuff like that even when his voice was perfectly fine.

Hannibal wished he would know that kind of things.

He wished Will would allow him to care for him.

That is why as soon as they were done with the crime scene, he asked Will to get into his car instead of Beverly's. He wanted to open his mouth to protest but the stern look on Hannibal's stern expression made him abandon his attempt to force his larynx.

As soon as they arrived at Hannibal's place, he started making some tea in a navy blue kettle.

"Ginger and chamomile tea does wonders for a sore throat." He explained as Will followed him with his eyes around the kitchen.

Will felt partially powerless and partially grateful. He could admit to himself that other than popping pills, he usually did nothing about feeling sick. He mostly took medication to function at work, he wouldn't need those at home.

"Thank you." He whispered.

Hannibal felt something warm inside himself at hearing his voice for the first time that day.

"You should have told- well, wrote Jack that you are too sick to work, Will. Just so you know, I'm not expecting you for our therapy session tomorrow." Hannibal said as he moved the cattle away from the electric stove.

"No, I can do it." Will whispered a bit louder and coughed immediately after.

"Therapy implies having conversations. And by canceling your appointment I don't mean that I don't want to see you tomorrow. You should definitely come here for dinner." Hannibal went on while pouring tea in two cups. "Sitting with you in silence is not something that I dread."

Will smiled at that. When it came to the two of them, silence was indeed not an obstacle. There was always something to project and something to observe.

Hannibal added a generous spoon of honey in Will's cup and none in his own.

Will opened his mouth to say something more but he coughed again. Hannibal passed him a note book and a pen.

"We can pass notes."

"How romantic" Will wrote to that, earning a genuine smile from Hannibal. Then he kept on writing and then handed the notebook back Hannibal.

"Since I can't talk and you insist on having me around I can finally do what you've been asking me for ages."

"And what have I been asking you for ages?" Hannibal asked curiously as he gave Will the notebook.

"You can draw me in your sketchbook and I promise not to move or make any comment about how boring it is." He wrote back and raised his eyebrows, watching Hannibal's expression as he was reading his words.

"Are you sure?" Hannibal asked trying to conceal his excitement behind a satisfied expression. He was already picturing each pencil or charcoal he could use.

Will nodded.

#hannibal #hannigram #hannibal lecter #will graham #hannibal nbc #hannibal series #hannibal fanfiction

283 notes · View notes

ruthytwoshakes · 1 year

Text

after 30 hours we’re done!!!

I love little pootis so much, a fantastic series. If you haven’t seen it yet I really recommend it!! I bought one of the plushies for my little siblings for Christmas hehe.

I’ve been wanted to make some fanart for it for a while, but I wanted it to be special! Since it means too much to me and my family :3 so I tried my hand at digital painting again! Here’s my process:

First I started out with the sketch and putting in the values, (that image is the scene I was referencing.) and since I have absolutely no idea how perspective works I just guessed and went “eh good enough.” I also used my radical composition skills to give the whole thing some life! (Golden ratio my beloved.) I should have gotten some reference images, first mistake, but I was way too excited lol.

Then I duplicated the layer and started painting over my sketch using some painting and blending brushes. Unfortunately I forgot to capture any in-betweens of this process so it makes it a little hard to explain. But once I got my values down and my painting rendered to point I wanted it to be, we started coloring!

And oh god! This is why the painting took 30 hours! This was my first time painting using this method, so I was so not ready for the coloring part. I’m in a love-hate relationship with gradient maps so the coloring was mostly done with blending modes, I think I used the linear light mode?

After watching a stupid amount of videos by Marc Brunet I finally got it! Used just one overlay layer and adjusted my colors and values as needed for this one. Used a couple gradients and other techniques to get the snow and the water looking how I wanted, and we’re almost done!

My favorite step! Adding a bunch of textures and sparkly stuff! It’s not for everyone but I really like it. And congratulations we finished our first painting yippee! Thanks for reading :3

little pootis by @quazies

#tf2 #lil pootis #digital painting #tf2 fanart #creative process #daffys drawings #WOOOOO LETS GO BABEY LITTLE POOTIS FANART #also just gotta say I love Blootis so much he is just like me!!#Can’t wait to see what he does next. Love that guy. Oh and pootis too I guess

598 notes · View notes

juuuulez · 5 months

Text

🎧 | are we still friends?, michael berzatto.

don’t get green skin (green skin), keep contact (keep contact) / don’t say, "goodbye, smell you later" (bye, later) / nah, i can't / i don't want to end this season on a bad episode.

writing this was really fucking brutal for me. i’ll do something nice and sweet another time because this was rooouuughh.

Established Mikey/You, platonic Richie/You, generally just sad stuff.

request a playlist roulette here!

Being with Mikey was warm. That’s the only way you could describe it. Warm in the way he’d look at you, the way he smiled, laughed. His tendency to touch everyone. Kisses on cheeks and hugs from the side. You wanted that in your life, you welcomed it, warmth and love.

But now it’s cold and the cold is biting. It’s harsh and relentless, seeping through layers of black silk, penetrating the nice coat you bought for this occasion. The cigarette between your lips flares with each inhale, a reddened spark you cup your hands over, in futile hopes that it’ll give off heat. It doesn’t.

“Nice shoes.” You remark the second they’re in your vision, black and shiny. It’s not like you look up, either, staring down at the pavement and Richie’s pointed dress shoes. But you know it’s him: you can smell his cologne mixing with the smoke in the air, creating a scent that’s harsh and bitter but seemingly appropriate.

“Thanks,” He mutters, following your gaze. “Tiff bought ‘em.”

You want to make fun of him. Make some stupid remark, berate him for folding so easily, for doing what she says with no complaint. It’s what you would’ve done, what Mikey would’ve done: Lettin’ her make you pretty, huh? What— you gonna be wearing lipstick next? It’s so close yet so far, you can basically hear it, and you’re sure Richie can hear it too.

“She around here?” You end up asking instead.

And Richie shakes his head, already lighting up a cigarette. “Had to go relieve Eva’s babysitter. Some fuckin’ thirteen year-old from our street.”

“Yeah, well, one day she’s gonna be that thirteen year-old.”

The silence settles between you again, thick but not suffocating. Just there. You’re fine to leave it that way, you’ve been standing here regardless, leaning against a brick wall in the parking lot across from the funeral home. Five cigarette butts have fallen to your feet, and you intend on adding to the pile.

“Heading home after this?” Richie asks.

You don’t look up because you don’t want to see the look on his face. Worry. You hate worry, because you lived in worry. A perpetual fear, an anxiety settled deep in your gut, making your skin tingle and itch. But Mikey never seemed to mind; he taught you not to worry, to laugh more, to care less.

Look where that got you.

“Dunno,” You shrug, dropping the cigarette butt to the floor. It sizzles on some residual snow, which you squish down under your nice heels. “Was gonna try and back out of the lease.”

“Thought you loved that place?” Richie is quick to counter, “Y’know, green tiles and whatnot.”

It was a little apartment, one you’d found after hours of hunting. The green backsplash in the bathroom had caught your attention, and you’d spent days chatting anyone’s ear off about how you’d style it.

But now you shrug it off, appearing indifferent. “It’s not that big a deal.”

It’d been five weeks. Five weeks of domestic bliss, or, your equivalent to that. Of finding little trinkets and unique homewares to furnish the new place. Of getting excited after work, because you get to come home to your boyfriend, instead of an empty bed.

Boxes were still shoved into most corners of the place, not yet unpacked. For a moment you wondered if that was the intention. That, in not unpacking, Mikey was saving you the grief of eventually removing his presence from your place. He was making it easier, cutting out the middleman.

“Maybe Chicago isn’t for me.”

The words slip from your mouth before you can stop them, and you’ve finally looked up, meeting Richie’s gaze. It’s odd because he’s looking at you, and not at the same thing, like his mind is elsewhere. You get it. Your mind is also elsewhere.

“Fuckin’ stupid,” He mutters, shaking his head. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”

So you shrug, another cigarette pinched between your teeth. You don’t remember lighting it. This weird haze has you on autopilot, you’ve been in it all morning. Maybe all week.

“I dunno. Might be good to get away for a bit.” You try to justify.

“Nah, fuck that. You’re not goin’ all alien on us,” Richie continues to contest. “There are people here for you. Y’know.. Tina ‘n all the cooks, and fuckin’.. fucking Fak, and Nat.”

“Natalie said—“

“I know what she fuckin’ said, it’s bullshit.”

Richie flicks out his cigarette, letting it drop into your little pile. His jacket is ironed and those shiny shoes are covered in snow, and for the first time in ages, he looks nice. You notice it. You notice the effort he’s put in, despite everything, and you know he feels the way you do.

“Here’s what’s gonna happen,” He begins. “You’re gonna come to The Beef once a week. Eat a sandwich, talk to us, ‘n shit. And you’re gonna come to family, too. Always.”

There’s a grimace on your face at the idea. Stepping foot in the restaurant seems like a colossal task, let alone attending family. Because that’s the thing, you weren’t family, not anymore. You’d hoped that one day you would be, for certain, a Berzatto. And now that wouldn’t happen.

“I’ll try.” You end up saying, even if dread builds in your stomach. It’s the most you can do.

Richie seems to understand, letting the silence linger for another moment. “C’mon,” He sighs. “We’re getting a drink. I’m gonna pull one smile outta you tonight.”

The notion of smiling, today, seems foreign. Yet you obey regardless, following along as Richie’s hand finds your back, and he swipes the cigarette from your mouth to throw into the snow.

It ends up being a good night. As good as it can be, at least. Each memory shared, each story told is laced with an underlying bitterness, something that settles on your tongue and behind your eyes. It’s thick and equally cold as the air; prickling like goosebumps. Richie feels it too. Everyone does, but you convince yourself that it’s not forever, that it’ll go away and the warmth will return.

#michael berzatto #mikey berzatto x you #mikey berzatto x reader #michael berzatto x reader #richie jerimovich x reader

188 notes · View notes

cobrabobra · 2 years

Text

"Cold"

Carl Grimes x fem!reader, praising, vaginal fingering

I'm still new to this, so I apologize if it's monotone. Also English is not my first language so there might be mistakes.

"You're dead!" Carl looked at (Y/N) wide eyed, snow covering his face as he stood surprised. He bend down to take the biggest scoop of snow and throw it at his girlfriend. Oh, it was war now.

It was winter in Alexandria, a solid few inches of snow covered the ground, cold air tickled their lungs as they ran around the hole camp, playing in snow. But now playtime was over, it was time for some serious fighting.

(Y/N) only laughed cutely, shrugging, looking straight into Grimes' blue eyes, challenging him and acting innocent at the same time.

Her body moved, clearly readying itself to escape, but the boy was faster, tackling her to the ground, covering them in layers of fluffy, fresh snow.

"Gotcha" he smirked proudly as if he just tamed a wild beast, not grounded a teenage girl. "Can't escape now, sunshine" their breaths mixed, that's how close they were, their noses practically rubbing against each other, their hips pressed together separated with just a thin layer of their soaked clothes.

That's when he noticed she was shivering, her teeth clacking from the cold. It wasn't unexpected, they didn't have clothes that were designed for this kind of weather and they were rolling around in snow for hours, yet Carl couldn't help but feel concerned.

"Gosh, you're freezing" he picked her up, wrapping her with his hands, trying to warm her up a bit, but obviously that didn't help much. "We're going back" Grimes decided, taking her hand into his, their fingers were stiff, they barely had any feeling in them.

The walk to Carl's home was longer than they both expected, exhaustion suddenly hit them, cold piercing through their clothes, snow under their feet slowing them down significantly. When they finally got there the boy was already dreaming of a warm bath or drinking a hot cocoa sitting in front of a fireplace.

They left their shoes on a towel that Rick put up earlier and tried calling for him, but no one responded.

"Must be at Carol's" Carl hummed and stepped further inside. He took his coat off and threw it on the couch. "You want something hot to drink? Or we can take a shower?" He turned to face her, awaiting her decision.

"Shower" she managed to say, her jaw clenched, still bit warmed up yet.

"Let's get you out of these clothes" he stepped towards her, his hands on her sides, pulling her sweater up, revealing her smoth belly and her silky breasts covered with a bra.

Normally, she'd feel embarrassed, they've done stuff like this many times and she always blushed like crazy, something about Carl made it feel like it was still a new feeling. This time though, this wasn't sexual, he was just taking care of her, helping her and it made her heart flutter and filled her chest with warmth but it was the different kind.

Her pants fell down, belt buckle cliking as it hit the floor, leaving her in just her underwear. He shivered again, goosebumps covering her body, she tried to shield herself from the cold. Carl noticed that and quickly dragged her to the bathroom.

The titles were as cold as ice, making her toes curl at the unpleasant sensation. She stood there, observing her boyfriend's movement, he undressed quickly, too quickly for her. Yes, she was freezing but who wouldn't appreciate a little show?

(Y/N) hissed when her cold fingers touched her back in an attempt to undo her bra. Although it took longer than usual, it landed in the basket, just like Carl's garments moments ago. Same thing with her underwear, some almost painful touches, shutting her eyes at the feeling of clothes sticking to her skin.

"Get in" he said, his boxers long gone, curled up with the rest of their clothes. He took a minute to take in the view of her naked body, tracing her curves with his eyes, swallowing hard at the sight of her vulnerable state.

Piping hot, almost boiling water, covered their bodies as they stood in each other's embrace, letting their muscles relax, which wasn't easy because of the sensation of (Y/N)'s hard nipples pressed into Grimes' chest, their hips rubbing against each other with every little movement.

Little satisfied moans coming from the girls mouth, weren't helping either, they went straight to his dick, that was already teasing her sensitive folds.

"Feeling good, baby?" He chuckled, moving his hand to grab her neck, gently massaging the soft flesh underneath. This made his head fuzzy, this brief interaction, one like many others, made him realise once again how much he loved her.

"Yeah" her voice was breathy, her head tilted slightly back, clearly enjoying herself. She felt a familiar feeling slowly building up in her abdomen.

Carl seemed to notice that, because his fingers slided down her stomach, looking straight into her eyes as he started to tease her clit.

"Can't tell if it's the water or are you that wet already" he muttered into her neck, placing delicate kisses all over.

"Mm" she sighed, bitting her lip lightly. "Both"

"Good" he whispered straight into her ear, his voice unusually deep and raspy, like always when he got aroused. "You're so good for me"

She moaned uncontrollably at the praise, nodding her head a little, trying to show she indeed trying to be the best for him.

"My good girl, so wet for me" he kissed her jaw, slowly going down, towards her breasts. He took her nipple into his mouth and sucked it deliciously, trying to distract her form the feeling of his first finger sliding in her tight hole.

His movements started off slow, teasing, trying to get her as desperate as humanly possible. All it took was bending his finger a little for her to start rutting her hips against his hand.

He bit her nipple, delicate yet still inflicting a little bit of this delicious pain that got her weak in her knees.

"You're so pretty. My pretty girl, you're doing so good" he added another finger which got another whimper out of her, her thighs trembled, she leaned back again the shower wall to prop herself.

Wet strands of hair her stuck to her face, water dripping from her chin, down at her collar bones, continuing to slide across her body, to finally disappear between her legs, where Carl's fingers were stretching her pussy.

Carl's dick stood up gracefully, hurting like hell without attention it needed, but it didn't matter, now making (Y/N) come was all that counted.

"I'm close" her voice was weak and quiet. She tried to restrain herself from making too much noise, the bathroom walls carried sounds like the newest Bluetooth speaker.

"Yeah? You're gonna cum for me? Cum in my first fingers?" He teased, his thumb circling her clit as his fingers practically pounded her poor, sensitive cunt. "Be good and cum for me"

Her toes curled again, this time bit from the cold but the feeling of an approaching orgasm. Grimes' lips muffled her moan, wet tounge sliding in, exploring her mouth as she felt her body tensing up, reading itself for the finish.

His fingers abused that spot inside her that made her stomach flutter, that lit fireworks in her abdomen.

Metalic taste of blood filled their mouths, coming from Carl's lip that she took liberty to bite as she came. Pure pleasure flooded her mind as she rode her orgasm, fucked herself on his fingers.

"You're not cold anymore, are you?"

#carl grimes x reader #twd x reader #carl grimes x y/n #carl grimes smut #carl grimes x you

1K notes · View notes

hardly-an-escape · 6 months

Text

what's in a name? | Dream/Hob | 9300 words | rated E

this is my submission for @designtheendless's 3K commission giveaway: a Dreamling fic based on their fanart above!

tags: alternate universe - human, photographer Hob Gadling, artist Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, model Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, strangers to lovers, snowed in, only one bed, light dom/sub, oral sex, face fucking, anal fingering, anal sex, anonymous sex, Dream of the Endless is a horny little weasel, and Hob is no less of a horny little weasel, brief Princess Bride references, alcohol consumption, impulsive decision making, callous disregard for the geography of northern California, they go from 0-60 because they’re both nuts, neither of them are in a great place but they do make each other better rather than worse

Hob is on an ill-fated road trip through California. He’s making his way slowly down the coast toward Los Angeles when, trapped by a snowstorm in a small town near Mount Shasta, he meets a mysterious stranger in a diner. They share a night of anonymous passion – but when the sun rises, Hob finds that he can’t just leave the stranger behind…

this story developed partially from Picture Perfect, one of my Fluffbruary 2024 fills. I also incorporated some of designtheendless's other suggested image prompts, so do make sure you check their original post! and thank you so much for extending the deadline, it meant I had time to get my CHBB fic submitted before pivoting to finish this... and even so I'm still barely getting it done in time just because of who I am as a person :D

Hob leans forward over the steering wheel, brows furrowed as he peers through the driving snow at the street ahead. The windshield wipers are going like mad; he’s seen a plow or two out, but they seem to barely be making a dent, so traffic has slowed to a crawl. Which is, frankly, for the best, since the weather is bad enough that only a true nutter would be out in it at all.

Well… nobody’s ever accused Hob of being sane.

His GPS instructs him to take the next right and informs him that his destination will then be on his right. He can just make out the neon sign through the thick flakes: Townhouse Motel. “Vacancy,” it says below the old-timey script, blinking on and off. In the distance, the sun is just beginning to settle behind some mountains that he’s sure would be beautiful if they weren’t hidden behind such inclement weather.

He pulls in the driveway. The lot is nearly empty, so he parks right next to the office door and jams his winter cap on his head before hurrying through the flurries.

The bored teenager behind the front desk barely looks up from the reality show playing on her tablet as she runs Hob’s credit card and gives him his door key – an actual, physical key. Room 1389. He decides it’s not worth it to ask why the room number has four digits when the motel has maybe a dozen rooms total.

He does ask if there’s somewhere nearby to get a bite to eat and a drink.

“There’s a diner across the street and down a block,” the teenager says, “but they don’t serve booze.” Then, finally looking up, perhaps seeing the bags under his eyes and his generally downtrodden demeanor, she relents. “There’s a liquor store about two blocks past that. You can bring stuff back to your room, I guess. It’s not like anybody is going to ask questions around here.”

That, Hob thinks as he heads back outside and moves his rental car a little closer to his door, is obvious. There’s a general air of neglect clinging to the motel, and indeed to the whole street, from what he can see: the buildings are a little more weatherbeaten than can be plausibly explained by a cute vintage aesthetic, and at least one storefront seems to be permanently boarded up. The recession has clearly hit Northern California just as hard as it has the rest of the United States.

What a time to be playing tourist. What a time to be – well, he won’t think about that right now.

His room is clean, at least. Someone, at some point in time, has made a half-hearted attempt to decorate it with a seaside theme. The bedlinens are various shades of blue, rather than your typical beigey-white. There’s an unfortunate painting of a mermaid hanging over the outdated television, and a slightly less unfortunate painting of a lighthouse above the bed. The bathroom wallpaper has little seashells on it.

Hob leaves his camera bag on the desk and his duffel on the end of the bed, grabs his wallet, turns his collar up against the cold, and heads back out into the snowy evening.

The diner is, as promised, only a short walk down the street, but Hob is shivering by the time he gets there. The wind cuts right through him – silly British man that he is, he thought California would be warm, even in winter. He hadn’t really reckoned with unpredictable mountain weather, or with the cold front that was chasing him down through the southern end of the Cascades. The weatherman on the radio had been calling it “freakish.”

A little bell tinkles merrily when he pushes open the door. A waitress calls out a greeting, tells him to sit wherever he likes and she’ll be right with him. There’s only one other person in the diner, a slender man dressed all in black who is hunched over a cup of coffee at the counter. He glances up and immediately back down as Hob stomps the snow off his boots and takes an empty booth far enough away from the front door that he won’t feel the rush of cold air if anyone else comes in.

The waitress bustles over, bringing him a cup of coffee without even asking. Hob wraps his fingers around it gratefully. He doesn’t normally drink coffee this late, but it’s been the kind of day that calls for it: so cold, so uncomfortable and distressing, that the sturdy ceramic mug is exactly what he wants. The bitter note of slightly burnt coffee is tempered by the cheap, artificially flavored vanilla creamer he only ever uses at this kind of greasy spoon diner. He breathes deep and feels something inside him start to thaw.

When the waitress comes back with a menu, he warms up even more. She is middle-aged and comfortable, nice and no-nonsense, the sort of person with an indeterminate American accent who could have come from anywhere: Illinois, or Florida, or five minutes down the road. She recommends the olive burger with fries, and a side of fried pickles, because they’re the best in the county, and then her excitement simply bubbles over.

“I’m just so darn tickled to have two Brits here in the same night!” she enthuses. “Oh gosh, is that okay? Can I call you Brits or is that rude?”

“No, no, it’s fine!” Hob laughs. “Two of us, eh? That is a coincidence.”

“I know, right? Okay hon, lemme just get your order in and I’ll be back to warm up your coffee in a sec.”

She bustles away again, and Hob looks curiously at the man at the counter. He must have heard her comment, but he hasn’t turned around, or indeed acknowledged Hob in any way since he came in. He shrugs mentally and turns away to look out the window at the thickly swirling snow. It’s dark enough now that streetlights have come on, casting cones of light in which the flakes dance like a very slow sodium-tinted tornado.

He wishes he had a book. Or a crossword puzzle, or one of those packets of crayons they give to kids at restaurants. Something to keep his hands occupied and his mind off of everything that was threatening to consume it, off of the last few days, off of her –

Then the man from the counter slides into the booth across from him.

“Hello,” Hob says.

“Hello,” the stranger says. His voice is surprisingly deep and resonant, coming from his slim frame, and he looks to be in his late twenties, perhaps a few years younger than Hob. He is very pale. His dark hair is sticking up rather wildly and his eyes are a cold, clear blue that reminds Hob of the way the sky had looked this morning, before the clouds had descended.

“Who are you, then? Aside from a fellow Brit?” asks Hob.

“No one of consequence.” He’s lugging around a small backpack, which now rests on the bench beside him.

“I must know,” Hob says in a very bad Inigo Montoya accent.

“Get used to disappointment,” the stranger says with a smirk, and Hob laughs.

“Oh, we’re going to get along just fine,” he says, holding his hand out across the table. “My name’s Hob, yes that’s my real name, and yes, it is a long story.”

The stranger shakes his hand briefly. His palm is warm from cupping his coffee cup, but the tips of his fingers are cold. “Pleased to meet you, Hob.”

“And do you have a name, stranger?”

“I do. Several, in fact.”

“Any of them for public consumption?”

The stranger shrugs. “Will you forgive me if I maintain a certain level of mystery?”

Hob shrugs too. “That’s your lookout, mate. No skin off my nose.”

They chat. About the weather, and how odd it is, and how different to England. About books – the stranger appears to be a voracious reader, and Hob had loaded up an old iPod with audiobooks in preparation for a lot of driving, which sparks a lively debate on the merits of printed books vs reading aloud. In the midst of this, Hob’s food arrives, and he is derailed momentarily from the conversation by an overwhelming need to unhinge his jaw and stuff as many chips into his gob as humanly possible. The stranger watches in amusement.

“Hungry?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Hob says, muffled by his burger. “Been driving pretty much all day and I didn’t really want to stop, so…”

He’s suddenly self-conscious, very aware that the man sitting across from him is slender and willowy and dressed all in black, and that he himself is very much… not that. Dressed for comfort and warmth in slightly baggy jeans and a flannel shirt and his puffy jacket balled up on the bench beside him. But the stranger seems unbothered, simply smiling slightly and snagging a fried pickle off the plate between them, which Hob had invited him to share moments after it had arrived.

They are good; crispy and salty and uniquely American. Hob is certainly prepared to believe they’re the best in the county.

“So are you staying here in town, or is that shrouded in mystery as well?” he asks, once he’s slowed down a bit.

“I’ve been staying in a cabin up the mountain, a little way out of town. With my family.” He said the word family as though it is faintly dirty. “One of my siblings thought it would be good for us to get away together. But I have found it… trying.”

“Up the mountain, eh? Are you going to be able to get back in this?”

Hob tips his head toward the window. It is very dark now, and the snow is falling more thickly and wildly than ever. A crease appears between the stranger’s eyebrows.

“To be honest, I had not thought that far ahead.”

“Do you have much experience driving in the snow?”

To Hob’s surprise, the stranger actually blushes, just a gentle stain of pink across his cheekbones. “I… walked.”

“You walked?”

The waitress, stopping by the table to warm up their coffees, echos Hob’s surprise.

“Oh, honey,” she says. “In this? How are you fixing to get home?”

“I was planning to walk back,” the stranger says with some asperity. “But I admit I was not anticipating this kind of weather.”

“Let me check on the roads for you,” the waitress says kindly. “Which cabin did you say you’re at? My brother-in-law lives up that way, I’ll give him a call. I’m sure we can find you a ride.”

She goes back behind the counter and picks up the phone.

“I’m happy to give you a ride,” Hob says quietly. “If she thinks it’s safe.”

“You do not have to do that.”

“‘S okay. I want to.”

“Bill? It’s Jan. I have a question for you,” says the waitress.

Hob realizes, suddenly and with some surprise, that it is quite true, that he is not just being polite: he does want to help this mysterious stranger, who talks like a 19th-century Byronic hero and dresses like a college goth. His stomach is doing the tiniest little swoop every time they make eye contact, and he doesn’t want it to stop.

The waitress calls over to him.

“You got four wheel drive, hon?”

Hob thinks about the little Honda Civic in the motel parking lot. Thinks about mountain roads and snow. Shakes his head no.

Scraps of the waitress’s conversation float across the diner and Hob takes another bite of his burger.

“– well they’re foreign, Bill, they don’t –”

He snickers just a little; can’t help himself, really, because the waitress is just so kind and helpful and also clearly more than a little bit befuddled by their presence in her diner. These two Brits, total strangers, so unalike one another – and yet here they are, sharing a booth and a plate of fried pickles, five thousand miles and change away from home. He exchanges a look of camaraderie with the stranger and eats some more chips. They’re good too.

“– and tomorrow? What’s the overnight –”

After another minute or two the waitress thanks her brother-in-law and hangs up the phone. Her face is serious when she comes back to their table.

“Well, boys,” she says, “I don’t think anyone is going anywhere tonight. Bill says it’s pretty bad up there, and only getting worse. The plows aren’t even going out yet on account of the snow’s still coming down so hard, it doesn’t make sense to try and clear anything. You going to be able to find a place to stay?” she asks the stranger.

He looks at Hob. “Did you mention a motel?”

“Yeah, the Townhouse?” Hob says, and the waitress nods along. “I don’t know for sure if there are rooms available, but it didn’t look like the parking was full.”

“Probably not, this time of year,” interjects the waitress. “It’s a fine place, and Paulie can certainly use the business. I’ll bring your checks by in a minute, guys.”

She leaves them again. Her sensible sneakers squeak against the floor tiles as she walks.

“Thank you again for your offer of a ride,” the stranger says quietly. “That was very kind of you.”

“Course. I’m just sorry you won’t be able to get home tonight,” Hob says.

“It is my own fault. I should not have behaved so impulsively. But my siblings…” The man frowns. “As I said, they can be difficult. I would have done something regrettable, had I remained in the house.”

Hob waves a hand. “Ah, it happens to the best of us. Especially around family. You should hear some of the fights I’ve had with my sister, we can scream the paint off the walls when we get going.”

“Indeed,” the man says darkly.

“I’m glad you did come to town, though. It’s been kind of nice,” Hob says tentatively. “Having someone to talk to tonight.”

“Indeed,” his stranger repeats. But this time one corner of his mouth lifts in a tiny smile. “It seems to have worked out in my favor.”

Hob smiles back. “So, are you really not going to tell me your name?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Fun, eh?” Hob glances down at his own hands, folded on the table, back at the stranger. “Is that what this is?”

The stranger smirks. He leans forward and plucks another fried pickle from the plate. He opens his mouth, sticking out his tongue just a little bit farther than necessary to pop the slice into his mouth. He chews, and smirks some more, and gives Hob an unmistakable up-and-down appraising glance, and underneath the table he presses one ankle against Hob’s instep.

Oh. Hob feels a surprising but not unfamiliar spike of arousal in his gut. So that’s where this is heading – has been heading, since he pushed open the door and the stranger had glanced up at him. Had he blushed, when his eyes met Hob’s? Or is he applying more detail to that brief interaction after the fact, now that he thinks he knows what his stranger is thinking?

And when had the man become his stranger?

“I see,” he says, and presses back against the bony ankle under the table.

Ten minutes later, they’ve settled their bills – his stranger had apparently eaten a club sandwich before Hob had arrived, and he’s weirdly relieved that the man has consumed something more substantial than coffee this evening – and are gearing up to head back into the cold. Hob is zipping up his coat when he realizes the other man appears to have only a thick black hoodie and a knit beanie (also black, of course). He glances out the window, where it’s still snowing pretty hard, and raises an eyebrow.

“You going to be okay in just that?”

“You said it is only a couple of blocks? I will be fine. I tend not to feel the cold. And,” he adds defensively, “when I originally walked down the weather was not quite so… inclement.”

“If you say so,” Hob says as he opens the door. The waitress calls out a good night and he waves to her over his stranger’s shoulder. Wonders, just for a moment, what she thinks of the fact that they’re leaving together, or if she will ever think of them again at all. They step out into the snowy evening. “The girl at the motel said there’s a liquor store down the street. Mind detouring there? I was thinking of picking up some whiskey, or something. Something to keep a man warm.”

The man chuckles and they head down the street. It’s not until they’re away from the diner windows that he takes Hob by the elbow and gently draws him just outside the circle of a street lamp.

“Surely,” he says, voice low, stepping into Hob’s space, “there are many ways for a man to… keep warm.”

And he kisses him.

His lips are warm and dry, a little chapped. It’s a simple kiss, a chaste one, just their lips touching and the barest pressure of the stranger’s belly and chest pressed against Hob’s, swathed in layers of winter gear. It lasts for a heartbeat, two, and then the man steps back with a hum of satisfaction.

“Oh?” says Hob, giddily. “It’s like that, is it?”

“Obviously,” responds his stranger.

“Well, I don’t know, mate,” says Hob as they make their way down the street. He resists the urge to link their arms together. “Maybe you play footsie with every guy you meet in random diners in Northern California.”

“Perhaps.”

The liquor store is a brief respite from the wind and the snow. Hob selects a mid-range bottle of whiskey and they trudge back to his motel room. The snowflakes and the streetlights and the swirling wind make everything feel more than a little bit surreal, like something out of a dream or a fairy tale. The two of them could be adventurers, explorers, wading through an arctic wasteland in search of shelter. The mountain looms behind them, dark and mysterious, like a great castle or some monstrous beast.

“Do you mind if I take a shower?” asks his stranger, kicking off his boots dropping his backpack by the desk. “I’m afraid I did get rather sweaty, hiking down earlier. I wouldn’t mind cleaning up.” His gaze, beneath his long eyelashes, feels heavy and significant.

“Go right ahead.” Hob gestures toward the bathroom. “I’m just going to nip down to the lobby and get a bit of ice.” He retrieves the ice bucket from the desk, brushing close to his stranger as he does. The brief contact jolts him back to the real world. They’re not in the arctic waste; this handsome, ethereal man is here, in his motel room. He is pulling off his somewhat sodden hoodie and draping it over the back of the chair, and sniffing dubiously at the sweater he wears underneath it. He is real.

Hob waits until he hears the shower turn on to slip out the door.

Although he has his moments of cluelessness, Hob is not a stupid man. He knows where this is going. He recognizes the signs, the coy little dance they’ve been doing around each other for the past two hours, and no, he’s not a stupid man, but if he were a better one he might be able to resist the temptation of falling into bed with a beautiful stranger who won’t even share his name.

But there’s something about this man. Hob wants him. Already can’t resist him. Wants to wrap him up and keep him warm and kiss his collarbones and, yes, wants to fuck him, wants to feel him shudder and moan and wants to watch his cheeks flush and his head fall back in ecstasy. He hasn’t felt like this for a long, long time, and now it’s come out of nowhere to slam into him and hook into his gut, this wanting.

He throws a few scoops of ice from the machine in the motel lobby into the bucket and goes back to the room.

He’s kicked off his boots, unwrapped one of the shitty plastic cups, and poured himself a couple fingers of whiskey by the time he hears the shower shut off. There’s the usual shuffling noise of towels, a brief blast of the cheap hair dryer mounted to the wall. Then the door opens and the stranger emerges, and Hob is slammed from the real world right back into a surreal dream.

The man is even more beautiful without his clothes on: Hob would compare him to an elf or a fairy prince, but he’s too busy choking slightly on the spit that’s suddenly flooding his mouth at the sight of long, slim limbs, a narrow waist, and a temptingly well-defined Adonis belt that disappears under the cheap motel towel wound around his hips.

There’s a long moment of silent eye contact. Hob’s leaning up against the desk, cup cradled in one hand. His face heats as he watches his stranger’s eyes travel slowly down the length of his body and back up, pursing his lips slightly. His mouth is very pink, with the kind of full bottom lip that’s made for nibbling on, and the rest of his skin is as pale and smooth as… well, as snow, with just a touch of redness from the heat of the shower spreading across his chest.

Hob downs half of his whiskey without even thinking about it. He can’t look away. He can’t think, can’t even blink. He’s afraid that if he does, this vision will disappear and it’ll just be him, alone, a saddish man alone in a motel room with a bottle of booze and a bag of expensive camera equipment, and then who knows what will happen?

His stranger gives him one of those tiny half-smiles, suggestive, not quite a leer, and stalks across the room toward him.

He widens his legs and his stranger steps in to stand between his feet. He takes Hob’s drink out of his hand and tosses back the last swallow of whiskey before setting the plastic cup aside. Then he hooks one finger into the collar of Hob’s flannel shirt and pulls him into a kiss. His mouth is a study in contrasts: warm from the whiskey and cool from the ice, soft tongue and sharp teeth. They sink briefly, gently, into Hob’s bottom lip, and Hob pulls the man close against his chest and returns the favor.

The kiss is turning wet and messy when the man pulls back far enough to start fumbling with Hob’s shirt buttons. He’s pulled the tails of the shirt out of Hob’s jeans and has it about halfway unbuttoned when a phone starts ringing.

It’s not the room phone – it’s coming from a pocket of the man’s backpack.

“Ignore it,” he mumbles into Hob’s neck. “We are busy.”

The phone rings three times; four times. The stranger has finished with Hob’s shirt and is pulling the tee beneath it out of the waistband of his jeans by the time it finally stops.

His fingers are toying with Hob’s belt buckle and ghosting over the seam of his fly when it rings again.

The stranger groans audibly.

“Do you think,” Hob says with the carefully deliberate cadence of the very turned on, “that your family might be worried about you?”

“I do not care,” his stranger grumbles, and sinks gracefully to his knees.

Eventually the phone stops ringing again.

He’s worked Hob’s belt and fly open and is nuzzling into the opening of his jeans, nosing at the base of Hob’s cock through his underwear and Hob is panting, his stranger’s hot breath so close to where Hob wants him most – when the phone rings a third time.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” snarls the stranger, and stands.

He fishes a slightly battered-looking BlackBerry out of an outside pocket of his backpack and stabs at the call answer button.

“What.”

He turns away, so all Hob can see is the furious, stiff line of his stranger’s back. He can’t hear the other half of the conversation, and he doesn’t think he wants to; every fibre of the man’s body radiates anger and discomfort and perhaps a little bit of shame. Hob adjusts himself discreetly, rezips his jeans, and tiptoes over to sit down on the edge of the bed.

“Obviously I am alive. I am fine.” A pause. “I took a walk.” Another pause. “Yes. Yes, I know what time it is. No, I am assured that the roads were too bad to make it back to the cabin. I am in a motel room in…” He looks over to Hob. “What is the name of this place?”

Hob supplies the name of the motel, and that of the town as well, just for good measure. The man relays the information into the phone. There is another long pause.

“That is none of your business. Shut up. You have no idea what you’re talking about. And if you speak to me like that again I will hang up the phone.”

There is another, longer pause, during which the stranger’s face grows progressively redder. He is very deliberately not looking at Hob.

“No. I said no. I will arrange for my own transportation in the morning. I –”

The person on the other end of the phone must say something truly outrageous, because his strangers eyes bug out in a way that looks almost uncomfortable.

“Do the entirety of the known universe a favor and crawl back into whatever slime hole you emerged from and leave me alone,” he hisses. “Goodbye.”

Hob can’t quite muffle a snort at this crowning line. Siblings.

His stranger hangs up the phone with a vicious jab of a button and slams it down on the desk; then seems to reconsider, retrieves it, and shuts it off entirely before throwing it into his backpack. He sighs, a surprisingly tired sound.

“I will have another drink, if you don’t mind,” he says. “And then I would like it very much if you would fuck me. Please.”

Hob’s cock, which had been feeling distinctly neglected, gives a twitch.

“I think that can be arranged,” he says. “Are you –”

The stranger waves a dismissive hand. “I am quite sober enough to have sex with you. And I could easily afford my own room, if that’s a concern. I am here because I want to be.”

“Glad to hear it, but that actually isn’t what I was going to ask,” Hob says mildly.

“Oh,” the man says. A faint blush rises on his cheekbones. He scoops up the whiskey bottle and uncorks it, taking an unceremonious swig. The towel hangs dangerously low around his hips. “What were you going to ask?”

His stranger pauses with the whiskey bottle against his lips. Hob watches the long line of his neck work once, twice, as he swallows, and figures he may as well put his cards on the table.

“I was going to ask if latex condoms are okay. For when I fuck you into the mattress in a minute here.”

The man clears his throat. “Oh,” he says again. “Yes. Latex is fine.”

“Good. Anything you don’t like? Hard boundaries?”

He pauses. “I do not enjoy being choked. Or having my hands restrained in any way. But I like… I like it a little bit rough. It feels good. To be used.”

Hob leans back on one elbow. “Is that what you want me to do? Use you?”

“Yes.”

The word drops into the quiet room like a handful of snow might drop off a tree branch – soft and muffled and sending the same delicious shiver down Hob’s spine.

“I can do that.” Oh, yes. Hob can use this beautiful man, if he is offering himself up to be used. “C’mere, then.”

His stranger walks slowly across the room to where Hob is half-reclining on the bed, feet still planted on the floor. He kneels between Hob’s legs and runs his hands slowly up and down his thighs from knee to hip. “And you?” he asks. “Your boundaries?”

Hob considers. “I’m with you on choking, not a fan,” he says. “I’m not big on pain, generally, but I can give it to other people, if they need it.”

“Alright.” His hands are still rubbing up and down Hob’s thighs, a slow, hypnotizing rhythm. When he speaks again his voice is thick. “Would you consider the preliminary negotiations to be concluded now?”

“Don’t you have anything better to do with your mouth than spout off like a horny nineteenth century robber baron?” Hob counters.

His stranger smiles, a proper smile that crinkles the corners of his blue eyes, and unzips the fly of Hob’s jeans.

In short order he’s pulled them open and pushed Hob’s boxers down just enough that he can get his cock out. He’s not quite hard, not yet, but he gets there quickly between his stranger’s gentle, surprisingly soft hands and the way he immediately buries his nose in Hob’s pubic hair and breathes deeply as he looks up through his eyelashes.

Then he opens his mouth, and wraps his tongue around the head of Hob’s cock, and Hob’s brain makes a noise like radio static.

Oh, he is good at this. Unfairly good. Supernaturally good. He teases Hob for long, long minutes, working up and down his shaft with light touches of just his lips and tongue, ducking down now and then to mouth gently at his balls, until Hob is twitching and swearing and straining, perched on the edge of the bed. When he finally has mercy and takes Hob’s cock fully into his mouth, it is barely a relief. He is so wet, so hot, and he sinks down on Hob with no resistance, no trace of a gag reflex. Before he can stop himself, Hob’s hips jerk forward that final fraction, and suddenly his stranger’s nose is brushing his pubic bone and his throat is contracting around the head of Hob’s cock.

He’s expecting the man to pull back, to splutter in indignation, but instead he makes an encouraging noise and squeezes Hob’s thigh before folding his hands almost primly in his lap.

“Fuck,” Hob mutters. He makes an experimental shallow thrust into the tight, wet heat of his stranger’s mouth. “Really?”

His stranger can’t nod, not with Hob’s prick in his mouth, but he moans. Hob feels it vibrate all along the length of his shaft and has to stifle a whimper of his own. He sinks one hand into the soft riot of the man’s hair, still a little damp from the shower, and cradles the back of his skull. The bone feels sweet and finely formed in his hand.

“You want me to fuck your pretty face?” he asks, soft and just a tiny bit mean. “Yeah? That’s what your mouth is good for, isn’t it?”

He thrusts again, in and out, and the stranger’s eyes roll back a little in his head, so he does it again, and again. Soon he really is fucking his face, not too hard but deep, fingers tightening in his stranger’s hair as his eyes fall nearly shut, narrowing to crystalline blue crescents.

Hob pulls back briefly to let his stranger breathe. Runs his thumb along his bottom lip, dripping with spit, before he pushes back in. He doesn’t stop until he can feel the first tendrils of orgasm beckoning to him; but as tempting as it is to keep going, to empty himself into this perfect mouth, he’s made a promise. And Hob is a man of his word, so he pulls the man off his cock by the scruff of his neck. He makes an obscene noise as he goes, and another thing string of saliva dribbles from his puffy mouth. His eyes are slightly glassy as he looks up at Hob.

“Get up on the bed, baby,” Hob orders gently.

When the man stands up the towel is just barely clinging to his narrow hips, and his erection is stiff and straining against the terrycloth. He’s so hard, Hob thinks wonderingly, just from having Hob’s cock in his mouth for a few minutes, and his own prick throbs in sympathy.

“Hands and knees,” Hob says, and the man crawls up on the bed. The towel falls away as he goes, languid but obedient, so that he’s entirely naked when Hob positions himself behind him. The contrast between Hob’s clothes and the other man’s nudity is delicious – Hob’s rough denim against the man’s soft thighs, Hob’s hairy wrists poking out from worn flannel as he runs his fingernails along sharply elegant shoulder blades.

He allows himself one long, gentle caress, from the nape of his stranger’s neck down to the shallow dimples in the small of his back, before he grabs at the man’s buttocks and unceremoniously spreads him open.

His hole looks surprisingly loose and relaxed already. Hob runs the pad of one thumb over it.

“Were you prepping yourself in the shower?” he asks, delighted. He presses gently and the furl of muscle gives, just a little, pink and fluttering.

“Hng,” says his stranger, shuddering. “Yes. I thought – I thought about your hands. Oh. I liked the thought that you were just outside the door. While I had my fingers inside myself.”

“Impatient little minx,” Hob says fondly. He kisses one of the lovely knobs of his stranger’s spine and pinches his backside for good measure before pulling away. “Stay here.”

He has to dig down to the bottom of his duffel bag in order to find the box of condoms and the little travel sized bottle of lube. He’d felt a little self-conscious when he’d packed them back in his flat in London – like he was presuming something – but then again he had been preparing for a supposedly romantic road trip with his girlfriend.

He’s glad, now, that he has them.

His stranger has remained on his knees, pitched forward to rest on his elbows, face pressed into a pillow and cock hanging heavy between his legs.

“Good boy,” Hob praises, and runs his hand along the man’s flank. “Beautiful. Oh, darling, I’m going to make you feel so good. And then you’re going to make me feel so good, aren’t you? You already have,” Hob coos, drizzling lube directly onto his arsehole. “And I know you’re going to keep being a good boy for me, aren’t you?”

Before the man can answer, Hob slips a finger inside him, right up to the first knuckle. He’s rewarded with a whimper and the feeling of his stranger pushing back against him, silently begging for more.

And then not so silently. “More,” moans the stranger. “Fuck. More, please.”

Hob strokes his finger in and out, petting the velvet inside his stranger.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “You’ll get more.”

He tries to spend as much time torturing his stranger with his fingers as his stranger had spent torturing him with his mouth, but by the second finger he finds his resolve dissolving like so many snowflakes on warm skin. The man is making such wanton sounds, and his knees skid wider and wider on the slippery motel bedspread, opening him inexorably to Hob’s hungry eyes and questing hands.

“Oh. Oh,” he says. “Oh, yes, fuck,” he moans. No more well-crafted phrases or erudite words; the only thing dropping from that perfect mouth are noises, guttural and breathy by turns, only half-muffled by the pillow his face is smashed into.

“Please,” he begs, “please, in me, I – please, I need –”

Hob obliges.

He’s pretty sure he’s never been harder in his life as he shoves his jeans down around his thighs and rolls the condom on. He has to do it one-handed, clumsily, because some frantic corner of his brain is convinced that if he lets go of the stranger’s hip then the man will disappear, between one blink and the next, and this whole night will turn out to have been some snowblind fever dream.

But his stranger stays where Hob has put him, desperate and writhing, begging for Hob’s cock, and when he finally pins the man down to the mattress and pushes into him, that first hard thrust is enough to silence both of them.

The room is utterly still for a heartbeat, and then another, and then one more, until Hob pulls out in order to thrust in again and his stranger wails and then Hob is fucking into him in earnest, fucking him hard, until the sound of their skin slapping together almost drowns out the sounds his stranger is making beneath him.

Almost.

His stranger moans and pants, and Hob answers him, thrust for thrust and moan for moan, Yes and Ah and Christ and Fuck, fuck me, use me, yes. He grips his stranger by the hips, so hard that his fingers leave little white divots behind when he shifts his grip, so hard that he worries he might leave bruises, and still the man pushes back against him and begs for more.

He comes, when he finally comes, untouched, rutting gracelessly against the mattress. Hob stills, grits his teeth, not wanting to overwhelm the other man as he seizes in pleasure, but his stranger continues to move against him, if anything even more desperate, even in the throes of orgasm.

“Don’t stop,” he gasps, “don’t, oh God, fuck me through it, don’t stop –”

So Hob hauls him up and pushes him down, one hand on his waist and one shoving his chest down into the mattress as the man’s hands scrabble at the sheets and he sobs and Hob pistons into him until he empties himself, until his prick is oversensitive and his stranger is twitching around and beneath him, and the room is finally quiet.

Then Hob takes the condom off, knots it and tosses it towards the wastebasket. He rolls them both away from the wet spot with only middling success, but he’s too tired to care. He shucks the rest of his clothes off. He is boneless and spent, and his stranger is inserting himself relentlessly into Hob’s personal space. They lie there for a long, long moment, sweaty and panting, until their breathing starts to even out and the desperate closeness has receded into normal cuddling. Hob presses a kiss to his stranger’s sweaty temple and marvels at his luck.

“I realize I neglected to ask you why you find yourself in Northern California,” his stranger says, tucked against Hob’s side, voice drowsy and hoarse. “Do you care to share?”

“It’s a long story,” Hob says. “I was – well, I am – on a road trip. With my, ah. With my girlfriend. Well. Ex-girlfriend, now. Actually.”

His stranger tenses slightly, and Hob doesn’t blame him; he knows how it must sound. “It sounds like there is a story there?” the man says, almost tentative.

“Yeah, we… we came over together, about two weeks ago. We flew into Seattle, were planning this whole big trip, right down the coast and all the way to Los Angeles. See the redwoods, do some wine tastings, the whole bit. I’m a photographer, I was thinking I could turn the whole trip into a photo essay, maybe even a book.” He sighs. “Then she heard about this yoga retreat, ashram sort of place. Bit culty, I don’t really go in for all that, but she absolutely had to check it out, so we did. Two days later, out of the blue, she tells me our chakras are misaligned and gives me the boot. Turns out Guru Todd Thingummy, who ran the retreat center, was very aligned with her chakras. As well as other, less… metaphysical things.”

There’s a sound from the vicinity of Hob’s armpit that he realizes with delight is a snort. The snort blossoms into a chuckle, and then his stranger is laughing, a frankly horrible honking sort of laugh, shaking in Hob’s arms with it, and Hob laughs along.

“I’m sorry,” his stranger gasps. “I shouldn’t – I shouldn’t laugh at you. It’s just… Guru Todd.”

“I know!” Hob snickers. “You can picture him, right? White boy dreadlocks and a fucking… shell necklace. Utter tosser.”

“I feel like I’ve probably met someone almost exactly like him, truly.” Eventually his stranger’s horrible laugh subsides. He shifts against Hob, playing idly with his chest hair, curling it around one finger. “In a way, I am also escaping a recent ex. She was the first person I dated after some… difficult experiences I had about a year ago. But in the end I was far more invested in the relationship than she, and she became. Uncomfortable. With my ardor.”

“She’s a bloody idiot then,” Hob says automatically, and his stranger looks up, startled.

“Do you think so?”

Hob briefly considers backpedaling. Don’t come off like a madman, he thinks to himself. Not when he’s finally talking to you. But there’s no hope for him. “Well, yeah. I mean, I’d say your ardor is my favorite thing about you so far.” He lets one hand drift down and gives his stranger’s arse a cheeky squeeze, and is rewarded with a squeak and another snort.

“You are kind to say so,” the man says, and interrupts himself with a yawn.

“It’s true. I… I’m really glad I met you,” Hob says honestly. Too honestly. He can’t help himself; the man is just so beautiful, mouth kissed red and limbs loose, fucked out and soft everywhere he’d been hard and prickly before.

Hob still doesn’t know his name.

“I’m glad I met you, too,” the man says softly.

Hob snuggles them both down into the lumpy motel pillows and pulls the blanket up firmly around their shoulders. The wind blows outside, he reaches up to switch off the lamp, and they fall asleep.

He wakes in the night and stumbles to the bathroom to take a piss. When he comes back, his stranger has starfished out and is taking up a full two-thirds of the bed, sleeping like a stone. Hob manages to reinsert himself into the remaining third and then simply lies there for a long few minutes, looking at the other man.

The skies must have cleared, at least a little, because there’s a few strips of moonlight filtering through the blinds. The pale light turns his stranger into marble, a work of art; he practically glows against the blue sheets. Hob’s fingers itch for his camera.

“You’re going to fuck me up,” he whispers. “I’m going to wake up next to you and never want to leave, and it’s going to fuck me up so bad.”

The sleeping man does not respond, of course; doesn’t even stir. Hob lies there, and gazes at him, until he slips back into sleep himself.

When he wakes again it’s fully morning. The sun is that peculiar thin shade of blue that you get on very cold mornings, but when Hob peeks out the window, the sky is clear and the snowplows have clearly been out making the rounds. He tries to tamp down a sudden feeling of disappointment.

He gets a drink of water, and when he returns to bed his stranger is stirring. First one blue eye opens, then the other.

“Morning,” Hob says.

The man hums and stretches luxuriously, rolling from his belly to his back. The sheets fall down around his hips, revealing one elegant hipbone and a tempting glimpse of dark curls. His pale skin practically glows against the blue sheets in the morning light.

“Enjoying the view?” his stranger asks, and his voice is rough with sleep and slightly hoarse.

“You could say that,” Hob says. He puts one knee on the bed, reaches out to run a hand lightly down the long, lean line of the man’s thigh. “God, you’re… you are so beautiful.”

“Come here to me,” the man says, beckoning to Hob.

Hob ducks his head and kisses up the ladder of the man’s ribs, takes one pert nipple gently between his teeth.

“Can I take your picture?” he says suddenly. “Not in a creepy way. I can even keep your face out of it if you like, I just… there’s something about you, in this light.”

“I don’t mind,” the man says.

Hob’s heart leaps.

A few minutes later, he’s gotten his camera out and adjusted. The room is so quiet, so still, that each click of the shutter sounds almost sacrilegious. He shoots in black and white. He thinks the sheets will show dark, almost black, and the man’s skin will show light and luminous against them. His stranger poses like a dream, languid and biddable, moving here and there on the bed, wherever Hob arranges him.

“You’ve done this before,” Hob accuses. He’s kneeling above the other man, shooting straight down, and his stranger has one arm thrown over his face so only one eye is visible. “Posed, I mean. You know how to move for a camera.”

“I have,” the stranger admits. “Mostly for life drawing classes, though I imagine the principle is more or less the same.”

“Incredible. Are you an artist, then?”

“I suppose.”

Hob tugs the sheet a little lower, so that it’s just barely covering the stranger’s prick, which has plumped up a little – whether from the attention of Hob himself or of the camera, he’s not sure, but it’s one of the sexiest things Hob’s ever seen. The neat patch of dark hair blending into the dark sheet. The gentle swell beneath it. His mouth waters.

“You suppose?”

“I find it difficult to call myself an artist. To claim that title. But I make art. If that is the same thing.”

“Hmm. I reckon so.”

Hob pulls the sheet another fraction of an inch lower. He can feel himself getting distracted. The itch he’d felt to photograph the beautiful stranger, now mostly satisfied, has transformed into an altogether different kind of impulse. He takes one more shot, barely paying attention to the framing. Catches himself licking his lips.

“Hob.”

“Yeah?”

“Put the camera down.”

He hastens to obey.

He’d pulled his boxers back on at some point last night, but they do little to hide his arousal as he slides under the sheets and slots himself in behind his stranger, rubbing his nose in the riotous bedhead and kissing his neck as the man tilts his head to one side to give him better access.

“I like how you say my name,” Hob murmurs. He grinds against his stranger’s narrow arse and reaches around to make a loose fist around his hardening cock. “You’re really not going to tell me yours, are you?”

“Mine?”

“Your name.”

“I –” The man’s breath hitches as Hob tightens his grip, stroking slowly up and down. “I haven’t – decided yet.”

“Well,” Hob says against the smooth skin between his ear and his shoulder. “Let me know what you decide.”

They writhe together under the sheets for a few minutes, until they’re both fully hard, until Hob’s chest is slightly tacky with sweat where it’s rubbing against the stranger’s sharp shoulder blades. He’s grunting, underwear pulled down, making quick little thrusts in the crease of the other man’s thigh, sticky and warm and so good.

“Fuck me again,” his stranger says. “Please.”

“Don’t be a madman,” Hob chides. “You’ll be so sore.”

But he doesn’t say no. And he slides a finger between the man’s arse cheeks and pets over his hole, still a little loose from the night before.

The stranger twists his neck around to look Hob in the eye. “I don’t care. I want you,” he says. “I want to feel it.”

And Hob tries his best to be a good person, he really does, but when confronted with this bald-faced desire he is only, after all, a man. So he mumbles Fuck, okay, yeah, okay against his stranger’s shoulder, and tears himself away to retrieve the lube and a condom. He fingers him open, as slowly and as carefully as he can bring himself to do it, and rolls the condom on, and he fucks him again. Face to face, this time; one knee hooked over his elbow, and long arms clinging to him like a drowning man, and panting, open-mouthed kisses that are as much simply breathing the other’s breath as they are real kisses.

The stranger comes first, his beautiful face screwed up in ecstasy, and Hob follows him over the edge mere seconds later.

The other man falls back into a doze almost immediately, drifting off as soon as Hob has disposed of the condom and wiped them down with a handful of tissues, but Hob is buzzing with too much energy to lie back down. He cleans himself up, splashing water on his face and brushing his teeth quickly, before dressing quietly and creeping down to the motel lobby to look for breakfast.

There’s a coffee machine, a few muffins – prepackaged, not fresh – and a rather sad fruit bowl with some mealy-looking apples. He assembles what he can and shoves some creamers and sugar packets in his jacket pocket. He asks the bored teenager at the front desk (a different one than the night before, although bearing a distinct family resemblance) about the weather report, and learns that although it’s supposed to stay cold, no more precipitation is in the forecast. Then he goes back to the room.

His stranger stirs again at the rush of cold air when Hob lets himself back into the room.

“I come bearing provisions,” he says, setting the coffees on the bedside table and dropping the rest of his meager bounty in the man’s lap.

“Foraging for our survival?” he asks dryly.

“Something like that. It’s slim pickings out there, I’m afraid. But hey –” he picks up a muffin and wiggles it “– chocolate chip!”

His stranger snorts and mutters something about being spoiled.

Hob is very careful not to say anything about how he’d like to spoil this man very much, actually, for the foreseeable future and possibly beyond that, because Hob has so longed for someone to care for, and because this man so obviously needs it. Hob eats his muffin, and very carefully does not say anything reckless or emotional.

They finish their motel snacks, and drink their coffees (Hob’s with a little creamer and one sugar; the stranger’s with no cream and an absurd amount of sugar). And eventually Hob broaches the subject that’s obviously hovering between them.

“So,” he says. “What do you want to do now? I’m still up to give you a ride to your cabin, if that’s what you want. The roads are supposed to be cleared by now.”

“I suppose I should,” the stranger says, fiddling with his styrofoam cup, not meeting Hob’s eyes. “I did tell my sibling that I would return in the morning.”

“Okay.” Hob clears his throat. “Alright then. Whenever you’re ready.”

It takes them another hour to leave the room. Hob showers, and then his stranger decides he needs to rinse off as well, and then there’s a frustrating search for car keys that turn out to have been kicked or dropped halfway under a bedside table at some point the night before.

Then the stranger stops Hob in the doorway with a hand on his elbow and kisses him, long and slow and wordless, before they step out into the brilliant snowy sparkle of the late morning.

The drive is very quiet. The stranger directs Hob out of town and along a rather steep road that winds up the thickly forested mountainside. It’s certainly not a road that Hob would have wanted to drive in last night’s weather, and even with clear skies and plowed roads he takes it slow, acutely aware of the grip of the rental car’s tires on the snowy highway.

Only one time does the stranger wince and shift uncomfortably when Hob cannot avoid a bump in the road. Hob smiles, and swallows his smile, and deliberately wrenches his mind away from the vivid memories of just why his stranger might be wincing and shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

His stranger is silent, except for when he briefly tells Hob when and where to turn. The farther they drive up the mountain, the stiffer he becomes, until he’s gripping the seat with white knuckles and his mouth is one firm line.

Hob doesn’t think it’s the wintry roads that are making him so tense.

They pull over, eventually, at the base of a long driveway. Through the trees Hob can see a large house – not really a cabin by any stretch of the imagination, but built of logs, and with a wisp of woodsmoke floating up from a picturesque brick chimney. They both gaze up at it through the trees. Hob puts the car in park but doesn’t turn it off.

“Well, here we are,” he says.

“Indeed,” his stranger says, and his voice sounds tense and slightly strangled. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

Hob waits for him to open the door and walk away.

The man does not move.

A minute stretches by, and another, and another, and still his stranger has not opened the car door.

Hob dares to hope.

“Come with me,” he says suddenly.

His stranger looks up, startled.

“I mean it. Come with me. Go get your stuff and we’ll just. Drive away. Go down the coast, find somewhere it’s actually warm. Or don’t even get your stuff,” he adds hurriedly, aware that his voice is sounding increasingly unhinged. “Say the word and I’ll just turn the car around. We’ll go. Anywhere you want, just… come with me.”

The man looks at Hob with an unreadable expression for a long moment. “You know nothing about me,” he says finally.

“I know I like you. A lot,” Hob says. “I know last night was one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time, maybe one of the best nights of my whole life. I know I’d regret it if I didn’t at least ask. So, I’m asking. Come with me.”

“I haven’t even told you my name,” says his stranger. “I could be a serial killer.”

“You could be, yeah. But I don’t think you are. I think… I think you just want someone to want you.” Hob reaches across the gear shift and briefly touches his stranger on the cheek. The man’s eyes flutter closed and Hob doesn’t think he’s imagining the way he leans ever-so-slightly into the gentle touch before he looks down. “I want you.”

There’s another long silence, punctuated only by an occasional call from the chickadees flitting through the trees.

“My name is Morpheus,” he says to his hands, clenched in his lap. “But some people call me Dream. People – people close to me. Call me Dream.”

Hob smiles. “Can I call you Dream, then?”

Dream nods. “Let’s go,” he says. Hob’s smile widens.

“Want to get anything from inside?” he asks.

“No. I think not,” Dream says. All of a sudden it’s like the tight strings of his body are loosened: he leans back in his seat, crosses his ankles, looking relaxed for the first time since they’d gotten out of bed. He lolls his head to one side and peeks at Hob and his face looks fey and happy in the afternoon light. “I believe I have everything I need for now.”

Happiness wells up in Hob’s chest, a rushing feeling like a mountain spring swollen by melting snow. He puts the car in gear and reaches over to take Dream’s hand.

“Right then,” he says. “Let’s go.”

Read on AO3 >>>

#dreamling #the sandman #my writing #designtheendless

172 notes · View notes