#37 Hours series | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lightseoul · 1 month ago

Text

cw. worker!reader, prohero!katsuki, aged-up (25), a lot of cussing (bkg-typical), reader is implied to be smaller than bkg, some angst (or a lot? :0)

words. 3k (ofc had to end it with a bang)

a/n. see the end of the post for a message from me, as well as the title reveal of the series! hope you enjoy this ending <3

masterlist | part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8

The fairy lights strewn across your walls and interwoven with fake vines finally flicker out, robbing you of your clear view of the ceiling, leaving you in a sea of darkness with the only source of light being the sliver of sunshine that’s entering through the small gap between your curtains.

You heave a heavy sigh, vaguely seeing your chest rise with the action, your legs tangled in a messy heap of your blanket and pillows.

Replace the damned batteries—again, you make a mental note while side-eyeing the alarm clock that reads 8:37 AM.

Rolling your torso to the right side in a stretch, you groan as your hips make a loud cracking sound.

You can’t remember the last time you intentionally moved your body like this—at least, not for the last two days.

Ever since you got home that Friday night from Bakugou’s parents’ house for Thanksgiving, you haven’t exactly been attuned to your body and what it’s telling you its needs are.

As much as you’d hate to admit it, you’ve been way too in your head since then, going over every interaction with Mitsuki and Masaru, pinpointing every lie you spat out, and replaying in your head the delighted reactions they paid you back in return. And with each re-run came a new wave of nausea and the pitiful urge to collapse in a boneless heap.

You can’t even bear to think about how they’d react once they find out everything’s a sham.

God, Mitsuki’s gonna have a heart attack and die before she even gets the chance to enjoy retirement with her husband.

Needless to say, you barely managed to sleep a wink that night, too heavily preoccupied with your guilt and paranoia to even get a half-hour straight stretch of rest in.

The weekend that followed wasn’t any better.

The worries expanded from Bakugou’s family and how they’d react to his friend group, and god forbid Kirishima and Mina and Sero and even Kaminari find out and you painfully witness palpable disappointment flash across their kind features.

Especially after they welcomed you that warmly into their squad and even went out of their way to conjure stories about Bakugou to make you laugh and enjoy yourself.

By Sunday afternoon, you finally decided you were in no shape to prepare for all the work needed to be done for the next day, let alone show up to the agency and face everyone.

Particularly Bakugou.

The thought of whom has been causing puzzling physical sensations that you find messes with your rationality and causes your chest to ache, frustrating you even more and furthering your resolve to avoid things for now until you can come up with a solution to the situation at hand.

And so with an email sent to Hikari about filing for a sick leave tomorrow and her having to step in for a meeting with the founders and department heads on the day of, as well as a reply expressing her affirmation later, you buried yourself in your queen-sized bed and doom-scrolled to distract yourself until you fell into a fitted sleep.

Which leads you to now.

With you, again, staring at the ceiling, the sounds of nothing but distant honks and a gust of wind entering through the windows breaking the silence.

At least, that is the case until a barrage of weighty knocks echoes throughout your apartment and into the doorway of your bedroom.

Almost instantly, you sit up in alarm, and you’re immediately hit with gut-wrenching dizziness from the action. Despite that, you stumble out of your bed in a hurry, swiftly adjusting your pajamas and baggy T-shirt as you shimmy your socked feet into your house slippers before running to the foyer.

Your heart is hammering in fear as you tiptoe to peek at the intruder through your peephole, thoughts racing as to who the fuck could this person possibly be, visiting at not even 9 AM on a Monday.

You’re bracing yourself to see the ghost of Christmas past who just happened to visit a little early, whoever the fuck that person could be in your life, and for your stomach to drop in horror at the sight of them, only it isn’t someone from your past.

No, it’s someone from your present.

Someone who’s very much in your present.

Yet your stomach drops nevertheless.

Through the hole, Bakugou is studying the unit number hung on your apartment door, brows furrowed in what you think is confusion and a tinge of impatience. He’s decked in his winter hero costume, although his eyepiece is up against just above his forehead, pinning down his notoriously unruly ash blonde hair. You almost miss it, but he seems to be carrying a plastic bag with his left hand.

You feel your throat dry up at the sight of him, and you’ve half a mind to do a complete 180 and tiptoe back to your bed and just pretend you’re not home when he knocks again, only this time the knocking’s more insistent.

Despite yourself, you still jump at the sound, and you chalk it up to your nerves being indubitably fried from three days of constant worrying.

You glance longingly at your bedroom, itching to dive into your sheets, drown out the rest of the world, and pretend you’re not in the middle of the mess you’ve inadvertently made. But as you look back at the door and the sound echoing from its direction, you’re washed with an uncanny sense of shame.

What happened to facing your fears head-on?

With a few soothing circles to your chest where your heart is approximately at in an effort to ground yourself, you take a few cautious steps towards the door, hand slightly shaking as you reach out to hold the knob.

Here goes fucking nothing.

Bakugou’s in the middle of still rapping at your door when you finally twist the handle and fling the slab of wood wide open, revealing the man with his right fist frozen mid-air, a prominently surprised look plastered across his features, as if he didn’t expect anyone, let alone you, to open the goddamn door even with his absurd knocking.

You force a smile onto your face, although you can tell it probably looks more pained than anything. “Bakugou.”

At the sound of his name, it’s almost as if he snaps out of a trance because he quickly brings down his raised hand, clearing his throat in the process. And almost immediately after, an eyebrow raises in question.

He opens his mouth to speak, and you couldn’t have ever guessed what he’d say next if you tried.

“…You don’t look like shit?”

You gawk, “Excuse me?”

Bakugou frowns, as if you’re the one not making any sense. “I thought you were sick.”

With that, he thrusts the plastic bag he’s been carrying to you.

Your eyes dart down to inspect it, before looking back up at the man in confusion.

He huffs, “‘s care package, is all. Come on, fucking take it.”

Not knowing what else to do, you gingerly take the bag off his hands, opting to cradle it with both arms and hold it close to your chest. You give him a quiet thanks, to which he just nods in acknowledgment.

You both stand there in awkward silence for what feels like minutes, neither of you saying anything. It’s only when you catch Bakugou peeking at your living room above your head that you remember basic courtesy.

“…You want to come in?” you meekly ask, conflicted as to whether or not you prefer a decline from the pro-hero.

To your chagrin, or delight—you don’t fucking know—he replies with a curt ‘Sure’ before squeezing in through your doorframe and toeing off his boots.

Against the backdrop of your rather modest home, pro-hero Dynamight looks completely out of place. His bulky figure further dwarfs your small decorative knickknacks, and his black and orange pieces stand in stark contrast against the earthy tones of your furniture.

Suddenly remembering you’re fucking staring, you lift your eyes back up to Bakugou’s face, only to find him already studying you.

You quickly scramble for something to say.

“H-how’d you get up here?”

“…The elevator?” he answers, with too much of an ‘are you dumb’ undertone for your liking.

You huff, “No, I meant how’d you get past the security and receptionist? And I don’t remember ever mentioning what floor and unit I lived in.”

To that, Bakugou only shrugs. “The guard recognized me. Even asked for a fucking photo. And when I asked about you, he was quick to give me your details.”

“Seriously?!”

Bakugou has the audacity to roll his eyes, before: “He knows about us, dumbass. Said he read it in the news.”

Oh.

“R-right,” you dumbly reply. “Sorry.”

Bakugou doesn’t say anything, only shaking his head in what you think is dismissal. He shifts his weight to his other leg from where he’s standing near the backrest of your couch, a few feet away from you awkwardly leaning against the kitchen island where you’ve placed his gift bag.

When you meet his gaze again after a brief moment, he’s already looking at you expectantly.

“What?” you blurt out before you can stop yourself.

“Why are you not at work?”

You absolutely can’t with his fucking bluntness.

“I’m sick,” you lie, surprising yourself with how smoothly it tumbles out of your mouth.

You’ve had plenty of practice after all.

But apparently, not enough to fool Bakugou.

“Bullshit.”

Instantly, you feel a wave of indignation wash over you, together with a sense of deja vu—as if this conversation has happened before.

“I don’t think you’re my fucking thermometer, Bakugou,” you snap, unable to rein in your anger.

“Really, now?” he retorts, not missing a beat. “How ‘bout we use the thermometer I brought you and see what that has to say, hah?”

Before he can even move towards you to grab the tool from where it’s sitting behind you, you blindly reach for the bag behind you and bring it to your front, clutching it close to your chest.

“No.”

At your move, a devilish sneer invades his features. “So you’re admitting it, then?”

You purse your lips in a tight line, already teeming with irritation. “I don’t owe you an explanation. My request’s already been approved by HR.”

“But why?” he presses, eyebrows seemingly permanently furrowed. “You never take time off unless it’s a major emergency or some shit.”

“And you don’t just take off and abandon your patrol duties, yet here you are,” you quip, not knowing how else to respond to his accusation because it’s true.

“I didn’t abandon patrol,” he spits back, “I had Eijirou cover for me.”

That’s it.

“Well, I’m sorry I’m a goddamn mess, right now, okay?” you finally cry, throwing your hands up as if gesturing a surrender. “Can’t a person have just one day of not having to fucking lie to everyone?”

To your surprise, Bakugou doesn’t bite back and bark a harsh reply. Instead, he only stares at you expectantly, wordlessly coaxing you to explain.

And you don’t know what it is about it, but his borderline concerned gaze is the catalyst that causes the proverbial dam to break open and for everything to come flooding out.

Your voice is so pathetically small when the words finally come out.

“…Bakugou, why are we even doing this?”

Again, he doesn’t say anything, and you take his silence as an opportunity to keep going.

“You know, at first, I thought I—no, we—had a rationale,” you start, looking at everything else in the room but him. “I wanted to get back at my ex, and you, for some reason, wanted to be a hero and get back at him…too? Okay, shit, it’s already getting confusing.”

At that, Bakugou scoffs. “Quit making me sound like an aimless dumbass, idiot. I just hate ugly ass douchebags.” He crosses his buff arms in front of his chest, “It’s a personal goal of mine to make them pay.”

You eye him suspiciously, not exactly sold on his answer, but you press on.

“Okay… And so we—I did—exactly that by punching him at his wedding. Which brought us unnecessary attention from the press, eventually pushing and forcing us to act like we’re dating around everyone.

“And we’ve done exactly that!” you bemoan, “Around your closest friends, even around your sweet, innocent parents, for crying out loud!”

You finally will yourself to look at Bakugou, and he looks like he’s about to say something but you cut him off before he can.

If you don’t get this out now, you doubt you’ll ever get another chance to do so.

“It’s just—I—I don’t think I can do this anymore, Bakugou,” you finally say, shoulders sagging in relief at finally having said aloud what’s been haunting your mind.

You look at him squarely, injecting as much conviction as you can into your tone for what you’re about to say next.

Because, you now realize, it’s the one thing that’s been plaguing you the most.

“I don’t want to cause you to fuck up your life any more than I already have.”

You study his face, bracing yourself for a spectrum of reactions you can potentially elicit from the man. You watch as his jaw visibly clenches, and it bewilders you how he can look so pained when, no matter how much you rack your brain for a reason, there’s nothing in it for him in this silly, not-so-little arrangement of yours.

Except, maybe a bit of self-satisfaction and amusement over having helped a damsel in distress.

A few minutes of silence pass with neither of you saying anything.

“…Bakugou?” you finally ask, voice small.

Suddenly the previous expression that was just on his face morphs into a full-on scowl, so much so that the man looks like he’s about to combust any second now.

And erupt he does.

“You have some fucking nerve, you know that?”

Again, and despite yourself, a pulse of fury courses through your body, but before you can even spew your own venom in your defense, Bakugou beats you to it.

“Who gave you the fucking right?”

You’re fuming. “Who gave me the fucking right to what?”

“To fucking walk into my life, just like that!” he snaps, shutting you up.

He shakes his head, disbelieving and seemingly resigned. “Like you had any business strutting in looking so fucking pretty, and then you had to put a nail on the coffin by being the best at your job like it’s no big fucking deal? You put all the agency’s useless executives to shame with how hard you work and how good you are at it.

“And you go ahead and punch the guy who’s been a complete dickhead to you and then worry about how you ruined his wedding. And you say all this nice shit to me and my friends and my family like it’s fucking nothing.”

His hand shoots up to pinch the bridge of his nose, like he’s feeling a headache creeping in, before he drops it in favor of turning to fully glare at you.

“But now you have the gall to call it quits when I’m just starting to get used to this? It’s—you—you’re something else.

“You’re a fucking pain in my ass, you know that?”

Robbed of all words and eyes wide as saucers, the only thing you can choke out is: “W-what are you trying to say?”

At that, Bakugou scoffs. “You really are a fucking dumbass, aren’t you?”

But you don’t even get to retort a defense, or even get the slightest bit offended at his remark, because in the blink of an eye, Bakugou is on the move—purposefully stalking towards you.

And just like that, he pulls you into a searing kiss.

You think you might have squeaked in shock at the contact, but that thought is suddenly overwritten in your mind the moment you feel his big hand rest on the space between your neck and shoulder, while the other remains firm holding your chin in place.

Your eyes flutter close at the intensely warm feeling, and before you get to talk yourself out of it, you kiss him back, and Bakugou’s grip on you tightens when you do so.

And as you revel in the softness of his lips and the fervent way he’s kissing you like he’s been waiting to do this for as long as he could fathom, everything finally dawns on you.

Your feelings—your true feelings—and the fact that you’ve been in denial all along; an idiot who chose what to see and hear and believe to protect herself from hoping and potentially getting disappointed in the end.

But this?

This.

This is the farthest thing from disappointment.

Finally, and maybe a little too soon to your liking, Bakugou slowly pulls a few inches away, and the boyish grin that’s now decorating his beautiful features causes your heart to throb so painfully that it almost hurts—in a good way.

With his two hands that are now resting on your shoulders, he squeezes the flesh, bringing you somewhat back to reality.

“That answer your question, princess?”

Despite yourself, you flush, but now you find that you don’t mind Bakugou noticing, what with the wave of warmth that floods you at the view of him grinning even wider at the sight of you.

Not trusting your voice not to crack just yet, you can only nod as you smile and feel tears slowly pooling your eyes. And not wanting for him to see them, at least for now lest he worries, you quickly blink them away before leaning forward to rest your forehead against his.

And he leans his against yours.

A few moments pass before he speaks up again.

“…Fucking finally.”

“Fucking finally…you have a girlfriend?” you jokingly reference his best friend, although despite the playfulness of the quip your heart is hammering at the suggestion and silently begging, begging for an affirmation.

But what he ends up giving you is lightyears further than that.

Bakugou shakes his head, tipping your chin up so that you’re looking straight into his eyes.

He grins.

“Fucking finally I have you.”

a/n. not to be emotional out here, but this series was such a joy to work on. i haven't written in a year and a half since this series, what with my depression having gotten really bad. i'm nowhere near better, but the process of working on this series and interacting with you all really gave me a sense of fulfillment that i haven't felt in the longest time. with that, i want to thank you all for the support and love <3 this wouldn't have been as enjoyable without you all!

and so drum roll, please; the title of the series is: the wonderful mess that we made (from the song flaws by bastille). a separate masterlist for this will be posted soon, so pls keep an eye out for that :,)

lastly, i'd love to hear from you about how you found the series! my replies, tags, and asks are always open <3

tagging. @kitthepurplepotato @katsukis1wife @brunnetteiwik @bunnysaursushii @beab19 @yawnzzzzzzzz @cholios @kashee-h @iluv-ace @lotuslovers @lovra974 @chelbyisbord @k0z3me @meeeepsworld @asura-rose @dragonscribble @moonz33 @citrustsuki @deadhands69 @lemuhr @rosemarygalaxy @iluv-ace @eyesforbkg @carpe000diem @shushbruv @matchat3a @ttalgi @bakunianadecorazon @the2ndl @keiscwsz @onlyisaa @aizawa19 @471323 @bakugosgothhoe @bleublooded @msjaeger @ellielover69

˖⁺‧₊ as always, reblogs, replies, and tags are appreciated <3 they make the biggest difference! have an awesome day ( ˘ ³˘)

#i'm happy with how this turned out!!!#i hope you liked the ending <3 #bakugou x reader #bakugou x y/n #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugou imagines #mha imagines #bnha imagines #mha scenarios #bnha scenarios #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bakugou x you #bakugou imagine #bakugou drabble #bakugo x reader #bakugo x y/n

971 notes · View notes

novastardoughnut · 21 days ago

Text

The lore implications session 3 Life Series

right okay... so that new episode huh? Snails...

Now. I think there are some facinating ideas to play with beyond the obvious. indeedy Grian does know everything going in and created the game and its rules and such. mumbo getting mad at Grian for knowing and not telling is also an interesting implication. an idea i have been seen thrown around is Watcher Grian being in the know and not in control. and i like the idea there but we can go further

Grian is LOSING control of the system. we have seen a number of moments here from the last 2 episodes where the pressure and chaos has proven to much leading to moments that went too far. a couple of moment have seen Grian nearly ban or throw around the idea of banning people for breaking rules (even if they were accidents as it was with Jimmy killing Skizz). there's been Grian complaining that "it feels like its becoming a creative server" or "the car its breaking my emersion" (like okay but 1 season ago there was a giant dog-house, and a fun fair. two seasons ago was a giant submarine and a loaf of bread in the sky. 3 season there was a floating heart shaped... house??? and whatever the red velvet keep was... oh and box (who could forget Box)).

it gives the feeling as if these things aren't going (or aren't being received) as intended. as if the pressures of immortal snail chases and constant hunger, make players act in a more frantic erratic and unpredictable manner. thus players making more rash, haphazard and dangerous actions. people cant spend time mining, working on bases or resource gathering because "the snail will find me" or "I need to eat". you end up with rushed and cobbled together half bases or you just get straight ugly looking bases.

I think its interesting that the recording session was only an HOUR of time like... thats not normal at all and in that time there were 37 total deaths. which is an absolute bloodbath. one could imagine that the snails could be themselves an embodiment or manifestation of the watchers now coming to take life PERSONALLY. in previous series i wrote a theory that the watchers are getting hungrier each season and I think this may work well within that wheelhouse.

also grian ending the episode before scar can die again is umm... ahhh... how do the french put it... *screaming and kicking back my legs like a teenage girl talking about a crush*

#traffic smp #life series #traffic series #trafficblr #traffic life series #wild life smp #wildlife #wild life #watchers #watcher lore

169 notes · View notes

starlightazriel · 3 months ago

Text

bee 10

series desc: modern best friends >lovers au(fem reader, tattoo artist coke boi az haha) part 10 psa: not everyone will like this part lol don't kill me borderline domestic violence/abuse

warnings: 18+, rough sex where reader is drunk(blurry consent lines, i know i have issues im sorry), unprotected sex, spanking, praise, bj, possessive az, dark az, more groveling, drug/alcohol addiction, az having lots of inner monologue, self loathing, depression

a/n: canon az would never do this omg hes an angel with women bee series az however is a hot mess PROCEED W CAUTION!!!! kisses xoxo

AFTER COMMENTS RECEIVED I ADDED A POLL FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS REWRITE OR PART 11 VOTE HERE

wc: 4.7k

other parts can be found on my az masterlist<3

ten

Azriel was watching the front door for hours. He knew she was back in town, he saw Kat's story. Y/n standing next to her, drink in hand. A grin, bloodshot drunken eyes, swollen from crying too, a tiny jean mini skirt, a crop top that was definitely Kats as it stretched too tightly over her generous breasts, nipples rings showing through the taut fabric. It had taken everything in him not to throw his phone through the flat screen. She was out looking like that, and he was here, miserable, sober besides all the weed he had smoked, which didn't do much for him anymore.

12:23 am.

He did clean up the house a bit for her... He couldn't let her walk into the mess he had created. He started with all of the trash, moved to the dishes, put any paraphernalia away back in his room, picked up all of his clothing strewn about the house.

1:37 am.

Fuck. The drawings. Azriel hesitated in front of her door, though he had been spending a lot of time in there recently, knowing she was back in the city, it somehow felt like a violation. That was ironic, considering how all of this had even started between them. It took effort not to physically cringe when entering her room, and his stomach twisted, cheeks burning at the realization that she had been in here. She had stopped here earlier before going to Kats. There was her bag. Right there, in the corner. His eyes settled on her bed, three of his drawings laid there carefully. He swallowed thickly as he looked at the drawings, each one made in the peak of his mental breakdown he had been going through since she left. One was of their hands, his own scarred flesh against her delicate smooth skin. One of her by herself, laughing, happy, his gut twisted. The last, of them kissing, him holding her face in his hands, tear stains dotted the page and that feeling of guilt that he was all too familiar with lately settled, dragging him down with it.

2:01 am.

Fuck. What the hell was she even doing? Where was she? He let out a heavy sigh before he picked up each and every one of the messy drawings he had done and brought them into his own room, shoving them deep into the filing cabinet by his desk. That was when the pacing about the entire house began— he couldn't possibly sit still now.

2:22 am.

Twenty minutes of pacing wasn't him doing any good, so on went the TV, he thought some cartoons should make him feel better and he settled on CatDog. Another spliff, some chips, cartoons humming in the background. It was better than going out of his fucking mind wondering what she was doing. Which he was still doing— but at least the mindless cartoons helped to drown out the voices screaming in his head, and the insatiable desire to do a line. He had forced himself to stay sober today... He wanted a clear head when he spoke to her.

2:46 am.

Azriel froze when he heard the doorknob turn, his heart beginning to pound wildly. He hadn't seen her since that night on her parents porch. What was she going to say? He had been preparing himself for the worst.

"You cleaned," a small hiccup, flushed cheeks, nervous, sad eyes avoided his as she entered the apartment. She was looking around, anything to avoid eye contact.

"I did," he rose to his feet, dropping the end of the spliff into a the ash tray he had been using. He took a few strides closer, freezing in the hallway when he finally got a good look at her. Lipstick smudged across her lips, hair disheveled, stray pieces falling around her face and eyes.

"Az," she whispered, her eyes widening slightly as they met stare that was growing angrier with each passing second, the emotion emanated from him, filled the apartment like a heavy shadow that pressed into her chest, that made her want to cower away from him.

He didnt know what it was, what over came him but he was in front of her in an instant, long scarred fingers grabbling her face, jaw clenched, grip tight around her own jaw, her cheeks squished, smudged lips smushed together. She's afraid of you, stop. She yelped quietly, eyes wild, wide with fear as she stared up at him, a pleading look in her eyes.

Stop now.

"What the fuck did I say?" it was a low growl, deep from his throat, she was drunk, he could tell, she could barely keep herself up, her knees wobbled, both hands curling around his arm, trying to pull him off of her. He knew this wasnt okay— no this was wrong, so very wrong.

Let her go.

"Az," she whimpered softly, her eyes glazed with tears.

Fucking stop— irreversible damage Azriel, stop now, before you can't.

"I told you not to fucking play with me. You fucking reek like booze and you look like a cheap fucking whore," a lie, his eyes flashed as it passed his lips, she thrashed slightly trying to free her face from his grip. "Stop fucking moving," he grunted, releasing his grip on her face to grab her neck, his fingers squeezing against her soft flesh, he felt her swallow beneath his grip, his blood thrummed.

"Az stop," she begged, her fingers still wrapped tightly around his arm, eyes wild and nervous as her nails dug into his skin.

"This is mine, its all mine," he rasped, his other hand roaming roughly over her body, "I swear to fuck— y/n if you gave my pussy up," he nearly choked on the words, his blood boiling and stomach churning at the thought.

This is wrong Azriel— stop, stop now. You should be on your knees begging forgiveness, stop.

This wasnt him, this wasnt supposed to be happening... This was his father— this is how his father treated women, not him.

"Az, I didnt," her voice broke as she rasped, her eyes were afraid but also— tender, because she knew him, she knew he didnt mean to treat her this way, she understood him on a level that no one else could.

"I should slap the fuck outta you for coming home like that," his fingers loosened on her neck, a sigh of relief escaping her lips with the motion. He didnt mean it, he would never hit her, his chest tightened, her eyes flashing as his words sunk in.

What the fuck is wrong with you? She's never going to talk to you again.

"Im sorry," she slurs softly, her glazed gaze dropping as if she couldn't look him in the eyes, guilt settled on her face. No, this is my fault, don't do that, don't look like that because of me.

"Don't be sorry," His voice was still firm but his eyes softened, swallowing the lump in his throat. I don't deserve you, run. Fucking run. "Just be a good girl and take off your whoring outfit," he finally loosed his fingers from her neck with a gentle push and she stumbled back, wobbly on her feet, she's drunk as fuck, don't fucking do this Az, this is fucked. Youre fucked, youre fucked in the head.

"You missed me didnt you?" she relaxed again allowing a small drunken giggle to escape her lips, she steadied herself on the near by side table before beginning to undress. His eyes followed her movements as her fingers slid over her silky skin and she slowly unclasped the dainty clips on her high heels revealing the fresh looking French tipped toes, his mouth watered at the sight of her.

Tell her how much you miss her. Tell her the truth, tell her youre sorry. Put her to bed Azriel, change her clothes, put her to fucking bed you sick fuck.

Anger outweighed his desire to do the right thing, he couldn't stop himself, what if this was his last chance to fuck her? To feel her?

"Keep going," he encouraged, his hard cock aching in his pants, pressing against the fabric of his sweats, he could feel the precum leaking from the tip, painfully so, he hadn't gotten his nut off since last time they'd fucked weeks ago. He watched as she slid the little mini skirt down her long smooth tattooed legs, many of them he had done himself. She looked so fucking good, shit he'd missed her. "Mhmm," he hummed to himself, his eyes burning into her skin, not looking away for even a second. She shimmied off the crop top next, her braless breasts bouncing deliciously as she freed them from the tight top. A soft involuntary groan escaped his lips at her now near bare body before him. He took a step toward her, placing his hand under her chin and tilting her head up so he could inspect her, she shivered slightly at the touch and he pressed his thumb lightly into her chin, his eyes raking over her bare skin.

"Azriel," she whispered, squirming slightly under his gaze, he froze at the small purply spot behind her ear, a little hickey.

"Oh youre so fucked," he let out a soft breath, poking the small bruise, she let out a small yelp, flinching away from him.

"Az! What is wrong with you?!"

So many things.

"What is wrong with you?" a soft growl escaped his lips, his eyes growing darker with each second that passed, he reached behind her, his body pressing against hers as he did, her breath caught, her eyes wide as she stared up at him. In a swift motion he cleared everything off of the side table in the hallway, the ceramic bowl that held their keys cracking on the floor, she winced, opening her mouth to say something but he grabbed her chin tightly again, forcing her to meet his gaze. "You come into my house, at almost three am, dressed like a fucking thot with a hickey on your neck, face all fucked up," he released her jaw aggressively, her head thrown to the side slightly, she let out a soft whimper, rubbing her chin. "Who gave it to you?" he demanded, placing his hand on her shoulder and whirling her around, pressing her against the table so her hips were flush with it, another small whine escaped her lips.

"It doesn't matter Az-"

"Tell me," he growled softly, his hand connecting with her ass in a sharp smack, she flinched, her hand finding the edge of the table and she held tightly. "Tell me," a warning edge in his tone

"E-Eris!" she yelped out softly, bracing herself for the next impact.

"Yeah, youre so fucked," he chuckled dryly, without an ounce of humor in his tone. Rage was coursing through his blood, red, red was all he could see. Fucking Eris, why? Why him? He didnt know why it infuriated him so much, maybe because he was so different from Azriel, practically opposites. How could she even be attracted to both of them? His pale perfectly smooth skin and red hair like the fucking devil, immaculate cleanness, infinite pockets and endless confidence and suave. He hated all of it.

"Az please," she begged, and he was too angry to even acknowledge the damage he knew he was doing.

"Youre soaking wet," he yanked her thong down, exposing her bare ass to him, his mouth watered again at the sight. "Is it because you like when I rough you up like this?" another smack to that same reddened spot on her bum followed by another soft whimper, her fingers gripping the edge of the table tightly. "Or is it because you like redheaded pricks?"

"Both," she bit back, her words slurred, he laughed again, that same humorless cold chuckle before his hand connected with her skin again, the sound echoing through the quiet hallway. A shaky breath released from her lips as she braced herself for more, her eyes squeezing shut.

"Makes me sick you let him put his hands all over you. Act like a whore get fucked like one," his gravelly voice laced with intent as he released his hard cock from his sweats, they pooled on the floor at his feet as he wrapped his fingers around his thick length. She gasped softly, wincing at the sting as he slapped his cock on the round of her ass in that same spot he had spanked numerous times. His teeth sunk into his lower lip, cheeks flushed with anticipation, he had missed this.

"Youre mine, you understand me?" he asked, his tone sharp as he slid his leaking tip over her entrance, he hissed softly under his breath at the feeling of her wet cunt on his most sensitive skin.

"Yes Az, yes I understand," she rasped softly, another soft yelp leaving her lips as he shoved his cock into her, a low guttural groan leaving his lips. He had missed this so much.

"Good girl," he ground his hips against her ass, pinning her against the table, another small cry left her lips as he pulled his throbbing cock nearly all the way out and back in, the table shook beneath them. His thrusts were greedy, quick and unforgiving as she fell apart beneath him. Her pussy clenched around him, the tip of him dragging across her g-spot with every forceful stroke.

"Az," she let out a broken whimper, her mouth falling open, face twisting in blissful pleasure as she came all over his cock. He rasped a breath, surprised he hadn't been the one to cum first. Maybe she had been wound just as tightly as he was.

"Oh?" he breathed out, panting softly from the pace, small beads of sweat forming at his temples. "You came already?" he asked, a prideful smirk tugged at the corner of his lips as he ground his hips his cock filling her up so perfectly, her creamy release leaking around the base of his cock. She only whined softly in response which was only broken up by a soft yelp when he abruptly yanked his cock from her. Azriel grabbed her shoulder, pulling her up on wobbly legs before pushing her down on her knees.

"Go on," he grunted, his eyes glazed as he stared down at her, she was drunk as hell. He swallowed, wrapping his fingers into her hair and tapping his cock on her face, she loosed a breath, her jaw dropping open for him. She gagged as his cock hit her throat, not nearly fitting, he moaned, holding her head in place and fucking her face. "Fuck baby, good girl," he panted softly, his cheeks flushed, eyes glued to her, she moaned around him, her eyes squeezed shut, tears forming at the corners of her eyes as he brushed the back of her throat over and over. He hummed in approval as she swirled her tongue around his tip, dragging it along the underside of his cock, over his balls and then back up, her lips wrapping around him again.

Azriel cursed under his breath, his fist tightening in her hair as he released his thick ropes of milky cum into her mouth, she nearly choked as it shot to the back of her throat, one of her hands gripped the back of his knee tightly as she swallowed every last drop and sucked his cock clean. She panted, shrinking down onto the floor a bit her knees nearly buckling beneath her. He released her hair as she sunk down, a shaky breath escaping her lips as he did, his gut wrenched at the sight of her. On the floor beneath him, body dusted with red marks that he knew would turn to purple by the morning, he left them there. Azriel swallowed thickly as he tucked his cock back away into his pants before leaning down, putting his hands under her arms to lift her.

"Come on, get up," his tone is soft as he helped her up, once she was on her feet he easily he picked her up, and she rest her head on his chest as he brought her to the bathroom. "You feel lighter... You eating?" he asks, the guilt beginning to gnaw at his gut.

What the fuck is wrong with you? Fucking sick piece of shit.

"Mhm," was her only response, he let out another small sigh before setting her down on her feet. "Where's all my pictures?" she slurred softly, her eyes raking her her room.

"Put em away," he muttered, a blush creeping onto his cheeks as he rifled through her clothing retrieving a soft cotton pair of panties and a long t shirt.

"I liked them Az," she mumbled lazily, her eyes closed as he dressed her in her more comfortable clothing. He winced a little at her words

"Bed time," he breathed, steadying her on her feet before scooping her up in his arms again, and placing her into her bed. He tucked her in, pulling the blankets up to her chin and tucking them around her body.

"Why didnt you tell me you were moving to Vegas Azriel?" she asked, her words still slurred, he swallowed hard, tugging at his hair as he sat on the edge of her bed.

"We should talk tomorrow," he muttered, knowing she probably wouldn't remember the conversation if they had it now. She only nodded, her eyes still closed. Azriel reached out hesitantly and gently rubbed her back as she fell asleep.

He stayed there, watched her sleep, the soft glow from the string lights she had put up along one of her walls the only thing iGuilt gnawed at his gut, at his insides, he wanted to jump out of his own skin.

She deserved so much more than him... The little girl that he had shared his favorite candy with in front of her house, the girl that had saved him, so many times— she deserved the world, and he couldn't give it to her. He couldn't even keep her happy, the dark circles and the drop in weight proved that. It was his fault. All of it.

All day, he had gone all day without a single line.

And now— after he had taken advantage of her, put bruises on her, fucked her while she was too drunk to say no, said horrible fucking things he didnt mean...

Now he needed a fucking line.

A soft groan escaped my lips as I rolled over, pain, I was in pain everywhere— felt like I had been hit by a damn bus. My head pounded from the amount of alcohol I had consumed, my pussy was still lightly throbbing, completely beat up from last nights activities.

The house was quiet, but still my head throbbed.

My mind was fuzzy but I remembered pieces, remembered that I had made out with Eris, come home late, Azriel had put his hands on me- we had fucked. I groaned again, pressing my palms into my aching eyes.

Obviously, Azriel was out of fucking line— out of control. I hadn't thought our situation could get any worse, and now, impossibly worse.

Could I blame him for his actions when nobody taught him how to love someone? When I knew that his need for control had rooted from the childhood horrors he had once faced? Could I blame him for his actions when I knew his brain had developed around abuse and violence? No, I couldn't blame him.

Maybe I was in denial, but underneath it all? Still my Az.

Waiting on the counter for me was a latte and a breakfast sandwich from my favorite cafe, next to it a folded piece of paper. I unfolded it, my chest swelling at the bouquet he had drawn along with a few bees flying around it, the drawing was messy a few ink splatters where he had pressed the pen down too hard, but still beautifully done like anything he touched with his artistic ability. A small message scribbled at the bottom.

hope its still warm when you get up im sorry if you don't completely fucking hate me stop at the shop before your shift, i love you, azriel

Still my Az.

I sighed, frustration beginning to bubble within me. Always lax, always acting like everything was just fine. I was tired of it, I was tired of always just pretending like everything was okay when that dark cloud of depression had reared its ugly head weeks ago.

It was an effort to shower, to get dressed, I didnt have the will to put any makeup on besides a little mascara afterwards. Every movement felt heavy and painful and full of more effort than it should, but it wasnt only my physical condition from drinking an ungodly amount and Azriels- outburst. It was also my emotional state- my brain so utterly exhausted from all of the trauma I had been enduring in the past weeks. I couldn't even bare to look in the mirror for more than a few moments either, the fingerprint shaped bruises dusted along my jawline highlighted by the brightly lit bathroom.

It was even more of an effort to get myself out of the car when I reached the shop. Anxiety gnawed at my gut, would they ask? Would they even notice? It didnt matter, I needed answers. I needed answers to questions I hadn't even formed yet. The bells chimed as they usually did and the stares I received upon my entrance didnt do anything to sooth my anxious gut. The lack of clientele in the waiting room definitely helped, a little.

"Hey," I said wearily to Kat and Cass, I avoided eye contact at all cost, and found my usual place leaning against the counter. Kat was in her chair behind it, Cassian perched on a stool nearby.

"Hey boo," Kat says quietly, I could feel Cass' boring into me. Don't bring it up. I could tell by his lack of greeting he was about to.

"Y/n, please don't tell me Az did that," Cassians voice is soft but I could hear the concern laced in his tone.

"Is he here?" I ignored his question completely, I didnt want to get into it. Not now.

"Hes doing a tattoo, Cassians room is empty tho— if you wanted to wait for him, its been a couple hours, hes almost done," Kat didnt pry, she knew better, and Cass didnt protest when she offered his room up without asking first.

"Thanks," its slightly breathless, with an effort not to burst out in tears in front of them. I couldn't handle the worried stares— the pity. The door clicked shut behind me and I dropped my bag on Cassians piercing bed and slid into his chair. Alone, now, I let the tears of frustration flow freely. They were silent, but hot and streaming, I wiped my eyes with my sleeves, letting out an exasperated sigh.

I didnt know how long it had been when I heard his voice outside, I held my breath to listen. "She's here?" surprise, hopeful surprise.

"Az— Im not past putting you on the floor if you put your hands—"

"Im not," Azriel cut him off with annoyance. I straightened, realizing he was about to be in here.

I sniffled, wiping my eyes again quickly to try and hide the evidence of my tears before Az stepped in, in all his brooding glory. His face was grave, eyes impossibly more tortured than usual, hair messy and disheveled, chains stacked, poking out from under his shirt, he was in the same clothes that he had been in last night and it didnt look like he'd gotten an ounce of sleep.

"Leave it open," I commanded softly, I saw Cassian quickly look away and back toward Kat as Az began to shut the door. Hurt flashed in Azriels eyes, but he stopped, leaving the door where it was. It wasnt wide open, but open enough.

"You don't trust me," it wasnt a question, but a statement, and he was right, to an extent at least. I didnt think Az would hurt me— after last night... I wouldn't feel bad for asking him to leave the door open.

"Youre fucked up," I muttered when our eyes met, his pupils always a tell tale, he swallowed, his throat bobbing with the motion. "Probably should have this conversation another time."

"I was always fucked up Bee, every fucking moment I was fucked up— it doesn't matter," he took a step toward me, I held my breath again, my eyes tracing every movement he made. "Im sorry." Another step, I bit my lip, my cheeks flushing as I watched him drop to his knees in front of me.

"Sorry doesn't fix everything," my voice broke, he winced, his eyes boring into mine, showing me a vulnerable side Id never seen before.

"I know that," he breathed, and I almost broke all over again seeing the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes. "Im so fucked in the head Bee nothing I did last night was okay- fuck- it was- Im sick Im sorry," he rambled, he slid his hands into his hair, his fists curling into it, his elbows on either side of his head.

"Its not okay none of it— the fucking bottle girls, the lying, last night especially... I- you asked me last night why I kept Vegas from you and I have nothing- I have no good fucking answer or excuse that makes it okay but I swear I was gonna ask you to come with me, like fuck y/n I wish you could see I wish you could understand—" rambling again, I let him, my tears flowing again, words failing me. "I would let Rhys fucking sue me for breaking contract before I would leave this fucking city without you," his cheeks were flushed, tears running down them, I hadn't seen this before... As well as I knew him he never showed this much raw emotion, besides anger. "I know Im a fucking addict and a fucking alchy, but Im trying to be better, I went to AA, Im trying to quit drinking, but Im fucked Bee- Im so fucked up from all the shit Ive never faced and Im so fucking sorry I put that on you lastnight."

AA, he had done that for me, my heart ached for him. To hear him say those things about himself, in front of his friends, my heart ached knowing how hard all of this must be, but for me, he was doing it for me.

"If you never forgive me I deserve that, I honestly do Im a piece of shit— a fucking stain on your very existence you deserve so much fucking more than someone like me," I wanted him to stop, I wanted him to stop saying all of those horrible things, as angry as I was at him.

"Im so fucking sorry," he breathed again, his voice breaking, with a sob. Az, my Az, the one who hid behind that cold stare and never let anyone in, the one who never let that hard exterior crack... Was on his knees for me... Every word, Kat and Cass could hear every single word, they could hear him cry, hear his confessions his countless apologies and he didnt care. He didnt care that they knew, he only needed me. He needed me like air to breathe.

And I felt it, I felt it with every ounce of me because I needed him just as much.

So I didnt hesitate when I reached for him, when I pulled his hands from his hair, and pulled him to me. His body went limp, his knelt form hunching over as he let his head fall into my stomach.

"It's okay Az, breathe," my voice was soft as I stroked his hair, holding him close to me while he cried.

I knew it wasnt okay, none of it was, but he needed me and I needed him, and the rest I would figure out later.

a/n: wow they are toxic and codependent hahaahahaha NOT FULLY PROOF READ EXCUSE MISTAKES

taglist<3: (if you changed your username and still want to be tagged lmk, or would like to be added to the list)

@smalljasper289 @cynthiesjmxazrielslover @scorpioriesling @userxs-blog @lilah-asteria @abadfantasybook @judeduartewannbe @lindsayscottagebythesea @velarisdusk @serxndipity-ipity-blog @julesvanslutta @honk4emoboyz @bookishbishhh @dakotali @blessthepizzaman @scooobies @durgenyx

#azriel smut #acotar #azriel fanfic #acotar fanfiction #azriel spymaster #azriel fic #acotar fic #acotar smut #azriel fluff #azriel fan fiction #azriel au #azriel shadowsinger #azriel acotar #azriel x reader #azriel

175 notes · View notes

queenshelby · 3 months ago

Text

Daughter Dearest (Part One)

Pairing: Cillian Murphy (47) x Step! Daughter (21)

Warning: Infidelity, Smut, Dysfunctional Family

Home. The word itself tasted like mothballs and childhood memories, both bitter and sweet on your tongue.

What others would call home, did not feel like home to you at all, not after your mother had destroyed everything that you were familiar with just when you had turned fifteen.

It was then that she had begun an affair with an actor named Cillian Murphy, whom she had met on the set of a movie he was filming and, just as if she had planned it all, she became pregnant with your stepsister Sadie.

Your mother was 37 at the time, with Cillian having been five years her senior.

It was all over the papers at the time and, just as you thought that things could not get any worse, she left your father, who was heartbroken and bewildered, and moved in with this then stranger to you.

You and your twin sister, Cliona, were expected to just follow suit, like little lost puppies and whilst Cillian himself seemed like a nice man, it was not something that you were able to do that easily. You had always been strong willed and gave your mother quite the run for her money with your rebellious nature which, in part, was the reason why she had pushed you to go away to live your father in New York.

New York was where you had finished school and, as soon as you turned eighteen, you made your way on a journey around the world.

You travelled to New Zealand, Africa and then South Amerika too. There were times when your money ran out but you always managed to get by, taking on odd jobs here and there, just so that you could survive.

It was during your time in Tanzania, when you met a woman, in her forties, who worked in an orphanage with you, and it was her who introduced you to photography. She told you that the camera was woman's truth and that with it, you had the power to tell stories.

She handed you her canvas camera and you began to snap away, discovering facets of Tanzania, its people and its wildlife in ways that words alone could not articulate.

The experience had left an indelible impression on you and from that day onwards, you knew that photography would be the lens through which you viewed the world and translated your experiences.

Your wanderlust had taken you on a three year journey, one that had seen you capture the beauty of the world through photographs. You had even managed to sell some of them to a hip magazine, which showcased your work alongside a spread of your adventures.

The pay was decent, just enough to keep you going and still let you see the world.

College had been an option, but not one you wanted to seriously consider. You had never been one to follow the rules and conventions that came with higher education, and the thought of being stuck in a classroom for four more years seemed unbearably tedious.

But then, after an amazing three years, your travel journey came to an abrupt end when you got into trouble with the law while passing through the UK, on your way back to New York.

At London Heathrow, just after taking a flight from Rome, you were stopped by customs for questioning regarding a package that they found in your luggage. It was a small box that just fit snugly within the zippered pocket in your backpack.

Inside the box there were as an illicit substance and it was this substance that got you arrested.

You were questioned for hours, leaving you dazed, frightened and confused about how the drugs had even gotten into your bag and, after a series of panicked phone calls to your family, your mother agreed to bail you out.

Days later, in court, you were given a short sentence, including a travel ban for three months and house arrest for one.

"I much rather go to jail than live with my mother for four weeks," you thought to yourself, but the sentence had been handed out and, before you knew it, you were taken to where you had once lived, in the outskirts of London.

Time seemed to slow down the moment you crossed the threshold of that Victorian house, so familiar in every fine detail that it seemed to shrink around you.

The police officer who accompanied you rang the doorbell on your behalf and, after a few moments, your sister Cliona , whom you hadn't even spoken to in a year, opened the heavy oak door.

Her dark eyes, much like yours, narrowed at the sight of you, before dissolving into a cold, expressionless mask.

"Hi, Cliona," you greeted her, but it was clear that she wasn't interested in talking.

Her thin lips barely moved as she spoke. "Mum isn't home, but come on in," she simply said to the officer rather than you.

Cliona's dismissive attitude was nothing new to you, but it still hurt.

You had once been close, like two peas in a pod, but she had changed somewhere along the way. Growing up, you had always been the rebel, the one who pushed boundaries and questioned authority, while she was the obedient one, always trying to please your mother.

Over the years, that gap had only widened, until it seemed like you were living on opposite ends of a vast, unbridgeable chasm.

With a resigned sigh, you stepped into the hallway which is when you saw him, for the first time in 18 months. It was Cillian, emerging from one of the rooms at the far end of the hallway, with your little half sister Sadie clinging to his side, her tiny fingers wrapped around one of his fingers.

As soon as Sadie saw you, she ran towards you , squealing with excitement, and you couldn't help but smile at the sincerity in her voice as she called out your name.

"Y/N! Y/N!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around your waist. Her laughter echoed through the expansive hallway as you stooped down to pick her up, your heart feeling warmer and softer than it had in months.

You had always kept in touch with her, and even visited her on numerous occasions, putting up with your mother for short periods of times for Sadie's sake, mostly while Cillian had been away filming.

He was a busy man and your interactions with him to date were limited. Cillian took a step towards you, his warm smile radiating kindness.

"Welcome home, I suppose," he said with a slight chuckle, his rich voice resonating through the room. You couldn't help but blush as he looked directly into your eyes, the corners of his eyes crinkling in genuine delight at seeing you. It was a small but friendly gesture that made you feel a little better about this somewhat unfortunate situation.

"Thanks," you mumbled, not quite sure what to say in response. You had imagined seeing him again, but there was something utterly different about him now, something that you had not noticed when you saw him last, about eighteen months ago, at your aunt's wedding.

He had grown a little older, his hair was peppered with more silver strands, giving him an air of maturity, though his eyes seemed the same vibrant shade of blue that they had been before, sparkling with intelligence and a hint of mischief.

While you were spending some time with your little stepsister, the police officer pulled out some paperwork and what looked like an ankle monitor , informing you that this would now be a part of your daily life since it was ordered by the court for the next one month.

You couldn't help but wince at the sight of the device. It felt like an electronic handcuff latched on, but you didn't complain, knowing that it could have been much worse.

"So, I guess it's a house arrest for you now," Cliona said with a roll of her eyes, "good luck with that."

"It's only for thirty days," the officer interjected, clearly trying to soften the blow of the situation, "and if you follow the rules and stay out of trouble, you'll be free to go where you want after that, at least within the UK."

You couldn't help but feel a wry smile creeping up on your face, thinking about all the things you would be able to do once this house arrest was lifted.

But for now, you had to follow the rules and make the best of a less than ideal situation.

"Mr Murphy, are you happy to sign for this?" the officer asked Cillian, handing him the paperwork related to your bail conditions. Cillian looked down at the documents, his brow furrowing slightly as he read over the terms.

"Sure," he then said, signing his name with a flourish before looking at the monitor with disdain while the officer turned it on, causing it to light up around your ankle.

"What a strange contraption," he muttered under his breath, shaking his head as he handed it back to the officer who was quick to leave shortly after that.

"I should probably find my room and get unpacked before mum gets home. I know how much she hates mess," you said as soon as the officer drove off and Cillian nodded in agreement.

"Of course, you can use your old room, it hasn't changed much," he said before picking up your large backpack and guiding you upstairs.

"You know I could have carried this, right?" you remarked to Cillian as you watched him struggle with your backpack, his face turning slightly red with the strain.

He chuckled good-naturedly. "I know, but it's no trouble, really," he said as he adjusted the weight of the bag on his shoulder.

You nodded silently, following him as he took you to your old room, which was still located at the far end of the hallway, as it had been before.

He opened the door for you, stepping aside so you could enter first.

As you stepped over the threshold, your senses were immediately bombarded by a whirlwind of emotions – nostalgia, bitterness, and a strange undercurrent of longing.

You had spent countless nights in that room, sitting by the window, watching the stars through the cold glass, dreaming of the day when you could escape the confines of that house after finding out that your mother wanted a divorce. But then again. you were older now and none of this mattered anymore. Now, it was somewhere to sleep for the next thirty days, and, after that, you knew that you would be evaluating your options. You left your camera bag by the door but the moment you turned around you caught Cillian's gaze, and you could have sworn that there was something tender hidden deep within the blue recesses of his eyes, like a secret too precious to be shared with the world.

"I'm glad to see that it's still the same," you muttered to yourself, as you placed your other smaller bag onto the bed.

Cillian chuckled lightly, reminding you that he was still standing there, a few feet behind you.

"I'll let you get settled in now," he said with a warm smile. "Dinner is at seven, if you want to join us. Your mother should be home by six," Cillian added, before walking out of the room, leaving you to your own devices.

"Thank you Cillian," you called after him, letting the moment linger for a second, as a chance to catch your breathe and let your thoughts reel.

The air in the room felt heavy, the scent of old books and dust hung thick against it, like an unwelcome fog. The room was exactly how you remembered it, every piece of furniture, every painting on the walls. It was like going back in time.

"Fuck," you muttered under your breath, as you pulled back the window curtains, revealing the oak tree that stood tall and strong outside. The view had not changed one bit and this realization was as oddly comforting as it was heartbreaking.

You ran your hand over the windowsill, recalling how you used to sit there for hours on end just watching the world go by in this quaint little town on the outskirts of London. It triggered memories of when you had first noticed your mother changing, and her new job on the set of Peaky Blinders getting the better of her.

She was one of the production managers, young and enthusiastic, and of course, this is where she met Cillian.

It all went downhill from there, and as they got more and more involved, her behavior changed.

But you never thought to blame him for the failure of your parents' marriage. Their marriage was doomed for years before and yet, the way she put an end to it, by starting an affair with another man, was what really irked you.

Pushing aside these thoughts of the past, you forced yourself to focus on the present and this presence included staying here, with your part of your broken family, for the next thirty days and you knew that this was going to be tough.

And tough it was when, over dinner later that day, your mother criticized your life choices.

"You know that none of this would have happened if you had decided to live a normal life," she charged at you between bites of roast chicken and boiled potatoes. "Finishing college, finding a real job, staying out of trouble...," she continued on, and her voice was sharp and condescending.

How many times had you heard her repeat the same things, trying to mold you in her image, trying to give you the role that she had always wanted for herself? You swallowed hard, keeping your composure even as the anger boiled inside you.

"Photography is not a career. It's an art and art doesn't pay the bills," your mother added with disdain.

"Well, art sure pays your bills, because you did not work for years and still have a roof over your head because your husband clearly earns enough money acting," you replied calmly, taking a sip of your water. You glanced at Cillian, who was sitting quietly, seemingly lost in thought. Sadie, however, was busy coloring with crayons, oblivious to the tension around her.

"That's different," your mother retorted, frowning at you. "Cillian is smart about his work while you, on the other hand, are reckless," she continued on, causing Cillian to sigh heavily.

"Marion, enough," he simply said, shaking his head probably taking pity in you and your current situation. "Can't we just enjoy our meal together as a family?" he then asked, and your mother huffed but said nothing more.

The rest of the meal passed in silence, with only Sadie occasionally breaking the awkward atmosphere with her chatter.

After dinner, you offered to help Cillian with the dishes, stacking the rinsed off plates

by the sink while he loaded them into the dishwasher. As he worked, you couldn't help but notice the way his sleeves were rolled up his arms and his hands moved with ease, his fingers deftly maneuvering the utensils as he placed them in their designated spots in the dishwasher. He had incredible hands, almost perfect, and whilst this was a small thing, it was also oddly intimate, and you felt the heat creeping up to your cheeks as you watched him.

You shook your head slightly, mentally chastising yourself for reacting in such a way.

Cillian was your stepfather, nothing more, and yet there was no denying the way your heart skipped a beat when his hand brushed against yours as you both reached for the same dish.

He smiled at you as he caught you looking, and your face flushed with heat.

"Thanks for helping me with these," Cillian then said as he closed the dishwasher with a soft click. He wiped his hands on a nearby towel and turned to face you, his eyes finding yours. "And, you know, I'm sorry about the whole house arrest thing. If there's anything I can do to make it easier for you, just let me know."

His words caught you off guard. It had been a long time since anyone had extended their help to you without expecting something in return. You hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to say. "Thank you," you finally managed to say. "But it's fine," you nodded. "Thank you for letting me stay here," you added astutely, trying to put a positive spin on the situation.

Cillian gave a slight smile, "Of course," he then said before

turning to walk back towards the living room. "I better go keep your mother company," he said, pausing for a moment before adding, "And, I meant what I just said about the house arrest, if there's anything you need, don't hesitate to ask me."

Left alone in the kitchen, you couldn't help but replay that moment over and over again in your mind. You tried to shake it off as just a kind gesture and not something more, but something about the way he looked at you left you questioning yourself, leaving a strange flutter in your chest.

Shaking of these thoughts, you went to your room in order to find something to read or maybe even draw. But of course, your mother had got rid of most of your art supplies when you moved out, claiming that it was all just a waste of money.

Thus, after you got changed into a singlet and some PJ shorts, you made your way back downstairs, recalling a few large shelves stacked with books in the study, which was locate right next to the living room.

Cillian was still sitting with your mother on a comfortable couch but, much to your surprise, there was a large gap between them. He was reading a book while she watched some reality TV show with her uncritical gaze.

When you entered the room, Cillian looked up from his book and his eyes were immediately drawn to you, taking in your form, even though there was nothing particularly sexy about what you were wearing.

He felt the heat grow in his chest, dimming his thoughts and distracting him from the lines of text that he had been attempting to read which, to him, was a strange sensation and not one he had expected.

Thinking that you had gone unnoticed, you walked into the study and towards one of the large bookshelves before flicking through the spines of the countless novels stacked up haphazardly along the rows.

But then, suddenly, you heard a familiar voice from behind you.

"Can't find anything interesting?" Cillian asked, making you jump and drop the book you had been holding in your hands and, almost simultaneously, you dropped to your knees to pick it up, your heads bumping into each other.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" you exclaimed, your hands flying up to your forehead instinctively as you tried to steady the pounding that had started there.

"No, it's my fault," Cillian apologized, his voice close behind you and he put his hand on your shoulder, causing tingles to run down your spine. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," you said as you turned and looked up at him, your eyes meeting briefly.

"I was trying to find a novel and, god, there are so many to choose from in here," you added, gesturing towards the towering bookshelf that seemed to stretch up towards the high ceiling.

Cillian chuckled, "Well, I do read a lot, but don't worry, I can give you a few recommendations if you want them," he said, a playful twinkle in his eye.

"I would love some recommendations, actually," you said, your face lighting up. "Something about, I don't know, human nature I suppose. I love reading stories about conflicted individuals or history," you said, with a light shrug of your shoulders.

Cillian smiled at your answer, "Did you read the Grass Arena?" he asked, his voice full of curiosity.

You nodded, "Yes, I did. The story was dark but tantalizing," you mentioned, leaving Cillian a little surprised. "I think it's really good book," you smiled, causing Cillian to furrow his eyebrows.

"A really good book huh?" he echoed, a gentle laugh escaping his lips. "It's one of the best, I think. John Healy's work should be regarded as an invaluable contribution to literature," he declared, and you couldn't help but smile at his enthusiasm, momentarily getting lost in his bright blue eyes.

"Okay, I agree. It's probably in my top ten," you whispered, before shaking yourself out of your trance-like state, adding, "So, any other recommendations then?"

Cillian nodded, his eyes lighting up with excitement as he guided you towards a different bookshelf.

"I think you might like this one," he said as he pulled out a tattered copy of 'On the Road' by Jack Kerouac, the pages yellowed with age. "I know it's a classic, but it's always a good read and you love travelling, so if you haven't read it yet, you should," he added, his voice full of warmth.

You took the book from him gratefully while inadvertently brushing against his hand. Your palms grew warm and tingly, causing you to look up at him with wide eyes. Cillian's eyes locked with yours and there was a charge between you, a current thrumming beneath the surface that tickled your skin.

"Uhm, thank you ," you mumbled, sliding the book from his grip and stepping back. He nodded, seeming to understand the sudden need for space.

"Sure thing," he said, before turning to head back to the living room. "Goodnight, Y/N," he told you and you nodded, taking a deep breath to calm your racing heart before tucking the book under your arm and heading to your bedroom.

Tags:

@sunbeamseas @saint-ackerman @oatmealisweird @naxxsstuff @amanda08319 @r-m-cidnah @elysiannook @cillshot @infireddabdab @tastycakee @harrysbestiee @lilybabe22 @adalynlowell @henrywintersdearestgirl @ietss @thatgirlthatreadswattpad @ryiamarie @axionn

@nela-cutie @futurecorps3 @delishen @nosebleeds-247 @thirteenis-myluckynumber @gills-lounge @hjmalmed @lost-fantasy @tiredkitten @sidechrisporn @smallsoulunknown @charqing-qing @hopefulinlove @aporiasposts @shycrybaby @me-and-your-husband @hjmalmed @lacontroller1991 @galxydefender @aporiasposts

@galxydefender @hunnibearrr @saint-ackerman @lunyyx @gentlemonsterjennie1 @ihavealotoffandomssorry @nadloves @lost-fantasy @nolucesn@mcavoy-girl @hjmalmed @bloodybagels @obeyme4life @richiesgroupie @blushykiss @tatumrileyslover @teawithsatanx @orijanko @rhaenyra4ever @xcinnamonmalfoyx @budugu @nadloves @kmc1989 @bloodybagels @obeyme4life @richiesgroupie @forgottenpeakywriter @smailaway @sophiaagcill\\\uirred @blondie-22

#cillian murphy x y/n #cillian murphy imagine #cillian murphy x you #cillian murphy x reader #cillian murphy smut #cillian murphy #cillian murphy fic #cillian murphy fanfic #cillian murphy fanfiction

249 notes · View notes

flowerandblood · 6 months ago

Text

The Fall from the Heavens (37)

[ canon • Aemond x Strong • niece female ]

[ warnings: angst, attempted murder, descriptions of wounds and their effects, descriptions of the fight ]

[ description: A cool distance turns into friendship and more when two children see that they can find refuge and understanding in each other. However, naïve dreams collide with the reality in which every event has consequences and what once could have been love becomes a dark, newly painful obsession. Angst, sexual tension, obsession, violence, madness, very dark Aemond. ]

The story in this series is an alternate reality from the oneshot Stay and love, leave and die, in which Aemond reads the letters his niece has sent to him over the years. They are the same characters and it shows what would have happened between them − I have changed the background story from their childhood slightly for the sake of the plot.

Characters & Series Moodboard Lady Strong Moodboard Aemond & Lady Strong Moodboard Aemond & Lady Strong Childhood

Remember to read Alys POV before this chapter: click

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Next chapters: Masterlist

_____

Jace's presence in Harrenhal was making him furious – although he was staying in his chamber, offended apparently at the whole world, he was irritated by the very fact that it was unclear when he intended to return to Dragonstone. His wife noticed his sullen mood and, to his satisfaction, decided to speak with her brother. What he heard when she returned to their quarters, however, shocked him more than relieved him.

"What?" He asked, hearing that this fool intended to take Alys Rivers with him.

"He fucks her?" He sneered, raising his eyebrows in amusement. His wife sighed heavily, burying her face in her hand, exhausted.

"I don't know. He didn't refer to her as his mistress, just his relative. Which in our family, unfortunately, leaves a lot of room for interpretation, as you know, uncle." She muttered, stroking her slightly rounded belly as she walked slowly to the window. He involuntarily chuckled at her words, shaking his head.

One of the things he had treasured about her since childhood was the irony she was able to frame with her own characteristic gentleness.

"He was seeing her without your permission?" He asked lowly, looking down at his fingers. His niece sighed heavily.

"Yes."

"Are you going to leave this insult unanswered?"

"I don't have the strength for it, Aemond. Let him do what he wants. He plans to leave for Dragonstone tomorrow morning."

He hummed under his breath, spreading out comfortably in his chair, satisfied.

"Wonderful."

They both shuddered as one of the guards walked into his chamber without warning. The man bowed before them.

"What is it?" He asked coldly.

"Your Grace. We have come across the trail of Larys Strong."

He got up from his seat and nodded at the man to come closer, feeling his heart pounding like mad.

"Speak."

"Lord Strong was seen an hour's ride on horseback from Harrenhal. Someone noticed people moving around in the ruins of the old fortress at night and recognised a man limping on one leg among them." The man replied.

He pressed his lips together in contentment, thinking that the moment had arrived when he would finally be able to cut off the head of this viper and throw it to his wife at her feet.

"Assemble the troop. We leave at nightfall."

His wife watched from the sidelines as he and his commanders discussed how to plan their expedition.

He decided he would fly on Vhagar to raze Lord Strong to the ground.

"What if it's a trap? Doesn't that seem too easy to you?" She muttered uncertainly, stroking her lower abdomen in a nervous gesture with her trembling hand, looking up at him with her big eyes. He stared at her wordlessly, fastening the buckles of his leather coat, changing into his riding attire.

"I'm sure it's a trap. Nevertheless, it won't be much of one if I burn them alive." He hummed, grasping her face in his hands, placing a lingering, wet kiss on her forehead. He heard her swallow hard, stroking his shoulder.

"The fire won't reach him if he's hiding underground. Perhaps it would be better if I flew with you?"

Her suggestion made him boil with rage.

"I think you have completely lost your mind." He said coldly, his pupil narrowing dangerously in frustration.

"I will assign you my most trusted guards to look after our quarters. You are not to leave them until I return. Do you understand?" He asked drily, impatient.

She nodded her head.

His hands cupped her warm cheeks as he leaned in to place a comforting, tender kiss on her sweet lips, but he stopped in mid-motion when the door to his chamber opened.

He turned over his shoulder, frustrated, and saw Jace before his eyes. His nephew was breathing heavily, looking at him with wide eyes.

"I fly with you."

He snorted at his words, dropping his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

Gods, give me fucking patience, he thought.

"Don't make me laugh. Take your whore back where you came from, and get out of my sight." He growled, his wife lowered her gaze in horror and embarrassment. Her brother clamped his mouth shut at his words, furious.

"He wanted to kill my sister."

"Then stay with her and protect her as befits a man."

"I'm not going to stay here while you fight!" Jace exclaimed.

"So this is as always about your pride? Hm?" He hissed, dimly recalling the day he, Aegon and Luke had brought him a pig, finding it amusing that they could humiliate him so easily.

It was always about making him feel better at someone else's expense.

He walked towards him, towering over him, wanting to show him who was the rider of the greatest dragon in the world, who had the last word.

"You are our guest, nephew, and you are straining my patience. I tolerate you only for the sake of my wife and my child in her womb."

"My aunt saw a sea of blood in her dream. She thinks something is going to happen there. I want to take revenge on the man who tried to poison my little sister and her child. I ask you, uncle, to let me fly with you."

He looked at him for a moment, hesitating.

The witch's words made him feel uneasy and he didn't know what he thought about it himself.

"Aemond. Please." His wife mumbled, looking at him pleadingly, her fingers clenched on her stomach.

He licked his lips impatiently, sighed heavily and nodded.

The guard who had informed them of Lord Strong's location had shown his troop on the map where the fortress was, so he ordered his nephew to simply fly after him.

Soaring into the skies on the mighty Vhagar, he felt shivers, cold and discomfort running along his spine, some premonition and anxiety from which he was all tense and vigilant.

My aunt saw a sea of blood in her dream.

On the dragon's back they would have reached their destination faster than his soldiers, so they simply circled above them, adjusting their flight speed to maintain the effect of surprise.

After many minutes, he spotted a small, abandoned fortress, or rather its ruins, in the distance and pressed his lips together at the thought that fire couldn't do anything here – the stronghold was made of stone and they, according to his wife's words, were probably hiding underground.

They wasted no time and landed, heading inside immediately with they troop and torches – he ordered his soldiers to search thoroughly all the rooms of the fortress, himself with his nephew and his commanders descending into the underground, feeling the cold sweat on his back.

There were no signs of anyone's presence, the keep looked like it had been abandoned for years.

Something was wrong, he could feel it, and after a moment he heard the voice of one of the men behind him.

"Long live King Aegon!"

He only had time to turn around when he heard the sound of blades being drawn, one of the commanders swinging a dagger, intent on slitting his shocked nephew's throat. Jace lowered his torch, terrified, taking a few steps back.

"NO!" He shouted, furious, sliding his sword out, wanting to step in front of him and shield him, however, the other soldier stepped in his way.

"Do not protect this traitor, my Prince."

Without thinking about what he was actually doing, with one sweeping swish of his sword he decapitated the man, whose head fell with a loud thud to the ground. Not looking at his inert body, he rushed to the aid of his nephew, who drew his sword and tried to defend himself, pale and trembling with fear.

"UNCLE!" He called out in despair like a small child, trying to push one of his opponents away – there was something in his expression, in his dark eyebrows arched in terror and fear, in his bright eyes that reminded him of her.

He thought they resembled each other when he pushed him away and felt someone's dagger thrust into his back – he drew in a loud breath as he looked at his face full of disbelief, thinking he should have listened to her.

"NO!" He heard Jace shout, throwing himself towards him as he fell to his knees, his soldiers moved away, horrified, looking at him in disbelief.

"Gods, what have you done?" Shouted one of them, the other began to run away, followed by the others, throwing their torches to the ground, clearly afraid of what would befall them for what had happened.

The stab of that blade was not meant for him.

He clutched at his wound and hissed, feeling immense, burning pain, his warm blood beginning to run down his back. He heard the neighing of horses in the distance and then someone's screams as his nephew knelt beside him, trying to lift him up.

"– fuck – fuck,fuck,fuck,FUCK! –" Cursed Jace on the verge of crying, clamping his hand over his wound, trying to stop the bleeding.

He thought, breathing heavily, terrified and shocked that he would die here, abandon her even though he had promised himself he would never leave her again.

"– I want to see her face one more time –" He muttered in a trembling voice, afraid of what could come, afraid of death, afraid of what his family would do with her when he was gone.

If they believe it was Jace who killed him, that this was all a trap set for his life.

"– you'll, uncle – come on – just don't fall asleep –" Jace gasped, throwing his arm over his neck in an attempt to rise with him. He shuddered and drew in a breath as a stocky, bearded man rushed in, panting heavily, his palms in blood.

He looked at them with wide eyes as if he had seen a ghost, holding a torch in his hand.

"Good gods." He muttered.

He couldn't remember much of what happened next – he felt the man helping Jace lead him outside, all around him the screams of men being butchered like animals on the orders of the man who had come to their aid.

He felt it was getting harder and harder for him to keep his eyes open, his head was humming, warm blood running down his leg.

"– just a little more – don't fall asleep, uncle – don't fall asleep –" He heard Jace's voice as if in the distance.

He closed his eyelid, praying to the gods to protect his wife if they decided his time had come, to let her give birth to his child without pain, to let her see Essos as he had promised her.

He hissed loudly as someone picked him up and then began to pull him onto something rough – he felt someone slide him into the saddle, and then someone's figure sat behind him before rising into the sky a moment later, the crisp, chilly night breeze cooling his hot face.

"– don't fall asleep, uncle – hold on –" He heard his nephew's pleading voice and hummed sleepily under his breath, remembering her face.

When he closed his eyes, he saw her standing in front of him, terrified and flooded with tears then, when he lost his eye.

He felt a similar pain, though not in his face, and had trouble concentrating, her words seeming to him to be mere mumbles coming from afar.

"– I'm with you – you won't die – you won't die –"

He shuddered and opened his eyes, a loud hiss came from his throat as he felt a stinging, deep pain in his back. The sound he made woke up the person who was apparently lying next to him – she had risen, but in the darkness of the chamber he could not see her face, however, he immediately recognised her scent.

Vanilla.

"– Rhaenys –" He muttered, trying to lift his hand towards her, but he was unable to and it fell numbly to the bedding.

"– I am here, my beloved –" He heard her whisper beside him, her gentle, soft hand touching his hot cheek.

He sighed quietly, feeling a squeeze in his heart and throat at the thought that she was not disgusted by him, that she still loved him despite the fact that he would forever be crippled.

"– I knew you would come –" He said quietly, seeing her silhouette leaning over him as if through a mist, her puffy, moist lips placed a kiss on his forehead.

"– do you still want to marry me? –" He asked with difficulty, breathing hard, feeling that through the fever his eye were closing again, but he needed to hear it.

He needed to be sure that the great scar he would have on his face from now on and the absence of his eye did not cross him out as her future lover and husband.

Her figure froze, her thumb stroking his jaw.

"– uncle – we are married – I'm expecting your child –" She whispered in a trembling voice, gently grasping his wrist, guiding his hand to her slightly rounded lower abdomen.

He swallowed hard, furrowing his brow, and then looked at her, suddenly understanding, feeling tears burning under his eyelids, involuntarily smiling.

"– I have married you –"

"– yes, my love – I am your wife and you are my husband –" She said softly, leaning towards him, her sweet, moist lips pressed against his in a warm, tender kiss, from which his heart thumped harder in his chest.

"– you promised me that you would take me to Essos – you can't leave me now –" She mumbled out in a breaking voice, nuzzling her forehead against his, her gentle hands stroking tenderly his heated, sweaty cheek.

"– never, my sweetest – never –"

He whispered, feeling calm, and after a moment a quiet, warm darkness enveloped him.

When he woke up again, he was blinded by the brightness; he hissed and raised his hand, trying to cover his face. He heard someone get up from a chair and walk over to the bed, sitting down next to him on the sheets.

"– Aemond –" He heard his mother's voice and blinked, running his hand over his face, wondering if it was a dream. Her familiar fingers caught his wrist, squeezing it tightly, as if she needed to make sure he was really awake.

"– my son –" She muttered in a trembling voice. He lowered his hand and saw her face, pale and swollen from the tears she had clearly had to shed over his bed for days.

He could not remember what had happened and why he felt such a terrible pain in his back.

"– where am I? –" He choked out, sighing heavily, tilting his head back, feeling like his skull was about to burst.

"– in Harrenhal – you had a fever for days and were delirious –" She explained, taking his hand in hers, stroking it affectionately. "– I arrived as soon as I found out – Daemon is here too –"

He swallowed hard, memory after memory regaining his awareness of what had happened, Jace's terrified face and the blade stuck in his back.

Don't fall asleep, uncle.

He looked at her in horror, looking around.

"– where is Rhaenys? –" He asked, tense and concerned that she was not by his side, that perhaps someone was trying to hurt her while he lay in bed, unaware of anything. His mother furrowed her brow and shook her head.

"– who? –" She asked, as if she didn't understand what he meant.

He felt a cold sweat on his back at the thought that her silhouette lying by his side was merely a figment of his fever-ignited imagination.

"– my niece –" He muttered. His mother nodded, and it was only then that he realised that no one but him had called her by that name.

"– she sleeps – she stayed by your side for days and nights, but we feared it would harm both her and the baby – her brother persuaded her to rest –" She explained, stroking his hand with hers.

He closed his eyelid, feeling incredibly, wonderfully relieved at her words.

"What happened?"

His mother pressed her lips together, lowering her head.

"Your wife sent a letter to your brother-king. It appeared that Lord Strong, in consultation with your grandfather, wished to deprive Rheanyra of her two children and her dragons in one fell swoop. While Jace was to be murdered away from the fortress, your niece was to be abducted so that your grandfather could pact with you for you to join the war, but with the help of Alys Rivers she hid in her chamber."

He stared at her with wide-open eye, feeling a squeeze in his throat and discomfort in his stomach, a cold sweat running down his back.

Your niece was about to be abducted so that your grandfather could pact with you for you to join the war.

"They wanted Daemon and Rhaenyra to believe that it was you who betrayed them. That you had such a plan all along, to take revenge on her for your eye."

She whispered, looking at him with a sad, tired look.

Only after a moment did he realise that his mother's gown was black.

"Your brother-king sentenced my father to death."

238 notes · View notes

myownwholewildworld · 5 days ago

Text

12. MORNING DEW

chapter 11 | ao3 | series masterlist | chapter 13 (soon)

pairing: post-outbreak!joel x f!reader. summary: you and joel need to discuss what the future might look like for the both of you. whether that's together or on your own. a/n: HI! please accept my apologies, i know it's been like a month since i last updated this series. but fret not, here's chapter 12! hope you guys like it. as always, i appreciate comments, reblogs and likes, they keep us writers well fed and motivated! take care, lovelies <3 x warnings: 18+, mdni. fluff, some angsty hurt/comfort. smut because i got my period halfway through writing this. fingering. handjob. oral (m!receiving). edging. soft dom/sub dynamics. brief references to attempted suicide and attempted SA. reader is female, no other description given. reader is mid-late 20s, joel is 37. no use of y/n. joel’s and reader’s pov. and a special guest’s pov too 👀 dividers by @\saradika-graphics w/c: ~6.5k. taglist aka the drama wagon at the end of the chapter (let me know if you want to be added/removed from the list pls!)

It never seemed to be the proper time to speak to you, Joel thought. Ever since his fuckup last night, he had struggled to find the words, to explain what his thought process was. A few hours ago, he had talked himself into ripping off the plaster and apologise to you, but when he called your name and you turned around with a composed expression, he froze in place.

He didn’t want to lose you too. Joel was afraid he would say something wrong again that would push you even further away from him. And then he would truly be alone, all because of his own actions, his own words. That fear clamped around his throat, preventing him from saying anything. From reaching out.

It was stupid, really. He knew that. Knew you were expecting him to say something, anything. Your blank expression was just a façade, a wall you had built around your heart so he wouldn’t hurt you anymore.

Joel hated himself for it, for your concealed hurt. Hated he had broken that trust between you two and made you feel like he was no longer on your side. He was, always had been, always would be. But he had let fear come between you, an abyss so vast he didn’t think it was salvable. It had to be though ― couldn’t be any other way.

The possibility of being a father again laid in front of him like a path full of dangers. Joel understood how much he could lose, because he had already lost Sarah. How suffocating that experience had been ― still was, every single fucking day.

He was frightened to go through it all over again. Having to hug another dead child of his; having to witness the light flicker away from her eyes. Sarah had been his everything ― his hope, his pride, the love of his life, the reason he would wake up in the morning to go to work, counting his blessings. And it didn’t matter in the slightest how good she was ― she was taken regardless. This world was cruel and unjust and greedy.

But there was also a sliver of hope, of dull excitement, shimmering underneath. One he wouldn’t allow himself to feel.

He still felt like a failure of a father who could not protect his baby girl when she needed him most. That emotional baggage would forever be with him. And he wanted it that way, because it meant he still remembered. This grief he carried was a reminder of the love he held. And he hoped it stayed with him, that she would stay with him.

Joel could still vividly remember digging with bare nails the grave Tommy had prepared for her. Elbow’s deep in the dirt, his fingers reaching for her as thick tears blurred his vision. The wails ripping his lungs apart, leaving his throat raw and tender. And Tommy hugging him from the back, arms clamped around his shoulders ― crying, begging him to stop.

“Little Sarah is resting now.”

“Let her be, Joel.”

“Stop unburying her, dammit!”

“I’m sorry, truly sorry. God I can’t―”

“She’s at peace now, Joel. No more suffering.”

Tommy’s slurry voice still filled his ears. His little brother had tried his best to comfort him, but at that moment in time, Joel had been too blinded by the gut-wrenching pain, the unbearable loss. He never really thanked Tommy for that. Never thanked you for stopping him from killing himself either.

Being an ass to the people he loved, apparently, was his only strength. Just like he had been with you when you needed him most.

Joel watched you as you struggled to unzip your sleeping bag, the soft material catching on the serrated teeth. You yanked the pull, almost snapping it from the slider, mumbling something to yourself.

He covered your tiny hand with a broad one of his, lightly squeezing your fingers.

“Let me help,” he muttered as you leaned back away from him.

Your subtle physical rejection stung, but he knew he deserved it. His hurt was nothing in comparison to yours.

Letting go of the bag, you faked looking for something in your backpack, avoiding his eyes when they searched for yours. Joel felt that the void between you only grew and grew, like darkness gaining ground to the light outside.

Could he mend your relationship? Your trust? Your love?

With careful hands, Joel managed to release the pinch on the fabric and tested that the zipper worked how it should do. When he glanced up at you, handing over the sleeping bag, Joel caught the rawness in your eyes, the slight dampness clinging to your eyelashes like morning dew on a petal at dawn.

It was now or never. He was hurting from seeing you hurt. Couldn’t take it any longer, he just had to say something, apologise to you. Ask to start the conversation all over again. One more second of this and he would lose his goddamn mind.

“Sweetheart, I―,” he managed to say out loud.

“I’m tired, Joel,” you quickly interrupted him. “Just wanna go to bed now, if you don’t mind.”

Your words were like a sobering, cold shower after a few beers ― stopped him right in his tracks before he could even begin to express what he wanted to say. Slightly shocked, Joel watched you fiddling around with your sleeping bag before you got inside it and turned around, facing away from him.

His slack jaw was soon gritting. But that brief anger quickly shimmered away when reality started to set in.

Perhaps he had misread the whole situation; perhaps you were not waiting on him to talk.

Perhaps you were past that ― past him, his bullshit and his doubts.

Perhaps your relationship was truly beyond salvation.

He paled in the face of such possibility, his hands shaking as they gripped his own sleeping bag.

Joel was up almost all night, eyes transfixed on you as his brain worked out all scenarios.

You faked falling asleep, but rest evaded you for hours until you finally gave in to exhaustion. Didn’t last long though, because a couple of hours later, you were, once again, wide awake.

The whole situation with Joel was overwhelming. You had hoped he would come to the car as soon as you left him behind, but he didn’t. Then that night you waited for him to say something, anything, and yet again, he didn’t. Not a fucking word when you both woke up this morning either, except for your name falling from his lips like a regretted whisper. Then complete radio silence and nothing else.

The silence treatment he had given you today was unbearable. Even if your doubts had lingered, pushing you to postpone the inevitable, deep inside you had hoped his reaction would be different. Shocked, yes, but then he would be… perhaps not happy, but at least a bit more excited? And after the shock had worn off, he would have soothed you, calmed you, told you everything was gonna be alright.

Maybe you had expected too much of Joel, your little delusion blinding you. After all, he had already lost Sarah. So now, in retrospect, this announcement might have unearthed bad memories, but especially regrets.

Was that it? Had you unburied his most primal fear? You had been so focused on what laid ahead, you had not stopped to consider what laid behind ― what this would mean for Joel. You had briefly contemplated he could perhaps see this as a blessing or a curse, but didn’t dwell too long on the thought, preoccupied as you were with other pressing matters.

You felt sick and it had nothing to do with pregnancy.

And then, when he had tried talking to you before going to bed, you had shut him down. But you were so tired, so mentally drained, you didn’t have an ounce of energy left to deal with a conversation like that. Because you truly didn’t know what he would say ― he wore such an impassive expression on his face, it was really difficult to tell.

You turned on the hard, creaky, wooden floor and faced Joel. One of his arms was resting on the wooden planks, extended towards you, as if he was trying to reach for you in his sleep.

You were in an abandoned cabin just outside Oswego. It was bare and completely stripped of furniture, but at least had a roof that would protect you from the cold, wet weather outside. It also had a covered chimney, but being so close to civilisation, it had to stay put out. Sleeping in the bag was not ideal, but it kept you warm.

Taking a deep breath, you then felt some sort of cushion under your neck that had not been there before you fell asleep. By touch, you realised it was one of those inflatable travel neck pillows that you had seen people use in airplanes. Frowning, you gathered Joel must have found one and tucked it under your head in your sleep.

You carefully studied Joel’s handsome, weathered face from the safety of your sleeping bag. Even in his sleep, his eyebrows were bunched together, a deep wrinkle ploughing through his skin almost permanently, giving him a worried look. His aquiline nose was buried in the fabric of his sleepsack, his long eyelashes caressing the top of his cheeks.

He would roll his eyes at you every time you called him “gorgeous” or “handsome”, but he really was. You loved to tell him, to help him see through your eyes. You knew he sometimes needed to hear it, to remind him of his own humanity. It was normal to lose sight of it in the current world you lived in.

And you loved him, the whole of him and his ghosts, even though he was a tactless prick sometimes. You had come to learn that when cornered, Joel could react like a beaten dog ― crouched back and showing teeth, ready to bite at the slightest provocation. Couldn’t blame him, even if you tried.

Feeling restless, you carefully unzipped your sleeping bag, not wanting to wake Joel up, and put your boots on. God knew you both needed some rest. Silently you stood up and stretched your back and arms, then one hand mindlessly stroked your belly. It wasn’t swollen at all, but the idea of a life growing inside you sat snugly in the back of your mind.

“What are we going to do, little one?” you whispered to yourself before grabbing your coat.

Needing some fresh air, you walked outside in the middle of the freezing night. It had been snowing, because there were at least three inches of white fluff blanketing the ground. Which meant the car battery could quickly drain and leave you stranded, so you went to check on the hidden Jeep.

Joel’s body jerked uncontrollably, one leg shaking as if he was falling off a cliff. Instantly waking up, he nervously looked around him, trying to recall where he was.

His hand patted the wooden floor in the dark, and when he located your sleeping bag, his breathing hitched at finding it empty. Then he heard the front door creaking, a sliver of moonlight coming through.

Were you leaving him in the middle of the night? Had he completely broken your trust, your relationship? Had he no chance of mending his mistake? Were you so hurt you would go without a word, without saying goodbye?

God knew he deserved it. He wasn’t cut for a relationship; he always ruined it. Should have known better than falling for you and giving in, but you were so warm, so effortless to love, so natural… How the fuck could he not? He was only human after all.

With a deafening pulse in his eardrums, he kicked the sleeping bag off as he got up with jerky, edgy motions, running towards the door to stop you from leaving him. For you he would fight, he would give you a whole motherfucking speech of why he loved you and how sorry he was. He at least had to try.

Joel swung the door open, and a frosty breeze greeted him, his skin bristled almost painfully at the feeling of frostbite.

You were walking through the snow, wrapped in your coat and with the hood on ― you looked so ethereal, your side profile bathed by the moonlight like a night fairy. Your features glowed under the lunar lustre, and he couldn’t help but fall for you even more.

Barefoot he followed you, his soles numb after a few steps through the snowy mud.

“Babe, wait,” he muttered, one hand reaching for your elbow.

You startled at his touch, and Joel didn’t know if it was rejection or that he had surprised you.

Your big, beautiful eyes widened when you saw him there. You wore a tired expression, and he knew himself the culprit.

“Where are you going?” he questioned in a whisper, heart still and lungs empty.

“I―”

“Please don’t go, don’t leave. I can do better. I’m sorry,” Joel stumbled with his words.

Had never felt this exposed as he was about to split his core in half, to undress emotionally in front of someone, allowing himself to be hurt by the only person it mattered.

But it had to be done to keep you by his side. So he did.

“I panicked. I wasn’t expecting― it didn’t even cross my mind that you… well, could be pregnant. It caught me so off guard, the news didn’t sink in. I’m sorry I reacted like a fucking idiot; I know I’ve disappointed you because of it. It’s just… ‘s hard, you know?” Joel swallowed to dissolve the dense knot forming in his throat, “I already had a shot at fatherhood, and I fucking blew it. I couldn’t protect her despite loving Sarah with all my heart, so the possibility of having to go through all that heartache again… I just, I don’t―”

Joel took in a deep, trembling breath as he unconsciously palmed his broken wristwatch, trying to soothe himself. He attempted to read your expression ― your lips pursed and eyes teary. Was he breaking your heart even further? You were about to cry, and he didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad one.

Anxiety was taking hold of his throat and gut, strangling him.

“Look, I’m not gonna lie to you. I’m fucking scared, so scared I don’t think words do it justice. But I’m also thrilled, baby, I swear I am. I owe it to you, to myself, to this baby of ours… I ain’t going nowhere. Wherever you go, I’ll follow you both,” he husked, almost breathless. “I’m sorry I said what I said. Neither of us have a choice, but even if we did… I wouldn’t change a thing. This baby is happening for a reason and whatever that is, I’m all in, come what may. I love you, I really do, and I hate myself for having hurt you like this. I just suck at expressing my feelings and―”

You placed a gentle hand on his naked forearm, which made him lose track of what he was saying. Your fingers gently squeezed his cold flesh as you took a step closer to him. Your free hand slid across his left hip, dipping under the tee shirt he was wearing, until it reached the small of his back and you pushed him towards your body.

His taut muscles visibly relaxed at your touch and hug, his lungs filling up as he drew in the deepest breath of his life. Wrapping his arms around you, he held you close to his chest, chin resting on the crown of your head.

“Joel, I wasn’t leaving,” you murmured, cheek nuzzling against him, a tentative smile lingering on your mouth.

Joel’s eyebrows knitted together. From his perspective, it was more than obvious that you were actually leaving.

“Oh? I thought―”

“I was just going to check on the car battery since it’s freezing out here,” you interrupted him, glancing up at him.

Joel pursed his lips together, then licked them nervously.

“Well, everything I said still stands. I am truly sorry, sweetheart,” he said, mouth lightly pressed on your forehead.

A deep sigh after, you took a step back, your hand travelling from his forearm to his fingers, intertwining them with yours. Your palm was so warm in comparison to his, he just realised how little clothing he had on.

“For being a man who “sucks” at expressing his feelings, dare I say you’ve just spoken like a professional orator?” you jested, a grin curling the corners of your lips. “And I am sorry for not being straightforward with you. I was afraid of how you would take the news, and, well…” you shrugged, “you can’t blame me, can you?”

Joel shook his head vehemently. He definitely couldn’t ― the proof was there for both of you to see.

“But I understand how frightening this is for you. I can’t even begin to comprehend how you must have felt when… when Sarah left us. I was so blinded by my own insecurities, I didn’t dwell for too long on how this would affect you emotionally. So I apologise and―”

“Don’t. Don’t apologise, please. That’s a pain for me to bear, you shouldn’t have to think about it.”

“But I do, Joel. I want to bear it with you, so you don’t have to do it alone. That’s the whole point of this, of us. After all, we are going to be a family now,” your voice dropped to a low hum.

A pang of nerves traversed his stomach. No, not a pang, more like… butterflies? Joel had not felt that―the purest form of ecstasy―in a long, long time. The idea of being a dad… it always called him, always felt like that was what he was meant to be, nothing else. Sarah had been the center of his world and while no one could ever change that for him, the possibility of having another child to shower with the love he had buried… it was so overwhelming it brought tears to his eyes, his breathing shallow.

“A family,” he repeated, voice raspy with emotion.

You nodded and laughed, teary eyes too.

“A family, Joel. You’re gonna be a dad,” you snickered, now sobbing.

He couldn’t help but join you, draping his arms around you to bring you against his chest.

He didn’t deserve you, your forgiveness. The second chance you were offering him, in all the senses. A second chance with you. A second chance to form a family. A second chance in life, really.

Joel cradled your flushed cheeks, tilting your face up so his mouth hovered over yours.

“I can’t believe my fucking luck, honestly. You, the mother of my child…” he didn’t finish the sentence because he would choke on his own words if so. Took a second to compose himself. “If I’m ever such a dick aga―”

“Are you planning on being a dick often, Joel Miller?” you said playfully with a cocked brow.

He laughed, feeling completely at ease.

“I hope not. But if I ever attempt to be, just kick me in the balls so I may come to my senses quicker, please,” he replied with a lopsided grin.

His thumbs caressed the apples of your cheeks before bowing down to kiss you. A slow, loving stroke of his tongue over yours and he felt everything was right again. Your sweet taste soothed him, his mind finally at ease. How you achieved that for him with the mere brush of your soft lips, he didn’t understand.

You were the one to break the kiss, pecking his lips a few times before finally taking a step back.

“Let’s go back inside, you must be freezing only with those sweatpants and a shirt.”

And with that, all the anxiety, the mental struggle, was forgotten.

Joel took your tiny hand in his broad one and led you back inside the cabin. Dried off his feet quickly before helping you out of your winterwear and settle back in in the sleeping bag ― his sleeping bag. Luckily it was big enough for the both of you.

You hugged each other, trying to get back to sleep, but both of your hearts were fluttering so hard, it was difficult to ignore the excitement.

“I’m so thrilled right now, I don’t think I can go to sleep just yet. I can’t believe this is happening,” you whispered with a beautiful grin.

Joel couldn’t help but notice how you were beaming now, how much worry you had carried the last couple of days because of him. He felt infinitely better now that the joyful spark had returned to your eyes.

Dragging his thumb across your jawline, tracing an invisible line on your soft skin, Joel tilted your face towards him, his heart swollen with love. He hadn’t felt this alive in ages.

“Neither can I,” he admitted in a rasp.

His right hand roamed your body under the sleeping bag until it found the perfect spot to rest: your belly. Joel splayed his fingers over your lower tummy protectively, wanting to shield you both from any harm.

You hovered one of your hands over his, your palm stroking the back of his hand in a light caress. It felt like such an intimate moment, a respite among all madness and darkness, that he knew he would treasure it forever. When days would become hard, he’d only have to think back to this exact moment in time ― both of you cocooned in a sleeping back, warm and loving, calm and happy.

Fuck, was he happy and grateful. It still felt like a dream, but this was real. You were real. Yes, he was fucking scared out of his mind too, but the joy he was feeling right now eclipsed everything else.

With rough lips, he coaxed yours apart, the tip of his tongue tentatively swiping your teeth so you would let him in ― the place where he felt most at home. And you happily complied with a subtle sigh. Your tongues curled around one another, your sultry taste and sweet scent overtaking all his senses.

Joel felt your hand dragging his downwards and only took him one second to catch on. Soon his fingers were buried under your panties, his hand cupping your mound possessively while his middle finger dipped in your slit ever so slightly to faintly stroke your hooded clit.

Just one stroke.

“Joel,” you cooed, and he inhaled your breathless plea.

“I know, baby,” he hummed back, gifting you with another light stroke.

Your thighs trembled around his hand, and you parted them involuntarily, your body telling him everything he needed to know.

So he obliged, his finger slipping from your clit to your crying hole, gathering the wetness on the tip to bring it back up to your sensitive nub. With languid touches, Joel paid precise attention to your bundle of nerves with his thumb, while his index and middle fingers rubbed your dripping furrow incessantly, his fingertips hitching in your entrance from time to time.

You gasped, chest heaving and back arched, when Joel finally dived those two fingers in your slick, warm entrance. He groaned at your responsiveness, your eagerness, always ready for him. He could never have enough of you; of that he was fucking sure.

Joel nipped your neck, his stubble tickling your skin, then lapped at it while the rhythm of his hand increased. He knew you loved it when he curled his fingers, stroking that heavenly spot that would drive you wild with lust.

Then he suddenly stilled and you grinded your wet pussy against his palm, desperate for release, your hips tilting underneath.

“Joel, please,” you begged in a whisper, your walls clenching around his digits.

“Please what, sweetheart?”

“I wanna come, please let me,” you pleaded with half-lidded, glassy eyes, melting under his touch.

“What a good girl, asking for permission,” he grazed your slack jaw with his bare teeth, then soothed the bite with a kiss. “No, not a good girl, a good momma, aren’t ya?” he corrected himself, his erection swelling at the thought. “Not yet, baby.”

He teased you a bit more, dragging the pleasure, letting it build and coil inside you the way he knew you liked it.

“F-fuck… Joel…” you moaned, his fingers still and deep buried inside you, your hole squeezing uncontrollably.

Your pleas worked, because soon enough Joel was fingering you relentlessly, pumping in and out of you fast ― your gushing cunt making obscene, squelching noises under the sleeping bag. Your moans grew louder as the pace between your thighs increased, your back so arched Joel feared you might break it.

“You can come now, baby,” he spoke softly, knowing you were holding back until you got his permission.

Then your walls furiously fluttered around his digits, choking and clamping and clutching. And Joel fucked you with his fingers through your orgasm, his thumb smothering your clit, applying the right amount of pressure. You keened, breathing heavy, as you came down from your climax, eyes shut and mouth agape.

Joel leaned to kiss you, his wet, pruney fingers still embedded in your leaking hole while your hand teasingly caressed his tummy, his muscles straining in anticipation.

“Feeling calmer?” he asked, the tip of his crooked nose nuzzling your ear as his fingers slid out with a pop.

“Mhmm, way calmer now,” you husked, tipping your face to trap his mouth with yours. “Let me help you relax too, gorgeous.”

A deep rumble coursed through his chest as your tiny fist dove and wrapped around his swollen girth, your thumb gently caressing the leaky head under his underwear.

He was ready just by working you, that was the power you held over him and Joel was fully aware of it. And he didn’t care one bit, he loved that you could get him hard just like that. It was lust, but it was love too; a deep, shared connection ― something he’d not felt before with anyone else.

You pumped him slow at first, your teeth scraping the skin over his Adam’s apple, then his jawline, until you hunted down his lips, swallowing his gruffy moans. Your playful hand stroked him faster, your fingers gripping harder, and he was close to losing his mind.

Then you licked his neck and nibbled his earlobe, and Joel had to summon all strength he could muster to not come there and then. You giggled at his intense reaction ― his muscles so tight he could snap at any moment, his breathing heavier and erratic.

Your hand imposed a devilish pace upon his throbbing cock, jerking him off fast and furious now, seeing how far you could take him before he broke. His balls felt tight and heavy, ready to spill his warm load on your hand.

Joel couldn’t stop groaning even if he fucking tried ― it had only been five days since the last time he fucked you, but those were too many days already. He pursed his lips together, eyebrows knitting in concentration to not come yet, while your mouth ghosted his. A few moans ended up slipping out and you breathed them in as you masturbated him with a tight grip.

And whatever cue he gave you, you knew he was close ― his orgasm imminent. Swiftly you dived your head under the sleeping bag and Joel lost sight of you. You freed his erection and a second later he felt your plump lips seal around his mushroom head.

His hands curled into tight fists, your little licks, taps and laps maddening. Then you suckled the swollen tip as if it was your personal pacifier.

“Holy fuck,” he huffed, shutting his eyes, as your wicked tongue commended him to come, your hand working his shaft dextrously.

Joel couldn’t hold it any longer. With a deep moan, he blew his sticky load in your mouth, and you drank eagerly from him. He felt your plush lips pecking his balls, then his column, and finally the tip, showing gratitude to his softening dick. Tucking his cock back into his underwear, you patted his bulge, gently, for a sweet second.

Then you popped your head out of the sleeping bag with a sinful grin, your thumb swiping across the corner of your mouth to gather a drop of his cum and guiding it back inside. Joel cupped your chin to bring your face closer to his.

“Thanks, baby. Always so thoughtful,” he joked before tasting himself on your tongue.

“Anytime,” you snickered.

You settled across his chest, warm bodies and calmer hearts, and a comfortable silence filled the room. Soon after that, you both fell into a peaceful slumber.

You woke up first, Joel’s arms draped around your shoulders in a solid hug, almost suffocating you. The first morning light filtered through the bare window, casting elongated shadows of the trees outside across the floorboards. Morning dew condensed on the windowpane, frozen like tiny, sparkly snowflakes. Some birds chirped, their melody pacifying. The whole scene was so tranquil, you didn’t want this moment to end.

Loafing about, you nuzzled Joel’s sternum, his thorax slowly rising, then coming down. His heart beat steadily too, so calming it almost lull you back to sleep. Something about Joel sleeping so profoundly made you feel at peace. Both of you had a very much needed rest after a tense couple of days.

You stroked the hairy trail down his belly button absentmindedly.

Joel grunted and stirred under you, his curved eyelashes fluttering a few times before his beautiful brown eyes stared at you. A boyish smile curled the corners of his lips before he closed his eyes again, hugging you closer. Joel buried his nose in your hair, then inhaled audibly.

“As much I’d love to stay here forever with you, I think we should get going,” you laughed, palming his chest.

He groaned, pinching the bridge of his aquiline nose. He wasn’t a morning person.

“Alright. I’ll get up just ‘cause you’re asking nicely,” he conceded, one hand reaching out of the sleeping bag to unzip it.

The cold air hit you both and you regretted your decisions, but if you wanted to find Tommy soon, you were not going to achieve that from this cabin, as idyllic as it felt to be here, in your bubble with Joel.

Half an hour later you were both up and fully awake. Joel was packing away the sleeping bags when he suddenly stopped.

“Fuck. You didn’t check on the battery last night, did you?” he asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

You bit down your bottom lip and shook your head no.

“Shit. No, I didn’t. I, well― got distracted,” you replied apologetically, a nervous chuckle slipping.

“You mean I distracted you, right?” the teasing edge to his voice made you smile. “Don’t worry, love, ‘s alright. I’ll go check on it before we go into town.”

Joel brought you in for a hug, his hands lacing on the small of your back. He brushed his lips against yours in a chaste kiss and you wanted to laugh so badly, you sniggered. This man, pretending to be so decent now.

“What’s so funny?” he enquired, a cocked brow, not letting you go of his embrace just yet.

“You being so gentlemanly and proper now with your decorous kissing, as if you didn’t make me come with just your fingers last night. As if I didn’t eat yo―” you jested bluntly, butterflies filling your belly.

Joel growled at your provocation, interrupting you, his hips flush with yours.

“That nasty mouth of yours is gonna be my downfall one of these days,” he muttered. Then he kissed you, his tongue quick and ravishing. “Enough. Stop being so damn tempting.”

He let go of you, taking a step back and turning around. You took the opportunity to smack his ass before he walked off with a smirk on his lips.

You stayed inside, gathering all the bits and stuffing them back in your backpacks. You were going to venture into Oswego today again, stake out the town and the area where Joel thought Tommy and his group would most probably be.

Shuffling through your belongings, you found the pregnancy test you took a few days ago. The digital screen was still displaying the positive result ― one you dreaded, but then embraced.

In the span of forty-eight hours, you thought your relationship with Joel had crumbled down and reduced to nothingness, to then come back stronger like a phoenix rising from its ashes.

The look on his face when he thought you were leaving him still haunted you ― you hoped he would forget that feeling sooner rather than later. His confession had tugged at your heart so much, you had forgiven him after the first sentence. But you had let him keep on talking, because the self-indulgent part of yourself wanted to hear him say all those things. It wasn’t often that Joel Miller would make use of his mouth to verbally express his feelings.

You smiled to yourself, tremendously happy with how the situation had turned out in the end.

Throwing your backpack over your shoulders and Joel’s hanging from one arm, you walked outside with the pregnancy still on your hand, daydreaming ― your grin now permanently sculpted into your features.

Then you heard a voice you quickly recognised.

Tommy’s.

You froze halfway through the three steps on the porch, your gaze scanning the area until you found them.

Joel had a very schooled expression, almost blank, while Tommy frowned, gripping a shotgun close to his chest.

“You’ve been following me?” the younger Miller asked, visibly upset.

“Yes, we have, you dickhead,” Joel replied, his voice restrained. “You just left a―”

“We?” Tommy scoffed, taking a step back. “You’ve not ditched her body yet?”

Joel’s hazel eyes found yours, still glued to the steps. A silent plea for you to go back inside, sensing this would not end well. And you tried ― you took a step back to run back into the cabin, but Tommy was quicker.

Tommy turned around and almost jumped back as if he had seen a ghost. Probably because he thought he had.

You raised your hands up, showing him you were no threat.

“Hey, Tommy,” you greeted him with a feeble smile. “If you keep pointing that gun at me, I’m gonna start thinking it’s personal,” you joked to diffuse the situation.

“Tommy,” Joel’s firm voice made his brother looked at him askance, his pupils fixed right back on you. “Hey.”

Joel’s fingers wrapped around the barrel, pushing it down so it wouldn’t point at you anymore. You could see Tommy’s stiffness from the distance, ready to do whatever it was necessary.

When Joel yanked at the shotgun, Tommy broke eye contact with you to stare at his brother, not letting go of the shotgun.

“How’s she alive?”

“It’s a long story, bu―”

“She’s fucking infected. You’re fucking infected!” he screamed in a panic, stumbling back with his own feet and then directing the gun back at you.

Joel tried to approach him while you stayed as still as possible, your breathing hitching. Would he shoot? You hoped not, but he looked scared enough to do so.

“Tommy, listen to me―” Joel attempted to talk to him again.

“What’s that you’re holding?” Tommy snapped at you, ignoring his brother.

You paled. You had forgotten the pregnancy test was on your hand, lost as you were in your train of thought when you had walked out of the cabin.

No words left your mouth ― your orbs quickly found Joel’s. Both of you, frightened to death. Not for yourselves, but for your baby.

Tommy wouldn’t hurt you, would he? Unconsciously, your free hand dropped to your belly, wanting to protect this new life you were harbouring, growing.

Tommy’s façade fell, his jaw slack.

“You’re PREGNANT?!”

Joel reacted first, standing in the way, the barrel kissing the center of his chest. Then he pushed Tommy back, his composed expression gone. He was angry, you could tell. Really angry. You had only seen him that irate the night those two men almost raped you.

“If you ever point that gun at her again, I swear to fucking God, I’ll kill you myself with my bare hands, Tommy,” he growled.

Tommy blinked rapidly, his resolution coming back as he cocked the gun again.

“You both have lost your fucking minds,” Tommy scoffed, walking backwards towards the woods. “Don’t follow me anymore. Leave me the fuck alone.”

A minute after, the younger brother disappeared between the trees and Joel rushed to your side, his anger transforming into urgency.

“We gotta go.”

His words were impregnated with the same panic you were feeling.

Unbelievable, Tommy thought.

Had his brother gone mad? What the fuck was he thinking? And how were you alive? What kind of sinister magic was that?

He had so many unanswered questions, his head throbbed with an impending headache. Tommy needed the distance and the time to think this through. At first, he had been elated at seeing his brother after so long, but the excitement quickly shifted the moment he saw Joel accompanied by you. And fucking pregnant, by the looks of it.

Shaking his head, Tommy hooted like an owl, letting the people keeping watch know that he was approaching the two houses they all had been living in. The two buildings were on the forest boundary, far enough of other homes but close enough to town.

Bursting in through the doors, Laney met him in the corridor, hands on hips.

“So?”

“They are here. And what’s worst, she’s alive and pregnant,” Tommy almost spit the last word out.

Laney’s scowl deepened.

“Pregnant? Like, with a fucking zombie-like monster growing inside of her?”

The emphasis on that specific word made Tommy frown. He wouldn’t go as far as to say that. Laney could be a little dramatic sometimes.

“Well, I don’t know. No, I don’t think so? I mean, she looked fine, so I guess―” Laney walked past him, interrupting what he was saying. “Where are you going?”

“On patrol. Need to go into town for some supplies.”

“Need a hand?”

“No. Stay here, keep watch.”

And with that, she stepped out and closed the door behind her, leaving Tommy in the middle of the hallway with a nagging doubt picking at the back of his brain.

@yesjazzywazzylove-blog @pedrospurplerain @missladym1981 @fancyyoouu

@smolbeanzzz @guelyury @bishtrouille @harriedandharassed

@thepalaceofmelanie @eternallyvenus @theoraekenslover @vickie5446

125 notes · View notes

skbeaumont · 8 months ago

Text

Texas Heat | Joel x Reader

Chapter 1 - Worst Decision, Best Decision

Series masterlist

Chapter Summary: You've just finished a Masters back home in England, and, with little idea of what you want to do next, decide to spend the summer in Texas, staying with your mum's cousins, the Adlers. But its not the Adlers who pick you up from the airport: it's their handsome neighbour, Joel. Rating: Teen (for now) Tags/warnings: slow burn, eventual smut, age difference (reader is 25, Joel is 37), AU! no outbreak, porn with plot. Word Count: 1.7k

The Texas heat is something else. You’ve hardly been stateside more than two hours and already it feels overwhelming, cloying and claustrophobic. It doesn’t help that the air-conditioning in the airport is sporadic and patchy. By the time you make it through security, into the dry heat of arrivals, your shirt is sticking to your back, hair plastered to your forehead and you’re wondering why you ever let your mother persuade you this was a good idea.

“Go to Texas,” she’d suggested, when you arrived home from your last university term, unsure of what to do or where to begin with starting a life for yourself, “stay with the Adlers – they’re family and god knows Connie would love to see you. Spend the summer there – see what happens.”

And so here you are, too old for a gap year, really, at twenty-five, too young to commit to anything for more than a summer, dragging your suitcase – one broken wheel courtesy of British Airways – through arrivals, wondering if you’ve just made the worst decision of your life. Danny and Connie are strangers but for the fact that they’re your mum’s cousins, though you’ve seen enough photos of them to know who you’re looking for. You look out over the crowded lounge, trying to spot them.

The man your eyes fall on definitely isn’t Mr or Mrs Adler, but he’s holding a sign that bears your name (along with an assortment of hearts and two poorly drawn butterflies). He’s younger than Danny and Connie, maybe late thirties, dark hair curling around his ears, a patchy beard that only accentuates the strong line of his jaw and nose. His eyes – dark, hooded – are searching the crowd of passengers emerging from arrivals. You slow, watching the man, wondering who he is, wracking your brains to remember if the Adlers have a son or brother they haven’t mentioned before in their letters and Christmas cards, but you come up blank.

Eventually, while you’re still wondering who this man is and why he’s got a board bearing your name, your eyes lock with his. He raises his eyebrows – a question – and you sigh, start off towards him, the broken suitcase bumping against your ankles. When you reach him he holds out a hand for you to shake.

“’m Joel,” he says, voice deep, a smooth Southern drawl that you thought only existed in movies, “I’m Danny’s neighbour. They’re sorry they couldn’t be here, they had to take Mrs Adler – Nana – to a hospital appointment. I’m gonna drive you back to theirs, if that’s alright?”

“Of course,” You take the offered hand, shake it, trying not to think about how large it feels compared to your own, how much strength seems to rest in the callused palms and thick fingers. “I’m guessing you didn’t make that sign?”

Joel looks at the name card in his other hand, colour rising on his cheeks as he takes in the love hearts and butterflies that have been painted onto it.

“I can’t say I did.” He replies, “You’ve got Connie to thank for that.”

You laugh and he smirks too, mouth curving up with amusement, eyes crinkling as he does.

“I’m parked right outside,” he says, “I can take that, if you want?”

You hand him the suitcase, about to warn him about the broken wheel but he lifts it easily by the handle, the weight nothing to the shifting muscles that stretch the sleeves of his t-shirt.

His truck is huge, obscenely large compared to the cars you’re used to seeing back home in England. You clamber in, take in the toolboxes in the bed, a hard hat strewn on the back seat, large work boots in the footwell that dwarf your own battered Converse.

“‘scuse the mess.” Joel says, getting into the driver’s seat. “Been a busy week.”

“You’re a builder?” You ask.

“Contractor. Me ‘n my brother, though mostly me, if I’m being honest. You?” He asks the question without looking at you, already starting the engine, something grating in the ignition as he does so.

“Nothing, yet.” You reply, pulling your seatbelt on, “I just finished university – college – and I’m still kind of figuring it out.”

“What did you study?”

“Maths, then a Masters in Theoretical Physics.”

“Shit, smart girl.”

Something about the way he says this, his eyes lingering perhaps a little longer than they need to on your face as he does so, makes your stomach flip.

“Know what you’re going to do with it, now you’re done?”

“Not a clue,” You reply, looking out of the window as the city opens out around the truck.

“Well, don’t rush into anything. Nothing like your twenties to spend messing around trying things out.”

“That what you did?”

He scoffs out a laugh at this, gives you a sideways look. “Not exactly. I had a kid at twenty-two and spent the rest of my twenties figuring that out. Still am, really.” He pauses, flicks his sun visor down and taps a small polaroid that’s slid into the back of the mirror. “She’s thirteen now. Sarah.”

The girl in the photograph is pretty, all bright eyes and curly hair. She’s leaning back in a chair, giggling at something the photographer has just said.

“She’s beautiful,” You say, and you can see the pride bubbling up in him as he flips the visor back up.

“Smart, too. Struggles a bit with math, now they’ve started bringing in algebra. I’m not much help, either. Once you get past adding and minusing, I’m lost.”

You laugh at this, grin at him. “I’d be happy to help out. God knows I’ll have plenty of free time, and I like teaching.”

“Might just take you up on that.” He replies, giving you a soft smile in return.

There’s a dimple in his cheek as he does so, visible only through the patchiness of his beard. He seems to get more and more handsome the longer you look at him. Leaning back in the truck, you can’t help but let your eyes trace his profile, the strong curve of his nose, plushness of his lips. It’s more fascinating than the concrete jungle that’s passing by the windows of the truck.

He’s a good driver: steady, reassuringly confident. He lets one arm rest across the back of the truck’s long seat, the other gently holding the steering wheel, guiding the truck down the freeway. If you laid your head back against the seat it would rest in the curve of his wrist. You don’t, but you can feel the heat rolling off of his arm anyway on the back of your neck, warm in contrast to the cool air blowing through the AC unit. You let your eyes gently close, jetlag starting to creep up on you. Your limbs are stiff and sore from the long plane journey. The hot sun beats down through the windscreen, casting patterns on your closed eyelids. It’s peaceful, here, in the truck with this handsome stranger, and before you know it you’ve fallen asleep, head lolling back on the seat.

Next thing you know Joel’s gently saying your name, one large hand on your shoulder, rousing you from sleep. You open your eyes, squint against the bright sun. He’s parked up in the driveway of a large, brick built house on a suburban street. The garage door is open: tools are stacked up inside, ladders and racks of scaffolding. The drive and lawn are neat, a little scrubby from the heat. You turn, look over at a house you recognise as the Adler’s, the one you’ve seen in it family photographs sent with the yearly Christmas card. Your new home, for the next three months.

Joel holds the door of the truck open for you and your climb out, get your feet down on the solid concrete driveway. He moves round to the back, tugs out your suitcase like it weighs nothing, even though your arms are still aching from dragging it through security hours earlier.

“Connie left me the key,” Joel says, reaching a hand into the back pocket of his jeans and pulling out a brass key on a flowery keyring. “I’ll help you get your stuff in, then leave you to settle in. Connie and Danny should be back in an hour or so.”

The Adler’s house is nice. Quaint, a little dated, décor straight from the 1980s, but it’s homely. You feel settled immediately. There’s a photograph of your mum on the bookshelf, from back when she was a kid, long before she moved from Texas to London.

Joel puts your suitcase at the foot of the stairs, asks if you want him to take it up for you, but you’re not sure which room you’re staying in so you tell him to leave it, that you can sort it out later. There’s a whining from the back room and you look at Joel, questioningly.

“That’ll be Mercy,” He says, moving through the hall to the kitchen, swinging open the door.

A bundle of fur throws itself down the hallway towards you, tail wagging. Joel watches, grin on his face as you bury your face in the dog’s soft coat and wrap your arms around him.

“I’d better head off,” He says when you stand up, brushing fur from your clothes. “You need anything, just give me a shout. You know where I am.”

“Thanks, Joel.” You say, watching him pull open the door, t-shirt bunching up around his shoulders revealing a tanned strip of skin just above the waistband of his faded jeans. “And I meant what I said about helping Sarah with that maths homework.” You add as he steps out onto the porch.

He turns back, shields his eyes from the sun to look at you, mouth turned up in a grin. “And I might just take you up on that, darlin’.”

And then he’s gone, long strides taking him back across the lawn and towards his own house. You lean back against the closed door and shut your eyes, basking in the imprint of Joel’s handsome face etched on the back of your eyelids, wondering if you’ve just made the best decision of your life.

#joel miller #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fic #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #joel miller fanfic #the last of us #joel miller x you #joel miller au #joel miller series

326 notes · View notes

astroboots · 1 year ago

Text

EVERY YOU EVERY ME #9

COLLABORATED WITH @THIRSTWORLDPROBLEMSS

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x female reader

Summary: You get a new mysterious co-worker.

Word count: 8,100

Series Masterlist | Spiderverse Masterlist | Astroboot’s Masterlist | thirstworldproblemss’ Masterlist

[Previous] [Next]

August 1st

Nearly pancaked by grand piano falling from the 8th floor outside of favorite cafe. No casualties (except the piano).

August 5th

Freak blizzard out of nowhere during lunch. Nearly crushed by large icicle dropping directly outside the exit of the Chrysler building. No other known casualty.

August 6th

An escaped hippopotamus from the Bronx zoo ran 11.3 miles, nearly got stampeded when exiting hotel for work. No casualties.

August 12th

Tornado appeared inside the Guggenheim museum, nearly squashed by large falling statue. Nobody nearby was seriously injured.

It's already mid-August now. You've used up more than a month of your allotted three. It means you don't have much more time to waste, but that knowledge does nothing to help you in figuring things out.

You’ve compiled a comprehensive list of the Universe's ongoing murder attempts, determined to keep track of them all. All in all, there are 37 incidents and counting that you’re aware of… and they’re all different.

They differ in severity. They differ in scale and they differ in frequency. Sometimes it can take weeks, sometimes days, sometimes within hours of each other. If there’s any sort of pattern to them—anything that might help you predict what will happen next or how to stop it—you can’t see it. There’s nothing that gives you any hint or clue as to where you can start to make progress with solving this mystery.

The one thing you have been able to observe from cataloging these incidents is that Miguel was right about what he told you that day at Starbucks: the universe is ramping up. Each attempt is becoming more and more bizarre, defying the very laws of physics and nature in its attempts to snuff you out. Before this, in all of your years in New York, you’ve never heard of a blizzard in July or a tornado indoors.

With the escalating dangers, Miguel is more on guard than ever. Sticking close to you at all times like a particularly insistent herding dog that’s always a few inches from nipping at your heels. Even when he’s seemingly preoccupied by something else—reading a book, folding clothes, eating a crate of kit kats in one sitting—you can always tell that he’s keenly aware of and attuned to your every minute move.

Practically, the only time he lets you out of his sight is for bathroom visits.

Work is still a point of contention between you two. He hates that he can't enter the building to monitor you at work and make sure you're safe, and after that incident when you caught a co-worker trying to take a surreptitious selfie with Spiderman while Miguel was loitering around in the windows, you’d banned him from climbing and scuttering around the exterior of the building like some deranged squirrel.

It’s made him even less pleased about your whole work situation, something he’s not shy about sharing with you. Every morning when you are about to leave for work, Miguel will stand by the door with that ever present frown and ask you:

“Why are you still going into a job you hate when there’s only two months left?”

This morning, you sigh as you reach for your jacket and messenger bag.

Part of you completely understands and even agrees with his logic. If the end of the world is only two months away, why go back to that shithole everyday? You could go to Disneyland. Eat fancy croissants in Paris for breakfast. Have Lyla fake a reservation at an all-inclusive yoga retreat in Bali. You could be living your life like every moment is your last.

The thing is though, as delusional as it may be, you’re not ready to bet on the world ending just yet.

“Miguel, I fully intend for the universe to still be around in two months. And I don’t want to be unemployed when that day comes. I’m not some trust fund baby. Once we figure this thing out, you’re gonna be free to go, and if you take Lyla with you, then what am I supposed to do? Live on the streets? Rent in the city is ridiculous, and my rent-controlled apartment got blown into a million pieces.”

For once Miguel doesn’t seem to have anything smart to say back. He tilts his head, quietly studying your face. Then after a long pause, he gives you a curt nod, as if something clicked into place.

"Fine."

You stop mid-way through zipping up one of your boots to eye him suspiciously.

Okay, that’s… different.

In all the mornings you’ve repeated this argument, this is the first time he’s simply accepted your explanation without sassing you back. He just gazes right back, apparently unperturbed, and holds the door of your hotel room open for you, ready to walk you to work.

There is definitely something going on inside his head, because this stubborn dummy never lets anything go without a fight. You just don’t know what it is yet.

By mid-morning, you've forgotten all about your suspicions, too busy dealing with the aftermath of your coworker's incompetence. You're not entirely sure how they managed to corrupt the Excel formula you’d painstakingly inserted to make sure all the numbers add up correctly, but two hours later, you're still trying to get the data to compute properly.

It’s the kind of mind numbing task that lets your mind wander, and you spend most of that morning wondering what Miguel is up to. He’s probably lingering near the building, eating mini donuts by the dozens from that food truck that is always parked around the corner.

There’s a pointed series of knocks on your cubicle wall. The noise is grating, and it makes the whole of your back seize up because you recognize that signature knock from sound alone. It’s your boss, probably here to ask if you have capacity to take on more case evaluations.

And sure enough, as you reluctantly turn to look, you see her, toothy smile and all, looking down at you in that hammy and strained way of hers.

“Are you busy?” she asks. “I just wanted to introduce you to the newest member of the team.”

She gestures to the person standing beside her. Your gaze goes up over their insanely long legs, up and over the narrow and tapered waist and torso, up over the wide chest and broad, broad shoulders, and even before you get to the familiar face, you already know who you are looking at, because no one else is that tall.

Your mouth gapes open wide in shock.

This stupid motherf-

“This is Mickey O’Hara,” your boss introduces, simpering up at him. (You didn’t even know she knew how to simper.)

Has Miguel gone insane?

What is he playing at?!

He didn’t even bother to change his name properly!

And the man looks unfairly good in office casual! He’s dressed in a white, well-fitted button down shirt and dress pants. Wearing ridiculous thick-rimmed glasses that would belong on Gregory Peck. Riotous curls are as messy and wild as ever, not having even bothered to comb it back. You don’t know who he thinks he’s fooling, the subdued get-up only makes him stick out like a sore thumb.

“Mickey is our newest hire,” your boss continues, batting her eyes at him. “He's interning with our team as a junior insurance claims adjuster and will be shadowing you for the next two months.”

After that, Miguel truly is with you everywhere you go.

He spends most of each workday sitting on a spare chair in your small cubicle, the two of you squeezed into 6'x6', shoulder touching shoulder in that tiny, cramped space.

A superhero he may be, but Miguel is a terrible office worker. He seems completely bamboozled by the copier, and you quickly learn not to ask him to do any copying or scanning or even pick your printouts from the printer, because he always manages to mangle the process, coming back with crumpled up prints or half-shredded paper that looks like budget confetti.

Before the week is over, he’s gained a reputation with the rest of the team as the handsome-but-useless junior that can’t even make coffee for shit.

Most of the time, he doesn't even make an effort to look like he’s doing any actual work, just sits right next to you, and reads books all day long. When you scold him and ask him to at least pretend like he's doing busy work, or he'll get fired, Miguel will just shrug and quietly hum back at you, engrossed in whatever latest sci-fi book his nose is buried in.

"If they fire me, I'll just have Lyla hack into their HR system and rehire me."

Then there’s the way his sleeves are always rolled up halfway up his arm, hugging tight around the firm muscles of his forearm. The peep show of gorgeously tanned skin that is always on display for all to see. It's obscene.

He’s maddening and distracting.

Still, you can’t be too mad about his presence. The office is a much more treacherous place than you’d initially thought. It’s a danger zone of death traps.

One morning when you’re in the supply room, getting a new pad of post-its from one of the massive industrial shelves—the ones that are supposed to be bolted to the wall for safety—suddenly crumpled, taking half the wall with it and nearly flattening you. That was almost game over for you. Squashed like a bug and entombed under a pile of archived TPS reports.

Then there’s that time with the runaway elevator when the supposedly secure and unbreakable industrial cables snaps, with you in it, falling through 40 floors. And you still shudder everytime you walk past the copy machine because of that time it tried to electrocute you. If Miguel hadn’t been there for all of these incidents, you’d be a goner.

Another upside is that it’s also nice to have a cubicle buddy. On slow days, the two of you kill time watching YouTube origami tutorials and practicing with post-its stolen from the temporarily-relocated office supplies.

Despite having hands the size of a giant, Miguel is surprisingly good at it. Delicately folding paper cranes, butterflies and flowers that sit in the place of pride atop of your computer screen, compared to your questionable attempts that usually wind up in a crumpled ball in the trash.

With Miguel there, your days at the office are never boring or predictable in the way they used to be. It no longer feels like you are just going through motions. It's almost… fun.

If there wasn’t a cosmic executioner’s ax looming over your neck, you don’t think you would mind spending every day with him like this.

You take it back. You do mind spending days with him like this. Miguel is the worst.

You've been doing data entry all morning, and the man will not shut up about how primitive Excel is.

“Malo! I don’t understand how your company relies on this software. There are so many data consistency issues! It completely lacks data validation and integrity checks, and it’s too prone to human error when entering crucial data, which results in–”

You take deep calming breaths as you continue to type, trying to pretend his rant is white noise.

The previous day's near death experience—an electrical surge from the printer, trying to finish what the copy machine started—also wiped out one of the file servers, and now you and half your department are stuck manually re-entering three years worth of data.

Two hours in, your fingers are aching, and you're about ready to start banging your head on the keyboard out of frustration. (Or banging the keyboard on Miguel’s head if he doesn’t shut up.)

Like he can hear your thoughts, the man in question obligingly stops talking, and there’s a moment of blessed silence before your chair glides smoothly and suddenly to the left as Miguel rolls you out from in front of your computer. Your first instinct is to wonder what new danger he’s saving you from, but no… He’s just moving you out of the way to make space for him to drag his own chair in front of the screen. “Enough,” he says firmly, already typing out some unintelligibly complex code at a speed that far outstrips your own personal best of 67 words per minute, “I can’t watch you keep doing this when it’s so simple to automate.”

You sometimes forget just how smart Miguel is.

True, he can’t seem to work the office printer, but he’s a genius scientist who single-handedly built an A.I. sophisticated enough to hack into financial institutions and topple governments. He successfully invented a machine that travels between dimensions. Every other sentence coming out of his mouth sounds like something that would confound Stephen Hawking. You don’t know why you’re surprised he’s able to automate Excel spreadsheets.

It doesn’t take him very long at all.

Within minutes, he’s finished, hitting enter one final time, and then you can see all of the cells rectify themselves one by one. Errors disappear and new corrected information appears, data populating blank cells and aligning itself in tidy rows.

You lean in closer to get a better look. Your elbow snags the edge of your coffee cup and the cup topples over, splashing runaway hot coffee across your hand.

Before you have a chance to react, there’s a strong pull backwards. Miguel is already grabbing you and pulling you sideways into his lap and out of the firing range.

The cup clatters off the edge of the desk and onto the floor. The rest of the burning liquid never had the time to land on you.

Then you’re sitting on top of him, confined in the much too small seat of the office chair that can barely fit him and his broad backside, and much less the both of you. But if it’s uncomfortable, Miguel doesn’t show it. He takes your hand in his to inspect it carefully.

The patch of skin burns and stings, but you can’t tell if it’s from the coffee or his burning touch that makes you feel like there’s liquid fire simmering in your veins.

“You okay?” he says, his voice right in your ear.

He is so close. Surrounding you. Broad arms locked around your waist and the firm muscles of his thick thighs under yours.

“Yeah,” you manage, nodding slowly. Your tongue feels heavy and dry in your mouth.

He quietly drags your hand closer to his face, then blows on the back of your burnt knuckles to soothe the sting.

“Better?”

Those stunning eyes are staring into yours from inches away, cut cheeks right there, nose barely brushing against yours, and – god, is he close. Too close.

Miguel is always in close proximity to you these days. Never more than a couple yards away, but save for life or death situations, the two of you do not find yourself like this. He only ever holds you when you’re crashing through the skies or about to collide with a runaway vehicle. This is different somehow.

Your heart feels like a trapped bird in your chest, fluttering so fast and panicky it might burst from inside out at the proximity.

“I– um– ah…” You’re not saying any words, just making strange noises in your throat like a squawking bird.

Your eyes flicker away from his face avoidantly and from the corner of your eye, you spot Matt from accounting spying on you from the cubicle across.

Oh god. This probably doesn’t look great, does it?

You’re sitting on a co-worker’s lap in the middle of an open plan office. Compromising does not even begin to describe the position you two are in.

Jumping off his lap, you quickly stand up and turn away, trying to ignore the flustered heat in your cheeks.

You walk back over to your chair, about to sit yourself back down, but there’s spilled coffee everywhere. The dark brown liquid quickly sinking into the already stained fabric of the seat. You need to clean this up or else your chair is going to smell like expired coffee for the rest of time. Grabbing for your bag, you start digging for some tissues so you don't have to walk up to the supply closet.

You pull out item after item. Tampons. Sunglasses. A half-eaten chocolate bar. More tampons. New wallet with new ID, (expedited, all courtesy of Lyla). A handful of pennies. A random pamphlet. Still no tissues though, so you upend your bag onto your desk, wincing at the clatter.

How on Earth have you accumulated this much stuff in the few short weeks since your apartment was destroyed? And how on Earth do you not have any kleenex or napkins or anything in your handbag??

You paw through the mess, hoping for something useful, then swear as some of it spills over onto the floor. Ducking down, you crawl half under your desk, collecting wayward tampons and receipts, until your eyes pause on the pamphlet.

Not just any pamphlet. It’s yellow and bright with Whoopie Goldberg's face in the corner. It's the map you received from the fortune teller lady. One of your many misfires.

Now that you look closely at it, there are faint lines that seem to glow faintly in the dimness under your desk that weren't there when you were looking at it in plain daylight.

You pick it up and unfold it, laying it out on the floor. It looks like it’s been written on with some kind of a glow-in-the-dark marker, but it’s not dark enough for you to see clearly. You need to get somewhere darker to test your theory.

Backing out from under your desk, you get to your feet and head briskly off down the hall. You barely make it three steps before Miguel’s on your tail, his towering height blocking out the bright LED lamps above as he follows after you like the world’s biggest duckling.

“Cielo, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” you murmur curtly under your breath. The heat from before is still riding persistently on your face, and you quicken your steps, hoping it doesn’t show.

You half run to the end of the hall until you reach the small supply closet. When you open the door to step inside, Miguel is right behind you, apparently trying to squeeze himself in after you.

"We won't both fit in here!" you scold as you close the door after you. His unhappy expression is the last thing you see as darkness envelops you in the pitch black.

There’s a niggling feeling of guilt that wiggles down into your skin. But you remind yourself that you can always steal cupcakes meant for clients from the conference room to make it up to him. All will be forgiven if you appease his sweet tooth.

Ducking your head to stare down at the map clutched in your hands, you squint your eyes in the dark to study it closely. There's a small star glowing bright in the middle of the map.

It's a literal star map.

She gave you a location.

You're standing in front of an old stone building at 177A Bleecker Street, smack in the middle of Greenwich village with its picturesque ivy covered old brownstone houses.

Then there's this monstrosity: Sanctum Sanctorum. The infamous residence of Dr. Strange.

The mansion is built in a mix of a Victorian and Gothic style as if the architect couldn't make up their mind and just decided 'why not both?' Throughout the rooftop, there are ornate carvings and intricate stonework that you suspect was meant to lend it a mysterious air, but instead the place reminds you of Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride attraction.

You bring up your hand to the old knocker, gripping it firmly. Your lungs tighten, breath constricting in your chest as you hesitate, unable to bring yourself to pull the brass down to make contact with the wooden front door. Instead you’re holding it still in the air.

Maybe this isn’t a good idea after all. How are you going to explain this?

‘The universe is out to get me, please send Avengers to help.’

Isn’t he just going to think you’re nuts? One of those delusional Supes-fan with munchausen syndrome?

"We can still leave," Miguel says.

The man's been protesting every step of the way here, buzzing in your head about how much of a bad idea this is.

You frown, turning around to him. "I want to do this,” you answer.

His continued opposition is the final push you need. You bring down the knocker against the front door and tap it repeatedly.

There's no answer.

Part of you has to fight the urge to turn your feet and flee, saving yourself the embarrassment. But before you do, there’s a loud creak and a heavy scraping noise against the entrance as the double door swings inwards and slowly opens.

No one greets you by the door. The entryway before you is empty, revealing a grand imperial staircase leading to the second floor, curving upward into a majestic spiral on each side of the room.

It looks deserted. It’d be impolite to just step inside without someone to greet you and explicitly invite you in. But the doors did open to let you in.

You look at Miguel, unsure of what to do, but the man does not have the same compunction for politeness that you do, he’s already walked in, shoes and all, straight into the main hall.

“Can we just get this over with without you making your usual stupid grand dramatic entrance?” Miguel says into the empty room seemingly to no one in particular and you don’t know who he thinks he’s talking to.

A ring of ember and fire sparks into existence out of nothingness in the center of the room. The ring grows wider, and you can see hints of another room inside of the circle: one decorated in a different decoration style than the current room you’re in: moroccan seats and plush cushions with oriental wooden carved furniture.

A man steps out from within that room to stand in front of you both. The ring of light closes behind him once he’s made it through. Clad in a rich purple tunic and dark robes that is monk-like in appearance. Miguel steps in front of you, tucking you safely behind him.

"You're not Strange," Miguel sneers, and you want to smack him. Why does he always have to be this rude?

"Oh, I'm quite strange. But I am not the Doctor. I am Wong. I’m the Sorcerer Supreme and guardian of this place." The man’s voice is calm and formal, and he holds himself with a stately manner as he speaks.

You pop out your head from behind Miguel’s side. "We’re here to see Doctor Strange."

At the repeated mention of Strange, the man’s formality seems to fall away, an expression of irritation bleeding into his features.

"Let me know when you find him. Because he is not here."

"Where is he?" Miguel asks, and there’s that contempt rumbling in his voice again.

"I do not know. Probably playing hooky again. The man comes and goes as he likes." Wong makes a muttering noise under his breath as he continues. "Treats this sacred place like a summer gig at McDonalds."

Your chest deflates. How are you supposed to get Dr. Strange to help you if he’s not even here?

"I need help,” you plead with Mr. Wong. Maybe he can help you if Dr Strange can’t, he is the Sorcerer Supreme after all, supreme is the highest level, right? This might even be an upgrade from Strange. “I know this sounds crazy, but I think the universe is out to get me."

Wong just looks at you, expression unchanging, and okay, yeah, that was maybe not the best place to start. You take a deep breath, trying to figure out how to make yourself sound less paranoid.

"I've almost died 40 times since the beginning of the summer. I just want to know why this keeps happening and how to make it stop."

You dig into your bag, pulling out the folded map.

"We talked to a fortune teller in Chinatown, and she gave me this map. It led us here, and I'm really, really hoping you can help me."

Wong dips his head down to the map, "This is a celebrity home star map," he says, with a straight face and a neutral voice that only slightly betrays that he thinks you're batshit crazy.

“I know it sounds crazy, but-”

“Sanctum Sanctorum opened its doors for you, which means it wanted me to meet with you. I believe what you’re telling me.”

Oh thank god.

You tell him everything, rambling on as you try to explain what’s been happening and what little you know about it as best you can. The near death experiences, Miguel being a Spiderman from another dimension, the destruction of your apartment, the unnatural phenomena and the universe’s escalating attempts on your life.

Wong is quiet throughout, studying your face with grave concentration as you speak.

When you’re finally done, he sighs with deep weariness that emanates from the core of his soul. He looks down on his feet, tapping them in deep consideration.

"I have an idea,” Wong says cautiously, “I could perform a Multiversal Divination on you, that might give us a clearer idea of what we’re dealing with,”

“What does that mean?” Miguel asks, anger vibrating off his skin and boiling in his tone.

This man needs to calm down. You clearly need to take him to anger management, because since the moment he’s stepped into this place he’s been on the edge (even more so than usual).

“What does a ‘Multiversal Divination’ entail?” he continues, “Is that some magical mumbo jumbo that’s going to hurt her? Because if so we’re not–”

“I’ll do it,” you say, interrupting his objections, and you sidestep Miguel who is scowling, mouth already parted in yet another protest, to stand in front of Wong.

Wong looks to you and then Miguel, then back at you again, caught in the awkward stalemate, before you interrupt.

“Please, I need answers. Whatever it is, if it might help, I want to do it.”

Wong nods, stepping closer to you. "This will feel a little bit strange," he warns with the bedside manner of a patient doctor.

His hand comes to your collarbone and he places his palm there with a gentle push. There is barely any effort put into it, but you feel the force of it as if you had been slammed with the full force of a six ton truck. Your body wants to leap out of its skin. It is the sensation of being dumped in cold water from head to toe. A shock runs through your entire nervous system.

Images flash before your eyes, flickering by too fast for you to process. They’re vivid and bright. Glimpses of a scene: your apartment, your work, your commute home. Each of them expiring in a fraction of a moment before you have a chance to latch on and make sense of any of them individually.

You see yourself in picture after picture. Except slightly different in each. Short hair. Long locks. Curly.

In some you're wearing glasses instead of the contact lenses that you usually use. In others, you’re sporting the piercing you wanted to get at 16 but never did. Sometimes you have tattoos, sometimes not; occasionally you’re covered in them. Dyed hair, in every color of the spectrum: pink, blue, purple. A myriad of versions of you, of every variation of the decisions you could have possibly taken in your life.

There are pictures of memories you have had and not had. They rush in and flee before you're able to grab hold of one.

Captured moments of lifetimes you have never lived.

It's overwhelming. You don't understand what you're seeing. There’s pandemonium inside your head.

Then everything slows to a crawl.

The scene unfolding before you is one that you immediately recognize. An image that you'll never forget.

Window after window after window flashing you by. You know this view. Have seen it twice before. The same view of the Chrysler building as you were falling. But it's different this time.

The sky isn’t blue, nor is it gray. It’s a pink and an abnormal purple, a color you’ve never seen on it before and it looks both beautiful and completely wrong. There’s an angry tear in the sky, cracking at the edges with static. The whole of the sky looks like it is going to cleave in two and bring the whole world with it. Is this the future? Is it the past?

There's no pain, but somehow tears run down your cheeks uncontrollably.

In the distance you hear Miguel's voice, muted even though you know from that tone that he's furious and must be bellowing loud enough that it echoes through the walls. It sounds like you are underwater, and you have to strain to make out what he is saying.

"Why is she crying?" He's definitely shouting, voice raw and growling. Is this part of your memory or is it happening in the now? "You're hurting her."

The ground approaches.

"Stop! Stop!" Miguel's voice is shouting, but there's no way to stop this. Everything is going too fast this time around.

Miguel is here, tearing through the sky towards you. But you know it's too late. He's too far away. He can't save you this time.

Then everything does stop.

No images in your head. No noise in your ears.

Everything goes black, like the ending of a movie.

Then you hear a thud.

It's loud and close and real.

You snap yourself out of your fugue state, to see Miguel towering over Wong's body where the Sorcerer Supreme lies, limp and lifeless on the ground.

“What did you do!? Are you out of your mind?" you shout, running up to them.

Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Wong isn’t moving, not even blinking!

"He was hurting you!" Miguel roars.

"He wasn't hurting me, you big doofus!" you shout back, and it’s only then that the fury in Miguel’s eyes seem to abate.

"What's wrong with him?” you ask, bending down Wong’s limp body on the ground. “Is he dead!? Did you kill him?” There's a rising panic pushing inside your throat.

"He's just paralyzed."

"He’s para– What do you mean paralyzed? What did you do to him?"

"I just... I bit him," he uses a finger to part his lips slightly, pushing the upper one up just enough to reveal the sharp edges of his fangs. "There's toxins in them that can have a paralyzing effect."

You glance back at Wong. He’s still worryingly still.

“Is there some kind of way to un-paralyze him!?"

"It was just a small bite," Miguel says, ducking his head down sheepishly to stare at the floor, like a scolded boy. "I didn’t use that much venom... It’ll wear off. He shouldn't be out long. Maybe half an hour or so."

“I’m sorry. So, so sorry,” you tell Wong fervently, hovering over him. You can see his eyes tracking yours and the rise and fall of his chest, and you breathe a sigh of relief at the proof that he’s still alive. “Do you, um… Do you want me to help you up?”

“He’s not gonna want to move for a few more minutes,” Miguel interjects from behind you. “Moving will be incredibly painful until the venom wears off the rest of the way”.

What the actual fuck!?

You throw a glare at Miguel, as you loop an arm under Wong’s waist, “Well help me move him so he can be more comfortable.”

At your command, Miguel helps you prop the man up against the wall in what is (hopefully) a more comfortable position, and then you sit next to each other and wait.

"I can't believe you bit the Sorcerer Supreme," you mutter under your breath. “Miguel, you can’t just–” you cut yourself off, too frustrated to find the proper words.

"I'm sorry,” he says, grimacing at your scolding, looking regretful for once as he ducks down his gaze. “You looked like you were in pain".

Your anger subsides, if only slightly at his repentance.

“It still doesn’t make it okay. You can’t just attack someone like that! He was trying to help us.”

He doesn’t say anything more to that, just stares down at his feet in contrition.

The two of you sit in the silence.

Your mind goes back to the surreal experience you just had. The myriad of thousands if not millions of images that were flashing through your mind at the speed of light.

The warped shape of your world, the jarring images of it distorted and wrong, as it started to collapse.

Miguel had said that didn’t he? That the universe was going to ramp up its game and if it didn’t succeed, it would eventually self-destruct in its mission to get you.

It takes 26 minutes. The first sign that the toxins are wearing off is that Wong is able to wiggle his toes. His recovery accelerates after that, he's able to move his fingers, then the muscles in his face until he's able to form a grimace. He doesn't look happy, and you don't blame him.

After another five minutes or so, he's able to speak again.

"Strange way of expressing gratitude, literally biting the hand that helps you."

You get up on your feet to help Wong, and Miguel moves next to you.

“No, you stay there! Don’t move,” you order, and even though he scowls, Miguel complies.

You hunch over next to Wong, and help him sit fully upright. He stays seated, but dusts his robe off from the caked soot and fine layers of dirt.

“This has happened in other dimensions,” Wong tells you. “And if we don’t stop it, our universe will be destroyed.”

“How do we stop it?” you ask.

“The universe wants you dead. It won’t stop until it achieves its goal.”

Your stomach drops.

“So in order for this to stop… I need to die?”

There’s a look of barely contained fury burning in Miguel’s red eyes that seems to vibrate out of his skin and pounce. But he doesn't, this time he remains in place, visibly restraining himself, still following your orders.

“There is that option, or you will need to find the reason for why it wants to kill you. And you need to find it soon, because you don’t have a lot of time left. You will have even less time once the people of this world realize the threat you present to the continued integrity of this universe.”

“Are you threatening her!?” Miguel demands, and somehow even though you didn’t hear him move, he’s right behind you, red eyes glowing, shoulders rising, looming over Wong, ready to cut him down at any further hints that the man might be a threat to your safety.

Wong doesn't seem deterred in the slightest.

You have to give it to the Sorcerer Supreme. He's a brave one. It took you weeks before you stopped being intimidated by the man, and Miguel’s never bitten you.

“I am only telling you what the universe tells me. And it tells me that you do not belong here at all. The universe thinks neither of you belong here.”

You think back on fortune teller's drawing of the poorly drawn circle and stickfigure of you that’s speared with arrows.

"What if we went… somewhere else?" Miguel asks.

For the first time since he entered this house, his tone is no longer dripping with anger. “What if we left this universe and dimension?”

The image of white blankness enters your mind at his words. You shudder at the reminder. The cold numbness of the void and the sensation of nothingness. Dread fills your veins. A cold clammy sweat flashes hot and cold against your skin at the memory.

Wong tilts his head up in deep consideration. “That might work. This universe would slowly return to equilibrium with her gone. But… This will just start again in any new Universe. Most likely she wouldn’t be able to stay. She might have to leave every dimension she's in for the rest of her natural lifespan. A life spent always on the run.”

Wong pauses as he glances over to you with sympathy and concern in his gaze. “Is that something you would want?”

What is the alternative here? To lie down and die?

“Yes.”

“One month’s time, you need to find a way to leave this dimension before then.”

Back at your hotel that evening, you wake up to the sound of distress. Muffled whimpers and quiet moans.

By habit, your eyes roam the room, seeking out Miguel in the dark. He’s lying on the sofa from across the room and even in this distance you can make out that his body is writhing beneath the covers. But you’re groggy and too sleep-drunk to make sense of what you’re hearing or seeing.

There’s murmured noises from him, and it takes you far too long to understand what’s going on.

He’s having a nightmare.

Tugging off the blanket on top of you, you get up and scoot over to the end of the bed over to him. Miguel looks like he’s in pain. There’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead as he tosses and turns, face pinched in pain and distress. Now that you’re closer, you can make out words in the sounds he’s making.

“Quiero quedarme contigo. No te vayas, no te vayas,” he keeps murmuring.

He looks exhausted. Which, of course he is. He's been on constant alert trying to protect you. Fighting off supernatural weather phenomena, blocking hazardous furniture and fighting off charging hippos out of nowhere. Of course he's worn out.

“Shhhh, It’s alright.” you whisper to him, reaching out to gently stroke his arm, attempting to soothe him. “It’s okay.”

He groans unhappily in his sleep, burying his head into the cushion.

“Quiero quedarme conti–”

"Hey, hey, Miguel,” you tap insistently at his shoulder now. If you can’t soothe the nightmare away, then maybe you can at least wake him up out of it, “It's okay. Wake up."

This time his eyes slam open, wide with adrenaline and shock, and he shoots upright, head whipping from side to side as he scans the room. Every inch of him prepared to leap into a fight.

“What’s wrong? What’s–”

“You were having a nightmare,” you explain to him.

He stiffens at that, dropping his eyes to stare down at his lap unhappily.

“Shit, did I wake you?” he runs a hand over his face, then lays back down, “Sorry.”

Silence blankets the two of you, and you don’t know what else to say to him. Except just that you want him to be able to rest–truly rest–after the day, week and month you’ve both had. You don’t want him to have to go back to snatching moments of troubled, uncomfortable sleep on that stupid, too-small couch.

“You could come sleep on the bed with me,” you offer, “That couch is nowhere near big enough for you.”

"It's fine," he mutters, "It's been fine the last month, and it's fine now."

"It's not though. You're clearly not sleeping well. I should have asked you before. I'm surprised your back isn't already killing you—that sleeping position looked painful."

His head darts down, eyeing his own spread legs that are sticking out into the empty air from the bottom of the couch. But he doesn't concede the point.

"Please?" you try again, "It will make me feel better."

Apparently all you needed to do was ask, because Miguel immediately complies like your request was a decree. He gets up, pulling the quilt with him, his mop of curls in adorable disarray as he drags his feet over to the other side of the bed and flops down with a loud thump that makes the whole mattress bounce underneath you.

You can feel the pull of the sheets where his legs threaten to brush up against your bent knees, and you're beginning to realize you didn't think this through. Even in the big bed, there's only so much space, and he seems to be taking up most of it.

He's close, and you can't seem to peel your eyes away from the strong line of his throat. Can't help the way your body reacts. Your pulse starts to race, heart kicking up hard and fast against your ribs.

Miguel turns around to observe you with narrowed eyes. “You okay?”

Shit! Did he hear you? That timing was too on the nose. You nod at him a little bit too frantically and you sound high-pitched and skittish even to your own ears.

“Yes of course, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Your heart is beating really fast.”

Fuck. He could hear you. Of course he can, he has super hearing powers doesn’t he?

“I’m just tired,” you stammer out, wrapping the blanket close to your chest for layers as a shield from his super hearing.

Miguel doesn’t push it. He turns back around, letting his head drop down the pillow.

The distance between you has been growing smaller and smaller with each passing day together and you think you have been crossing an invisible line that you shouldn’t be crossing as of late.

You think of the closeness of him in the office, the weight of his arms on your waist as he held you in his lap. His eyes on you. The bare skin of his broad back casually revealed to you when he was changing. The same back that you find yourself staring up at in this moment.

“Go to sleep,” Miguel rasps from your side, and you nearly jump out of your skin in surprise.

You close your eyes, but somehow in the dark you become even more keenly aware of his presence in the bed with you. Your heart seems to skip a little bit faster as the seconds pass, each beat a little bit harder.

There's a quiet sigh, then a much louder exhale, as he turns back towards you in bed.

"What's wrong?" His voice is still gruff with sleep.

"I can’t fall asleep,” you say, staring up at the ceiling in the dark. “Can you talk? It might help me sleep."

He snorts with a laugh. The sound of it makes something pleasant skitter up the length of your spine. He's got a nice laugh. It's a shame he doesn't laugh often.

"What's so funny?"

"No, nothing. Just... some things never change." Even in the dim of the unlit room, you can see the smile on his lips.

"What do you want me to talk to you about?" he asks.

You tilt your head, considering it. Miguel rarely gives you a carte blanche to ask him for information. Logically, you should use this moment to seize a tactical advantage and ask him for all the salacious details that you know he’s been keeping from you. But as you wrack your brain for questions, the only ones that come to mind are disappointingly ordinary. You just want to know more about him. Small, silly, personal details, the way he seems to know everything about you.

"Tell me about where you're from," you request, "Your dimension. Your hometown."

He shifts on the bed, lying flat on his back until he’s staring up at the ceiling with you as he reminisces.

"It's called Nueva York. It's significantly more technologically advanced than this dimension. Definitely cleaner. People aren't as big of assholes as they are here. Public hygiene is way better, everything doesn’t reek of piss. Oh, and there’s not a rat epidemic in the public transportation system there."

His head turns to his side to look at your face, and he gives you a small mischievous grin as he continues. "Food is healthier. You don't get junk food there."

The words should be complimentary, but from his tone of voice and what you know of his eating habits, you think it’s probably a win for your dirty, rat-infested dimension.

"Lots of skyscrapers and neon-lights everywhere. It's colorful."

He pauses, as if he's struggling to find anything more to say about the place. Then his head tips to the side, meeting your eyes, and his gaze is soft.

“I'll take you there," he promises, voice quiet and warm and it makes something sweet and honeyed trickle inside your veins pleasantly.

“How?” you wonder.

His smile drops, replaced by an unhappy frown. “Not sure yet, but I’ll figure it out.”

“Can’t we just open up a portal like last time?”

He shakes his head.

"The last time I took you through the portal, it was meant to take us back to my dimension. But I built the parallel universe traversal device to transport me—and only me—through the multiverse."

He reaches out to you, fingers wrapping gently around your wrist. The contact makes your skin tingle, but you don’t pull away.

"I wasn't thinking last time. We can’t take the risk of winding up back in the void.”

He’s mumbling now, nearly asleep. His eyes half-shut as he blinks slowly, struggling to keep them open as he slowly blinks.

"Someone that disappears in the void, they'll be erased from existence and out of every timeline. No one will ever remember you or know you existed. It's as if you've never existed at all."

You eye the watch on your wrist. The slight sheen of the bed light reflecting against the shiny glass.

"Can we modify the watch?"

"Firstly, not a watch", he reminds you by rote as he fluffs up his pillow with his arm.

"And second..." he pauses, eyes drifting up to study the ceiling before he shakes his head, "I've tried. It doesn’t work. The power source isn’t powerful and your world is not technically advanced enough for me to build an upgraded self-sustaining fusion power source that would be needed. It’s how we ended up in the void.”

Worry burrows into your chest, and your gaze drops down from his face. It always feels like you’re taking one step forward and ending up two steps back. Futile and hopeless but that’s what you get for trying to fight against the will of the universe.

"Go to sleep," he says again, his hand coming to rest gently on top of your head, "I'll figure it out, don't worry.”

You smile, warmed by the comforting gesture and his reassurance.

“I won't let you get hurt this time."

…‘this time.’

The promise cuts through you like glass. Sharp and jagged and clawing its way into your chest until it hurts you to breathe.

Miguel is talking to you, but you don’t think it’s you he’s thinking of when he says the words.

He attacked Wong without a second of hesitation when he thought you were hurt. He's exhausting himself half to death to protect you. But you know that he’s not really doing any of this for you.

It’s not your comfort he was thinking of when he cradled your burnt hand and gently blew on your fingers. It’s not your love of egg tarts that makes him save the flaky pastries for you when the two of you go out for dinner. It’s not you—has never been you—that he’s seeing whenever his eyes linger on your face when he thinks you’re not paying attention.

You're riding on the emotional coattails of the other you. The unwavering loyalty that he had for her has transferred to you now that she's gone.

He must have really loved her.

There’s a sharp fissure in your chest, and you try to swallow down the thistle of needles that’s found its way into your throat, only to discover that your saliva tastes sour and bitter.

Closing your eyes, you can see an image of yourself smiling with him, laughing with him, holding his hand. Except it’s not you.

It’s her.

Other-you, with the wedding band and the happy life and– And somehow better hair too, the lucky bitch!

Except… she wasn't lucky, was she? She's dead.

She’s dead, and you still resent her for what she had with Miguel. It's such an ugly feeling.

You squeeze your eyes shut as hard as you can, but the image doesn’t go away. Nor does that acrid taste in your mouth. You can't help it. This irrational and childish madness is eating into the edges of your mind. You're envious of your other self.

God that’s fucked up.

Does someone like you even deserve to be saved at all?

~ Next Issue

Credits & Dedications: To @thirstworldproblemss for all the rubberducking we do together on this silly little story. Thank you so much for sitting with me and making this fun! I love you 234238472938492374923 x infinity and back again.

a/n: to be notified of new writing updates follow astroboots-writes and turn on notifs.

#miguel o'hara x you #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara fic #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara fanfic #miguel o'hara fanfiction #spiderverse #oscar isaac #across the spiderverse #marvel #spiderverse fanfiction #miguel ohara x reader #miguel ohara #miguel ohara x you #marvel mcu

987 notes · View notes

eroselless · 6 months ago

Text

PATO - THREE

series masterlist | part 2 | part 4

[charles leclerc x reader, carlos sainz x reader]

warnings: angst, fighting, tiny bit of violence (a slap makes an appearance but that’s it, not directed at the reader), pregnancy, description of birth/labour (might be a little inaccurate), breastfeeding, assholey Charles, Spanish

note: Part 3! Baby is here! We’ll be doing some time jumps from time to time, each chapter marked with a date and relative time in the reader's pregnancy. The name I chose for the baby comes from my personal list of baby names, I couldn’t resist. Lucero is pronounced loo-seh-row :) I hope you guys enjoy it!

SPAIN, OCTOBER 2023

3rd trimester/month 9/week 37

“¡Puja, mi amor! ¡Sé que puedes!” The voice cuts through the air as you push with all your might Push, my love! I know you can do it! The contraction finally lets up, and you gasp, collapsing back against the hospital bed. You’re exhausted, every muscle straining from the effort. Your body is drenched in sweat, and your hair is matted to your forehead. It's been four gruelling hours.

You squeeze the hand that’s trapped between your fingers, seeking reassurance. The next contraction starts deep in your hips. “Ya casi estás, casi está aquí la bebé,” You're almost there, the baby is almost here. Lips press gently to your forehead, a touch of comfort that should somehow make the pain bearable. But you flinch away, any touch sending pain signals through your body.

“I can’t… I can’t do it,” you croak, your breath coming out in ragged bursts. Tears mix with the sweat on your face, and the feeling of defeat threatens to overwhelm you.

“Sí puedes,” the voice says firmly. Yes, you can. A cool cloth wipes over your forehead, the cold fabric bringing a brief moment of relief. “Just one more push, you’ve got this,” one of the nurses says.

You shake your head again, tears pricking your eyes. The wave of pain returns, and you cry out. “I can’t,” you repeat, voice breaking. “I can’t do it.”

“Yes, you can,” the voice insists. Their fingers are still trapped in your grip. “Respira, inhala, exhala. You’re so strong, you’re almost there.” breathe, inhale, exhale.

The nurse starts counting down, guiding you through the next push. You see another nurse enter the room, holding towels. You take a deep breath, and with a final surge of energy, you push with all you have left.

The room falls silent as if everyone is holding their breath, the tension palpable. Just when you think you might faint from the effort, a sharp, piercing cry fills the air.

A baby’s cries echo around the room, a beautiful, life-affirming sound. You collapse back against the pillows, your chest heaving as you struggle to catch your breath. Tears of relief and joy mingle with the sweat on your face.

“Lo hiciste, mi vida. Lo hiciste,” the voice says, filled with awe and pride. You did it, my life. You did it. Their fingers wipe away the tears on your face, and they press their lips to your hairline.

You open your eyes, blinking away the blur of exhaustion, and see the nurse approaching you with a tiny swaddle. The baby is placed on your chest, and her cries cease as she makes contact with your skin. Your eyes tear up again, but this time with tears of pure joy as you hold your baby close.

“Mirala, que bella,” the voice says, fingers trailing gently over the baby’s cheek. Look at her, how beautiful. The baby’s skin is still grimy, but you don’t care as you trail your fingers over her little body. She’s finally here.

You look up at the person whose hand you held as you pushed her out, your eyes full of love and gratitude. You lean into them as they coo at the baby. “Thank you,” you say, your voice trembling with emotion.

“Siempre, mi amor. Always,” they reply, their own eyes glistening with happy tears. The room is filled with a peaceful silence, broken only by the soft murmurs of the nurses and the gentle coos from the baby. You cradle your daughter close, feeling a sense of completeness you’ve never known before. At that moment, all the pain and fear melt away, replaced by an all-encompassing love for the tiny life you now hold in your arms.

MEXICO, OCTOBER 2024

The paddock buzzes with energy as you arrive, a storm of activity everywhere you look. The atmosphere is both intimidating and exhilarating, a stark contrast to the races you had attended before. But this time, you weren't covering your face or walking alone.

You shift Lucero in your arms as she snuggles closer to your chest, sucking her thumb and occasionally dribbling spit onto your shirt. Navigating through the busy entrance, you scan both of your passes. Carlos’s hand rests protectively on your back, guiding you through the throng of journalists and fans. He makes eye contact with them, smiling and stopping briefly to sign autographs for young fans holding out their cars and caps. Some journalists wave at Lucero, captivated by her big blue eyes and tousled chestnut hair. A few of them seem to recognize you, but most don’t.

Despite the nerves, you maintain a calm demeanour as you make your way further into the paddock. Carlos’s hand is a steady presence on your back, gently urging you forward. You hear Charles’s voice in your mind, from almost two years ago, expressing concern about how you'd handle the cameras. But you don’t feel as nervous as you thought you would. You’re okay.

Approaching the Ferrari garage, the familiar colours fill you with nostalgia. It's been so long since you’ve seen the inside of the garage. The image of Charles on the wall seems to follow you as you walk in with Lucero and Carlos. From afar, you spot Fred Vasseur waving you down, a surprised look on his face.

“It’s so good to see you!” he greets warmly, hugging you and then Carlos. His eyes twinkle as they land on Lucero. He pokes teasingly at her tummy, eliciting a two-toothed smile from her as she hides her face in your chest, peeking out at him shyly with one eye. "And who is this?"

“This is Lucero Ines,” you introduce, your voice steady. “My daughter.”

Fred smiles, rubbing a finger over her chubby shoulder. He leans in closer to get a better look at the 1-year-old. “She’s beautiful, has your eyes.”

You smile at the comment, glancing into her sapphire eyes as they seem to gleam under the light of the sun. They were just like her father’s, wide and full of wonder. Though she did share many features with her father, every time she smiled, Carlos would only see your face reflected in hers.

Only he and Aunt Ines knew the truth. Keeping the baby from Charles proved to be hard but you could only think about the nights you stayed up wrestling with doubt and fear, mind full of memories of the past.

Fred’s eyes twinkle with affection as he babbles at Lucero, her little fingers wrapped around his.

He lets out a final chuckle and bids you adieu, letting you know that he’ll see you inside and Carlos leads you into the garage. Some of the engineers wave at you, welcoming you back. They exchange glances, their expressions puzzled as if trying to place a familiar face.

Carlos settles you down at the front of the garage where guests are congregating. Celebrities and journalists chatting amongst themselves, cameras scanning over the small crowd.

“Ya vengo, mi amor,” Carlos says, bending down to press a kiss to your lips. I’ll be right back, my love. “I’m gonna go change.” He lovingly pinches Lucero’s cheek and makes his way to his driver room.

You stand alone with your daughter in your arms, eyes tracing over the track as you do. It isn’t quiet by any means but you feel an ease creep settle in as your mind wanders away from you. You suddenly feel Lucero start to squirm in your arms. She wriggles out, a sign that she wants to be put down. She gurgles happily as she pads around, pulling you forward. She holds tight to your fingers, still unable to hold herself up on her own. Fred gives you a smile as he returns, holding a small snack in his hands. “For our little Princess of Ferrari,” he dubs her, wagging it within her reach before handing it to her. She takes it in one hand biting at the wrapping before shaking it in your direction as if to mamá, open. He lets out a smile, telling you about the race and how much of a pleasure it is to have you back in the Ferrari garage. He takes a turn holding on to Lucero as she waddles around, shoes squeaking with every footfall.

There’s a light breeze that ruffles your hair as Carlos approaches, scooping up Lucero from Fred’s grasp. She lets out a squeal as he tickles her, laughter echoing throughout the garage. The bright red of his racing suit contrasts with the white of your dress and the yellow of Lucero’s little outfit. He lovingly presses a kiss to her cheek and leans into you, breathing in your comforting scent as he nuzzles his nose into your hair. If that didn't tell the people around you that you were together you weren't sure what would.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Charles weaves through the paddock, deftly avoiding cameras and microphones. He checks his phone, mind still on the message he received from you that morning.

UNKNOWN: Hi Charles, it's Y/N. I’m going to be at the race today, we need to talk.

He had stared at it for a while, eyebrows knitted together with concern and curiosity. But he tucks his phone away from Alexandra’s eyes before she can spot it. It's the first he’s heard from you in nearly a year and a half and he can’t help but feel guilty as he walks into the paddock with Alexandra in hand.

As he nears the Ferrari garage, he spots the crowd and pushes through, his fingers intertwined with Alexandra's. He kisses her swiftly before heading off to change into his race suit, returning shortly after. He tugs Alexandra further into the garage, catching sight of Carlos from a distance, his arm draped over a woman's shoulders.

He can't see the woman's face but he notices the baby in her arms, flailing and grasping at Carlos. Carlos takes the baby, blowing raspberries into her thick neck, eliciting a shrill laugh. The woman looks up at Carlos, smiling as he continues to play with the baby, who pulls off his hat, revealing messy hair underneath. Charles approaches his teammate, his attention drawn to the little one in Carlos's arms, now wearing their signature red cap.

"Hey, mate," Charles says, his voice light and friendly. He places a hand on Carlos's bicep, pulling his attention away from the energetic baby. Charles doesn't recognize you right away, your head bent down, suddenly nervous. "I don't think we've met," Charles continues, stretching out a hand. Before he can say anything else, you turn your eyes up to face him, both of you wide-eyed. You don't know why his presence catches you off guard—you’d told him you’d be here and the reason why. It feels like you’re meeting him for the first time, like a girl awe-struck by her idol. The air feels thick with tension as he takes in the sight of you. He says your name, and it automatically takes you back to the night you last saw him.

You don't look much different than you did that night. Your hair is longer and shinier, your cheeks full and rosy. You look… happy. You suck in a breath as he introduces Alexandra, whom you recognize immediately. It feels like it was just yesterday when you were sobbing in your aunt's front yard. His eyes seem bluer than you remembered, the ring of green around his irises brighter than before.

You're pulled out of your daze by the sound of Carlos's hat hitting the pavement. Both of you reach down to grab it, your fingers brushing briefly, sending a wave of butterflies into your stomach. You don’t miss the feeling of guilt that also comes along with it. He hands it to you, standing back to his full height. As you mirror him, he finally notices Lucero kicking excitedly in Carlos's embrace.

His breath stills in his chest as he identifies your features in her face. She looks just like you, save for her thick brown hair and big blue eyes. Freckles are sprinkled across her nose, and there's a little mole on her cheek, identical to his. Whatever words he was going to say get lost in his throat, captivated by her gaze as her little hands reach out towards him as if she instinctively knows who he is. You quietly introduce her, your voice barely above a whisper.

Carlos, holding Lucero securely, meets Charles’s eyes and glances at you. You give Carlos a subtle nod, a muted yes. Charles carefully takes Lucero from Carlos’s outstretched arms, his movements gentle and deliberate. “Hi, little Lu,” he says gently. You hold your breath as he cradles her, bouncing her slightly. She giggles, her small hands grabbing at his cheeks and hair, making him laugh.

Charles tickles her underarms, eliciting more laughter from Lucero. You watch with a tight smile as Alexandra leans in, brushing a finger over the baby’s knuckles. Lucero shies away, suddenly interested in the zipper of Charles’s race suit and pressing her forehead to the red fabric. Charles’s emotions swirl in his chest, an inkling beginning to prod at his mind. He meets your eyes and crinkles his eyebrows at you. He sees something reflected in them that confirms the feeling in his gut. He carefully hands her back to you, his smile a mix of joy and sorrow.

As he stands next to you, conversation flows between Alexandra and Carlos. She laughs, suddenly turning to Charles, “You’re so good with her,” she says, hand on his arm. “Maybe we should try for one.” She lets out a laugh, locking eyes with you as she does so. There is only awkward laughter that follows.

“Anyways, I think we should be getting set up for the race,” Charles says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “It was nice seeing you, Y/N, Carlos.” He wags a finger at Lucero, walking away with Alexandra in tow.

You let out a sigh, squeezing Lucero lightly in your arms and leaning into Carlos, who now has an arm wrapped around your waist. You let out a breath, glancing between him and your daughter. “I know it's not her fault what happened with Charles but I can’t help but feel a little angry,” you admit with a dry chuckle.

He nods understandingly. “It’s okay to feel that way. She doesn’t know but you do. It's natural to have those feelings.”

You take a deep breath, looking at Lucero who is now content in your arms. “I just want to protect her, to keep her safe from all of this,” you say referring to all the emotions that start to pool in your belly.

Carlos wraps an arm around you, pulling you and Lucero closer. “We’ll protect her together. No matter what.”

You lean into him, pressing a fleeting kiss to the underside of his jaw. Your phone buzzes in your bag, a single notification lighting up the screen.

cl: we’ll talk after the race.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

The sun begins to hang low in the sky by the time the race nears its end. You sit in the back of the garage, Lucero tucked close to your chest as you breastfeed her under a blanket. You wince as she grinds her gums against you, her two little bottom teeth pinching into your skin. The race is coming to a close, both Charles and Carlos’s frustrations coming in through the headset you’re wearing.

As they drive into parc fermé, Charles's frustration is obvious on his face, a look you recognized from the many occasions you witnessed it in the confines of your home. Ferrari cheers Charles on as he takes his spot on the third step of the podium. He’s showered in champagne along with Max and Lewis, respectively taking first and second places. Carlos smiles as he takes fourth, happy to join you back in the garage.

“Hiciste muy bien, mi cielo,” you say, pressing a well-deserved kiss to his lips You did so well, my sky. He thanks you, a little frustrated with his miss of the podium. He kisses your hairline, fingers going to caress the puffy cheek of your drowsy babe.

She’s still cradled in your arms, eyes now droopy, corners of her mouth white with milk. She the image of a little drunk baby, happy and full. “Me gusta que esten aquí, acompañandome,” he says I like having you guys here, accompanying me. You smile up at him, lovingly snuggling into his side. You let him go, gathering your things as he goes to his interviews and debriefs. You tell him you’ll wait for him at your hotel, nervous about seeing Charles.

It’s not until a few hours later that you find yourself sitting on the couch of your illustrious hotel room, across from the man you worked so hard to let go of.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Charles demands voice tinged with hurt and anger. Carlos sits next to you, eyes flickering between you both, ready to jump in when needed. Your chest feels heavy as you respond. “Believe me Charles, I wanted to. I was scared and I didn’t know how you’d react. I didn’t want to burden you or take you away from what you were working so hard for.”

“Burden me?” Charles echoes, incredulously. “She’s my daughter, Y/N. I had a right to know.” His eyes flash with brighter anger as he turns suddenly to Carlos.

“And you? You knew this whole time and didn’t think to tell me?” His voice cracks slightly. “You took over my role in my family without even considering how I might feel.”

Carlos huffs, nostrils flaring slightly as he meets his gaze. “She was all alone and I did what I could do to help, it was about being there for a friend.” Charles doesn’t miss the gentle squeeze Carlos gives to your thigh as you hold your fingers up to your eyes, as if trying to hold tears back with the heels of your hands. He knows it's not his place but that doesn’t stop him from blurting out his next words.

“Oh sure, friends that kiss each other shamelessly in front of the whole paddock.” He’s caught by surprise as he feels a sharp sting across his cheek, face swinging to one side. Your hand now floats in the air in front of him.

“You have no right to say that to us, Charles.” You say bitterly as you shove a finger in his face, now standing above him. His words reminded you of the shock you went through when his initial pictures with Alexandra came out. After they did, they didn’t seem to stop. They were everywhere, caught by paparazzi at any and every hour of the day. Lips pressed together in every. single. photo. Carlos pulls you back down to the couch, hands rubbing gentle circles on your arms. There’s a silence that echoes through the room as you slowly take your next breath.

“I didn’t think you’d change,” you say, eyes blank and now dripping with tears.

“And I didn't want you to change solely for the sake of me staying. I wanted you to change because you wanted to. I needed stability and I was scared that you were getting too caught up with following your dreams and were going leave us behind.” You allow yourself to meet the cerulean orbs you couldn’t stop crying for as you confess.

“I already felt so lonely long before even knowing about the baby, I didn't want to risk her having to go through the same thing.”

His anger melts away at your words, giving way to sorrow and guilt. “I’m so sorry.”

He leans forward, contemplating reaching out to touch even just your hand but he stops. "I just want to be a part of her life, Y/N. I’ve missed so much already."

You nod at his words, fingers swiping at your cheeks. “And you will be but you need to prove that you can be there for her. Consistently.”

Charles nods slowly, the weight of his past mistakes heavy on his shoulders. "I will. I promise I will."

You shift your gaze between the two men, the importance of this moment pulsating. You could see the sincerity in Charles’s eyes, a little glimmer of hope for the two of you appearing for the first time in years. "We can make this work," You say quietly. "For Lucero. We need to put her first."

Charles takes a deep breath, nodding in agreement. "I know I have a lot to make up for. I’ve made mistakes, but I want to be there for her. I want to be the father she deserves."

His words hang in the air for a moment before they seem to fully register in Carlos’s mind. He feels Charles begin to push him out of the role he took in your and Lucero’s lives. It suddenly feels for naught. A fear blooms in the back of his mind. Was he at risk of losing Lucero? And more importantly, of losing you?

Charles rises from his spot on the couch, wanting to see his baby one last time before heading out for the night. You guide him to the room you share with Carlos, showing him to her crib as she breathes deeply in her sleep. He reaches out, caressing her sleep-tossed hair. She flinches initially before relaxing into his touch.

You watch the interaction, heart filling with yearning and uncertainty. “I promise I won’t let you down,” he whispers to her before turning to you. “The both of you.”

"I believe you, Charles. Just don't make promises you can't keep."

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Charles bids you goodbye, collecting himself as he wanders over to the door of your hotel room.

“Charles,” Carlos calls out as his teammate reaches for the doorknob. He stands a few feet away, lingering close to the couch where your animated conversation began. “I could never replace you in Lucero’s life.” His voice is soft, almost sad. “I saw it with my own eyes today at the paddock, how she reached for you as if she knew you already.”

Charles’s shoulders slumped, pride sparking in his chest. The thought of connecting and repairing the relationship with his daughter fills him with hope.

“You’ll always be her father, no matter where you are. You’ll always be hers.”

a/n: If you’ve gotten this far, thank you so much for reading! Any feedback, reblogs and likes are appreciated, they seriously keep me so motivated <3 on another note, do we have guesses for who might've been with the reader during labour?

tags: @kravitzwhore @janeh22 @apollosfavkiddo @leah-also-known-as-creatoronwp @tremendousstarlighttragedy @sltwins @bwormie @marshmummy @honethatty12 @staplerrrr @smithieandy @loloekie @musicheaux

*strikethrough => tumblr wouldn’t let me tag you :(

#carlos sainz imagine #carlos sainz x reader #carlos sainz #charles leclerc #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc imagine

384 notes · View notes

thebestofoneshots · 8 months ago

Text

Gilded Constellations | (wolfstar x reader)

Series Masterlist | Previous episode

Pairing: Wolfstar x Reader Word Count: 8.8 K Warnings: None Prompt: It's finally time to test Peter's theory? Will all the cuddles be worth for something or will things end terribly wrong? It is time for Vixen to face Moony. This IS a Wolfstar x reader fic, but it's incredibly slow burn. They won't start all dating each other until we're very deep into the story, but I promise the long wait will be worth it. Proofread by lovelies: @aremuslupinsimp and @nagareboshi-chiyo (for the French <3)

Chapter 39: Running With the Pack

Wednesday, December 22nd. 5:37 PM

As you leaned closer to the dark tunnel that had once haunted you, you took a deep breath and stared into the vast darkness. You had run through it so many times in your dreams, crawled out of it as you were chased by a giant wolf about ready to turn you to shreds, broken your nails as you dug your fingers through the dirt and now, now you would slide down, and walk all the way to the wolf’s den, willingly.

What once had been scary, keeping you awake at night in fear of going back to it, was now drawing you in, a magnetism so strong it was almost irresistible. You took a deep breath and then smiled, greeting the darkness like an old friend rather than a foe, and letting yourself fall down the dark rabbit hole that would take you to the wolf. But not just any wolf, to Moony. Your best friend Moony. Your Moony.

The beautiful wolf you had had the grace of witnessing once before you had to run from it, the large creature with claws as sharp as honed blades and fangs that could pierce skin as one might tear through a fragile sheet of paper, eyes so sharp they could follow you through the forest before you even had enough time to think of an escape route– but they were kind too. Golden and dangerous and beautiful. They shone with the kindness of your friend, of the man behind the sleek coat of fur that shimmered with the moonlight. The eyes of the soft-spoken boy that smelled of chocolate and old books, of the one that had been kind enough to show you through the school and cheered you up after a rough day after merely days of meeting you.

They called you insane for throwing your wand on the floor as the wolf advanced on you, but you had not been looking at the wolf then, you had been looking at him, at your best friend. That had gotten you almost killed, seeing the beauty in chaos might be a noble trait, but a dangerous one nonetheless.

You now knew what a terrible idea that had been, Remus had not spared a chance to remind you of your recklessness, and perhaps you needed it, being mesmerised by the wolf was not an excuse for getting murdered. Either way, you’d be lying if you said the prospect of seeing the wolf up close –even as Vixen– wasn’t exciting.

“Sirius?” you whispered, he was a few steps ahead, walking with his wand held high and a Lumos charm. James was just a few steps behind and Peter had gotten ahead as Wormtail, to make sure Remus was still Remus when you got there.

“Yeah, Luv?” he asked.

“Are we too far?” you asked and revised your clock “It’s 6:00 pm already, and the moon comes out in about a quarter of an hour.”

You had never walked through the tunnel, you had only ran through it, and you would be lying if you said that it didn’t feel much longer now than it did back then. Not that the path hadn’t felt eternal while you were running and throwing spells at Moony, but you were rather certain that that had to do a lot more with your own perception of time than time itself.

“We’re less than 5 minutes away,” James responded, he too had been keeping an eye on the clock, trying to make sure that things would be alright.

Sirius slowed his pace until he reached beside you and whispered, “Nox,” over his wand, he placed a hand over your shoulders, drawing you close to him as he pointed deeper into the tunnel, “See that light reflection?” he asked. You nodded in response. “It’s the door you blew up last time you were here.”

You looked at him with a frown and then back at the place he was pointing at, Remus must have told him, you realised as you saw it, and you picked up your pace, almost sprinting towards it. Sirius turned to James who gave him a shrug and the two boys ran behind you.

You reached the door just under two minutes later, and you brushed your hand over the hinges, “You fixed it?” you asked as you turned to the boys, who were just behind you.

“Peter and I did, when we brought Remus over after the last moon,” James responded.

“It was in an awful condition,” you replied, remembering the Bombarda you had used and how many of the pieces of the door had flown about the room, you were pretty sure you had turned it to shreds.

“Yeah,” James agreed with a diverted smile.

You looked at the door a little closer now and located the thick bar of metal that held it in place, you brought your hand under it and started pushing it up. There was a click and the door snapped open, Remus was on the other side, he was leaning on a bed, bouncing one of his legs up and down while looking right ahead. He turned to you shortly after and seemed relieved to see everyone there. Peter was still Wormtail, and he was sleeping on a worn-out pillow on the floor. He hadn’t been sleeping well that week, staying up late to work on the final projects he had left for the last minute (It had been all of them).

You walked forwards and sat beside Remus on the edge of the bed, “How are we feeling?”, you asked. James sat beside you and Sirius had plopped down on the floor, staring up at the three of you.

“Fantastic!” he said sarcastically.

You pushed him with your shoulder lightly, having him crash against James, “Don’t be such a downer.”

“You can still leave.”

You let yourself fall back into the mattress. “No thanks.”

Sirius laughed from the floor and considered whether it would be a good or a bad idea to jump on top. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too clever, at least not with how nervous Remus was.

Remus sighed with your reply, “But what if it doesn’t work?”

“It will,” Sirius reassured.

“But what if it doesn’t?”

“Then we go for plan B,” you responded as if it was the simplest course of action.

“What if you’re not fast enough?”

“Werewolves don’t eat animals,” you said.

“No, but we can kill them,” Remus muttered as he remembered the time he had killed a squirrel that had walked close to his cage when he was 7. He had cried about it for weeks and even asked his parents to bury her in the garden. He called her Juliette, since his mom had been reading Romeo and Juliette to lull him to sleep back then and he knew she would die in the end.

“Remus!” you whined as you bumped your knee into his, “Drop the negativity, would you?”

It’s not that you didn’t have doubts of your own, but it was easier to ignore them and be brave about it if he was not repeating all the ways that things could go wrong over and over again.

“Sorry,” he said.

James let himself fall on the bed, imitating your earlier action, “I’m sure it will work,” he said, “Besides you’ve been doing research about it, right Vix?”

“I think I read more about werewolves and wolves this past month than I did for classes,” you sighed.

“I can confirm that,” Sirius said, he’d been going to the library with you too, and he’d read just as much.

You had also talked to Damocles and asked him about the potion, to use as a failsafe in case the plan didn’t work, he said he was still working on it but that he hoped he’d have it ready at some point next year. He had also given you all his notes on werewolves since you had asked if he had anything other than the ones he’d given you at first, and while those had been useful to learn about Moony, none of them helped you either prove or refute your theory.

“Right,” Remus said as he started bouncing his leg again. And then he bent down a little bit. When he looked up at Sirius, his eyes were completely golden. James stood up and turned into Prongs in the blink of an eye, standing defensively as he stared at Remus. Remus was now clawing at his own shirt to try and take it off, last time he had ripped it to shreds and he didn’t want the same thing to happen to this one. Sirius stood forward and helped him get it off.

You saw, this time even more than the last, how his skin started to rip, but you also got a small glimpse of his muscly back, and while the potion had already worn off, you’d be lying if you said he didn’t have a very nice and defined one.

“Turn,” he said as he placed his hands on his pants. You instantly turned your head to the wall.

“Into Vixen!” Sirius said, almost laughing at your instant reaction. Remus would have laughed too if he hadn’t been busy trying to hold back the cries of pain that threatened to leave his mouth.

“You too,” he said as he looked at Sirius who had placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“It’s fine,” Sirius countered. You were already Vixen, and you were still looking at the wall, tail waving restlessly as you heard Remus whimper. “I’ll do it right before you’re Moony.”

“Sirius,” Remus said as he tightened his jaw to hold back another groan and ended up stifling a whimper instead.

“You’re not going to change my mind,” he said as he helped Remus kneel on the floor.

“Sirius.”

“I’ve got it under control.”

But I don’t, Remus thought as he tightened his fist on the floor, scratching the wood with his nails, which were a lot more claws than nails themselves.

“Sirius!”

“Moony, we’ve been through this, just let me help,” Sirius insisted as he tightened his grip on Remus’ shoulder, reassuringly.

Remus huffed and turned to Sirius angrily, his eyes were menacingly golden now. But Sirius held his stare, a reassuring smile on his face as he tightened the grip on his shoulder again and sent Remus a wink. Remus would have scoffed if he’d had the chance, but he ended up just bending over a bit more and letting his head fall over Sirius’s shoulder, who was now helping to hold him up. Remus would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the closeness to Sirius. There was something about his hand on his bare back and the feel of his curls crashing against his face, that was dreadfully comforting.

If only he could bask in those feelings at any moment other than when he was about to turn into a fucking werewolf. He couldn’t though, because those hands, those curls and those beautiful lips of his belonged to someone else. To the pretty fox waving her tail desperately on the bed as she struggled to not turn her head. But then he felt it, the Wolf gnawing at him and taking his agency away, locking him up in the cage of his mind, his last ounce of control slipping away.

“Siri-us…” His voice broke near the end. And you couldn’t take it anymore you turned your head to look at the two boys and barked as Sirius. Your best friend’s face was already turning into a snout, but Sirius looked awfully calm as he held him between his arms.

You barked again, now more desperately and jumped towards Sirius, pulling at his shirt with your snout. Remus tried to push you away so that you weren’t that close to the wolf when he came about but his hand was no longer a hand anymore and his paw ended up accidentally bopping your head. You looked at him reproachfully and barely managed to make out his wince. You barked again, and this time Sirius actually listened, he turned into a Padfoot and seconds later, Moony let out a shrieking howl, no wonder that’s what they called this place.

Moony stood straight and imposing, last time you had tried to escape from him as a fox, you hadn’t had time to actually see him, too busy running the hell away. But this time around, you could see how much more bigger and imposing he looked to Vixen, as if he wasn’t imposing enough to you already.

At first, Moony seemed disoriented, but then he spotted Padfoot, who stood just a few feet from him and he howled again, this time around a much more playful one. The black dog imitated him and then Moony jumped his way, raising his front paws and letting them fall over Pads who barked happily. Moony was nibbling on Pads’ left ear while the dog continued to bark excitedly. And then, he spotted you.

He stopped the nibbling and tilted his head to the side as if analysing the intruder. He narrowed his eyes at you and bared his teeth, growling lightly as if telling you to step away, he felt Padfoot tense underneath as he too turned to you, but the dog had a worried face instead of a menacing one.

Every single instinct on your fox self was telling you to run. To find a small nook in a wall and crawl inside of it like you had done the previous moon. Alarms blaring in your brain loudly urging you to step away, to pull back, to hide. But you held your stance, you knew the wolf was trying to scare you because he didn’t recognize you, and it was his immediate reaction. He probably remembered you from the last moon too, the fox that had gotten away.

But this time around you weren’t planning to run from him, you’d held your stance until he leaned forward curiously, or until he did it intending to eat. You pulled your head a little higher and he barked at Padfoot, a simple question: «Who is she?»

Padfoot barked a much simpler answer in return «A friend».

The wolf narrowed his eyes at Padfoot now and slipped his paws off the black dog’s back. You were so used to how big Padfoot was in comparison to Vixen, that seeing the wolf standing right beside him, with the staggering difference between Pads and Moony –who was much bigger and much more imposing– was a little daunting, but you fought the urge to flee, imposing yourself over Vixen’s more animal side.

The wolf tilted his head again and started walking in your direction, one paw after the other, looking every bit like the regal beast of the night it was. You found yourself resisting the urge to step back again, looking at the wolf and tilting your own head slightly to the side. You didn’t say a thing but it was clear what you meant «I’m not afraid of you».

Moony snarled again, baring his teeth at you «Your heartbeat says otherwise».

You barked this time «Try me». Padfoot intervened this time around and barked a warning to you. And you held your tongue from barking anything else, regardless you were looking at Moony attentively, keeping your stance as calm as possible.

The wolf walked close enough to tower over you, and you stood still, he leaned his head down, leaning on his front paws to level it with Vixen’s, and he stared.

You held his stare again, a lot calmer now that you could see his eyes, there he is, hidden beneath the fur, your friend. You could always see Remus through Moony’s eyes. The wolf noticed your change in demeanour, not understanding why the closer he was the calmer you seemed to be. You leaned your head forward a little and bumped your snout with his much bigger one in a teasing manner and he pulled back with a frown.

«Careful», Padfoot barked. You ignored him, deciding to tease the wolf a little further as you jumped forward and bit one of his legs playfully.

Moony looked as scandalised as a wolf could, his features conveying a mix of confusion and irritation in the face of such unexpected audacity. How could this tiny little animal tease him like such, he was sure he could split you in half in one bite. Not that he wanted to, he was too curious to do it. Regardless, he reacted like you would expect any apex predator to react when bothered; he used his head to push you away from him, you rolled about half a metre to the side and ended up, belly-facing the ceiling as the wolf stalked towards you and snarled.

Padfoot seemed just about to jump in your defence when Moony threw him a warning look and bared his teeth at him just like he had done to you, now vulnerably underneath him.

Padfoot barked again, «friend» he reminded Moony.

He huffed in return and turned to look at you, your eyes locked with Padfoot’s who seemed to be telling you to stand back, but you knew whatever relationship you managed to develop with Moony forward, strongly depended on how you acted today with him, you had seen how playful he had been to Pads, perhaps you could have a similar experience.

You turned back to look at Moony who was looking at you with curiosity as if he was still trying to decipher your character, and you used one of your paws to hit his snout in a playful manner. He pulled back and snarled, you did it again and barked. When you tried to do it again, he held your paw in between his sharp teeth. Not biting strong enough to break skin.

You heard Prong’s hooves crashing on the floor, as if he was ready to push Moony off of you, but everyone held their place. You had all agreed on a sign, a rather specific scream that foxes could make, and they had to stand back if you didn’t make said sound or they thought danger was imminent.

You, on the other hand, looked like you were having fun as you teased the menacing wolf. You leapt forward enough to lightly bite his snout and he let your paw go in surprise, pulling back again as he stared at you.

What was that? She smelled… familiar.

«Friend?» he barked.

«Friend» Padfoot confirmed.

Moony leaned down closer to you again, his snout close to yours as he took in the way you smelled. He frowned, he was sure he had never been close enough for you to smell like him and yet, you did. Was it some kind of trick? Had you also tricked his friends? He pulled back, and stared, circling around as you turned back on your heels in the most playful of movements and sat on your back legs as an obedient little puppy. Turning your head only to follow the steps of the huge wolf.

The initial urge to run had faded away and now, even the most primal and fox-like part of you was excited to continue playing with the wolf. He barked at you, and you barked back, a polite bark this time around. Eventually, and after circling you a few more times, Moony walked closer to you, leaning from the back and moving his snout close to Vixen’s body.

First, it was close to your neck, then along your back and eventually, he leaned down to smell your belly again, meanwhile, you stood there, patiently letting him do his thing, allowing him to slowly realise you really were a friend. He pushed you to the side with his head and you pushed back. He gave you a warning look and you reluctantly did what he asked. Moving to a different side of the room where he repeated the entire thing again.

Eventually, he stood right in front of you and laid down on his paws, staring at you with his eyes narrowed. You nudged him with your snout, and he gave you a dismissive look. And then you jumped forward and nibbled his ear like he had done to Sirius earlier.

Wormtail turned his small head the other way around, thinking that would be the last straw for Moony. Perhaps you really were stupidly brave. But contrary to his expectation, Moony simply barked in response, clearly diverted. Even Padfoot seemed surprised. And after you bumped your paw against his snout again he reacted. You pulled back and barked yourself.

«Catch me if you can».

Moony barked in response and stood from the ground, chasing after you as you moved around in circles and all over the small room in the shack, crossing over the furniture, the old raggedy sofa, up and down from the bed, under the bed, under the desk that seemed close to falling apart, close to the –now wide open– metal door, under the rundown piano, and many other pieces of furniture laying around.

Eventually, you ran under Padfoot and after Moony tried to also get in between his legs, he too joined the game. Wormtail and Prongs were looking at the whole thing with both incredulous and satisfied looks. Incredulous because Moony –who had been awfully hard to control the last full moons– was playing along the room all merry and bright like a puppy rather than the angry wolf they saw too often. And satisfied, because the plan had clearly worked. Moony had accepted you as part of the pack, in fact, Prongs would even dare say he liked you. Perhaps as much as Remus liked your human self. He certainly seemed to be enjoying his time as he jumped about chasing you and Sirius as if you were all playing some canine version of tag.

After a while of playing inside the shack, Padfoot barked as he leaned towards the door, Prongs, who had been sitting on his hooves as he lousily watched you play, since he was too big to join the game inside the small room where there was barely enough space for the two big dogs and the small fox to play around, stood up in an instant. And while Prongs –being a stag– did not speak canine, like Moony, Pads and you, it didn’t take a genius to know exactly what Sirius wanted.

Prongs nodded, looking all regal in his Stag form –completely contrasting to his goofy human self– and walked towards the entrance, allowing Sirius to cross the door first and following right behind. You realised the opportunity you had then and decided to make the game a little bit more fun. You walked over to Moony, as casually as you could, and when you had the chance you bit his leg again. He growled at you in response and you took off running.

«Catch me if you can» you barked again and crossed right underneath Prongs, who had merely a second to realise something small and swift was running under his legs and stopped moving entirely, trying to avoid stepping on you. Once you got past him you ran beside Padfoot who gave you a questioning look before turning his head backwards and realising the gigantic wolf stalking behind the two of you, being slowed down by Prongs who was too big for the narrow hall to allow both him and the wolf to pass through.

Padfoot seemed about to panic when he saw the wolf chasing behind you, but when you bit him the same way you had bit the wolf just seconds ago, he realised you were playing, just like you had been inside the shack and started running just beside you, his legs were a lot longer, and he had easily gotten ahead of you. But that didn’t stop you from running as fast as you could, leaving the wolf and the stag behind. Once you reached the end of the tunnel, you crawled your way to the top. It was much easier to do it as a fox, you realised. Perhaps if you had been a fox back then, you wouldn’t have ended up as bruised as you had.

Once you were up though, you saw Padfoot near the entrance, keeping himself there as he watched the Whomping Willow stir about.

«Scared?» You barked.

«Starshine, it’s dangerous» he barked in response.

You are scared then, you thought as you sprinted forward, zigzagging your way out of the willow’s reach and barking at Sirius a short «chicken» as you ran into the forest. You felt unbelievably free, and you were having the time of your life.

Running as Vixen had always been a way for you to feel better, and after last moon, you never thought you’d consider running away while being chased by the same wolf that haunted your dreams would ever be enjoyable, not when you were hiding in the rock and not when you had been pulled by the tail with his mortifyingly strong jaws, and yet, here you were, biting his leg softly and inciting him to chase behind you, as a bIoody game.

The fact that the association made the last moon, of running away from the big bad wolf, was changing so quickly after just hours of officially meeting and playing with Moony was insane. You didn't see running from the wolf as scary anymore, but rather, it was exhilarating. The cold air of the night filled your small lungs as you ran through the crisp and thin layer of snow underneath your paws.

Was it cold? You were having so much fun you didn’t even realise it. You continued running all the way to the forest, not bothering to look back to see if the others had caught up with you, you could still smell them, they were far, but not that much. And if you could smell them, Prongs and Moony, who had the most developed senses in the gang, would definitely be able to find you, if you didn’t run fast enough, that was.

So you kept running, twirling and zigzagging all over the forbidden forest as you did, to try and make sure to leave traces of your scent on as many places as possible, to try and confuse the boys into following fake trails and so you could continue running.

You had just jumped over a dry branch when you felt something push you from the side, you rolled a few metres and took some time to figure out what was going on when you realised Moony was there, looking at you with what could be interpreted as a self-satisfied expression. He’d caught you. He pushed his snout next to your neck since you were still looking at him as you tried to get back on your feet and then howled. A loud, high-pitched sound that reverberated all over the forest.

You barked in response «Congratulations, you won».

He howled again, and you knew what he wanted, and even if you were still on the ground secretly trying to catch your breath –even foxes get tired, you know?– you followed suit. Howling along with the big bad wolf like you were part of his pack. No, you were part of his pack, the precautions had worked, and this? This meant he’d accepted you.

Another howl floated through the wind, it wasn’t far but it wasn’t close either. It’s Padfoot, you realised after hearing the slight give of his voice. You wondered if you would have been able to tell it was Pads if you had been human or if knowing was inherently a fox thing. You sometimes found it fascinating that even though you had been a fox for almost as long as the boys had been their own animagi, there were still so many things for you to discover, perhaps it was because you hadn’t spent as much time as a fox as they had spent as their own animals.

While you had roamed around the grounds of your old school as Vixen a couple of times, you had never really had time to explore that much, let alone to actually interact with other animals like you had done now. Heck, you didn’t even know you could talk with other canines while you were Vixen until a couple of days ago when Padfoot barked something at you and you understood exactly what he meant. It was so shocking to you at that moment that you had instantly turned into a human and accidentally crushed Remus awake.

“Sirius!” you had said, eyes opened like saucers as you stared at your boyfriend turn back into his human form and look at you groggily as he rubbed his eyes, he had been half asleep.

“What is it?”

“You said something to me,” you whispered, “and I understood it.”

Sirius frowned and gave Remus a look, by then you had already half gotten off of him after apologising for crushing him as you turned into yourself and were sitting on the bed as you leaned close to Sirius, your bent legs brushing against Remus’ torso.

“Yeah, you speak canine when you’re Vixen.”

“I what?!”

“You didn’t know?” Remus asked as he placed a hand on your shoulder to get your attention, you turned to him and shook your head slowly as if still considering what he had said.

“I assumed you’d know already,” Sirius said with a shrug. “You even ran when I told you to back on the last moon.”

“Because it was the obvious thing to do…”

“Are you sure you weren’t just understanding canine?”

You swallowed and turned your gaze back to Remus, “You speak canine too?”

He nodded in response, “At least when I’m Moony, I do.”

“You talk to each other?”

“I spent the last moon trying to calm him down while he wanted to pull you out of the rock,” Sirius responded.

“Wait–” you said as you considered the new information the boys had given you. “Does that mean you can talk to other dogs?”

“Yeah,” Sirius said with a nod. “Did you never encounter a fox out in the wild yourself?”

“Well, I– I didn’t stay as a fox too long when I was in my old school. Didn’t have much free time. And I had more roommates.”

“And no cuddle mates,” Sirius joked and yawned, turning back into Padfoot seconds after. He then barked.

Remus gave you a look, “He says we should go back to sleep.”

“Thought you only understood when you were Moony.”

He huffed a laugh, “Doesn’t take a genius to know what Padfoot wants,” he said as he opened his arms out. “Come on, get back here, you have to wake up early tomorrow.”

You laughed as you shook your head and turned back into Vixen. Remus carefully picked you up and placed you back on his chest as Sirius got comfortable himself.

Another bark startled you out of your thoughts and you turned to the side, looking at Padfoot, who had now jumped over Moony to try and throw him off balance. You jumped happily before spotting Prongs already catching up with you three and you barked at him as you jumped around a little, exploring the small clearing you had ended up in as Moony and Padfoot continued playing around themselves.

Being smaller, you had gotten tired a lot faster than the other two dogs and you had found a small nook on top of a fallen branch where you had leaned in to watch. Prongs had joined their playing at some point too, and they had gone on small “races” against each other, going back and forth from one spot to another. Prongs would jump on his back hooves in a much less regal way than before whenever he won while Moony and Padfoot would howl as loudly as they could when either of them got there first.

Moony tried to get you to join them on a race at some point and you just barked back something along the lines of «Not stupid enough to think I could win». Which had the wolf pull you from the tail like he had done last time –a lot softer now– and caused you to fall on the soft mossy floor.

You barked at him in reproach and he just barked again, telling you to join their race.

«Play!»

«I’ll lose»

«Play!!!»

You huffed in response, a tired sigh but in fox version. He barked again, and looked at you while peeling his eyes open a little. Was he doing the puppy eyes at you? The big, scary werewolf, making puppy eyes so you continued playing with him? Who would have thought?

You tilted your head to the side a couple of times and eventually nodded, walking towards the branch they had all deemed the finish line and prepared, Padfoot barked and you ran as fast as you could, jumping through branches and pulling through as fast as you could. But Prongs had already gotten ahead and Moony was running as fast as he could to try and catch up with him. Prongs was the largest of the pack and that helped him easily outrun most of your friends, that didn’t mean Moony was no match for him, even compared to other wolves, he was huge and incredibly clever.

The real match for you was against Sirius, who was not as fast but certainly a lot larger, if it were a race towards a specific point rather than a circle, perhaps you could have outmanoeuvred him by finding smaller places and shortcuts through the forest that he didn’t have access to, but in this case, it really was a matter of raw speed and he was far larger than you were.

Regardless you were pushing through as much as you could, jumping and crawling around to catch up with him. He wasn’t too far ahead, in fact, you could probably bite his tail if you jumped towards it, and you were so focused on trying to level up that you barely noticed the giant stag running top speed straight towards you. Padfoot veered to the side and you jumped towards the other, only to be –in the most literal sense– caught in the air by Moony.

His head pushed you to the ground and then grabbed onto the skin in the back of the neck as he picked up even more speed to outrun Prongs.

You barked in protest, not because his hold was hurting you, in fact, it was so gentle that you weren’t sure what the hell he had done to his sharp and blade-like teeth. You protested because you didn’t understand what the hell he was trying to do by carrying you through the forest at top speeds. Once you crossed over the branch, Wormtail raised one of his small hands and pointed it towards you and Moony, shrieking as he gave you the win. Prongs was just a few feet away and he jumped over the finish line branch and turned to look at the now proud-standing Moony with a tired huff.

Moony left you on the ground and howled, a testament to his victory over Prongs and then he turned to you and barked «We Won!»

«You won» you replied, not even thinking it over.

He shook his head and pushed you with his snout letting you see you were standing right over the finish line and barked again «WE WON!»

At that point, you realised Moony was far more whimsical than Remus and shook your head with a slightly amused air to your features, then you joined his victory howl.

After another while of playing with the boys, you all seemed to be running out of energy, even Moony who seemed to run on endless batteries was starting to slow down his movements. The night was still dark, but judging by your probably skewed perception of time and the position of the stars, the night wasn’t going to last much longer.

«Let’s go back» Sirius baked.

Moony snarled at him as if he were angry about the mere idea of going back to his cage.

«You’re tired, you’ll feel better if you sleep»

Moony shook his head as if he despised the idea of having to go to sleep, almost like a small child who wanted to continue playing. He turned to you as if you could help him change Padfoot’s mind. You had been the one to start him in a playing mood, after all. But you were far too tired to continue jumping around with him, you were not used to pulling all-nighters as an animagus like the boys were, and your small muscles already felt sore from so much use.

As if the abuse you had given them for trying to keep up with the much larger animals was taking a toll on your body. It was much easier to just lay on Remus’ chest and sleep than to keep up with Moony’s whims, even if both were equally relaxing and fun. You opened your mouth to bark but a yawn came out instead.

Moony leaned closer to you and started whining, much like a hurt dog «I don’t want to go» he barked in between whines. You wonder if he meant the forest or if he meant he didn’t want to turn back. It made you wonder if he knew he would turn back, in the same way Remus knew he would turn into Moony. If he was aware of his nature as a werewolf and if he felt so energetic because he knew he wouldn’t be around for another month or so once the sun came up.

You thought it was best not to ask him, it seemed like a rather delicate subject and you did not want to get your head bitten off for asking the werewolf if he knew he would be locked up in a human body for weeks until he came back again.

You wondered if it was the same thing for Moony as it was for Remus while he wasn’t transformed, if Moony saw everything Remus did in the same way Remus saw everything he did without being able to do anything about it. It didn’t seem like so, and while Remus and Moony seemed to be two separate entities, there was definitely something that connected them to each other, perhaps the potion Kless was working on would strengthen that connection, joining them together rather than dividing them in the way it did during the moons.

You yawned again and he nudged you with his snout, trying to get you up in the same way he had done for the race, «Sleep» you barked.

He whined again and Padfoot got closer, barking a few things that you didn’t care to understand, and after they seemed to reach an agreement both he and Padfoot went to nudge you «Let’s go back» Sirius barked, and this time around, everyone listened. You stood up lousily and trailed in between the two much larger dogs. Wormtail had crawled on top of Prongs and he was lying there as the stag walked carefully to avoid disturbing him. You were rather jealous, Wormy had gotten his good deal of sleep while you had to walk all the way back, then you remembered you had been the one to run headfirst into the forest as if tiredness was a state of mind instead of an actual fucking feeling in the muscles and you almost laughed at yourself.

Once you got back to the shack, you jumped on the bed and made yourself into a small ball, yawning once and then falling soundly asleep. You didn’t feel when Moony crawled on the bed next to you and placed his head on top of your back, closing his eyes as well. And you also didn’t see what happened afterwards.

Padfoot tried to get on the bed as well, which didn’t seem to bother Moony at all, but when he tried to place his snout close to yours, Moony snarled at him, baring his teeth and his hair standing on end, and expression so vicious that even Pads was taken aback.

He tried to get close again and Moony emitted a low growl «Away!» he warned.

«Friend,» Padfoot said, trying to get close to you again and Moony barked louder.

«Mine!»

«NOT!»

Moony’s growl got deeper, it was a miracle it didn’t wake you up at all and Sirius took a step back. Remus could live with seeing you and Sirius close, he would be lying if he said he never felt jealous or possessive whenever he saw you all over each other. He’d be lying if he said he’d never felt a sharp tug on his chest when he saw you kiss unexpectedly, not because he wanted you to stop, but because he yearned to join in. But Moony lacked the level of control Remus had gotten over the years.

Moony was more animal than man and Moony did not like it when you and Pads were all over each other. He could tolerate it if it was a game, but that was his Padfoot and his Vixen and they had no business sleeping next to each other if it wasn’t next to him. Was he overreacting? Probably. But unlike Remus, Moony didn’t care if he was overreacting and he didn’t care if he upset you or Pads by being possessive over the other. He didn’t care because he was the biggest, he didn’t care because he was the strongest, and he didn’t care, because he was the king. And as long as Remus was Moony, you’d have to comply with his silly little whims because, after all, he was still the scary werewolf that had once haunted your nightmares, only acting tame enough to play around with you all because he wanted to and not because he had to.

Eventually, Padfoot resolved to move to the other side of the bed and laid down next to Moony instead of next to you like he did all the time when you were cuddling. About half an hour later, you woke up after feeling a hand grip tightly at your belly, pulling you towards them. You turned around only to spot a very naked Remus, sleeping soundly. You looked at the old clock on the wall and barked to try and get him to let you go. If the clock was right, then you only had but minutes to get the hell out before Madam Pomfrey came to get Rem.

Since your barking didn’t seem to do a thing, you stretched your head as far as you could to lick his face, you had seen Sirius do it, so you thought it would work. As you stretched though, you felt your tail brush against his lower abdomen and you were so incredibly glad that foxes couldn’t blush because dear Merlin! A little lower and you would have been feeling the very private, and very exposed parts of your best friend. After getting rid of that initial shock, you stretched your head again and started licking his face.

“Little witch?” he asked groggily as he started to get up. And while you had cuddled with Remus –as Vixen– more than once, you almost always left before he woke up since you went to fly with the boys, you rarely got to actually see him in his barely lucid state. You licked again and he laughed, his voice was raspy, which made you wonder if it was just his raspy morning voice or if it was raspy because of how much howling he had done as Moony last night. You leaned closer to him and focused on a wound near his neck from where his skin had split open to let Moony out. You barked.

“It’s all right, Luv.” He said calmly, “It’ll heal soon.”

“Yeah, and we should go back now,” you heard Sirius say, he stood by the door and was brushing his fingers over his hair to get it to look less messy, both you and Remus thought it was adorable.

“You should cover up mate,” Peter said as he pulled one of the covers your games had dropped off the bed last night and threw it over Remus, covering his more private areas. He was immensely thankful for that.

“And stop hogging my girlfriend,” Sirius added, you had your small head on the crook of Remus’ neck and he was holding you rather close, just enjoying how warm you were and how deliciously you smelled, of moss and wet soil, of Padfoot and Moony, and most importantly, of Sirius and himself. If only he could cuddle you and Sirius every day like this, he would be the happiest man alive. Sirius, on the other hand, was a little cranky over the fact that Moony had kept Vixen away from him at early morning cuddles, he had already gotten used to biting your ear in the morning to wake you up only to have you turn back into your human self and shove him off for waking you up in such a crass way. He would then say something silly and get you to laugh. Sometimes you would even place a soft kiss on his lips as you climbed over him and out of the bed. He adored how domestic it was, something he hadn’t tried before, and he hadn’t seen it either, such simple acts of affection lifted him up immensely. He’d never had something like that at home.

You thought of turning back, to give Sirius a rather snarky remark when you remembered you were still lying next to your naked best friend and decided it was best to step off the bed before you were human again. And so you wiggled out of Remus’ grasp, who groaned in return.

“Stay a little longer,” he said with a pout as you tried to get out. You barked in response, something along the lines of «It’s late, Pomfrey will be here any minute now», not that anyone understood, neither of the boys were dogs anymore.

“It’s late, Moony,” James said as he walked over to the bed, took you from Remus’ grasp and dropped you in Sirius’ arms, who, by the way, looked absolutely pleased with himself now that he got to hold you. “You better get dressed or you’ll be naked by the time Pomfrey is here.”

Remus just groaned in return and covered himself with the bedsheets entirely. You were aware that Moony liked his hours of sleep, you also knew he got cranky if he didn’t, but it was surprising to see him act so childishly. Either the moon fucked him up real bad, or he just considered you already close enough to him to act however the hell he wanted when you were around.

“We’ll meet you at the infirmary before the train leaves,” Peter said and you barked afterwards, to confirm his statement.

Remus just groaned in response, something akin to “okay” but not quite it either.

Peter turned back into Wormtail and James placed him in the front pocket of his pyjamas before he took the cloak out of an old trunk in the corner of the room and covered himself, Sirius –and you for default– with it. That’s how you stepped out of the old raggedy room of the shack and back into the dark tunnel.

You thought it was silly how different the tunnel felt each time you’d passed it so far, the first time you had been running from the wolf, anxious, stressed and fearing for both your life and Remus’, the second time you had been walking with both curiosity and hope that your plan would be all right, and it had felt a lot longer than the first. The third time had gone in an instant, you had been running from Moony again, but this time you were diverted, since it was all a game and the two of you knew as much. The fourth, on your way back you had been exhausted, but the kind of exhausted that felt good. The kind you felt when you were a kid and you had played for hours and hours and your eyes were giving out, but you still wanted to continue playing. And now, being carried by Sirius as he and James walked alongside each other back towards their room, you felt so comfortable you might as well fall asleep.

And you did, next time you opened your eyes, you were lying alongside Sirius on his bed, curtains drawn and silencing spells clearly cast around them, since you couldn’t hear anything from the outside. You turned back into yourself and Sirius stirred on the bed, taking hold of your waist and pulling you to him. “Morning sleepy head,” he whispered in your ear.

You yawned, wondering what time it was as you turned around and leaned on Sirius’ shoulder. “We need to pack,” you sighed.

Sirius groaned in response, pulling you closer to him “Non, nous devons câliner.”

“Sirius…”

“S'il te plaît, Étoile“

You sighed again “The train is leaving at 3, what time is it?”

“Assez de temps pour que tu me fasses un câlin.”

“Ugh,” you said as you buried your head in his chest, he loved it, he too thought you smelled delightful. “You make it hard for me to be responsible.”

“Désolé.”

“You’re so not sorry,” you said with a smile as you shoved him lightly. You weren’t sure when it had been the last time you had cuddled Sirius. Just you and him, you missed it, even if it felt like something was missing from it. You then started drumming your fingers over his chest “It worked,” you added.

Sirius nodded, “It did.”

“Who would have thought, Wormy had it right…”

“You didn’t think it would?” Sirius asked as he looked at you with a frown.

“I had hope…” you responded with a shrug.

Sirius shook his head as he scoffed a laugh and bit his lip, of course, you would go through with it even if you weren’t 100% certain.

“Does that mean we have to continue doing the cuddle thing with Remus?” you asked then, a small frown forming between your brows.

Sirius was taken aback by your question, the three of you had gotten so used to it by now, that the idea of not doing it anymore seemed preposterous, for the three of you, since even Remus was thinking he would miss the hell out of it now that it wouldn’t be happening anymore. Moony had accepted you as part of the pack.

“I– perhaps we should continue it, if only for the next moon or so, just in case…” he said, thinking if that excuse was too silly to be believable. If you would see right through him like you so often did and instantly tell there were secret intentions behind them. Was he using you as an excuse to be close to Remus? To be close to both you and Remus at the same time? Was that so bad? Was he so selfish for wanting to have the two things at the same time? Boy and girl? Wolf and Fox? Remus and you?

Would he even get away with it? With being in love with you but having this pull towards his best friend that he just couldn’t quite grasp yet? Only that he knew he liked burying his face on Remus’ neck and he liked how much bigger he was in comparison and how strong he felt, but he also liked how much smaller you were and how much softer. Was there a worst possible time for him to discover he liked boys? For him to discover that he liked– no. He liked you.

You didn’t want the cuddles to stop either, even if you told yourself it was an excuse to be Vixen, even if you told yourself it was an excuse to be next to Sirius at night, that you certainly loved, even if you kept telling yourself that it was for Moony and for Remus’ sake, it would be a lie if you said you didn’t like laying over Remus’ chest and sleeping with his hand on your head, carefully brushing the back of your ears. Vixen adored Remus’ cuddles, there was no question about it. But perhaps, you were lying to yourself too, as much as Remus and Sirius were lying to themselves at least. It wasn’t only Vixen that liked the cuddles and it wasn’t only your animagus side that liked to be pampered.

“Yeah,” you responded, “just in case.”

Series Masterlist | Next Chapter

TAGLIST: @rayrlupin @callmelovergirl @warcelia @ireneop @endversewinchester @moonyunebi @smuttysluttybitch @mazzymoons @drugs-for-memes @sofiacblair @vmpir3lvr @remuslupinisbae @rabluver @willgrahamisalesbi4n @thatobsessedreader @itskailey24 @hell0-kittie @belovedmoony @blacksgarden @loving-and-dreaming @cassie-love20 @starchaser-lily @zucchini-queenie @springflwer07 @sseleniaa @cometsghost @orkwardx0 @imdoingbetternow @sbrewer21 @remuslupinsbae @maxinehufflepuffprincess @wifiatthetrainstation @unstablereader @msblacklupin @oliversaurus @jaylienpotter @remussbitch @hermionelove @izuoyarmin @themarauderswife7 @keira-kaz2y5 @lampthemacarenagod @bugg06 @a-n-1-m-3-f-r-3-4-k @darlingeels @kissmeunicornbaobei @xluansstuff @boo8008 @angelmixer @voteforintensedreams @allons-y-molly @aremuslupinsimp @imaginexred @writingshae @nyanwyn @poetrypirate @crazyhorseforgot @saturnhas82moons @ryeyeyer @itsthequackshire @maqqiekwon @desikudisworld @pastelorangeskies @barking4you @profoundpidgeon

Leave a comment telling me if you wanna be tagged on Gilded Constellations

Want to support me? Like and reblog this post (reblogs are extra nice since they help me get my work to more people), also guys, I absolutely love reading your comments, so do throw them my way if you have any!

A/N: So... it was actually all cute and fluffy during the moon. Who would have thought? You guys were asking for a new Q&A so I'm working on it at the moment, send all the questions you may want to be added here, or directly on asks. Love, Lils xx