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kkvqwrites · 1 year

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Bedside Manner

Reader goes into labor while Simon's away and calls the first person she can think of. The task force (and some other friends in high places) rally around the couple on the most important day of their lives.

Word Count: 2,587

Characters (in order of appearance): fem!Reader (no use of y/n), Capt. John Price, Kyle "Gaz" Garrick, Simon "Ghost" Riley, Johnny "Soap" MacTavish, Kate Laswell

CW: childbirth, hospital setting, medical procedures

A/N: Am I a Ghost girlie? Absolutely. Am I also a sucker for the found family trope? Til I die. This idea wouldn't leave me alone and I'm so glad I stuck with it. I love the way this came out and hope you like it!

"Dear? Everything okay?"

The captain's voice on the other end of the line sounded worried. Both he and Simon had drilled it into you to never hesitate to call Price if you needed anything while your husband was away, but you couldn't help feeling a bit guilty.

"Um, I think so," you began, willing your voice to stay level and upbeat. "I think I just - oof.." Another contraction hit, stealing the air from your lungs. They were coming more consistently now, and hard enough to stop you in your tracks.

This could not be happening.

"What's wrong? Are you alright? Are you hurt?" You could hear movement in the background, him gathering his things to be out the door and on his way to you.

"I'm fine, John. I just didn't know who else to call. I think the baby might be coming?" The words came out pinched as you worked through the tail end of the contraction. The captain swore loudly.

"Stay put, love. I'm on the way - everything will be alright. Want me to stay on the phone with you?"

"No, no, that's fine. Stay safe and I'll see you when you get here." You hung up before he could argue and fuss like a mother hen.

______________________________________________________________

The knock at the door startled you. You looked at the clock - surely that couldn't be John already. The man lived across town. Not trusting yourself to make it to the door, you called out.

"It's open!"

Turns out it wasn't Price, but Gaz, who stepped into your living room and began taking in the scene. It was a sight to be sure: you, doubled over sitting on your yoga ball, rocking back and forth to try to alleviate some of the pressure in your hips, towel around your neck because you were sweating like a pig, ambient white noise filtering through the bluetooth speaker to keep you calm. For all his usual swagger and poise, Gaz looked a bit frightened.

"Kyle, did John call you? I'm so sorry - I'm sure you were busy-"

"Not at all, I rushed over as soon as I got word." The sergeant came to your side and knelt until he was eye level. "The captain's on his way but I was closer. We didn't want you to be alone any longer than necessary."

"You and your task force are worse than a quilting circle." The jab came with a joking smile, but the smile was cut short by the stab of another contraction. At the sight of your face screwing up in pain, Kyle's eyes got big.

"Can I do something? Do you need anything?" He wrung his hands as he fussed, seemingly unsure whether to touch you or whether you'd bite him if he tried. Admittedly, you weren't too sure yourself.

"Need you to reset - the timer." The words came out through clenched teeth as your muscles tensed and screamed. "Contractions - need to time them."

"The timer - right." He sprung into action, undoubtedly happy to have a defined task to accomplish. As he was fiddling with the device, Price stormed through the door, his demeanor all-business.

"Gaz? What's the situation?" The sergeant hopped to attention as if he was at roll call.

"Got here not long ago myself, Cap. Just reset the timer for contractions."

"Where are we at?"

"Thirteen minutes, sir."

The captain turned to you, assessing you from top to bottom. His expression and his voice softened considerably as he spoke.

"Ready to get to the hospital, love?"

"Can't - they told me to wait until they're five minutes apart." The man looked bewildered.

"And just let you sit here and suffer? Not on my watch. Gaz, grab my keys - "

"John," you interrupted. "I already called. They won't admit me yet. We just need to wait it out."

"Nonsense, love. You wait til I get someone's ear over there. Five minutes my arse." He moved to help you stand, but stopped in his tracks as he took in your face, your lip trembling. "Is there something else?" As if on cue, a fat tear rolled down your cheek, the first of its kind since the pains began.

"This isn't supposed to be happening," you squeaked out. "Not for a few more weeks. Simon's supposed to be here."

The men shared a glance, looking stricken. Price leaned down next to you, a broad hand gently squeezing your shoulder. His voice was soft when he spoke, a renewed slowness replacing his prior rushed pace.

"I know, love. I know it's not ideal, and I know you're scared. I know Simon would give anything to be here, that he'd split heaven and earth to be with you right now. But I also know he'd want you and your little one taken care of, yeah? He wouldn't want you to wait."

You nodded, despite more tears threatening. "Doesn't change the fact they won't admit me yet."

The captain's mouth quirked defiantly. "You let me worry about that. Gaz, help her up. I'll drive."

______________________________________________________________

Simon was tired down to his bones, feeling like a wrung out rag after the most recent mission. Despite that, the man was a ball of energy as he hopped off the plane, desperate to get back to you.

"Someone's antsy," Soap drawled, taking a more leisurely pace. He slid his sunglasses on as Simon switched on his cell phone anxiously. "Got somewhere to be, LT?"

"'Matter of fact I do - home." Simon impatiently hiked his duffel bag higher on his shoulder. "See my wife, eat a real meal. Finally build that godforsaken changing table. Who knew a baby needs so much furniture?"

Soap barked a laugh, but Simon tuned him out as he put his phone to his ear. He'd gotten a voicemail from you, and everything else ceased to matter.

"Hey babe, it's me. I'm not sure when you'll get this, and I hate to worry you. I'm sure it's fine. It's just... I've been feeling some contractions-"

Simon didn't hear the rest, nearly dropping his phone as he broke into a run.

______________________________________________________________

True to his word, Price argued with the hospital staff until you were taken up to a room. You were sure he must have pulled rank, threatened to call people, but he refused to let you worry about it.

The ride had been smooth, despite John driving like a bat out of hell. Gaz stayed in the back seat with you, clinging to your hand and fussing. Later, you'd think it was funny how he seemed to need more encouragement and support than he offered, but at that moment very little was funny.

You had been able to stay in denial for an admirably long time. The past few days, you were able to tell yourself it was just Braxton-Hicks contractions, not the real thing. That even when it became evident the real thing was starting, that it wouldn't progress quickly. That even though it was progressing, that Simon would walk in the door just at the right moment and sweep you into the car and off to the hospital and all would be well. Even when your gut told you to pick up the phone and call the captain, you had managed to make yourself believe that you were wrong, that it was a false alarm, that you still had more time.

Now, here you were, connected to monitors and being poked and prodded by nurses. Medical history, allergies, birth plan, you felt like you were in interrogation rather than a patient receiving care. And if it wasn't the nurses it was the two men standing off to the side, one wringing his hands in worry and one watching the nurses like a hawk and barking questions. The contractions were closer to eight minutes apart now, progressing quickly. Now the situation was very real, and as thankful as you were from the support from Price and Gaz, your heart threatened to shatter at the absence of the one person who mattered most.

______________________________________________________________

"Bloody fuckin' hell, no one will answer their phone!" Ghost barked, ready to throw his out the window. He'd had radio silence other than a second voicemail, this one from the Captain:

"Simon, Price here. Just got word from the missus that the baby's on the way. I'm headed there now. I don't want you to worry about a thing, I won't leave her side. I'll update you as I'm able."

"She knew to call the captain; he's probably with her now," Soap offered from the driver's seat. He'd practically had to arm wrestle Simon for the keys, but ended up convincing him that he'd be able to call for updates if he wasn't worried about driving. Silently, he thanked the saints Simon had agreed; who knows what carnage he'd unleash on the roads as worked up as he was.

"He better be, or I'll - not now, Laswell!" Simon rejected the third call from the station chief since landing and tried Price again. He was sure he'd hear about it for skipping debrief and jumping in the car, but right now he couldn't bring himself to give a shit. When Price's phone again went to voicemail, he was about to go nuclear when the car's Bluetooth lit up with Laswell's number.

"Shite; let me answer it LT." Soap pushed the button. "Laswell, it's Soap. Here with Ghost."

"I know," she said impatiently, her voice filling the space. "I've been trying to call all afternoon. I know what's happening and I'm here to help."

"What? How do you know?"

"Price called me as soon as he got word, asked me to find you. Anyway, you're wasting time heading in that direction; there's a lane closure ahead and you're about to be neck deep in traffic. I've mapped an alternate route for you. Take the next left."

The two men looked at each other in confusion before both starting to speak at the same time.

"Left? That takes us the wrong way-" "How do you know where we're at?"

"Boys! Boys, listen," she continued, exasperated. "Don't worry about how I know, just do as I say. We're gonna get you there as fast as possible. Now turn left!"

Soap cut the car to the left, ignoring the indignant honks of other drivers as he began to cut through the city under Laswell's watchful eye.

______________________________________________________________

"The doctor says you'll be ready to start pushing soon. How are you feeling?" The nurse was genuinely trying to be nice, so you bit back on your retort of how the fuck does it look like I'm feeling? My insides are exploding! and instead chose a weak smile and a head nod.

Once the nurse whisked away, Price was back at your side. You could tell by his expression he wanted to give you a pep talk like you were one of his soldiers about to head into battle, but he was searching for the right thing to say. You broke the silence first.

"I'm scared." Your voice sounded small, the words escaping almost of their own volition. The captain took your hand, blessedly avoiding sugarcoating the situation.

"I know. But you're doing great - a real trooper. Even with the needle in the back! Simon's gonna be so proud of you, love. And Gaz and I are gonna be right here. Right Gaz?"

"Right, Cap." The sergeant slid back into the room, cup of ice in hand. While the captain had taken point and begun advocating for you with the hospital staff and asking a million questions, Gaz had been dutifully making sure you were comfortable. Anything from getting you an extra pillow for your back, to helping you tie your hair back, to getting you ice chips since you couldn't have food or drink during labor, he was on it. If either man was uneasy about what was about to happen, they dutifully kept it under wraps and maintained their game faces.

One by one, the care team took up positions around you to get started. Price and Gaz got next to you, each taking one of your hands, ready to offer what support they could. You shamed yourself, one last time, for being ungrateful for their presence. A lot of people give birth with less, you tried to tell yourself. He’d be here if he could.

The doctor walked in, donning gloves and getting a quick status update from one of the nurses before meeting your eyes. “Evening, ma’am. We’re going to-”

Her words were cut off by a commotion in the hall, a door slamming and what sounded like some raised voices. Everyone in the room exchanged confused glances, and Price motioned for Gaz to go investigate. He poked his head out into the hall for only a moment before returning with a big grin.

“You’re not gonna believe who’s here."

Then your husband was in the doorway, and then he was at your side, and suddenly those honey brown eyes drowned out every ounce of pain and fear you’d been holding onto, and that warm, calloused hand took yours, and you were ready.

______________________________________________________________

You would have thought it would be difficult to fall asleep under fluorescent lights, with monitors beeping and staff bustling around. But you had never known tiredness like this, and wanted to take the nurse’s advice and rest while the pain meds were still working their magic. The delivery had been uneventful once the show was on the road, and Simon never left your side, his steady presence grounding and his voice in your ear keeping you calm. Then there she was, a baby girl, the most precious tiny thing you’d ever laid eyes on. You’d stared at her and cried for hours, stroking her tiny hand and welcoming her to the world until you could barely keep your eyes open. And so, with a squeeze of your hand and a kiss on your forehead from Simon, you found yourself drifting off. You were aware, as you floated off, of his slow pacing back and forth with your newborn daughter in his arms, of his whispers to her that were too low for you to hear. Of the guys popping in, as unobtrusively as possible lest the lieutenant tear them limb from limb for disturbing you and the baby, bringing him food and coffee and admiring the bundle of joy.

“Doesn’t look a thing like you, Simon,” said Soap.

“Thank God for that,” he replied.

“You should have seen it, Simon really - needle this long, right in the spine!” Price remarked, not for the first time. “She didn’t even flinch.”

“I’m just glad you made it for the gross stuff,” mumbled Gaz.

“Kyle, you’re in the military. You’ve seen arms and legs blown off.”

“Completely different, Johnny. Not the same at all.”

On and on they bantered, brothers in arms stepping into their role as uncles for your baby girl with delight. One of the last things you heard was Simon, his voice thick with emotion.

“Thank you, all of you, for being here. For today.”

“Oh come off it Simon,” replied the Captain. “These girls mean something to you, so they mean something to us. That’s what a family is. Now quit hogging her and let Uncle John have a turn.”

You wouldn’t remember this conversation when you woke up, wouldn’t be able to articulate where it came from, but you’d carry with you the bone-deep feeling of connection with this little makeshift family forever.

#cod ghost #cod ghost fanfic #simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley fanfic #simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #mwii ghost #task force 141 #john price #soap mactavish #gaz garrick #kate laswell #mwii fanfic

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ameliathornromance · 3 months

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Your Orc Boyfriend’s snores rang through your flat as you stepped through the front door.

Eyes widening, you realised: This was your chance.

A few weeks ago, you woke up to a very bright, uncomfortable flash in your face. Followed by a gasp and a stifled laugh.

“What s’funny?” You grumbled, rolling over in your bedsheets and opening your eyes.

“Sorry,” Your Orc, stood in his pjs and the corners of his lips upturned softly. “You’re just so cute.”

Narrowing your eyes at your Orc, you murmured. “What’d you mean?” You sat up.

Your Orc pursed his lips, clearly thinking through his next actions. At your expression, he realised that there was no way he was going to get out of this.

Sighing, he showed you his phone. A picture of you, open mouthed and drooling on the pillow. Your arms were wrapped tightly around your quilt, all snuggled up and warm.

“Delete it. Now.”

“Oh come on hun, you look so sweet!” Your Orc instantly defended.

“I look like a fish!” You went to snatch the phone, but he held it out of your reach. “Babe I’m being serious! What if someone sees it?!” When you realised the futility of trying to take back the phone, you fell back onto the bed.

“Do you really think I’d show this to anyone?” He asked. Sitting beside you, he leaned to you. “I just thought you looked really sweet.”

“Well I don’t.”

“I disagree, so I’m keeping it.”

One look at his face and you knew there was no hope in getting your Orc to delete that photo.

And the past few weeks, you had tried to get rid of it behind his back.

Getting into his phone while he was asleep was a no go - there was no passcode and only face recognition.

You tried to access it via the cloud - double verification questions.

And that was when your plan of deletion, turned into revenge. If there was no way of deleting it manually, then you would give him a taste of his own medicine.

Only problem being, you never realised how meticulous your boyfriend was. Every morning you woke up, he had already left and gone to work. He always made sure to leave you breakfast (curse his caring behaviour, it almost made you feel guilty) with a note explaining where he had gone and what time he would be back. All the dishes and cleaned would have been cleaned, and put away.

This morning when you went to work, you began to wonder if there was ever going to be a way for you to take a sleeping picture of him.

You had lost all hope… But then he had to get home early. He hadn’t told you that he was home, normally, he got home later than you did.

Oh, but when you realised your chance, you weren’t going to miss it.

After shutting the door as quietly as possible, you crept toward the front room. The carpet below muffled your footsteps, making your chance to exact your revenge all the more easier.

Sure enough, your Orc was laid back on the sofa, his snores strong and sonorous.

Heart pounding in your chest, you pulled out your phone.

Your hands shook with anticipation, as you opened the camera and made your way over to your boyfriend’s side.

His position was perfect: A hand rested on his stomach, his other hung off the side of the sofa. His jaw hung wide open, drool escaping his mouth and onto the plush pillows on the sofa.

You raised your phone, directing the camera straight at your boyfriends face. For good measure, you zoomed in slightly, really capturing the undignified nature of him.

And with that, you snapped the photo.

The flash went off and your Orc’s eyes shot open.

You lunged away, giggling madly as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Hm, what’re you doing?” He grumbled.

“Sorry,” you said, “you just looked so cute.”

Your Orc stopped mid eye rub, frozen in place. “Hun. Delete it.”

“Aw, but you looked so sweet!” You taunted. “See?”

Showing him the picture, your Orc looked at it like he was seeing his own face for the first time.

It was like a light bulb had gone off in his head. “Ah.” He said, flatly. “I see what you mean.” He narrowed his eyes at the unbecoming picture of himself.

“Uh-huh.”

“It looks really bad.”

“Indeed it does.” You smirked.

Taking his phone, he opened his gallery and showed you your sleeping face, delete button at the bottom of the screen. He tapped it and just like that, the photo was gone.

“I’m sorry hunny. I didn’t think it would make you so uncomfortable.” he sighed. “Would you delete that one of me too?”

“I don’t know,” You clicked your tongue. “I’m not sure if you’ve learned your lesson properly, you held onto that photo for a while… seems only fair I get to do the same thing.”

When your Orc opened his mouth to protest, he sighed and closed it. “Alright, alright.” He let on a weak smile, “but then you delete it after a few weeks.”

You chuckled and sat next to him. “I will, I promise.”

Mission: accomplished.

#orc fiction #monster lover #monster romance #orc boyfriend #orc x reader #monster x female #monster x human #orc romance #monster x reader #monster x you #modern!orc x reader #monster fluff #monster bf #monster boyfriend #monster boy #monster romance fluff

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 2 months

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Country Rose 2

Warnings: age gap, power dynamics, creep behaviour, other dark elements. As usual, be mindful of your content consumption.

I also beg of you to leave me some tuppence in the form of a comment and/or reblog. You are cherished!

Enjoy, my loverlies.

It's like a movie. The fields of tall corn and swaying wheat, the cows in the distance, the sky swirling in shades of pastel blue. It's a rustic portrait of a bygone time. You lose yourself in the serenity of it, swept away in a daydream despite the tickle in your nose.

It isn't until the truck jerks to a stop and Clark cranks the gears into park that you return to earth. He grabs his hat from the dash and puts it on, shading his eyes from the sun as he gets out.

You look out the windshield and close your dry eyes, trying to find an ounce of moisture. He comes around your side but you have your door open before he can get there. You hop down from the height as Clark retrieves your bag from the back.

"Ma will be happy to meet you. She's been excited," he says as he waves you towards the porch of the farmhouse.

"Oh wow," you gape up at the double storey house in awe. "This place is huge."

"Too big for just us," he agrees. You tramp up the steps and to the door, hesitating as you get ahead of yourself. He reaches by you to pill back the screen door, "go on."

You enter and look around. He puts your bag on the wooden bench as you sidle towards the wall. He removes his hat and puts it on a hook next to a stained flannel.

"It's a farmhouse, you can keep your shoes on," he directs, "hey ma," he calls over your head as he points you past the staircase. "Back."

You head down towards the open archway and step into a spacious kitchen finished in walnut and brass. A woman stands at the island, shucking cobs of corn. She smiles at your entrance and drops her handful.

"She's here," she bleats and scurries around the counter. She's frail despite her energy, "oh, lovely."

You're put off as she hugs you and you stand stalk still as you let her. She then embraces her son as he clears his throat. She backs off, smoothing her steely hair with knobby fingers.

"My mother, Martha," Clark introduces as she touches her hip and backs up to the island. She leans on it subtly, "ma--"

"Oh, I know," she trills your name, "it's so nice to finally meet you."

"Uh, yeah, er, thanks," you sway nervously. You didn't realise it was such a big deal.

"I'm gonna get her settled, you need anything?" Clark intones as he hovers close behind you.

"Everything is perfect, honey, everything," she beams at you, "now everyone's here."

You smile sheepishly and peek back at Clark. He beckons you after him as he leads you back down the hall. He has you go upstairs first and the stairs creak beneath him as he grabs your bag and follows.

"Just down this way," he points you to the right.

You take his direction down to a room near the end. You push inside and and he puts your bag in the wooden chair near the door. Everything is so pretty and tidy. A plaid quilt is draped at the end of a neatly made bed and there's a carved wardrobe against one wall. The rug matches the curtains and a table with a vase of flowers stands near the window.

"Oh, it's cute."

"Ma wanted everything ready for you," Clark says, "she gets lonely when I'm off working."

"Uh, yeah," you stop by the bed and turn back to him, "so I'm going to be helping her?"

"Sure, yep," he hooks a finger in a loop on his jeans, "she's had some difficulties since pa passed. She's not as... fit as she once was but she's stubborn. You can help her with the cleaning and cooking. Make sure she takes breaks," he explains as he frees his thumb and combs back his hair. "She does the listen to me and I can't keep an eye on her all the time."

"I'm sorry, that must be hard," you frown.

"Not to worry, there's another field hand. I just figured we could use someone in the house since Lenny left."

"Right," you try to smile, "well, this is so nice and thank you for picking me up. I was a bit nervous."

"Nervous?" He wonders as his cheek dimples.

"It's a bit desolate out here," you chuckle, "when I got off the train I thought maybe it was the wrong place."

"Ah, yes, it's a bit... lonely but it's peaceful," he says, "I'll let you get unpacked then and maybe after you can check in on ma? I don't want her doing all that alone."

"Sure," you bounce, frenetic after so long sitting.

He grins at your buzzing energy and backs up, "let me know if you need anything."

"I'm good," you assure him.

#clark kent #dark clark kent #dark1clark kent #clark kent x reader #series #au #dcu #drabble #country rose #superman #dc

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honeyedmiller · 11 months

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When You Wish On a Shooting Star | Javier Peña

dedicated to my babes @party-hearses and @ilovepedro. thank you both for getting me super excited to write this and encouraging me, always. big smooches to you both.

pairing: husband!javier peña x f!wife!reader

disclaimer: this one shot has elements that are inspired by @inthe-dark-tonight's Whatever's on Tonight getaway trope, and @kiwisbell's Honey-Do married couple wanting to try for a baby trope.

warnings: light alcohol consumption, established relationship (marriage), talks of starting a family, reader is depicted as shorter than Javier, reader's described to have a big family, smut (unprotected piv, praise, breeding kink, fingering, f & m oral, face fucking, making out, pretty vanilla love making lol), no use of y/n, 18+. minors, do not interact.

word count: 4.3k

synopsis: you and javier celebrate your third wedding anniversary at a little getaway.

dividers by the lovely @saradika

“Almost there, hermosa.” Javi brushes his thumb onto your thigh, and you reach down to give his hand a squeeze.

Your wedding ring glints in the California sun as you head up the mountain to your little getaway in Lake Arrowhead. You were visiting family down in California, deciding to extend your vacation for your three year wedding anniversary.

Being married to Javi was a dream in itself. He was your best friend, the love of your life, your soulmate. You’d met him at a grocery store back in Laredo, where he happened to help you reach something at the very back of the top shelf. He asked you for your number and took you on a date later that same week, and you both never looked back.

The scenic drive up to your cabin was none less than breathtaking. Greenery surrounded the hilly road you were driving on, and in the distance, the lake glistened brilliantly under the sun.

Javi pulled up to the driveway of the cabin, putting the rental car in park. You unbuckle your seatbelt and smile at your husband as he opens the passenger door for you, offering you his hand. You take it and hop out of the car, stretching your stiff limbs that’ve been stagnant for two hours.

“This place is beautiful.” You murmur, taking in the scenery around you.

“Not as beautiful as you, cariño.” Javi smiles at you cheekily, pulling a sweet laugh from you.

“Ever the sweet talker, Mr. Peña.”

“Only for you, Mrs. Peña.” He grins down at you as he rounds to the back of the car to take out your suitcases and the cooler full of food and drinks for the weekend.

You both take your stuff into the massive cabin, in awe of the sight before you. The cozy living room was right in your line of view as you walked into the house, kitchen right behind it with the dining room table next to the back door that led out to the huge wooden patio. There were floor to ceiling windows in the kitchen, giving you a perfect view of the patio and the trees that surrounded the back of the cabin. The brown leather recliners and couch were strewn with hand-knitted blankets and a quilt with a black bear printed across the entirety of it. Across from the couches was a small fireplace with fresh wood ready to be burned, should it turn too cold.

Off to the left down a small hallway were two separate bedrooms, a laundry room, and a bathroom. To the right, next to the kitchen and living room, was the master bedroom. You started to walk that way with your bags as Javi set the cooler down next to the kitchen island.

A California king bed sat in the middle of the master bedroom with a wooden bedframe and headboard. Two nightstands adorned either side of the spacious bed, and right across from the bed was a TV. To the left of the bed was the bathroom that had a double vanity and a long, dark tiled shower.

The place was more than cozy, perfect for the weekend. You set your bags on either respectable side of the bed, sighing in content.

You heard the wooden floors softly creak behind you, causing you to turn around and look up at your husband. His thick, dark hair was slightly messy from him running his hands through it a few times, tan skin glowing, and his once sad, dark eyes now glistened with pure joy as he set his gaze on you. You couldn’t help the smile that adorned your lips as he neared you, pulling you flush against his body as large hands gripped your hips.

He leaned down to softly peck the tip of your nose, your cheek, then your mouth. You smiled into the kiss, hands landing on his sturdy chest as they slid up to connect at the back of his neck.

He pulled apart from you reluctantly, sighing as he rested his forehead against yours. He rubbed his nose softly against yours, hands moving down to your ass to give it a playful squeeze. You subtly jump in surprise, gasping at his touch.

“We should start making dinner, mi amor. It’s nearly five.” You suggest, pulling back slightly as your gaze meets his once more.

“Mm, you’re right, but kissing you sounds so much better right now.”

You giggle at his advances as you move back slightly while he tries to plant another kiss on your lips. He pouts at you, giving your ass another squeeze.

“Relájate, Romeo, we have plenty of time for that this weekend. Let your wife make you a good home cooked meal, hm?” You grin up at him, carding your fingers through the thick hairs at the base of his neck.

“As long as I get to help.” He negotiates, and you nod.

“Deal.”

You both settled on making steak fajitas with rice and pico de gallo. It was a favorite of yours before you ever met Javi, and when you made it for him for the first time four years ago, it easily became one of his favorite meals as well. Spanish music played over the small speaker you brought along, and you were subtly swaying your hips to the beat as you started to cook the steak.

Javi was chopping the ingredients for the pico before he set the knife down, wiping his hands off on a dishrag on the counter before moving over to you, hands gently resting on your waist. You look up at him and smile, puckering your lips so he’d meet you halfway to kiss you. His lips landed gently on yours before his hands moved to the front of your body, idling on your stomach. His thumbs caressed you gently over the tanktop you were wearing.

He hummed along to the song playing, bending down to bury his face into the crook of your neck. His hips swayed with yours, lips ghosting your pulse point with a kiss. It was intimate moments like this that still gave you rumbling butterflies in your tummy after all these years of knowing him and being married. Javier had always secretly been a romantic, but he didn’t really show that vulnerable side of himself until he met you.

“Mi amor,” Javi said softly, and you hummed in response. “What do you say we start trying for a baby?” His voice is gentle, almost cautionary.

You halt your movements and look up at him, brows furrowed. “You mean it?” You ask, lips unintentionally forming into that cute pout that Javi loves so much.

He nods, splaying one hand across your stomach while the other moves up to slot your chin between his index finger and thumb in the gentlest manner.

“I mean it, corazón. I want to start a family with you. Criar a nuestros hijos en el rancho.”

You bite your lip to suppress the pure excitement that coursed through you, the thought of having and raising children with Javi and creating your own little family is a dream come true. You grew up in a big family, so you were very clear with Javi before you two even got married that you wanted at least two to three kids.

“Okay, Javi. Let’s start a family,” You smile as you kiss him twice. “But let’s eat dinner first.” You laugh, and he chuckles as he gives you one final kiss before moving back to the cutting board at the opposite counter from you, a smile on his lips that never faltered.

You two enjoyed dinner in a comfortable silence, other than Javier praising your cooking skills. You sipped on a glass of wine with your dinner as you both watched the sun set through the tall glass windows, the kitchen and living room basking in hues of gold and orange. It was nightfall before you knew it, and Javier helped you clean up all of the dishes in the sink before you two stepped out onto the back patio.

There was barely any light pollution, so the stars were crystal clear to the naked eye. You stared up at the sky in awe, gasping when you saw a shooting star graze across the black night sky. You closed your eyes and wished for what you wanted most at the moment: a family of your own with Javi.

It may’ve been silly to others that you made a wish on a shooting star at your age, but you didn’t care. You’ve always found traditions like that to be special, and if it worked, all the better.

Javier pulled you in tight to him, wrapping his arms around you as he kissed the crown of your head. You both stayed like that for what felt like hours, but you didn’t mind it one bit. Javi didn’t have to say much in order for you to know that he loved you with all his heart. He was an acts of service and touch kinda guy, so his hands were on you even in the subtlest of ways if he could help it, or he was doing small but kind gestures for you constantly. He rocked you back and forth slowly, indulging in the peace that surrounded you both out here.

All that was heard was the song of crickets and the wind rustling the surrounding trees in the most miniscule way.

Eventually, you pulled yourself out of the bubble of bliss you were enraptured in with your husband, pulling away from him as you rubbed his back.

“Let's go take our showers and put on a movie, yeah?” You suggest, and he nods in agreement before kissing your forehead and leading you back inside. He made sure all the doors were locked up before finding you in the master bedroom, rummaging through your bag for your pajamas. While he was expecting you to pull out the oversized t-shirt of his you claimed you didn't steal back when you two first started dating years ago, he was surprised when you pulled out a satin pink nightgown that left very little to the imagination. He felt his cock twitch in his jeans, nearly moaning at the sight as he pictured you in it.

“Where’d you get this, querida?” He asks as he reaches out to thumb the material, dropping it back down after a couple of seconds.

“Jessica and I went shopping a couple of weeks back. Told me to get something cute for our anniversary,” You laugh, recalling your cousin practically forcing you to buy the nightgown. “Why, you like?” You wriggle your eyebrows up and down, and Javi smirks down at you.

“Mm, I love, bebita. Remind me to send Jessica a thank you text.” He chuckles, and you grin shyly as you tuck the material under your arm.

“Vamos vaquero, let’s save water and shower together.” You nudge your head in the direction of the shower, and Javi tosses his infamous smirk your way. He gathers his things in his hands before setting them down on the sink counter, turning on the shower to a comfortable temperature for you both. You started to strip your clothes off your body, ready to wash the long day away and get into bed. Javier turned around to find you fully naked, and his eyes seemed to have turned darker in milliseconds.

“Eres hermosa.” Javi murmured, stepping in front of you to place a kiss on your lips.

“You think so?” You tease, slotting your bottom lip between your teeth.

“I know so, baby. Even moreso when you’re carrying my children.” He presses a hand to your bare stomach, the coolness of his wedding band a stark contrast from the warmth of his body.

“Guess we better start then, huh?” You tease, playing with the hem of his shirt before sliding it up his torso and over his head. You worked at his belt buckle, tongue darting between your lips to wet them as your concentration was zeroed in on getting the leather material off of your husband’s hips. You let the belt fall to the floor with a dull ‘clunk’, fingers moving deftly to get his jean button and zipper undone. He shucked his jeans off of himself along with his boxers and socks, now fully bare for you to admire. You placed both hands on his chest, lips colliding with his in such fervor. Your hands trail down his chest and torso, nails lightly scratching his tan skin. Your hands moved even further south, coming into contact with the coarse hair that sat right above his cock.

Javier backed you into the shower, lips never leaving yours. The warm water cascaded down both of your bodies, relaxing your muscles instantaneously. One hand moved back up to Javier’s now-wet hair, while the other gently grasped his hardened length. You gave the silky flesh a few tugs before Javier groaned, separating your lips.

“Bebita, fuck.” He gasped, jaw falling slack as he squeezed his eyes shut. You looked up at your husband in pure adoration, absolutely loving that you still had such an affect on him. Your touch sent Javier into a damn frenzy, whole body igniting from the inside out and succumbing to you.

You started by leaving hot, wet kisses on his neck, trailing down to his chest where you gently nipped his skin and soothed the assault with your tongue. You moved down to his torso, kissing him everywhere he had scars from his crazy past chasing Escobar in Colombia. You eventually sank to your knees, still keeping a steady rhythm as you tugged his weeping cock in your hand. You placed soft kisses all around his thighs gently, tantalizingly, in an unbearably teasing manner. You looked up at Javi through your lashes, who was already breathing heavily as he watched you intently.

A saccharine smile curled onto your lips before sticking your tongue out to lick the tip of his head, salty pre cum glazing it. You hum in delight, wrapping your lips around the tip fully before releasing him once more. You gave his cock a couple of more gentle tugs before licking the vein that ran underneath his thick length, causing him to twitch. You knew exactly what made him tick, how to please him instantly, and what would make him practically beg for mercy. He knew all of those things about you too, so it was a fair trade. You two have explored a lot throughout the years you’ve been together, so knowing what made each other come undone came naturally to the both of you at this point.

You put him back into your mouth, this time moving all the way down until your nose met the curly, coarse hairs at the base of his heavy cock. You swallowed around his tip as it hit the back of your throat, tears springing to your eyes as you tried your hardest not to gag.

“Just like that baby. Feels so fucking good.” Javi praised, threading his fingers through your wet hair. You moved back up, hollowing your cheeks out as you did so. Javi was panting above you, looking down at you with a nearly animalistic stare.

“Pretty fucking mouth wrapped around my cock. For my eyes only, baby, nobody else’s. I’m the luckiest man in the world.” His encouragement had you whining around him as you set a steady pace on him. You gripped the back of his thighs as he started to set his own pace, practically fucking himself into your mouth.

You moaned around him as you rubbed your thighs together, clit practically pulsating with heavy desire and need. You were a patient woman, but you didn’t know how much longer you could hold on for.

“Fuck, cariño, I’m gonna—fuck.” He hissed, and you tightly wrapped your lips around his tip as he came, swallowing everything he gave you. He gently pulled you up by your arms and pushed you against the cold tile of the shower wall, causing you to suck in a breath through your teeth. He smashed his lips to yours, kissing you with such a sense of urgency. He kissed you like he’d practically die if he didn’t have your lips on his. His tongue slipped into your mouth, hand moving up to softly cradle your face.

Your lungs burned and begged for air, but you didn’t care. Kissing the love of your life so passionately was a hell of a way to go.

“I love you, my sweet girl.” Javi said, panting against you.

“I love you too, handsome.”

“Yeah? How much?” He grinned against your lips as his hand slotted itself between your legs, wasting no time as he started to rub your clit gently. You groan at the sensation, hips grinding onto his hand. “Enough to let me put a baby in you? Hm?”

You whine at his words, nodding feverishly. “Yes, Javi.” Your voice was coarse, breathing labored as his thick fingers kept toying with your heat. He slid his fingers through your folds, completely coating them with your slick before inserting his ring and middle finger into you. You cry out at the sensation, arching your back off of the wall and into him. He wraps his arm around you to hold you and keep you steady as he scissors his fingers in and out of you.

“Javi.” You moan, nails clawing at his back. He groans your name and kisses your neck and collarbone, nipping at your skin.

He got down on his knees this time and attached his greedy mouth to your clit, licking and sucking the swollen bundle of nerves as he kept moving his fingers at a delicious pace. He moved his free hand up to cup your breasts one by one, toying with your sensitive peaks as you cried out his name. One of your hands gripped the back of his head, the other holding onto his shoulder as you steadied yourself. You felt your legs start to shake as your orgasm rapidly approached, a hot flame licking its way all through your body. You tossed your head back as you kept chanting Javi’s name like a prayer, moaning loudly as you easily tipped over the edge. Your orgasm came crashing down on you like waves to a shore, your whole body engulfed in the blissful feeling. Your knees buckled under you for a second, but Javi made sure to catch you.

He was always there to catch you.

You squeezed your eyes shut as he removed his fingers from you, standing up to kiss you on the lips. Javier has been the only man who’s ever been able to make you orgasm every single time you both got intimate, and you joked to him on your wedding night after the reception that that was a reason why you married him.

Javier took pride in making you feel good. He always wanted you to feel comfortable, and hell, even blissful, especially if he could help it.

“How do you feel, cariño?” He asks, stroking your wet hair.

“Amazing.” You breathed, grinning up at him. He kissed your lips and smiled down at you, and you both continued with the rest of your shower. He insisted that he washed your hair and body, you doing the same for him.

Once you two were all cleaned off, Javier turned off the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist, and you, one around your hair and another around your body.

Javier watched you lovingly as you applied your skincare generously, thinking to himself how lucky he was that you’re his wife. You both brushed your teeth and slipped on your respective pajamas, combing out your hair and climbing into bed.

“What movie do you wanna watch?” He asks softly, wrapping an arm around your shoulder to pull you into his chest. You rested your head on him, easily hearing the thrum of his strong, steady heartbeat.

“Whatever you want, baby.” You said, tracing mindless patterns on his torso.

He ended up settling with Dirty Dancing.

About twenty minutes into the movie, his watch started to beep on his nightstand. He grabbed it and looked at the time, noticing it was 12:00 a.m.

“Feliz aniversario, amor de mi vida.” You look up at him with a smile, leaning up to capture his lips into yours.

“Happy anniversary, Javi.” You rub your nose against his, maneuvering your body so you straddled him. He grabbed onto your hips, rubbing slow circles into your hip bones. You looked down at him with pure adoration, tracing his facial features and the shadows that were casted on his face from the light of the TV.

“I love you,” You lean down to kiss the tip of his nose. “I love you,” You repeat, moving to kiss his dimple that you adore so much. “I love you,” Your voice is nothing but a whisper as you kiss his ear, nibbling softly on his earlobe. “I love you.” You kiss his neck tenderly, letting your lips linger there for a few seconds before moving your face in front of his to look at him once more.

“You’re the light of life, baby. I wake up so grateful every day that you’re the one I get to come home to. You’re the one I get to spend the rest of my life with. You’re the one I get to have children with,” He trails off, easily flipping you over so your body is under his. He slots himself between your legs, grinding his crotch into yours. Your bare heat caught on the fabric of his boxers just right, eliciting a strangled moan from your throat. “I love you. Let me make you a mom, please.” He whispers, nosing along your jawline to press a kiss at the spot right beneath your ear.

You nod frantically, and he easily discards his boxers so he’s left bare once more. He looks down at you, admiring your body adorned in the pink satin nightgown that was already ridden up past your hips, exposing your glistening pussy to him perfectly.

“So perfect, baby,” He whispers, grabbing his cock as he lined his tip up with your entrance. “You ready?” He asks, though he already knows the answer.

“Put a baby in me, Peña.” You tease, and he chuckles as he pushes into you. You gasp while he groans, Javier easily sliding to the hilt with how wet you were for him.

“So fucking tight.” He grits, closing his eyes for a couple of seconds before opening them to look down at you. You smile softly up at him, lips parting as he starts to rock his hips. He’s gentle; a switch up from your normal pace with him. The thought of him making love to you on your anniversary just absolutely melted your heart, but you knew as soon as you got back from your plans in town later on in the day, he wasn’t going to go so easy on you. You liked when Javier was rough with you, but this was a nice change in pace while it was going to last.

You wrapped your legs around his waist, heels digging into the bottom of his back. “Feel so good, mi amor.” You breathe, focusing on every ridge and vein that was sliding in and out of you.

“So do you, bebita. Can’t wait to see what you look like when you’re carrying my child.” He drops his head down, kissing you gently. You card your fingers through his damp hair, grinding your hips up into his. You moan into his mouth, cock stretching you so divinely. Even at this slower pace, it made you cry out for him, the push and pull of his cock so heavenly.

He separated his lips from yours, trailing them down to your breasts. He swirled his hot tongue on one sensitive peak while he tugged at the other, licking and pulling in a synchronized pace with his thrusts. A whine was bubbling in your throat as you tugged on his hair, eliciting a groan from him.

In that moment, all that surrounded you was your loving husband. The feeling of him on you, in you, the smell of his shampoo, the heat radiating from his body—all elements entirely engulfing you in the man that is Javier Peña.

You couldn't imagine your life with anyone else. You didn’t want to imagine it. Javier was yours, the love of your life, and the father of your future children.

Javier groaned your name as you clenched down on him, cunt fluttering as you felt the familiar heat lick inside of your core.

“I love you, hermosa.” Javi whispered, moving a hand down to your clit to give you that little extra push you needed to come undone.

“I love you too.” You threaded your fingers together behind the back of his neck, pulling him down once more to kiss him. He swallowed your wanton moans, hips bucking as his pace picked up and his fingers on your clit didn’t let up.

“Javi, baby, I’m—” You cry, barely able to focus as your orgasm was so close.

“I’ve got you, bebita, you can let go.” He softly encourages, albeit breathless.

That white hot ball of fire engulfed your body as a whole, making you clench around Javi’s cock rhythmically. He groaned out your name before kissing you once again, eyes screwed shut as he came undone, his warmth spilling into you.

He dropped his head to your shoulder as he rode out his orgasm, kissing your skin before moving his head back up to look down at you.

“You’re so perfect, mi amor.” Javi praises as he slowly slides out of you, laying down next to you and pulling you into his chest in one swift motion. You were still dazed from your orgasm, so you just kissed his chest and nuzzled into him, whispering how you loved him and ‘happy anniversary’. You were happy. Content. So enamored with your husband, and this new journey of trying for a baby was nothing short of exhilarating.

You were just hoping that your wish upon that star would come true.

tags: @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin ; @amanitacowboy ; @bastardmandennis ; @nostalxgic ; @holesandlividity ; @pamasaur

#javier pena fic #javier peña #javier pena fanfiction #Javier Peña one shot #javier pena imagine #javier pena x reader #javier peña smut #javier pena narcos #pedro pascal imagines #pedro pascal imagine #pedro pascal one shot #javier pena smut #javi pena #narcos one shot

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femmefatalevibe · 1 year

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Femme Fatale Guide: Fall Wardrobe Essentials

Staple Tees:

**Purchase in Modal, Pima cotton, or a cotton-cashmere blend**

Fitted crewneck tees (long-sleeves/tees & tanks for layering)

Relaxed fit long-sleeve tees

Turtleneck long-sleeve top (fitted & relaxed fit options)

Contour bodysuits

Blouses/Shirting:

Silk button-down blouse

Cotton button-down blouse

Silk shell top/t-shirts/camis (for layering)

Sculpt knit top(s)

Self-tie wrap blouse

Shirred boatneck, mock neck, or cowlneck silk blouse(s)

Leather button-down

Knitwear:

Thin cashmere/wool crewneck sweater (fitted/relaxed fit)

Thin cashmere/wool turtleneck sweater

Chunky relaxed-fit cable knit sweater

Knit polo-neck sweater

Cashmere sweater vest (crewneck, v-neck, and/or turtleneck)

Mockneck cashmere/wool sweater

Cashmere long-sleeve sweater dress

Cashmere/knit skirt (mini, midi, or maxi - depending on your personal preferences)

Sophisticated coordinating knit set (top/pants or skirt of your choice)

Casual knit set (top/pullover and relaxed fit pants)

Cashmere cardigan

Cable knit cardigan (doubles as a light jacket)

Bottoms:

Black straight-leg jeans

Black bootcut/flared jeans

Black straight/bootcut trousers

Wide-leg trousers (I love a solid black, black pinstripe, and black with lace-up detail selection)

High-waisted leather pants

Split hem trousers

Stretch jersey/cashmere pants (straight-leg or flared)

Quilted leather/tweed mini skirt

Knit/wool mini and/pencil skirt

Leather skirt (mini or midi)

Silk midi skirt

Dresses/Jumpsuits:

Knit/sweater dress

Little black dress (shift dress/A-line cuts are great)

Blazer dress/jumpsuit

Slip dress (for layering)

Minimal black jumpsuit ("LBJ")

Leather and/or denim dress or jumpsuit

Jackets & Outerwear:

Black tailored blazer

Leather blazer

Tweed jacket

Trench coat

Leather moto/cropped/bomber jacket

Black wool coat

Raincoat ( I like Rains for high-quality options on the affordable side that are still built to last for several seasons)

Statement jacket/coat

Footwear:

Sleek flat/low-heel black boots with a pointed-toe or square-toe silhouette (I love Vagabond, Jeffrey Campbell, Vince Camuto, and Sam Edelman for more affordable, high-quality options)

Black loafers/sleek black flats

Black lace-up boots

Black heeled boots

Black pumps

White sneakers

Rain boots (I recommend the Melissa Shoes Welly/Grip/Step boots or a stylish, sustainable, and more affordable option)

Accessories:

White/black ankle & crew socks

Black control top tights

High-waisted shapewear shorts

Chunky/small chain necklaces & bracelets

Simple pendant necklace(s)

Pearl necklace

Simple diamond studs

Crystal drop earrings

Minimalist bangles

Stackable rings

A sleek, minimalist black tote (can fit a laptop for work/travel)

Black shoulder bag

Small black bag (top handle, crossbody, etc.)

Statement bag/evening bag

Cashmere scarf

Silk/decorative scarf

Fingerless/touch-screen friendly, lightweight gloves

Lingerie/Loungewear:

Seamless bra/underwear

Lace bra/underwear

Matching pullover cotton sweatshirt/sweatpants

Knit or jersey cotton top/lounge pants set

Luxurious pajama set (silk, Tencel, cashmere, etc.)

A to-die-for piece of lingerie like a lace slip/silk teddy

Silk or cozy robe

Cozy open-back slippers

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dbusato · 1 month

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This is an odd little quilt. It measures 26 X 34" and is a specific measurement for an entry in our local Fair. All entries will be donated to Markham Stouffville District Hosptial NICU. The inspiration for this was a photo from an old Austrailian Quilting Magazine ... a full sized "Bug" quilt. The wonky jars each contain a different 'bug' and the back is crawling with little ants. I tried double sided binding for the first time ... it was much easier that I had thought it would be. I found a great tutorial on YouTube!

#quilting

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toxictigertonic · 25 days

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Three count em THREE whole people said they liked my headcanons and wanted more so I'm back with more, this time for how they sleep bc I think it's funny.

COYLE

- Like a damn ROCK.

- But also, extremely vigilant at the same time.

- You could pick him up, shake him, scream in his face, he sleeps. Door cracks open a little? Floorboard creaks? He's up and ready for a fight.

- I really hope he'd sleep in boxers but he strikes me as a butt ass naked kinda guy. Enter his room at your own peril he WILL fight naked.

- Sleeps with his arms to his side, stiff as a board. Dead center of the bed though so good luck if you're looking to share with him.

- Sleeps like that partly bc of military and partly bc if he sleeps on his side he drools.

- Snores like a fucking lawn mower. Has woken people up from a sound sleep bc of it. People are holding grudges.

- The sunglasses and hat stay ON.

- No blankets, no sheets. You can guess how awful this is with the whole sleeping naked thing.

- Sleep walker. Again, awful when you remember that he's nakey.

- One pillow. There is a perfectly head shaped dent in it from his bald ass dome.

GOOSEBERRY

- How many pillows can you fit on a bed? Okay now double it.

- Her bed has the comfiest blankets and the biggest quilt ever.

- Futterman gets his own pillow, so she sleeps on her back with one arm up on the pillow and the other resting on her stomach.

- This is because if he doesn't have his own pillow he'll complain. Also he'll get lost in the mess of blankets.

- She still does the Futterman voice in her sleep. Futterman talks in his sleep. Futterman does not say nice things in his sleep.

- She also talks in her sleep but she's talking about making sure the children are safe or that her pie needs to come out of the oven while Futterman says things about dental hygiene (and how you'll be taught about it whether you like it or not)

- The ONLY one of the prime assets that brushes her teeth before bed. Doesn't wash her face though.

- If she didn't have Futterman to worry about she'd be a side sleeper, pillow tucked under her head and blanket tucked up under her chin.

- She'd have one stuffed animal me thinks. I'd say it's the duck but that feels too simple. How about a mmm ratty old cat.

- Wakes up with the blankets off of her everytime. She doesn't know how it happens but it does.

- Wears the cutest pajama set ever. Futterman deserves pajamas too.

- Sleepytime tea connoisseur. Chamomile with cinnamon and honey every night.

FRANCO

- Again, God help us where do I begin.

- He is my little skrunkly so I say this all with love. Maybe. Potentially. Maybe a little hate.

- Would absolutely spend the money to get an adult sized crib to sleep in. Maybe Murkoff got him one just to make him a little less of a brat (affectionate).

- Sooooo many stuffed animals. So many. From classic stuffies to weird stuffed animals you never would've thought existed.

- He cuddles with the same one every night though, without fail. According to character ai it's a pink elephant so I'm going with that.

- I feel like he'd have a special pajama set for each weekday. Or he'd wear whatever the hell he was wearing during the day to bed. Not sure which.

- If he doesn't have the binky he'll resort to thumb sucking, he won't sleep if he can't have one or the other.

- Also needs sound to sleep, a silent room makes him antsy. Typically has cartoons going.

- (Sad one for those of you who like angst) Dreams about what life could've been like if he had a happy family. Wakes up in tears every time.

- (Cute one to apologize for that) He's clingy as all hell. If someone were to sleep in the same bed as him they'd become his human teddy bear. Good luck getting up this mother fucker has Grip and is so starved for positive attention.

- He wakes up groggy as hell. Give him 30 minutes after he's gotten up bc before then he barely remembers where he is.

- Kicks in his sleep. And they're not gentle kicks either that little bastard is MEAN.

- Drools, sorry not sorry.

- If you pet his head he'll be out like a light :)

Let me know if there are any specific headcanons you'd like to hear out of my noggin because I promise I have plenty. I can talk about these freaks alllll day.

#leland coyle #mother gooseberry #phyllis futterman #dr futterman #franco barbi #il bambino #outlast trials #outlast #give me reasons to talk about Frankie on here please #my friends are getting sick of him

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elfgirlcraftworks · 8 months

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The Anniversary Quilt

Part 1: planning

My parents' 50th anniversary is in mid March and I promised them a quilt. Well, I promised myom. My dad just shrugged and went along with her.

The design

I gave them the choice of double wedding ring (circles on the left) or some sort of lone star (right).

I made these a couple years ago as proofs of concept.

Anyway, she chose lone star. That's actually the easier of the two since it's all straight lines.

Now, there's a ton of variations. I eventually narrowed it down to this one...ish. I bought the pattern on Etsy just to see what math and measurements they used.

This one finishes to 90x90. I need 108 but I'd love 120. They use 5 rows of 2 inch diamonds and 10 inch squares. I wanted to increase that to 3 rows of 4 inch diamonds and 12 inch squares. And before I use up the final fabric I actually made a mockup (shocking for me and quilting)

Good thing I did! Apparently the 2 inches was the side measurement not the height so my diamond turned out to be 18 inches instead of 12.

Okay let's see what we did wrong...

I went back to the pattern and it turns out the 2 inches was on the edge, not the height of the diamond, the height's more like 1 1/4.

Okay. Let's measure and recalculate.

Oh wait, this actually works for the size I need! Woohoo!

Although...it's cutting it close with the fabric I have.

Get it? Cutting it close? ...fabric? Oh that was funny

Anywho

Now to decide on how to arrange the fabrics

The bottom one is the leading contender at the moment. Of course, adding additional prints is always an option (and an attractive one).

Next time: cutting and strip assembly.

#quilting #sewing #lone star quilt

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luveline · 2 years

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Hi!! I was wondering if you could write anything else for the steve zombie au with the established relationship! It's seriously so good I can't get enough

hi I hope you don’t mind me using your request for the kidnapping fic! r and steve live inside a community during the apocalypse, and she gets kidnapped :( but he’s not gonna stop til he finds her :) pls forgive typos

steve zombie!au <3 fem!reader. tw abduction, drugging, mentioned SA (reader is NOT sa and there is no graphic imagery), guns, general violence. 8k words

When you get 'home' that evening, arms aching from a full day in the community pantry, there's somebody sitting in your bed.

"Fuck, Stevie," you say with a flinch, hand hitting your chest with an audible thud.

"Sorry!" he apologises immediately, springing up to meet you. He's in pyjamas, a foreign sight, freshly washed up. "I got home early and thought you'd be happy to see me."

You reach for his wrists, relief that he's not a murderer or a zombie dulling the panic. "I am," you assure him softly, "of course I am. I missed you."

He smiles and moves in for a hug, kissing your cheek quickly. "I missed you too."

Missed isn't truly the right word. Steve goes out on scouting and scrounging missions for the community voluntarily, and every time he leaves you worry he's going to die, because it is a very likely outcome. There hasn't been a community fatality in weeks, but that doesn't help soothe the ache of his absence.

"You smell really nice. Did you get a hot shower?"

"Perks," he says, faking modesty.

"Perks," you grumble. "I spent the whole day lifting canned tuna and I don't get a hot shower."

His smile doubles in size. "No? Well then, it's a good thing you have such a nice boyfriend," —he digs in his pocket, unveiling a green plastic shower token with a smirk— "huh?"

"Is that for me?" you ask, grumbling completely gone.

"If you want it. There's a catch, though."

"What's the catch?"

You can both hear how in love you sound. In a world where hot showers are rare and valuable as diamond, his giving you a shower token may as well be an "I love you'. It's selfless.

"Kiss before you go?" he asks.

"That's not a catch," you say, taking his face into your hands. His cheeks are soft, stubble shaved away.

You rub his bottom lip with your thumb. "Get into any danger?"

"None. Not a geek in sight."

"Good boy," you say, thumbs either side of his lips now, leaning in for a perfect, prim kiss.

You move back and rake the hair away from his face, upward, and for a moment he looks as he did before again. His hair falls back down and he's still beautiful, the guy you love.

"Are you sure I can have it?"

"I got it for you," he says, "but if you really don't want it-"

"No, I want it," you deny quickly, eyes narrowed at his nearly ditzy smile. He can be so evil.

Steve climbs into your bed, a myriad of blankets and quilts and sheets, anything to stay warm. Honestly, you and Steve are pack rats now you have a place to keep your things, and you love to be comfortable together. That means soft things and nice smells are a must.

You turn to your bathroom hamper and pick up one of your two shower gels, a silver of soap, and the brand new bottle of shampoo you'd been given a few days ago. It's your prized possession.

"Don't take that soap," Steve says, "there's a new bar by the sink, take that one."

"We really shouldn't waste it."

"We won't."

You shake your head at him fondly. "It's fine, I'll use it. Keep the new one for cold, sad showers."

His head sinks back into your pillows, his face turning toward your side. He couldn't be less obvious about it if he tried, pulling your pillow toward him until the pillowcase is rubbing his nose.

You wrap your things in a towel, also nice and soft, and hesitate at the door. Steve's eyes have closed. You know he isn't sleeping, and that if you ask him to, he'll come and sit outside of the shower stall to fend off your paranoia. But you're trying to give life here a chance, a proper one. You have no reason to fear for your safety — the shower block is only five minutes away in the old College's gym.

You put your stuff down at the end of the bed and climb on knees beside him.

"I'm gonna go shower now," you say.

Steve goes to sit up, eyes fluttering open, and you hold him down, peppering his cheek with three, four, five quick kisses. "No, stay. Love you."

“You stay and sleep. I’ll be back soon. So soon.”

"You sure?"

"Yes," you say, smothered against his cheek. You give him another kiss for good measure, a selfish one, as most of them are. You hope he enjoys receiving them as much as you love bestowing them. Your lips practically tingle.

"Okay. Love you. See you in twenty."

"Twenty," you promise.

Another kiss sneaks its way in there before you're grabbing all your stuff; your bathroom necessities, your change of clothes and your room key on a string you hang around your neck. You slip out the door and down the hall of Little Hawkins, stepping over a hallway game of speed played by two opposite tenants you recognise from high school and slinking sideways round one of Mallory's huge art projects propped up against the wall.

It's dark outside. To keep a low profile, the community you live in, sometimes called The College, or some variation of its real name, Valley Pine Community College, opts to keep the lights off at night. There are fairy lights strung up to gently guide anyone who needs to move around, and considering it's not even 7PM yet, there are lots of people outside.

"Hey, kid."

You hug your bundle of things closer. "Hi, Hopper."

Chief Hopper is standing in the middle of the squad with Joyce Byers and Jeremy Livingstone, his second in command and his co-leader, respectively.

"Shower?"

You smile sheepishly. "Steve gave me a token."

"How romantic," Joyce says sweetly.

"He's a secret sweetheart," you mumble.

"Could you tell him to be a little more secretive? He's setting a precedent here," Jeremy says.

The three adults laugh. You nod politely and bid them goodbye with a smile, cutting over the grass of the quad where a path has been worn by shoes just like yours to the gym.

There's usually someone there until 10PM. Everyone needs a shower after a long day, and lukewarm ones are totally free. It's hot water showers that need a token, because they need the generator to run. Jeremy does his best to keep the distribution of tokens fair, but people still use them to barter for other things. You imagine that's how Steve came to have two.

Sure enough, a young woman you think is called Tori sits in a chair by the door to the shower room, foot propped up on another chair and crutches on the floor.

She accepts your token and puts it in a basket with the others, all handmade and flimsy. "You need me to do it?" she asks.

"No, that's okay. Stay sitting." She smiles gratefully.

The shower room is clean and cool. You put down your towel, grinning at the leftmost shower. There you are, you think cheerfully. Then a sound behind you, the soft fall of one step.

You don't remember much after that.

—

Steve falls asleep waiting for you.

He wakes, reaching for your body in bed next to his, expecting an armful of your softness, your tummy or your chest. He opens his bleary eyes in search of you when he comes up empty, mumbling your name in the dark. His arm feels heavy as he lifts it to check the time. 9.44PM. He looks around the entirety of your small room. You're not here.

He bolts up fast, bone deep nausea spreading and pervasive, his neck protesting the sudden movement with a twinge. Thighs swung over the sheets, he stumbles onto discordant footing.

You're not out on the quad, and neither is anyone else. He follows the string lights to the gym and there are no signs of life. He makes it all the way to the shower room before he sees somebody, a girl on crutches hobbling toward him with a flashlight helmet clipped over her forehead.

"Hey," he says, slowing, "have you seen Y/N? She's this tall, wearing a royal blue hoodie? You can't miss her."

She falters. "I- yeah, I saw her. Maybe an hour ago?"

"Is she still here?"

"The building's presumably empty."

Steve skirts around her to look for himself, but she says, "Wait, wait."

She readjusts her grip on her crutches. "I didn't see her leave, but she wasn't in the showers. I checked."

"You didn't see her leave?"

"No, I thought it was weird, but I figured she'd had too long in the hot water and felt guilty about it. I was gonna tell Hopper at the town hall."

The town hall isn't a town hall at all, it's a space cleared in the cafeteria. Hopper lingers there most nights so people can talk to him without feeling pressured by their peers. You and Steve always call it the 'snitching hour', instead of the witching hour.

"You're sure she's not there?"

"I checked every stall."

He doesn't believe her, because if you aren't in the shower, where are you? You haven't made any friends yet, you aren't situated, you have Steve and you have the older lady Mallory, and that's it.

He's not too proud to admit he sprints to the shower room, calling your name and checking behind each stall door, each changing partition curtain. The only thing he finds is a slither of soap, the shard of bar soap he'd told you to throw away, lying on the floor.

You'd insisted you wouldn't waste it.

He picks it up and pockets it, throwing his gaze around the room in another circle to be sure.

You aren't here.

He runs back up the hallways and through the front entrance, where the girl on crutches is hobbling toward the main building that houses the cafeteria. His heart races with a strange adrenaline — he shouldn't panic, right? You could be anywhere, and anywhere doesn't have to mean somewhere unsafe. You could be with Mallory, with Robin. Hell, you could be with Dustin. He's half expecting to find you in the canteen, fresh and smelling sweet, sitting at one of the long dinner tables for club night. You'd said you wanted to learn gin rummy.

You aren't in the cafeteria and neither are the cards club, but Hopper is. He has a paperback in his lap, and a cigarette is held between his lips pointing down, illuminated by a small lamp on the table behind him.

"Woah, where's the fire?"

"Have you seen Y/N?"

Hopper doesn't like his tone, the panic it's laced with. His expression hardens from surprise to concern, paperback closed. "Hours ago. She was on her way to the gym. She didn't come back?"

"No."

"She usually stray?" Hopper asks.

They both know the answer is no. You don't go anywhere that isn't scheduled work or the gym showers without Steve; while your distrust of this place and the people here has waned since you arrived, it's still very much alive.

"Never."

"Don't panic," Hopper says, though he looks a little unsettled himself. He hides it swiftly. "Half the people here are your age, she probably just got to talking."

He stands up, shoving his paperback on top of the fold out chair and zippering his jacket closed.

Steve rubs his mouth, in a daze, searching his thoughts for where you'll be.

"Harrington?"

"What?" Steve asks, looking up.

"You might want to get some warmer pants on. We'll start searching. Door to door. Wake your friends up." Hopper clears his throat. "She's here somewhere."

His confidence eases Steve's roaring pulse. He looks down, finds he's still wearing the polka dot pyjamas he'd fallen asleep in. He'd been too worried about you to notice.

—

You feel majorly unwell. Eyes so sore they beg to stay closed, throat raw like you've been forced to eat sandpaper. Your hand knocks out and hits something solid.

"Stevie," you say. Your voice is patchy, frosted over. "It's freezing. Did you," —you cough as you raise your head from your pillow— "leave a window open, baby?"

A cold gale of wind rushes over you. Goosebumps erupt down the lengths of your naked arms, and your eyes open finally, searching for the cause of the desperate cold.

You fear for a moment you've gone blind.

The sky is dark. A deep, formidable blue with a smattering of stars. Your breath catches as you take them in. They appear by the handful, flecks that well like drops of blood to pinpricks.

You are not in bed.

This is not your room.

"You've been sleeping for hours. You're fucking heavy, did you know that?"

You turn your head slowly, prey and predator, hoping your stillness will deter any sudden movements.

"Where are we?" you ask, trying to get a good look at the body next to you.

You're not sure if it's the right question. He likes it, though, and his hand squeezes yours where your fingers rest, intertwined, against his chest. Sickness wraps around your stomach and wrings it, a strange haziness concluding your thoughts.

"Don't worry about it."

Panic lights every nerve ending and a wretched trembling runs down your arms, your legs. You try to make it stop before he can feel it. You know your fear is a currency.

"Are you cold?" he asks. His voice is neither warm nor frigid, each syllable said with an impassiveness that leaves little to be inferred.

"I don't have my coat." The words don't want to be said.

"We left in a hurry."

"We did?"

Your throat aches. You try to remember why you're here, fingers dead still in his hold. There's something soft behind your head, a throw blanket that scratches your cheek. You don't know who he is. You don't recognise anything about him, moonlight splashing milky light over his face and neck. He has a broad scar under his jaw, but beside that, this man is completely unassuming.

"You don't remember?"

You shake your head. "No," you say softly.

"You fell in the shower. I helped you up. You told me you wanted to leave."

"Leave?" you ask.

"The College."

"I said that?"

"You didn't have to say it. I know you hated it there."

You swallow, uselessly, over and over. The night sky pours Onto you. Your pulse bumps, bumps, bumps.

"Who are you?" you ask.

"You don't know me?"

His fingers tighten around yours.

"I- I'm new," you defend.

"Of course you don't know me. Nobody fucking knows me. I thought shit was bad before all this, you know?" His grip tightens worse. "Invisible at work, at home. And there were so many people, I mean, fucking thousands of people, I was a nobody. I thought maybe now I'd be somebody, but you don't know who I am."

Please, you think, please. What's his name?

"Connor," you say quietly, hoping to pass it off as nothing if you've gotten it wrong.

His grip relaxes ever so slightly. "I knew you were different. You see me, and I see you."

He moves toward you, and he must see you flinch backward into the solid, frozen earth behind your back. His smile flickers. He leans over your face, dark, long hair tickling your cheek.

"I know you hated that place just as much as I did. So we left."

Looking back, you'll wonder why you acted as you did. Acting into his delusion. That night, you wait hours for him to fall asleep. He never does. Each time you try to pull your hand from his, you're met with a fiercely suspicious look. You feign sleep.

The sky slowly lightens. You stand when he stands and you pull your hand from his whether he wants it or not, so cold you feel like you've been burned all over, so tired you're surprised you have the strength to scramble backward.

He turns, and you notice the gun tucked into his waistband for the first time.

"Where are you going?" he asks, hand inching up his leg.

You take a step toward him, wobbly on purpose. "I think I'm stiff from the floor." You smile at him awkwardly.

He sees bashful where he should terrified. "I will miss the mattresses. Don't worry, we'll find you something to lie on." Your skin crawls.

"Where are we going?"

He points southward.

You're no genius, but you assume that means The College is northward.

A bullet can follow you a hundred feet away. Running brazenly won't work. Though you're guessing he'll kill you outright rather than let you escape, which may not be the case. He's running on delusion — he has a saviour complex, clearly, to have stolen you like this. He wants you, and you have to assume he wants you alive.

"Can I have some water?" you ask.

The ache in your throat is a burn. You imagine this is how it feels to have a geek maw deep in your flesh, a sizzling burn, a heated fear.

He digs through his singular rucksack and pulls out a litre bottle of water full to the cap. You take it, guzzle it, and choke when he cusses. "Fuck- Stop! Are you stupid? We have to make it last."

Water dribbles down your chin as he snatches it out of your hand.

"Sorry," you say. It feels as though you've swallowed a stone. "Sorry, I didn't know. I couldn't know, I don't know any of your plans, Connor."

He stuffs the water back into the bag and procures a white length of plastic. It takes you a second to realise it's a zip tie. Much less to feel terror reignite itself in the depths of your stomach.

"Wrists together."

"Connor, I don't think-"

"You're smart, aren't you?"

Quiet stretches. The sun leaks desperately needed warmth through the thick tree branches, sun rays painting his skin blazing white as he rags your wrists together and wraps the zip ties around them. The plastic bites into your skin unapologetically.

"I wanted you to take me," you say. "What's the need?"

He smiles. Teeth white, gums red. Stark.

"You're smart," he repeats. "I'm smarter. Now come on. Walk."

—

Steve doesn't find you.

Hopper gives him invasive free reign over the community like a dirty cop. He tells everybody at breakfast exactly what's happening. He asks if anybody has seen you. He asks if you've made plans to run away. He says that, if you're in hiding, he'll protect you, even if that means protection from Steve.

Steve's not even mad. If you are hiding from him (you're not, of course you're not, but if you are — Steve almost wishes you were, just so he'd know you were safe) you're doing an amazing job. There are no traces of you, and as the hours stretch into a full day without you, Steve's borderline homicidal. He has slammed on every door. He has checked every dormitory room, every public space. He has pulled boards from closed over windows, and kicked in weakened door jams of every building within the fences.

Currently, though, he's having a breakdown. Tears, ugly and messy and loud, race down his face. He's running so hot they practically steam. Robin stands on the other side of the stall. He's really hoping she'll pretend she can't hear him, but she says, "Yikes, Steve."

"Where the fuck is she?" he asks, sounding about as numb as he feels.

"I don't know."

Her response is softer. Robin knows Steve isn't angry at her, and doesn't take his scathing question personally. The fear he's feeling is overwhelming, hence his tears. (The tears are made of worry, too.)

"Somebody-" God, the thought is like white hot heat cattle poked into his spine, anger wells to the surface. "Has her. Somebody's fucking done something to her. She wouldn't just leave."

He stares at the stall door and wills tears away. This isn't helping you.

"Steve," Robin says, "don't bite my head off. What if she did leave?"

It hurts because it's what he's been asking himself. Under the anger and the fear for you, there's fear of you. What if you've abandoned him? Loved him this long to toss in the towel at the finish line?

Still, he defends the you he knows you are. "Fuck off, Buckley. I love you, but fuck you."

"No, listen to me Steve."

"Robin-"

"I believe she wouldn't 'just leave' but that doesn't mean she didn't leave," Robin says in a rush, fighting to be heard. "I know she's- I know you're both in that gross, disgusting, married for sixty years, buried in the same plot, holding hands kind of love-"

"The point?"

"So I'm agreeing with you, asshole. I don't think she'd leave of her own volition, but she's not here."

"What if she is? What if I go look for her and she's here and Barney from the kitchen has her tied up under his mattress?"

"We've looked," Robin says, anger colouring her own tone now. "We've fucking looked, Steve, you and me and Dustin, Mike and Hopper, we've been in every room and hashing this out won't make her magically reappear, we need to go look for her. Maybe she did fucking leave you, and maybe she's lost. Whatever it is, you're gonna kill yourself not looking.

"Time to make a decision," she adds. "The longer we sit here the further away she gets."

Tears burst unbidden in a race to his jawline.

He knows you better than he knows himself. He knows you've loved him for a long time, maybe since the day you met. He's loved you almost as long, and he doesn't care how selfish it sounds when he says he loves you so much more. If the last time you'd spent together is it — sorry, but Steve can't accept it. A slurred out 'Love you' and your kisses warming his cheek. That can't be all there is.

He'd spend the rest of his life looking for you, if only to feel the weight of your body between his legs, your sleeping face tucked under his chest. Your hands, forever cold, chasing the heat of his spine as you slip them under his t-shirt.

Hopper looks reluctant at the suggestion.

"Kid-"

"I'm not really asking. I need permission to get my bat back from the armoury, and food. Or forget the food." Someone knocks into his back and apologises. The cafeteria is teeming with people. Steve doesn't stop to look back to see who it is.

"It's not about supplies. Everybody is accounted for, we checked, do you know what that means? Nobody else is with her." Nobody took her, he implies. She left of her own volition.

"That's exactly why I need to go."

"She took a rucksack with her."

Steve blinks.

"Three litres of water. Enough food for a month, and a pistol."

You're smarter than three litres of water. And—

Steve's heart skips. "She doesn't know how to use a gun."

He knows exactly what's happened to you. Even if everybody else thinks he's crazy, or stupid, or plain naive, he knows you wouldn't take a gun, so somebody else took one, and then they took you. He imagines you with the barrel pressed to your nape and brims with indignation.

Hopper grabs Steve's arm tightly before he can turn away. He likely doesn't want a scene in the cafeteria, not when the arts and crafts club is sitting two tables away, a whole classroom of children with delicate dispositions.

"You're sure you want to go out there and look for her? Kid, nobody saw her leave, there's no signs of struggle. Chances are she left willingly."

"You really believe that? Honestly?"

His expression says everything Steve needs to know. Hopper doesn't believe what he's saying — he's feeding Steve a narrative in the hopes that it'll spare him. His decision is a hard one to make, prioritising the lives of the many over the few, and it's noble, but Steve couldn't care less about the risks.

Hopper realises his plan is not going to work. He roughs up his hair and sighs.

"Can't work a gun?" he asks Steve, nearly defeated.

"She would pick the knife."

"Fine. Better round up anybody stupid enough to go with you."

—

"I think you're handsome," you say.

Connor glares at you. He'd been in the middle of a self-hating rant, how he's ugly and how girls are all shallow. He's not even that ugly, but his expression, so full of hate, makes him monstrous.

"I do," you further.

"Yeah, right."

Your wrists hurt. The zip tie cuts into your skin even in efforts to hold your wrists together. You're raw, almost bleeding. And you're so fucking cold; this guy's an idiot, and you're gonna die of hypothermia if you can't charm him into giving you his coat.

Your plan is awful and it likely won't work. You're trying to seduce him so you can take his gun, and hope you don't have to actually fire it. You've never killed somebody before, but you're willing to do what you need to if it means you'll survive. Your thoughts won't stop spiralling about Steve. He loves you. He's looking for you. If he never finds you, his life will be more ruined than it is already, and you'd never forgive yourself for that. You care about him too much to want to put him through the guilt of losing you. How he'd been looking for Robin, you don't want him to be that version of himself again. Closed off to everything, and everyone.

Under all that you're still hoping he's going to save you. You're gonna hear him calling. You hope — you know — Steve won't think you've left. While you haven't been quiet about your doubts living in The College, you wouldn't leave without him. Steve is the safest place in the world.

"Connor," you say, eyes on his face and unflinching, determined to lie well, "are you kidding? Out of everyone, I only showed you how I was feeling. Why do you think that is?"

He stares at you.

You make a show of shivering. It isn't difficult.

"You're the kindest person there, I know that," you say. "Nobody else would risk what you are to help me escape. Nobody, not even-" You wince. "Not even Steve."

"Ugh, don't talk about him," Connor says. "You won't ever have to see that mindless idiot again."

"You promise?"

He stops walking. "You don't want to see him?"

"No," you lie. "I- look, Connor, I know it's not something to be proud of, and I'm not proud of it, but I knew he could take care of me, you know? We were all alone, and I just needed someone to look after me. I was so scared. And I felt like I owed him."

"You could've left him the moment you got to The College."

You put on a sad little smile. I'm sorry, you think desperately. I'm sorry, Steve.

"He wouldn't let me."

Quiet prevails again, the only sounds the wind and your shoes over brittle foliage.

"I wanted to talk to you, and I think he could tell. He'd always pull me away when we s-s-saw you."

His eyebrows furrow gently, a softness on his face that might seem genuine if there were any light behind his eyes. Connor peels off his jacket and tries to help you into it.

"My wrists."

"Right," he says.

He pulls out a penknife. You know what to do, planning how you'll enact your next move in your head as he cuts you loose and helps your numb arms and fingers into the sleeves. He zips you up. You try not to breathe.

He takes a half step back, and his breath turns to a grunt, hands cruel at your wrists when you throw yourself at him. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Trying to hug you…" You say, heart a hummingbird in your chest. "I'm sorry, I just- I just wanted to say thank you."

"You want to say thank you?" he asks,

You regret it. You've already decided, as horrible as it is, that if he tries to hurt you or force you to do anything intimate with him, you're going to run, gun or no gun. This decision changes every other second. Better to let him hurt you like that and live, or better to die?

"Yes," you say breathlessly. "I want to say thank you."

"There's a cabin not far from here. That's where we're going. I've been getting it ready for us. You can show me how grateful you are when we get there, so pick up the pace."

"A cabin?" you ask, tripping over your untied laces in your hurry to do as he says.

"I've been getting it ready for weeks," he says. "Sneaking back and forth hasn't been easy, you know? Fucking migraine."

Sneaking back and forth.

Who is he? Sneaking? Why would he need to? Who the fuck is he? You know of him as you know most people, and you'd been lucky to remember his name. If he hadn't gone on supply and scrounging trips with Steve, you wouldn't have.

A memory.

He'd been with Steve.

Two weeks ago, Steve had come home depressed. Deflated, he'd encouraged you down into bed and laid out on top of you, frown pressed to your collar. You'd drawn a confession from him in ribbons, one hand rubbing his back until the tension he'd carried slipped away, the other resting at the back of his head. He'd been on a scouting trip, and he'd lost his partner. No sign of him, no signs of a geek death, nothing. He'd disappeared.

That had been Connor, and everybody thinks he's dead.

If they believe you left, they believe it was by yourself. You have to hope Steve believes you'd never go without him.

If he doesn't, you are completely alone.

—

Robin ties her shoe laces tightly. They're new, and they're startlingly white. Nothing ever looks so white these days. Bleach is a resource they can't make, and it gets hoarded by the medical team whenever they find any. Clothes here aren't dirty, but they'll never be pristine.

She puts her foot back on to the floor next to Steve's back, where he poked around under her bed for useful things to take. Her torch, her batteries, her rucksack.

"Robin… is this a fucking illegal food store?"

"That's blowing it out of proportion."

He climbs out from under the bed and drops her armful of twinkies, moon cakes, and a single Hershey's cookies 'n' creme.

"You can take that one," she says, pointing at the Hershey's. "A treat for lovergirl. You may need leverage to win her back."

He takes it. At this point, Robin's sure he'd cut his own hand off to bring you back with them. She kicks the rest of her contraband haphazardly under the bed and gets into a sweater, then another sweater, before zippering a winter coat over top. Robin's young, and mildly fit, not in shape but not out of it, so she volunteers for supply runs when Hopper asks for them. She can climb, and she's skinny enough to fit into places that other people can't. She's ready to go look for you.

Steve stands and makes his way to the door, swinging his rucksack over his shoulder.

They move out to the quad, where a sad roster of rescue squad applicants wait. Jonathan Byers sits on the low wall of the fountain, with a girl called Vanessa on one side, and a guy called Christopher on the other. Dustin and Mike stand talking, and Steve is barely in hearing range when he says, "You aren't coming, Henderson."

He stops in front of the fountain. "Are you ready?"

They all stand. Jonathan, surprisingly, has a gun strapped to his hip. "Hopper's orders," he says, sounding how Steve feels.

"Steve," Dustin says.

"You aren't allowed to come, for starters."

"I am, we're sixteen, we can-"

"Can't. That's why Will isn't here, right? Or Lucas? Because they actually listen when Hopper says no."

Mike glares. "I'm not here to go save your girlfriend."

"Awesome." Steve relaxes the tiniest bit, slapping Dustin's arm as they pass. "Thanks, Henderson, but you can't come. Stay here and make sure nobody claims our room."

Dustin shouts a string of expletives at their backs.

They pass through the North fence checkpoint. They're trying to retrace your steps. There aren't many to retrace. They assume you've gone North of the camp because South of it is Indiana, and Steve can't see why you'd backtrack.

They walk for hours. The sun moves through the sky all lazy and slow, tortuously so, and the only thing Steve can think of is you. It burns.

The first hint of you is a scrap of fabric. It isn't yours as far as he knows, but he and Robin look at it, look at each other, and then pick up the pace. A half hour later they almost miss it, a black button in amongst dry earth. An hour later, there's a water bottle cap.

"Holy fucking shit," Robin says. "She's leaving us breadcrumbs."

"She's a smart girl," Steve says, too defensive considering Robin's praising you. "Of course she is."

"I've been thinking," Jonathan says, his voice low and gravelly from a long period of quiet. "The theory is that she's uh, been kidnapped, right?"

"That's the theory," Steve says tightly. Trying his best not to be a dick, because Jonathan hasn't done anything wrong.

"So who took her?"

Steve's migraine throbs. He has this tension like a knit behind his eyes. He doesn't know who took you, he can't work it out, and it doesn’t make any sense. Hopper checked the lists and everybody in the community had been accounted for, and Steve had seen nearly every face himself hammering on doors.

"My mom poured over that list, she ticked everybody off," Jonathan continues.

"It doesn't make any sense," Steve says, "I know that, but she wouldn't leave like that, not–"

"No, I'm not saying that," Jonathan says quickly. "I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying we have to think outside of the box. Whoever took her isn't on the register."

"But they somehow knew enough about The College to take her without anybody seeing them," Vanessa says timidly.

"They took her from the shower room," Steve says quietly. "Her soap was still there, 'nd the girl on duty said she never came out of the first door again, so they took her from the back, and quietly."

"Maybe she got lured out," Robin says. "Maybe they tricked her."

Jonathan closes the small walking gap between himself and Steve, face earnest and concerned. He looks like a friend.

"Remember Tina and Sadie, they left two weeks ago to look for their mom? They're not on the register, they could still be close."

"But what would they want from her?" Christopher asks sceptically.

Steve feels an inkling of memory…

"Steve," Robin says apprehensively, giving him major side eye.

"It's fucking–" Heat like nothing he's ever felt burns behind his eyes. If he could, Steve would squat down on the ground and just sit there for a while, until this rush of fire and fear and missing you had toned it down, but he can't stop moving, so he staggers to keep walking. "Connor. It's Connor."

"The Creep?" Robin asks.

"I thought he died?" Vanessa asks.

Steve picks up the pace of his steps, and tries to explain coherently, though his voice sounds ragged as his thoughts, "He didn't die, he– he disappeared. And he was so weird, he kept asking me about my girl, and just thought he was a perv, he–" Steve looks at his small group. "He was too interested in her. I should've seen it."

"So he's not dead?"

Steve's thinking that might be up for debate.

—

The cabin is a shit show. When Connor bragged about fixing it up, you'd stupidly believed he actually fixed it up. His delusion stretches beyond you. It's cold to the point where your worries of hypothermia are no longer worries but eventualities, especially now he's realised the same thing and taken his coat back off of you. It hadn't fit well anyhow.

You huddle in the corner of the room where a small wood fire burns in the stove, not too shameful to hold your numb fingers over the flame. Connor rages behind you, grumbling hate to himself and slamming whatever it is he can find against other things. Door to the frame, chair to the wall, his bag kicked across the room. You know that, eventually, his anger will turn to you. Projection of anger has rules. The wall won't look nearly as satisfying as a bruise.

You turn to look at him over your shoulder as demurely as you can. You've smoothed down your hair, wiped your dirty face, and while you're no angel, he chose you, right? You must at least be his type.

Or maybe you'd been an easy target.

You wish you'd listened to Mallory all those weeks ago when she'd told you that having only Steve was a terrible idea. Not because having Steve is terrible, having Steve is everything, but because you can't imagine many people who'd be willing to fight for you. If he's coming to find you it's likely all by himself. Can Steve overpower this guy? You'd thought you could but you're not so sure. He's a tall man, an easy six foot.

He's scaring you.

You would try to calm him down if you weren’t worried he’d want you to show you how grateful you are for being rescued. You’d rather he rail at the window than touch you.

A sound like splintering wood has you flinching forward and away from him, hands dangerously close to the fire. You pull them away with a gasp, reminding Connor of your presence.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing,” you say hurriedly. “You should come and sit down, huh? You’ve been walking all day.”

He sits down beside you after a pensive, dramatic minute rubbing his own head. He drops his bag by your feet and you take whatever warmth you can, hiding your shoes underneath it.

When he puts his hand on your thigh, you try to pretend it’s Steve. Steve sitting next to you, warm and soft and ready to pull you into his lap, that place between his legs, chest to chest and eye to eye. You want his hand in your hair, and his hot back under your frostbitten fingers.even when you were new, not quite in love, he’d let you hide your hands under his t-shirt. He’s that kind of good, right down to the marrow in his bones.

You wish you’d known what was going to happen. Not even to ask him to come with you. You think after everything the two of you deserve a proper goodbye. All that pain and all that affection and this is how it ends?

Connor’s hand creeps further down the length of your leg. You think, alright. Alright. I’ll do whatever I have to do if I get to see Steve again.

A sound like cracking wood echoes outside.

Connor is up and against the wall in two blinks. You follow him, breathing shallow as you peer outside. You’d agreed to the wood fire, knowing you’d get irretrievably sick without it, but you hadn’t mentioned the rule. You and Steve didn’t have too many, just enough to keep you alive, and the most important was to know the area before lighting a fire while it’s still light out. The smoke is a dead giveaway every time.

Another sound.

Someone has seen the smoke.

“What do we do?” you whisper.

He holds up his hand.

“What are we gonna do?”

“Let me think.”

“Should we put out the fire?”

“Shut up!” he says harshly. “Shut up, Jesus Christ. I can’t think with you jabbering in my ear.”

Connor opens his backpack and takes out a zip tie.

“No,” you say, shaking your head emphatically, “no, you can’t.”

“It’s this or I handcuff you to the radiator,” he says.

A silence stretches between you both. He grabs your wrists and closes the zip tie around your wrist until you’re sure your hands will fall off, plastic digging cruelly into the lines already there.

“You’re evil,” you murmur.

His eyes turn to frosted glass. For the second time, you think, There’s nothing there. Nothing kind. Obviously not: he’s such a loser he felt he had to take a girl captive to get some. Fucking freak.

He takes your face into his hand, squeezing your jaw in his paw of a hand. You whimper, your teeth grinding and your bones creaking from the force of it.

“Stay quiet.”

You stare.

“Say ‘yes’.”

His fingers dig into your skin so hard you know you’ll have fingernail welts.

“Yes,” you say, feeling as though you’ve choked on your own tongue. “I’ll be quiet.”

He throws your face away and your head smacks the wall. No more happy families. You cringe and slide down into yourself, a curled ball as he leaves the room. The gun clicks in his hands as he switches off the safety, and another metallic sound follows. You know it isn’t good.

You cower for a moment, freaked out beyond words, and then you pull it together. For Steve. You sit up and press an awkward hand to your aching, stinging jaw. There’s blood on your fingers when you pull your bound hands away. You slide onto your knees and struggle to stand, shoulders riding the wall. Your ears are posted for a sound. There are a hundred options and you don’t want any of them. Run away, get killed by whoever’s out there. Run away, get killed by Connor. Run away, get killed by a geek. Run away, survive, and never find a way to unbind yourself. Run away into the hands of someone crueller. Run away and never find Steve.

A female voice calls out.

“We just want to talk!”

That’s nobody you know. It’s not Robin. You try not to feel heartbroken, and when you do you try to hold it rather than have it drag you down. It’s not Steve, fine, but it’s a woman, and she’s probably a whole lot safer than Connor.

“I’m armed!” Connor shouts.

You walk slowly to the window and peer through. Down the cabin steps and in the grass stands a dark silhouette you know is Connor. Further along is a woman and another figure. You’re not sure who.

“So are we!” she calls.

“Fuck,” you whisper, tears pricking the corners of your eyes. What are you supposed to do? What’s the answer here?

The shouting out front continues, but that’s not what distracts you— there are sounds coming from behind. There’s someone at the back door. You cast your gaze around the room to look for something that can help you. There’s a fire poker on the floor near the wood stove. You rush to grab it, almost falling at the weight of your own head.

The first pop of the gun makes you drop it. Tears roll down your cheeks as you scramble to grab it again, hands shaking hard as footsteps sound in the hall. Another gunshot makes you gasp, the third has you swallowing a sob. You press yourself hard into the wall with the poker held aloft.

The door opens.

For a second, a split-second, you don’t recognise him.

“Steve!” Jonathan Byers shouts, grinning, “I got her!”

Thudding races from the kitchen and down the hallway. Steve appears behind Jonathan like a dream, a dizzying relief to see in all his pale sweetness.

You drop the poker and a sob comes so hard you can’t keep your eyes open. You’ve never felt anything like this. A nightmare over so suddenly and all you can do is fight to open your eyes.

Steve crosses the room, steps over Connor’s tantrum like it isn’t there, and wraps his arms around you. It’s a different kind of tightness, nothing like the cruel press of Connor’s fingers. Steve pulls you together, steadies you, cheek smashed into the top of your head and arms circling your shoulders. Your fingers shake, you can’t move your hands, and still you curl them around his coat uselessly. You can’t get a hold on him, but it doesn’t matter. Steve has you.

“It’s okay,” he’s saying, strands of panic sewn between the reassurance in his lovely voice. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Come on.” You’re crying like a little kid. You can’t stop, and you can’t breathe. “Hey, hey, it’s okay.”

Steve draws away from you, barely an inch, to slide the blade of his pen knife between your wrists. The zip tie splits and you vy for him weakly, your hands to his waist.

He shoves the pen knife into his pocket and grabs your arm. “I know, I know, but we have to go. We can’t stay here, the noise’ll draw company we don't want.” His hand roams up to your neck. He cups your face, his palm blistering to your chilled cheek. “Hey,” he says, smiling a rare smile. “My girl… it’ll be okay. I’m gonna fix it. Everything’s gonna be okay, I promise.”

He nods at you hopefully. You swallow your sobbing until it’s a wet gasping sounds and nod back. He looks at you for a charged second, before he wraps his arms around you again. Gentle, so, so careful. Your head rests in the crook of his arm, a crop of kisses laid over your cold cheek.

“You’re freezing,” he murmurs.

“I’m okay,” you say. “I’m fine now.”

—

Steve sits in the path of the window, afternoon light drizzling into his eyes and over your sleeping face. He squints against its brightness and stands to pull the curtains closed, fingertips on your shoulder. He has to stretch to reach, but he refuses to stop touching you. He’s worried you’ll disappear if he does. Contact keeps you here.

Curtains closed, he sits back down tentatively, looking for your hand in the mess of blankets and quilts covering your body. He’s wiped the blood from your cheeks, tended to your small inflamed cuts with disinfectant. He’s wrapped your sore wrists, spent hours rubbing your frostbitten fingers, worried the cold killed your circulation. You’ve slept for hours now, only stirring when he had to use the bathroom. He’d been gone for less than a minute, a heart attack in sixty seconds, and you’d been awake and trying to get out of bed when he got back.

He stays close.

He just wants you to rest.

Steve pulls back the blankets and slips in beside you slowly. You turn into his movements, and when he’s flat on his back you let your weight rest on him completely. Your breathing tells him you’re waking up, not quite slow, not quite deep.

He takes your hand into both of his and hugs it. Found it, he thinks.

“Stevie,” you utter.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

You smile and push your face into the juncture of his neck.

There aren’t really words for what Steve feels. Relief like a hurricane. Guilt something worse. Love, anger, worry. It’s all mixed together and he can’t pull one from the other, but he knows one thing.

“I couldn’t live without you,” he mumbles.

“Good,” you say. You snort into his skin. “Not good, baby, that’s awful, but-” You pull your hand from his to wrap it around his shoulders. He pulls you up onto his chest. “Good, ‘cause I can’t live without you.”

“You don’t have to.”

Your voice is scratchy from a lot of tears. He never wants to hear you cry like that again. He’s only heard it once before, when you’d fallen through the first floor of a dilapidated house a hundred miles away, and after hours where he’d assumed you’d never wake up again, you did, and you’d been in so much pain you couldn’t stay still. You’d shook for days.

“I would’ve looked for you until I found you,” he says, unsure what he wants. He thinks, selfishly, that he’d like some comfort.

“I know,” you say, your hand moving up, up to his hair.

You lean back to see him, the two of you nose to nose, and stroke his hair away from his forehead one strand at a time.

“Will you kiss me?” you whisper.

“Depends,” he whispers back. “What’s in it for me?”

“Anything you want.”

He smirks at you. “Already got everything I want right here.”

“In that case, you’ll have to consider it part of your philanthropy, handsome. I’m a charity case.”

“How dare you say that about my girl,” he says, his feigned indignation hard to believe with the mildness of his tone, and his lips so close to yours.

He kisses you, worried you’ll fall apart. It’s a sad kiss, not what he’d expected, though it’s better than the terrified one he’d stolen before you fell asleep. That had been nervous energy and imprecise, all the urgency of your first kiss and none of the finesse.

“Are you okay?” you ask, peeling away from his case to frame his face in your hands.

He could say no. Tears burn behind his eyes, his nose stings, he could burst into tears in your arms.

“How can you ask me that?” he asks, watching as your eyes pinch into a squint and all your eyelashes kiss.

“I love you,” you say.

He chokes on air. “I know that. I love you, too, but you’re the one who got hurt. You’re the one who’s hurting, why would you ask me how I am? You’re—“ Too good. Too good for me. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Steve.”

You have tears in your eyes and he’s flooded with guilt. He brought it up too soon, he knows. It’s barely over — you need to feel safe, and won’t if he keeps reminding you.

“I’m okay,” he says softly. “How are you feeling, huh?”

“I’m actually starving,” you admit, squishing his cheeks with your hands.

“You want me to go get you something?”

You look down bashfully. “I really need to shower, Steve. You might be blind to my grime but I’m gross right now–”

He kisses you to cut you off, a sharp, saccharine kiss that makes you giggle. “That’s my girlfriend you’re talking about, idiot.”

“Your girlfriend is a creature.”

“A creature!” He uses his weight to push you onto your back, pressing his forehead to yours. “You’re done. You’re done,” he repeats, beaming at your infectious laughter, “you think you can talk about yourself whatever way you like, don’t you? It’s not happening.”

“Okay, I won’t,” you say, your eyes locking with his.

He watches your lips part, feels the rise and fall of your chest under his.

I’m so sorry, he wants to tell you.

You’re finally smiling. He won’t ruin it.

“Thank you,” he says, pulling his lips into a big smile.

It’s easier than he anticipates to smile. You needle your arms over his shoulders and tug him to your chest, your own smile like a brand next to his ear.

“I missed you,” you say. “I know it’s stupid.”

He exhales heavily. “I missed you too.”

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