#Fic Shelf

[emuanon34]

[almostfoxglove]

AN END TO DROUGHT

written for @perotovar's offering of Frith

RATING: Explicit (18+) | PAIRING: Javier Peña x f!Reader GOD: Freyr God of fertility, harvests, and peace WORD COUNT: 5.4k CW: Smut (f!oral, m!oral, unprotected piv, creampie).

SUMMARY: The future of your family's homestead hangs in the balance as Javier Peña comes home in the middle of a drought.

read on ao3 | almostfoxglove masterlist

For two fortnights you’ve seen no rainfall. Not a single, silver drop. The orchard, rich with the stunted globes of pale apples not yet fully formed, withers browner every day. Leaves crisp and folded in prayer, the last-ditch desperation of dying fronds. You spend hours hauling well water to the rows of cropland on which your livelihood relies, but it isn’t enough. Each morning you wake to the sun rising phoenix-like on the horizon, hotter and more accusing than the day before.

You speak to the trees, the fledgling stone fruit, apologizing when there is no more water your body can carry, when the well runs dry. 

Six generations your family has raised apples like they raised their kin. 

Now it will die in this drought with you as its shepherd.

Hopeless in your waking, back throbbing, shoulders sore, you rise from your bed at the crack of a new dawn to the fragrance coaxed every Sunday by your mother’s slender hands. She is fragile now in that child-like way, skin thin and veins sapphire blue, hearing going, but sturdy, still, for you. Doesn’t matter that you’ve been grown for decades now, solely responsible for the farm and her mounting care—your mother bakes a pair of her grain-kissed boules every week without fail.

“There you are,” she says, when you are just two steps away. These days she cannot hear your footsteps on the stairs.

“Sit, now,” you say softly, slipping your hand over hers to take the bread knife, and with a soft tsk your mother surrenders before settling at the breakfast table.

You break bread together: salted butter swept glistening over the delicate crumb and sturdy crust, spoons of preserves canned the year before. Cinnamon and cloves, honey and stewed apples, wild pickled blueberries. It takes so long to notice the change in the air, but when you do it’s obvious—you aren’t sweating in the way you have for weeks. The house, once sweltering, has cooled ever so slightly. When you gaze out the windows into the orchard, the sky is no longer the blue you’ve come to resent, but a wash of cotton batting. 

Clouds. 

Your mother, thin wire glasses low on her nose, grins at your expression. 

“He’s home,” she says.

“Who?”

Her smirk is the same as you remember it being when you were a girl. “The Peña boy,” she says, lifting her bread slice to her mouth. “Weather always fixes itself when he comes ‘round.”

You hum beneath your breath. You can picture him only vaguely—lean and liquid, little more than a silhouette in the distance on the other side of the fence that cages your family’s property from his. His father you know better, see often. Spiced apple cider traded for horse manure or Chucho’s brawn. Twice this past winter he fixed your fence after a furious storm and asked for nothing but a loaf of your mother’s bread in return.

Javier you’ve not glimpsed in a decade give or take, if you’re remembering right. Moved somewhere south for duty’s dauntless call.

In the lullaby of easy silence, you finish your meal, rinse the dishes, and walk out into the fields with the second loaf in hand where overhead the sky is performing a miracle befitting the gods: letting out the first tender, forgiving drops of rain. Your body brightens as you watch it freckle and darken the starving, yellowed earth. 

A caw, something of a laugh, shocks loose from your chest—delight, pure in its relief.

Tracing the aisles of death-bed apple trees, you sweep your fingertips along their trunks. Water pools in the green spades turned to spoons for liquid crystal. The precipitation for which you’ve longed and begged and prayed: here, at last, to save the grange.

The rain picks up. Forceful in its abundance, peppering the sandy earth. Soon your boots stick as you walk between trees, dirt becoming mud, so you shield the boule beneath the leaf of your buttoned shirt.

At the end of the orchard, the log fence stands and the grass grows tall and clover-riddled, purple thistles starved yellow in the heat. You stride towards the fence, far beyond which the Peña house stands white and shingled, framed by the umbrellas of old oak trees that border the meadows in which their herd of equines laze back and forth, grateful as you for the merciful change in weather. It is beautiful here, though it’s easy to forget when all the season brings is wilting. 

You hear him before you see him: a quiet, clicking tongue. 

Then a mare picks up her cantor, spurred forth by Javier—indeed returned, wide in the shoulders and dark hair slicked by rain, out forty feet or so—tanned skin made gold around his eyes by yellow aviators, periwinkle shirt undone a button too low. More handsome than you remember, but it’s been a long time. 

Your mother was right: it seems he brought the rain home with him.

As you come to a stop near the fence, tall grass clinging to your calves, his head turns slowly in your direction. Jaw working over something—gum, if you had to guess. You lift your free hand, show him your open palm, and he takes a last look at the horse before sauntering your way.

Like you, he’s undisturbed by the rain. No shelter-seekers here; you’re grateful enough to bathe in any storm. Come hell or high water—isn’t that how the saying goes? You’d swim any flash flood after all this unending dearth, drink any tidal wave.

“Heard you were home,” you call out over the pebbling downpour, watching his broad hand rake through his hair. 

Much more handsome than you remember, the nearer he strides. Unhurried, Javier lifts his sunglasses off to slip into his shirt pocket and even from some way off you don’t miss the path of his brown eyes as he takes you in. Against your better judgment, the hungry stripe of his gaze flips something low in your stomach, something needy. 

He stops just shy of his side of the fence, no more than an arm’s length away, as the splatter of kind weather kicks up the earth’s perfume. 

“This morning,” he admits, his voice all gravel and mead. Low and heady, a little sweet. Not shy—his eyes drop again, this time to your stomach where you’re holding the bread beneath your shirt. Sort of useless now—the rain’s too strong to save it—so you draw it out, flashing him by accident a glimpse of your bare stomach where his gaze stays pinned. 

Then, bread rising in your hand, seeded crust glistening as it speckles wet, his eyes at last leave you to follow it. “Ma thinks you brought the rain,” you say, not bothering to hide your smirk.

The corner of his mouth pulls into his cheek. “That so?”

You shrug, loaf held like a waitress’ tray not yet offered. “Accordin’ to her.”

To your surprise you see in his eyes what appears to be timidity—perhaps bashful to be given credit for the sudden end to the wrecking drought he’s no doubt heard about. With a sweep of your arm, you present the bread in your outstretched hand and one dark brow rises high on his head. 

“Before it’s drenched,” you insist, and Javier takes it, smile lopsided and pretty. 

Above the chuffing sound of a horse grazing on the trampled grass, the sky splits like a seam and sunlight cuts through the cloud’s white cover, throwing down a ribbon of yellow that licks the stables. 

Javier tilts the bread in his hands, inspecting the ear, the crust. Flashes those dark eyes back at you, exacting and tender at the same time.

“Our way of saying thanks,” you say, already stepping backward, toward the apple trees. “Neighbor.”

The rain doesn’t stop for three days—just long enough to wash the ash of long-snuffed forest fires from the orchard’s leaves. When the sun returns whole and yolk-gold to the sky, it brings heat of a kinder type. Warm for the growing things but barbless in its licking flame. You swear in just three nights the orchard lifts itself from its stupor—broadens, stretches, unfurls new leaves. 

Your mother bakes like she’s got an army to feed and doesn’t wait till Sunday to do it. 

“Take them, take them,” she insists, as fragile in stature as she is adamant in tone. Such a small, hunched little thing. “Least we can do.”

“Ma,” you sigh, powerless to her persistence, how she rests the arched handle of a basket in your hand for you to take. “You don’t seriously think he—”

She tuts softly, shoos you with one pallid hand before re-knotting the bow of her apron behind her back. “Just be grateful,” she says. “S’only right.”

Might as well be a girl again because here you are, obedient. Carrying the basket of seeded bread across the grass, between reborn apple trees, the fragrant orchard rows that days ago seemed doomed to die. Your heart thuds, surrendering itself to gratitude. Suppose it doesn’t hurt anything to take the Peñas bread.

Javier’s out in the pasture cleaving a rotten log from a sunken fence panel with an axe. White t-shirt translucent and clinging to the muscle that banks his back, he heaves the blade down with a biting crack and a grunt. Your footsteps give you away—he straightens as you hop the fence between your properties and land on his side, halting his rhythmic swinging.

As he turns, face halved by the shadow of an oak looming overhead, eyes squinting to make you out in the light, Javier cocks an eyebrow, dimple winking in his cheek.

“Neighbor,” he says, unabashed, now, in his lingering gaze. Dark curls cling to his temples and forehead, licked by sweat, across which he wipes the back of his forearm before setting the axe down against the fence.

Growing up on adjoining farms never sowed friendship between you—you’d estimate you’ve exchanged no more than a couple hundred words in damn near four decades—but there is in Javier a certain familiarity. A sense of him fitting into the landscape, reliable as an oak always looming in the distance. As constant as these valleys and hills, as the house beyond his muscled shoulder. Never something to acquaint yourself with, but something to rely upon.

Peculiar to stand before him now—twice in the same week—exchanging words.

You hold out the basket, linen cloth folded neatly over the boules. Javier, eyeing you suspiciously, takes one cautious step toward you with his hands on his narrow hips, peering down at your offering. His eyes flicker beyond you to your house and though you don’t look back you’d bet the whole season’s harvest that your mother is standing on the porch, watching. Guaranteeing you hand off the gift as she’s asked, like you aren’t well past grown.

Amused, he hums low and quiet. “For me?” he muses, knowing the answer, and when you roll your eyes he only smirks. Pleased, maybe teasing you.

You squint at him—glistening, all sinew and bated breath. Your mother’s mind may be failing in that drawn out, terrible way—hearing fading, her logic a little swimmy—but standing this close to Javier you can’t blame the woman for mistaking him for a god. 

“Just take it,” you say, betrayed by the curl of your lips. “She won’t let me back in the house ‘till you do.”

This time as he slips the gift from your hand to his, Javier sweeps his fingertips against your open palm, sending a sparkle of heat up the length of your arm. You watch him peel the frond of cloth back, unveiling the golden tithe as you drop your arm at your side. When he inhales slow and deep you can smell it too, that redolent unfurling of warmth. Hypnotic, despite its familiarity. Hypnotic, too, is the breadth of his chest as he takes that long, indulgent breath, thin fabric slick to his damp, lithe form. 

“She really think I brought the rain?” he asks, frowning a little. Watching you like he knows you’re watching him. Each of you sizing the other up, scrambling to build opinions of someone who’s only ever been a figure across the lush trees and grass. 

Did you once lose a kite to one of their oak trees? You think you might remember a young, rawboned Javier climbing a web of gnarled branches to fish it free, delivering it safely to where you waited on your side of the fence. Yes, you can see it now—that lazy, one-sided smile on his boyish face, the sun-bleached kite, and the relief of its homecoming to your trembling hand. 

Three decades older he is no less honest in the way he awaits your reaction.

“Or she’s messing with me,” you admit. “I never know anymore.”

His scoff triggers yours—a brief, quiet chuckle in the remains of a salvaged summer. Javier shrugs and yes, you think he catches the way your eyes skirt briefly to his shoulders because his jaw ticks, cheeks hollowing as he sucks his tongue against his front teeth. He turns his head in the direction of their house, sees no sign of Chucho, same as you. A low hm sound rattles from his chest.

You’d swear the sun flares a little hotter when he returns his gaze to you.

“If it rains again,” Javier says, his voice swooping to a deeper shade. “What will you bring me?”

You cross your arms. “I think you can count on the bread indefinitely.”

“Don’t mean her—I mean you.”

Traitorous, your heart: how it speeds, skips a note or two in its once steady pattern. “I don’t think you brought the rain,” you tell him. “Just timing.”

When he narrows his eyes, his crow’s feet swallow them. Mustache quirking, pink tongue darting over his bottom lip. “Call it hypothetical,” he says, and you’re not sure if you were standing quite this close just a moment before, if one of you has moved and if so, which. 

Hunger rarely devours you in any of its forms. A life spent in service of harvests leaves little excess to spend. Yet it stirs unmistakably, low and begging, at the sound of Javier’s gruff voice and the graceful way he pins your eyes to his mouth with every tiny movement of his lips. He doesn’t have to smile for you to feel him smirking—a fact alone that feels somehow mythic in its dominion, its quiet, unassuming power. All of him marble-sleek and solid, the image of virile beauty. It almost feels like a shame to think you’ve seldom stood this close before.

You jut your chin to the sky—that blue untouched by a single cloud—and shake your head. “It’s not going to rain,” you say, steadfast in your certainty. “Not anytime soon.”

“And if it does.” He doesn’t say it like a question—rather, an inevitability—which is to say you hear his real meaning: and when it does.

Head shaking, cheeks set aflame, you once more roll your eyes, this time turning back to return to your side of the fence. Over your shoulder you call out, “If it rains this week, I’ll bring whatever you like.”

For six days there’s nothing but sun. You watch the apples blush on their branches, those first pinkish stripes that promise a red and sugared fruit. Autumn will bring spices and cider, days and weeks and months of fermentation, of watching fruit turn liquid and then to gold. This stretch of summer is make or break for the harvest to come: the right weather now can mean perfection or a crying shame.

All week you watch Javier at such a distance he appears as only a tiny, charcoal figure roaming the fields, hauling lumber and picking up the far-off slack.

Yet often when you do, you think his head looks to be already angled in your direction. Impossible to know for sure in the blazing light and with so much land between you, but you’d take that bet. You’re pretty sure he’s watching you too.

You’re sure, also, that you’re right about the weather. At the dawn of the seventh day the skies look no less blemished than they have all week. Doesn’t look at all like it’s going to rain.  To your surprise, you’re a little disappointed, but the feeling passes.

You push out into the orchards, tend to the lifelong task of keeping everything verdant and alive. Sweet is the air at this early, fragile hour in which the birds are just now waking, filling the world with their jubilee. Sky pink at the horizon, white overhead, you spend the morning gloating to no one but the trees—you were right, and Javier was wrong. He’s going to lose.

Lose what, you aren’t sure, but when midday breaks golden and ripe, Javier appears in the tall grass, hand steadied on the neck of a tobiano as he and the creature walk between gated pastures, and his face turns in your direction, catches you drinking icy cider on the porch while you catch your breath between tasks. 

This time when he catches your gaze, he lifts his free hand, forefinger spearing up at the sky. Too far to call out to each other, you have no way of asking what the gesture is for, so you step down from the croaking porch into the crabgrass and look up.

There hang, above you, newborn wisps. Clouds ashy at their bellies.

But clouds are just clouds. They aren’t rain.

The reckoning comes an hour later. 

You dismiss the first, shy drop. A fluke, a fleeting blip of your imagination. Then the second: clear and wet on your forearm. Then a third. Soon it’s unavoidable—above you gray has gathered like dust bunnies beneath a couch, the bright summer shaded by the weather’s impossible will—and the rain that falls is not a patter, not a whisper, but a stony fist fight. The kind of rain that comes sweeping and determined, that has something to prove. 

It’s like autumn has taken the stage two months too early. Childlike in its eagerness to command your attention—a downpour harsh and giving. 

You emerge at the end of an arbored aisle to see Javier cut stoic against the shaded sky just shy of the boundary between your properties, chest wide and proud, just as drenched by the onslaught of rain but not fazed in the slightest. Too cavalier to smile but its essence hangs in the air between you, silver as any raindrop, unmistakable in meaning. He nods in the direction of a stable not far from the first shelter of elder oaks and without a word or invitation lopes off toward it, so fluid in his lazy strides, legs a little bowed and no small bit solid, hugged tight by denim that might as well be painted on.

You are following before your mind can think to.

You are hopping the fence.

You are dashing for the shadowed stable after him.

Breathless, hair kelped to your cheeks, clothes more water than textile, you cannot at first make out the stable’s interior, eyes not yet adjusted to the shift in light, ears booming with its cacophony. “Okay,” you say to the darkness in which Javier must be standing, blinking fast, wiping the rain from your eyes. “You got really fuckin’ lucky. What do you want?”

Embers warm in your chest—the first fronds of new wanting. You know what you hope he’ll say.

A flash of movement as your eyes adapt: Javier’s tanned arms reaching for you. His broad hands frame your face and you are not yet surefooted as he, swept up in his sudden, steady embrace. You hear yourself laugh over the barrage outside, silenced only by the blackness in his eyes—all that warmth and brown swallowed by his pupils. Your hands cuff his wrists, holding him to holding you without hesitation. 

It should be awkward, this first real meeting of your bodies. How Javier steps up to press the length of his torso to yours, sly in the subtle turn of his lips as he breathes one quiet word: You. But it isn’t. He slots his lips to yours like kissing you is just another step in his languid stride, graceful and planned, his arms dragging you against his steady frame. The softness of his mouth a welcome surprise. Dizzy on the first swipe of his begging tongue, you’re entirely unaware of Javier walking you backward until your shoulder blades hit the stable wall.

What a gift it is to be kissed and kiss with one’s whole body. Javier licks hotly into your mouth, sucking sweetly on your tongue or bottom lip depending on his whim, hands holding you flush to the fire of him. When he moves to your jaw, the soft flesh of your ear, you are a candle never before lit, touched a thousand times wrongly and made finally right.

Javier mumbles something lost under the bellowing tempest. Every raindrop riots on the sheeted roof. 

“What?” you pant, eyelids heavy with lust. Your shirt hangs open, as does his, both unbuttoned though you’d not noticed their undoing. Now visible in the gray light is the bronze of his freckled chest, the dark hair drawn from his navel to the waistband of his jeans.

You’d stare, but Javier then laps at the hollows of your neck, drinks rain from the dip in your collarbone, and you hum softly, entranced by his touch, eyes fluttering closed. He moves his lips closer to your ear. “Perfect,” he repeats, before his mouth is lost once more to the curve of your shoulder, the slope of your chest.

Meanwhile the path of your hands draws a symphony from him: low grunts and breathy huffs and, when your fingertips trace the hair on his stomach to graze his jeans, an earthy moan sweeter than any rainfall after any summer. 

Javier cants his hips against yours like he’s making a promise.

How sublime, the wet ask of his tongue down your stomach as he falls to his knees. 

Though he—after catching your eye, fingers frozen over the fly of your shorts until you nod—is the one to strip the layers from you first, you aren’t certain which of you is the one who’s praying, only that the reverence hangs heavy as a heatwave in the humid air.

Your head falls back against the stable wall. All but the roar of the storm is lost beyond your panting bodies as Javier kneels at the altar of you, shelves one of your legs on his shoulders, and laps hungrily from your aching heat. The pledge of his mouth sucks the air from you—your hands fly to the laurel of his hair, bathed locks slipping between your fingers as you clench and throb and tug, hardly conscious of the whimpers you let out in the wake of his tending.

Dutiful, he brings you gasping to the brink of some new chasm. Tongue expert in its tracing, circling, slipping, driving. Lifts his face to smirk just before you fall, dark stache glossy with your need and eyes blown black, and perhaps you’d be annoyed if Javier looked arrogant at all, but his confidence appears to you only assured. Resolute in his wanting. As if the world would have to come to a sudden, gasping end for his concentration to falter at all.

“Like that?” Javier asks, perhaps as winded as you. Genuine, you think, in his asking, though he must know.

You’re not sure if you remember how to nod or speak, but your hips buck on their own accord, desperate for him to see this through. 

“Yeah,” he rasps, his thick fingers squeezing your hips. “Think you do.”

Then his grin vanishes as he resumes and all at once you are tumbling, swept away in a landslide and earthquake at the same time as he slips two fingers into you, coaxing a rush of pleasure into his mouth. You might cry out his name, but the sound is lost to the din of the deluge.

When next you catch your breath, Javier is standing, denim wet and straining against the swell of his length. Hesitation is no longer a word you know or hold, already greedy for his taste, so you urge your mouth to his and lap the taste of yourself from his tongue, fingers busy with freeing him, the slick peeling of his jeans. You fall without realizing you’re falling, sunken to the ground with Javier’s cock heavy and throbbing in your hand. 

He might whine when your tongue flickers sweetly against his weeping head—but there’s no mistaking the desperate groan dug loose from the earth of Javier’s chest as you bring the whole of him into the furnace of your mouth, wet and tight and willing. Your moan sends a shiver through his body, then Javier’s hand shoots out fast as a gunshot, palm slamming into the wall to keep himself from toppling. 

“Shit—” he gasps, and you look up at him through dewy lashes to find his eyes have closed, lips swollen and jaw hanging open. 

Again, you hum. Make a game of the stroke and slide and swallowing that makes him quiver until it’s too good, too good, too close baby and he pulls you off him, drool slugging down your chin. His cock aching, surely, when you nuzzle your cheek against it, tempted to take it in your throat again. But you smile as he plummets to meet you on the ground, then swoon when he lays you out on the topsoil not yet drenched by the rain. 

“Wanna feel you first,” Javier murmurs, petting the hair back from your face, lapping the spit from your chin with his tongue before he unites it with yours. Lips plush, more tender than you expect amidst his fervor, the kind of kissing you can’t help but lose yourself to. You think you’d kiss him the rest of the day, through any night. Brows pinching when he pulls away, cupping the blaze of your burning cheeks with the palm of his hand, thumb swept across your upper lip as he gazes down at you with adoration.

“Need to fill you,” he groans. “Don’t I, hm? Dime, baby.”

Thighs spread to make room for him in the bowl of your hips, you pull him over you by the shoulders until he blankets you, covering all but a sliver of the rain-rich sky visible through the stable’s entrance, and the oak tree’s canopy lashing in the fevered gale.

Is his shirt below you now, somehow? You think it must be—spread carefully to protect your needy flesh.

“Yes,” you breathe, as Javier kneels between your legs, fisting the base of his cock. “Yes, yes.”

A grin, but not of ego—he is only pleased. Pious in his watching the way breath shudders in your chest. Javier nods, brow dented low and serious, curls black with water and plastered to his face, and pumps himself once, then takes your ankles in his hands. Sets them flat on the ground, bending both your knees to frame him. Hands butterflied and wide, tracing the slant of your thighs to the bend of your hips like all of a sudden he has all the time in the world. 

Maybe you do. It almost feels like you do. 

Like this might not be a spell that breaks with the end of the rain.

“I’ve got you,” he says.

“I know,” you breathe.

With both hands Javier lifts your hips from the ground and pulls you toward him until your core presses against the underside of his cock. He hmphs, transfixed by this silken meeting, and thrusts his hips once, gently, rubbing himself between your folds. You whimper at the friction, cunt fluttering, begging. 

Javier clicks his tongue as you claw at his forearms, hips pitching in his hold to ask for more, and this time there is perhaps a drop of pride in his cunning gaze. Glad to be the one you stir for, the one you choose.

“Needs me, hm?” he coos.

You paint the air between you with his name.

“I know,” he murmurs, guiding himself to you now, nudging his tip against your clit once, twice, then notching.

Then rhapsody. The urging in and dragging out, the sweet perfection of Javier inside you, taking space that now seems like it was made for him from the start. “Fuck,” you hear yourself say, more breath than voice, and Javier grits his teeth as he feeds his cock to you slowly, throbbing and whole.

“So soft,” he grunts, resolve slipping—his hips snap against yours on the next thrust and you yelp from the bliss of it. Teeth bared above you, Javier yanks you flush against his slender hips, buried to the hilt as he tries to catch his breath. “Shit, baby.”

Thighs clamping around his waist, you writhe, plant your palms on his sternum, desperate for more. 

“Javi,” you plea, and in a flash Javier spreads his hands over your hamstrings, pins your thighs to your stomach, and bends over you, fucking you into the ground.

Your teeth bump when he moves to kiss you, then he tilts his head and it’s all saccharine again: his tongue lapping sweetly into your mouth, mustache scraping against your cupid’s bow. Like this, the angle is exquisite. So deep it’s like he’s everywhere, stretching you out and stringing you taut and Javier must feel it too because he starts to grind, the thatch of dark hair at the base of his stomach rubbing against your clit as he grazes his teeth along the underside of your jaw.

“That’s it,” he mumbles. “Damelo, baby, quiero sentirte.”

You shatter, or bloom, you can’t totally decide. Exaltation in a single moment, your whole body electric in its trembling, clenching, gasping. Javier falters only when your body comes down from its high, emboldened to move again. Folded as you are, you can only whine and moan and sparkle as he once more takes up a rhythm. Smooth and hot as cider on a cold night, his cock glistening with your need as he pulls out and presses in, patient again.

“Perfect,” he prays.

It’s possible that this is heaven.

You don’t know when it stopped, but the skies have quieted. A lick of sunlight casts into the stables and falls over the expanse of Javier’s back and shoulders as he rocks into you again and again and again. Hand weaving into the curls at the nape of his neck, you hold him to you as his pace begins to stutter.

Javier licks the column of your throat, purring against your neck, “Lo quieres, baby? Hm?”

“Yes,” you tell him, one arm winding around his shoulders. “Deep.”

He kisses you once, then pulls back just enough to watch your face, his own lust-tense and sneering as his high builds and climbs. You swipe your thumb across his bottom lip, tell him to let go, and he is beautiful—lit copper and gold by summer’s warmth as he drops his forehead to yours.

Perfect in his promise, Javier offers all to you, fills you wholly, his body tense and then unraveling. His weight drops onto you properly as he paints your cunt with his seed. When you grunt he lifts just enough to free your legs without leaving your heat, and you lock your ankles over the small of his back.

Javier nuzzles his nose to yours.

You aren’t sure how long you stay like that, but when you’re standing again, his hands guides your weakened legs back into your shorts. You button each other’s shirts instead of your own. 

Outside the stables, the earth sings petrichor, grateful for the fleeting flood. Across the fence beyond the tall grass your orchard sparkles, glittered with rain as you stand beneath the oak tree gazing out in gratitude. Javier’s hand ghosts over your spine and you feel a rash of goosebumps break out as if he’s once more touched your skin. 

His breath is warm against your hair, the apple of your cheek. “Don’t wait for rain next time,” he whispers, then slinks off regal and graceful as a wildcat, clicking his tongue to call out the horses to the pastures now marbled with loam.

It doesn’t rain again for weeks, but you go to him anyway, hopping the fence that cradles your homes to seek his arms.

moodboard by @perotovar & dividers by @saradika-graphics

tag list & some mutuals:

@thethirstwivesclub @la-vie-est-une-fleur29 @hediondoamor-blog @tuquoquebrute @thundermartini

@littlemisspascal @luxurychristmaspudding @tonysopranosrobe @evolnoomym @jessthebaker

@burntheedges @studioghibelli @la-eterna-enamorada29 @goodgirlwannabe @guiltyasdave

@spacelatinos4life @sweetpascal @biggetywitch @wannab-urs @pedgito

@jolapeno @pastelpinkflowerlife @ak-vintage @rav3n-pascal22 @sixhours

[illogicalvulcans]

[Fic Book Covers 11+12/?] Integrative Approaches by Nnm / @mouseonamoose

Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma

As soon as Aubrey Thyme, psychotherapist, had opened her office door and seen her new client, Anthony J. Crowley, sitting in her waiting area, she was observing and assessing him. At first glance, she paid attention to the following: --His clothing was expensive and stylish; --He wore very strange but noticeable cologne; --His relationship to the seat he occupied could only, very loosely, be described as “sitting;” --He looked angry; --He was wearing sunglasses. What Aubrey Thyme, a professional, thought, upon first seeing her new client was: you’re going to be a fun one, aren’t you?

Angel-Centered Therapy Through A Multicultural Lens

“I’d love to meet with you,” Davey said, apologetically, when he had been called up by a fellow looking to initiate therapy, “but I’m all booked up for months.” “Are you sure?” The fellow said, through a poor connection that crackled. Davey had been sure. And yet. Right there in his calendar was a blank spot, just a few days away, which he had somehow completely overlooked before. “How about that…I’ve got Wednesday at eleven, if you can make that work.” “What a miracle,” the fellow said, “that would be just the perfect time.”

[bakudekublogblog]

not to be dramatic but hori literally out did my own self indulgent wish-fulfillment fanfic with the whole “rest of our lives speech” like I knew that sounded so romantic, and it is, because I literally wrote that line for bakudeku and I intended for it to be romantic

like hori really is just showing us bakudeku fanfic writers how it’s done

[kentocalls]

endo yamato | (poison) paradise face slapping. bad decisions. descriptions of body violence, descripton of vomiting, endo's really sweet i wanted to make him craizer i'm sorry i guess sugar is the flavor of crazy i like. thanks for inspiring & letting me indulge @bjorkshire-pudding .

part 1

you're working too late and not sleeping enough. legs move like lead, the sway in your hips still hypnotic but less balanced. normally, endo would've punched tom in the dick by now but as he's a changed man; endo settles for repeatedly stabbing tom in his mind as he punctures the bald man's tires.  

that la prairie eye cream is also shit, endo knew you liked the packaging and bought it the second you he caught you staring at it. but what use is a $1,000 cream if you're still having to pack concealer on your face? you hate that shit. and the fucking coffee table that keeps grazing your knee in the morning uncoordinated rush? well, if it finds itself in a dumpster fire, endo knows nothing about it.

after all, he's enjoying the pleasant blue sky outside a random tall glass building. it's pure coincidence this is your work office, he wasn't even thinking, had no plan in mind, legs carried him all on their own to this sandwich stop, has nothing to do with the itch to see you.

he's bored and you work, it's a terrible combination. his trust fund would take care of generations of your children but alas; you want independence and he wants you happy.

endo stops mid bite when he hears you laughing. not the polite, gotta stay employed to pay bills laugh, the full belly ugly snorting laugh. his own lips twitching into a smile because of it. the only infections he'll catch come from you.  he turns to see the blessed sun that is your face and feels his heart swell. perfect, beautiful, radiant.

you're really, really laughing. god, he hasn't seen that....he hasn't seen it since....shit your birthday?   how long ago was that?

the guy in the grey suit isn't letting up, he's relaxed and saying more, you're not able to catch your breath due to the compiled waves of laughter echoing through your body. aphrodite has no right to claim herself as the goddess of beauty when you live and breathe gold.

you don't see endo, but he watches everything. the way you tilt your head at the grey suit guy, the way your eyes have a sparkle, how you bite your lip cuz you don't want to walk away but you need to go.  he remembers that tiny shuffle you do so adoringly, endo hums. leaning back into the bench, dropping his sandwich to the ground. unbothered by all the pigeons that descend.

you like grey suit, dontcha?

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you don't realize how much space endo has taken up until he's not around.  another friend is getting married, another bachelorette party to be had, and you find. yourself actually getting ready in peace. 

not that endo ever stopped you from wearing what you want. hell he'd pick the sluttiest thing you own, roaring "my goddess needs to be seen."  

your smile falters a little. 

it's your first club outing since the break up. and you'd say you're a medium get drunk and dance kinda of gal, nothing you absolutely have to do, but sometimes its fun. to dance, see the face of want and play and fun on someone else's face. endo always looked magical in the neon hues, ugh.  you would feel safer if endo...no, no. don't go there. . 

don't think about him, not when you're pulling on the louboutin heels he bought you just because.  not when you're closing the angara diamond tennis bracelet he caught you staring at. not when you put on solitaire hoops that reminded him of your eyes.

your whole vanity is full of overpriced, luxury brands you can't pronounce because pretty things are for his pretty thing.  the way heat rushes to your face, remembering his voice sound like that, FUCK. stop THINKING about him. you're so wound up. and you're remembering what your friends tell you.

the only way to get over someone is to get under someone else right?  you do a once over in the mirror. you're sparkling, the dress, the skin, the glow, the smile. oh, you'll get someone under you all right.

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endo is glaring daggers into the old fucks in the board room, they clearly don't need their eyes or brains. don't they KNOW what you look like right now? don't that understand he must pay homage? 

he tells his lackey he expects to see the hands of fuckers who don't know not to touch what belongs to you and ultimately him.  and groans loudly.  "debra, cut this fucking meeting short. what the fuck do you need approval for?"

it's only a 45 million dollar deal to approve stem cell research across three labs in the eastern countries. the fuck do they need endo to say? duh?

⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎

you settle on a cranberry vodka, asking for more cranberry juice because that refreshing tart flavor feels good in this overheated crowd. you don't have to scout for too long, easily beckoning over the club player.

you've seen this guy with multiple girls and gals in various clubs. you're pretty sure he's been friends with benefits with the bachelorette at some point but it's not gonna stop you from getting dick tonight. 

the club player has something, maybe it's that one sharp canine that did you in, reminded you of...no, not going there, shut that door.

simmer down, trap that need. 

the club bathroom is a new place for you, it's dirty and messy and you grimace a little as you're slammed against the wobbly door, are only hearing how hot you are over and over and its fine. focus on that. ignore how this guy didn't even place a hand behind your head to prevent any harsh impact to your skull. that he didn't check in after you made that tiny noice.

this is what a quickie is right?

rushed, aggressive,  drunk fun.

come on, focus on how hot this guy is.

let his hands touch and squeeze. it's fine, you want this, need to use him, have to use him, you're drunk enough. "so fucking hot" hands on your hips. a slight tang of disappointment when they don't grip as much as endo's would have.

a bite to your shoulder,  the player barely puts any pressure into it; not like endo when he's...ah stop...endo isn't here. stop.the bathroom is empty, the night is young enough. it's you and this guy and yet you keep hoping you'll open your eyes and catch a sea of messy wavy hair and fuck.  why are your eyes hungry for a certain toothy grin and thundery eyes?

why? you aren't guilty are you?

endo won't even know, not that it matters, not like he'd do anything about this. he's respecting your 'boundaries' right, like you wanted. understanding that you're going to date other people because the two of you are 'not together' like that anymore. not exclusive. it's a quickie, it's fine. meaningless. it shouldn't matter that endo only ever smells like you.

you let out a big exhale, hands on the guys face to get him back to kissing you, he needs to do a better job at distracting you but the player pulls your wrists down and keeps them flush against the door.  it's different, when you test your strength and resist the players hold he smirks, "let me do my thing first hot mama."  

hot what?

you haven't been called that before. 

not sure if you like it.  

not sure if you wanna hear it again.  

maybe sexy mama but hot mama?  the hottest mama you know isn't even technically a mama--

"still with me hot stuff?" doesn't he know any other adjectives? you know how good you look. this dress, the hair, a total knockout -- you're ethereal, scorching, a vixen even, and the word this guy uses is hot? you roll your eyes and the guy stiffens up.

oh fuck, you hurt his feelings. but there's no apology on your lips, why the fuck is an eye roll enough to distract him from kissing you?

"you wanna do this or not?" his voice even.

"yeah, yeah i do."  he has a dick you reason, you'll feel better after being fucked, maybe, probably. he cocks an eyebrow.

"you keep pushing my hands away when i get close to touching you." he moves away, the heat gone, the tension dissipated. is he even cute? he has nice, clean, tattoo free hands, don't you want them on you?

"so you gonna be good hot thing and taste me?"

good? when you're the entire fucking package?

and what does he mean taste him?

right away too,  when he hasn't earned a reward?  all he's done is push into your space, give you a few short kisses. nothing real with need, hands too mean too eager too abrasive. nothing about his touch is for you, even the way his hips rut against your thigh, that angle? does nothing for you. 

it isn't how endo moves. endo would never take first. not from you. pushing you into seeing stars, has you shaking and grasping and floaty. endo always waits for you to beg, waits for you to claw at his skin, look up at him with wet eyes and only then let's you take what you want from him. fuck, you could keep endo on his knees the entire night and he still wouldn't expect your lips to do what this player is asking. 

what are you doing?

this guy isn't hot enough, he hasn't garnered any benefit, you want real kisses and  dirty whispers to make you forget about the smell of the bathroom stall, maybe it's the setting. fuck the light is too bright in here. maybe turning them off would help, but is this really? the guy you want under you?  "hey, hey, easy, hot thing."

oh for fucks sake, "i'm not drunk enough for this." 

"you needa be drunk to fuck?" the player pulls off of you immediately, studying your face. "listen, i'm not a therapist but ho-"

"i swear to god you call me hot thing, hot stuff, hot mama, one more--"

"okay, okay fuck, why are you so angry?" gone, all of it, just like that. you watch his ego enter the space as he puffs up his chest, a smirk on your face. the player studies your face a bit displeased, " what i was gonna say was, i'm only gonna fuck what wants to fuck me, and you don't. i'm out." 

a laugh on your lips as you saunter back to your friends, endo is taller than that asshole anyways. 

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emptying your guts into the white porcelain bowl is not how you wanted to spend your night. being rejected by the the club player had you drinking all the free shots your deep cut sparkly dress got you and now you're paying for it.

body in violent revolt against the assault of intoxication.

you're crying and puking and there are hands collecting your beautifully styled hair, keeping it tucked away and safe. a warm towel swiping at your mouth when your insides are empty. an arm around your waist hoisting you up, an up you go precious, and you're at the sink. you're made to swish mouthwash and spit, over and over until endo is satisfied you aren't going to wake up feeling gross.

he uses more clean, damp, hot towels to wipe at your body, getting the pesky body glitter off as best he can. his hands soft, warm, soothing. works lotion into your limbs, massaging the venom and spite out.

you aren't okay. and these tears? oh, someone's gonna bur for this. he'll definitely know who to return your anger and sadness to soon enough. but first, you. you wouldn't leave the club unless he came to get you right? knocked out that bouncers teeth fair and square when he put a hand to your neck. endo will get him too precious, he'll cut up the bouncers fingers in so many pieces it'll look like lentil soup when he's done. 

but you come first.  he's gotta get you clean and consoled. the smell of alcohol and sweat off your body, your hair soothed over and cared for how you like it, just how you do it at your place. needs to see you tucked into his cotton sheets, safe and sound in dreamland. he not gonna leave you like this, moody and fussy and drunk as fuck with sleep. 

"it's your fault, it's your fault."  you cry into his chest.  light punches to his chest.

irrational, that's what endo makes you feel.

"tell me," voice low and deep "tell me," hands on the side of your face, "angel. i'll undo it, i'll fix it, i'll end it. tell me." he needs to know what his fault is, needs to hear the next piece of him he'll rip out and discard.

endo would burn a thousand times over before ever seeing another tear fall from your face.

how dare he give rise to the storm brewing through your eyes?

hit him, punch him, break him. 

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you're at the mall buying apology gifts for fucking up the bachelorette party. friends understanding that endo has 'done a number' on you but really, really you've done a number on yourself. 

you barely recognize the girl in the shop window. what the fuck are you doing, trying to hook up with randos? 

you don't have to look to know he's trailing along, right behind you.  of course he is. takes your momentary introspection as desire for the gucci tacchini furniture in the window and snaps his fingers to a lackey to go in and buy the sofa in your favorite color. doesn't bring up last night nor the morning. it's annoying, it pisses you off. 

you buy things you don't need and shove all the bags into his chest. he takes them with the sweet grin and follows like a lost puppy.  

drops his card before you even reach for yours. it furthers your scorn. oh, he wants to pay? you'll make him back, waltz into every high end store and rack up an insane bills, he'll crack. he'll drop this soon enough right? that song he's humming and the way he's looking at you dreamy and soft is a lie, right?

"love it when my angel spends my money. get the purple one too, know you like that color."

you're mad, you're so fucking mad.  a blazing inferno, brighter than the sun and endo basks in the light despite the heat. 

you're buying more than you make in an entire year and all he does is bat his long eyelashes at you?

doesn't he have limits? 

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grey suit is a nice guy. a steady guy. a smart guy. he plays the game slow and steady, builds up a friendship, dotes on you in ways endo hadn't thought of but will surely steal. endo will study and learn how to do soft dating too. he'll learn all the things grey suit says to make you laugh like that too.

it's why endo isn't bothered when your apartment door opens and you stumble in, giggling with a goofy smile that's met with hushed kisses. grey suit has his hands on your low back, his eyes on your face. oh, endo thinks this one might do a decent job of doting on you. might even fuck you right too, hell grey suit may understand the goddess you are and that there is a right way to worship. 

endo rolls to his side on your brand new sofa, bringing his left leg over his right for balance, head leaning into right hand, he observes. watching you let yourself loosen up, body always stiff when things start to get heated, you're a little shy right? that's why deep kisses and whispered promises help you unwind. that's the best way, it gives you enough room to stop thinking, unwind, pull close, and allow yourself to take what you need. so far, grey suit might be patient enough to coax it outta you.

as endo watches, grey suit's eyes connect with his. grey suit doesn't startle, the motherfucker JUMPS. endo swears if that coward's hand actually hit your face in his alarm he's going to break each finger in half and shove it up grey suit's dick so far he'll need an ENT specialist to find them.

"that your roommate?"

endo gives him that smile.

"i'm the love of her life dickhead."

you give him a sharp look, what? he said dickhead not fucker or asshole. this is progress.

grey suit looks between you and endo, fucking shrimp. endo wouldn't hesitate to end any guy trying to get between you and him.  the only reason this is allowed is because grey suit makes you smile and laugh on your lunch hour. 

endo is confident, secure, stretches out on your sofa. you wanna use someone to pass the time? be his guest. endo can wait, confident all roads will lead to him at the end.

"i got an early meeting actually, hey, thanks for this, you're great," he looks at endo, "you are but i gotta, work. gotta make that money..." grey suit doesn't even kiss you goodbye?  what a disappointing piece of shit, that motherfucker better sleep with both eye open. you let him step into your sacred space and --

"endo yamato," you clench your fists, angry. oh, he hasn't head that in a while, he tried to stop himself from cackling he really did, but it escapes. endo cackles, moves to seated, legs crossing underneath him, back straight, the most polite posture he can muster. calls you hack by your full government name with the deepest voice.

you crowd him before you can help yourself, what's endo need personal space for when anyways? it's useless, store what you want in his lungs, really. he'll take anything as long as he can feel the heat of your skin this close.

your hand twitching with how fucking annoying endo's grin is, how vexing his eyes are, how exasperating the calmness of his being is. the gall of this guy. "return the key."

"no lock is gonna keep me from you precious."   his eyes dart to your hands. they're clenching so tight, your nails are gonna cut skin, gonna bleed. he uses his tattooed fingers to pry your fists open, stretching your hand flat and smacking it against his cheek, hard.

your glare softens in surprise. "you're mad at me right?"

his eyes dazed.

"i did something to upset you." he moves your hand against his cheek again, the mock slap makes you shiver. "gotta get that anger out, right? can't focus cuz of me, huh? " you swallow trying to break eye contact, don't get suckered into this. that sweet siren sound.

"i messed something up, angel didn't i?" another slap, the sound, the feel, the touch of your skin against his cheek is salvation he's unworthy of. he'll take any amount of force, any amount of pressure. keep your touch on him. 

you catch yourself, letting go an exhale you held captive in your lungs. stop, before you get lost in his eyes, before he unlocks this side of you, something you can't put a lid back on, something you can't unlearn. you shove at his face and feel him smile as you pull your hand away.

"i can take it."  he grabs at your hips, pulls you in, his breath hot against your stomach. takes your hand and kisses the palm. "i want it."  he guides your hand to his cheek again. 

"i deserve your anger, at the very least, don't i?" fuck, he's almost begging, looks up pleading, he deserves your warmth, your wrath. "take it out on me."

"take it out on you?" you don't recognize your voice.

he nods, smile wide. this is the first step to absolution for him, he made you cry didn't he? hit him until he sheds a hundred times the tears you did. 

"i won't make a sound. i won't move away. as hard as you want, goddess, as hard as you need." he is sorry for making you cry, so do it, use him. give in, give in, give in.

months and months and months of endo; him walking into your apartment as if it's his name on the lease and not yours. him looking at all your dates with disdain all while telling you he doesn't mind at all, go play. 

you hate you look for him when he's not around. hate all the sarcasm and snark he eats up like honey on drizzled on french toast.  hate how he can take your anger as if it's welcome rain and he's parched. resent how you notice everyone expects you to shrink and be polite but endo holds you up pride. takes all of you -- the anger, the saddens, the cursing, the frustration, like it's nothing.

he wouldn't even label it as enduring your shadow no, endo, your crazy fucking endo is always begging, grasping, crawling to that monster inside your chest to, bares his neck without asking. you hate it.

hate how he looks at you for approval; every time he's nice and not snapping at a waiter, punching a guys face, or drivint the speed limit. as if he's changed. as if he's normal.

as if you not seeing him go back to the restaurant to cause a scene means it didn't happen. that punching guys beyond recognition later doesn't change the fact people you don't know flinch when you cross the street. like you aren't aware of the payout endo's company does to keep his road rage out of the public eye. 

that he was worse before you, this is him healed, this is him contained. happy. your good, bad, ugly, worst days are the spark of his life, enchanting.  that you should let go, let him in, all of you is his. give in, give in, give in.  fuck what your friends think, fuck what your parents would say. he'll walk miles on his knees if he has to. don't be scared.

trusts you beyond with blind faith, take your fill again and again and again.

he'll prove it to you.

all you have to do is let him submit.

all you have to do is keep him.

what's he going to do with all this love that's meant for you anyway? this fidelity, it's yours. do what you want.

but you, oh. his precious goddess.

the filth before him have done a number on you haven't they? planting seeds of doubt about your worth. you don't trust his allegiance is that strong for you. that his faith is misplaced.

you'll show him.

you pull your hand back and slap hard. his whole face turns from the impact, eyes a little blown out.

that's it. that's right. he's not gonna run, he's not gonna ask you to constrict.

his angel, his saving light, his precious heart, his goddess.  

no sound, no snark, no challenge.

endo licks his lips. softly returns his head to it's initial position, balanced between on top his neck. he relaxes his shoulders down, keeps his hands soft and loose on his thighs. 

he looks up.

you're gonna take it out on him right?

ready, waiting, wanting.

use him.

[c-e-d-dreamer]

Top Shelf Love: Chapter One

A/N: yeah, yeah, I know! This is super exposition-y, but we have to set it all up, besties! I promise Cassian and Nesta actually interact again in the next chapter 🫡 Also, for anyone who's nerdy like me, the Athletic has a really great article about just how complicated things get when a player gets traded. It's a fun read!

Read on AO3 // Chapter Masterlist // Previous Part // Next Part

Cassian

Cassian groans, tossing his phone on the coffee table, the device skittering across the wood without a care. He drops his head against the back of the sofa, digging his hands into his hair and dragging his fingers against the curly strands. He still can’t quite wrap his mind around it, and he half wonders if he’s imagining this entire phone call, but the tinny voice continues through the speaker even if he’s no longer listening.

Seattle.

He got traded to the Seattle Kraken.

The words continue to crash and echo in his mind, even as his agent goes through the usual spiel when trades happen. Expect a call from the coach, maybe even a few players will reach out once the news breaks. The Kraken’s director of team services will reach out with the finer details for a smooth transition. Reminders of the CBA mandates. Meetings with the trainers, the equipment team, and the coaching staff to look forward to. Practice schedule. It’s like information overload, a hurricane swirling through his head with hundred mile per hour winds.

It doesn’t help that his phone has already started to vibrate against the table, almost excessively. With a quiet huff that thankfully his agent doesn’t pick up on, already plowing forward into the exciting potential for re-signing with Seattle, Cassian snatches his phone back up. He minimizes the call screen and looks at his notifications. Of course. The news has already broken on Twitter. Damn ‘insiders.’

“Any questions for me, Cassian? Anything I can do for you?”

Cassian has to shake his head, clearing his still spiraling thoughts, before he finds his voice. “All good, Eris. That’s how the off season goes, right?”

Eris is quiet for a moment. “I’ll send a car to take you to the airport. A nicer one than the team would send.”

With that, the line clicks, and Cassian tosses his phone away again, this time face down. He doesn’t even want to look at what’s being said, at the speculation. Sure, the Rangers hadn’t had the best season, the ending more heartbreak than anything else. Sure, he only has one year left on his contract. Sure, the front office wants draft picks to help build up the farm system with young blood.

But still, Cassian never expected this. Never expected this was how his time with the team would end. Never expected this was how his time in New York City would end.

Sighing softly, he glances around his apartment. The high ceilings, the modern, open kitchen, the tall windows and the amazing skyline view that the thirty-first floor offers. He really did love this place, a far cry from the streets he’d grown up on, and a reminder of how far he'd come from those very streets. He supposes he’ll have to sell it now. Is it worth keeping just for the off season?

The sound of Cassian’s phone ringing is loud in his otherwise quiet apartment. It seems to echo off the walls as though taunting him. He’s half tempted to ignore it all together, but despite the unknown number displayed on the screen when he checks, the location is listed as Seattle. Not the best first impression to send his new team to voicemail. Another sigh and Cassian squares his shoulders, sliding his thumb across the screen to answer.

The man on the other end of the line introduces himself and exchanges a few pleasantries, but then he’s diving right in to more specifics. The nitty gritty of a trade. Flight details. Financials and reimbursements. Rental car when he lands. Taxes.

Cassian only half listens, making sure he makes the affirmative sounds at the appropriate breaks in conversation. This isn’t his first rodeo. Although, he had still been in the farm system when his last trade happened. This is certainly different, but Cassian knows he thankfully won’t have to deal with most of this. He’ll give the director of team services Eris’s number, and let him deal with all the numbers and everything. It’s why he pays him the big bucks after all.

As soon as the call ends, Cassian’s phone lights up and starts ringing again. He wants to pull his own hair out as that incessant sound fills his apartment. He knows how this goes, but he’d give anything for just a moment of peace, a moment to really sit with his thoughts and everything that’s just happened. He considers turning his phone off, letting all the calls go to voicemail, at least for a few hours, but then he sees the name displayed on the screen.

“I take it you saw the news?” Cassian says by way of greeting.

“Need a drink?” Rhysand’s voice carries down the line.

Cassian chuckles, already pushing up to his feet. “You have no idea. But you better be breaking out the good shit from your fancy cellar.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just get your ass over here.”

Just the short conversation, the teasing tone of his chosen brother, has Cassian feeling lighter already. He grabs his wallet and shoves it into his pocket, tugging a ball cap down over his curls. Summer still clings to the city despite the first day of fall barely a few days away, but the breeze that dances between the buildings promises cooler temperatures to come. Cassian takes the subway up toward Central Park, the rocking of the car over the tracks strangely a lulling balm over his nerves.

The doorman offers Cassian a nod and a friendly hello in greeting when he arrives at the building, holding the door open for him to stroll inside. The receptionist at the front desk does the same, barely casting Cassian a cursory glance as he heads for the elevators. He quickly punches in the code and steps inside, riding up and up and up, all the way to the penthouse.

Feyre is waiting for Cassian as soon as the elevator doors open, stepping forward and wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. “I’m so sorry.”

Cassian chuckles but he wraps his own arms around Feyre’s shoulders nonetheless. “I’m not dying, Fey. I just got traded.”

“I know, but traded across the country,” Feyre continues, pulling back enough that she can peer up at Cassian with an overdramatic pout. “I’m losing my partner in crime. Who will join me in bullying Rhys now?”

“You’re right,” Cassian tells her, nodding his head with faux solemness. “I’m so sorry you’ll be stuck on the east coast all alone with Rhys’s stupid face.”

“Stupid face? And here I broke out the good wine for your sorry ass.”

Cassian tosses his head back and laughs. He steps away from Feyre and walks over to Rhys, clapping his brother on the shoulder. “I expect nothing less.”

Rhys rolls his eyes, but he leads the way into the kitchen, three wine glasses and a bottle already arranged on the large kitchen island. He pours the wine into each glass, but Cassian grabs the bottle, examining the label with an appreciative hum.

“I don’t know why you’re making that sound,” Rhys comments dryly, taking a sip of his drink.

“Who cares about that?” Feyre cuts in, waving a dismissive hand at her fiancé and leaning against the kitchen island, her attention solely on Cassian. “Are you excited for Seattle?”

Cassian hums, swirling his wine around the glass. “They’re definitely building a good team out there. Strong top line. And I’ve heard good things about playing under Miller.”

“But…?”

“There’s no but, it’s just…” Cassian sighs softly, pulling his cap off to run his fingers through his hair. “It just sucks because everyone’s here, out east. You guys are always here or in Montreal. Mor’s here in New York. Even Az isn’t that far in Nashville. I won’t know anyone out west.”

“Yeah, but you’ll have the guys on the team. You know they’ll have all the best spots in town to recommend,” Rhys reminds him.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“My sister lives out in Seattle!” Feyre jumps in to add, blue eyes bright.

Cassian frowns. “Doesn’t Elain live in Toronto with Lucien?”

“Not Elain. My other sister. Nesta. You’ve met her.”

Nesta.

Cassian is sure he’d remember if he met Nesta Archeron. He still remembers when Feyre had posted the photos from Elain’s wedding last month to her Instagram, the way his mouth had slackened at the sight of who he was sure was the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. With the purple, silky fabric of the bridesmaid dress clinging perfectly to her every curve, golden brown strands of hair swept away from her face in an intricate updo, she was breathtaking.

But it was her expression in the photos that had really drawn Cassian in. There was something about it. Something about her. Something about the way that even though she was smiling in the photo, there was still a challenge, a dare, burning in her stormy blue eyes and the pinch of her brow. And Cassian had never backed down from a dare. He was sure one look from her had sent many men to their knees, sent them fleeing for the hills before she could cut them down where they stood, but Cassian? Cassian wanted to drive head first into that fire.

“I don’t think I’ve met her,” Cassian offers, but he doesn’t tell Feyre just how much he wishes he had.

“But she was at our engagement party in May,” Feyre continues, but when Cassian only shrugs in response, she merely sighs. “Whatever. The point is that she lives in Seattle. I can give you her number if you want. Then, you’ll at least know someone out there when you get there. And I’m sure she’d be more than happy to show you around.”

Cassian thinks about it. He thinks back to those photos on Feyre’s Instagram, thinks about the photos he had seen when he stalked Nesta’s own Instagram after he clicked the tagged account. Thinks of those stormy blue eyes and the tilt of her lips in a smirk behind the rim of a wine glass. Thinks of the stories Feyre has told him, of the stubborn and fierce older sister who all but eviscerated Feyre’s ex, Tamlin.

“Yeah… yeah, that’d be good. Just so I know someone out there.”

~ * * * ~

Nesta

Nesta sighs softly, but she reaches down, fingers curling beneath cardboard. Her arms protest at the weight, but she hefts the box up, shuffling the few steps to add it to the organized chaos that’s their backroom. For a moment, her attention dances back toward her phone where she left it on another box, but she pointedly left it face down for a reason. She doesn’t need to look at the text messages waiting for her again.

Feyre 1:18pm Remember Cassian? Rhys’ brother that I told you all about? 😉 He’s coming to Seattle! I gave him your number. Show him around for me? Please?

Unknown number 4:43pm Hey, Nesta. This is Cassian. Feyre gave me your number. I’m moving out to Seattle soon. Maybe we can meet up?

“So, let me get this straight. The Cassian is moving to Seattle?”

Nesta snorts softly, peering toward where Gwyn is sprawled across the floor, iPad balanced against her knees. “We’re calling him the Cassian now?”

“I prefer to call him the douchey hockey player,” Emerie comments idly, placing the box in her own arms down. She swipes up the box cutter from the metal shelf to her left, making quick, efficient work of the tape keeping the box closed.

“And are you imagining douchey hockey player’s balls there?” Gwyn teases, looking meaningfully toward the box cutter in Emerie’s grip.

“So what if I am?” Emerie fires back, leaning forward to open Nesta’s box too. “He’d deserve it.”

“I never said he didn’t,” Gwyn laughs, turning her attention back to Nesta. “So, what are you going to do?”

Nesta sighs softly. “I don’t know. Feyre asked me to show him around the city.”

“Doesn’t he have teammates to do that?”

“Ignore him and the request,” Emerie suggests dryly.

Nesta snorts quietly but it quickly turns into a sigh, even as she keeps her hands busy pulling books out of her box. “I didn’t exactly tell Feyre what happened that night.”

She hadn’t told anyone about that night, save her two best friends. She still cringes sometimes when she thinks back to it, the embarrassment burning bright low in her gut, twisting and squeezing between her ribs uncomfortably. She’d sworn that night that she would never give a single thought about Cassian Valdarez ever again, and until today, she’d kept true to that.

She’d spent her remaining days in New York City solely with her sisters, even doing one of the touristy bus tours with Elain to see all the classic sights. And thankfully, Feyre had been more interested in excitedly talking about wedding plans and ideas than continuing her busybody meddling. If either of her sisters noticed anything different with Nesta, they didn’t say anything.

After Nesta had flown back home to Seattle, Emerie and Gwyn came over to her apartment. Drinking a bottle of wine between the three of them, it all had come spilling out of her. Her friends had allowed her to pace and rage, and then that was that. Nesta had washed her hands of the whole thing. Never again did she dare to check the sports news out of curiosity. Never again did she dare to stalk his Instagram. Never again did she think of the stupid face and the stupid smirk of a smile of that hockey player.

“What if you give him a tour of all the worst places in the city?” Emerie suggests, brown eyes practically lighting up at the idea. “Then, maybe he’ll want to leave the city.”

Gwyn’s laugh is bright, red hair tumbling down her back when she tosses her head back. “That is definitely not how sports teams operate.”

“Worth a shot,” Emerie mutters, tossing aside the box packaging in her hands and reaching back in for the books hiding beneath. “Holy shit. We got the new Sellyn Drake novel already?”

Emerie holds up the book in her hand excitedly, showing off the cover. Like so many romance novels these days, it features a faceless, cartoon style couple. The man is shirtless, though, rocking a kilt, while the woman is drawn with a yellow sundress. Looping script above the cartoon characters declares the title, The Scottish High Lord and Me.

“It’s official release date is…” Gwyn starts, squinting down at the iPad and scrolling through whatever is on the screen. “Tuesday, so we’ll want to put them out Monday night after we close.”

Gwyn reaches over toward the metal shelves, swiping up the sticky notes and sharpie sitting there. She scrawls out a note, a reminder of when they’ll need to stock the books, and peels the sticky note free. She slaps it right over the cover of the book in Emerie’s hands, but Emerie is quick to peel it right back off, placing it instead on one of the other copies still in the box.

“Hey!” Gwyn chastises, narrowing her eyes.

“What?” Emerie asks, her tone overly innocent. “This is my copy.”

“Gwyn just said the book doesn’t technically release until Tuesday,” Nesta points out, snorting softly.

“What’s the point of owning a bookstore if we don’t get to read all the best releases early? Besides, it’s not like I’m going to be posting all the spoilers online or anything.”

“Good point,” Nesta agrees, reaching forward as well to grab another of the Sellyn Drake books.

“You both are terrible.”

“Oh, come on,” Emerie teases with a roll of her eyes. “You know you want to read it too.”

“Seriously, Gwyn,” Nesta adds, not even bothering to bite back her smirk as she points to the cover. “It’s a Scottish love interest.”

Gwyn huffs, seemingly determined to hold her ground with her crossed arms and narrowed gaze, but it barely lasts a few seconds. Not quite meeting either of her friends' eyes, the barest hint of a blush beginning to pool in her cheeks, she reaches forward into the box, plucking out another of the books.

Nesta and Emerie glance toward each other, sharing a knowing look, before they both burst out laughing. It feels good to laugh, to have that lightness twining around her limbs and swelling through her chest. It feels good to be squeezed back in this tiny stockroom with her best friends, her chosen sisters. She doesn’t know what she’d do without them.

They were there for her when she hit the lowest point of her life, when she well and truly felt like she hit rock bottom. They were right there beside her in the trenches, a shoulder to cry on, an ear to rage and scream at, a voice of reason and comfort. They didn’t flinch when Nesta snapped and released that swirling storm of emotion within her. They didn’t balk from her every scar, every dark crevice of her soul.

And when Nesta was ready, they helped pull her out.

“And what books are in your box?” Gwyn asks Nesta, pulling her out of her thoughts and back into the present.

Nesta shakes her head before peering into the box at her feet, pushing aside the packaging. “It looks like it’s our restock of that baseball romance that went viral.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Gwyn comments, tapping away at the iPad screen. “We should definitely put those out tonight so they’re ready for tomorrow.”

~ * * * ~

Nesta slumps back against the blankets and pillows of her bed with a soft sigh. She sinks back into the mattress, letting her arm fall over her eyes. There’s definitely a soreness lingering in her biceps from lifting all those boxes, but it was worth it.

When they finished inventory of the latest deliveries, the three of them had moved back into the main shop. Emerie had taken to restocking the shelves while Gwyn took to rearranging the table displays at the front. Nesta had taken to the registers. Math had always been a strong point for her, even when she was back in school, so it was always her job to balance their books. They all worked in perfect tandem until everything was good to go, finally closing up the shop and heading their separate ways back to their respective apartments.

Nesta allows herself another moment to simply lay in bed before hauling herself back up. She grabs the newest Sellyn Drake novel, resituating her pillows and settling back comfortably against them. Her fingers skate along the cover, down over the spine. There’s always been something about holding a fresh book in her hands. The crisp pages, the scent of parchment and ink.

Sliding her palm down the cover once more, Nesta turns to the first page, but her gaze dances away from the words and over to her nightstand. To her phone sitting there. She knows she shouldn’t, but her fingers itch with the urge all the same. With an annoyed huff, Nesta snatches up the device, navigating to her message app and the unread texts there.

Unknown number 7:12pm Did I type in the wrong number? This is Nesta, right?

Unknown number 7:37pm Feyre says this is the right number. Did she tell you I’m moving to the Seattle area? It would be really great if we could meet up!

Unknown number 9:21pm I guess you’re just really busy. My flight gets in Saturday morning, but the team is picking me up to show me around the practice facilities and locker rooms and introduce me to everyone. Maybe we could meet up in the afternoon? I’d be more than happy to buy you dinner 😏

The last message has Nesta rolling her eyes hard. It’s exactly the sort of response she expects from someone like Cassian. All the arrogance and presumptuousness that comes from being a professional athlete. She half wonders how he even fits his ego inside the locker rooms.

Nesta tosses her phone aside and returns to her book. She hasn’t broken her promise yet, and she has no intention of breaking it now. Besides, who needs a hockey player when she has a fictional Scotsman, anyways?

—

Taglist (let me know if you’d like to be added or removed): @moodymelanist @nesquik-arccheron @sv0430 @talkfantasytome @bookstantrash @eirini-thaleia @ubigaia @fromthelibraryofemilyj @luivagr-blog @lifeisntafantasy @superspiritfestival @hiimheresworld @marigold-morelli @sweet-pea1 @emeriethevalkyriegirl @pyxxie @dustjacketmusings @hallway5 @dongjunma @glowing-stick-generation @melonsfantasyworld @lady-nestas @goddess-aelin @melphss @theladystardust @a-trifling-matter @blueunoias @kookskoocie @wolfnesta @blurredlamplight @hereforthenessian @skaixo @jmoonjones @burningsnowleopard @whyisaravenlike-awritingdesk @ofduskanddreams @rarephloxes @thelovelymadone @books-books-books4ever @tenaciousdiplomatloverprune @that-little-red-head @readergalaxy @thesnugglingduck @kale-theteaqueen @tarquindaddy @superflurry @bri-loves-sunflowers @lady-winter-sunrise @witch-and-her-witcher @fieldofdaisiies

[featherandferns]

book shelf

* - contains sexual content (MDNI)

series

daylight

jj maybank x fem!reader | new to Kildare from Vancouver, Canada, you befriend JJ Maybank. Your life in Vancouver, and the things you went through, make it hard to face the unspoken feelings the two of you share.

prologue - 0.5k. words | content warnings: none

part one - 3.5k. words | content warnings: none

part two - 3k. words | content warnings: alcohol, mentions of sex

part three - 2k. words | content warnings: alcohol

part four - 1.6k. words | content warnings: mentions of sex

part five - 3k. words | content warnings: sex, alcohol

part six - 2k. words | content warnings: sexual content

part seven - 2.7k. words | content warnings: none

part eight - 2.5k. words | content warnings: sexual content; drug use (weed)

part nine - 3.9k. words | content warnings: mentions of sex; mentions of alcohol

part ten - 1.5k. words | content warnings: mentions of abuse and bereavement

part eleven - 1.8k. words | content warnings: mentions of sex

part twelve - 3.7k. words | content warnings: sexual content

epilogue - 1.6k. words | content warnings: mentions of sex; alcohol

multi-part one shots

F.W.B

jj maybank x fem!reader | fics which are part of the 'F.W.B' universe, the sequels can be read as stand alone fics but they make better sense in the context of the main fic.

F.W.B * - 9k. words

blurb: friends with benefits (phrase) - a friend with whom one has an occasional and casual sexual relationship; no feelings attached.

the night it all began * - 3k. words

blurb: JJ Maybank has some corny-ass pick-up lines, and can't seem to back down from a bet, but maybe you might just give him a try anyway. What's one night, after all?

you find out - 2k. words

blurb: you find out the truth about his tumultuous relationship with his dad.

outdoor pool * - 5k. words

blurb: your latest 'date night' involves breaking into a Kook's back garden to swim around in their pool. After fooling around, JJ comes to a realisation.

surfs up - 4k. words

blurb: you meet JJ's friends. whilst Kiara and Sarah grill you about your boyfriend, John B and Pope are still trying to wrap their heads around the fact that you've managed to tie JJ down.

underneath the gloves - 7k. words

blurb: after you lose a match, things seem to spiral out of control. it seems to come to a head after a confrontation with Kelce, leaving you to confess to JJ why you sometimes are the way you are.

fascinating new thing

jj maybank x fem!kook!shy!reader | fics which are part of the 'fascinating new thing' universe; the sequels can be read as stand alone fics but they make better sense in the context of the main fic.

fascinating new thing - 18k. words

blurb: after your band plays a show at Kiara's parents' restaurant, you find yourself face to face with JJ Maybank. Shy and socially awkward, you fumble through, knowing that a guy like JJ would never want a thing to do with you, right?

angel * - 3k. words

blurb: JJ knows there's something hidden beneath all the layers of quiet and meek; he just has to coax it out of you.

'shut up' - 3k. words

blurb: it's been a month since the moment on the hammock. JJ calls you 'baby' like it's the most natural thing. But some things have been left unsaid? Maybe one night, at Pansy's, where things seemingly started, one of you will kick up the nerves...

first time JJ saw you drabble

pirates

jj maybank x fem!bestfriend!reader | fics which are part of the 'pirates' universe; the sequel can be read as stand alone fic but it makes better sense in the context of the main fic.

pirates - 9k. words

blurb: if you ever needed to find yourself or JJ Maybank, one would recommend you head to pirate's cove, no matter the age or day.

confessions *- 6k. words

blurb: now that you and JJ have crossed the lines from friends to lovers, you're ready to take the next step. It shouldn't be a problem, considering the womanizer JJ is, unless he's been confabulating the truth.

guilty as sin

jj maybank x fem!routledge!reader | a two part series, where part 2 only makes sense in context of part 1.

part 1 * - 14k. words

blurb: when you, John B's half sister, return to Kildare after over two years of living in Colorado, your adolescent crush that you harboured for his best friend comes screaming back. Because you and JJ can't be together in real life, what's the harm in a fantasy?

part 2 - 10k. words

blurb: you and JJ start a secret relationship under the radar of your half-brother, John B. But with your life in Colorado becoming more and more unavoidable, and stupid slip-ups as the two of you grow closer, it becomes harder to keep your affair secret.

risk

jj maybank x fem!kook!reader | fics which are part of the 'risk' universe; the sequel can be read as stand alone fics but may make better sense in the context of the main fic

risk *- 18k. words

blurb: after a hurricane, a Labrador shows up at JJ's house. After some posters go up around the country, JJ begrudgingly returns the dog to you on Figure Eight. Little did he know that his life was about to change forever.

gamble (coming soon!)

one-shots

god's test * - 18k. words

blurb: what if the Pogues never found El Dorado? Life in survival mode at the age of twenty-two sure had lost its shine. In that tarnish, JJ wonders if your relationship has too.

rumours - 20k. words

blurb: your life has been surrounded by rumours and so has JJ Maybank's. One night, out of the blue, he strikes up conversation with you. From there, the rumours only grow, and some rumours are far worse than others.

orange juice * - 7.5k. words

blurb: in the most unlikely of settings, you and JJ reunite after five years apart in radio silence.

hurricanes - 7k. words

blurb: for so many of your memories, bad and good, it feels as if hurricanes are at the forefront. One night, during the midst of a storm, JJ comes to your house, seemingly to bring you one last memory of him

slipping * - 18k. words

blurb: you and JJ have been in a secret relationship for seven months. And it's great. It's perfect. It's just what JJ's always wanted. Except, you don't want to be a secret forever, and JJ can't risk you finding out his history with Barry

1000 followers specials - where are they now?

Since starting this blog in May of 2023, I have written so many characters and storylines. I get so many lovely anon messages telling me about their favourite universes and wondering what happens next after my fics have ended. So, I thought to celebrate 1000 followers, I’d indulge. Here’s the (current) where are they now for all of my fics…

F.W.B

fascinating new thing

guilty as sin

hurricanes

orange juice

pirates

risk

rumours

slipping

drabbles

drabbles which I have written, all jj maybank x fem!reader. some are inspired from this prompt list

happy anniversary (prompt 1) - smut

a mistake (prompt 2) - angst

plan b (prompt 3) - smut

not funny (prompt 4) - fluff

wasps (prompt 5) - angst

the fire (prompt 6) - angst/fluff

beads (prompt 7) - fluff

salmon (prompt 9) - fluff

pumpkin (prompt 11) - fluff

vampire (prompt 12) - fluff

have your cake and eat it too (prompt 13) - fluff

sea and sand (prompt 14) - fluff

wake the sleeping beast (prompt 15) - fluff

dumbass (prompt 16) - fluff

dinner tomorrow? (prompt 17) - smut

pumpkin (prompt 18) - fluff

storeroom (prompt 19) - smut

john james (prompt 20) - smut

the twinkie (prompt 21) - smut

your idiot (prompt 24) - angst

not the navy! (prompt 25) - fluff

dumbass (prompt 27) - fluff

little mouse (prompt 30) - fluff

acts of service

'mama'

poorly

opposites attract

covet

[duplicitywrites]

Equivalent Exchange (now complete!)

Epilogue: The end, the beginning.

Summary:

Harry falls into the Mirror of Erised and enters a world where everyone is the complete opposite of themselves. His best friend Tom—arrogant, rude, cynical Tom—is suddenly sweet and kind and helpful, and Harry finds himself falling a little bit in love. What neither Tom nor Harry know is that this 'perfect' version of Tom has an agenda of his own, an agenda that will see Harry trapped in the mirror world for good.

art done by my sister! i don't think i ever shared it on here so 💘

[zorosdimples]

cw: brief descriptions of violence. siren ajax childe tartaglia !

it’s late afternoon as you wander around the beach of a secluded cove. the crystalline waters are calm, the foamy lap of the waves and the warbling birds the only sounds to disturb the balmy air. a seashell peeks out of the wet sand—coral spots dot the ivory helix.

as you bend down to pick up the shell, you hear it: soft laughter, bubbly and warm, though it rings directly in your ear. you look up—out toward the waves—and see a figure resting on a rock. perhaps naively, you draw closer to the stranger with the enticing voice.

you first notice the shimmering tail, a piercing lapis that rivals the splendor of the cloudless sky. its fin drags across the water in a teasing manner, as though playing a game with something beneath the surface.

the creature’s torso seems too fair for the blistering sun, but its skin is as smooth as the tide-flattened sand, smattered with freckles like broken shells. its hair is a shock of auburn that curls in every direction yet looks as beautiful as the seaweed that sways on the ocean floor.

although the creature is smiling, cheeks dimpled and azure eyes gleaming with mirth, its teeth are akin to knives. you recall the folktales you heard as a child—sirens that are as terrifying as they are gorgeous, sweet voices luring a sailor to his death. a siren’s teeth are meant to rend flesh from meat and meat from bone, to crush bone into dust.

the siren’s smile grows wider as the blood drains from your face.

[minty-bunni]

You what we don't have enough of?

Danny not being a superhero. Things looking in to his average daily life. I wanna see Danny having to hide his ghostliness while working part time at a store, Danny trying to be a normal kid for a day, Danny trying to defend a thesis while his ghost sense goes off every 2 seconds, Danny going to physics lab and totally ruining in class demonstrations by breaking the laws of physics with his whole ghost thing.

Just how to cope with having ghost powers 101.

[almostfoxglove]

I'LL CARRY IT

written for my angst challenge

Rating: Explicit (18+)

Pairing: Javier x f!Reader

Word Count: 5.9k

you can read on ao3 too, if you like!

SUMMARY: Your childhood best friend returns to Laredo a celebrated hero. When he shows up at your bar shackled by grief, you drag him home for the night. CW: Heavy alcohol consumption and brief reference to the death of a parent. A fair bit of yearning.

Takes place somewhere in S3E1 after the wedding but before Javier returns to Colombia.

part II | series masterlist | masterlist

12:00 A.M.

At first you mistake it for a good thing. Last shift before your weekend, two hours to go, and the long-gone local hero back in his hometown smoking a cigarette at your bar. Your break over, you slink from the backroom into the riotous din of The Last Man Standing—one of Laredo’s many dives—to reclaim your post behind the bar. Place is a hellhole as often as it is crowded and tonight’s no different, and yet you’re halfway to a smirk. Pleased to see an old friend.

He hasn’t looked up, hasn’t seen you yet, so you busy yourself with the guy who flags you down to order the second he spots you. Fine by you, the guy tips well the later it gets and it’s already after midnight, and regardless, you don’t mind having an excuse to observe The Javier Peña, DEA agent extraordinaire, at a distance. Top button undone, cigarette vanishing in his hand, eyes glued to the ring-stained bartop as smoke shivers out between his lips. Quite the celebrity now. Been home three weeks if the rumors are true but you’ve yet to see him. You figured he’d call, but he didn’t—not that you’re surprised. 

Eight years feels like nothing now. Maybe he’s a hero to everyone else, but to you Javier looks exactly the same as he has his whole life—all that’s changed is the depth of his misery. How he doesn’t look up for anything or anyone, except to shrug off the occasional shoulder clap from some drunk stranger. 

When you’ve served the guy his drink and collected your tip—30%, thank you sir—you shake the nerves loose from your shoulders and slide up, glass in hand. 

“Well shit,” you say when you’re in front of him, and Javier slowly lifts his eyes. You smile, all rogue. No shake to your voice at all as you pour a whiskey blind. “This the part when I ask for an autograph?”

Javier’s dark brow dips in the middle and you might as well be twenty-eight again. Twenty-one. Eighteen. Eleven. All the ages you’ve been with him in all the years you’ve known him. Because this, right here—that little furrow that looks like a frown if you’re not looking close enough—is exactly how he’s always been. How he’s always looked at you after time spent away. 

Sure, there’s never been this much away . This much radio silence. The kind of parting that comes with getting older, getting further—something you once would’ve sworn only happens to everyone else. You’ve made your peace with it. Wished him well from the wrong side of the hemisphere. You’ve had lives of your own. 

Seems he can still cut a tiny hole in your chest when he withholds a smile. 

Javier spears smoke from the corner of his mouth as you slip his empty glass behind the bar and replace it with the fresh pour, watching as he nods in a tired, humorless way. “Not signing shit for you,” he gruffs, and snubs his filter into the crystal ashtray beside his glass. 

One-two-three-four-five others sit beside it, ashed in their grave. 

So he feels about as bad as he looks.

“Awful snappy for a man hoggin’ a barstool,” you reply.

The corner of his mouth flinches but doesn’t pull. He picks up his glass, eyes sagging away from you. “Nice to see you too,” Javier concedes.

1:00 A.M.

Friday means it’s crazy, means the rest of your shift slingshots by, and most of the night someone else is working Javier’s side of the bar so you lose track of his drinks. The windows of the bar have fogged, giving the world beyond a kind of eerie glow. 

You do your best to watch him, holding in your stomach a knot of newborn worry, but there’s always someone shouting for another drink. Now and then you catch some guy in a cap lumbering up to him to boast loudly of his pride, and though it’s microscopic—invisible maybe to everyone else—you see the way Javier shrinks in on himself. Folds.

The smoking, too, goes on. You sweep past him on your way to a booth in the corner, tray of shots balanced in hand, and accidentally inhale a sour cloud as he blows it out. You try to stifle your cough as you reach the table, doling out the silver glasses slick with tequila. On your way back to the bar, Javier catches your eye and snuffs the spent cigarette with an apologetic look. Pendant lights sway in his eyes like fireflies. You shake your head like he’s being silly, squeeze his shoulder briefly as you pass, and the roar of his body beneath your palm blazes like a campfire. The kind of heat that blackens everything to char. 

You think he’s had four drinks, maybe five, but not for sure.

2:00 A.M.

Only the drunks remain to kick out into the bog of late-summer, all that humidity that ruins your hair. You like most of ‘em. Most swagger out with a slurred night, sweetheart as you usher them safely into their cabs. Then all that’s left is your childhood sweetheart slumped over at the bar. Dated for two weeks in sixth grade—broke up over god knows what, probably him stealing your favorite gel pens—and were inseparable ever after. The second that kid sloped into your classroom, all gangly limbs attached loose as rubber bands and dark curls drifting vagrantly into his eyes, you just knew. Didn’t know how, didn’t know why—but you knew that boy would be home, and he was for years. 

Look at him now. Passed out drunk, lips parted, cheek squished flat beside his empty glass. His cigarette flares from his limp hand beside his face. You shoo off your coworker with a friendly gnight before slipping the cigarette from Javier’s fingers to crush in the crystal tray with its brothers. 

You go about cleaning up around him. He doesn’t wake for anything—not even when you have to count all the coins in the till for the night—which also, is new. Javier’s always slept like shit, even when you were kids and there wasn’t much to sweat over. Woke up if someone in the other room dared to breathe too deeply. 

Guess a bathtub’s worth of whiskey will take anybody out. 

When it’s time to go, you slip your hand up his spine to rest between his shoulder blades. “Alright, cariño,” you say softly. “Time to go home.”

Javier stirs, but only barely. A grunt, a shallow breath, a flutter in his lashes. You pat his back firmly, not harshly, but enough that he sniffs and grunts again, awake. 

“Blue’s still up there,” he mumbles with his eyes closed. 

Grinning, you lift your face to the ceiling fan overhead—one of two dozen in this place, none of which run and all of which droop with a rainbow of bras tossed into the rafters. Above you now sways the strap of a pale blue bra mildewed with dust. Would’ve been your twenty-first when you shot that up there, and it’s never fallen. 

“I’m a decent shot,” you say. 

Now he grins, just half his lips, but a real one all the same. “I remember.”

“Course you do, I was better than you.”

At your teasing, the grin snaps clean off his face and his real frown replaces it. “No’anymorre,” he slurs.

Your heart plummets. You can see, now, the bruised darkness beneath his closed eyes as you rub a small circle in the middle of his back. If you were already home you’d pull him into your arms, but he can’t rot on this stool all night. In your silence, Javier cracks one eye at you. “Can’t drive,” he groans.

“No shit,” you say, forcing a soft grin, and he mumbles some gibberish that sounds like it’s supposed to be Spanish. “Come on, work with me here.”

His eye shuts again as he grimaces, face still smushed against the bartop. His hair’s a mess so you comb it back, but the fucker still won’t budge. Rolling your eyes, you lift his arm and drape it over your shoulders to help him off the stool, his body warm and pliant. More solid than you remember him being before. Layers of slender muscle built up like the rings of a tree.

When he rises, gravity lurches and you stagger under his weight, catching yourself against the bar. 

“Careful now,” you warn him playfully. 

Javier turns his face towards yours, close enough in this awkward position that his nose presses against your cheek. He reeks of smoke and shitty whiskey. A little of sweat. You’d mock him for it if he were anywhere within a hundred miles of sober, but he’s a lost cause for now. Your arm fits snug around his waist. To his credit, he makes an effort to stay on his feet. Turns his head down to watch his boots as you walk him outside like he’s focusing intently on putting one foot in front of the other. You pinch his side and he hmphs at you. 

“Could’a just called, you know,” you say as you walk him to your car. The street is all empty parking spots and shuddered windows and packs of thirsty mosquitos, cicada song chirping densely in the air. Your car sleeps down the block alone, black as the sky and in need of a wash, green-strung beads hanging in a loop from the rearview mirror inside.

“Wanted t’ seeyou,” Javier says. 

You nudge your head against his cheek gently. “I missed you too,” you say.

As you drive, streetlamps stripe past the windows. Brick buildings sit squat and lightless, bodegas shackled for the night, and a wilful trash bag balloons with a passing breeze, blowing across the road with a quiet, swimming grace. In the passenger seat, Javier slumps against the door, temple pressed to the half-open window. You think he’s asleep until he licks his bottom lip. 

“Saw Lorraine,” he mumbles, those dark eyes closed away, like he can hardly keep himself awake.

You turn back to watch the empty road. Stop at the stop signs just for show. No one’s out here but you at this hour—Laredo is a ghost town.

“Heard Danny was gettin’ married,” you reply.

Javier exhales profoundly: slow, labored, loud. He’s always been a pouty drunk, but this is something else. “You weren’t there,” he says.

“Had to work.”

“Liar.”

You roll your eyes even though he isn’t looking at you to see. He’ll feel it. Always does. Drumming your fingertips against the steering wheel, you fight back a smirk. “Fucked one of the groomsmen last year,” you admit. “Didn’t feel like havin’ a reunion.”

When you glance at him again, Javier has opened his eyes a sliver to smirk at you, the corner of his mouth pulled into his dimpled cheek. “Julien?”

You frown at the road. “Mateo.”

“Shit,” mumbles Javier, still smirking.

“Somethin’ like that,” you agree.

At the next red light his eyes are closed again and despite the fact that he’s, what, thirty six now? Javier looks like a child to you. Spine hunched, torso sunken. Shoulders broader than ever but curled in on themselves, like if he only had the room he’d be small as a seed. Fetal and miserable. A thousand years older on the inside than anyone should ever have to be. 

“Starin’ a’me,” he scolds, his words slumping into each other.

You huff quietly, caught. “Shut up,” you say. “Just remindin’ myself what you look like. Think you got uglier.”

He growls darkly, unamused.

As you turn at the next light, the green-beaded rosary sways from the rearview mirror. If he had his eyes open Javier would recognize it. His mother’s—passed to you before she died. You aren’t one for praying but you’ll die with it in your hands, you think. That’s the kind of person she was to you. Eternal.

Beside you, Javier mutters something unintelligible, his breath fogging the window. 

“Hm?”

“Seein’ anyone yet?” he repeats, and shifts to loll his head back against the seatrest. 

You gasp softly, feigning offense. “Yet? Ouch, baby,” you tease.

“Didn’t mean it like that,” he grumbles.

“I know,” you say, as you turn into the suburbs. Quiet starter homes lurk in the dark, kids’ bicycles lying like skeletons in their yellowing lawns. “I’m being mean.” 

“I like y’mean,” Javier replies, and finally opens his eyes as if he can sense you’re getting close to home, even though he’s never seen this place. He stares through the windshield glazed and distant, and you try not to stare like you’re concerned. He looks destroyed, you think. Obliterated. Sure, you’ve kept up with the news. Devoured everything you could about the quest to tackle Escobar, terrified Javier’s name would appear in the black ink that stained your fingers, reporting he was dead. That he’d be another casualty, and you’d not have said goodbye.

You know you’ve got no clue what really happened down there. That you never will. But you can see it choking him, hanging from his neck like a noose that’s just biding its time before it pulls.

“Nah, it’s just me,” you say, dragging your eyes off him again. “Think the two weeks we dated was about the closest I ever came to love.”

You’re joking, all foxish grin, but Javier doesn’t laugh. He just stares into the middle distance looking like a ghost. “Sixteen,” he mumbles.

“What?” you say.

He sighs. “Was sixteen days,” he annunciates, and your heart sputters.

Then his face folds in on itself suddenly; he pales, then greens. “Gonna b’sick,” he says.

3:00 A.M.

“Christ, you got heavy,” you groan, hobbling slanted up your porch steps. Though more alert, Javier is no less useless in walking, and though he mumbles shame-riddled sorrys he can’t much help you here. You hold him tightly to you, fingers pinching into his hip as he leans, hot as a furnace against your side in the worst of summer. You don’t care.

It doesn’t matter that it’s been eight years. It could be forty, and if Javier showed up on your doorstep ready to fall, your response would only ever be give it to me. I’ll carry it.

He grunts as you prop him against the side of your house to fish out your keys. “All muscle,” he teases, voice deep and coarse.

“Glad you haven’t shed your ego,” you snark.

You give the door a shove as the lock turns. Javier tips his face up to look at the sliver of moon left out to wink from the sky as if he’s saying a prayer. He reeks of sick—his shirt stained in one spot on his chest where he failed to aim away from himself—and while he stares up at the dark rash of night you work open the buttons of his shirt to take it off. Despite puking in your car, he’s still too lost to the world to notice your hands until you’re halfway down. Maybe in another life you’d be staring at his chest as you uncover it. The broad slopes of muscle, his stomach, the dark path of hair trailing towards his jeans. But in this life, you aren’t that to each other. You don’t get to be. 

“Cariño,” Javier says, and one of his hands covers yours as you pinch the last button. Looking down at you now, concerned through hazy eyes. Summer hangs wetly in the air; his curls lay damp against his skin, licking his temples, the nape of his neck.

You shrug his hand off yours, offering a small grin. “Gotta get this in the wash, Javi,” you tell him. “Not allowed to get in my bed smelling like puke.”

Cicadas sing from their trees. Your house, small as it may be, is a welcoming place. All red bricks and white shutters. The swing on the porch sways behind Javier, giving the occasional squeak. You shuck his button-up off his shoulders and ball it in your hands before catching his eye. “Can I trust you to stay upright while I put this in the wash?” you ask, one eyebrow arched.

He scowls, all pouty bottom lip—trying to make you laugh, even now. You huff as if exhausted, sarcastic and a little pleased. He’s in there, the person you’ve loved. Somewhere buried.

When the laundry is running you find him on your porch swing, horizontal. One bare arm dangling off the seat, his eyes closed again. Skin that’s usually golden washed silver by moonlight. In this heat there’s no reason for you to cover him but still you feel the nagging urge. Even with you here with him, you hate the thought of anyone coming out onto their porches or lawns to see him like this—out of control. You rouse him just enough to lift his head so you can sit at the end of the swing, then lay his head in your lap. He hums. A low, gravelly sound of pleasure. Glad to feel you beneath him in this small way. 

“M’sorry, baby,” Javier murmurs groggily, nuzzling his cheek against your leg as you stroke the hair away from his face again. He’s flushed, damp and sweaty, and even with the shirt gone could use a shower but you’d never say so. At this point, you’ve seen him in every state—sunny and terrible and everything in between—and don’t fear any of them. Don’t hate any of them. Never could, because all of them are him, so how could you.

“Cleaned up your puke before,” you reply. “Nothin’ I haven’t seen.”

He sighs, and with no small effort rolls himself onto his back with a grunt—the swing sways with the movement, rocking you both. Then once more, this time to his other side to face you. You chuckle softly as he settles, one of his arms reaching behind you to wrap around your hips, and for a while you drift back and forth with the porch light off and the moon’s claw cutting through the dark.

It’d be something close to heaven if it weren’t for his pain.

“Wanted to call you,” Javier sighs, after a long while of cricketing quiet. “After—”

Nothing.

You wait.

The rest of whatever he was going to say dissolves, never follows. Never becomes something for you to hold, to know, to carry. He keeps all the weight.

“Could’ve,” you say, hand in his hair again, how he always used to like. Even when you were kids he always wanted to be touched. His head in your lap, your hand in his hair to scare off his bad dreams. You could never tell a soul without destroying him—and you never wanted to. The way you were for each other was just that: for each other. Everyone knew you were close, inseparable at school. But the depth of that bond was a secret no one had to know. How his body needed to be close to yours to settle, to breathe, sometimes to sleep.

Javier’s nose scrunches as he fights off some stabbing thought. You stroke your thumb across his temple, trying to get him to look at you, but he won’t. 

“Tell me,” you whisper. 

Two words you never say. A question you never ask. He’s so far past drunk he’s practically a child—maybe it’s wrong to ask him like this—but you’d do anything to relieve even one ounce of this suffering.

Eventually, he exhales deeply, breath warm against your hip. Behind you, you feel his hand stroke your back, slipping beneath the hem of your shirt. “Thought you’d hate me,” he mumbles.

Your heart splinters. Every cell in your body wants to pull him against you, pull him into you, swallow the ache. “Should know better than that by now,” you say. 

The shoulder he isn’t laying on bobs with what must be a shrug. “Been a while.”

“Been a long time,” you agree. Not angry, not bitter, not blaming—it’s been a long time. It’s nothing to you now but a fact. Seeing him again has erased the nag of your neglected longing.

With a gruff, Javier’s arm tightens around your back and he pulls himself closer, his forehead nuzzling your hip bone. “Feels like a’undred years,” he says, his voice hoarse and broken.

There isn’t anything you can do but card your fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp with featherlight nails. You let your head fall back against the brick of your house. Exhausted, but you won’t sleep. You’ll stay awake with him all night if he needs it, if he asks you. Even if he doesn’t. 

4:00 A.M.

“No more water,” he begs. “Please.”

In your kitchen, just the stove light on, he’s sobering. Not sober —but he can stand up on his own. Leaning back against your counter, both hands outstretched to rest upon the laminate. Cool light splits his face in half—one bright and weary, one lost to shadow. You roll your eyes and hold one hand out to accept his water glass which he passes you with a grateful sigh.

You listen to the harsh rush of water draining into the kitchen sink—a stark disruption to the eerie quiet of the middle of the night in which it feels like you and Javier are the only people left on earth. 

Behind you, Javier groans, watching the glass fill again.

“It’s for the nightstand, baby,” you assure him as you pass it back. 

He pouts at it, arms drooping at his sides. Trying again. Digging for your laugh. With expectant eyes you pick up his hand and cup it around the glass, and when you let go and he doesn’t drop it you let a smile creep slowly across your face. Satisfied, he straightens a little, swaying slightly, and nods. He looks down at the floor, his bare feet, and his face blues. Darkens like he’s remembering.

You lay the palm of your hand over the center of his chest and beneath it Javier’s heart throbs steadily. His lungs expand. His blood moves. Alive—whether he feels it or not—and a comfort to you. 

Though you’ve lived in this house only three years and Javier’s never once seen or stepped foot in it, he trails through the narrow halls to your bedroom like he knows it well. Sloppy footsteps, yes, and always with you behind him braced to catch any sudden fall, but he makes it in the end. Water sloshes over the lip of his glass as he sets it down. Then—still in his jeans, which hug his thighs so tightly you’re surprised he doesn’t try to peel them off—he crawls into your bed, on top of the duvet. In the doorway you pause to watch him and get a vision of another life in which he does this every night, at ease in your home because it’s his home too.

It is a terrible thought, weak and troubling. It’ll burrow if you let it, so you kick it away. While you strip free of your work clothes, you watch him in the small mirror above your dresser; his head flops into your pillows, cheek smushed, eyes sliding closed. Those dark lashes, those parted lips. Always exactly the same. He doesn’t even glance in your direction—he doesn’t need to peek at your body. He’s seen you before. You him.

“Was Mateo worse than me,” he asks from the bed, like he’s read your mind. No surprise. For years, you would’ve sworn he could.

You blush, though he’s not looking. “Javi,” you say softly.

“Sorry,” he sighs.

In a t-shirt, you pad around the other side of the bed to crawl over the covers and curl onto your side to face him, one hand beneath your cheek. “Sex in college is supposed to be bad,” you tell him, grinning.

His brows pinch together, bracketing his forehead. “Shouldn’t've been with you,” he mumbles.

Yes, he’s how you remember. Ever chasing some rabbit hole to plummet down to avoid the cavern to which he’ll give no name. He’s got one hand buried under his pillow—how easy it is to think of your things as his—and the other lies between you, limp. You take it in your own, pull it to your lips, and press them to his knuckles. “We were kids,” you say, sure to smile against the back of his hand so he’ll feel it.

He huffs. “Drunk.”

“That too.”

“Better now, I swear.”

You laugh. Can’t help it. Silver light from the moon puddles over you, illuminating half his face, the curve of his shoulder, the slope of his arm. Even miserable, probably in a blackout, one foot hanging sadly off the edge of the mattress, Javier is someone who draws laughter out of you with ease, same as when you were kids. You kiss the back of his hand again, still grinning, and watch the frown dissolve from his face. He’s always been beautiful in a way that never seemed fair, but you think it might be getting worse with age. No one should look so good in this state, but there he is.

“Sure hope so, baby,” you tease.

Now he cracks one dark eye to squint at you, the corner of his mouth loosening, curling into his cheek. Then there’s that dimple. Your heart patters. You’ve missed him. “Could show you,” Javier smirks.

You roll your eyes. “You aren’t showin’ me shit right now.”

His bottom pink pops again, pouting as he broods, yanking another chuckle from you while he murmurs something you miss. Something that ends with good though.

“Hm?” you say.

“You smell good though,” Javier murmurs, and though soft you hear it this time. That almost whine.

“Well, when you put it that way,” you tease, and like magic, he laughs. Smile lines crinkle beside his eyes, nose scrunching. Beautiful. It is, you think, the best of him—how he looks when he actually laughs. It takes over his face. 

As you both settle, he scooches closer on the bed, squeaking the mattress. You feel the warm plume of his breath whisper over your face as he sighs. He has, it seems, only a match of levity at a time. It sparkles, flares, and smokes out too quickly. 

It isn’t a frown that replaces it, but despair. “Gonna feel like shit tomorrow,” he mutters, no louder than a whisper. No need to speak any louder when you’re lying this close. Your lips press to his knuckles again and this time he squeezes your hand, the muscles in his forearm briefly tensing. Freckles dot his bicep like stars.

“You feel like shit right now,” you whisper in reply.

Javier nods, face folding like he wants to cry. But he almost never does, not even in front of you.

5:00 A.M. 

You drift into brief tides of sleep with the warmth of him around you, his face in the crook of your neck. For most of your life, you’ve chalked up the ease with which you touch each other to an echo of your childhoods—a time in which touch is given often and without judgment. There has never been hesitation between you, not in this way. Even now, eight years since the last time you saw him, Javier slots against you in a way that just feels right—new, broader shoulders and all. 

His slow, deep breaths warm your neck, your collarbone. You couldn’t wiggle out of his arms if you tried, and though it’s warm even with the window open, even with both of you on top of the covers, you don’t want to. Eight years is a long time to go without this.

When he stirs with a tortured groan, you nudge your lips against his forehead. “S’okay,” you mumble, and the whine that snakes out of him rattles your chest and slices clean through your heart. Wrapping a hand around the back of his head, fingers threading through curls, you pull him closer, and his arms tighten around your waist.

Maybe it should feel wrong when Javier nuzzles into your neck to kiss you softly beneath the jaw, but it doesn’t. 

“Baby—” he croaks, and you hush him, petting his hair.

You don’t want him to say it. You never say it. If he says it now, it’ll ruin you.

“I know, Javi,” you whisper, squeezing your eyes closed so tight you see a rain of stars. “I know.”

“Y’ never let me say it,” he mumbles against your throat, his breath fogging your skin.

“You don’t need to,” you say.

“Wanted to, you know,” he replies, his voice so gentle you feel it pass from his chest to yours in a shallow tremor.

You chuckle softly from the darkness behind your eyes, like opening them will break the spell. “Oh yeah? When?”

He shrugs, his body loose and boneless. The heat of him is making you sweat. 

“The whole time,” Javier mumbles, and you wish suddenly that he weren’t so close because he must hear the sudden racing of your heart. “Pensé que me casaría contigo.”

If he didn’t hear its racing, you think, there’s no way he misses when it stops. Your Spanish is mediocre at best but you catch fragments, piece it together. I thought I’d marry you.

Your forehead wrinkles as a sudden urge to cry slams into you, shattering your bones. At least you manage to pat his back teasingly, feigning coolness, steadiness. Pretending he hasn’t toppled you. 

“Think you’re confusing me and Lorraine, cariño,” you tease quietly, hopeful that the wetness in your eyes doesn’t taint your voice.

Silence stretches like an elastic threatening a snap, a sting, a burn. But Javier exhales in a way that feels like he’s asleep again, like all of this is just nonsense cooked up in some drunken dream. Soon sleep is dragging at you sweetly, loosening your limbs again. You grow heavy, face slack, your limbs indistinguishable from his. When he whispers again you hardly hear it and the words don’t stick. You’ll forget them when you next wake for real. But he says them all the same.

“Not confusin’ you with anybody.”

Then you’re gone, sucked away. Asleep.

6:00 A.M.

The yellow morning leaks through your bedroom. You wake to a glint in your eyes: sunlight reflecting off a picture frame on your dresser. You and Javier twenty years ago dressed for junior prom, hidden now by the blinding. Squinting, you groan a soft mph sound as you wake, desperate to bury yourself in sleep again. 

In your brief slumber the two of you have remained braided—two strands of clinging ivy. Against you, Javier groans, humming tiredly against your throat, and you feel his hand slip up the hem of your shirt again, his palm flat over your spine. 

Half asleep, you let him. 

Half asleep, you let yourself remember.

You’re twenty five again. Just a few years out of college, both of you home for the summer. Out in the long grass in Chucho’s yard, you stretch yourselves out to sunbathe in the Texas summer, watching bumblebees laze drowsily between blooming thistles. Beside you, Javier lies on his back with both hands cradled beneath his head while you read, those yellow aviators over his eyes.

“Could get a place together,” he says. So casual, so simply.

Looking up from your book, you see the pink collar of sunburn around his neck and grin to yourself. “We’d get sick of each other,” you lie.

Javier only shrugs, unaware, you think, that you spent all of college in love with him. In freshman year, you’d stumbled home together after a party and he’d kissed you against your front door, waking you from what you realized then had been a lifetime of slumber. You’d never considered kissing him before, but all of a sudden it was obvious. You thought this is what your lips should have been doing all this time.

But it never happened again. The sex was awkward, clumsy—you’d only done it once before—and you told yourself that’s why he never tried again. You never tried either. Now it’s a joke you tell each other, trying to make the other person blush. 

The thought of sharing an apartment with him sends a river of panic through your veins. It would kill you to watch him bring girls home. To watch him date someone else. It was bad enough watching Lorraine, and he left her.

“If you say so,” he says, looking not one bit disappointed.

Half asleep, you let yourself dream you said yes.

7:00 A.M.

You don’t know who leans in—if you tilt your head down or if Javier tilts his up, if it starts in your sleep—only that when you next stir the morning is darkening to gold and orange. Panels of windowed sunlight crawl slowly across your legs, and you are kissing.

Javier’s lips melt against yours. It’s nothing like when you were kids. Eighteen and nervous wrecks, your teeth always getting in the way.

It’s different now. You know how to kiss each other like you’ve had the practice, like it hasn’t been almost two decades since last you tried. Pliant and sleepy, his tongue licking gently into your mouth. His mustache scratches sweetly against your skin. When a breathy sound whimpers from you, he cups your jaw, his other arm locking snug around your waist. There’s no rush to it, no progression. You don’t strip down and fuck—both of you content with only this: the soft murmurs you breathe into each other. The lifetime of wanting in every kiss. 

Because you have wanted him, you realize. Not just in college, but before then and every day since. Maybe from the first day he walked into your sixth grade class and felt like home. Even these last eight years when you’d accepted that he was gone from your life for good, your friendship having reached the end of its life, you wanted him.

He grunts when you nibble gently at his bottom lip, and you smile. Then he moans. And it’s perfect, somehow, like he’s dug around in the cabinets of your mind to know exactly how you want to be kissed. Deeply, patiently. All tongue and breath and yielding lips, your hands in his hair, the fire of him enveloping you.

You say nothing; you talk with your touch.

He stripes his tongue along your bottom lip: I’m sorry.

You tug at his curls: I’m sorry.

He kisses the corners of your mouth: I’m sorry.

You lick the hinge of his jaw: I’m sorry.

His thumb strokes the apple of your cheek: I’m sorry. I’m falling asleep.

You tilt your head to better taste him: I don’t want to fall asleep.

But you do. The tide drags you out, your body molten, exhausted, hypnotized. Your lips still touching as you fall into a dream.

8:00 A.M.

When next you open your eyes, you’ve rolled towards the window and the weight and warmth of his arms is gone. You don’t bother turning over. Don’t bother reaching for him. 

You know the bed will be empty on his side, cold. 

[dreamingofthewild]

Does anyone have Gale x Tav (any gender) fic recs?

(Feel free to shamelessly self-promote).

[sugarpasteltmnt]

Me and my good friend very normally and regularly waiting for the 27th chapter

Also I sent you an ask about the last chapter but my internet was going on strike at the moment and I'm not sure if it sent or not

Could you perhaps confirm or deny? 👉👈

THESE ARE TOO FUNNY omfg thank u for sharing i love this so much WHEEZE

[quietwingsinthesky]

(@transgenderdoctorwhomst)

11rory for rare pair Sunday?

clap clap clap hell yeah. makes cute for them.

“You’re not following the instructions,” Rory says, suspiciously eyeing the screws the Doctor has collected in his lap. He left for maybe two minutes in total, and already, he can sense that something has gone horribly wrong in the construction of what should have been an extremely easy-to-build bookshelf.

Rory knows, technically, how to build furniture from scratch. Simple things, anyway, and mostly if he has access to a computer nearby to make sure he’s doing it right, but he can do it. It was how his dad used to bond with him, putting together a shelf or a chair. Neither of them were very good at it, but if you had two people onboard with a mediocre amount of talent, then the end result sometimes came out looking passable and rarely, even good.

He had planned to do the same thing with the Doctor.

Then, he’d imagined letting the Doctor anywhere near a tablesaw and felt his knees go wobbly. He’d decided that maybe they should start somewhere simpler.

All they had to do was put the pieces together, and they would have a bookshelf.

“I’m improving on the instructions,” the Doctor insists. Rory highly doubts that. He’s pretty sure a lot of the screws currently in the Doctor’s lap belong somewhere in the shelf.

“You don’t need to improve them. Are you trying to teach our bookshelf how to time travel?” The Doctor tips his head baby to look at Rory.

“That’s a perfect idea,” he says, delighted. Rory groans quietly to himself. “Not the time travel bit, that’s insane, Rory. No, think about it. Time travel, TARDIS, dimensional engineering-”

“Doctor.”

“-bigger on the inside bookshelf for double as many books-”

“Doctor,” Rory repeats, a little louder. The shelf is creaking ominously. He inches towards the Doctor, reaching for him.

“-I could link the dimensional space to my TARDIS, and-” The Doctor can’t stop his train of thought until it’s finished. Or until-

Rory grabs the Doctor and yanks him back. It might be a bit of an overreaction. The shelf collapses in on itself, not onto the Doctor, and Rory sends the screws flying everywhere. Some roll under the couch, never to be found again, even if someone moves the entire couch out of the way and looks directly where they should have landed. Rory’s heart is beating way too hard for this. He wraps his arms around the Doctor’s torso, buries his face in the Doctor’s neck, and takes a deep breath.

The Doctor leans back into Rory, quiet again. Rory can feel his pulses. They calm him down.

“The instructions…” the Doctor says quietly, “may have known more about shelf-building than me.” Rory chuckles against his neck, shaking his head.

[vampkillr]

Scars — Matt Murdock

Tw: Self harm, description of relapse

gn! reader — 1.1k words — hurt/comfort — this fic was written true to my personal experience with self harm. i am not romanticizing this topic. do not read this if you are trying to have some deranged fantasy of it. the descriptions in this fic may be triggering to some readers. please do not continue reading if this topic will impact your mental health. your health and safety are of utmost importance to me.

My scars were different than his. They told the tale of a different battle. A different addiction. I wasn't a hero like him. He couldn't see the war I was fighting. In a way I was grateful for it. The safety his lack of vision provided. I didn't have to hide myself. There weren't words to describe why I did it. A pain so deep in my bones I had to dig for it. To let it bleed out and let the pressure build once more, only to start the process all over again. With Matt I had to be careful. I had to make sure he couldn't hear it. Smell it. Taste it. This, of course was just a matter of making sure he wasn't there. Everything else was secondary so long as my arm was covered.

It became a ritual. Every night after work to come home and fight the urge. To wait and wait— maybe make a few days clean only to ultimately cave in to that voice in my head. To fill the emptiness on my skin. Once again I found myself staring at my wrist. Blade in hand. Guilt beginning to whisper my name, but the voice louder. How they looked too shallow. How they were all starting to heal. Picking apart the empty spaces and shaming me for not having filled them. It was almost artistic, the lines I placed on myself. Picking and choosing exactly where it was I wanted my blood to spill— and as I started to bleed, I remembered why I loved it so much. I felt warmth. Comfort. My skin cried in a way I couldn't. It dripped. Beaded. It gave me an ache that reminded me I had a heartbeat.

A knock at the bathroom door and the frantic shaking of the doorknob brought me to reality. To regret and disappointment. Ripped away from the peace I had created for myself. “Open the door!” Matthew's voice cut through the wood that separated us. Shit. I took my time getting up, pressing my already bloody cloth onto my arm and going to let Matt in. The second the door was unlocked he barreled through, grabbing me and holding me as tight as he could. “I thought—” His cheek against my head, lips brushing against my ear. “I thought you were trying to kill yourself I couldn't—” I could feel the panic in his chest. In the way he couldn't finish his sentence. “All I could smell was your blood.”

I felt gutted. I scared my only sanctuary. I ruined the safety I found in his normalcy. He knew now the very thing I was trying to hide. “Matthew,” I spoke low, gently trying to coax him off of me. “I'm alright.” I dreaded the possible conversation this would spark. I didn't want him to try to make himself my saint. There was nothing he could tell me that I haven't already heard. He backed away only to hold my arm out for him to analyze. He shut the toilet lid and sat me down, washing his hands and taking the time to pick a thick enough rag. For a minute we stayed silent as he put pressure against my arm, the air of disappointment choking us both. I could see how upset he was. I was upset too. "I'm sorry.” I whispered.

“I didn't know how to talk to you about it....” My eyes trailed his form, the way he towered over me like this. “I didn't know if you wanted to talk about it.” He sighed. “I just want you to be okay.”

“I am.” I tried to reassure him. To reassure myself. We both knew I was lying. I had an issue. A problem that has rooted itself so deep in my brain that I didn't see an end to it. It clouded my vision. My judgement. He let go of my arm, placing both bloody rags in my sink and going on a journey to find my bandages. “I'll get them.” He moved away and I reached for everything I needed, rinsing my arm off and drying it first. Three big band-aids later and I was good as new. I walked over to the couch while Matt made his way to the bar— the light from that god-awful sign outside being the only thing illuminating my path. A purple hue seeping through the vaguely clouded panes, painting the entire room and everything in it. I sat down and he placed a glass of water on the coffee table before sitting across from me. Silence consumed us. Nothing could fix what just happened. There was no space for the conversation to change. A stagnation that neither of us knew how to address. “So you knew?” My voice low.

“The whole time.” His confirmation made me want to sink into myself. Going this long without talking about it, it was no wonder he thought I was trying to die. There was no reason to believe otherwise. “I didn't want to upset you.... I thought you'd come to me when you were ready.” Every time he'd touch me. Every time he'd graze my wrists. Pretending to believe my lies about how they were all old scars. With each question of ‘they're still old?’ he gave me the chance to come forward. With each ‘yes’ I let him know I didn't want to.

“I don't know why I do it.” My arm ached. It hurt worse than before because of how tight Matt was gripping the rag to my arm. “I'm hurting..... I just can't explain how.” I sighed and he got up, coming around to sit next to me on the couch. “A suffering I have to show myself just to know it's real. Maybe I do it just to see myself heal in a way that my brain can't. I don't know.” His hand went to my back. The pressure soothing. “I just can't help myself sometimes. I can't stop.” I leaned over, head in my hands. I just wanted today to be over with.

“Let's go to bed.” Matt gently pulled me off the couch and led me to our room. I didn't have the fight in me to try and stay up any longer. He stripped himself of his black outfit and got under the covers. I followed shortly after, relaxing into his arms as he held me. “I love you.” I didn't have to say anything for him to know that I loved him too. He could feel it. The heat on my skin. My heartbeat. The warmth he covered me in was enough to lull me to sleep. I drifted off surrounded by him.

u definitely do not have to reblog this !! please don't unnecessarily trigger anyone. i wrote this pretty much to comfort myself so i definitely understand if it doesn't get many notes.

[c-e-d-dreamer]

Top Shelf Love: Prologue

A/N: So, if you know me, you know that I love hockey. But if there's one thing I don't love, it's hockey romances because they are always so inaccurate that it's take you out of the story SO QUICK! Like what do you mean the captain of this NCAA D1 team is undrafted? What do you mean she magically has access to an NHL locker-room in the middle of a game? So this is my response to that! A super self-indulgent Nessian Hockey AU. For additional hockey context: Cassian is a defenseman for the NY Rangers; Rhys is a center for the Montreal Canadiens; Az is a winger for the Nashville Predators; and Lucien is a winger for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Anyways! Hope everyone enjoys this prologue and this absolute meet-ugly! Happy final day of @nestaarcheronweek

Read on AO3 // Chapter Masterlist // Next Part

Nesta

Nesta sighs softly, tilting her head back against the leather of the seat. Almost instantly, she scrunches her nose, the stale scent of cigarettes, of sweat and previous occupants, flooding her senses. Eager for a distraction, she peers out the window instead. The skyscrapers loom like shadowed giants on either side of the road, a cascade of colorful lights spilling from their windows and reflecting off the wet roads, the puddles from the earlier rain. Throngs of bodies move along the sidewalks, neither the late hour or the dark clouds still clinging above deterring them clearly.

The city that never sleeps indeed.

The cab jerks to a stop along the curb, the driver not even bothering to turn around and say anything to her, merely tapping the fare display. With a roll of her eyes, Nesta fishes her wallet out of her purse to pay before finally slipping out of the cab. At least the driver pulls her suitcase from the trunk, setting it on the sidewalk beside her.

“Nesta! You finally made it!”

It takes everything within Nesta to swallow back down another sigh, takes all her willpower to force at least a hint of a smile to tug across her face. She can feel her earlier annoyance still simmering just beneath her skin, can still feel the exhaustion weighing down her bones. She’d give anything to be back in her own bed right now, anything to slip beneath her pile of blankets and curl up with a good book, but she’s here for Feyre, here to celebrate her baby sister.

So Nesta rolls her shoulders and plasters on an even wider smile before she turns around. But she should have known better, should have known that despite the physical distance between them, there’s no fooling her sisters. From the way Feyre raises an eyebrow, her lips twitching up in the barest hint of an unimpressed smirk, it’s clear she sees straight through Nesta.

“Sorry,” Nesta winces, her shoulders drooping already. “Journey from hell.”

“Sounds like you need a drink,” Elain offers with an easy smile, stepping forward and taking the handle of Nesta’s suitcase.

“Or five,” Feyre adds with a chuckle.

Nesta rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t exactly disagree. A stiff drink definitely sounds appealing after the nightmare of the day she’s had.

“I saw online that a lot of flights were just straight canceled, so I think you’re lucky to have made it at all,” Elain comments, leading the way along the sidewalk.

“I don’t know that I’d call a six hour delay lucky,” Nesta grumbles, practically shuddering at the memory of being stuck sitting and waiting in an airport for so long.

Nesta follows her sisters inside the building, but they take the elevator down, rather than up, Elain leading the way toward a black SUV. She tells her sisters more about the horrible journey as they walk. About the surprisingly long line at security. About the storms in the midwest and the delays and havoc they wreaked on all flights. About the child that seemed determined to scream for the entire five hour flight.

Once Nesta’s bags are securely locked away in Elain’s car, they return to the elevator and take it all the way up to the eighteenth floor, the doors opening with a soft ding. There’s no stopping the way Nesta’s jaw slackens as she takes it all in. A large centerpiece extends from the floor and fans out into the ceiling, the lights embedded within it casting the entire bar and its occupants in glittering golds. Live music seems to be coming from somewhere, twining and molding with the laughter, the conversations, filling the space.

But it’s the windows that really draw Nesta’s attention. Floor to ceiling windows seem to line every wall, offering a truly panoramic view of all of New York City and the Hudson. It’s a picture perfect view of the twinkling lights and night sky through the rain droplets still clinging to the panes.

“Wow,” Nesta breathes, taking it all in. “This place is definitely nicer than I was expecting.”

“If you think this is nice, you should see their venue.”

It takes a few moments for Elain’s words to register, but then Nesta is snapping her head toward Feyre. “You have a venue already? Does that mean you’ve picked a date?”

“Yes,” Feyre answers, unable to bite back her grin. “Next summer. July specifically, after Rhys’s season has ended.”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit optimistic to think he’ll still be playing through June?”

“Elain!” Feyre exclaims, reaching out to smack the middle Archeron in the arm. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

“What?” Elain shrugs innocently. “It’s true. I mean what’s their current record again?”

“Because the Leafs do so well when they choke every year?”

“At least they make the playoffs.”

Nesta snorts softly at her sisters’ bickering. “Since when did you become a sports fan anyways, Elain?”

“I guess Lucien’s been filling her with more than just his dick.”

“Feyre!” Elain squeaks out, her cheeks flooding with a blush.

“Darling,” a deep voice practically purrs, interrupting them. “There you are. I was wondering where my beautiful fiancée got off to.”

“Rhys, this is my oldest sister, Nesta,” Feyre offers, sidling up against Rhys’s side, her fiancé’s arm settling over her shoulders with comfortable ease.

“A pleasure to meet you at last,” Rhys greets, holding up the glass in his free hand in a mock cheers. The gesture is a bit sloppy, some of the amber liquid in the glass sloshing over the rim and spilling across his fingers, and Nesta realizes there’s a haze to his violet eyes.

“It’s an open bar,” Feyre mouths, clearly reading Nesta’s expression.

“You don’t have a drink in your hand,” Rhys suddenly says, as though he’s only just realized. “We need to fix that immediately.”

Rhys turns on his heel, pushing his way through the various guests gathered to celebrate him and Feyre without a care. Nesta rolls her eyes, but Feyre has a wide, soft smile on her face as she watches him go, eyes practically sparking with fondness. It’s clear this is the man that makes her youngest sister happy, so she can’t fault him too much.

“He’s right, you know. You do need a drink still,” Feyre says, looping her arm through Nesta’s.

Feyre leads the way toward the bar built around the large centerpiece. She leans over and gets the attention of one of the bartenders with ease, ordering what she tells Nesta is the couple's signature cocktail. It seems to be some sort of margarita, a deep blue in color with edible glitter that looks almost like stars swirling through the liquid.

“So…” Feyre starts, taking a sip of her own drink.

“So…?” Nesta echoes, although she has a strong suspicion she already knows where this conversation is going. She knows that expression on her sister’s face all too well.

“Rhys’s brothers are here tonight.”

“And you need to stop being such a busybody.”

Feyre sighs, turning so her hip leans against the bar, facing Nesta fully. “Why? I’m an excellent matchmaker. Just ask Elain…” Feyre looks over her shoulder, but frowns, turning in a full circle with her eyebrows pinched low. “Wait. Where did Elain go?”

“She and Lucien probably found some dark corner to fuck like the bunnies they are,” Nesta answers dryly. It’s certainly the trend with those two, vanishing for a few hours before appearing again with slightly mussed clothes and hair, pink often clinging to the apples of Elain’s cheeks and a wide, shit eating grin plastered across Lucien’s face.

“That just proves my point! At least tell me you stalked his Instagram or something.”

“Emerie and Gwyn did.”

Her best friends had been trying to convince her to get back out there for a month now. Even with how much time has passed since everything happened, it still feels strange. Of course, that hasn’t stopped Emerie from dragging her out to bars for trivia nights and karaoke as if they’re the best places to meet someone new. It hasn’t stopped Gwyn from trying to tempt her to start a dating profile on at least one of the plethora of app options.

It hasn’t stopped either of them from hyping her up after they spent so long helping Nesta to piece together the shattered fragments of herself, of her life, back together. It’s why Nesta loves them, why she doesn’t know what she’d do without them.

But when Feyre had suggested setting Nesta up with Rhys’s adopted brother, practically raving over the phone about what a good fit the two of them would be together, it had been like blood in the water for Emerie and Gwyn. Nesta had barely hung up with her sister by the time Gwyn had tracked down his social medias and had them displayed on the television ‘for the best viewing experience.’

Cassian Valdarez.

Any other emotions aside, Nesta can admit he’s attractive, that much was clear from the photos and videos on his Instagram. With his dark, curly hair tumbling down to his shoulders, his bright hazel eyes. He had been grinning widely in most of the photos, golden skin of his cheeks stretched and crinkles popping beside his eyes. But even the one where his lips were tugged up in a lopsided, cocksure smirk had Nesta staring.

Nesta had done a lot of staring.

Staring at the photo of him in sunglasses and shirtless, lounging casually on some sort of boat, wide shoulders and swirling lines of ink on full display. The photo of him in a locker room, dressed only from the waist down, showing off the tantalizing lines of his abs, his v-lines. The Reel of him working out, chest heaving and skin glistening, biceps bulging with every lift of the weights. The reel of him stick handling with just gloves, in a tank and shorts, the muscles and veins of his forearms working with each flick of his wrist.

“Okay, and?” Feyre’s voice draws Nesta back to the present.

“And what?”

“And what did Gwyn and Emerie think?”

Nesta sighs softly, fiddling with the stem of her glass. “I mean, they said I should go for it.”

“Ha!” Feyre exclaims, loud enough to draw the attention of a few others up at the bar. “See? I’m right. A perfect match.”

“Feyre, don’t you think—”

“Feyre, darling, I keep losing you.” Rhys slips into the space behind Feyre, wrapping an arm around her waist. He dips his head enough to press his lips to her neck before raising his gaze to peer at Nesta over Feyre’s shoulder. “Sorry. Do you mind if I steal my fiancée away for a moment?”

“Not at all,” Nesta assures him, but it’s Feyre’s gaze she meets. “I’ll be fine.”

Feyre and Rhys vanish into the crowds hand and hand, and Nesta settles at the bar, sipping her drink. Her eyes flit around, but she truly doesn’t know anyone here outside of her sisters. And despite her earlier words to Feyre, all the people, all the sounds and the lights, are starting to grate against her nerves, prickling and dragging along her skin like nails. Even downing the remains of her drink doesn’t seem to help, the alcohol only weighing heavy in her gut.

Leaving her now empty glass on the bartop, Nesta spins on her heel and stalks toward one of the walls of windows. She glances around at the different tables set up, the booths that line the windows and offer the perfect seats for the views beyond. Maybe she can find a dark corner to hide in for a few hours, or maybe, if she’s lucky, Elain and Lucien will decide they want to leave early to continue whatever they’ve started in an actual bed.

“Looking for me, sweetheart?”

The deep voice has a shiver skittering up Nesta’s spine, warm breath fanning across her ear. She spins around and comes face to face with a pair of hazel eyes, a cocksure smirk she’s only seen in photo-form before. Cassian Valdarez, in the flesh. He doesn’t even bother for subtly as his gaze rakes over her, and Nesta has to swallow hard as she tracks the way he licks his lips.

“And what if I wasn’t?” Nesta dares to ask, raising her chin.

Cassian chuckles, stepping closer into her space. “I think we both know you were looking for me. Why wouldn’t you be?”

Cassian’s hand reaches up in the space between them, snagging one of the stray strands of Nesta’s hair and twisting it around his fingers. Those same fingers skate down her neck, across her collarbones, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake. His touch traces over her shoulder and down her arm before finally closing around her wrist, Nesta’s breath hitching at the warm of his hand, the size of it, and she can do nothing but follow along as he tugs her toward one of the booths by the windows.

He lets go long enough to fall back against the cushions, for Nesta to settle beside him, but then his hands are right back on her. This time, his palm slides against the skin above her knee, fingers teasing along the hem of her dress. His other arm stretches along the back of the booth, all but curling around her shoulders as he leans into her.

“You look gorgeous in this dress, you know.”

“But let me guess, it would look better on your bedroom floor?”

“You said it, not me, but I don’t disagree.”

Nesta snorts quietly, tempted to tell him that it was wrinkled when she yanked it out of her suitcase before she awkwardly changed into it in the airport bathroom. But she never gets the chance to. Cassian lifts his hand until his fingers curl around her jaw, tilting her chin up enough that he can slot their lips firmly together.

The kiss takes Nesta by surprise, but it doesn’t take her long to respond. She moves her lips against his, Cassian’s grip on her chin holding her exactly where he wants her. When his tongue slips into her mouth, she moans softly, fisting a hand into the front of his shirt to keep herself steady and to keep him close.

Cassian pulls back just enough that he can murmur, “Do you want to get out of here?”

“Right now?” Nesta blurts out before she can stop herself. She’s certainly not opposed to the idea, but with tonight being the first time they’re meeting, she thought he might want to get to know her more first. What exactly did Feyre tell him about her?

“You know what they say. No time like the present.”

“I should probably tell my sister I’m leaving then.”

Cassian’s eyes seem to glint, even beneath the low light of the bar. “Is your sister here? Does she want to join?”

Nesta is sure that she must have misheard him. “What?”

“It could be fun. Two sisters, one hockey player,” Cassian says easily, even daring to wink at her. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Nesta can do nothing but gape at him, her mind reeling with this turn in conversation, but then it hits her like a ton of bricks. “You don’t know who I am.”

Cassian chuckles again, that cocksure smirk of his never slipping for a moment. “Am I supposed to know who you are?”

“Do you even know my name?” Nesta snaps, pulling further away from him.

“Oh, come on. Don’t be like that, sweetheart. All that really matters is you knowing my name so you can scream it tonight.”

“You didn’t even want to ask for it before you kissed me? You don’t even want to ask for it now?”

“Look. We both know what you came here for, what you puck bunnies are always looking for, and trust me, sweetheart. I am more than happy to give it,” Cassian offers, the way his eyes dance over her frame again nothing short of a leer. It stokes the anger flaring in Nesta’s veins higher, until it burns bright and hot.

“Wow,” Nesta scoffs, pushing up to her feet. “Fuck you.”

Nesta doesn’t even wait to hear whatever sputtering response he might give before she turns on her heel and stalks away from Cassian, pushing through bodies to put as much distance between them as she can. She’s never felt more stupid, can’t believe that she allowed Feyre to convince her that Cassian was some great guy, that the two of them would be some perfect match.

She can’t believe that she had started to believe her sister’s words, that that damned hope had started to bloom and put down roots in the gaps between her ribs.

Because of course. Of course, Cassian is just like every other guy, only thinking with the head between his legs without a single care for what happens once the sun rises. He’s exactly what Nesta expects from a professional athlete, cocky and sure of himself, expecting every girl to fall at his feet ready to worship him and suck his dick.

She finds Elain and Lucien in one of the other booths near the opposite side of windows. Elain has her legs draped across Lucien’s lap, giggling around the straw of her drink. Lucien seems to be smirking through whatever story he’s telling, his arm stretched across the back of the booth, fingers toying aimlessly with the soft brown curls of Elain’s hair.

“Can we go?” Nesta interrupts, looking between the two.

Elain blinks a few times, but then she starts nodding her head. “Of course. You’ve already had such a long day.”

Elain pushes up and to her feet, wobbling just slightly in her heels, but Lucien is there right behind her, his hands spanning across her waist to steady her. She smiles over her shoulder up at him before turning her attention to her purse, rooting around with a frown.

“Wait. Where are the keys?”

“I have them, my love,” Lucien answers, holding up the keys dangling from his fingers. He turns his attention to Nesta, offering her a wink. “Don’t worry. She’s not driving.”

Lucien slides his hand into Elain’s, leading all three of them through the party and back toward the elevators. Nesta keeps her head down as she follows behind her sister and brother-in-law, and she certainly doesn’t bother to look back. Besides, it’s not like anyone is watching her. She’s quite confident a certain hockey player has already found some other poor, unsuspecting girl to capture his attention.

And as they take the elevators all the way down to the parking garage and back to the car, she vows to herself that she’ll never think of Cassian Valdarez ever again.

—

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