#Ground Orange Peel

[morganski-19]

Steve seeing something on tiktok and trying it on Eddie

Steve: You know what I kinda really want right now, an orange

Eddie: Do we even have the oranges?

Steve: I’m not sure

Eddie: *getting up* Let me check. Nope, be back in ten

Steve: *to the camera* I was not expecting him to go that far

Ten minutes later

Eddie: *comes back to the apartment with a bag of oranges* Do you want peeled or sliced

Steve: Peeled

Eddie: Ok

Steve: *looking at the camera* I think he passed

Eddie: *handing Steve a bowl of peeled orange slices* Passed what?

Steve: Nothing

[pollen]

hi fellow neurodivergent people

i hate to jump on the "i think i might have adhd" bandwagon, but if i think i might have adhd, how do i bring it up to my care team as a 28-year-old cis woman who was a massive overachiever until i couldn't keep up the ruse anymore?

[decaycontest]

Do you still love me? Follow up would you still love me if I was a worm?

who is this?? don't ever talk to me or my son again

[theshadowrealmitself]

Growing up there was an orange tree and a tangerine tree in the backyard and I always preferred the tangerines to the oranges so it’s what I peeled and ate more of, now whenever I see posts about peeling oranges and sharing oranges and stuff I always immediately think of tangerines

[frosteee-variation]

god. thinking about splatoon. thinking about how cringefail my agent three interpretation is

[tomsflavorfusion]

Carnival sweet cappelletti recipe

Carnival sweet cappelletti recipe Cappelletti filled with ricotta and chocolate? No, it’s not a joke but a delicious one Carnival sweet! The sweet Carnival cappelletti, in fact, resemble the appearance of this typical filled pasta format but are made with shortcrust pastry and baked. Inside the crunchy casing you will find a soft heart made from sheep’s ricotta enriched with dark chocolate…

[peavhyshy]

⋆˚ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆ - BACK TO YOU

ᯓᡣ𐭩 paring ─ ୨୧ ─ jj maybank ⋆ ex!pogue!reader

ᯓᡣ𐭩 summary ─ ୨୧ ─ in which you return to the island after moving away and have to confront unresolved feelings and changes in the friend group.

ᯓᡣ𐭩 warnings ─ ୨୧ ─ explicit language, angst, hurt/comfort, smut, fluff, drama, mention of past self-harm, mention of past suicide attempt, mention of depression/mental health issues, alcohol abuse, unresolved emotional/romantic tension, trauma, mention of parental abuse/neglect, emotional cheating, jj is dating kiara, pretend luke didn’t leave, tw: surf competition, reconciliation, emotional vulnerability, unprotected vaginal sex, fingering, oral sex, dirty talk, praise, teasing, power play, and overstimulation (please dni if your sensitive to any of these topics your mental health should come first)

ᯓᡣ𐭩 wc ─ ୨୧ ─ 19,166

⋆˚✿˖° a/n ─ ୨୧ ─ this is long and very emotional/dramatic which is half of the reason it's been sitting in drafts forever. this was only written because I just love the song and wanted something based on it.

⋆.˚✮back to you✮˚.⋆

(༝༚༝༚ selena gomez)

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──. Outer Banks Masterlist ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── Navigation ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

JJ stands awkwardly by the cooler, his fingers drumming against the metal surface as he watches you grab another case of beer. The setting sun casts long shadows across John B's backyard, painting everything in hues of orange and pink. The salty breeze carries the distant sound of waves crashing against the shore, mixing with the muffled laughter and music inside the house. He can't help but steal glances at you, memories of your past flooding his mind like an unwanted tide.

"So uh..." JJ clears his throat, adjusting his shark tooth necklace nervously. "How was... wherever the fuck you went?" He tries to maintain his usual carefree demeanor, but an edge to his voice betrays his discomfort. His blue eyes dart between you and the ground, unable to maintain steady eye contact. The weight of your unspoken history hangs heavy between you, thicker than the humid Carolina evening.

You stand awkwardly, your fingers nervously playing with the label of your beer bottle. You avoid JJ's gaze, focusing instead on the peeling paint of John B's deck railing. The tension between you two is suffocating, making the humid evening air feel even heavier. "Maine," you finally answer, your voice barely above a whisper. "We went to Maine."

JJ's jaw tightens at the mention of Maine, his fingers flexing around his beer bottle as he processes just how far away you’ve been. "Maine? Fuck, that's like... way up there with all those lobsters and shit," he says, trying to maintain his usual lighthearted tone but failing miserably. 

"You look..." He starts, then stops himself, shoving his free hand into the pocket of his board shorts. "I mean, it's good you're back and shit. The group missed you." He deliberately leaves out the fact that he missed you too, that your absence left a void that even Kiara couldn't quite fill. The tension between you is palpable, like the electricity in the air before a storm - something the Outer Banks knows all too well. He takes a long pull from his beer, using it as an excuse to break the uncomfortable silence that's settled between you.

You take a long sip from your bottle, using the moment to gather your thoughts. The sight of JJ - still as handsome as ever with his messy blonde hair and those blue eyes - makes your heartache in a way you thought you’d gotten over. The sound of Kiara's laughter from inside feels like a knife twisting in your gut. "I see you and Kie finally..." you trail off, unable to finish the sentence. Your skin glows in the porch light.

"Yeah, me and Kie..." he trails off, taking another long pull from his beer to avoid finishing the sentence. The truth is, things with Kiara are good - great even - but standing here with you brings back all the complicated feelings he'd tried to bury in the sand. 

"The group seems... good," you manage, trying to keep your voice steady. "Different, but good." You risk a glance at JJ, immediately regretting it when you catch his eyes. Those same eyes that used to look at you with such intensity, now belong to someone else. You shift your weight, your sundress rustling softly in the evening breeze. 

A loud crash from inside the house makes you both jump causing you to spill a bit of beer on your dress, followed by John B's distinctive "Everything's fine!" JJ lets out a forced laugh, but it doesn't reach his eyes. He's hyper-aware of every movement you make, every shift in your posture, every breath you take. The familiar scent of your perfume mixed with the salt air brings back memories he's tried so hard to suppress - stolen kisses behind the Wreck, late-night surfing sessions, promises made and broken. He adjusts his stance, trying to maintain a careful distance between you, even as every fiber of his being wants to close it.

"Shit," you mutter, dabbing at the spot with your free hand. You can feel JJ's presence just a few feet away, and it takes everything in you not to close that distance. "I should've called or something," you say suddenly, the words tumbling out before you can stop them. "Before I left, I mean. I just... I couldn't." Your voice cracks slightly on the last word, betraying the emotions you're trying so hard to keep in check.

The raw honesty in your voice, when you mention not calling, makes his throat tight. "Yeah, well..." JJ runs a hand through his hair again, his shark tooth necklace catching the light as he moves. "Probably wouldn't have answered anyway. Was pretty fucked up back then." He lets out a laugh, but there's pain behind it. "Still am, just better at hiding it now." The admission hangs between you like smoke, heavy and suffocating. He can hear Sarah and John B singing off-key inside, the sound a stark contrast to the tension-filled bubble you're standing in.

He watches as you dab at the beer stain on your dress, fighting the urge to help you like he would have before. "Fuck, hold up," he mutters, pulling off his worn t-shirt and offering it to you without thinking. The porch light illuminates the scattered bruises across his torso - some new, some old ones you’d recognize.

You stand there, your heart racing as you stare at JJ's shirtless form. You reach out hesitant to take his shirt, your fingers brushing briefly in a way that sends electricity through your entire body. "Thanks," you manage to say, your voice barely above a whisper. 

"You look good though," he finally says, the words escaping before he can stop them. His eyes meet yours for a moment before quickly looking away. "I mean, like, healthy and shit. That's... that's good." He shifts uncomfortably, very aware that he's still shirtless and that the space between you feels both too large and not large enough. The familiar scent of your perfume is making his head spin, or maybe it's the beer, or maybe it's just you - it's always been you. "Did it help?" he asks quietly, genuinely wanting to know. "Going away? Did it... fix things?" The question carries more weight than he intends, loaded with all the things he never got to say before you left.

The sound of Kiara's laughter drifts out again, and you flinches visibly. You take another long drink from your beer, needing the liquid courage. "It helped," you finally answer his question, unconsciously running your fingers over the faded scars on your wrists. "The doctors, the therapy, the distance... It helped. But it didn't fix everything." You look up at him then, really look at him, taking in how the years have changed him. He's still JJ - still beautiful but there's something harder in his eyes now, something that wasn't there before.

You clutch his shirt in your hands, the familiar scent of him - salt air, coconut surf wax, and something distinctly JJ - making you dizzy with memories. "I..." you start, then swallow hard. "I wanted to call. Every single day, I picked up my phone and stared at your number until the screen went black."

"I missed you," You confess quietly, immediately regretting the words as soon as they leave your mouth. "I mean, I missed everyone," you quickly add, but you both know it's not the same thing. You can feel the weight of everything unsaid between you, three years' worth of words you never got to say. "You look happy," you say, trying to smile even though it feels like your heart is breaking all over again. "With Kie, I mean. You guys... you make sense together." The lie tastes bitter on your tongue, but you force it out anyway. Because what else can you say? That seeing them together feels like drowning? That every time you close your eyes, you still see him? That Maine might have helped you heal your mind, but it did nothing to heal your heart? 

A burst of laughter from inside makes him jump, reminding him where you are and who's waiting for him. "Happy?" he scoffs, the word tasting like ash in his mouth. "Yeah, sure. I'm fucking peachy." His sarcasm is sharp enough to cut, a defense mechanism he's perfected over the years. He takes another long drink from his beer, finishing it in one go before setting it down with more force than necessary. "And don't do that shit about me and Kie making sense. You don't get to..." he stops himself again, running a hand over his face.

"Fuck, Y/N/N," JJ breathes out, using your old nickname without thinking. His fingers twitch at his sides, wanting to reach for you but knowing he can't. The sight of you touching your wrist scars makes his stomach turn - he remembers the day he found you, remembers the blood, remembers feeling more terrified than he'd ever been in his life.

"You can't just come back here and say shit like that," he says, his voice rough with emotion. He runs both hands through his hair in frustration, pacing a small circle on the deck. "You left, Y/N. You fucking left and I..." he trails off, the rest of the sentence dying in his throat. The memory of those first few weeks, after you disappeared, hits him like a physical blow - the drinking, the fights, the reckless behavior that even John B couldn't talk him down from.

"I didn't want to leave, JJ," You say, taking a step closer to him despite yourself. The electricity between you is almost tangible now. "You think I wanted to be shipped off to fucking Maine? To be locked up in some facility where they watched my every move? Where they made me talk about every fucking thing that was wrong with me?" Your voice rises slightly before you catch yourself, glancing nervously at the house. "I was drowning here, JJ. I was drowning and I couldn't..." 

"You know what? Fuck this," JJ says suddenly, his eyes blazing with a mix of anger and something else - something that looks dangerously close to the way he used to look at you. "You want to know what happened after you left? I fucking lost it, Y/N. I was so fucked up I couldn't even..." he cuts himself off, aware he's saying too much. The space between you feels charged with electricity, like the air before a storm. 

"But hey, at least the doctors fixed you up real nice, right?" The words are meant to sting, but there's a tremor in his voice that betrays him. He's still that same boy who used to sneak into your room at night, who used to hold you when the darkness got too heavy, who promised he'd always be there - until you made it impossible to keep that promise." His eyes intense as they lock onto yours. "I used to check your social media every fucking day. Every. Day. Just to make sure you were still..." he trails off, unable to finish the sentence. 

Your hands tremble as you clutch his shirt tighter, his familiar scent making your head spin. "Lost it?" You repeat, your voice cracking. "You think you were the only one who lost it?" The words come out sharper than intended, years of buried pain rising to the surface. Your skin flushes with anger and hurt, your eyes glistening with unshed tears. The bitterness in his voice when he mentions the doctors makes you flinch. "Fixed me up real nice?" You repeat, a hollow laugh escaping your lips. "Is that what you think? That I'm all better now? That I just went away and came back brand new?" You move closer still, close enough to see the flecks of darker blue in his eyes, close enough to smell the beer on his breath. "I still have nightmares. I still get days where I can barely get out of bed. The only difference is now I have better coping mechanisms than..." 

His confession about checking your social media makes your heart stutter in your chest. "I deactivated everything," you admit quietly, your voice thick with emotion. "Because every time I logged on, all I wanted to do was message you. Tell you I was sorry. Tell you I..." you stop yourself, very aware of how close you're standing now, of the fact that he's still shirtless, of Kiara just inside the house. "It doesn't matter now, does it?" You say, taking a step back, trying to create some distance between you even though every cell in your body screams to move closer. "You moved on. You're happy. That's... that's good." The lie tastes like poison on your tongue, but you force it out anyway, because what right do you have to come back here and disrupt his life? What right do you have to still want him this much?

JJ's body tenses as Pope's voice cuts through the charged atmosphere. "What’s taking so long with those beers? John B's about to start drinking mouthwash if we don't..." Pope trails off as he steps onto the deck, his eyes darting between JJ's shirtless form and you holding the said shirt. "Oh shit, my bad, I didn't..." he starts, but JJ cuts him off with a sharp laugh that sounds more like a bark.

"Nothing to be sorry for, Pope," JJ says, his voice carrying an edge that makes Pope raise his eyebrows. JJ snatches up the case of beer from the cooler, his movements jerky and aggressive. "Just catching up with our prodigal pogue here. Sharing war stories about her fancy fucking therapy in Maine." The words come out dripping with sarcasm, but there's a tremor in his hands as he grips the beer case. The porch light catches the tension in his jaw, the way his muscles are coiled tight like he's ready to either fight or flee.

"JJ," Pope says warningly, recognizing the signs of his friend spiraling. He's seen this before - usually right before JJ does something spectacularly stupid. "Maybe we should all just-" But JJ's already moving, shouldering past both of them towards the house. He pauses at the door, his back to you, his knuckles white around the beer case. "You know what the fucked up part is?" he says, not turning around. "I actually thought..." he stops, letting out a bitter laugh. "Doesn't matter what I thought. Welcome home, Y/N. Hope Maine was worth it."

Pope watches JJ disappear inside before turning to you with an apologetic look. "He was really messed up when you left," he says quietly, always the mediator. "Like, more than usual messed up. Started getting into fights with Topper almost daily, drinking more than his dad. Kiara was the only one who could calm him down sometimes." He runs a hand over his face, looking tired. "Look, I know it's not my place, but... maybe give him some time? He's better now, but seeing you again..." Pope glances at the door where you can hear JJ's forced laughter mixing with the others. "It's like reopening an old wound, you know?"

You stare at the door JJ just disappeared through, your heart feeling like it's being ripped apart all over again. His shirt is still clutched in your trembling hands, and you bring it unconsciously closer to your chest. You can feel tears threatening to spill over. "Time?" You repeat Pope's words with a hollow laugh. "Yeah, because three years wasn't enough time, right?" Your voice cracks on the last word, and you have to take a deep breath to steady yourself.

"In Maine, they made us write letters. Letters to everyone we hurt, everyone who hurt us. I wrote so many letters to JJ that they had to give me extra paper." You let out a shaky breath, running your fingers over the soft fabric of JJ's shirt. "Never sent a single one. How do you put three years of 'I'm sorry' and 'I miss you' and 'I still...' into words that don't sound completely fucking pathetic?"

The sound of breaking glass comes from inside, followed by Kiara's concerned "JJ?" Pope closes his eyes and sighs. "And there it is. I better..." he gestures towards the house. "You coming?" The question hangs in the air, heavy with the weight of everything that's just transpired.

The sound of Kiara's concerned voice calling for JJ makes your stomach twist painfully. "You should go check on him," you say to Pope, finally looking up. Your eyes are swimming with unshed tears, but you refuse to let them fall. "I'll... I'll be in in a minute. Just need to..." You gesture vaguely at yourself, trying to pull together the pieces of your composure that JJ's words had shattered. "And Pope?" You call as he turns to leave. "I know everyone probably hates me for leaving. Hell, I hate myself for it. But I didn't have a choice. It was either leave or..." 

You can hear more commotion from inside - JJ's voice raised, something else breaking, Kiara trying to calm him down. The sound makes your chest ache in a way that feels physical. "Fuck," you whisper to yourself, looking down at JJ's shirt still in your hands. You bring it to your face, inhaling his scent one last time before forcing yourself to fold it neatly. You’ll have to give it back eventually, but right now, you need a moment to remember how to breathe without feeling like you’re drowning all over again. The irony isn't lost on you - you left the Outer Banks to stop feeling like you were drowning, only to come back and find yourself deeper underwater than ever before.

The tension in living room is thick enough to cut with a knife as you enter. JJ is sprawled on the couch next to Kiara, his arm draped possessively around her shoulders while nursing what appears to be his fifth beer. There's broken glass by the kitchen counter that Sarah's carefully sweeping up, shooting concerned glances at everyone.

"So this competition tomorrow," John B says too loudly, clearly trying to diffuse the tension. "Heard Topper's entering too." He's sitting cross-legged on the floor, picking at the label of his beer bottle. "Gonna be some sick waves though, bro. Weather report's saying six-footers at least."

JJ snorts, his blue eyes deliberately avoiding your direction. "Yeah, well, Topper can suck my-" Kiara elbows him in the ribs, cutting him off. "What? I'm just saying the trust fund baby probably can't even tell the difference between the nose and tail of his board." His words are slightly slurred, with anger and alcohol making his voice thicker.

"Actually," Sarah pipes up from the kitchen, dumping the broken glass in the trash, "I heard he's been practicing a lot." She settles onto the arm of John B's chair, her blonde hair catching the dim light. "Something about wanting to prove himself or whatever."

Pope shifts slightly as you sit next to him, creating a protective barrier between you and JJ. "You still surf, Y/N?" he asks, trying to include you in the conversation. "Remember that time you totally schooled JJ on that left break by the pier?"

"Fuck off, Pope," JJ snaps, his grip tightening on his beer bottle. "That was one time, and I was hungover as shit." Kiara places a calming hand on his thigh, but he shrugs it off, standing up abruptly. "I need another beer."

"Maybe you should slow down," Kiara suggests gently, reaching for his hand. "The competition's early tomorrow and-"

"I said I need another fucking beer," JJ cuts her off, his voice sharp. He stalks toward the kitchen, purposely taking the long way around to avoid passing near you. "And for the record," he adds, pausing in the doorway, "that left break? I let her win. Figured she needed the ego boost since she was so fucking fragile back then." The words are meant to wound, and from the way you tense beside him, Pope can tell they hit their mark.

John B stands up, running a hand through his hair. "JJ, bro, come on-"

"What?" JJ whirls around, his eyes blazing. "We all just gonna pretend like everything's normal? Like she didn't just fuck off for three years and come waltzing back expecting everything to be the same?" He lets out a bitter laugh. "Nah, I'm good. You guys can play happy fucking family without me."

The room falls into a heavy silence after JJ's outburst. Sarah is the first to speak, her voice gentle but firm. "JJ, that's enough." She moves from her perch on John B's chair, positioning herself between JJ and the rest of the group.

Your hands are shaking as you stand up, your voice quiet but steady. "You want to do this now? Fine." You take a step forward, ignoring Pope's attempt to grab your arm. "You think you're the only one who was hurt? You think you're the only one who was fucked up?" Your voice rises slightly, years of pent-up emotion breaking through. "I didn't just 'fuck off' to Maine for fun, JJ. I went because the alternative was being lowered into the ground in a fucking coffin!"

Kiara stands up too, torn between her boyfriend and her old friend. "Y/N, maybe we should-"

"No, Kie," you cut her off, your eyes locked on JJ. "He wants to talk about being fragile? About letting me win? At least I'm trying to get better. What are you doing, JJ? Getting drunk and picking fights? Real fucking healthy."

John B moves to intervene, but Pope holds him back, shaking his head. This has been brewing since the moment you walked through the door.

"You know what the difference is between us?" You continue, your voice cracking. "I admit I'm broken. I went and got help because I was tired of hurting everyone around me. But you?" You let out a hollow laugh. "You're still that same scared little boy, hiding behind your anger and your booze because god forbid anyone see that you're hurting too. You’re acting just like your daddy.” 

The moment the words leave your mouth, the room erupts into chaos. JJ's beer bottle shatters in his hand as he lunges forward. "Don't you fucking DARE!" as John B and Pope rush to grab him. His muscles strain against their hold. "You don't get to say that shit! You don't get to fucking compare me to him!"

"JJ, stop!" Kiara shouts, but he's beyond hearing. His blue eyes are wild, unfocused, filled with a pain so deep it makes everyone in the room flinch. "You want to talk about being broken?" JJ spits, still fighting against John B and Pope's restraining arms. "At least I didn't run away! At least I stayed and faced my shit instead of leaving everyone wondering if you were even fucking alive!" His voice cracks on the last word, raw emotion bleeding through the anger. "Do you know how many times I drove by your house? How many nights I sat outside your window hoping you'd just... fuck!" 

 "Where the fuck was all this concern for mental health when I was showing up at your window covered in bruises? When I was sleeping on the beach because I was too scared to go home?" Blood continues to drip from his hand, creating a small puddle on the floor.

"You know what's really fucking funny?" JJ continues, his voice cracking. "The day you left? I was gonna tell you everything. About my dad, about how fucked up I was, about how you were the only person who made me feel like maybe I wasn't completely worthless." His words are like bullets, each one aimed to hit where it hurts most.

"Bro, calm down," John B grunts, struggling to maintain his grip. "This isn't helping-"

"Helping?" JJ lets out a laugh that sounds more like a sob. "Nothing helps! Nothing fucking helps because she LEFT!" He finally breaks free, stumbling forward but not advancing towards you. Instead, he stands there, chest heaving, looking more vulnerable than any of them has ever seen him. "You left," he repeats, quieter now, his voice thick with unshed tears. "You left and I couldn't... I couldn't fucking breathe. And now you're back and I still can't breathe and I..." He runs his hands through his hair violently, turning away from everyone.

Pope steps forward cautiously. "JJ, maybe we should-"

"Don't," JJ cuts him off, his voice dangerous again. "Just... don't." He grabs his keys from the counter, ignoring Kiara's protests. "I need to get the fuck out of here before I..." He doesn't finish the sentence, just storms out, the screen door slamming behind him. The sound of his motorcycle roaring to life fills the night air moments later.

The room falls into a heavy silence after JJ's dramatic exit. You stand frozen, your whole body trembling as tears finally spill down your cheeks. Sarah is the first to move, wrapping her arms around you as you begin to sob.

"I didn't mean..." you choke out between sobs. "I didn't mean to say that about his dad. I just... I was so angry and..." You collapse onto the couch, Sarah still holding you while Kiara paces anxiously by the door.

"Someone needs to go after him," Kiara says, grabbing her jacket. "He's drunk and upset, he shouldn't be on that bike." She looks torn between staying with you and chasing after her boyfriend.

John B runs a hand through his hair, exchanging worried looks with Pope. "I'll go," he says, grabbing his keys. "Pope, you stay here with them. Sarah, can you...?" He gestures at you, who's still crying into Sarah's shoulder.

"I got her," Sarah assures him. "Just... bring him back in one piece, okay?"

Pope starts cleaning up the broken glass, his movements careful and methodical. "You know," he says quietly, "JJ never told anyone this, but he used to sleep in your treehouse after you left. We'd find him up there some mornings, usually after really bad nights with his dad."

"He kept your bracelet too," Kiara adds softly, still hovering by the door. "The one you made him at that bonfire. Wears it under his watch sometimes." She pauses, conflict clear on her face. "I should go with John B-"

"No," you say, wiping your eyes. "Stay. Please. I... I need to tell you all something. About why I really left." You take a shaky breath, looking around at your friends - the family you left behind. "It wasn't just the self-harm or the suicide attempt. There was... there was more. And JJ... he deserves to know the truth. You all do."

Sarah squeezes your hand encouragingly while Pope settles on the floor in front of you. The sound of the Twinkie starting up outside fills the momentary silence.

"Take your time," Sarah says gently. "We're listening." 

John B finds JJ at their usual spot - the abandoned dock near the marsh where they used to fish as kids. JJ's sitting at the edge, legs dangling over the water, a fresh beer in his hand that he definitely grabbed from his emergency stash hidden in the old boat nearby. His motorcycle is parked haphazardly in the grass, still ticking as it cools down.

"Figured I'd find you here," John B says, settling down next to his best friend. The moonlight reflects off the water, casting everything in a silvery glow. "That was quite a show back there, bro."

JJ takes a long pull from his beer, his knuckles still bloody from the broken bottle. "Fuck off, John B," he mutters, but there's no real heat behind it. His hands are shaking slightly as he brings the bottle back to his lips. "I don't need another fucking lecture about controlling my temper or whatever shit you're about to say."

"Actually," John B says, pulling out two fresh beers from his pocket and handing one to JJ, "I was gonna say she had no right bringing up your dad." He cracks open his beer, the sound echoing across the quiet marsh. "That was fucked up."

JJ lets out a hollow laugh, running his uninjured hand through his messy hair. "You know what's fucked up? She's right." His voice cracks slightly. "I am turning into him. Getting drunk, breaking shit, can't control my fucking temper..." He throws his empty bottle into the water with force, watching it disappear beneath the dark surface.

"Nah, man," John B shakes his head firmly. "You're nothing like Luke. You know how I know?" He waits until JJ looks at him. "Because you care. Like, actually give a shit about people. Luke never did." He pauses, choosing his next words carefully. "And you loved her. Still do, probably."

"Doesn't fucking matter now, does it?" JJ's voice is rough with emotion. "I'm with Kie. And Y/N... she's..." he trails off, unable to finish the sentence. The crickets chirp in the silence that follows, the marsh grass swaying in the gentle breeze.

"You know," John B says after a while, "Kie knows. Has known for a while, I think. About how you feel about Y/N." He takes another sip of his beer. "Maybe that's why she's been so... I don't know, different lately?"

JJ's head snaps up, his blue eyes wide in the moonlight. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Come on, bro," John B sighs. "You've been wearing that bracelet under your watch since the day Y/N left. You sleep in her old treehouse when shit gets bad. And the way you looked at her tonight... that wasn't just anger, man."

JJ stares out at the dark water, his jaw working as he processes John B's words. "It's not..." he starts, then stops, taking a long drink. "Fuck, man." The moonlight catches the silver threads in his shark tooth necklace as he shifts uncomfortably. "You can't just say shit like that about me and Kie."

"Why not?" John B presses, watching his best friend carefully. "Because it's true? Because you've been trying so hard to convince yourself that what you have with Kie is enough?" He dodges the empty beer can JJ throws at his head with practiced ease. "I love Kie, man. We all do. But she deserves better than being someone's second choice."

"You think I don't know that?" JJ explodes, jumping to his feet. He paces the dock, his shoes making the old wood creak. "You think I don't fucking hate myself for it? For not being able to..." he trails off, running both hands through his hair in frustration. "Y/N left, John B. She fucking left without a word and Kie... Kie was there. She picked up the pieces. She..."

"She's not Y/N," John B finishes quietly. The words hang in the humid night air, heavy with truth. "And that's not fair to any of you."

JJ stops pacing, bracing himself against one of the dock posts. His knuckles are white where they grip the wood, blood from his earlier injury leaving dark smears. "You should've seen her that night," he says so quietly John B almost misses it. "The night before she left. She came to my window like she always did when shit got bad. But something was different. She wouldn't look at me, wouldn't let me touch her. Just kept saying she was sorry." His voice cracks. "I should've known. Should've fucking done something."

"JJ..." John B starts, but JJ cuts him off.

"And now she's back," he continues, his voice rough. "She's back and she's wearing that fucking perfume that makes my head spin, and she's got these new scars I don't know the stories too, and she's looking at me like... like..." He slams his fist into the post, adding fresh splinters to his already injured hand. "Like I'm still that stupid kid who couldn't save her. How I didn't see how bad it was getting. How I was so caught up in my shit with my dad that I missed all the signs." He runs his hands through his hair roughly. "And you know what the worst part is? Even after everything, even with Kie... I still..." He can't finish the sentence, but he doesn't need to.

The marsh is quiet except for the gentle lapping of water against the dock and the distant sound of a boat horn. John B watches as his best friend falls apart, knowing there's nothing he can say to make this better. "Maybe," he finally suggests, "you should talk to Kie. Like, really talk to her. And then..." he hesitates. "Maybe you should talk to Y/N too. About everything."

JJ lets out a bitter laugh. "Yeah? And say what? 'Sorry, I just had a fucking meltdown in front of everyone because seeing you still makes me feel like I'm drowning'? 'Sorry, I'm such a fuck up I couldn't even move on properly'?" He slides down to sit on the dock again, his energy seemingly drained. "Nah, man. Some things are better left buried."

The two make their way to the van it rumbles down the dark road, headlights cutting through the night as John B glances worriedly at JJ in the passenger seat. JJ is slumped against the window, his breath fogging up the glass, the streetlights casting intermittent shadows across his face. His bloody knuckles rest in his lap, the makeshift bandage John B made from his t-shirt already soaking through.

"Your dad's been better lately, right?" John B asks cautiously, turning onto JJ's street. "Like, with the new job and everything?" He knows these periods of calm with Luke are temporary, like the eye of a hurricane - peaceful until it's not.

JJ lets out a laugh, his eyes still fixed on the passing shadows outside. "Yeah, for now. Give it a week, maybe two if we're lucky." His voice is tired, drained of its usual energy. "He's actually buying groceries instead of beer. Fucking miracle, right?" The sarcasm in his voice is thick enough to cut.

As they pull up to JJ's house, they can see Luke's truck in the driveway, the porch light on - a rare sight. Through the window, they can see him moving around in the kitchen, looking almost normal, almost like a real father. "You sure you don't want to crash at my place?" John B offers, killing the engine. "Sarah won't mind, and you know Pope's probably got Y/N calmed down by now..."

"Don't," JJ warns, his voice sharp. "Just... don't say her name right now, okay?" He runs his uninjured hand through his hair, a nervous habit that's become more frequent since your return. "I can't... I can't think about that shit right now. About what she said, about Kie, about..." he trails off, shaking his head.

The front door opens, and Luke steps onto the porch. "JJ? That you, son?" His voice carries across the yard, lacking its usual angry slur. "Got some leftovers if you're hungry. Made that fish you like." The attempt at normalcy is almost more unsettling than his usual violence.

"Fuck," JJ mutters, unbuckling his seatbelt. "Look at him, playing father of the year." He grabs his backpack from the backseat, wincing as the movement jars his injured hand. "Thanks for the ride, bro. And for..." he gestures vaguely, encompassing everything that happened at the dock.

"JJ," John B calls as his friend opens the door. "Just... be careful, okay? And if shit goes south..." He doesn't need to finish the sentence. They both know JJ's always got a place at the Chateau.

"Yeah, yeah," JJ forces a grin that doesn't reach his eyes. "Save the emotional shit for Sarah, man." He slams the van door, shouldering his backpack as he heads toward the house. Each step feels heavy like he's walking through water. The weight of everything - your return, his relationship with Kiara, his dad's temporary stability - sits on his shoulders like a physical burden.

Luke's waiting at the door, and for once, his eyes are clear. "Rough night?" he asks, noticing JJ's bandaged hand. There's genuine concern in his voice, the kind that makes JJ's chest ache because he knows it won't last.

He follows his father into the house, the familiar scent of fried fish and something else - hope, maybe? - filling the air. The kitchen is cleaner than he's seen it in years, dishes are actually washed and put away, no empty bottles littering the counters. It's like walking into a funhouse mirror version of his life, everything familiar but slightly wrong.

"Sit," Luke gestures to the table, already moving to reheat the food. "Got paid today. Foreman says I'm doing good work." There's pride in his voice, the kind JJ used to dream of hearing when he was younger. "Even got you something." He pulls out a small package from one of the kitchen drawers, sliding it across the table.

JJ stares at the package like it might bite him, his injured hand throbbing in rhythm with his heartbeat. "Dad, you didn't have to..." he starts, but Luke waves him off.

"Open it," Luke insists, putting a plate of steaming fish and rice in front of JJ. "Saw it at the store, thought of you." His voice is gruff with emotion he doesn't know how to express.

With trembling fingers, JJ unwraps the package. Inside is a new surf wax and a professional-grade fishing lure - the expensive kind they used to admire together in the shop window when JJ was little. "This is..." he swallows hard, something thick and painful lodging in his throat.

"For the competition tomorrow," Luke explains, sitting down across from him with his own plate. "Figured you could use some good gear." He pauses, studying JJ's face. "Your hand gonna be okay to surf?"

JJ flexes his fingers experimentally, wincing. "Yeah, it's fine. Just some scratches." He doesn't mention how he got them, and Luke doesn't ask. Some things are better left unsaid, even in this temporary peace.

They eat in relative silence, the only sounds are the scrape of forks against plates and the distant hum of crickets outside. JJ can't help but wait for the other shoe to drop, for his father to notice the alcohol on his breath, or ask why he came home so late. But Luke just keeps eating, occasionally glancing at JJ with something that looks almost like concern.

"Y/N’s back," Luke says suddenly, making JJ choke on his rice. "Saw her at the store today. She's grown up nice." He says it casually, like he doesn't know the weight those words carry like he doesn't remember the nights JJ came home drunk and broken after you left.

JJ's grip on his fork tightens, his knuckles white. "Dad..." he warns, but Luke continues.

"You know, I never told you this," Luke sets down his fork, his voice unusually serious. "But that girl... she used to come by sometimes when you were out. Would bring groceries, say she was just dropping off extras her mom bought." He lets out a dry laugh. "We both knew she was lying. She was checking on you, making sure I hadn't..." he trails off, shame coloring his voice.

The revelation hits JJ like a physical blow. He pushes back from the table, his chair scraping loudly against the floor. "I can't... I can't do this right now," he manages to say, his voice rough. "Thanks for dinner. And the..." he gestures at the gifts, unable to finish.

Luke nods, understanding in his eyes that hurts worse than any punch he's ever thrown. "Get some rest, son. Big day tomorrow." He watches as JJ practically flees to his room, the sound of his door closing echoing through the unusually quiet house.

In his room, JJ collapses onto his bed. The surf wax and lure sit on his nightstand, mocking him with their newness, their promise of a father he's always wanted but never quite had. He pulls out his phone, seeing missed calls from Kiara and texts from the group chat. But it's his wallpaper that catches his eye - still that old photo of him and you at the beach, your smile bright and real, his arm around your shoulders. He'd never changed it, not even after starting things with Kiara.

"Fuck," he whispers into the darkness, throwing his arm over his eyes. Tomorrow's competition suddenly seems like the least of his problems.

JJ is hunched over his surfboard on the front porch, a half-eaten piece of toast dangling from his mouth as he meticulously applies the new wax his father gave him. The morning sun casts long shadows across the worn wood of the porch, the air already thick with humidity. His injured hand throbs as he works, the makeshift bandage John B wrapped it in last night now stained and fraying.

The knock makes him jump, nearly dropping the wax block. "It's open!" he calls out, not looking up from his work. He knows it's Kiara before she even speaks - recognizes the pattern of her footsteps, the jingle of the shell anklet she always wears.

"Hey," Kiara's voice is soft and cautious. She's wearing her competition bikini under a loose tank top, her curly hair pulled back in a messy bun. "You weren't answering your phone." She settles down next to him on the porch steps, close but not touching - a careful distance that speaks volumes.

JJ continues working on his board, his movements perhaps more aggressive than necessary. "Yeah, well, been kind of busy." He gestures at the board with his injured hand, causing Kiara to suck in a sharp breath at the sight of his knuckles.

"Jesus, JJ," she reaches for his hand but he pulls away, standing up abruptly. "We need to talk about last night-"

"No," JJ cuts her off, running his good hand through his already messy hair. "We really don't. I fucked up, lost my temper, same old shit. Can we just..." he trails off, finally looking at her. The concern in her eyes makes his stomach twist with guilt.

Kiara stands too, crossing her arms. "Y/N told us everything last night," she says quietly. "After you left. About why she really went away." She watches as JJ's entire body tenses, his jaw clenching. "JJ, it wasn't just about the self-harm and the attempt. She was-"

"Stop," JJ's voice is sharp, dangerous. He turns away from her, gripping the porch railing so hard his knuckles turn white. "I don't want to know. I can't... I can't hear that shit right now. Not before the competition."

"You can't keep running from this," Kiara says, her voice stronger now. "And you can't keep pretending that what we have is..." she stops, taking a deep breath. "I see the way you look at her, JJ. I've always seen it. Even when you're angry at her, even when you're with me, you look at her like... like she's the sun and you're drowning in her light."

JJ lets out a bitter laugh, turning back to face her. "That's some poetic shit, Kie." But there's no humor in his voice, just pain and exhaustion. "What do you want me to say? That I'm sorry? That I'm a fucking mess who can't get his shit together? That I-"

"I want you to be honest," Kiara interrupts. "With me, with yourself, with her." She steps closer, reaching up to touch his face gently. "We both knew this wasn't forever, JJ. We were just... holding each other together until something better came along."

"You deserve better than that," JJ says quietly, leaning into her touch despite himself. "Better than me using you as a bandaid for my fucked up heart."

Kiara smiles sadly. "Yeah, I do. And so do you." She drops her hand, stepping back. "The competition starts soon. Y/N’s entering too, by the way. JJ? She still wears that shell necklace you made her. Never took it off, even in Maine."

The information hits JJ like a physical blow, making him grip the railing tighter. The surf wax sits abandoned on his board, the morning sun turning it soft and sticky. JJ sighs heavily, sliding down to sit on the porch steps. The morning sun continues to rise, casting long shadows across the yard where weeds push through cracked concrete - a perfect metaphor for their relationship, beautiful things growing in broken places.

"You're not mad?" JJ asks finally, his voice rough. He picks at the fraying bandage on his hand, avoiding her eyes. "About... everything?"

Kiara lets out a soft laugh sitting back down next to him bumping his shoulder with hers. "I mean, I probably should be. But honestly?" She tilts her face toward the sun, closing her eyes. "I think I've known since the beginning. We were both just... trying to fill empty spaces."

JJ runs his good hand through his hair, a nervous habit he can't shake. "You're too good for this shit, Kie. Too good for me and my fucked up baggage." He glances at her sideways. "I never meant to hurt you."

"I know," Kiara says simply. "And hey, at least we had some good times, right?" She grins at him, that familiar sparkle in her eyes. "Like that time we got caught skinny dipping at the country club pool?"

"Fuck," JJ laughs despite himself, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly. "Your dad's face when he found us... thought he was gonna have a stroke." The memory feels lighter now, less weighted with guilt.

They sit in comfortable silence for a moment. Finally, Kiara speaks again, her voice gentle but firm. "You need to talk to her, JJ. Like, really talk to her. No yelling, no running away."

JJ's jaw tightens. "Kie..."

"No, listen," she cuts him off. "What she told us last night... it changes things. And you deserve to know." She stands up, brushing off her shorts. "But first, you need to kick Topper's ass in this competition. Show him that pogues rule the waves, right?"

JJ looks up at her, gratitude and affection washing over him. "How are you so fucking cool about all this?"

Kiara shrugs, a small smile playing on her lips. "Because I love you both, you idiot. Just... not in the way we've been pretending." She starts walking backward toward her car. "See you at the beach. And JJ?" She pauses. "Whatever Y/N told us last night? It's not my story to tell. But when she does tell you... just remember she never stopped loving you either."

JJ watches her drive away, his heart feeling both lighter and heavier at the same time. He turns back to his surfboard, running his fingers over the fresh wax. The competition starts soon, and somewhere on that beach, you’ll be there. The thought makes his stomach flip in a way that has nothing to do with pre-competition nerves.

The beach is alive with pre-competition energy, the morning sun casting long shadows across the sand as spectators and competitors mill about. The group has claimed your usual spot, a patch of sand near the judges' stand where you're spread out with blankets and coolers. The air smells of salt spray and sunscreen, mixed with the distant scent of food vendors setting up their stalls.

JJ sits cross-legged next to Pope, obsessively checking the fins on his board while stealing glances at you. His injured hand is wrapped in fresh bandages - Pope's handiwork from earlier that morning. "You think the swell's gonna hold?" he asks Pope, his voice tighter than usual. "Weather report said it might pick up around noon."

"Dude, stop stressing," Pope replies, not looking up from his phone where he's tracking the wind patterns. "You could surf these waves in your sleep." He pauses, glancing at his friend. "Though maybe focus more on the waves and less on staring at Y/N every five seconds?"

A few feet away, Kiara and you sit huddled over your board, your heads close together as you work on the design. "Pass me the blue paint?" Kiara asks, her voice carefully casual. "I think it'll pop against the white."

"Here," You hand over the paint pen, your finger steady as you work on your own section of the board. "Thanks for helping me with this, Kie. I know it's... weird."

Sarah's voice carries over from where she's practically sitting in John B's lap, her laugh bright in the morning air. "John B, I swear to God, if you get any more sunscreen in my hair..." She squirms as he deliberately rubs more lotion on her neck.

"What? I'm being helpful!" John B protests, grinning. "Can't have my girl turning into a lobster." He catches JJ's eye and makes an exaggerated kissing face, earning himself a handful of sand thrown his way.

"Get a room, you two," Pope groans, but there's affection in his voice. "Some of us are trying to focus here."

"Yeah, focus on what?" JJ snaps, more harshly than intended. "The competition doesn't start for another hour." His eyes drift back to you, watching as you tuck a strand of hair behind your ear - a gesture so familiar it makes his chest ache.

"Speaking of the competition," Sarah pipes up, clearly trying to diffuse the tension, "heard Topper's been practicing his aerial moves. Might actually give you a run for your money this time, JJ."

"Please," JJ scoffs, his trademark cockiness returning. "Trust fund baby probably had to pay someone to teach him which end of the board goes in front." But his bravado falters when he catches you hiding a smile at his comment.

"The waves are looking good though," you offer quietly, your first direct contribution to the group conversation. "Nice clean sets coming in." Your voice carries over the beach noise, making JJ's hands still on his board.

The group falls into a loaded silence, everyone pretending not to notice the way JJ and you carefully avoid looking at each other, or how Kiara's shoulders relax slightly when JJ doesn't snap back with a sarcastic comment.

"Alright, enough of this weird energy," Pope announces, standing up and brushing sand off his shorts. "Who wants to help me get drinks from the vendor? We've got..." he checks his watch, "forty-five minutes to get JJ properly hydrated before he has to show these kooks how it's done."

"Let me help," Sarah jumps up, linking her arm through Pope's. "John B, Y/N, you coming?" There's a pointed look in her eyes that everyone pretends not to notice.

"I'm good," You reply, still focused on your board design. "Need to finish this before the competition starts." Your fingers trace the intricate pattern you and Kiara have created - waves and stars intertwining across the white surface.

"Me too," John B replies, stretching out on their blanket. "Someone's gotta make sure these two don't kill each other." He gestures vaguely between JJ and you, earning himself a glare from both of you.

Kiara looks up from the surfboard, her hands covered in paint. "Get me one of those açai bowls if they have them?" she calls after Pope and Sarah. "And maybe some water for everyone? It's getting hot out here."

As Pope and Sarah head toward the vendors, the remaining group falls into an awkward silence. JJ continues fidgeting with his board, though there's nothing left to adjust. The morning sun beats down on you, the humidity making everything feel sticky and tense. The beach is getting more crowded now, the excitement building as more competitors arrive with their boards.

"Your hand looks better," You say suddenly, your voice soft but carrying clearly over the beach noise. You're still focused on your board, not looking up, but your fingers have stilled on the paint pen.

JJ flexes his injured hand unconsciously. "Yeah, well, Pope's got practice wrapping shit up. Comes with being friends with a walking disaster." He tries for his usual sarcastic tone but it falls flat.

"Remember that time you tried to do a backflip off the pier?" John B interjects, clearly trying to ease the tension. "Pope had to use an entire first aid kit on your stupid ass."

"That was one time," JJ protests, a genuine smile finally cracking through his facade. "And I totally would've landed it if that jellyfish hadn't been in the way."

"There was no jellyfish," Kiara laughs, rolling her eyes. "You just chickened out halfway through."

"I did not!" JJ's voice rises indignantly. "Tell them, Y/N/N, you were there-" He cuts himself off abruptly, realizing he'd used your old nickname without thinking.

The silence that follows is deafening, broken only by the distant sound of waves and other competitors warming up. Your hand has started trembling slightly, though you try to hide it by gripping the paint pen tighter.

"There definitely wasn't a jellyfish," you finally say, your voice barely above a whisper. "But there was that group of tourist girls watching, and you were trying to show off..."

"Classic JJ," John B jumps in, trying to keep the conversation flowing. "Always trying to impress the ladies with his 'sick moves.'" He makes air quotes with his fingers.

The moment breaks when someone calls out "Maybank!" from down the beach. It's one of the competition organizers, clipboard in hand. "You're up in heat three, twenty minutes!"

"Shit," JJ mutters, standing up and grabbing his board. "I should probably warm up or whatever." He pauses, looking down at your board. "The design's good," he says quietly, before quickly adding, "Both of you. It's... yeah." He turns and jogs toward the water, his board under his arm.

"Well, that was almost a normal conversation," John B observes, earning himself an elbow in the ribs from Kiara. "What? I'm just saying..."

"I should warm up too," You say suddenly, standing and picking up your board. The morning sun catches the shell necklace around your neck - the one JJ made you years ago - making it gleam.

"Want company?" Kiara offers, but you shake your head.

"I need to..." you gesture vaguely toward the opposite end of the beach from where JJ went. "You know."

They watch as you walk away, your hair blowing in the ocean breeze. John B wraps an arm around Kiara's shoulders. "They'll figure it out," he says confidently. "They always do."

"Yeah," Kiara agrees, leaning into him. "But how many hearts are gonna get broken in the process?"

The question hangs in the air as they watch you two paddle out into the waves from opposite ends of the beach, like magnets simultaneously attracting and repelling each other. The waves crash against the shore as the competition gets underway, the beach packed with spectators cheering from the sand. The morning sun glints off the water, creating perfect conditions for the surfers waiting in the lineup. JJ sits on his board, straddling it as he watches the sets roll in, his injured hand gripping the rails slightly tighter than necessary. He's in heat three, along with you and Kiara, a cruel twist of fate that has his stomach in knots.

From the beach, John B's voice carries over the crowd. "Let's go, JJ! Show these kooks how it's done!" Sarah and Pope join in with their cheers, their enthusiasm infectious enough to draw smiles from other spectators.

JJ catches sight of you about twenty yards to his left, the shell necklace he made you glints in the sun. You're focused on the horizon, reading the waves with an intensity he remembers well from your late-night surfing sessions years ago. Kiara floats between you two, creating a triangle formation in the water, her presence both a buffer and a reminder of everything that's changed.

"First wave of heat three!" the announcer's voice booms over the speakers. "Riders, get ready!"

A set approaches and JJ feels the familiar surge of adrenaline. He watches as you turn your board, positioning yourself for the wave. Your form is different now - more refined, more confident. You catch the wave with practiced ease, your movement fluid as you drop in. The crowd cheers as you execute a perfect bottom turn, spraying water in an arc that catches the sunlight.

"Fuck," JJ mutters under his breath, both impressed and frustrated. He spots his own wave approaching, bigger than yours, and paddles hard. As he pops up, everything else fades away - the crowd, the competition, the complicated mess of emotions. It's just him and the wave, the way it's always been. He drives hard off the bottom, launching into an aerial that has the crowd screaming. His injured hand protests as he grabs his rail, but he sticks the landing, finishing with a powerful snap off the lip.

Kiara catches the next wave, her style more aggressive than yours but equally skilled. She shoots JJ a quick smile as she paddles back out, no trace of their earlier conversation in her expression. You're all competitors now, regardless of your personal drama.

The heat continues, each rider pushing themselves harder with each wave. JJ finds himself watching you more than he should, noticing how you’ve incorporated new techniques into your surfing. There's a grace to your movements that wasn't there before, a confidence that makes his chest tight with something between pride and regret.

From the beach, Pope's voice cuts through the crowd noise: "Time check! Two minutes left in the heat!"

JJ sits up straighter on his board, scanning for one last good wave. He needs something big to secure his spot in the finals. A set approaches, and he can see both you and Kiara eyeing it too. It's the kind of wave you used to fight over during your dawn patrol sessions - clean, powerful, perfect for showing off.

The tension in the water is palpable as you all turn toward shore, ready to battle for position. JJ glances at you, catching your eye for the first time since you paddled out. For a moment, it's like nothing has changed - you're just two kids from the Cut, living for the next wave. Then the moment breaks as the announcer's voice booms: "Final wave of heat three approaching! Who's gonna take it?"

The tension crackles through the air as all three surfers eye the approaching wave. JJ's muscles tense as he prepares to paddle, but suddenly you make your move first, cutting across his line with precise timing. You catch the wave perfectly, popping up with fluid grace that makes the crowd gasp.

"Holy shit!" John B's voice carries over the noise as you drop into the face of the wave. Your form is flawless, body low and controlled as you set up for your first maneuver. 

JJ can't help but watch, even as he and Kiara paddle back to position. You carve up the face of the wave, your movements more aggressive than before, spraying water in an arc that catches the sunlight. You transition into a series of snaps that have the judges leaning forward in their seats, before setting up for your finale.

"No fucking way," JJ mutters, recognizing the setup. It's a move you used to practice together, late at night when the beach was empty - a risky aerial that you’d perfected during those endless summer sessions. You launch off the lip, grabbing your rail and rotating in a way that seems to defy gravity. The landing is clean, and precise, sending another spray of water toward the sky as the crowd erupts.

"That's my girl!" Sarah screams from the beach, jumping up and down while clutching John B's arm. Pope's got his phone out, recording everything while shouting his own encouragement.

As you paddle back out, JJ catches your eye again. There's something different in your expression now - a mix of pride, challenge, and something else he can't quite read. Kiara paddles up beside him, a knowing look on her face.

"Damn," Kiara whistles low. "She's been practicing."

"Time!" The announcer's voice booms across the water. "Heat three is complete! Riders, return to shore for scoring."

The paddle back is quiet, each lost in your own thoughts as the judges figure out scores. JJ can feel the energy on the beach, knowing without looking that your last wave changed everything. As you hit the shallows, John B and Pope rush out to help with your boards.

"That was fucking insane!" John B exclaims, grabbing your board. "When did you learn to fly?"

You push your wet hair back, that shell necklace still somehow perfectly in place. "Maine has waves too," you say quietly, but your eyes flick to JJ as you say it. "Different, but good for practicing."

"Attention competitors," the announcer's voice cuts through their conversation. "Scores for heat three are ready..."

The group falls silent, tension building as you wait for the results. JJ finds himself holding his breath, his injured hand throbbing. The morning sun is high now, turning the ocean into a field of diamonds, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembers teaching you that aerial on a night just like this, under a full moon with no one else around.

The announcer's voice crackles over the speakers: "In third place, with a score of 8.7 - Kiara Carrera!"

Kiara grins, accepting high-fives from the group. "Not bad for a warmup," she says, squeezing water from her hair. Her eyes dart between JJ and you, anticipating what comes next.

"In second place, with a score of 9.2..." The pause feels endless, "JJ Maybank!"

JJ's jaw tightens, his fingers flexing around his board. He knows what's coming, and can feel it in the electric tension running through their little group. Pope claps him on the shoulder, but he barely feels it.

"And taking first place in heat three, with a score of 9.8 - Y/N L/N! That final aerial was something else, folks!"

The beach erupts in cheers, but JJ's focused on your face - the way your eyes widen in surprise, the slight tremor in your hands as Sarah pulls you into a crushing hug. You look exactly like you did years ago when you landed your first aerial under his guidance.

"Holy shit, Y/N!" John B whoops, lifting you off your feet in celebration. "That was fucking incredible!"

"All riders advancing to the finals, please check the board for heat assignments," the announcer continues. "Thirty-minute break before the next round."

JJ watches as they swarm you with congratulations, his emotions a tangled mess he can't sort through. Pride, jealousy, regret, and something deeper, something that feels like the undertow that used to drag you both out during night sessions.

"You taught her that aerial," Kiara says quietly beside him, her voice carrying a knowing tone. "I remember watching you two practice it for weeks."

Before JJ can respond, you break away from the group, approaching them with hesitant steps. You're holding something in your hand - his old surf wax, the one he'd always let you borrow during your sessions.

"Found this in my bag this morning," you say, your voice barely audible over the beach noise. "Thought you might want it back." Your finger brushes his as you hand it over, sending a jolt through his system that has nothing to do with the competition.

"Keep it," he finds himself saying, his voice rougher than intended. "Looks like you're putting it to better use anyway." He tries to make it sound casual, but there's too much history in those words, too many memories of dawn patrols and midnight sessions and promises made under starlit skies.

The moment stretches between you, heavy with unspoken words, until Pope's voice breaks through: "Guys! They're posting the final heat assignments!"

The group moves toward the bulletin board, but JJ hangs back, watching you walk away. The shell necklace catches the light again, and he remembers making it for you on this very beach, his fingers working the knots while you talked about constellations and dreams and futures that seemed possible then.

"You okay?" Kiara asks, lingering beside him.

"Yeah," JJ lies, running a hand through his salt-stiffened hair. "Just... fuck." He doesn't need to finish the sentence. Kiara understands - she always has.

The finals loom ahead, but all JJ can think about is that aerial, and how your form was exactly the same as when he first taught it to you, right down to the way you point your toes during the rotation. Some things, it seems, don't change - even when everything else does.

The beach is winding down as the sun begins its descent, painting the sky in brilliant oranges and pinks. The competition crowd has thinned, leaving behind only the most dedicated spectators and the Pogues, who are sprawled out on their blankets celebrating their friends' success. JJ, you, and Kiara stand together on the podium, your medals glinting in the late afternoon light.

"Third place, Kiara Carrera!" The announcer's voice booms one final time. Kiara grins, holding up her bronze medal as Sarah and John B whoop and holler from the crowd.

"Second place, Y/N L/N!" You step forward, accepting your silver medal with a small smile. The shell necklace around your neck catches the light, drawing JJ's attention momentarily.

"And your first-place winner, JJ Maybank!" The crowd erupts as JJ accepts his gold medal, his signature cocky grin in place despite the storm of emotions brewing beneath the surface. His final wave had been spectacular - a combination of raw power and technical skill that even the most critical judges couldn't deny.

As you step down from the podium, Pope approaches with a cooler. "Time to celebrate properly!" he announces, pulling out beers for everyone. The group gravitates toward your usual spot on the beach, away from the dispersing crowd.

"To the most talented pogues in the OBX!" John B raises his beer, his other arm wrapped around Sarah's waist. "And to Kiara for not killing JJ when he snake dropped her wave in the finals!"

"Hey!" JJ protests, but he's laughing. "All's fair in love and surfing, right?" The words hang in the air for a moment, loaded with meaning as his eyes unconsciously drift to you.

"That last aerial though," Pope interjects, sensing the tension. "Thought you were gonna break your neck, JJ."

"Please," JJ scoffs, taking a long drink from his beer. "That was nothing compared to the shit we used to pull during night sessions." He freezes slightly, realizing what he's said, and who he's referencing.

You shift beside him, your silver medal catching the dying light. "Remember that time we tried to surf during a lightning storm?" You say quietly, surprising everyone. "John B had to come to rescue us in the Twinkie."

"Jesus," Sarah laughs, but her eyes are watchful. "You two were always doing crazy shit like that."

The group falls into a comfortable rhythm of storytelling and laughter, the competition tension slowly easing. JJ finds himself hyper-aware of your presence, the way you laugh at John B's terrible jokes, and how you unconsciously play with that shell necklace when you're thinking.

"You've improved," he says suddenly when the others are distracted by Pope's dramatic reenactment of a wipeout. "Your form, I mean. It's... different. Better."

You look at him, really look at him, for what feels like the first time since you’ve been back. "Had a good teacher," you reply softly, your fingers still toying with the necklace. "Some things you don't forget, even when you're trying to."

The weight of unspoken words hangs between you, heavy as storm clouds. Kiara watches you two from across the circle, a knowing look in her eyes as she catches JJ's gaze.

The Wreck is bustling with the usual dinner crowd, but Kiara's parents have reserved the back section for their celebration. The smell of fried shrimp and hush puppies fills the air as you pile around your favorite table, medals still hanging around the winners' necks. The sunset streams through the windows, casting everything in a warm golden glow.

JJ slouches in his chair, one arm draped over the back as he nurses his beer. His eyes keep drifting to you, who's sitting between Sarah and Pope, your hair still damp from the ocean. The shell necklace catches the light every time you move, a constant reminder of everything that's changed and everything that hasn't.

"Yo, check it out," John B nudges JJ, nodding toward the entrance where Topper and Rafe are making their way over. The entire table tenses slightly, years of rivalry making everyone wary.

"Hey," Topper says, stopping at their table. He looks different - less aggressive than usual, almost humble. "Just wanted to say... that was some sick surfing today. All of you." His eyes linger on you for a moment longer than necessary, making JJ's jaw clench.

Rafe, surprisingly sober, nods in agreement. "That move in the finals, Maybank? Pretty fucking impressive." He shifts uncomfortably, clearly not used to complimenting pogues. "And Y/N... didn't know you had moves like that."

"Thanks," you reply quietly, your fingers automatically going to the shell necklace. The gesture doesn't go unnoticed by anyone at the table, especially JJ.

"Yeah, well," JJ starts, his voice carrying an edge, but Kiara kicks him under the table. He swallows whatever sarcastic comment he is about to make. "Thanks, man. You weren't half bad either, Topper."

"Listen," Topper says, running a hand through his hair. "We're having a bonfire in Figure Eight tonight. Victory party kind of thing. You guys should come." The invitation hangs in the air, surprising everyone.

Sarah raises an eyebrow at her brother. "Rafe? You're okay with this?"

Rafe shrugs, looking almost uncomfortable. "New leaf and all that shit, right? Besides," he grins, some of his old cockiness returning, "can't let you pogues have all the fun."

The group exchanges looks, years of kook-pogue rivalry making them hesitant. It's Pope who finally speaks up. "Yeah, alright. Could be fun."

"Cool," Topper nods, already backing away. "Starts at nine. Bring whatever." He and Rafe head back to their table, leaving you in stunned silence.

"Did that just happen? Did we just have a civil conversation with Topper and Rafe?" Kiara says surprised.

"End times," Pope declares solemnly, making everyone laugh. "The apocalypse is definitely coming."

"Well, that was weird," John B says, voicing what everyone's thinking. "Think it's a trap?"

"Nah," Sarah shakes her head. "Topper's been different lately. And Rafe... well, rehab changed him. A little, anyway."

JJ snorts, taking another drink. "Still don't trust them." His eyes find you again. "You gonna go?"

The question feels heavier than it should, loaded with implications. You meet his gaze, something unreadable in your expression. "Maybe," you say softly. "Might be nice to see how the other half lives, right?"

The tension at the table shifts, everyone pretending not to notice the way JJ's grip tightens on his beer bottle, or how your fingers haven't left that shell necklace since Topper walked away.

"Well," Kiara stands up, ever the peacemaker, "if we're doing this, we should probably get more food first. Can't show up to a kook party on empty stomachs." She heads toward the kitchen, leaving the others to navigate the complicated dynamics at the table.

The bonfire casts dancing shadows across the beach as JJ stands near the water's edge, the sound of waves mixing with distant laughter and music from the kook party. He's already several beers in, trying to drown out the memories that keep surfacing every time he catches sight of you. The others have conspicuously disappeared - John B and Sarah wandering off toward the dunes, Pope getting caught up in some debate about marine biology with a group of college kids, and Kiara conveniently remembering she needed to help set up the speakers.

You approach quietly, your presence announced only by the soft crunch of sand under your feet. You’ve changed since dinner, wearing a loose white beach dress that catches the firelight, that damn shell necklace still around your neck. Without warning, you reach out and take his beer, replacing it with a bottle of water.

"The fuck, Y/N/N?" JJ protests, the nickname slipping out before he can stop it. His voice is rougher than usual, whether, from the alcohol or emotion, it's hard to tell.

"You've had enough," you say softly, but firmly. "And we both know you get mean when you drink too much." There's no judgment in your voice, just stated fact - you know him too well, even after all this time.

JJ runs a hand through his hair, agitation clear in every movement. "Yeah? And what makes you think you still get to make that call?" The words come out harsh, but he takes a drink from the water bottle anyway.

You settle into the sand, patting the spot next to you. After a moment's hesitation, JJ sits too, maintaining careful distance between you two. The fire casts an orange glow across your skin.

"Remember the last bonfire we were at together?" You ask suddenly, your voice barely audible over the waves. "Before... everything?"

JJ tenses beside you, his fingers digging into the sand. "Don't," he warns, but there's less bite in his voice now. "We're not doing this, Y/N."

"Aren't we?" You turn to look at him fully, the firelight reflecting in your eyes. "Because I think we've been doing this dance since I got back. Everyone sees it, JJ. Even Kiara-"

"Leave Kie out of this," he snaps, but you both know it's a weak protest. His hand unconsciously moves toward yours in the sand before he catches himself. The shell necklace gleams as you shift, drawing his attention. "You kept it," he says suddenly, nodding toward the necklace. "Even in Maine."

"Never took it off," you admit quietly. "Even when they..it was the only piece of home I had left. The only piece of you."

JJ's breath catches at your words, his fingers curling into fists in the sand. The firelight dances across your faces as the party continues behind you, but you might as well be alone on the beach. The sound of waves seems to grow louder, matching the thundering of his heart.

"You can't just..." he starts, his voice cracking.

"You can't just say shit like that, Y/N. Not after... not after everything."

You shift slightly closer, the hem of your white dress brushing against his leg. "Then what can I say, JJ? Because we need to talk about it. About that night. About why I really left." 

"Yeah?" JJ's voice turns sharp, defensive. "What's there to talk about? You made your choice. You left. End of fucking story." But his eyes betray him, constantly drawn to your face, to the necklace, to the way the firelight catches in your hair.

"It wasn't a choice," you say quietly, your voice trembling slightly. "My parents found the letters, JJ. The ones I wrote to you about... about everything. About your dad, about what we were planning..." You take a shaky breath. "About how much I loved you."

JJ's whole body goes rigid at your words. The water bottle crumples in his grip, forgotten. "Stop," he says, but it sounds more like a plea than a command. "Just... fuck, Y/N."

"You want to know why I really left?" You continue, your voice stronger now. "Because that night, after I left your house, after your dad..." you swallow hard. "After I saw what he did to you, I went home and wrote everything down. Every bruise I'd helped you hide, every night you climbed through my window bleeding, every time you flinched when someone moved too fast. I was going to turn him in, JJ. I couldn't watch him hurt you anymore."

The confession hangs in the air between you, heavy as storm clouds. JJ's breathing has become ragged, his jaw clenched so tight it must hurt. Behind you, someone cranks up the music, but it feels distant, muffled like you're underwater.

"My parents found the letters before I could do anything," you continue, your voice barely above a whisper. "They read everything - about us, about your dad, about how we were planning to run away after graduation. They didn't give me a choice, JJ. It was either Maine or..." 

JJ stares at the water, his whole body vibrating with tension as he processes your words. The firelight catches the tears threatening to spill from his eyes, but he blinks them away furiously. His injured hand flexes in the sand, leaving small indentations that quickly fill with darkness.

"You were gonna..." he starts, his voice hoarse. "You were trying to protect me?" A bitter laugh escapes him. "Fuck, Y/N. I thought... all this time I thought you just couldn't handle my shit anymore. Thought you got tired of dealing with the fucked up pogue kid."

You shift closer, close enough that your shoulders brush. The contact sends electricity through both of you. "I could never get tired of you, JJ," you whisper, your voice catching. "Even in Maine, even when they had me so medicated I could barely remember my own name... I never stopped..."

"Don't," he cuts you off roughly, but he doesn't move away. "You can't just come back here and tell me all this shit. You can't just..." he runs his hand through his hair again, agitation clear in every movement. "Fuck, do you know what it did to me? Finding your room empty that morning? Your mom wouldn't tell me anything, just kept saying you were 'getting help' like you were some kind of..." he can't finish the sentence.

"I tried to call," you admit quietly. "That first month, I called your number every day until they took my phone. Left so many voicemails I filled up your inbox." You touch the shell necklace again, a habit he's starting to recognize as nervous comfort. "Did you... did you ever listen to them?"

"Every fucking one. Over and over until the system deleted them." He finally turns to look at you fully, his eyes intense in the firelight. "I still have that old phone. Can't bring myself to throw it away because it's got your last message saved."

The confession hangs between you, heavy with meaning. Behind you, the party continues, but you might as well be alone on the beach. The waves crash steadily, a rhythm you both know by heart from countless night sessions together.

"I kept every letter," You say softly. "The ones they wouldn't let me send. There's a whole box of them under my bed. Three years' worth of things I needed to tell you." Your hand moves unconsciously toward his in the sand, stopping just short of touching.

JJ stares at the ocean for a long moment, processing everything. The firelight dances across his features as he finally turns back to you, his expression raw and vulnerable in a way you haven’t seen since that last night three years ago.

"Every time something good happened, or something shit happened, or just... anything happened, my first thought was always 'I gotta tell Y/N.' Then I'd remember you weren't there anymore." He lets out a shaky breath. "Took me almost a year to stop turning to tell you stuff."

Your hand finally bridges the gap between them, your fingers brushing against his in the sand. Neither of you pulls away. "I did the same thing," you admit. "In group therapy, they'd ask who we missed most from home. I'd always say my parents, but..." You touch the shell necklace with your free hand. "It was always you, JJ. Every single time."

JJ's thumb unconsciously strokes across your knuckles, a gesture so familiar it makes your heartache. "I can't..." He starts, his voice catching. "I can't go through losing you again, Y/N. I barely survived it the first time." The admission costs him, you can see it in the way his jaw clenches, the way his fingers tighten slightly against yours.

"I'm not going anywhere," you whisper, the words carrying on the ocean breeze. "Not this time. Not ever again." You turn your hand in the sand, properly lacing your fingers together. "I'm done running, JJ. From you, from us, from everything."

The silence that follows is heavy with possibility. Behind you, someone calls your names - probably Pope or Sarah looking for you - but neither moves. "We can't just pick up where we left off," JJ finally says, but he doesn't let go of your hand. "Too much has happened. We're different people now."

You nod, understanding in your eyes. "I know. But maybe..." you squeeze his hand gently. "Maybe we can start something new. Something better."

JJ looks at your intertwined hands, then back at your face - at the girl who's haunted his dreams for three years, who's sitting here now in the firelight wearing his necklace and holding his hand like you never left. "Yeah," he says softly, a small, genuine smile finally breaking through. "Maybe we can."

The party continues behind you, but you stay there on the beach, hands linked, watching the waves and starting the long process of healing what was broken. It's not perfect, and it's not fixed, but it's a beginning. And sometimes, that's enough.

The moonlight streams through your bedroom window as you and JJ slip inside, your footsteps quiet on the hardwood floors. Your room looks different than JJ remembers - new paint, new decorations, but somehow still unmistakably you. The fairy lights strung across the ceiling cast a soft glow over everything, creating shadows that dance across the walls.

JJ hovers near the door, hands shoved in his pockets as he watches you drop to your knees beside the bed. The fabric of your dress ghosting around your legs as you reach under the bed frame. His shell necklace catches the light as you move, making his chest tight with memories.

"It's here somewhere," You mutter, pushing aside boxes and old notebooks. "I kept everything organized when I moved back, but..." you trail off, stretching further under the bed. 

JJ forces himself to look away, focusing instead on the photos newly tacked to your wall. Most are recent - your time in Maine, new friends, new places. But there, in the corner, partially hidden behind others, he spots one that makes his breath catch. It's you two, three years ago, on the beach after a night session. His arm is around your shoulders, both of you grinning at the camera, saltwater still dripping from your hair.

"Found it!" Your voice pulls him back to the present. You emerge from under the bed with a large shoebox, worn at the edges and covered in doodles. Your hands shake slightly as you set it on the bed, looking up at JJ with uncertainty in your eyes.

"That's... all of them?" JJ asks, his voice rougher than intended. He takes a step closer, drawn by the box like a magnet. Three years of words you couldn't say, couldn't send, all contained in one shoebox.

You nod, sitting cross-legged on the bed beside the box. "Every letter I wrote. Every time I missed you, every time something reminded me of you, every time I..." you trail off, fingers tracing the edge of the box. "Every time I needed you to know I still loved you."

The admission hangs in the air between you, heavy with possibility. JJ moves closer, perching on the edge of the bed, careful to maintain some distance. The fairy lights cast soft shadows across your face as you open the box, revealing stacks of envelopes, some crisp and new, others worn from being handled repeatedly.

"You don't have to read them now," you say quickly, noticing how JJ's hands have started to shake. "I just... I needed you to know they existed. That I never stopped trying to reach you, even when I couldn't actually send them."

The tension breaks as he lets out a snort of laughter, picking up one of the envelopes. "Your handwriting still looks like shit, Y/N," he teases, falling easily back into your old dynamic. "Seriously, did they not teach penmanship in Maine?"

You gasp in mock offense, snatching the letter from his hands. "Excuse you, this is art." You fought back a smile though, relief evident in your features at his attempt to lighten the mood. "Not all of us can have perfect surfer boy handwriting."

"Perfect?" JJ grins, reaching for another letter. "Have you seen my grocery lists? Even Pope can't read them." He settles more comfortably on the bed, his earlier hesitation melting away. "Oh shit, this one's got little hearts drawn all over it. Fucking sap."

"Shut up," You laugh, shoving his shoulder playfully. "I was heavily medicated and missing your stupid face." You pull out another letter, this one covered in doodles of waves and surfboards. "Oh god, my therapy art phase. We don't talk about this one."

JJ snatches it before you can hide it, his eyes scanning the page with growing amusement. "Holy fuck, is that supposed to be me?" He points to a stick figure with spiky hair riding a wave. "My hair does not look like that!"

"It absolutely does when you first wake up," you argue, reaching for the letter. JJ holds it above his head, laughing as you try to grab it. "JJ Maybank, give that back!"

"Make me," he challenges, his blue eyes sparkling with mischief. It feels like old times - him in your room, playfully arguing about nothing important, the weight of your earlier conversation temporarily lifted.

You lunge for the letter, causing you both to tumble backward onto your bed, letters scattering around you. JJ's still holding the drawing above his head, grinning as you try to reach it. "You're such an ass," you complain, but you're laughing too.

"Yeah, but you missed this ass," he quips, then freezes slightly, worried he's pushed too far. But You just roll your eyes, finally managing to snatch the letter back.

"Unfortunately," you sigh dramatically, settling beside him among the scattered letters. "Though I'm starting to question my judgment."

JJ clutches his chest in mock hurt. "Wow, three years and you're already tired of me? That's cold, Y/N. Ice cold." He picks up another letter, this one dated from about a year ago. "Oh look, more hearts. And are those little JJs surfing?"

"I'm going to murder you," you threaten, but there's no heat in it. You're watching him with soft eyes, taking in how the fairy lights cast shadows across his face, how his smile reaches his eyes for the first time since you’ve been back.

"Nah, you love me too much," he says automatically, then stills as he realizes what he's said. The playful atmosphere wavers for a moment, the weight of your history threatening to crash back in.

But you just smile, reaching out to fix his messy hair. "Yeah," you say softly. "I do."

The admission is simple, honest, lacking the heavy emotion of your beach conversation. JJ looks at you, really looks at you, surrounded by three years worth of letters you wrote to him, wearing his necklace, smiling at him like nothing's changed and everything's changed all at once.

"Well, shit," he says finally, a grin tugging at his lips. "That's convenient. 'Cause I might still love you too."

The moment stretches between you, charged with three years of unspoken feelings until JJ finally closes the distance. His lips meet yours softly at first, hesitant, like he's afraid you might disappear if he pushes too hard. His hand comes up to cup your face, thumb brushing across your cheekbone as letters crinkle beneath you.

You respond immediately, your fingers threading through his hair as you pull him closer. The kiss deepens, three years of longing and regret and love pouring into it. JJ tastes like ocean and bonfire smoke, exactly how you remember.

"Fuck," JJ breathes against your lips, pulling back slightly. His blue eyes are dark with emotion as he looks at you, his thumb still tracing patterns on your skin. "I've missed this. Missed you." His voice is rough, and vulnerable in a way he rarely allows himself to be.

You smile, tugging gently at his hair. "Yeah?" You tease, though your voice trembles slightly. "Even with my shit handwriting?"

JJ laughs, the sound rumbling through his chest where it's pressed against yours. "Especially with your shit handwriting," he murmurs, before capturing your lips again. This kiss is different - deeper, more urgent. His hand slides from your face to your neck, fingers brushing against the shell necklace.

You shift on the bed, letters scattering to the floor forgotten as you pull JJ closer. His weight settles over you naturally, like you never spent time apart. The fairy lights cast a soft glow over them, creating shadows that dance across your skin.

"Is this okay?" JJ asks between kisses, his forehead resting against yours. Despite his usual confidence, there's uncertainty in his voice. "We don't have to..."

You cut him off with another kiss, your hands sliding under his t-shirt to trace the familiar planes of his back. "JJ," you whisper against his lips. "Shut up."

He grins against your mouth, some of his usual cockiness returning. "Make me," he challenges, echoing your earlier playful banter. But there's heat in his voice now, promise in the way his fingers trail down your sides tracing the curve of your waist through the thin fabric of your white dress. His touch is familiar and electric, leaving trails of heat in its wake. The fairy lights cast a soft glow over them as he captures your lips again, deeper this time, more urgent.

"Fuck, Y/N," he breathes against your mouth, his voice rough with want. His fingers find the hem of your dress, playing with the fabric as he kisses down your neck. "Tell me if you want me to stop."

"Don't you dare," you whisper, tugging at his hair the way you know he likes, The action draws a low groan from him, his hips pressing instinctively against yours. JJ pulls back slightly, his blue eyes dark with desire as he looks down at you. The shell necklace gleams against your skin, making his chest tight with emotion. He leans down, pressing open-mouthed kisses along your collarbone, following the path of the necklace.

"You're wearing too many clothes," he murmurs against your skin, his hands sliding higher under your dress. His touch is reverent, relearning every curve and dip of your body. When his fingers brush against the lace of your underwear, you both inhale sharply.

You tug at his shirt impatiently. "So are you," you breathe, helping him pull it over his head your hands immediately explore his chest. "God, I've missed touching you."

JJ's response is to kiss you again, hard and deep, as his hands work to dress up your body. "Lift up," he instructs softly, and you arch your back so he can pull the fabric over your head. The sight of you in just your underwear, his necklace resting between your breasts, makes him pause.

"What?" You ask, suddenly self-conscious under his intense gaze. But JJ just shakes his head, leaning down to press kisses across your chest.

"Just..." he murmurs between kisses, "trying to memorize everything." His hands slide up your sides, thumbs brushing the undersides of your breasts through your bra. "In case this is a dream."

You reach up to touch JJ's face tenderly, your thumb tracing his bottom lip. "Not a dream," you whisper, pulling him down for another deep kiss. Your legs wrap around his waist, drawing him closer as his hands explore your body with increasing urgency.

JJ's fingers trace the edge of your bra, his touch teasing yet reverent. "Can I...?" he asks against your lips, and you nod, arching your back so he can reach the clasp. His hands are slightly shaky as he unhooks it like he still can't quite believe this is real.

"Fuck," he breathes as the garment falls away, revealing your breasts. The shell necklace rests between them, catching the fairy lights. JJ leans down, pressing open-mouthed kisses across your chest. His tongue traces patterns on your skin, remembering exactly how to make you gasp.

Your hands tangle in his hair as he takes a nipple into his mouth, your back arching off the bed. "JJ," you moan softly, mindful of the quiet house. His free hand palms your other breast, thumb circling the sensitive peak until you're squirming beneath him.

"Missed these sounds," JJ murmurs against your skin, switching his attention to your other breast. "Missed making you fall apart." His hand slides down your stomach, fingers playing with the waistband of your underwear. "Can still remember every spot that makes you shake."

To prove his point, he kisses down your ribs to that sensitive spot just below your left breast - the one that always makes you gasp. Sure enough, your breath hitches, your fingers tightening in his hair. "Still so responsive," he grins against your skin, nipping gently.

"Shut up," you breathe, but there's no heat in it. Your hands slide down his back, nails dragging lightly across his skin in the way you know drives him crazy. JJ groans, his hips pressing against yours instinctively.

"Make me," he challenges, echoing your earlier banter as he kisses lower, across your stomach. His fingers hook into your underwear, but he pauses, looking up at you with dark eyes. "Tell me you want this, Y/N/N. Tell me you want me."

You prop yourself up on your elbows, looking down at him with eyes full of love and desire. The fairy lights cast shadows across his face, highlighting the intensity of his gaze. "I want you, JJ," you whisper. "Always have, always will."

When you reach the waistband of his shorts, he groans softly against your neck. "Can I?" You ask, fingers playing with the button of his shorts. JJ nods against your skin, his breath hot on your neck as you work the button free. The sound of his zipper seems loud in the quiet room.

JJ helps you slide his shorts down his legs, his breath catching as your fingers trace the waistband of his boxers. The fairy lights cast a soft glow over his skin, highlighting the muscles that flex under your touch. "Fuck, Y/N," he breathes as your hand palms him through the thin fabric. His hips buck involuntarily, seeking more friction. "You're gonna kill me."

You smirk up at him, enjoying the way his breath hitches as you hook your fingers in his boxers. "That's the plan," you tease, slowly pulling the fabric down. JJ kicks them off impatiently, leaving him completely bare above you.

His hands slide up your thighs, fingers playing with the edge of your underwear. "These need to go," he murmurs, pressing open-mouthed kisses along your hip bone. "Want to taste you again."

You lift your hips, letting him slide the lace down your legs. The shell necklace gleams against your skin as you move, drawing JJ's attention. He leans down, pressing kisses along the chain until he reaches the shell pendant resting between your breasts.

"Still can't believe you kept it," he whispers against your skin, his hands exploring your now-bare body with increasing urgency. "Kept wearing it all this time."

"Never took it off," you breathe, arching into his touch as his fingers trace patterns on your inner thighs. "It was like keeping a piece of you with me."

JJ groans at your words, capturing your lips in a deep kiss. His hand slides higher, fingers teasing where you want him most. "Tell me what you need," he murmurs against your mouth. "Want to make you feel good."

Your response is cut off by a gasp as his fingers find where you need him. Your hands clutch at his shoulders, "You," you manage to say. "Just you, JJ. Always you."

JJ's fingers trace slow, teasing circles against your sensitive flesh, watching with dark eyes as you arch beneath his touch. His other hand explores your body with reverent familiarity, relearning every curve and dip that he's missed for three long years. The fairy lights cast shifting shadows across your bare skin as you move together on your bed. "Fuck, you're so wet already," JJ breathes against your neck, his voice rough with desire. His fingers slide lower, teasing your entrance as his thumb continues its maddening circles. "Always so responsive for me, Y/N."

JJ can't resist leaning down to trace the chain of the necklace with his tongue, following its path down to where it rests against your sternum. "Please," you gasp as he slides one finger inside you, your legs spreading wider to accommodate him. "JJ, I need..."

"Tell me," he murmurs against your skin, adding a second finger and curling them just right. "Want to hear you say it, baby. Tell me what you need." Your response is cut off by a moan as his thumb presses harder, his fingers finding that spot inside you that makes you see stars. JJ watches your face intently, memorizing every expression of pleasure that crosses your features. His cock throbs insistently against your thigh, but he ignores it, focused entirely on making you fall apart.

"You," you finally manage, your voice breathy and desperate. "Need you inside me, JJ. Please."

JJ groans at your words, his control wavering. But he forces himself to maintain his slow pace, wanting to draw this out, to make it last. His fingers continue their steady rhythm as he kisses down your body, paying special attention to each sensitive spot he remembers.

"Not yet," he whispers against your hip bone, nipping gently at the skin there. "Want to taste you first. Been dreaming about this for three years, Y/N. Gonna take my time."

JJ settles between your thighs, his hot breath teasing your sensitive flesh as he presses open-mouthed kisses along your inner thighs. His fingers maintain their steady rhythm inside you, curling just right. "Missed how you taste," he murmurs against your thigh, nipping gently at the sensitive skin. "Missed making you fall apart like this." His free hand slides up your body to palm your breast, thumb circling your nipple as he finally presses his tongue against your clit.

Your back arches off the bed, one hand tangling in his salt-stiffened hair while the other grips your sheets. The shell necklace catches the light as you move, a constant reminder of your shared history. "JJ," you gasp, trying to keep your voice down despite the pleasure coursing through you.

JJ hums against you, the vibration making your thighs tremble. His tongue traces patterns around your clit as his fingers continue their steady thrusting, finding that perfect spot inside you that makes you see stars. He watches your face intently, memorizing every expression of pleasure that crosses your features.

"That's it, baby," he murmurs, pulling back slightly to blow cool air against your heated flesh. "Want to see you come apart for me. Been too fucking long." His words are punctuated by another curl of his fingers, another swipe of his tongue.

Your hips buck against his face as he sucks your clit into his mouth, your breathing becoming more ragged. JJ's free hand slides down to hold your hips steady, his grip firm but gentle. "Close," you manage to gasp, your fingers tightening in his hair. "JJ, I'm so close..."

JJ doubles his efforts, his tongue moving faster as his fingers maintain their perfect rhythm. He can feel your walls beginning to flutter around his fingers and can taste how close you are. "Come for me, Y/N, Want to feel you fall apart on my tongue."

The combination of his words, his fingers, and his tongue finally pushes you over the edge. Tour back arches sharply, your thighs trembling as waves of pleasure crash over you. JJ works you through it, his movements becoming gentler as you come down from your high.

When he finally pulls back, his lips are glistening and his eyes are dark with desire. He presses soft kisses up your body as you catch your breath, paying special attention to the shell necklace that rests between your breasts. His cock presses insistently against your thigh, but he makes no move to rush things.

"Beautiful," he murmurs against your neck, nipping gently at your pulse point. "Fucking beautiful, Y/N. Missed watching you come undone like that."

Your hands slide down his back, nails dragging lightly across his skin in a way that makes him shiver. "Need you," you whisper, pulling him up for a deep kiss. You taste yourself on his tongue, making you moan softly. "Please, JJ. Need you inside me."

JJ positions himself between your thighs, his cock pressing teasingly against your entrance. The fairy lights cast shadows across your sweat-slicked bodies as he captures your lips in a deep, passionate kiss. "Need you to be sure," he murmurs against your lips, his voice rough with desire and emotion. "Tell me this is what you want, Y/N." His cock slides against your wetness, making you both gasp at the sensation. 

You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him closer. "I'm sure, JJ," you breathe, your hands sliding up his back to tangle in his hair. "Been sure since the day I left. Want you, need you, love you."

JJ groans at your words, capturing your lips again as he slowly pushes inside you. You both freeze at the sensation, overwhelmed by the feeling of being connected again after so long. "Fuck," he breathes against your neck, his arms trembling as he holds himself still. "You feel fucking perfect, baby."

Your nails dig into his shoulders as you adjust to his size, your breath coming in short gasps. The fairy lights dance across your skin as you start to move together, finding your rhythm like you’ve never spent a day apart. JJ's movements are slow, and deliberate, wanting to savor every moment.

"Missed this," he murmurs, pressing open-mouthed kisses along your neck. "Missed you, missed us." His words are punctuated by slow, deep thrusts that make you gasp and arch beneath him. One hand slides down to grip your hip, angling you just right.

The shell necklace moves with each thrust, catching the light and drawing JJ's attention. He leans down to trace it with his tongue, following its path between your breasts. The action makes you moan softly, your walls clenching around him.

"JJ," you gasp as he hits that perfect spot inside you. "Please, need more." Your hands slide down his back, nails leaving light scratches that make him groan and thrust harder.

He continues his slow, deliberate pace, savoring every gasp and moan that escapes your lips. His hands explore your body with increasing urgency, one sliding down to grip your thigh as he adjusts the angle of his thrusts. "Fuck," he groans against your neck, nipping gently at your pulse point. "Feel so good around me, so fucking perfect." His words are punctuated by deep, measured thrusts that make your walls clench around him. The shell necklace gleams between your breasts, moving with each roll of his hips.

Your hands slide up his back, nails leaving light scratches that make him shudder. "Please, JJ," you gasp, your legs tightening around his waist. "Need more, need you harder." Your voice is breathy, and desperate, making his control waver.

But JJ maintains his torturously slow pace, wanting to draw out every moment. His free hand slides between them to circle your clit, making your back arch sharply off the bed. "Not yet, baby," he murmurs, capturing your lips in a deep kiss. "Want to feel every inch of you, want to make this last."

JJ's thumb continues its maddening circles on your clit as he thrusts deeper, hitting that spot inside you that makes you see stars. "JJ," You moan, your walls fluttering around him as you get closer to the edge. "I'm close, so close..." 

His thrusts become slightly harder, and deeper, but still maintain that measured pace that's driving you both crazy. JJ's free hand slides up to palm your breast, thumb circling your nipple as he continues to work you higher. The combination of sensations has you gasping his name, your body trembling beneath him.

JJ grins against your lips, his hands sliding down to grip your hips. "Want to try something?" he asks, his voice rough with desire. Without waiting for an answer, he suddenly rolls you over, keeping himself buried deep inside you as you end up straddling his lap.

"Fuck," You gasp at the new angle, your hands braced against his chest as you adjust. The shell necklace swings between you, catching the fairy lights as you move. JJ's hands slide up your thighs, gripping your hips as he guides you into a slow rhythm.

"That's it, baby," he groans, watching as you start to move above him. Your breasts bounce slightly with each movement, making his mouth water. "Ride my cock just like that." His hands explore your body freely from this new position, one sliding up to palm your breast while the other keeps a steady grip on your hip.

You set a torturously slow pace, rolling your hips in a way that has JJ cursing under his breath. Your walls clench around him with each movement, drawing low groans from deep in his chest. "Missed watching you like this," JJ breathes, his hands roaming your body possessively. He sits up slightly, capturing a nipple in his mouth as you continue to ride him. 

His hands guide your movements, helping you maintain that slow, deep pace that's driving you both crazy.

"JJ," You moan as he hits that perfect spot inside you. Your nails drag down his chest, leaving light scratches that make him buck up into you harder. 

JJ's control starts to slip as he watches you move above him, your head thrown back in pleasure. "Fuck, Y/N," he groans, his hands tightening on your hips. "You look so fucking good riding my cock like this."

He watches in awe as you continue to ride him, your movements becoming more confident with each roll of your hips. His hands slide up your sides, thumbs brushing the undersides of your breasts as you move above him. "Fuck, just like that," he groans, bucking up to meet your movements. His hands grip your hips tighter, guiding you into a rhythm that has you both gasping. 

You brace your hands on his chest, using the leverage to grind down harder. Your walls clench around him with each movement, drawing curses from his lips. "JJ," you moan, your head falling back as he hits that perfect spot inside you. "So deep like this..."

JJ works faster on your clit as he continues to thrust up into you, hitting that spot that makes you see stars. You gasp, and your movements become more desperate. He suddenly pulls out of you, making you whimper at the loss. His chest heaves with heavy breaths as he tries to regain some control, his cock throbbing painfully between you. 

"Need to slow down," he groans against your lips, his hands sliding up your sides. "Don't want this to end yet." His fingers trace patterns on your skin as you straddle his thighs. Your hands slide down his chest, nails dragging lightly across his skin in a way that makes him shiver. "JJ," you whimper, trying to move closer. Your pussy is dripping wet, clenching around nothing as you seek friction.

"Fuck, you're so wet for me," his fingers slid between your legs to tease your entrance. He watches as you gasp and arches into his touch, your walls fluttering around his fingers. "Could stay here all night, just watching you fall apart."

You rock against his hand, seeking more friction. JJ's free hand slides up to palm your breast, thumb circling your nipple as he continues to tease you with shallow thrusts of his fingers. "Please," you moan, your hands gripping his shoulders for support. "Need you back inside me, JJ. Been too long without you."

You shift in JJ's lap, deliberately grinding against his thigh. The friction makes you gasp, your wetness coating his skin as you rock your hips. His hands gripping your hips to guide your movements. "Fuck, Y/N," he groans, feeling your pussy slide against his thigh. "You're so fucking wet." His fingers dig into your flesh, leaving marks that will be visible tomorrow. 

Your hands brace against his chest for leverage as you grind harder, chasing the friction you need. The shell necklace swings between you with each movement, occasionally brushing against his heated skin. "JJ," you moan, your head falling back as pleasure builds.

JJ's free hand slides between them, thumb finding your clit as you continue to grind against him. "Please, more, need you inside me again." Your words are punctuated by the roll of your hips, your pussy sliding against his thigh with increasing urgency.

His thumb works faster on your clit as you ride his thigh, drawing you closer to release. "Come like this first," he commands roughly. You continue grinding against JJ's thigh, your movements becoming more desperate as pleasure builds. Your wetness coats his skin, making each slide of your pussy against him smoother, more intense. JJ's hands grip your hips tighter, guiding your movements as he watches you chase your release. 

"Want to feel you soak my thigh before I fuck you properly." JJ’s words, combined with the pressure on your clit and the friction against his thigh, finally push you over the edge. Your body trembles as waves of pleasure crash over you, your pussy pulsing against JJ's thigh as you come. Your wetness coats his skin, making everything slick and hot between you. 

"Fuck, that's it," His cock throbs painfully between you, demanding attention. "So fucking beautiful when you come." His thumb continues to circle your clit, drawing out your pleasure until your gasping and squirming.

Without warning, JJ flips them over, pinning you beneath him on the bed. His cock slides through your wetness, teasing your sensitive flesh. "Need to be inside you again," he groans, capturing your lips in a deep, passionate kiss. "Been too fucking long without this."

You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him closer. "Please, JJ," you whimper, still sensitive from your orgasm. Your walls clench around nothing, seeking the fullness of his cock. "Need you inside me."

JJ lines himself up with your entrance, watching your face as he slowly pushes back inside. You both groan at the sensation, your walls stretching to accommodate him again.  "Fuck, still so tight," JJ breathes, setting a slow, deep pace. His hands explore your body possessively as he thrusts into you, memorizing every curve and dip. "Feel so good."

Your hands slide up his back, nails leaving light scratches that make him shudder. Your pussy pulses around him with each thrust, drawing low groans from deep in his chest. JJ maintains his deep, steady rhythm as he thrusts into you, his hands gripping your hips with bruising force. "I’m close," you gasp, your hands clutching at his shoulders for support. "So close, JJ. Please don't stop."

His hand slides between them to circle your clit as he maintains his punishing pace. "Come for me again," he commands. His thrusts become more erratic as he feels his release approaching, his grip on your hips tightening with bruising force. The fairy lights cast dancing shadows across their sweat-slicked bodies as they move together with increasing urgency. Without warning, he suddenly pulls out, his cock throbbing painfully between you.

"Fuck," he groans, his hand wrapping around his length as he strokes himself. "Where do you want it, baby?" His eyes are dark with desire as he watches you beneath him, your chest heaving with heavy breaths.

Your hands slide up his chest, nails dragging lightly across his skin. "On me," you gasp, still trembling from your release. 

JJ's control finally snaps at your words. With a low groan, he comes hard, painting thick stripes across your stomach and breasts. The shell necklace gleams in the fairy lights, covered in drops of his release.

You collapse together on the bed, breathing heavily as you come down from your high. JJ reaches for his discarded t-shirt, gently cleaning his release from your skin. "Stay," you whisper, curling into his side. Your fingers trace patterns on his chest as your breathing slowly returns to normal. "Please stay this time."

JJ pulls you closer, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead. "Not going anywhere," he murmurs against your skin. "Never again." The fairy lights continue to cast their soft glow over the room as you drift off to sleep, tangled together like they never spent a day apart.

His phone buzzes on the nightstand, the screen illuminating the dim room with a soft blue glow. He groans softly, careful not to wake you who's curled against his chest, your breathing deep and even. 

The group chat notification shows several messages from John B and Pope:

John B: yo where tf did you and y/n disappear to??? 👀

Pope: they definitely left together bro

John B: fucking FINALLY

Pope: 20 bucks says they're at her place

John B: nah man, bet they're at the chateau

JJ can't help but grin at his friends' messages, his free hand absently playing with your hair as you sleep.

His phone buzzes again:

John B: JJ we know you're reading these messages asshole

Pope: let him live, he's probably busy 😏

John B: BUSY WITH WHAT POPE??? 🤔😂

JJ rolls his eyes, typing out a quick response with one hand:

"fuck off both of you”

The response is immediate:

John B: HE LIVES!!!

Pope: told you they were together

John B: you better not fuck this up again maybank

JJ's jaw tenses at John B's last message, his arm tightening slightly around your sleeping form. The fairy lights cast soft shadows across your peaceful face as he looks down at you, remembering everything you’ve been through to get here. The shell necklace rests between you, a constant reminder of your shared past and the promise of your future but for now, in this room with its fairy lights and scattered memories, nothing exists beyond the two of you.

[alnilaem]

bury me beneath the basswood tree

pairing: ghost/soap/reader [12k]

rating: 18+ only. minors don’t interact.

tags: non-con sex, kidnapping, stockholm syndrome, size kink, forced fellatio, forced cunnilingus, impact play, brief watersports, double penetration in two holes, forced breeding, implied hybrid/shifter au

Needing time away from her humdrum life at home, she ventures into the woodland for respite. Little does she know, straying into that cabin in the woods will be the worst—or best—decision she’ll ever make. Depending on who you ask.

all my thanks to @/ohbo-ohno! thank you for being the best beta reader and sitting through my abhorrent typos <3

AO3 MIRROR

The mountain’s breadth of trees and foliage are written with prose. 

It’s repetitive. Mind-numbing. She’s already passed this necrosed tree stump five times before. On the sixth circle, she treks through the undergrowth like it’s curdled milk, the tiny scythes of branches whispering against her arms and slicing her open the same way thumbs tear into oranges. 

Dehydration crystallises like sediment in her mouth. It makes her bones heavy, bending against her flesh as if they’re groceries about to tear through a plastic bag. The balls of her feet are calcified, her thighs chafed. They rub against her threadbare jeans the same way a match reacts with red phosphorus to produce a flame. It burns, and so do her muscles. They feel moth-eaten and spent. Hung out to dry. 

The stench of damp soil and sugar maple impairs her like an opiate. The peal of idle birdsongs grate against her ears. She’s sick of it—she’s been here for three days—and already, she’s sick of it. 

She tries her phone again. It’s unresponsive, no signal. She unfurls her map but it’s mottled with rainwater and mud. Her lungs feel dry, pruney, as the dew drops slipping off fern plants seem to replicate the tears thawing in her eyes. 

Evening mist hangs over the ground, and the sky turns red-bottomed as it progresses into nightfall. It’s as if the mountain is sentient. Nocturnal. Stirring from a torpor once the sun sets and awakening all that lives within it. 

A sob wracks her ribs. It has the same effect of a bullet, ricocheting. She keeps moving even though she doesn’t know where she’s going. She believes that should she continue walking, nothing will be able to catch her. Not the spindly tree branches that take the shape of arms or serpentine shrubbery. She won’t give the mountain any time to fossilise her, if only she keeps moving.  

Her movements are clumsy though. Her eyesight is hindered by panicked tears, turning everything shapeless and blurry. She keeps tripping and skinning her knees like the hide of a pomegranate, her flesh peeling back to show the red pulp of her innards. 

It was a rashly undertaken lapse of judgement that brought her here. To a conscious mountain that lives and breathes and feels her fear. It was her heart, empty, carved out and replaced by brutal loneliness. Her friends back home are heedless and her parents are never satisfied with what she does. She figured that if none of them would listen, the woodlands would. 

And listen, they did.

When she cries out, the wind howls. When she changes her direction, pivoting on her heel, the soil rumbles. She sees things—a shadow spotting her vision, not composed of matter—peeking from behind a tree trunk before quickly slipping away. She witlessly calls out, asking if anyone’s there, and is met with the forest's silent presentiment. She feels the stark pressure of piercing eyes sprawling down her dewy neck, sweeping over her body. 

The longer she spends lost, the more she sinks into Appalachia.

It pulls her down like molasses. Like she’s an innocent fly trapped in glue. Soon, she knows there’s no hope. She knows her scent is written into the bark of trees—supple, sugary. A treat for whichever predator finds her first. 

A brown bear, swinging its claws at her until her entrails are threadbare and striated. A snake, injecting venom in her blood. A bobcat if she’s lucky. It would be a quick death—sinking its loose jowls into either side of her neck until it snaps and she goes slack. 

She’s apt to let go. She’s keen to yield to the alluring call of the woodland to let go, to fall to the forest floor and sit there until she rots. Until the roots worm into her breathing wounds and branches start growing out of her mouth. The urge to stop moving and become one with the mountain is suddenly cogent, leaves no margin of doubt. It comes with the promise of eternal respite and divine mercy. She’s about to find a cliff to jump off of, but before she can, something catches her attention. 

A plume of smoke curling in the air. 

Whorls of slate-grey soot thinning and disappearing into the sky. She looks for the source and follows it blindly, shouldering past pine needles and hawthorn and all but sobbing as a cabin comes into view. It’s made of wood and the tufts of wildflower that sprout from its thin fissures. It looks neglected and eaten by the elements. Its vaulted roof is stained by the off-white assault of bird droppings, discoloured by acid rain. Some of the windows look covered with dewy newspaper, but still, she knows it can’t be vacant. The smoke undulating from the chimney tells her that.

She staggers onto the porch. Her fist rasps against the door, clippings of wood burying itself into her skinned knuckles as she wildly knocks. Silence. Not even the leaves flutter against each other. Fleetingly, a stint of panic seizes her. What if nobody’s home? But she’s twisting the knob and pushing herself inside anyway, dropping her bag to the floor with a thump, stepping inside.

The cabin makes for a liminal space, smelling of sawdust and pine. There’s a layer of dust on every surface, making the air thick. All the furniture is carved from wood and a couple taxidermied deers are mantled above the stone fireplace, looking more like warnings than decoration. The pelt of a black bear is unfurled across the floor, and a few trinkets are strewn around—a bookshelf of spine-cracked novels, dead plants hanging from the ceiling beams. A mountain of used cigarettes, but strangely, no ashtray. 

There’s everything but picture frames. Nothing she can use to humanise the cabin nor the people supposedly living in it.

She guides herself to the kitchen by feeling the walls. There’s a piped stove in the corner and cast iron tools hanging above the counter. Her stomach bubbles, and immediately, she starts scouring for food. 

There’s three barrels by the door, and upon popping them open, the stench of brine sprays her in the face. It’s fish with a crust of salt, preserved. In the other barrel is meat buried in shelled corn, and fermented poultry in the last barrel. 

It’s all raw and bloody. She steps back, gagging, turning her attention to the shelves that line the faraway wall. Jars of pickled cucumber and carrots. Garlic braids hanging from the edge. Rusty milk churns nestled in the corner. 

There’s a galvanised tub full of ice on the floor. She digs through it and almost moans at the jars of jam. She untwists one, sticks her fingers in it, and wipes it clean with her tongue and teeth. It’s tart and tangy but it’s food, sticking to the walls of her stomach, satiating her. And once she starts she can’t stop. She goes back to the wall and finds a stained jar, fishing out a handful of fermented cabbage, stuffing it in her mouth, her face tightly puckering at the sharp sourness.

The juice of the food goes spilling past her lips, sluicing down her chest. It sticks to the chasm between her tits and mixes with sweat, making her shirt cling to her skin, revealing the barest outline of her nipples. She’s so engrossed in keeling over the counter and stuffing her face that she doesn’t even notice the pointed shift in atmosphere. The deer outside stopping their rutting, the trill of birds ceasing. The leaves stilling, as if holding their breaths to hide. Thick, silvery clouds nestling together and eclipsing the sun, casting a thin overcast over the woodland, darkening the already-dim surroundings. 

She’s too preoccupied to recognise the tell-tale croak of the door swinging open. It’s tinny, but bullied by the sound of her smacking on marinated cabbage. She doesn’t notice the dull, throbbing footfalls. Pays no heed to the stench of blood invading her senses because she believes it’s coming from her dry, leathery lips that split open as she widens her mouth to fit the cabbage inside.

It’s only when the room darkens, a box-shaped shadow sweeping over her vision, does her blood run cold. She freezes with a handful of vegetable raised halfway to her lips, the brine rolling off a cabbage leaf like it’s an awning, dropping to the floor—drip, drip, drip—the rapid succession of shedding liquid hitting the floor sounds similar to the beating of her heart against her fickle, feeble ribs. 

The saline spray in her mouth gets soaked up by her tongue, making it puffy, too big for her mouth. She turns around clemently—treating the shadow like a wild animal—no sudden movements. She goes rigid. 

It can’t be human. 

It’s huge. Bigger than anything she’s ever seen before. Sweeping shoulders, broad thighs. Its neck is bent uncannily because it’s too big to fit in the doorway. Its chest rises heavily like a bull.

She tries to find a face, and when she does, the blood is drained from her.

It just makes her feel… uncomfortable. Its face is the poor imitation of a human, as if someone tried drawing one from memory but scarcely failed. Failed to capture the humanity, the animation, leaving it looking like a half-convincing resemblance. Its tapetum lucidum glows yellow, burning in the thin mist of moonlight that penetrates the newspaper sticking to the windows. 

It stares blankly at her. The hair on her arms stick up, a bead of sweat slices down her neck. 

“I’m sorry…”

The creature raises an arm and pulls on a hanging bead-chain, tugging on the light, which is simply a naked bulb in the middle of the kitchen. The kindle is weak but does more than the delicate moonlight. Just barely illuminates its face. His face.

She tries not to let her fear show. Tries not to preen under his depthless eyes, the mean twine of his lips. His hair that seems to have been shaved too closely to his scalp, if the nicks and small cuts on the shells of his ears are anything to go by. 

He grumbles an idle prusten. He rolls his elbows back—his shoulder blades unfurling like folded wings—and twists his thick neck.

“What’re you doin’ in my home?”

“I’m so sorry,” she repeats, her words stifled around a wad of cabbage. “I– I’ve been lost for three days. I came up for a hike but lost my way and I saw your cabin and I’m sorry, but I’m just so hungry and–”

A deep, guttural voice peals from the living room. 

“Simon!” It says. “Where should I chuck the deer? It’s too big for the livin’ room.”

The aforementioned Simon, she presumes, doesn’t answer the unobserved voice. He keeps his eyes on her, face twisted into a puckered, mean mug.

A string of footsteps precede the face that appears behind Simon’s shoulder. A rounder, ruddier face. A salt-and-pepper stubble and eyes so blue they glow like bioluminescence. 

Johnny acts surprised as if Simon hadn’t smelled her from miles away. Her honeyed scent roiling off of her, curling into the air and thinning between the trees. Her sweat pooling in the gusset of her panties, raw and pungent. 

He’s purposely coy. It’s written into the furrow of his brows and the caper of his cupid lips but the girl is too disoriented to catch on. She looks at him and beseeches, but almost faints at the deer hanging limply over his shoulder. He holds it like it weighs nothing—a sack of sprouting potatoes.

He coos. “Who’s this?”

“Lost bird,” Simon grunts. “Found her diggin’ through our food.”

“Oh, poor lassie,” Johnny hums. More so to Simon than the girl, which makes her squirm. “She didnae mean any harm, Simon. She’s just hungry… tha’ right, lass? Are ye hurt?”

She stutters out a nod, gesturing to how her jeans cling to her knees, sun-bleached and darkened with blood. She rolls her shirt over her ribcage, showing them her wounded torso. How her skin sticks to her bones.

Johnny bristles. 

“The lass needs a place to stay, Simon,” he whispers. “And she’s hurt. Bleeding.”

They talk of her as if she’s advertised merchandise in a magazine catalogue. She squirms.

Simon turns to look at her. The depression in her cheeks due to her hunger and the split skin of her mouth. The pert curve of her breasts. The desperate look in her eyes. 

He grumbles, looks over his shoulder at Johnny. “I’ll start the fire. You take the deer out back and drain it ‘fore it hardens.”

“Aye,” Johnny says. He thumps away in clunky boots and a thin t-shirt and jeans. The deer sways with his gait and disappears behind the screen door when he steps outside. 

She redirects her attention to Simon, who’s already looking at her. More specifically, at her pulsing neck. His jowls are slightly unfastened, his pupils blown out and eclipsing his irises. 

Presentiment settles in her stomach. She blanches. 

Suddenly, Simon is grunting and gripping her arm, heedless towards her whimper of fear and fleeting stint of resistance. His nails are sharp, digging sickle-shaped impressions into her arm. He drags her down the hallway and into another room—a bathroom—and tugs the flickering light on. It lacks sheen, barely illuminates the room from its moss-covered nooks to the tiled floor caked with crusted dirt. 

(The lightbulb is so dull. It doesn’t reach the farthest corner of the bathroom where the radiator is placed. The radiator bathed in black, hidden beneath the lip of shadows, so she isn’t able to see the forgotten handcuff hanging limply from one of the pipes.)

Simon works his heavy body around the bathroom. He leans over the clawfoot tub—which he dwarfs—and twists open the spigot, watching as brown-coloured water slowly ripens into something clear, gushing out of the faucet. He stuffs a plastic plug into the rust-ringed drain. 

He straightens back into his full height. All-encompassing, panoramic. Simon is so impossibly large that it’s a wonder he has so much muscle packed under his skin. Rustic, hard thighs. A shirt that bends against his arms, about to snap. 

“Take a bath,” he commands. “Get y’rself cleaned up.”

Simon shoulders past her and ducks to exit the bathroom. There’s no door separating it from the rest of the house, but a multitude of beads hanging above the threshold to imitate one. She keeps her eyes trailed on it while she strips—peeling off her jeans, pulling her shirt over her head. Rolling down her panties and consciously hiding them beneath her other clothes. 

She clutches the lip of the bathtub for leverage and dips her toes into the water. Immediately, she melts. The hot water swallows her foot and travels like a spool of thread to the rest of her, weaving itself into her wounds, licking her open like the first thaw of spring. 

She submerges herself fully, bringing her knees to her chest. Her neck hoists backward and into the water, soaking all the grit and dirt knotted into her hair. It’s like plying through syrup as she lifts an arm, retrieving a homespun bar of soap, clutching it to test her grip. There’s coily hair knotted into it and sticking to the dried bubbles. She brings it up to her nose, sniffing. Hesitates before rubbing it into her skin and around her throbbing wounds. 

The water idly sloshes as she cleans herself. It’s a hollow sound, amplified by the echoey room. She trails her hand below her waist, slipping her sudsy fingers between her lips and stroking, rubbing herself clean. 

Beneath the tinny sounds of water surrounding her like a petticoat, something else peals out. Something like a whine. Her fingers cramp above her warm cunt and she goes taut. She turns her head to the threshold of the bathroom and nearly screams but her throat puckers before she can, blocking it, her mouth hanging open in a soundless screech instead.

It’s Johnny. He stands in the middle of the hallway, peering into the bathroom and staring at her, half-obscured by the bead curtains. He looks like a sit-and-wait predator like this—silent and unassuming, if not for his blindingly-white smile shining through the curtain like strobes of sunlight breaking past trees. He steps inside now that he’s been spotted, and that causes ice to lick her organs—she sinks her breasts below the water’s surface, squeezing her thighs together. She bristles as Johnny strides impossibly close, the lip of the tub cutting into his thighs.

He stinks of sweat and iron and wood. His t-shirt clings to his skin, darkened with deer blood, outlining the barest hint of his bulky chest.

He grins. “Brought ye some clean clothes.” 

“Oh. I… thank you,” she mumbles. “You can leave it on the toilet if you don’t mind?”

Johnny sets it down. A folded flannel and a pair of sweatpants. He idles a little longer, still smiling, before leaving the bathroom. She counts the minutes in her head and tries to find the right time to leave the tub, outstretching her hand for the towel once it comes to her. But the towel is just scarcely out of reach. The terrycloth grazes her fingertips, teasing her. It’s like it was methodically placed there. Bait at the end of a fish hook to ply her out of the water and stick her ass in the air, reaching over to grip the cloth and tug it over her breasts, stepping out of the tub.

Her eyes stay locked on the crude door while she changes. She buttons the flannel up to her neck and takes heed of the pointed absence of any undergarments, slipping her legs into the gauzy sweatpants, tying them at her waist.

Johnny bursts in as if on cue. He’s still slick with blood, his mohawk odd-angled, spun-thread and matted to his head with sweat. His cheeks bulge around another grin.

“Too big for ye, is it?” He pants. “Might as well take it off. Might trip and hurt yerself again. Wouldn’t want that happenin’, right honey?”

Johnny shortens the space between them in one stride. His fingers, thick and jaded, are already fumbling around the knot she tied, pulling it out of its bow and letting the sweatpants fall, pooling into a crimp around her ankles. 

The flannel is big enough to reach her thighs. Still, she clenches her fingers around the hem and tugs it lower, preening under Johnny’s smouldering gaze. It’s almost paradoxical how it works—his eyes are icy blue, yet they have the same effect as basaltic molten. Burning hot. He’s fixated on her skinned knees, gnawing on his bottom lip.

“Simon’s got the fire goin’,” he says. “Let’s go get yer wounds cleaned too, aye?”

Johnny’s walking out before she can blink. She follows after him, flustered, stumbling into the living room lit by a dulcet fire. Simon’s kneeled beside it, sticking his hand in to adjust a lopsided stock of wood, unaffected by the flames that eat away his arm hair. Johnny takes the girl by the scruff of her neck, guiding her to a hand-crafted chair placed conscientiously in front of the fireplace. He presses on her—the sensitive divot between her shoulder and her neck—and pushes her into the seat, unzipping a first-aid kit. 

Johnny takes her feet and pulls them into his lap. The angle makes her flannel hitch up, exposing her bare cunt to the hot embers of the fireplace, and the equally hot embers of Simon’s prying eyes. She squeaks and covers herself, averting her gaze as Simon’s stare darkens into the colour of midnight splash hanging over the sky.

“You’ll feel a wee sting,” Johnny warns. He rips the corner off a rag and drenches it in vodka, poising it over her flayed knees. “Should probably give my hand a squeeze or somethin’, ye ken? To lessen the burn, o’ course.”

She hesitates but slips her hand around Johnny’s all-encompassing one, her fingers barely meeting whilst wrapped around his palm. She winces when the ethanol meets her wound, shooting through her veins, and tries recoiling into herself. 

But the amplitude of her pain swells, and her muscles girdle. 

It’s Simon’s massive hand splitting itself across her thigh that keeps her pinned to the chair. His fingers bite rivets into her skin, the pinch overriding the sting of her tissue soaking up the alcohol.

“Stay still when he tells you to,” he grumbles. “Otherwise it’ll hurt.”

She wriggles uncomfortably. Tries not to flinch when the rag meets her knees again and burns her wound. Simon’s hand doesn’t leave her thigh until he’s throwing another block of wood into the fireplace.

Johnny hums. “So, what’re you doin’ up here? Religious retreat? Mental health?”

She smacks her lips, unsure if she should answer that. She chances a glance towards Simon and bristles because for some reason, she just knows that if she lies, somehow, he’d tell.

“Um. Just stepping away from home, I suppose,” she mumbles. “Friends. Family.”

“Oh. They dinnae care about you?”

She flinches. Not because of the vodka against her skin, but Johnny’s implications. 

“No,” she says. Her words are so fickle, so distorted by misery that not even she believes it. “They do care about me. I just needed space.”

He nods. Slowly, his eyebrows press together. “I don’t remember much of my family. It’s a wee bit odd. Can’t say if they liked me or not…”

Simon squeezes the back of his neck. “Enough of tha’. Pay attention.”

Johnny makes a sound like he’s humiliated. It’s only when he unrolls a spool of gauze, wrapping it around her kneecaps, is he afforded mercy when Simon changes the topic.

“Where’s the bird gonna sleep?”

“We’ve still got a cot in the root cellar, aye?” Johnny replies. “For hurricanes and tha’. Figured she wouldn’t mind it there. Wouldn’t ye, lass?”

Clemently, she shakes her head.

Simon grunts. He stands up, towering over them both. “The deer’s there, Johnny. What kind of hosts would tha’ make us? Puttin’ her up with a corpse?”

Johnny blushes as if he’s been scolded. His bottom lip curls out, petulant, a waspish colour flooding his cheeks. 

“Aye…” he grumbles. “Tha’s right. The livin’ room, then?”

The girl is sitting, her head oscillating between the two men like a pendulum as they talk. 

“No,” Simon says. “We’ll move the cot to our room.”

Johnny nods. He scratches his stubble, pretending to think. “It’s important we keep an eye on her wounds, too.”

“Exactly,” Simon says, petting Johnny’s head. “Smart boy.”

He clicks his tongue and Johnny shoots up, scurrying out of the living room to retrieve the aforementioned cot. Muffled sounds peal out from the root cellar below them. Johnny comes stumbling back up in mere minutes with a rickety cot fitted under his armpit and disappears into a dark room.

“Best get to sleep before it’s too late,” Simon splays his hand over the small of her back. “Y’must be tired.”

She submits to Simon’s touch, letting him guide her through the cabin and into the darkest room lit only by a lone oil lamp. 

Johnny is finishing up the cot when Simon releases her. He drapes a cable-knit blanket over the surface, fluffing up a pillow. She doesn’t point out how close it is to their bed, the lip of her cot almost touching their rickety mattress.

“Fair warnin’ lass,” Johnny begins, peeling off his shirt, kittening into bed. “Simon snores quite a bit. Dinnae be feart to smack his gob if he gets too loud, aye?”

She stiffly nods. She climbs into the cot and bunches the blanket around her, making a conscious effort to hide her bare legs. Simon crawls between them, the mattress sinking with his weight, and throws their whisper-thin blanket over his legs. 

Darkness penetrates the room when he blows the lamp out. The only smoulder is the silvery glow of moonlight invading the curtains and the reflective light in Simon’s eyes. 

He sits up impossibly straight, staring at her like a cryptid caught on a trail cam. It causes discomfort to congeal under her flesh, but slowly, the longer she looks, a bristle of sleepiness lays hold of her. She closes her eyes and falls into limbo. Her breaths thinning into a short, even pattern.

———

She’s between the threshold of awake and sleep when she hears it.

She can’t tell if it’s a dream or the amplified sounds of Appalachia. She feels as if she’s underwater or stuck in syrup, able to hear the rushing brook of her blood against her ears but unable to distinguish the sounds around her.

There’s a grunt. And a moan. The wail of the bed next to her snapping then creasing. Heavy breathing. Sprinting hearts. 

Her head is so muddled she can’t register anything. Her mind tells her that the violent slapping of skin against skin is the crack of thunder. That the strangled whimpers are the call of a cottontail. 

“Right there, Johnny?” A voice asks. “Takin’ my big cock so fuckin’ well. Greedy lil’ bitch, you are.”

A long, drawn-out whine chases after it. A choked-out scream as if something hurts, succeeded by a wet squelch. 

“Look at ‘er,” that voice jeers. “Think she’d take it? Better than you? Think she’d bleed all over it like– fuck… how I smelt it on her?”

The other voice—broken in, wispy—chokes on a response. It sounds a little stifled, as if speaking through something shoved in its mouth.

“No… nae better than me,” it mumbles. “Nae better than me…”

It’s like she’s drowning in purgatory. She can’t move, can’t speak. She’s caught in a phantasmagorical limbo between reality and fantasy. She can feel the serpentine hands of something with no material existence wrap around her and stain her slick with sweat, sweeping over the space between her legs, licking a wetness up her pussy. 

A dewy sound peals out. It’s a predator loosening its jowls, stringy and frothy, flaying its lips to bare its teeth. A rumbling roar rips out of its throat, animalistic. She can hear the popping of teeth sinking into flesh. The dull sound of skin breaking.

“Ah!” A squeal. “Simon, tha’– it hurts.”

She feels a vortex in her belly, an ache in her clit.

It’s like she resurfaces the water. All at once, she hears clearly. It’s a lone word whispered in a guttural cadence so close that she swears it’s mumbled against the hot hull of her ear.

“Good.”

———

She wakes the next morning with her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth and a damp heat between her legs.

Sunlight filters through the gauzy curtains, hitting the bed next to her. The bed is starkly empty she notes, as she crawls out of her cot and pops the stiff muscles in her back, stretching. 

She pokes her head out of the bedroom and tiptoes around the cabin as if avoiding a barrage of landmines. There’s a downward force in her bladder that tells her she’s been in torpor for the better half of the morning, and a heavy crust in her eyes that shifts when she blinks. She finds her way to the bathroom and shucks the flannel over her hips, lowering herself on the toilet seat, emptying herself.

It’s the only stint of respite. The closest thing she can get to calm since losing her way in the mountain three days ago. She relishes in the idle birdsongs outside and the sound of overnight frost melting into the dew that slips off tree leaves, pitter-pattering to the ground. Listens to the stream of her pee peter out, and the ruffle of folding fabric as she tosses the flannel back over her thighs. She listens to the–

“How’d ye sleep, pretty girl?”

She flinches at the gruff voice. It’s written with sleep, barely lucid under a Scottish lilt. Her hands freeze under the running water of the tap as she watches Johnny waltz inside the bathroom, shucking his pants to his thighs and pulling out his cock, pissing in the toilet. 

She’s stiff. Fixed to the cold clay tiles of the floor, unable to be bent. She tries not to let her eyes wander, tries to block out the chubby mass of muscle swinging between his legs. 

“Oh…” her words are stifled by shock. “F-fine. I slept fine. Thank you again for opening your house to me.” She thinks back to last night—the whimpering, the croaking—and rashly decides to tack on, “But I did hear some weird noises. I could have been dreaming though.”

Johnny chuckles. “...Aye, it’s almost matin’ season ‘round these parts. I think you’ll be hearin’ more of that. It’s best to ignore it.”

Her body girdles when he sways his cock, shaking away the liquid on the tip. He stuffs himself back into his pants and pulls the flush, grinning. 

“Bet you’re still hungry. Simon’s wrappin’ up breakfast. Let’s go.”

He pats her bum and makes her squeak. He grips the hem of her flannel and reels it around his knuckles like a leash, tugging her into the dining area—which is more of a nook nestled into the living room—and pulls out a seat.

“Hope ye fancy porridge,” Johnny chuckles. He splits his palm across the top of her head, pushing her into the chair. 

She huffs and hoists her neck up, grimacing at the acrid scent of animal hide burning against the base of a cast iron pan. It takes a conscious effort to not crinkle her nose in disgust.

Simon ducks as he emerges from the kitchen threshold. He wields two bowls of food. One for her and the other for Johnny. She takes heed of how—despite his stature—Simon doesn’t have anything to eat.

However it’s a cursory thought, because she’s quickly pulling her lips into a weak smile and examining the bowl in front of her. Food is a generous word, since it looks more like coagulated milk than porridge and smells sour. Simon places a chipped plate of bacon alongside it. It’s curled because it’s overcooked, crusted with charcoal.

She swallows as Simon takes a seat next to her. Johnny, on the other side of her. 

“Looks delicious,” she hums. She turns to Simon, “Are you… not eating?”

He picks an off-white tendon from his canine tooth, flicking it away. 

He answers in a rigid tenor. “Don’t hurt your head over me. You eat your food.” 

She marginally shrinks into herself, embarrassment licking up her spine. She feels like a chided puppy, but perhaps that’s the sentiment. 

When she opens her lips and raises the spoon to her mouth, her flannel curls like a wisp of hair off her shoulder, baring her bruised albeit supple skin. She hastily pulls the sleeve back up. 

She speaks around the stale porridge and her rising apprehension. “Uh, do you have my clothes from yesterday?” She asks, squirming as her sweat glues the back of her thighs to the chair, sticky. “It’s just, uh, they fit me better.”

“Oh,” Johnny blinks, “o’ course.” 

She watches him stand up and slip through the backdoor. He walks towards a clothesline hitched between two trees and retrieves her clothes, returning with them tucked under his arm.

“Here ye go sweetheart,” he grins, setting them on her lap. Petting her head.

She slowly peels through her clothes. Her fingertips drag against her threadbare jeans, her overripe shirt, but never touch the sweat-imbued gauze of something more… intimate. Her maw tenses around the hot porridge. 

“Where are my… um…” she lowers her voice even though it’s redundant—Johnny is leaned in close, practically huffing against her ear, sniffing her neck. “... Undergarments?”

Johnny tilts his head, puckering his lips in confusion. He’s written with the innocence of a puppy—whether it’s real or fabricated, she can’t tell. The words have begun bleeding together, blotchy and unintelligible. 

“Panties, ye mean?” He laughs. “Ye never had any of those.”

She swallows thickly. 

“No, I… I did. I wouldn’t go hiking without–”

“Ye must be goin’ crazy, lass,” Johnny says. “This was all you gave me. Nae panties.”

He stares at her with large, intercosmic, unassuming eyes. His gaze flickers towards Simon. It’s so fleeting that she almost misses it. The sweep of his blue irises widening, eclipsed by his pupils. She tenses. Omniscience hits her like a brick.

Her tongue goes heavy in her mouth, melting her words. The porridge turns frothy in her gut, nausea sticking to her organs and presentiment curdling in the air. She tightens her throat around a gag.

“... When can you drive me into town?”

Johnny reaches over and grips her thigh. He digs divots into her flesh like a fish hook caught in a flayed gill.

“You’re welcome to stay as long as ye want, pretty. There’s nae rush.”

She feels bile crawl up her throat.

“Oh, well, I just don’t want to overstay my welc–”

“He’s excited to play host,” Simon growls. His words are marked by firm determination, leaving no room for objection. He leans over the table, his wifebeater clinging to his muscle, his wiry chest hair pressing against the soft cotton. “We rarely get visitors ‘round here and he’ll be upset if you leave. Y’wanna make him upset?” 

Finally, warnings blare like strobe lights in her mind. She fidgets in her seat, sweating, shooting a cursory glance to the backdoor. Calculating her chances of survival should she break through the mesh and make a run for it. 

“O-of course not. Not after everything you’ve done for me,” she stutters, feeling a bead of sweat travel down her neck. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for asking.”

Simon settles back in his seat. Johnny, too, frowning around his porridge. 

“Good,” Simon grunts meanly. “Now shut your gob an’ eat.”

She clemently chews away at her breakfast, preening under their smouldering gazes. Throughout her polishing off her bowl, she’s reminded Simon doesn’t have one. It’s unseemly for a man so sturdy to not be eating, but as Simon’s lips peel back, sated while he watches her take her final bite, she spots a spray of red liquid washing the spire of his fang tooth, glistening in the sunlight. 

“How’d you like tha’, pretty?” Johnny asks. He collapses whatever thoughts—whatever inklings—begin to seize her about Simon as he smiles and their bowls, disappearing into the kitchen.

Right away, Simon is hooking his foot behind a leg of her chair, using it to pull her closer. 

He’s centimetres away from her face when he says, “How ‘bout you start pullin’ your weight?”

Her eyes flicker up to see Simon hovering over her. He’s dewy with sweat, big and burly and drifting above her like the closet-dwelling monster from everyone’s childhood.

“You’ve caused enough trouble in my home,” he continues. “Ate a lot of our produce. It’s time you make up for tha’.”

She resists the urge to snarl. She doesn’t even want to be here yet Simon is insisting she fill her role—whatever that role may be. 

But as she hoists her neck up at him, she gets skittish and looks away, her tongue knotting. She knows it isn’t smart to upset Simon again. He’s a beefy man with sharp canines and vertical pupils, with more hair sprouting from his forearms than what’s considered normal. A man who expels deep tonal flutters instead of regular breaths. Who—despite his size—can’t ever be heard approaching.

So she smiles instead, asking, “What is it you need help with?”

“Floors need scrubbin’.”

He shoves a rag in her hand and holds out a bucket of sudsy water she hadn’t noticed before.

“Kitchen, livin’ room… just get to work.”

The water sloshes over the lip of the bucket when he sets it down. Simon stands to his full height and stalks out of the room, leaving her alone with her multitude of thoughts. 

Slowly, she stands up. She hauls the water bucket to the middle of the living room and is starkly reminded of her strength—or lack thereof. Simon had picked the bucket up so naturally, but with the weak tendons lacing her arms, she struggles. It doesn’t help that her vision is still spotty. 

She lowers to her knees, wincing at the chord of pain beneath her bandages. She awkwardly drenches the rag in the water and wrings it dry, poising herself above the floor, working the rag into the floorboards. 

She tenses when Johnny walks back in. He’s behind her. Unlike with Simon, she can feel him creeping up. She can feel his eyes on the lips of her pussy where her flannel hitches up while she’s bent over, scrubbing the floors. 

Her cheeks burn. She blindly reaches behind her to tug the hem down, covering her warm cunt. 

Johnny chuckles. “This is wha’ Simon has you doin’ out here?” 

She looks over her shoulder, her skin prickling when she sees an axe in his hand. 

“We’re goin’ to the yard to chop some wood,” he says, “but I see you’re already busy bein’ our bonnie housewife.” 

She stutters. That operative word, housewife, burns a hole in the snail-shaped cochlea of her ear. “No, Simon j-just asked me to. He asked me to.”

“I know, sweetie,” Johnny replies. He squats next to her and rubs her back in slow circles, trying to hike up her flannel again. “Simon’s just takin’ the piss. He’s a meanie like tha’.”

She tries shouldering him away but Johnny only holds her tighter. Simon reappears in the doorway, watching with his arms crossed. 

Johnny clears his throat. “Thought we’d spend time in the yard today. Doesn’t tha’ sound sweet?”

She looks at Simon who’s already looking at her through hooded, brutish eyes. She realizes that her autonomy is divested—that she has no choice but to follow what they say because something is very, very wrong here. 

Perhaps this is what the mountain had warned her of. In all of its howling and breathing, the branches gripping her and the delirium written into her psyche, maybe, it was all a warning. 

She hangs her head. “Mhm… sounds great.”

She has no time to process what’s happening before he’s folding his hand into the cavity of her armpit and dragging her up and out of the door, into the backyard. 

It’s more of a cleared grove than a yard. Dead tree stumps litter the small expanse, grass the colour of ripe lemons because it’s been seared down. There’s a block of wood sitting on a stump, split down the middle. Sun-bleached clothes hanging over the clothesline.

“Y’can watch here,” Johnny says, gesturing to one of the tree stumps. “We’ve got to chop wood for dinner tonight.”

He pulls her down on the makeshift seat, finally letting her go. And just as Johnny pivots, slamming the spire of the axe into the block of wood, she sees him scrunch his nose as he sniffs his hand, drinking in the sweat from her armpit. It goes up his nose and through his nasal cavity, making him quiver as if her sweat is an opiate. Disgust slams into her, sinking in her stomach and settling there like sediment. She doesn’t even notice Simon walking out of the cabin and reaching for the axe, raising it over his head, until the resounding sound of wood snapping peals out, and she’s jumping in her skin.

“No need to be feart,” Johnny laughs. “Just his usual routine.”

She watches Simon work. He looks like a beast on its hind legs like this—impossibly large and splayed out with his arms over his head, growling whenever he brings the axe down on the tree stump, splitting it in two. Sweat burns through his wifebeater and turns the fabric translucent, revealing the barest outline of his chest. His chest hairs are matted with sweat, his sinews straining with each chop of wood. His face is curled meanly into itself, his trimmed hair nicked in different places from at-home shaving and washed with sweat.

Every time he brings the axe down on the wood, expelling a guttural groan, something stirs in her. He does it with such force, such strength, it makes her wary. He fractures the wood along the grain without so much of a blink, without any stifling in his muscle.

All those horror films she watches alone—when her friends say they’re too busy to join, when they lead her on after planning a get-together that doesn’t come to fruition—finally catch up to her, sowing the thought in her head that if she stays, she’ll become the tree stump. Impotent beneath Simon’s hacking and eclipsed by his behemoth-like body. 

Her missing panties. Johnny’s sticky hands. Simon’s less-than-human behaviour. It all slams into her like whiplash. 

Her fear rears its head as a rashly undertaken announcement tumbling out of her mouth.

“I have to pee.”

She ignores the way Johnny perks up, as if that activated something in his brain. His ocular vein goes large, rapt, his pupils blowing out as he looks at her and then her navel where her bladder sits, suddenly grinning. 

“I can come with–”

“I’ll go in the woods,” she says. “Behind a bush or something, okay?”

Simon grunts. It’s a deep prusten sound as he splits another block of wood. Johnny pouts but lets her go, watching with those imploring eyes as she disappears behind some foliage. 

It’s now or never, she decides. 

She makes sure she’s concealed by the flowering of a tree before speeding up her walk. She moves like an unoiled machine, rusty, as her walk ripens into a run.

She doesn’t know where she’s running. She doesn’t know how far the nearest town is or how to find the trail she lost herself on, but she knows she needs to get far away from here. 

The woodland is labyrinthine. Everything looks the same. She hopes she isn’t sprinting deeper into the heart of Appalachia and straight into her new grave, but still, she doesn’t stop running. Not until her lungs wilt into themselves and turn pruney, not until her heartbeat plateaus. 

It’s as if she’s working against a rip current. She feels as if a part of herself is already woven into the woodland soil, feels herself written into the rotting, wet trees. It’s like she’s treading water instead of sprinting. And it’s like a supernova has erupted in her ankle as it gets caught under a root, sending her face first into the dirt. 

She reorients as quickly as she can. She raises to her feet but winces at the flaring nerves in her foot, and looks around for a stick she can use as a crutch. 

But something else catches her attention. 

A dog-eared paper taped to a Basswood tree. It’s been eaten by the elements, mottled, barely hanging on. She steps closer and reads the blocky letters across the front, her blood running cold in her engorged vessels.

MISSING PERSON

Fleetingly, hope seizes her, but she soon remembers nobody back home is heedful enough to report her missing, let alone realize she’s missing in the first place. Additionally, the year suggests that the flyer is three years old. Her eyes slink down, trailing over what’s still intact.

LAST SEEN: CLIFF TRAIL

$3,000 REWARD FOR INFORMATION

Foreboding clings to her flesh. She quivers, her knees weakening.

FIRST NAME: J-

The tail-end of it is smeared, the ink bleeding and thinning into the paper. It’s unintelligible, so she trails her gaze lower, heeding the victim’s last name instead.

MACTAVISH.

“Sweetie!” Peals out from behind her before she can read any more. “What’re you doin’ all the way here? Had me and Simon thinkin’ ye ran away or something. Hah.”

Johnny hurries close and swallows her flinch with a tight hug. He frowns at the flyer. 

“Why’re you readin’ this silly stuff?” He asks. He tears it off the tree and crumples it up, tossing it away. “That shite gives y’nightmares.”

“Johnny, I–”

“You went pee?” Johnny asks. Nearly makes her screech when he dips his hand low and cups her cunt, feeling around for any dregs of liquid. He buries his fingers unnecessarily deep between her puffy lips, blindly massaging.

“No…” he clicks his tongue. “No. You didn’t. Did ye lie to us? It dinnae matter, sweetie. Here. Do it here, pretty. I’ll wait.”

She musters whatever pluck she has left to shake her head.

However her spine is fickle. All it takes is Johnny glowering, his eyes darkening, his pout upending and curling into something meaner, to force her back into submission.

“Simon’s already angry ye pulled this stunt, sweetie,” he says. “I’m helpin’ you out.”

A tear escapes her. It rolls down her gaunt cheek like the dew that dribbles down trees. She’s quickly crying, expelling howls that burn her energy. She trembles as she squats to the forest floor and pushes pee out of her. She sniffles as she stands back up and lets the liquid sluice down her thighs. 

“Good girl,” Johnny hums. “You’re so much sweeter when ye listen, ye ken?” 

She sobs into her palms, her ribs so brittle they rattle together. Johnny coos vacantly at her, rubbing her all over the same way one rubs stone fruit to test their ripeness, and croons at her swelling ankle.

“See what happens when you’re naughty?” He asks, picking her up, carrying her close to his chest. “Let’s get you home, honey. These woods are no place for a bird like you.”

She hates how she curls into him. It’s her repressed underbelly fighting its way to the surface because the accumulation of neglectful family and friends has soured her, carving a chasm in her heart that forces her body to respond to Johnny’s affections. He’s a warm body for her, a pair of listening ears. It’s scraps, but it’s more than she’s ever gotten.

They make it back to the cabin in what feels like minutes. Simon’s waiting next to the door with his arms tightly crossed, his face meanly pinched. He growls like a provoked animal. He hovers like an executioner. He’s the living antonym of light at the end of the tunnel, huffing like a bull as Johnny carries her inside. 

“How about you rest?” Johnny asks. He sets her down on her cot and pulls the blanket to her quivering chin, tucking her in. “Want some tea? What kind do you fancy?”

She purses her lips, trembling. Johnny sentimentally hums as if he’s sorry. As if he isn’t a part of her plight. Her piercing fear and deep-seated fatigue.

“Garden mint…” he says to himself. “I’ll be right back, bonnie.”

He disappears and returns a few minutes later with a cup dwarfed in his hand. Steam curls over the rim, thinning into the barren bedroom. He tilts it into her mouth, nursing her. 

With every sip she feels herself slip more and more back into the familiar territory of limbo. Her eyelids become heavy, her cognizance slackening.

She peels her tongue off her gums to muster a whisper. It’s so weak. Barely audible. 

“I wanna go… home…”

Johnny croons. He cups her cheek. “Honey, those people dinnae care about you. Not how me and Simon do. This can be your home.”

He raises the cup to her mouth again, stifling any protests on her tongue.

She hiccups around the drink, her eyes warm and wet.

That’s how she falls asleep. 

With hypnotic tea invading her bloodstream, turning her eyelids heavy. Turning her helpless.

———

She wakes with a start. 

It’s a crack of thunder that had stirred her, she realizes, instead of the enigmatic sounds of bed springs snapping.

The bedroom is dark and bathed in midnight light. She can barely see anything, save for the barest outline of Johnny in the bed next to her. When lightning strikes, illuminating the sky with a blinding impact crack, she’s able to see the swell of his body beneath his sheets and the shadow of his spun-thread hair. His chest rising and falling steadily. 

She’s caked with sweat. Her perspiration soaks her flannel and makes it cling to her flesh, which is flared up as if she rolled in a pile of poison ivy. Her mind is so cluttered she almost folds over as she stands up, testing the grip of her toes on the wooden floor, testing her ability to balance herself. 

She’s in limbo. A border space between heaven and hell, awaiting her execution. That’s how it feels as she tiptoes her way out of the room, reaching for an oil lamp, holding it out in front of her. 

It’s almost worse like this. A weak flame that barely illuminates her peripheral. She fears that should she turn too fast, an aberration will materialize from the margins of her view and tear her to ribbons. 

At this point, she supposes that’s a kinder fate. 

She slips into a pair of large boots because she can’t find her hiking shoes anywhere. She opens the door and pokes her head out, immediately met with the spray of rainwater on her face, the wind running through her ropes of neglected hair.

Sheets of heavy rain fall from the awning, creating another divide that keeps her trapped inside the cabin. She steps onto the porch, listening for any incongruous noises. Even if there were any, they would be bullied under the assault of rainfall. She can’t hear her own thoughts like this, can’t formulate a plan to get away from here once and for all.

So of course she doesn’t hear the floorboards settle behind her. Of course, she doesn’t hear the heavy drumming of feet closing in on her.

She doesn’t heed the body behind her until Johnny is sniffing up her neck and snuffing out the oil lamp, laying hold of her in a grudging grip. 

“You just dinnae listen, do you?”

He takes her by the scruff of her neck and pulls her back into the cabin, knocking the lamp out of her grip. It falls to the floor and flares into a crash, louder than the rain. Almost louder than her sprinting heart and the blood rushing to her ears.

She wrestles against his grip. “Fuck you both—you sick fucks!”

She almost vomits when her insults make Johnny moan, his cock fattening against her back in a crude Pavlovian response. Each time she struggles against him, his grip tightens. It reminds her of the mountain itself. The more she tries escaping its soporific arms, the deeper it drags her down. It’s fruitless for her to fight it—the whistle of the branches, the tight sinews of Johnny’s grip. 

He swings his arm around her neck, pinning her against his chest in a headlock. Her lungs stutter and her eyes turn dewy, her deep-seated fear ripening into paralyzing terror.

A web of lightning shatters the sky, and she almost dies right there.

It’s Simon but worse. A mutation gone wrong. A changeling, perhaps. He’s squeezed inside the threshold, breathing wildly. His wifebeater is torn in different places across his body, split around tufts of fur. Fur that is matted with thick ichor, wiry and sprouting from the spot behind his ears.

Another flash of lightning ignites the cabin, revealing the shaggy coat of hair on his chest. The sheet of fat over his stomach that flutters when he puffs, growling under his breath. He clenches his jaw because he can’t clench his hands, because his thick fingers have turned into claws, sharp spires covered in gore.

Simon snarls. Blood and spit drip from his bloodied teeth as if he’s a rabid animal with a limp maw. He rolls his shoulders and cracks the cartilage in his neck, the sound pealing out so loudly, it’s more like the popping of bubble wrap in rapid succession. 

She can barely see him through her tear-filled eyes. It’s the epilogue to her life as he strides in close, biting his talons into her hips and drawing out blood. A snarl of satisfaction escapes him when he smells it—her blood, sweet, albeit stale due to her dehydration. 

“Anyone ever told you you’re an ungrateful mutt?” He growls. “I give you food to eat an’ clothes on your back but here you are, tryin’ to sod off.”

Her cheeks dimple when he grabs her jaw. She opens her mouth to protest, but her grievances get smothered beneath Simon’s claws. He stuffs his fingers down her mouth, stunting her complaints. She gags and coughs around the taste of metal and mire crusted under his claws, bile shooting up her throat.

“Dogs don’t talk,” he tuts. 

He hoists his arm back and she puckers, preparing for an attack. However, instead of her cheek, Simon’s hand slices against her shirt. He tears her flannel into ribbons, making the fabric slide off her like water from a milk bath.

She stands naked, her skin pocked with fear. She shivers despite being pressed between Simon’s furry chest and Johnny’s warm arms. 

“‘Bout time someone taught you some manners,” Simon mumbles. “I was in the middle of my dinner you know? Fuckin’ rude to interrupt.”

She blanches when she sees a limp coyote behind him, splayed out on the porch. She recognizes it as the orpiment-coloured fur to the hair flossed between Simon’s teeth.

She screams as he wrestles her from Johnny’s grip, pulling her towards the bedroom. Simon throws her onto the stiff mattress, her spine shuddering from the impact. She tries covering herself, tries wrapping her arms around her body, but Simon is having none of that. 

He pounces, taking her hips and pinning them to the bed. He hovers over her, rainwater dripping from his broken nose, impossibly large as he makes up her whole world. Simon swallows her entire view, leaving her with no chances of escape. 

Her gaze flutters down to the chub outlined by his sweatpants and decides she’s left with no chances of survival, either.

She flails her legs as Simon slithers low, flattening his nose against her cunt. She lets out a protracted cry as he hitches his lungs and inhales, breathing in the musk of her bare cunt. The sweat stuck between her fuzzy hair, the sticky arousal that spreads as he forces her legs open. 

Simon hisses. It rides the ruck of his throat, expelled from his nose. It’s not in any capacity a human sound. It seems more like a bear flaring its nostrils, poised for attack.

Johnny notices the confusion between her eyebrows because he’s leaning in and murmuring against the shell of her ear, licking it.

“Remember wha’ I said about matin’ season, kitty?”

Johnny leans away, leaving it at that. Equivocal and cryptic and calcified into the furrows of her brain. She isn’t allowed to wade in her confusion though because Simon’s tongue is lolling out, sweeping a fat stripe over her pussy.

It’s like the first thaw of spring. Simon licks her open, spreads her out on his tongue. She can’t help the immediate warmth that courses through her, swathing her in silk. 

She cries out. Her back bends off the mattress when Simon pulls her lips into his mouth to suck. 

She looks to Johnny for help. She twists herself and tries reaching out, tries crawling off the mattress, but Simon is gripping her ankle and popping the gauze of her bandage with his claws, pulling her back down, wrapping his lips around her engorged clit.

Johnny’s face doesn’t show contrition, but is pinched in jealousy. He watches with a fat mass growing in his sweatpants.

She splits her hand over Simon’s shaved head, using the cauliflowered shell of his ear to try pulling him off of her. That only makes him growl, the vibrations quavering up her spine, his claws digging into her flesh. 

She folds her arms over her face, sobbing. Simon’s tongue is wet and hot against her pussy, lapping between her soft folds, slurping her juices. She flushes at how wet she is. At how pleasure leaks through the cracks in her resolve and spreads all over her, reducing her to a panting mess. 

Simon releases her clit with a pop. He raises to his knees, towering over her, and now she’s unsure if his glistening chin is because of the rainwater outside or her arousal. 

“Hold her down, Johnny.”

Her heart drums against her chest. Johnny crawls onto the bed and kneels behind her head. He pins her wrists down with his kneecaps, keeping her from squirming.

“Will ye let me put my cock in ‘er mouth?” Johnny asks. “Simon, will you–”

“Shut it,” Simon snaps. He shoves down his sweatpants, his cock springing out. All of her nerves bristle like rope, her heart sputtering to a stop.

Simon’s cock is fat and heavy. It droops between his thighs, drooling with precum. It’s stiff but hangs because he’s so large, the engorged tip angling downward, his balls plump, ruddy.

He chokes his hand around it, tugging it. Her throat closes in on itself but her legs instinctively peel apart. Her puffy lips spread open and she flushes at the sticky sound, hoisting her neck back to look at Johnny.

He has his cock out too, pumping it. He grins when they lock eyes and smacks his dick against her cheek. Johnny presses his cockhead into the corner of her mouth, using it to tilt her lips into a repugnant curl. It’s reminiscent of a smile, but it isn’t one. 

She wails.

They both make up her beginning and end. They trap her between themselves, leaving her with no escape. Simon at her feet, Johnny at her head. Each of the men are more intimidating than the other, both inspiring fear in her feeble heart. Both inspiring unwanted arousal between her legs. 

Simon slaps his flaring tip against her clit. She mewls and hates herself for bucking her hips into him. She’s dew-skinned as Simon pushes her knees to her ears, thumbing her clit.

He deeply inhales.

His chest expands, tugging at the steel-wool hair felted against his big chest. He quivers as he expels his breath, his mating call, and finally feeds her his cock, pushing past her first ring of muscle.

Her body tries curling in on itself like a Venus flytrap, but Johnny is quicker. He bites his fingers into her wrists and pins her to the mattress, keeping her still while Simon stuffs himself deeper. Johnny kisses her tears away while he does it. It’s oxymoronic and it’s betrayal—a Judas kiss—while he wraps his lips around sweet encouragement against her cheeks.

“Got so much fight in ye, sweetie,” he whispers. “Just stop strugglin’ and it’ll feel good.”

Simon leans over her, his cock slipping deeper into her warm cunt. The blood and saliva from his maw drips onto her chest, the blood is so fresh there’s still steam, hitting her like scythes.

Johnny’s getting restless. He watches raptly as Simon starts slamming his hips into her. Johnny ruts against the chafe of her brittle hair and hopes it will give him satisfaction by proxy, but it does little to offset the ache in his balls. His lip warbles.

“Simon, please,” a voice crack, “can I put my cock in ‘er mouth?”

“Fine,” Simon growls. His hips are piston-paced against the girl’s skin, unrelenting and uncaring to how her nails scratch striated lines down his chest in her struggle. “Just stop interruptin’ us.”

Her jaw cramps when Johnny cups her chin. He puppets it open and forces his fingers down. They’re caked with dirt as he swirls them over her tongue, coaxing up the warm spit from the furrow of her throat to be used as a natural lube. 

The only mercy she gets is the stint of time between Johnny pulling his fingers out and gripping his dick, laying it on her tongue. He forces her lips apart with the tip of his cock, smearing himself all over her. 

“So pretty like this sweetheart,” he hums. “Simon smelt it on ye. Hundreds of klicks away. How sweet y’are.” 

She doesn’t have the energy to decipher that. Most of it is being wrung on trying to fight the two men off, but it’s fruitless. Johnny is already slipping into her mouth, and her cunt is already stretched around Simon’s plump cock. 

Johnny starts pumping in and out, his cock embroidering a burn in the hinges of her jaw.

She lies there limply, but as Johnny’s wiry hair meets her nose, she realizes there’s one thing she can do. In her thrashing, she undertakes the lapse of judgement to clamp her teeth together, sinking them into Johnny.

He yells and pulls himself out. Johnny wraps a hand around himself, squeezing, placating the sting. A warm wash of tears twine his eyelashes together, long and babydoll-like. He looks to Simon, preening, imploring. 

“She bit me.” 

Simon slows his hips, only scarcely so. Only enough for her to fill her lungs halfway before he’s dragging himself out agonizingly slow, burying himself back inside. 

His eyes, hungry, flutter down to her. His lips wind back, revealing his sharp fangs. He snickers. 

“Now you’ve pissed him off, hm? Dumb girl. This is why puppies need owners.”

He pinches her clit, softly tweaking it between the pads of his fingers. He looks at Johnny and condescendingly smirks. 

“C’mere, boy. If she won’t suck you off, why not take a go at her other hole?”

She tenses. Fear washes over her like a rip current, all the way down to her ass that squeezes in protest. Her heart feels too big for her chest suddenly. She can’t even see Johnny’s blinding grin through her cloudy eyes as brine tracks down her cheeks, mixing with her sweat. 

She whimpers. “No–“

A palm whistles through the air, exploding into a crack of thunder as it breaks against the skin of her cheek. 

She lapses into silence. Little hiccups escape her while she peers up at Simon, sniffling. 

“Yes,” he says. 

He grips her by her hips and flips her over. This way, Simon’s on his back and she’s on top of him, his cock digging deeper. The position is etched with a degree of intimacy that causes heat to pool in her belly—she can feel his hot breath fanning over her face, she can see his feline-like eyes better.  

She almost jumps out of her skin when Johnny presses his fingers into her ass, trying to break her in. He thumbs at the puckered muscle, chuckling when it tries squirming away from him. 

“Cute little thing,” he says. “She ever been fucked?”

The way she sobs when Johnny forces his forefinger inside gives him his answer. He almost comes right there. At the sound of her slick lubing her up, at the sound of her being torn open like a stone fruit and her pitiful cries for mercy. 

“Stop…” 

“Stop?” Johnny repeats, “Sweetie, if I stop it’ll hurt when I fuck you. Ye need prep, silly.”

That only wracks her ribs harder. The patrionizing lilt in his voice, the way he pats her bum like she’s nothing but a dumb puppy. Johnny sinks another finger in, knuckle-deep, and curls himself into the walls of her ass, massaging it.

Simon starts thrusting again. He takes one of her tits in his mouth and tongues at her nipple, snapping his hips into her. It only adds more pressure to her other hole, the one being fingered open by Johnny.

“Y’think she’s ready, sweetie?” Johnny asks. He slaps his cock against her hole, teasing her. “I think she’s fuckin’ hungry. Look at ‘er winkin’ back at me.”

Johnny collects the saliva moulded into his gums and sputters out a wad of spit, wetting her tight asshole. He presses his cockhead against her opening, pushing himself inside.

She buckles, doubling over. Her cheek falls on Simon’s chest, chafing against his coarse hair. She’s never felt so full. Folded between the men and being fed two big cocks, left with no space to breathe. She isn’t given respite. No mercy. No time for her to stretch around their cocks.

Johnny splits his hand across the divot where her spine begins and shoves her into Simon. Her jaw hangs loose, her lips parted dumbly, her drool trickling onto Simon’s chest. She’s limp. Letting them have her way with her. Letting them brand her with their fingers digging sickle-shaped scratches into her skin. Letting them break her open with each of their jackhammering thrusts, letting their pants of encouragement and degradation swirl around her like whistles from the woodland, causing goosebumps to arise and her head to pound.

“Do ye feel it, Simon?” Johnny pants. “Is it comin’ on?”

His words sprawl by like a lazy river in her mind. Desultory, like lukewarm water. They don’t click into the empty chasm of her cognizance until something else happens. Something inhuman. Something that has her choking on the raw bile that scratches her throat and the spit coaxed into the rivets of her tongue by Johnny’s assaulting fingers.

Simon’s ramming gets shaved into stunted thrusts. It isn’t due to a loss of energy, but is due to something else keeping him from slipping out. A balloon pushing against the walls of her pussy, swelling inside her. It isn’t fat but is chubby enough for her to feel it, flutter around it.

The knot snarled into Simon’s cock plugs her up. She can’t pull herself off him because it’s puffed up past her cunt, keeping her stuck on top of him. It doesn’t help that Johnny keeps slamming his hips into her, riling the thin skin that separates her cunt from her ass, bending it to the shape of Simon’s cock.

Johnny gasps. “I’m close– shite, I’m close.”

She doesn’t want to admit it, but she is too. She feels her nerves begin to fray at their edges, her stomach wearing thin. Johnny slips his hand low and blindly sweeps at her clit, nibbling on the husk of her ear.

He only gets three more pumps in until he’s emptying his balls in her ass. He grabs her hair when he comes, puppetting her head back so her mouth falls open and he can spit inside. His thrusts are slow and deep and peter into something calm, his cock softening inside her. Johnny grins.

“Say thank you, kitty.”

It crosses her tongue as an unintelligible mumble. She can’t speak properly with Simon’s cock still in her.

Johnny chuckles at that. He wraps his arms around her and pinches her nipples. Twisting them, pulling them.

Simon’s so big beneath her, lounging like a bear. He fucks into her, his thrusts curtailing into sloppy snaps of his hips.

“He’s close, bonnie,” Johnny says. “Kiss ‘im when he comes. It’s what he likes.”

Finally, Simon’s knot unravels, his thick ropes of come sticking to her walls. He makes sure that the warm come dressing her is so deep, it’ll have no choice but to take. 

Her body betrays her when it crests and crashes into her orgasm. She’s flashbanged with blinding light, gushing out an off-white liquid that coats Simon’s thighs. It seizes her so deeply it hurts, the panoramic pleasure. An orgasm that makes her brain melt, makes her feel otherworldly.

Belatedly, she remembers Johnny’s order. She leans down to kiss Simon, her lips leathery against his. She only wants a modest peck—something to sate Johnny—but she can’t pull away because her bottom lip is caught between Simon’s teeth, pinched, and being sapped of its blood.

He laps it up before letting her go. 

He slips his softening cock out but keeps his come inside her with two fingers, his claws having retracted.

He huffs like a bull. He presses his heavy paw into her abused cunt, palming it. He reeks with a carnal musk, the aftertaste of his rut heavy in the air.

Suddenly, it all makes sense to her.

Simon is the crux of all cautionary tales. The mountains aren’t sworn off because of rabid raccoons or feral fishers but because of something eldritch, whose reputation and folklore precedes any proof of its existence. Whatever Simon is, it can’t be put into words or into anything material, so he’s condensed into the urban legends that have haunted the woods for centuries. The stories that keep hikers off needle-covered paths and unmarked trees and make them carry crucifixes in lieu of bear spray.

She doesn’t even realize she’s softly sobbing. It feels like that’s all she does these days.

Johnny hugs her as if he hadn’t taken a part of her dignity. 

He kisses her, kittening into her so that Simon is able to wrap his arms around them both, hugging them. 

The calm that lolls after the storm only bruises her further. They act so normal after they’ve stripped her of everything. Johnny massaging her thighs, Simon igniting a cigarette between his lips. 

“Will you ever let me go?” She mumbles against Simon’s chest. 

He exhales the smoke. “Go where, love? You came into my house, remember?”

Johnny won’t stop kissing her. He’s a pest that’s attached itself to her dewy flesh, trying to lick her clean. Simon curls his fingers in her and makes sure that’s where his come stays.

Simon takes another drag of his cigarette. “Not like anyone back home would miss you, anyhow.”

———

She watches with a smile on her face as Johnny roasts the flank of a moose on a homemade grill and as Simon chops some more firewood.

She lounges in a chair, swathed in her caribou-hide coat. Winter is at its height, laying a skin of pillowy snow across the mountain.

The cubs wriggle in her lap, pawing at the loose tendrils of her hair and trying to pinch her nose.

“Lookin’ so pretty today, mama,” Johnny hums. She giggles when he kisses her, scratching at the cubs’ bellies. 

“Ain’t she bonnie?” Johnny turns around and prompts Simon, “Our wee looker.”

Simon pauses his wood chopping and nods. He grips the hem of his lumberman’s jacket and raises it to his forehead to wipe his sweat away, revealing his chest and his hair that disappears into the waistband of his jeans. The cubs yip when he resumes his chopping, splitting a tree stump in two. 

She grins. 

She loves her family. Her providers and the offspring of their seed. She loves the cubs’ fine hair rubbing against her cheek when they jump on the bed to wake them up in the mornings, their blunt fangs biting her when they’re hungry, and the tiny chines on their back where their sharp spine will eventually grow in, just like Simon’s.

Briefly, she tries to remember her other family. The one that came before this one. But all that encompasses her mind is a supermassive black hole in place of memories. For some reason she can’t delineate them. The face of her father is blurry and the features of her mother fit together like a crudely sewn patchwork quilt.

She doesn’t remember much of her family. It’s kind of weird. She can’t remember if they liked her or not.

But she knows that doesn’t matter. Not when she has doting men around her and their litter hanging off her hips, another one currently swelling under her belly.

She pays no heed to the missing person posters taped to the fringes of the mountain that look eerily similar to her. Not to the K-9’s that try tracking scents but fail because she’s written with Simon and Johnny’s musk. She ignores the odd helicopter passing through each month, scarcely flying past their ramshackle cabin.

None of it matters because she knows she’s where she needs to be.

[qingyuns]

— i won’t let you fall down, unless you’re in my arms

alternatively, the 3 times kinich saved you from falling and the 1 time that he was the one who fell

pairing: kinich x gn!reader, wc: 2.8k, two or three swear words, reader has a pyro vision because mualani kinich reader burgeon team is a funny hc i have, ajaw makes 2 brief appearances, fluffy but ig they don’t do that much?? pre-relationship and confessions (does this count as a confession), title from an nct dream song (rains in heaven), pls reblog ty

1) The fall that was Pacha’s fault

You were never one to back down from a challenge, not when your pride was on the line. And presently, it was. It was an unfortunate mistake on your part when you’d been a little too cocky, bragging about your rock climbing skills, and as an even more unfortunate result, a friend of yours from the Scions of the Canopy had decided to dare you to climb an actual cliff near his village.

“I’ve got all the equipment,” Pacha had exclaimed. “If you’re really that good, then this should be no sweat.”

You’d narrowed your eyes at him. You couldn’t tell if his smile was mocking or not.

“No problem.”

But now, as you looked up and tried to find another edge to grasp at, you were wishing you had backed down. Seriously, this cliff was just a flat canvas of orange. What were you supposed to hold onto?

“Stupid Pacha,” you hissed to yourself as you reached for a bump in the cliff face. “Stupid cliff.”

Man, you wished you had a Geo vision. Then you could probably create some kind of ledge to rest on. Or maybe an Anemo one would be more useful. You could make yourself float to the top.

You were also never one to be afraid of heights, but as you glanced down, your heart jolted at the distance between you and the ground. Too high. Much, much too high. Your Pyro vision hung uselessly at your hip.

A second glance told you that Pacha was no longer anywhere to be found, and you cursed him under your breath.

“Okay, don’t panic. Just don’t panic and don’t fall,” you huffed. “Easy enough.”

Your palms were moist, your fingers were suddenly too smooth. And just when you risked a second to wipe your hand dry on your leg….

….the other one slipped, and you were falling.

The organ in your chest seemed to stop. This is it, you thought, I’m dead. You were falling, and falling and falling, until suddenly, while your eyes were squeezed shut and your stomach was leaping like a wild Koholasaurus in water, you were flying.

It took you a second for your brain to orient itself, to realise that you weren’t in fact dead yet, but when it did, you felt an arm wrapped securely around your waist, so tight that it was almost painful. You peeled your eyelids open. In your limited view, your saviour was nothing more than a head of dark hair and a blur of green attire. The surrounding cliffs were reduced to blobs of colour as you were swung through the air, down then up, down then up, until your feet were once again on solid ground.

Your knees almost collapsed once you were, and both of your saviour’s arms moved to steady you. A blink. Two blinks. You waited for your breathing to return to normal, then your eyes flitted up to meet theirs.

A kaleidoscope of green and gold greeted you. Huh, pretty.

Your saviour let out a strangled sound, something between a choke and a grunt, and released you. Oh. Had you said that out loud?

“Uh, sorry,” you coughed awkwardly. You took a step back, fiddling with your fingers. “Thanks for saving me.”

With the bandana that was tied over his forehead, it was difficult to discern his emotions. He gave you a curt nod. “You should be more careful.”

A distant yell made both of your hands turn, and you saw the tiny figure of Pacha rapidly approaching and waving his hand at you. By the time he’d closed the distance, which to his credit only took about eight seconds (so he must have felt at least a little guilty about almost letting you die), the guy beside you had vanished.

“Are you okay?” Pacha exclaimed as he skidded to a stop in front of you. You nodded, and he let out a sigh of relief, before looking around curiously. “Was that Kinich?”

2) The fall that was a Tepetlisaurus’ fault

The next time you met Kinich (‘Malipo’ Kinich, a Saurian Hunter who according to Pacha, was transactional, blunt and borderline reclusive), you were on the cliffs by the Children of the Echoes, picking Saurian Claw Succulents as a favour for a new friend of yours, a sweet young girl by the name of Kachina.

And maybe you shouldn’t have been crouching so close to the edge of a cliff, but how you were supposed to know that a Tepetlisaurus burrowing in the earth would come straight for your footing and uproot you, effectively tossing you off the side? Really, it wasn’t your fault! It was just some kind of ninja saurian.

This was only the second time you’d ever fallen off the side of a cliff, but for some reason, you were hardly surprised when the same person came to your rescue this time.

He looked at you blankly as you clutched at the succulent in your hand, eyes darting around to avoid prolonged eye contact. You were sure he probably had an eyebrow raised under his bandana.

“Do you make it a habit to throw yourself off every cliff you come across?”

You flinched. “Well, no.”

His arms crossed over his chest, and you couldn’t help the way your eyes were drawn to the tattoos exposed on his biceps. The teal suited him, you thought absently.

Your thoughts were interrupted by a screeching voice. “Well, what’s your problem, then!”

A flashing myriad of yellow and green flitted into the air. The creature that had popped up from behind Kinich was … strange, to say the least. A strange, blocky thing. It looked strangely flat, like a hundred tiny, flat, square blocks. Were you going insane?

Kinich sent an annoyed glance towards the creature, before looking back at you to see that your mouth was now agape as you stared.

“Oh, right. You haven’t met Ajaw.”

“Oh,” you muttered, suddenly feeling fainter than you had when falling off the cliff, “so this is Ajaw.”

The blocky creature expanded around the middle (you supposed that was the equivalent of puffing out its chest). “Aha! So you’ve heard of the Almighty Dragonlord, K’uhul Ajaw, have you? Tell me, peasant, what have you been told? That I’m ferocious and powerful?”

Kinich sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. You blinked at the creature. You thought back to what Pacha had said – “Ajaw. He’s Kinich’s saurian companion. Really weird little guy. Super annoying.”

“Yeah,” you assented, “something like that.”

“Do you ever shut up?” Kinich sighed. It took you a second to realise that he wasn’t talking to you.

“Maybe you should shut up, Kinich!” Ajaw’s eyes angled themselves into a glare, and he fluttered around agitatedly.

The response he received was a flick of a gloved hand, which sent the Saurian soaring into the sky, until you couldn’t even see him anymore. You were pretty sure you’d never blinked as much in your life as you had in the last five minutes.

Kinich turned to you. “Sorry about him.”

“Um, that’s alright,” you said half-heartedly.

“So how come you’ve fallen off another cliff?”

Yikes. He must have thought you were either insanely insane or tremendously stupid.

“A Saurian knocked me off the side when I was picking succulents,” you muttered, cheeks flushing with heat.

He hummed. You weren’t quite sure what that meant. “And the other time?”

 “Um, my friend dared me to climb the cliff. So I did.” You winced. “But I swear, these are the only times I’ve ever fallen off a cliff.”

It was a sentence you never thought you’d have to say. How embarrassing. You waited for the inevitable scolding or mocking to fall upon your ears, but then—

“Alright,” Kinich nodded easily. “Maybe try to avoid cliffs from now on."

Then he turned around, and started walking away. The sudden departure made you recoil in shock. Was the conversation over? Pacha really wasn't exaggerating when he said Kinich was reclusive.

"Huh? Wait a second!" You weren't sure what came over you in that moment, but you had a startling feeling that you couldn't let him leave here.

He paused, and turned to look at you, head tilted slightly to the side.

"Um, hold on." You thought for a moment. How to make him stay for longer? "Are you free right now? I'd like to treat you to a meal, if possible. You know, to thank you."

Your hands clasped in front of you and you fiddled with your fingers.

Kinich blinked slowly for a moment and stared at you. For a horrible moment, you thought he was going to decline, in which case you would have had to turn tail and flee on the spot, but instead, he nodded.

"I have some time."

You brightened. "Great! I know this place that has the best tatacos!"

There was a light skip in your movements as you began to lead the way, trusting that he was following you. You could only hope he didn't eat too much. You weren't sure your pockets could afford it, and you'd hate to make an even bigger fool of yourself in front of him by being too broke to pay. What a horrible first impression...

“Oh, right!” you paused in your steps for a moment. “I forgot to introduce myself!”

And so you did, and you watched as something that almost looked like a smile twitched at Kinich’s lips. Then, as if testing the way it rolled on his tongue, he repeated your name carefully.

Something fluttered in your stomach as you beamed. Yeah, you sure liked the way that sounded.

3) The fall that was the fault of a slippery rock

“No, guys, trust me. I just discovered it. It’s like, really underground.”

Kinich sighed as Mualani giggled at her own joke. As if on impulse, you laughed along with her, but you even as the sound escaped you, you couldn’t tell if it came from a place of pity or not. Underground, because it was literally in an underground cave. Hilarious. Still, a small smile made its way onto your face. This was nice. As much as you loved your other friends, it sure felt great to hang out with people who didn’t always challenge you to risk your life (fuck you, Pacha), though you suspected Mualani was just waiting for a chance to take you Spirit Wave riding, and you weren’t sure you were quite ready for that yet.

Today, however, you were spared. Mualani had promised you and Kinich a relaxing afternoon in a new hot spring she’d found. And so you were following her into an opening in the rock face.

The air was immediately a little cooler than it was outside as you stepped into the darkness. The cave was still illuminated by the sunlight, and you could see more patches of light ahead. It glowed slightly in the reflections of the rock on the ground.

“It’s a little steep here,” your friend warned. “Watch your step.”

No sooner had you nodded to show your understanding than you had placed your foot down on a particularly slippery patch on the floor, and it slid.

A gasp tore out of you, but two arms were already wrapping around you from behind.

“Be careful,” his voice murmured in your ear. You almost gasped again. How glad you were that he was behind you and thus couldn’t see the way you froze up at the feeling of his breath on your skin.

From a little ways ahead of you, Mualani called out. “Hey, you alright?”

Your throat suddenly felt very dry. You cleared it before telling her that you were.

Kinich kept one hand on your waist for the next few steps before removing it after you had found your footing. You found yourself missing his touch upon the removal.

No matter, you assured yourself. Focus on not falling over again. The decline of the slope eased out into a flatter path, and soon the tunnel opened up into an expansive area. The underground spring was much brighter than you had anticipated, thanks to the perfectly round opening at the top. Smooth, round rocks seemed to line the edge, and the water sparkled in the ripples as Mualani crouched down to test it with her hand.

“Oh no!” she exclaimed.

You turned your attention to her. “What is it?”

“It’s cold! It was really toasty last time, though,” she frowned. “It must be because it’s further away. The underground water flow can get unstable and–“

As she rambled on, you crouched by the side of the spring, dipping your hand into the water. It lukewarm at best, but the pool wasn’t as big as most of the one’s above ground. You could work with this. Placing both hands in the not-so-hot spring, the vision at your side pulsed with energy. You let the heat flow through your body to your fingertips, as steam floated just above the surface of the water.

You failed to notice the pair of eyes that were fixed on you as you smiled to yourself.

“Hey, Mualani? Is this better?” Mualani’s eyes widened as she watched the mist rising out of the hot spring.

“Yes, yes, yes!” She squealed. She rushed to your side, squeezing you in a hug, before drawing back immediately. “Ow, hot!”

The girl quickly submerged her arms in the water, sighing in relief. You couldn’t help the giggle that escaped.

You grinned at your friends, stepping into the water yourself. “Shall we swim?”

The pounding of your heart against your chest was hard to ignore when Kinich slid into the spring and settled right beside you.

???) The fall that wasn’t even you

Kinich wasn’t sure what was wrong with him lately. He’d been sleeping the same, his regimented diet was unchanged, but in recent weeks, he’d found himself feeling a lot more strange.

Hunting commissions had been slow lately, so he’d taken the liberty of accepting ordinary bounties and commissions from the Adventurers’ Guild. When you’d heard about it, you’d insisted on joining him. He hadn’t had a problem with that, but since he started taking on these new commissions, Kinich had noticed that something was happening to his health.

He’d been spending a lot of time with you these days, but that couldn’t be it. How could that explain his borderline feverish symptoms? The heat that flushed his head and neck sometimes, and the weird way that his heart flipped, like it did when he went bungee jumping that one time.

And sure, those symptoms only happened when he was with you, but that was just because he was almost always with you. How could fighting a few treasure hoarders in your presence make him ill?

“Isn’t it obvious?” Ajaw growled. “You like them!”

Kinich was too surprised to scoff. “What?”

“You have a big fat crush.”

“No, I don’t.”

The little green dots in Ajaw’s eyes rolled around so hard, Kinich thought they might fall out.

“Fine! Don’t believe me, then! Even though you blush whenever you’re with them, and you stare at them when they’re talking, and you didn’t even complain when they wanted to join your commissions and you’ve been losing half the profit!”

Ajaw’s body doubled in size before he vanished in agitation. Kinich raised a hand to his chin in thought. He needed a second opinion.

“You like them,” Mualani replied simply. “It’s pretty obvious.”

Kinich blanched. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

“Because it is,” she grinned. “Dude, you’ve fallen hard.”

There was a twist in his stomach. The tips of his ears turned redder than a hot chili pepper.

“Come on, Kinich. You’re a smart guy. Think about the way they make you feel.”

Despite everything, despite the fact that he was, in fact, a smart guy, and he had always been sure to analyse and prepare for every outcome, and he was always weighing the costs of his relationships and seeing right through people and thinking way too much about everything—

—the realisation hit him like a tidal wave.

Oh.

Mualani grinned, satisfied. “I’ll leave you to your thoughts, then.”

Kinich barely registered her departure.

Because of course. Your relationship had never been transactional. All you ever did was give and give, and without even realising it, he’d poured his all into giving back without a moment’s hesitation. He’d never asked anything of you, nor you of him.

And because Kinich was a level-headed man, and ever-so-straightforward, there was no time wasted before he was at your front door.

If there was ever one thing he would ask of you, it was this.

“I like you, and I need to know if you feel the same.”

A grin found its home on your lips. A step forward and you closed some of the distance. The sparkle in your eyes did nothing to shake Kinich’s nerves, but it did make his stomach flip.

“Guess you’re the one falling for me now, huh?”

[what-marsha-eats]

Golden sultana and candied orange cake

Created by Nigel Slater

From The Guardian

This Christmas cake, according to celebrity British chef and baker Nigel Slater, "manages [sic] to be both light and rich at the same time. The only fruits are golden sultanas and candied orange. I have kept the icing frost-thin and I think the cake is better for it. The passionfruit juice adds a spark of sharpness to balance the sugar hit."

You will need a 24cm Bundt tin or a 22cm kugelhopf pan.

Serves 10

Cake

butter 240g, plus a little for the cake tin caster sugar 240g ground almonds 120g baking powder 1 tsp plain flour 140g, plus a little for the cake tin eggs 4 lemon finely grated zest of 1 golden sultanas 150g crystallised orange peel 75g, chopped orange finely grated zest of 1

To decorate

passion fruit juice 30ml (2-3 ripe fruits, sieved of their seeds) icing sugar 100g crytallised fruits 60g crystallised roses 10

Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4. Prepare the cake tin by melting a little extra butter, brushing it over the inside of the tin then dusting it lightly with flour. Turn the tin upside down and shake lightly to remove any excess flour.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a food mixer till pale and fluffy. Mix together the ground almonds, baking powder, and flour. Break the eggs into a small bowl and mix the yolks and white thoroughly by beating with a fork.

When the butter and sugar are well creamed, add the flour and almond mixture and the beaten eggs, alternately and a little at a time, beating continuously. Fold in the lemon zest, golden sultanas, chopped crystallised orange peel, and the orange zest. Mix lightly but thoroughly, then spoon into the buttered and floured cake tin, smoothing the surface as you go.

Bake for 50 minutes, covering with foil for the final 10. Test with a skewer. It should come out damp but without any uncooked mixture attached. Remove from the oven and leave to settle for 15 minutes. Turn out onto a cooling rack.

When the cake is cool, put the passion fruit juice in a small bowl and beat in the sieved icing sugar. Spoon the icing over the cake, letting it drip down the sides. Let it set for 5-10 minutes then decorate with crystallised fruits and roses.

[ervans]

Care for You (Mizu x F!reader)

warnings: mentions of blood, wounds, and violence, soft sex, fingering (r! receiving)

a/n: wow. it's been a minute since i've truly sat down and wrote something. i'm absolutely obsessed with BES and mizu, i haven't felt so passionate about something since TLOU. this is my adaptation of what seems to be the most cliche scenario in this fandom so far: reader finding an injured mizu. i'm a bit rusty when it comes to writing so any and all feedback is welcome and appreciated, follows and notes as well. i have more ideas for works surrounding mizu (including a brothel fic muahahaha) so keep your eyes peeled for my posts :))

The sound of your sandals shuffling against the ground and your heavy pants were the only noises that pierced the otherwise quiet night. The moon, stars, and faint glow of your home in the distance were your only source of light as you trekked up the hill where the soft orange hue was coming from. The walk up this specific hill usually caused you no trouble, having done it dozens of times; however, this time was a tad bit different. Why? The limp, unconscious body that was currently draped over your shoulder.

Earlier in the evening you had heard a commotion down at the lake below the hill your home rested on. It was normal for stragglers, crooks, and opium addicts to travel through this part of Japan and mixing those groups of people usually ended up in some sort of fight. You had paid no mind to the noise, continuing with your cleaning. It wasn’t until you realized you needed more water for your tea that you made your way down the hill. As you reached the shore and saw the mess in front of you your stomach lurched.

Four bodies laid lifeless in front of you on the sand. From what you could tell they all had various stab and slash wounds across their bodies. Fifteen feet away from the tattered bodies lay another smaller one clad in baggy black trousers and stockings, a dark blue haori, and white scarf around his neck with a brown straw hat, round glasses with an orange tinted lens, and a sword, the telltale sign of a samurai on the ground beside him.

 From where you stood you could see his chest still moving as he tried to shallowly breathe in oxygen from the air surrounding his struggling body. That brings you to where you are now, struggling up a damn hill trying to save this unknown samurai’s life. Was he responsible for the four bodies you had pushed into the lake? It didn’t matter to you; you weren’t one to judge in a world where it was kill or be killed.

You push the door to your house open and lay the injured stranger onto your mat near the fire. You start to boil water to disinfect whatever wounds he had and open a drawer to grab a needle and thread just in case stitches were needed. They very much were. You quickly realized the source of what seemed like never-ending blood on the top half of his body as you stripped the bloodstained clothing away. A gash about 4 inches long and deeper than you’d like it to be starting towards the base of his ribcage, skin around it starting to turn a yellowish color. It almost distracted you from the way the stranger was wearing chest wraps. Almost.

You frowned looking down at the shallow breathing of the samurai’s chest. Why would he need chest wraps? You thought, fingers brushing over the once white cloth now stained. Unless? You slowly started to undo the bindings, telling yourself you needed to anyways to properly clean the wound. As the cloth unraveled in your hands your small suspicion was confirmed. Two small breasts sat atop the chest of the slender samurai that laid before you, nipples hardening as they became exposed to the air. Your eyebrows raised, head tilting slightly to the side. A female samurai? How? Questions began to fill your mind as you started to clean the wound, gently washing it with the now hot water. It was unheard of for a woman to even touch a sword as it was said to make the blade impure. Where had this woman gotten her sword? Who did she get taught by? Clearly from the mess on the beach she knew her way around a fight.

You finished cleaning and stitching the larger wound and got to work on disinfecting the smaller cuts and scrapes on the upper half of her body. Once you were satisfied with your work, you began removing the woman’s trousers and stockings, revealing another deep gash running from the top of her knee down to her shin. Sighing you started the same process as her chest and prepared yourself for the unknown amount of time you would be caring for this mysterious female samurai.

════════════════════════════════════════════

It took three days for the samurai to fully regain her consciousness. In those days you had changed the dressings on her wounds, forced broth and water down her throat for some form of sustenance, and carefully studied her whenever you found the chance to. You noticed small things others would easily miss. The way her face seemed like it was always in a permanent frown, her subtly toned muscles from what had to be from years of training, how her calloused hands would twitch in her sleep, stress being the cause of it you had concluded after watching her for a good hour whilst you sipped on your tea, and how insanely handsome she was. Wait what? Handsome? That thought scared you so much that you had refused to watch her for the remainder of the evening besides checking her wounds thoroughly before you went to bed. But you couldn’t ignore those thoughts that plagued your head as your touch lingered for more time than it should’ve.

You were sat cross-legged waiting for your tea to steep when you heard a thud from behind you. Quickly turning around to find what the source of the noise was, you were met with the samurai staring back at you, blue eyes shining in the dimly lit space. And oh, were they blue. You had never seen or known something could be as piercingly blue as the eyes that met yours.

“Who are you? Where am I?” The samurai demanded in a gravelly voice that sent a shiver up your spine. You couldn’t bring yourself to answer right away, mouth slightly agape with shock at the stranger who had, just minutes ago, been passed out. “I asked you a question, now answer it.” She said sternly after a beat of silence between the two of you.

You blinked, raising an eyebrow and rising to your feet. “Well that’s no way to talk to someone who saved your life now is it?”

The woman, stern frown never leaving her features, quickly looked around the room taking in her surroundings. She then looked down at herself, usual blue haori missing and replaced with a softer red one. You hadn’t wanted to leave her bare in the middle of your home and opted to dress her in one of yours while you worked on scrubbing the stains out of hers.

You saw her tentatively try to move, and the flash of pain the appeared on her face for just a second didn’t go unnoticed by you. She pursed her lips and looked back up at you. “Thank you for stitching me up, but I would rather not stay a hostage here any longer. I have more important places to be.”

Your eyes widen and you scoff. “Hostage? Are you fucking serious? By all means you can leave, makes my life ten times easier if you do.” You were lying, you quite enjoyed caring for the handsome samurai, but you would never admit that to her. At least not now. “Good luck walking on that knee by the way, I’m sure it won’t be any trouble for you though.”

You crossed your arms and leaned against the wall as the blue-eyed woman looked you up and down once more before attempting to get up. After a few minutes she was standing, hand against the top of the fireplace to keep her from falling over. You could see her chest rising and falling quickly from the struggle of just standing. She looked back over at you, still leaning with your arms crossed. “Where are my belongings?”

“On the table to your right.” You responded, eyes never leaving hers. You watched her glance over to the table. It was about five feet away; it should’ve been no problem for her to walk over and grab her things. Should’ve. It took her almost ten minutes to reach the edge of the table, her injured leg making it difficult to have a full range of motion. She opted to shuffle inch by inch over to the edge. By the time she got there she was out of breath, looking down at her hands placed on the wood in front of her. You hadn’t moved at all, the only change being your expression shifting from annoyance to amusement as you watched the fit samurai struggle.

After a moment she let out a shaky breath. You saw her knuckles tighten as if she was having an internal battle with herself. “Can you help me back to the mat?” She asked so quietly you almost missed it. You pushed yourself off the wall and walked over to where she stood, taking notice in the way her legs were shaking from lack of use over the past three days. She refused to look at you as you placed her arm over your shoulders and helped guide her back to the mat on the floor. “Thank you.” She muttered.

You looked at her, worry spreading across your features. “Of course. I’m here for anything you need. Consider me your personal caretaker.” You joked. “Although, a good caretaker should know her patients name.” Your words hung in the air for a moment before she responded.

“Mizu.”

════════════════════════════════════════════

It had been three weeks since Mizu had introduced herself to you. She didn’t talk much about her personal life, which you respected, instead filling the silence between the two of you with your own stories from your childhood. In that time her leg wound had been healing considerably quick, mostly due to the bedrest you ordered her to stay on. The only time she was allowed to move her legs was when she needed to relieve herself or when you would do small stretches with her to keep her blood flow moving. After some time, she was able to get up and walk for short periods of time on her own. The only problem with her quick recovery in her leg was the fact that her chest wound had hardly any progress to it.

Since Mizu couldn’t walk for some time, she exerted all her energy to her upper half, much to your dismay. She would sit up on the mat doing stretches on her arms and shoulders, sometimes raising them so far up you were afraid a stitch was going to pop. It did.

Mizu had been practicing arm movements with her sword, stating that “If I want to achieve my goals, my skills must always be honed and sharp.” Bullshit you thought. She just wanted to aggravate you. How could you tell? The small smirk that would grace her lips whenever she went to pick up her sword, even after you told her it was dangerous, and she could hurt herself anymore. Alas, she was a stubborn woman and it’s how you ended up rushing inside from chopping wood after hearing a sharp yelp from inside your home.

She sat on her mat, one hand clutching the spot above her wound while the other reached for the needle and thread you always kept close by. Once you realized she was going to try to stitch herself back up you rushed over to snatch the needle from her hands and straddle her lap, careful of the wound on her knee. She looked startled for a moment before her whole face turned a deep shade of red once she realized the position you both were in. You had a faint blush as well as you plucked the thread from her hand as well.

“I’m not letting you stitch yourself. You’re going to make your injury worse.” You said looking down at her. She looked up at you with those damn blue eyes you could get lost in for ages, cheeks still red but an amused expression on her face.

“You don’t think I know how to stitch myself up?”

You laughed awkwardly. “Well, no. I just…you just…you just popped a stitch by doing something I told you not to do! How can I be sure you’ll do it correctly?!” Mizu laughed. A sound so beautiful you were sure it would play through your mind for months to come. “I guess you have a point. C’mon then doc, fix me up.” She smirked. You felt your face grow even hotter.

Still straddling her you pushed her robe off her shoulders revealing her chest wraps with blood from the reopened wound soaking through them. You gulped. To stitch her back up you’d have to remove her bindings. And this time she was awake. And would definitely take notice in the way your eyes would roam her chest. Sensing your hesitation, she smiled looking up at you. “What? It’s not like you haven’t seen them before, obviously you have, or I wouldn’t have stitches here.” She was teasing you, you realized. “Here I’ll make it easier for you.” Her hand reached around to begin to undo her wraps. You sat there dumbfounded as they fell to the floor and her breasts were exposed to you once again.

“You just gonna stare sweetheart or are you gonna patch me up?” Mizu’s teasing question broke you out of your trance as you swallowed thickly and got to work on restitching her wound. You felt her piercing gaze on you the entire time and did your best to try and ignore the warm feeling in the pit of your stomach.

Later that night after the excitement of the day you sat sipping on your tea while Mizu slept next to the fire. You couldn’t stop thinking about her. Those beautiful blue eyes, the way her lips turned up into a smirk whenever it seemed you were flustered, and the sound of her laugh plagued you. You hadn’t felt like this in a long time.

Suddenly Mizu woke with a gasp, shooting up from the mat. You turned to her startled as you took in her appearance. Eyes wide with fear, chest heaving up and down, and her hands gripping tightly onto her blanket. “Nightmare?” You asked softly as to not startle her even more than she was. She just nodded as she looked at you, eyes bright in the darkness.

You softly rose to your feet, padded over to where was sat up, and sat down next to her. Her eyes had never left your figure as you made your way to her. You looked down at the blanket, then back up to her asking a silent question.

Slowly she lifted the blanket up and laid back down, giving you room to scoot in next to her. You wrapped your arms around her and brought her closer to your chest in the most intimate position the both of you had ever been in. You had never slept as well as you did that night.

════════════════════════════════════════════

It had been four days since Mizu’s nightmare, and every night since then you two had slept together, arms wrapped around each other. The dynamic between you had changed drastically, lingering touches and glances to each other becoming a new normal.

Tonight was no different to the past few. You lay facing Mizu while her back was turned to the fire, tracing circles into her rough and calloused hands. The silence was comfortable, but you chose to break it in that moment.

“When do you think you’ll leave?” A flash of hurt ran across Mizu’s face.

“I can leave whenever you want me to, I think I’m healed enough by now. Would you like me to leave tomorrow?” Your heart clenched at the sadness in her voice. You didn’t want that at all.

“No,” you whispered. “I don’t want you to leave me. Ever.” Her eyes softened, moving closer to you she brushed her nose against yours.

“Then I won’t.”

Your lips met her soft ones in a searing kiss, one that knocked the air right out of your lungs. You let out at soft noise as she titled her head, running her tongue across your bottom lip to deepen the kiss and ask for permission to enter. You parted your mouth for her, tongues running against each other as she rolled on top of you, straddling your hips. Her fingers ran down your sides and under your top, tips of them brushing the underside of your breasts as you pushed your chest up into her, silently asking for more.

She pulled away from the kiss, a trail of spit the only thing keeping you connected, and smiled. “I’m going to need you to tell me you want more. Tell me you want it and I’ll stay.”

You moaned at her words. “Yes! Mizu please I want it, I need you.” She leaned down to kiss you once those words left your lips, fingers moving up to circle and pinch your hardened nipples. You let out a gasp into Mizu’s mouth at the sensation and she smiled into you, moving her head to trail kisses down your face to your neck, sucking a purple mark just below your ear.

You raised your arms over your head as she stripped you of your top, eyes lingering on your now bare breasts. “Beautiful.” Was all she said. You let out a whimper at her words. She kissed down your shoulders to your breasts and licked a long stripe up your nipple, the sensation causing you to moan and buck your hips up into hers. As she continued her assault on your breasts, her hand traveled lower down your stomach and slipped her hand into your trousers to run a finger through your slick folds.

You were a moaning, withering mess below her at this point. Between her mouth on your tits and her finger slowly brushing against your clit, you weren’t sure how much more you could take. “Please Mizu. I need you, please.” You begged, grinding your hips up into her hand hoping she got the message. She did. Slowly she pushed her middle finger into your wet heat, savoring the noise that left your lips as she did. Experimentally she curled her finger, finding that spongy spot at the front of your walls.

It wasn’t enough for you. “More, I need more.” You whimpered. Smiling against your breast, she pushed another finger in, thrusting at a quicker pace. You were close, she could tell by the way your pussy clenched around her digits. You just needed one last thing to push you over the edge. Removing her mouth from your nipple, she brought her forehead against yours admiring the way your mouth was slightly agape and the furrow between your brows.

“Open your eyes. You’re to look at me when you cum.”

At her words and her thumb suddenly circling your clit matching the pace at which she thrust, your eyes shot open meeting her icy blue ones, the last thread keeping you from falling snapping.

“‘m gonna cum Mizu, fuck m’ gonna fuckfuck-“ You were sent over the edge, cunt clenching and gushing around her fingers while your back arched off the mat, eyes never leaving hers as she guided and talked you through it.

As you caught your breath, chest heaving, she peppered soft kisses all over your face causing you to giggle breathlessly. She smiled down at you as you looked up at her still panting. “Give me a second, let me return the favor.” She leaned down capturing your lips once again as she removed her fingers from your core, wiping the slick on her pants and rolling to lay next to you. She pulled you into her chest and nuzzled her nose into your hair.

“You’ve taken care of me these last few weeks, let me take care of you. We have all the time in the world, I promise I’m not going anywhere.”

And Mizu always kept her promises.

[kookooluvr]

Teach Me How To Love - Part 1

pairing: professor!jungkook x (fem) professor!reader, fwb to lovers

genre: fluff, angst, smut, fwb au, economicsprofessor!jungkook, politicalscienceprofessor!reader, slow burn, some emotional constipation, some sappy moments, lots of sexy moments.

summary: jeon jungkook, a fellow professor at yonsei university, is your friend, co-worker, and secret bed buddy. you have rules set in place to make sure there are no misunderstandings in your little arrangement. the #1 rule is as clear as day; no catching feelings. simple, right? wrong. let's see how un-simple it gets when a certain economics professor falls for an emotionally unavailable political science professor.

rating: 18+ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT !

word count: 3.5k

warnings: fwb should be warning in itself, jungkook is a simp and a hot nerdy professor (yummm), oc has a tabby cat named miso, bam makes his first appearance, jungkook has a big ol' crush on oc, some unrequited romantic feelings (?) we're not sure yet, explicit sexual content; making out, kook has heart eyes for oc's boobs, five second strip show, like a split second of male masturbation, oral sex (male receiving), a teeny wheeny bit of fingering, oc rides that thang like a cowgirl, unprotected sex (oc is on birth control and they're both clean), plus some angsty vibes at the end :(((

author's note: part 1 is out my dudes !!! 😭😭 i hope you enjoy this little introduction to jungkook and oc, and i can't wait to start exploring their dynamic a little more in depth in the next parts!! i'm so excited to go on this journey with you all, so pls make sure to follow, reblog, and send me an ask if you want to chat about these cuties 🤪 part 2 coming soon !

find tmhtl masterlist here

It's the end of the day and Jungkook is on his way out, heading home after an exhausting day at the university. He walks down the corridor, his phone in hand, his eyes trained to his phone as he checks his emails.

You step out of your office, shutting the door and straightening your bag on your shoulder. You dig through it for your office keys, locking up once you find them. He looks up from his phone for a second and spots you, a smile tugging at his lips as he pockets his phone and walks over to you.

He leans against the wall next to your door, arms crossed, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. “Hey,” he murmurs with a little grin.

“Hey, Kook,” you greet softly, walking away to head home, Jungkook peeling himself off the wall to walk next to you.

“Long day?” he asks with a sympathetic smile.

You love your job, really, you do. But some days are draining and dealing with young adults who don't even know how to reference their sources for an essay or spell parliament properly can actually drive you to drink. “Mm, thank God the day's over,” you chuckle, looking over at him as you walk down the stone walkway together, the sun slowly starting to set on campus.

He chuckles, looking over at you to catch the way the golden hour light casts a pretty yellowish-orange glow over your skin, his eyes quickly diverting down to the ground to stop himself from staring, shoving his hands into the pockets of his pants. “Hey, uhm...if you don't have any plans tonight, do you maybe wanna come over to my place?” he asks, feeling like an awkward teenager with a crush every time he asks you that, even if he's done it ten dozen times by now. He knows why he's inviting you over. You know why he's inviting you over.

“Yeah, sure,” you say casually, heading in the direction of the parking lot to get to your car. You see it in its usual parking spot, right next to his, just like it is every day, like a silent declaration that you're a package deal.

His heart really shouldn't do that weird thump-thump thing that it does every time you agree to come over, but it does, and it might just be heart disease, but he is yet to get it under control. “Cool...cool...Is 7 okay for you?” he asks, taking out his keys as he approaches his car, leaning against the driver's door with a little smile on his lips.

“Yeah, I'll just go home and change out of these clothes and feed Miso then I'll head over,” you murmur absentmindedly while you dig through your bag for your car keys, searching through the endless pit of earphones, a tangled phone charger, lip liner, lip gloss, and ten thousand receipts for things you don't even remember buying. He watches you with a faint smile, knowing how messy that bag is, but also knowing that if he lectures you about it, your response will be, 'you don't get it, you're not a woman' so he minds his business and stands by patiently.

“You can go, I'll manage,” you mumble, your eyebrows furrowed, a soft pout on your lips as you rummage through the leather bag. He chuckles and cocks his head to the side, finding it quite amusing. “You sure? I feel like I could find the cure for cancer before you find your keys in that thing.”

“You should quit teaching and go into comedy,” you mutter dryly, finally finding the damn keys. “Ha. Found it,” you quip, smiling sarcastically before unlocking the car. He shakes his head with a soft smile, rolling his eyes as he gets in his own car. He'll get you back for your sass, but he knows that his 'punishments’ feel more like a reward than anything else.

You go home and feed Miso, the grey tabby lounging around like she's the queen of your apartment, completely unbothered that you're only staying for a little while before eventually leaving again to get dicked down hang out with Jungkook. You put on some comfortable sweats and give her a few kisses and cuddles before heading over to Jungkook's place.

This is a regular thing for you guys. You remain professional at work, well, as professional as two people who are hooking up can be, and then you go over to his place, or vice versa, and sometimes there's wine, sometimes there's dinner, sometimes you go straight to the sexy part, or sometimes there's no sexy part at all because one of you just wants to talk or watch a movie. It works for you. It's easy. It feels good. Really good.

He's a good friend. He's kind, he's a good listener, and he's all those nice, sweet, lovely things. He's also really good in bed, which is always a bonus in a...friend.

Good friends offer to drive you home from the club when you've had one too many to drink. Good friends support you in times of need. Good friends go down on you until your legs shake. That's just how it is.

"Slow down, you're gonna choke," he chuckles, watching you stuff your face with Indian takeout. It's like a competitive sport when the two of you eat dinner, which is one of the things you like most about hanging out with Jungkook. There is no pressure to be perfect. You can act the way you really want to and not feel scrutinized for it. Maybe it's just because his big fat crush has completely tinted the way he sees you, but he'd happily watch you pig out if it means he gets to spend time alone with you.

“I thought you like it when I choke a little bit,” you tease, just wanting to get a reaction out of him, and that's exactly what you get. He nearly chokes on his food, his cheeks flushed, his eyes wide as he looks over at you.

“Jesus Christ, ___, you can't just say stuff like that,” he coughs, trying to compose himself, roughly clearing his throat to not die via chicken biryani. It’s quite a strange thing how he can go from this to a sex god in bed, not that it's anything for you to complain about.

Jungkook does the dishes after dinner which allows you to enjoy some alone time with Bam. The brown doberman plops down on the couch, practically begging to be cuddled. He’s always been quite fond of you, since Jungkook adopted him three years ago. He’s the sweetest boy. He loves being loved on, much like his father.

Jungkook watches as you give Bam “lovies” as you call it, the dog absolutely basking in the attention.

“I’m starting to think he likes you more than me,” Jungkook jokes with a scoff, smiling as Bam does his ‘sit/lay down’ tricks for you. What a showoff.

“He’s never gotten that comfortable with anyone who isn't me,” he murmurs with a soft smile, watching the two excited puppies in his living room. “He gets really excited when he knows you're coming over.”

“Bam, cut it out. I’m Miso’s mommy, she’s going to get jealous,” you playfully scold him, although the scratches you give him say otherwise. He’s just a doe-eyed, dark-haired, soft-hearted boy. Again, much like his father.

Jungkook finishes drying the dishes and practically shoves Bam out the way to get the same attention from you. He lays down on the couch with his head in your lap and you already know what he wants. You lightly scratch his scalp, watching his eyes flutter shut, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, relishing in the feeling of your fingers in his hair. Sex is great, but there's something about moments like this that just makes him want to get down on his knees and give you whatever you want, whenever you want it.

“I think Bam-ie’s upset,” you chuckle, looking over at him with a soft, apologetic smile, his father looking anything but sorry. He chuckles as he watches Bam quietly stroll back to the bedroom, his eyes fluttering shut once more when you do that thing with your nails that sends shivers down his spine.

“He’ll live,” he scoffs, wincing when you give his hair a firm tug, his lips puffing up into a pout.

You don't really remember how exactly you ended up on his lap with your hands in his hair and his lips peppering your jaw and neck with gentle, tender kisses, but you know that it feels good.

“We’ve been so busy lately, we’ve barely gotten a chance to do this,” he murmurs against your skin, his hands trailing up your thighs to rest at your hips.

You scoff, your eyes fluttering shut as he sucks on that sweet spot behind your ear. It's true. You’ve both been so busy with work that you haven't hung out or had sex in two weeks.

“I know. I’ve been relying on my vibrator.”

He feels a shrill of heat run through him at the thought of you pleasuring yourself, as if he hasn't already seen the actual thing live in-person.

“Yeah? Is he better than me?” he teases with a little grin, pressing soft kisses to your pulse point.

“First of all; she, and I mean…she gets the job done,” you tease, not wanting to outright admit that nothing and no one can make you cum the way he does.

“You couldn't have just said no?” he chuckles, leaning his head back to rest against the back of the couch, his eyes heavy-lidded as he looks up at you. “Maybe I should get myself a toy too…y’know, for when you're too busy,” he teases with a lazy grin.

“What, like a pocket pussy?” you laugh.

“Mm. Something like that.”

“I’d prefer you to be inside me instead of a fake vagina,” you quip, leaning in to press a feather-like kiss to his lips, just testing the waters a bit. “Are you gonna think of me when you use it?” you tease, batting your lashes the way you know makes him go a little weak.

He swallows thickly, nodding like he’s hypnotised. “Of course I’d think of you,” he murmurs, his hips bucking up in a sad attempt to get you to give him some friction. “It wouldn't compare to you though. Nothing compares to you.” His voice is soft and airy, sounding almost pathetic.

You feel a little smile tug at your lips, your resolve slowly slipping. He’s so open about his thoughts and feelings. He’s not afraid to be vulnerable and lay it all out there, even if it is just sex.

His heart does that stupid thump-thump thing again at the sight of your smile, but now really isn't the time to psychoanalyse that, so he pushes that thought away for later.

“Can you take this off for me?” He slips his fingers underneath the soft fabric of your sweatshirt, getting a bit antsy to see more of you.

He’s never really given it too much thought whether he’s an ass or tits typa guy, but when you pull your sweatshirt over your head and his eyes land on that black bra with the little pink bows, the one that you know he likes so much, he swears he’s never seen anything prettier.

“God, I love these.” He leans his head forward to press soft little kisses to the tops of your breasts, his hands trailing up the sides of your ribs. “My pretty girls.”

Your eyes fall shut, the butterflies starting to flutter in the pit of your stomach. Sex with him is so soft and sweet. He says nice things and he makes you feel good, both physically and emotionally, and that makes your anxiety spike just a tad, so you deflect.

“Do you always make conversation with a woman’s tits before you stick it in her or…?”

He chuckles, and it's deep and warm, a little comforting, like if hot cocoa had a voice.

“Take this off. Wanna see them,” he murmurs softly, lightly tugging at the strap of your bra to let it snap back against your skin.

You roll your eyes, but the faint smile on your lips tells him that you're more than happy to oblige. You reach back to unclasp it, letting the material fall from your body, his eyes growing a shade darker at your exposed skin.

He swirls his tongue around a nipple and sucks before repeating the same thing on the other side, giving both breasts the attention they deserve. His eyes flutter shut like he wants to savour every little moment with you.

You reluctantly get up off his lap, and before he can protest, you're discarding the rest of your clothing, sliding your sweatpants down your legs. He makes quick work of following your lead by removing his shirt and pants, his boxers following quickly behind.

You make a little show of removing your panties, and you would normally be embarrassed by the amount of moisture that has already accumulated inside the flimsy material, but right now, all you can focus on is his hand giving his cock a few lazy strokes while he watches you undress for him.

“C’mere.” He spreads his legs a bit, his cock already almost fully hard, the tip slowly turning a light shade of pink. You'd never thought of a cock as 'pretty' before, but damn, it's pretty.

You do as he says without a single protest or complaint, your pussy practically throbbing at the sight of him. Oh, how wonderful it is to be his friend.

You get down on your knees in front of him, his eyelids hanging low as he looks down at you, his hand pumping his cock.

You pride yourself in being good at oral sex, but it's never been something you particularly love doing. That is, until you started hooking up with Jungkook. Sometimes he’ll just be doing something as simple as watching a show on tv, and you’ll be on your knees with your hair up and his cock hitting the back of your throat. It's everything, from the sounds he makes, to the way his eyebrows furrow and his lips part in ecstasy, that makes it so enjoyable.

You take over for him, giving his cock a few strokes before swirling your tongue around the head, pulling a deep groan from the back of his throat. You start sucking, working your way down his length, occasionally looking up to see that look on his face that makes your pussy clench. He rests his hand at the back of your head, not applying pressure, just wanting to feel more of you as you bob your head up and down a few times.

You give the tip some attention, then go all the way down to the base so that your nose just lightly brushes against his pelvis, then back up again, keeping a nice rhythm. His groans, paired with the way his stomach tenses every time you take him down to the base, is almost enough to make you cum right then and there.

“Fuck…baby, stop, please. Don't wanna cum too early,” he murmurs hoarsely, reaching for you to get up and straddle his lap. Your hips slide back and forth, your slick coating him, his dick glistening under the low light of the living room lamp.

“Already? Jesus, Jungkook, have some self-respect.” You can't help but tease him a bit, even in a moment like this, where you're in no position to be making fun of his desperation when you’re as wet as you are.

He scoffs, his hand disappearing between your legs, his middle and ring finger rubbing slow circles over your clit before sliding back to sink into your sopping entrance, shutting you right up.

“What? Cat got your tongue?” he teases with a lazy little grin, his fingers slowly pumping in and out, your wetness allowing him to move them without any resistance.

“Don't speak about my daughter at a time like this.”

His laughter gets cut off by your lips crashing into his, his fingers slipping out of you as you lift your hips to align the tip of his cock with your entrance.

“Want me to sit on it?”

“Yeah.” His voice is breathless as the anticipation slowly builds in his gut. No matter how many times you have sex, he’ll never get tired of that rush of adrenaline that flows through him in that moment right before he slides in.

“Ask nicely.”

“___, come on,” he laughs half-heartedly, tilting his head back against the couch, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of your hips.

“Ask me nicely and I’ll sit down, Kook,” you whisper, leaning in so that your lips just barely graze against his.

“Please…please, baby. Ride me, please.”

The groan he lets out as you slowly sink down on his cock is enough to send shivers down your spine. It's thick and long, but it's not too big for it to hurt. It fits perfectly, nice and snug like a glove.

“Fuck, you feel good,” he mutters hoarsely, his hands gripping you harder as you begin to roll your hips in that fluid motion that makes him go a little crazy.

It feels like an honour that he gets to see you like this, naked on top of him, riding him deep and slow on his couch after a long day at work. He doesn't know what he ever did in his lifetime to deserve to be balls deep inside you on a Friday night, but he knows that he’s a lucky bastard.

“Just like that. Fuck, you're so tight,” he groans, looking down to watch the way your pussy sucks him in, like something out of a wet dream.

You set a nice pace, riding him just the way he likes it. You reach down to rub circles over your clit, your walls clenching around his cock, pulling soft moans and whimpers from his lips.

“Keep going,” he mutters, his voice trembling. “Fuck, you're gonna make me cum, baby…”

You ride a bit faster, applying more pressure to your clit as you chase your own high. He fights to keep his eyes open, desperately needing to watch you as the pleasure takes over.

“Fuck, Jungkook!” The pleasure creeps up on you and you cum with a breathless moan, your walls fluttering around his length, throbbing and pulsating.

“Gonna…holy shit…gonna cum, baby, don't stop…”

You use the last of your energy to bring him to his peak, moving your hips until his cock twitches and his muscles tense beneath you. He cums with a guttural groan, his fingers digging into your flesh so hard that it might bruise tomorrow.

You continue to grind down on him to help him ride it out. You gently run your fingers through his damp hair, his skin slightly dewy, his eyes squeezed shut. He trembles as the aftershocks flow through him, his breathing coming out a bit uneven.

He wraps his arms around you, holding you close to his chest, looking like he just died and came back to life. He lifts his head to press a soft kiss to your lips, but you pull away before he can deepen it.

“Come on, let go. I gotta go clean up.”

You very rarely allow him to cuddle you after sex. It feels too intimate, too romantic. You don't allow yourself to be romantic with Jungkook. He's not your boyfriend and you like it that way.

He lets out a small hum of disagreement as you lift yourself up, his hands moving to hold your waist.

"Stay here for a little longer," he mumbles softly, his voice drowsy. He looks at you with big doe eyes, trying to persuade you to stay. “Just a few more minutes.”

“You're starting to soften inside me and I have to shower, Kook. You know I hate feeling sticky.”

He reluctantly lets you go, groaning softly as you get up off his lap. "Fine, fine," he grumbles, his eyes following you as you walk over to the bathroom.

You walk off to his bathroom and close the door, locking it behind you. Locking the door is something so simple but it means so much. It means, 'You're not my boyfriend so we can't share that level of intimacy. You can fuck my brains out, but you can't wash my hair in the shower or sit on the toilet while I do my skincare'. It's too coupley.

Jungkook slowly puts his boxers back on, staring at the bathroom door. He knows he’s not your boyfriend. He knows he probably never will be. He knows all your boundaries and your rules and your reasons for having them, but that doesn't make it sting any less. He can't help but wonder what it would feel like if you actually allowed him to love you, but he knows he’s just being foolish and hopeful. He knows that by physically locking that door, you're locking him out of ever getting closer to you emotionally.

Part 2 >

[miihho]

can you pleaseeee write type of guy for gi hun? bro is underrated in his own show 😔🙏

The Kind Of Guy

Seong Gi-hun

SFW

—Gi-hun is the kind of guy who falls in love with kindness and personality, drawn to the way someone makes him feel seen and understood. It's not about looks or grand gestures for him—it's the little things, the quiet moments that reveal a person’s true heart. He admires how you treat others with warmth and kindness, how your laughter can light up a room, and how your compassion extends even to those who may not deserve it.

He’s captivated by your authenticity, your ability to stay true to yourself in a world that often demands conformity. The way you listen intently when he speaks, offering gentle advice without judgment, leaves a lasting impression on him.

Gi-hun isn’t easily won over by surface-level charm; what matters most to him is how you make him feel—safe, valued, and loved for who he truly is. He would slowly become captivated by you, his love for you deepening as he watches you simply be yourself. There’s something about your genuine nature that pulls him in more with each passing day.

—If Gi-hun was tired from work, he’d be the kind of guy who just wanted to be wrapped up in your warmth. He’d quietly rest his head on your thighs or lap, finding comfort in your presence alone.

Sometimes, he’d drape his entire body over yours, seeking solace in the gentle rise and fall of your breathing. Nothing made him feel more at peace than when your fingers ran through his hair, your soft touch melting away his exhaustion. A tender kiss on his forehead would be the final thing to undo him, leaving him weak and completely at ease.

In those moments, with his worries fading and your arms around him, he’d fall into a deep, contented sleep, feeling safe and loved like never before.

—If life became too overwhelming and you came running to him, Gi-hun would immediately pull you into his arms, holding you tightly as if shielding you from the world. He’d gently pet your hair, his touch soothing and filled with love.

He’d press soft kisses to your temple and wipe away your tears, his fingers carefully brushing your hair out of your face. Looking deeply into your eyes, he’d whisper, “It’s okay, baby. I’m here. I’ve got you.” while cupping your face with his hands. And with that, he’d kiss your forehead, grounding you with his warmth and reassurance, making you feel like everything would be alright as long as he was by your side.

—Gi-hun adores when you sit on his lap, the weight of you resting gently against him as if you were meant to be there. He looks up at you with a soft, almost reverent gaze, as if trying to memorize every detail of the moment—your eyes, the curve of your smile, the way your presence seems to calm his restless heart.

His hands find their way to your waist or thighs, a subtle gesture of possessiveness mixed with tenderness, as he pulls you in a little closer, savoring the closeness. He doesn’t need words in moments like these; just the warmth of your body against his and the quiet intimacy between you two is enough. He knows he’s exactly where he’s meant to be, holding the one person who makes everything feel right.

—If he had the means, he’d spoil you with everything you could ever dream of. No wish would be too small or too big; if it made you happy, he’d make sure you had it. Whether it’s a simple treat or an extravagant gift, nothing would stop him from seeing that smile on your face, because making you happy is his greatest joy.

—His age might be a little older, but not by too much—just enough for him to carry that sense of maturity and wisdom that comes with experience. He would treat you right in every way, with a gentleness that made you feel cherished. Whether it was peeling oranges for you, slicing apples with care, or making sure you felt like royalty, he'd always go the extra mile to make you feel special. He would treat you like a princess, and in turn, you'd feel like a queen in his presence.

—So imagine being in his arms, both of you just there—naked not in body but in the vulnerability of the moment. There’s no rush, no need for anything more, just the simple act of caressing each other, feeling the warmth of your skin against his while soft whispers will fill the space between you. He craves the connection that goes beyond desire, cherishing your raw presence, the way you make him feel whole just by being near him. The simplicity of it all, the quiet affection, would be enough to fill both your hearts.

—If you drift off to sleep on the couch, he would gently lift you in his arms, carrying you upstairs to your bed. With tender care, he'd lay you down and tuck you in snugly beneath a warm blanket, making sure you’re comfortable before quietly leaving the room.

—If you were feeling down, he’d do everything he could to lift your spirits. He’d grab a silly mask, crack a joke, or pull a funny face just to see you smile. When he asked what was wrong and you shared your worries, he’d pull you into a warm embrace, holding you close as he whispered nothing but reassuring words into your ears.

He's the kind of guy who justs wants is to be next to you—your hands locked together, your legs comfortably tangled. He wants your face nestled in his neck, the rhythm of your breathing the only sound in the quiet room.

He wants to feel you stir, mumbling, “I’m so tired,” so he can softly whisper, “Go back to sleep,” holding you closer as you drift off again.

He dreams of those peaceful early mornings, lying beside you in the stillness, maybe reading a book while you rest. Or maybe just running his fingers gently through your hair, watching over you as a soft smile tugs at his lips, feeling like the luckiest person in the world.

—He would, will, and IS going to love you bare and raw—unfiltered and unapologetic, accepting every part of you. No pretenses, no facades, just the real, unpolished version of who you are. He would love you with the same vulnerability, never asking you to hide any part of yourself.

In his arms, you’d feel like you could be completely yourself, exposed and imperfect, but cherished all the same. His love would be unconditional, free from judgment, because in his eyes, you are perfect just as you are.

—If he saw you joining the game with him, absolute terror would wash over him. The moment his eyes locked with yours, knowing you'd willingly entered a nightmare he had already endured, his heart would race in panic. He’d grab your shoulders, eyes wide with fear, demanding, “Why are you here?!” His voice would crack, trying to make sense of it all, his only concern now being to get you out of this mess.

He’d scold you, his tone harsh with worry, “What were you thinking!? This isn’t just a game!” His words would come from a place of raw fear, a desperate attempt to push you away from the danger that loomed. His fear would intensify, each second passing a terrifying reminder of what this game could cost.

He would do anything—anything at all—to get you out of there. The thought of losing you, of seeing you hurt, would tear him apart. He couldn’t lose you; he just couldn’t. A part of him would feel like it was slipping away, that his very soul was in jeopardy. His heart would be racing, consumed by the fear of a future without you. No, no—he couldn’t lose you. He would be scared in ways he never knew he could be, completely helpless, yet still trying to protect you at all costs.

—If Gi Hun had a crush on you, he’d be a mess trying to hide it. He’d stutter a little over his words, his sentences barely making sense as he tried to keep his composure. When he was around you, he’d find it impossible to focus, his mind racing in a million directions. He’d try his best to play it cool, but his nervousness would be all too obvious. The way his cheeks would flush, the small awkward laughs, and the way he couldn’t meet your eyes for too long would give him away.

No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t handle being around you without his feelings spilling out. His every attempt to act casual would fail, and deep down, he’d be embarrassed, but he couldn’t help it. You had him completely flustered, and no matter how much he tried to hide it, he’d always end up wearing his heart on his sleeve.

—When faced with dangerous people, he would immediately step in front of you, positioning himself as a shield. His instincts would be to protect you at all costs, and he’d put himself between you and any threat, no hesitation in his movements. He would hide you behind his back, ensuring that you were out of harm’s way, his body acting as the barrier to keep you safe.

—When Gi Hun confesses to you, it would be a heartfelt moment that he’s carefully planned out, even if his nerves are getting the best of him. He’d send you a text or a letter asking you to meet him at a specific place, and when you arrived, you’d find him standing there, waiting for you. His eyes would light up as soon as he saw you, a spark of excitement and love shining through, though he’d be hiding something behind his back, his nervousness mixed with anticipation.

He’d take a deep breath before speaking, his voice filled with sincerity as he gave you a long, heartfelt explanation. He’d tell you why he likes you, why he fell in love with you—how your kindness, your smile, the way you light up his world, all made him realize just how much you meant to him. It would be a genuine, vulnerable confession, his emotions raw and unfiltered.

Finally, after pouring his heart out, he’d take a step closer to you, holding out the things you love—small tokens of thoughtfulness, gestures that show how much he’s paying attention to the little things about you. With a nervous yet hopeful look, he’d finally ask you out if you want to be his.

You’d be standing there, overwhelmed by his honesty and the sweetness of the moment, in awe and shock, but without a doubt, your heart would race as you say “Yes.”

—He’s the kind of guy who’ll wander into the kitchen just to be close to you. He’d wrap his arms around you from behind, pressing his face into the curve of your neck to breathe in your scent, his embrace warm and unyielding. He’d nuzzle you gently, turning you around to face him with that look in his eyes—hungry, not just for food, but for you.

Even as soap dripped from your hands, he wouldn’t care. He’d guide your hands to his hair, leaning into your touch, and silently begging for your kiss. In his world, no moment was too mundane for intimacy; even standing in the kitchen, you were the center of his hunger, his affection, his everything.

NSFW

—Steamy shower sex is one of Jun Ho's absolute favorites, and he revels in every moment of it with you. Water drips down your skin, warm and relentless, as your bodies collide with a fervor that borders on desperate. The heat between you burns hotter than the steam surrounding you, and Gi Hun pulls you closer, his chest pressed firmly against yours.

Your back meets the cold tiles with a sharp gasp, the chill a perfect contrast to the fire coursing through your veins. Your legs are wrapped tightly around his waist, locking him in place as if the space between you could ever be enough. Your arms drape over his shoulders, hands buried in his damp hair, tugging gently, urging him closer still.

His hands are everywhere, tracing your curves, memorizing your body like a sacred scripture he’s afraid to forget. His lips would come crashing into yours, urgent and consuming, tasting every part of you he can claim.

—He loves the feeling of your bare skin against his, the intimacy of having you completely, utterly his. Every curve, every line of your body only deepens his admiration, leaving him in awe of the woman he’s so lucky to call his. As he moves with you, his hands trace your face with reverence, his eyes locked on yours, drinking in every expression, every breath, every sound, and every moan you make.

“Fuck,” he murmurs, voice heavy with a mix of passion and disbelief, “you’re so beautiful baby, my beautiful wife.” His gaze lingered on you with an intensity that spoke of his love, each moment deepening as he continued to hit your sweet spot. Then, drawing closer, he leaned in to taste you once more, savoring every sensation.

—In bed, Gi hun would never resort to calling you derogatory names like 'slut' or 'whore.' That’s just not the kind of man he is, and you are not that type of woman. Instead, he showers you with sweet pet names—'sweetheart,' 'princess,' 'baby' 'angel'— and praises you as he makes love to you.

—Gi-hun wouldn't even realize he had a kink until you whispered how good he was at making you feel pleasure. Each word dripped with desire, and the happiness washing over him was palpable—every “good boy” igniting something deep within.

“Such a good boy for me, baby haa-fuck, making me feel so good,” you moaned, arching your back. Your nails clawed at his back, the sensation driving him wild, making him groan deeply.

His ego swelled with each sound you made, compelling him to thrust harder, faster, hungry for your praise. “I want to hear you say it again,” he said, his voice laced with desperation as he struggled to maintain control. “Tell me how good I’m making you feel.”

“Hngg—you’re doing so well for me baby, haah—such a good boy, my good boy.” Your encouragement spurred him on, each thrust becoming more erratic. He focused on the visceral connection at the junction of your bodies, the creamy ring around him and the warm, slick remnants pooling onto the sheets—the evidence of your shared ecstasy driving him towards the edge once more.

“I can’t... Fuck I can’t hold back,” he stammered, the need to please you overwhelming his senses. “You’re so tight baby—you feel so good.. so fucking perfect for me.”

Profanities spilled from his lips as he fell into a primal rhythm, slamming into you from behind. The room filled with the symphony of loud squelches and the creaking of the bed under the force of his fervent thrusts.

“i love you s'much keep fucking me like that baby,” you urged, your breath ragged. His sensitivity heightened with every flutter of your walls around him, his vision blurring as black spots danced in and out of focus. A strangled moan caught in his throat as he found his release, filling you completely with his cum, the warmth spilling inside like melted marshmallows, soft and indulgent.

"haa..fuck—you feel so good baby, ’so good.” he breathed out as he rode out his climax. His arms trembling, feeling you milk every last drop from him, as he collapsed onto you, a huff escaping his lips, “Did I do good baby?”

"Mhm, You did such a good job love." a wide smile formed on his lips.

—If you take him into your mouth, he can’t help but moan loudly, lost in the intoxicating warmth of your lips and tongue. Each flick and swirl drives him wild, and he sputters curses in pure pleasure, praising how good you make him feel and how perfectly your mouth envelops him

—He’s the type of guy who fears hurting you at first, but once you tell him it’s okay, he starts off slow and gentle, relishing the feel of your dripping wet pussy around him. But as he gets lost in the thrill, his aggression takes over, and he’s pounding into you with a rougher, relentless pace, turning you into a moaning, writhing mess beneath him.

[dropsnectar]

Your Puppy Siren!: When a Siren becomes a House Husband

PART TWO

NSFW

Obviously, when Baby got his legs, you couldn't just abandon him. You weren't sure exactly what was next for the two of you,, so you took it one step of a time. Baby had an issue with that, as balance wasn't necessarily a skill he could magic up with his oceanic enchantments.

He leaned on you the whole way home, taking jerky steps through the grasses.

When you showed him around the house, and the first thing he did was ask where you slept. You had shown him your bedroom and he immediately made himself comfortable about the blankets and pillows. You set him up with a copy of ‘The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe”, before going to make him dinner: mild Japanese curry. 

It was mostly vegetables, as you had only had a few ounces of ground beef left, but you hoped his stomach was as human as his now legs. His whole body had changed, leaving him now almost albino pale, with large dark eyes that were still a bit too big for his human face.

When you went to walk him to the dining room table, you found him standing, holding the book to the ceiling as he read. He was leaning back and forth on each foot, as if the movement kept him upright. Perhaps he still had his sea legs under all that new skin. 

He still needed your help to get to the table but his steps were more sure now. He ate the food happily, making sure to compliment you whenever possible. On the way back to your room, Baby could now keep his balance as he went. The first thing he did was gather as many pillows and blankets as he could from the living room, before leading you by the hand to your room, and arranging them further on the bed.

“Do you like it?” He asked, eyes eager. It had never occurred to you that Sirens may nest, but you took it in stride.

“It looks very warm.” you apeased, tired. 

Sleeping on the nest didn't go as bad as you thought, but Baby had been a bit confused when you had tucked a blanket around the two of you

“It's to keep us warm.” 

He had responded by pulling you to his arms and wrapping his legs around you.

“I can do that just fine.” He beamed. You laughed and let him hold you as you fell asleep. You could figure out Baby's fate tommorrow.

You had always pushed off the deciding of Baby's fate to tommorrow. You couldn't face it. Going to your part time job, then nursing school had been difficult for you. You were exhausted everyday you came back home.

Baby made himself as useful as he could. You had taught him some of the basics of cleaning the house. He had seemed somewhat confused by the idea of cleaning, but he took it upon himself to make sure the place was gleaming when you got home. You had taken him to the library a day after his legs sprung up, and he had carried home a pile of books, one of them being “Martha Stawarts Complete Guide to Housekeeping”.

 You hadn't resided in the place long, but places you hadn't even realized were dirty were suddenly sparkling and smelling lightly of lavender and orange peels. 

He had also brought home a whole pile of fish. It seemed that he could now shift his form back and forth at will. You remember coming home, sweat covered and in need of ibuprofen, when you found a pile of fish on the kitchen table. He had looked so proud if himself.

“We can keep them all in the freezer! What a useful device!”

You had gently taken his arms in hand and explained that humans weren't able to eat fish whole like sirens could. They had to be stripped of their scales and deboned. He seemed a bit tired by this, yet another a strange human quirk, but had taken it in stride. Per his request you had set him up with an instructional video on the subject. 

He seemed to catch on pretty quickly, the only difference was that rather than using a sharp knife, he had preferred to use his talon like nails. They were retractable, he clarified later, and arguing they were cleaner than any knife when you had demanded he washed his hands before working.

“They will only get dirty again anyway!” He had argued, one of the few times he had ever done anything but smile at you. The concept of germs was met with raised eyebrows and apprehension. 

For the first time in your life, you gave him “the look”. As this seemed to be a communication move that spanned species, he gave in, washing his talons? Claws? Before going back to his work.

A silent system had begun to flesh itself out. You brought home the money and groceries, and did most of the cooking, he did everything else. And anything you asked of him. Which wasn't much, but he became more and more useful by the day. 

You couldn't help but feel a bit proud for Baby. The more you learned about him and Siren Life the more different the two of you seemed. But he had been adjusting so well, you almost didn't have to worry about him. Plus, it was hard to be mad at someone who made a point of taking care of you, like he did. 

He gave you shoulder messages, microwaved old dinners when you didn't feel like eating. Hed shush you, and sometimes carry you to bed, petting your hair and singing you to sleep everytime everything felt like too much. And that was often. 

It had been a week since he had taken up shop in your bedroom, and reality reared its big fat head like a snake. You had been whisked away to bed, and instead of cooing at you and humming that impossibly sweet voice of his, he had started to nibble on the side of your neck, hands reaching towards your pajama shorts. His tongue felt so incredibly good, and his touch was like silk, but you knew where this would leave.

“Stop. We don't have any protection.”

He had frozen and blinked at you, expression changing to the barely concealed mask of an adult trying to not laugh at a child's sudden declaration.

“If I sense any danger, I will deal with it immediately. Now come here…” His voice grew husky. You trailed back.

“I know we haven't talked about this before but what if… well you're a human so im not sure if it'll be the same but… I can't get pregnant. I don't know if it works the old fashion way or you might lay eggs in me or something but… we need to be careful.”

He was still smiling but he was biting his lip. “While I DO lay eggs, that part of me hasn't changed, I don't understand why it would be an issue. I am your husband, after all, shouldn't it be normal to have children at some point?”

“H-husband? Why do you think you're my husband?”

Babys face changed, the closest you had ever seen him get to upset. “We mated, we share a nest, how am I NOT your husband?”

“We had sex, yeah, but we didn't get married. Do Sirens mate for life? Is that why you think this?” 

His expression grew animated and confused.

“Sirens do not mate for life, we have breeding seasons. But Humans mate for life, do they not? Why do you think I have been doing all this? I mean, I even made you a nest and you slept with me in it! How much more is their to a human marriage ritual?” 

You stared at him, the realization dawning. You slowly put your hand over his and arranged your expression to one of patience.

“Humans used to mate for life. But ita a bit different now. We can have sex, even spend years courting before we agree to marry.”

Baby just stared at you, his confusion and anger turning to one of hurt.

“B-but what does that mean? I told you, I love you. I want to be with you.” He leaned forward tears starting to glisten at the corner of his eyes.

“I wanted a life with you. I threw my old life away the moment I got these legs. I have no idea where my pod is now, I can not return to them. I do not wish to return. I want to stay here, with you and be your mate.” He nuzzled his nose against yours and then took your cheeks in his hand. He gazed into your eyes, filled with longing.

“I may be new to being your partner; at being Human too. But I will do whatever you ask of me. Please. Be mine?” 

He started to kiss your forehead. Then your eyes. Then your cheeks. His gaze strayed to your lips and he whined out, full blown tears now streaming from his eyes. 

“I'll be so good. So good for you.” 

Your heart went out to him. You had to admit, life had gotten so much easier to bear since he had entered it. No one could make you laugh like he could, could make you as curious as he could, could kiss you like he could. 

You thought about it. Genuinely thought about it. You had a job, and nursing would pay you enough to pay for both of your lives once you started. You'd have to teach him how to properly navigate human society but he was so smart and charming, you were sure he would do so well. You came up with so many reasons why it could be doable, but the most important one was you didn't want to let him go.

“It'll be really hard for you. Are you sure you want this?” You whispered. “Want… me? You could spend the rest of your life sharing your season with mate after mate. Are you sure you would want to spend the rest of your days with me?”

He looked at you with intensity, the light finally dawning across his features. 

“It will always be you.” And then he was on you. Was kissing you.

He was quick to take off your clothes, and did the same. His mouth was hot and needy, the feeling of his tongue in your mouth being everything you could ever want. That was except for one or two other places. 

As if he could read your mind, he grinned, pulling himself down to stare at your groin, fingers grasping, teasing and exploring every sensitive curve and crevice. Then he got to work with his mouth and you groaned, your core turning molten. You could hear the noises of his mouth on your flesh, and it made your cheeks overheat. 

His tongue glided around you as he sucked with his full mouth, making you shake and jerk under him. He made sure to pin you down with his hands now, before he started to trill and sing around you.

You chocked, pushing your hips up against his big string hands, which were now a mix of grey and white. It seems he had been riled up to, as his form was caught halfway between human and Siren. It was a new sight and he was absolutely gorgeous and one long note made you crash over the edge, toes and fingers curling. 

The whole time his eyes were on you, gauging your reaction. He continued to auck you through the high but now started clawing at your entrance, circling slick little shapes. He seemed to take great joy in this, teasing your ache, before he plunged his fingers in making you choke and sigh all at once. When he was certain the area was worked enough, he gave you big puppy dog eyes. 

“Can I be yours again?” He whispered huskies slowing the rate of his fingers. You nodded and he pulled himself up, pumping his own cock a few times making sure it was properly slick. His cock was half transformed too. It was extremely veins and the ridges weren't as pronounced, but he was thicker. You licked your lips as you remembered how he felt inside you.

Aware that you were watching him he keened in pride. He then slowly inserted himself, pushing further and further until you took every inch of him. You gasped out and clawed at the sheets in pleasure as he pumped you, his own eyes glazing over as he unleashed low, pornagraphic moans. He was louder than he had ever been, snapping his hips into yours, fingers clutching deep into skin. He looked completely blissed out as he rocked himself into you, huffing and moaning.

“Sound. So. Beautiful.” You breathed, knowing he was getting close. You could feel a heaviness now in the air. He wouldn't be able to help it. He'd be so drunk he'd use that song of his and you'd cum and cum for him until he was too far in exctasy to make any noise. And you were right.

You could tell he was holding it in. But he couldn't help but hum out, a song that seemed to cup and penatrate your very soul, making your entire mind stuffy and silly. You didn't want him to stop, going over the edge as another one of his moans turned into a full blown note. He kept bucking into you, skin slapping skin, as he keened and hummed and sang out for you. He wanted you to feel good. Wanted you to cum and feel good only for him. Because you were his.

When you felt his cum splash inside you it was warm, and more sludge like. It took a while to seep put of you. A comedic point in the back of your mind noted, “No eggs”. 

He pulled himself to your side, pulling you tight to him. “Can… can I stay in you for a while?” He said it in a light begging tone. You nodded, a pulse of faraway pleasure as he pushed his soft dick inside you again. It felt nice, being one with him in this sweet comfortable moment.

You wanted to ask him about the magic, about the song and how for just a moment, it was like you could read his mind. But their was something so special about the moment, you didn't want to push him too far. Maybe next time, you could egg him on to use that power on you, to be completely encompassed by his pleasure and song. 

“I know your tired, and we can wait but… can we do it again?” He pushed his nose to yours and traced it up and down, his eyes watery and begging. You could feel his dick twitch inside you. 

“Please just let me spoil you. It is our wedding night after all…”

You had to stop yourself from correcting him. Tomorrow you would explain vows and wedding ceremony, but for now you'd just give in. But you had to admit, now a big piece of you belonged only to him.. So, in a way he had been right.

[eternallyhauntingthehouseoflove]

Hi, I don't know If you take requests, but could you please right about the reaction and thoughts of the bat boys toward finding out their partner was pregnant? Please and thank you

A/N: I do take requests, love. And I've got you ❣️

Bat-boys find out you're pregnant🍼

Dick Grayson's first thought is worry. He doubts how he'll make it work; crimefighting, his job, then his relationship with you. And he'll wonder how Nightwing will interfere with his life, and how Bruce will react (he'll spoil the child endlessly).

Reassurance from Donna, Alfred, or Bruce will part his fog of worry and distance. He'll hit the ground running to rectify his isolation. I mean breaking the news to friends and family, arranging play dates with Roy and Lian.

"I'll be safer on patrol," he whispered," I promise, hun." You had broke down after so long of trying to remain calm. But seeing your lover return home with bruise after bruise would weigh anyone down. Especially one pregnant.

Dick's hand would always be on your belly, reminding himself that you both are safe and he's doing a great job. It's what he needs to hear, that he's making the city safer for you both.

He is 100% a handyman. Dick will build cribs, changing tables, repair toilets, fix creaky cabinets. And he'll baby proof the house." Don't worry, babe," he assured you." Just relax. It's just a clogged drain."

Jason Todd's first thought is if he'd be a good father, after everything he's been through and done. He even wonders if he deserves to be a father, or if he deserves a nameless grave. However, leaving is never and will never be an option for him. I truly think he'd be the most active out of the bat-boys.

Jason's love language has always been acts of service, and it would thrive during your pregnancy. Your house would be booby-trapped and SECURED. He'd teach you the basics of a gun, and he'd ensure your pregnancy cravings are stocked. Jason would also wash your back when your belly grew too large.

Jason would let you shop for baby and maternity clothes with his card. His only request is that you don't get the baby anything too vibrant because it's an eyesore. If anything, he'd prefer neutral tones or black on the baby.

The weather becomes his interest after the baby's birth." Do you think they need a jacket?" Is his favorite line." Don't you think it's a little hot for them to be wearing long sleeves," he'll wonder. Or the baby is swaddled and he'll question," do you think he's overheating? I'd be hot if that were me all wrapped up like that."

A child is the only thing to make him stand steadfast on his refusal to kill. Not Bruce, not Dick, not even you. Your child brought forth a new mindset, one of not wanting to see a killer reflecting in the innocent and chocolate eyes of his child (Jason's eyes are brown. Argue with a wall).

Tim Drake isn't as present as one would believe. His activity is inconsistent, and it's harder to reach him because he's usually working. But he wants you to sit with him, to bring the baby and let him play around in his office.

It warms his heart to return from a meeting and his baby is sprawled out on his pastel blue teddy bear blanket and cooing. You're dangling a rattle over him, and Tim would strut over and kiss you on the cheek." How's it going, love?" He'd ask and rub the baby's cheek." They being good?" His eyebrow would raise playfully.

The baby would be raised around Bruce and Alfred more than his actual parents. I also see Stephanie caring for the baby and even babysitting if you work or just need rest. Cass would swoon over it, so prepare for tons of peeled oranges and Cass making your bottles.

Alfred would surely read your baby literature. He'd be sitting in the library, baby on his lap while y'all rest, reading from a dusty and old book that's sure to ignite your allergies.

Damian would try his hardest to be a fun dad because he never got that. It's been well documented that he wouldn't dare put a child through his life. So I think the farthest he would go is teaching you enough to defeat the average Shadow/Assassin. But he would not want you killing.

I think he'd lean into Bruce's "No-Kill" mantra after having a child. If you even want to enter vigilantism; he'd understand if you choose not to. It's a thankless job; it's isolating and bruising.

But I think if the kid did continue training, that's when they'd truly bond. Damian and he/she would laugh and joke between rounds; he'd show them the best way to throw a punch, and he'd teach mercy. That's also when they'd meet the other side of their family---the Al Ghuls. But Damian would have strict stipulations on what they learn. No instant kill moves, no brainwashing, none of the narcissistic sentiments Talia filled his head with.

I also think you, Damian, and your kid would lead fairly healthy lives. Not overboard, but the occasional protein shake or morning run; maybe even a little weight lifting. Or if cardio is your speed, he'd install a home-treadmill or a pool.

Bruce Wayne's first thought would be his age. How he's climbing in age and his job usually doesn't lead to gold and sunsets. He'd be happy because he sees it as a second chance. His first two sons saw the angry and vengeful side of him, so that's how they grew up; Tim sought him, and Damian came stained with blood.

But with you and the baby, he could actually be a father. He could raise the baby from infancy and make bottles and hush cries, like he wanted to with Dick and Jason. He could show the baby his favorite movies and just talk to them, even though the baby would respond with drool and coos.

He wouldn't have to be alone anymore. Bruce would set his child on a straight path; the world has enough Bats and birds. They could just...be. They'd would carry on the Wayne name.

Bruce would spoil you and his baby rotten. He'd watch over the baby like a hawk; each cry, each coo, each babble would send Bruce into a fit of worry. He'd leap up from his seat and check the cradle, only to find a giggling baby with his feet in the air. Then he'd chuckle, which would make the baby giggle even more. " You got me, little one. You got me," he'd utter and return to the Bat-computer.

[tinycoffeeroom]

up the oranges? | max verstappen

face claim: none ᡣ𐭩

request: here !

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👤 ybfngram, landonorris, mclaren liked by ybfngram, landonorris and 83,928 others

y/nstagram bestie won paddock passes to mclaren garage and was gracious enough to let little noob me tag along! up the oranges or whatever she said 🧡

ygfngram it's papaya babe... but thank u for letting me rant about all things f1!! (and thank u for the lando pic i'm gonna be so insufferable from now on) ↳ y/nstagram wdym from now on?? but i enjoyed it! 🫶

user1 y/n and f1?? the crossover we never knew we needed

user2 please say you vlogged it!! ↳ y/nstagram ofc i did 🫶 coming next week!!

landonorris was lovely to meet you guys! :) ♥️ y/nstagram, ybfngram

mclaren if y/n says it's up the oranges, it's up the oranges... you're welcome back anytime 🧡 ↳ y/nstagram sorry best friends.. up the papayas! 🧡

👤 landonorris, oscarpiastri, mclaren, maxverstappen1 liked by landonorris, oscarpiastri and 103,496 others

y/nstagram new vlog out now! the orange (😉) boys explain f1 to me, we take a look around the mclaren garages and a certain world champion sneaks in! link in bio 🧡

landonorris for someone who's never seen an f1 race, you picked it up pretty well! ↳ ybfngram not for lack of trying, she never wants to join my race nights 💔 ↳ y/nstagram next time baby! girls night ❤️

redbullracing we think she'd look better in blue 👀 ↳ maxverstappen1 agreed ↳user2 ARIANA? what are you doing here

mclaren back 🤺 redbull 🤺 back!

👤 y/nstagram liked by landonorris, y/nstagram and 385,038 others

mclaren we must say, orange suits you y/n 🧡

y/nstagram thank you for having me back mclaren! the oranges are safe and sound in my kitchen 🫡 ↳ user1 oranges?? ↳ y/nstagram when i arrived, they had a bowl of oranges waiting for me... humiliating babes...

landonorris the highlight was her peeling oranges for oscar and patting his head like a baby ↳ oscarpiastri didn't see her peeling YOU oranges though 🤨 ↳ y/nstagram that's ybfngram's job xx ↳ ybfngram i would have if SOMEONE would have invited me... ↳ y/nstagram you were literally on another continent grumpy pants ↳ mclaren next time we'll bring some oranges for you ybfngram 🧡 ↳ ybfngram and that's why i'm a papaya girl for life 🧡 ♥️ mclaren, landonorris

👤 ybfngram, y/nstagram liked by maxverstappen1, y/nstagram and 593,957 others

redbullracing it's mr steal your girllll 🎶

mclaren ... y/n how could you do this to us ↳ y/nstagram MCLAREN ITS NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE.. you know i love you 🫶 ↳ mclaren save it 💔

landonorris not you too 💔 ybfngram ↳ y/nstagram tbf i did have to physically wrestle the shirt onto her, dw she immediately went back to orange 🧡 ↳ ybfngram lando sweetie... the papaya is in my veins... i was coerced... ↳ landonorris guess i'll have to bring you back to our side of the paddock 😉

maxverstappen1 i was right, she does look better in blue 💙 ↳ user1 back of the line mr verstappen we were simping first ♥️ y/nstagram ↳ y/nstagram free red bulls for life and i'll back the blue ↳ mclaren wtf? ↳ maxverstappen1 consider it done ↳ christianhorner i don't remember agreeing to this max

👤 maxverstappen1, redbullracing liked by maxverstappen1, redbullracing and 92,495 others

y/nstagram alexa play the dutch national anthem 💙

redbullracing our favourite song 💙

user1 did max draw that himself 😭 ↳ maxverstappen1 y/n made it for me!

mclaren y'all are cute or whatever... ↳ y/nstagram still love you mclaren 🧡

scuderiaferrari we spot our charles, maybe red will suit you too y/n ❤️ ↳ y/nstagram if you can get me a ferrari, i'll consider it xx ↳ scuderiaferrari ... let us make some phone calls ↳ maxverstappen1 i will burn it to the ground. ↳ user1 ur so real for that max, fight for your red bull girl! ♥️ maxverstappen1

user2 y/n having all these f1 teams wrapped around her finger... what she deserves

👤 maxverstappen1, schecoperez, redbullracing liked by maxverstappen1, redbullracing and 132,842 others

y/nstagram back at it again with another f1 vid! this time i convinced the red bull gang to do a mukbang with me before mr MV1 zoomed off to win another race! 🫶 link in bio 💙

user1 bro max was so whipped in this video... ↳ user2 TRULY! she had him giggling and kicking his feet the entire vid

user3 how does it feel to watch y/n snatch ur man danielricciardo ↳ danielricciardo he used to giggle and tuck his hair behind his ears like that with me 💔 come home max, the kids miss you x ↳ maxverstappen1 fuck them kids

redbullracing poor checo thirdwheeling again... ↳ schecoperez to be honest i checked out halfway through ↳ y/nstagram nooo checo my king im sorry 💔 next time it will be just us two 💙 ↳ maxverstappen1 not if i have anything to do with it

user4 WHIPPED ♥️ maxverstappen1

mclaren is this what it feels like to be cheated on? 💔 ↳ y/nstagram my hearts big enough for both orange and blue 🧡💙

liked by maxverstappen1, y/nstagram and 963,956 others

redbullracing yo bro who got you smiling like that...

user1 red bull soft launching their drivers relationship?? admin on a scale of 1 to 10 how fired are you ↳ redbullracing i am declining all of christians calls... ↳ christianhorner see you at work monday. ↳ redbullracing oh its so over

maxverstappen1 can't believe red bull admin beat us to it y/nstagram 💔 ↳ y/nstagram aaand i guess that was the hard launch

👤 maxverstappen1 liked by maxverstappen1, ybfngram and 150,385 others

y/nstagram so here's my bf(?) i guess... thanks redbullracing

danielricciardo stealing the second image thanks! ↳ y/nstagram 🫡

maxverstappen1 you couldn't have made it cute ↳ y/nstagram just showing your true personality babe x

maxverstappen1 love you or whatever 🙄 ♥️ y/nstagram

user1 she's so real for these pics

redbullracing if it makes you feel better i did nearly lose my job ↳ user1 we got your back admin ❤️

user2 the first pic should be framed and hung in the louvre ♥️ y/nstagram, maxverstappen1

user3 why the ? by bf ??? ↳ y/nstagram we never really made it official?? red bull did it for us i guess hahaha ↳ maxverstappen1 oh make no mistake, you're mine ❤️ ♥️ redbullracing, y/nstagram