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drabbles-mc · 3 months ago

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It's Inevitable

Bob Floyd x F!Reader

Warnings: 18+, language, pining, alcohol

30 Fic Challenge with prompts from This List: rubatosis- the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat

Word Count: 5.3k

A/N: i had the most ridiculous about of fun writing this for Bob. i adore him more than words can say 🥰

Bob felt like he had been living in a constant state of disbelief ever since he met you. From the day that the universe, or more specifically Bradley, put him into your orbit, all the events that followed felt like one little surprise after the other. He considered himself infinitely lucky for it.

When he mentioned to Bradley off-hand that they were going to have him stationed in California for a while, long enough for him to justify looking for his own place off-base, he had just been making conversation. They had just been talking about next moves and Bob felt like it was fitting, mentioning that he was going to be looking for a place, maybe even a roommate since it was going to be on relatively short-notice.

“If you’re cool with a roommate, one of my buddies actually kinda needs one,” Bradley mentioned off-hand as they racked up for another pool game at The Hard Deck.

Bob perked up slightly at that. A roommate recommendation from someone he knew seemed preferable than the alternative. He figured that Bradley wouldn’t have brought it up if it was a recipe for disaster.

“Yeah?” Bob tried to sound interested, but not too much so. There were no real guarantees, after all.

Bradley nodded before leaning down to break for the start of the game. “Yeah. Funny because we were just talking about how putting out a Craigslist Ad felt like signing up to be on an episode of a True Crime podcast.”

Bob chuckled at that. “Kind of does, yeah.”

Bradley watched Bob take his shot, not allowing the amusement he was currently feeling to show on his face. “I can introduce you guys. Wanna meet back here Friday? When Trace is done making an example out of you to the newbies?”

There was no malice to Bradley’s statement, so Bob had no problem laughing right along with him. When the laughter died down, Bob agreed to the meetup suggestion. There was a tentative feeling of hopefulness in his chest. After all, if this person was friends with Bradley, how bad could they really be?

~*~

You buried your face in your hands as you shook your head. When Bradley had asked to stop by because he had news for you, you didn’t think he was stopping by to tell you that he had gone out hunting and gathering a new roommate for you. You hadn’t asked him to do that—you hadn’t asked him for anything in regards to your living arrangements, actually. And that’s exactly what you’d told him when he said he’d found you a brand-new roommate.

“I don’t even know this guy.”

Bradley laughed and shrugged as he hopped up to sit on the edge of your kitchen counter. For how comfortable he was, you were surprised that he hadn’t taken the opportunity to move in after your ex moved out. He treated your apartment like it was his own house anyway.

“I know him. That’s not enough for you?”

You shot him a look over your shoulder as you went and grabbed a can of soda from the fridge. “No. It’s not.” You tossed him his own can before getting one for yourself. “You saw what I went through getting the last man out of my apartment—why are you inviting another one in without telling me?”

He laughed as he watched you dramatically swing the refrigerator door shut. “Okay, come on, you can’t compare him to—”

“I can’t compare him to anyone because I haven’t met him.”

“Well if you’d let me get to the end of my story, you would have the solution to that problem.” He paused and waited for you to motion for him to continue before saying, “I told him we’d meet him at The Hard Deck Friday night.”

“I should flatten this can against your skull,” you said with a semi-affectionate roll of your eyes.

There was a long pause, one accompanied by a smirk on Bradley’s face that had no real right to be there. “I’ll pick you up?”

Letting out a deep sigh, you gave in with a nod. Worst case scenario, you wouldn’t walk away from the night with a new roommate but you’d at least get to throw a couple drinks on Bradley’s tab. That was worth a little bit of something.

~*~

Bob was checking the time on his phone, his beer on the bar barely touched. When he’d texted Bradley earlier in the day, everything was still going how it was supposed to, so now he just had to sit there and wait. He could do that.

When he heard the door to the bar open, he turned and looked out of habit. He saw Bradley walk in and he felt his shoulders relax in relief. When he focused enough to see who it was that Bradley had walked in with, though, his relief was almost immediately replaced by confusion. The two of you were talking, laughing as you wove through the other people in the bar, but it still didn’t sink in with Bob that you were the ‘buddy’ who was in need of a roommate. For a moment he was just assuming that you were a girlfriend tagging along that Bradley had failed to mention.

Bob almost got up out of his seat when the two of you stopped in front of him—the only thing that kept him in place was the lingering sense of confusion. He looked back and forth between you and Bradley. He had no chance at guessing what exactly your expression meant, but he’d seen the smug look on Bradley’s face enough times to know that there was something afoot. It wasn’t the time to ask, though. Not in front of you.

“So,” you broke the silence with an easy smile, “I hear that Bradshaw promised you my second bedroom?”

Your comment got a chuckle out of Bob, something to ease the tension a little bit, not that it did anything to quiet the chaos in his head at the moment. It did earn you a shoulder-bump from Bradley, who was shaking his head at you. “I didn’t promise him anything. He said he needed a spot, I said I had a friend who needed a roommate.” He shrugged. “All true.”

You gave a dismissive roll of your eyes before returning your attention to the man sitting on the barstool watching all of this unfold. As you introduced yourself, you wondered if the slightly bewildered expression on his face was a constant one, eyes a little wide behind the lenses of his glasses, nervous smile pulling at his lips.

The three of you made a few minutes of small talk before you ducked out for a moment to answer a phone call from work. Both men watched you as you walked away, and as you were bringing the phone to your ear, Bradley turned to try and pick apart the expression on Bob’s face.

“So?” he asked, leaving it as open-ended as possible.

Bob pried his gaze off you so that he was looking at the man standing next to him instead. He shook his head slightly. “You didn’t say—you made it seem like—” He pushed his glasses up his nose, a nervous habit he had yet to shake.

Bradley laughed. “C’mon, she’s not that bad.”

“I didn’t say she was,” Bob corrected him quietly. “She wouldn’t rather have…you know…”

It was impossible for him not to at least chuckle at the way Bob was skirting around the things that he wanted to say. “She just wants someone who doesn’t make a mess and who pays rent on time. And who won’t eat her leftovers out of the fridge.”

“Last one sounds like you.”

He clapped Bob on the back with a grin. “That’s why I’m not the one moving in.” He paused, and he could see the thoughts going at a mile a minute in Bob’s head. “I wouldn’t have said anything if I didn’t think you guys would hit it off.”

Bob wanted to make a comment to the effect of, “That’s kind of what I’m worried about,” but you reappeared before he could.

You plopped down on the stool beside his, giving a quick apology to the both of them. Looking back and forth between them, you wanted to ask what they’d been saying in your absence, but you had a feeling that if you needed to know, Bradley would tell you in the car on the way home.

Moments after you sat down, Penny materialized with a drink for you, and she handed a bottle to Bradley as well. You thanked her, amused that Bradley actually was letting you rack up his tab. Once you took a sip, you turned to Bob.

“So, is this the part where we get to play Twenty Questions?”

He laughed as he shrugged, fingers drumming against his leg. “I guess so.”

You smiled as you nodded. “Alright.” You motioned for Bradley to sit down next to you. “Bradshaw can play referee.”

~*~

Three weeks later the moving truck was parked outside your apartment building and there were boxes piling up in what had previously been a spare room that was sometimes your office, but more often just a place for all of your clean but unfolded laundry to hang out.

Bob was timid those first couple of weeks living together. It was endearing in a way that you hadn’t expected—most of Bradley’s friends from the Navy didn’t seem to be wired like that. Bob was a nice change of pace from it all. Every time he wanted to move or add something somewhere, he always asked, always had that same little nervous smile on his face when he did. You never told him no.

The first month or so of living together was just a big old learning curve. You learned that the two of you ran on different rhythms and schedules. Bob was an early bird, whether that was by choice or necessity you never asked. You were a night owl, though. Always had been. Luckily, you also learned that Bob was a heavy sleeper and that he was quiet in the morning when he was getting ready, so the two of you didn’t infringe upon each other much.

You learned that Bob liked to cook, was good at it even, but still hadn’t mastered how to just cook for one. That was how he learned that you had no problem doing the dishes if he was okay with sharing his food. He never told you no either.

Bob learned that most of your spare time was spent with your nose in a book or a notebook splayed across your lap while you wrote. He only ever asked once what you were writing, and when you gave him the vague answer of, “Stories,” he gave you a smile and a nod and went back to ironing his uniform. You learned that the only times Bob stayed up late was when he was playing videogames with his friends. Most of them were from the Navy, some of them were from back home. You knew which ones were which because his Navy friends had their callsigns in their gamertags—so original of them. That was also how you learned that a good handful of his friends in the Navy weren’t very good at first-person shooter games, which was deeply ironic given their professions.

By the time the third month of living together had come and gone, Bob also learned that he was falling in love with you a little bit. Or a lot. The amount of it didn’t matter, he supposed. None of it was going to help him.

~*~

You enjoyed living with Bob more than you thought you were going to. You had been willing to settle for a roommate that you could at least tolerate. You just needed someone that you could exist in the same space with sometimes when necessary. But after those first couple of weeks, it felt like almost all the time that the two of you were home at the same time was spent in the same space. Or you’d be in the living room while he was in the kitchen. You’d been ready to hole up in your room a little more often, but it never felt like you had to.

Bradley was as incessant as ever, arguing that he now had twice as many reasons to drop by unannounced now that Bob was living with you. You both knew that it was an argument you’d never win, and it wasn’t as though you didn’t enjoy his company too. By the time the first month passed, Bradley had lightened up on his weekly inquiry of, “Is this guy givin’ you any trouble?” You all knew that he never was.

You’d been waiting for the day that the surprised look would fade from Bob’s face whenever you got home, or emerged from your room, but it never did. From surprised, to smiling, to going back to whatever he’d been doing before you got there. Round and round again.

Bob never thought about how many different names he had until the two of you really got comfortable around each other. Most of the time he was Bob, which was what he was used to both on and off the base. That was the status quo.

But every now and then you’d switch it up. Like if he startled you coming home from his early-morning run, or if you didn’t hear him walk into the kitchen from his room. Then you’d call him Robert, in that fake-chastising tone that always had you trying not to laugh. Or sometimes, when he was getting frustrated about something that didn’t really matter too much in the grand scheme of things, you’d hit him with a little pat on the shoulder and a, “Calm down, Lieutenant Floyd.” And in moments like that he could hear it in your voice how long you and Bradley had been friends. If you tried to get his attention more than twice and still didn’t have any luck, that’s when he’d hear a sing-songy callout of Bobby coming from the other side of the apartment. That one always got both of you laughing.

You could’ve called him damn near anything, though, and he would’ve come running. He wondered how long he’d be able to keep his mouth shut about it all.

~*~

The two of you had been living together for six months the first time he put his foot in his mouth about it. His only saving grace, if he could even try to call it that, was that he’d said it to Bradley and not directly to you.

It made Bradley completely miss his shot in their game of pool, but he didn’t even care. He stood upright, pointing at Bob from across the table with his pool stick. “What was that?”

Bob’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull. He didn’t need a mirror to know that his face was turning beet red. He could feel the warmth racing up the column of his neck and into his cheeks. “N-nothing. I didn’t—nothing.”

Bradley’s grin was so wide it was a wonder his face didn’t crack clean open. “That was something.” He walked over, paying no mind to the fact that Bob was trying to look at anything but him. “She know? You say anything to her?”

Now it was Bob’s turn to miss his shot. His heart was beating fast enough that he thought it might short-out and stop working. If Rooster was trying to get some eye contact out of him, it certainly did the trick.

“No.” Bob’s answer managed to come out clear and timid all at once.

He leaned back casually against the edge of the pool table. “Why not?”

Bob shook his head, gaze dropping to the floor. “’Cause we’re roommates.”

“So?” Bradley let the look of disbelief on Bob’s face act as a response, and he continued. “You should tell her. Want me to tell her?”

Bob’s eyes popped open so wide that Bradley was shocked they didn’t break the lenses of his glasses. “Please don’t.”

“Want me to do some recon?” He stood upright again, no longer using the pool table for support. “Find out if she’s—”

“No.”

He chuckled, a knowing smirk tugging at his lips. None of this was surprising to him, really. He knew it from the second that Bob saw you when the two of them walked into The Hard Deck that day. He was honestly a little surprised that it took this long for Bob to slip up to him about it. The kid looked like a pressure cooker ready to explode.

“She hasn’t dated anyone since you moved in, has she?”

Bob shrugged. “No one that she’s brought around, at least. But she also just broke up with—”

Bradley waved off the sentence before Bob could even finish it. “That was almost eight months ago.” He paused, knowing that he had the answer to the question he was about to ask but it wasn’t going to stop him from asking it. “You’re not seeing anyone else, right?”

The red in his cheeks got a little darker but he didn’t say anything, instead just shaking his head.

“So I’ll ask her,” Bradley said, like that was the only rational response to the evidence laid out before him.

“Don’t ask her.” Bob’s statement was somewhere between an order and a plea, not hitting either note quite right.

Bradley held his hands up in surrender, but the smirk still lingering on his face didn’t make the truce feel too believable. “Alright, fine. I won’t say anything. But, if you change your mind,” he lined up his next shot, “let me know.”

~*~

Bob never brought it up again. Truthfully, he was still kicking himself for letting any of it slip in the first place. He kept waiting for another comment, another question from Bradley. Anytime that he came over to the apartment, Bob felt himself get a little more on-edge. When he could hear the two of you on the phone, he couldn’t stop the way his heart started to beat a little faster. He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Bradley to open his mouth and say something.

Weeks ticked by with Bob waiting for the other shoe to drop. You’d get home, or hang up the phone, and he’d sit there with bated breath. He’d try to look like he was focusing on his laptop, or the gaming controller in his hand, but he’d be watching you in his peripheral.

And, of course, you never said anything about it. Bradley apparently never said anything about it. For all the buttons that he liked to push, Bob couldn’t deny that he was surprised that his friend was managing to keep his mouth shut about this one. Maybe that was because Bradley had the feeling it was a lost cause. Bob tried not to think about it too much.

He definitely tried not to think about it on nights like tonight, when both of you were camped out together on the sofa. The original plan hadn’t really been for the two of you to watch a movie together—Bob had gotten home later than usual and you were already about ten minutes into the film when he walked through the door. He’d had every intention of just showering and going to bed, but when he saw you curled up on the couch, throw blanket across you and an oversized bowl of popcorn in your lap, suddenly sleep didn’t seem like such a big deal.

He’d leaned over the back of the couch, a smile stretching across his face as he said, “Gonna share that or should I make another bag?”

You yelped in surprise, nearly tossing the bowl full of popcorn in the process. “Robert!” You laughed, hand resting over your heart like that would get it to slow down. “You can’t do that when there is a serial killer on the screen.”

He cracked a grin. “Sorry.”

You held the bowl up for him to reach easier. “I will share though, despite your entrance.”

He’d grabbed a couple pieces of popcorn before walking off towards his room. “I’m just gonna get changed.”

“Okay.” You tossed a piece of popcorn up in the air and caught it in your mouth. “Hurry up before someone else dies.”

Now here you were, the only thing separating the two of you was the bowl of popcorn between you. Bob was paying enough attention to the movie to know what was going on, but he’d be lying if he tried to say that most of his attention was still going to you. Something about the fact that you’d chosen to put on a scary movie and yet you still seemed shocked every time something scary happened.

Like you were reading his thoughts, you spoke up as you half-covered your eyes. “I don’t know why I do this to myself.”

He chuckled. “We can put something else on.”

You shook your head. “No, no. I’m committed now. I need to know what happens.”

His smile grew a little wider, the rapid beat of his heart having nothing to do with what was happening on-screen. “Want me to tell you what happens?”

You looked over at him. “You’ve seen this before?”

He shook his head. “No, but I can probably still tell you what happens.”

You rolled your eyes but you were still smiling, still blocking part of your view of the television on purpose like that would stop the things on screen from happening. “Very funny.”

“I think—”

Whatever he was going to say next got lost somewhere between his brain and his lips because you were placing the bowl of popcorn in his lap and scooting closer to him. You leaned so that your head was resting against the outside of his arm, throw blanket pulled up to your chin. Your legs were pulled up onto the couch, half-curled underneath you as you situated yourself against him. There was no hesitation in any move that you made, and Bob was trying to figure out if he was dreaming, and if he wasn’t he was trying to figure out how to not spontaneously combust.

“If this gets any worse,” you said, looking up at him for a moment, “then I’ll ask for your predictions.”

He was glad it was dark enough in the living room so that you couldn’t see how red his face was. All you could really see was him nodding, the reflection of the television on his lenses. “O-okay.”

The two of you managed to make it to the end of the movie, but you were practically curled so far into him that Bob thought you were just going to melt right into his arm. He didn’t mind it—he wished that the movie had dragged on for a little longer.

When the credits started to roll, you let out a deep sigh of relief but you didn’t peel yourself away from him. Bob couldn’t help but to let out a quiet laugh. “This why I’ve never seen you watch a scary movie before?”

You laughed, shaking your head. “Like, twice a year I try to convince myself that I don’t get that scared.”

“It’s working real good, then,” he joked.

You laughed, blanket still pulled up over your shoulders. “I’d say so.”

He reached for the controller. “Want me to put something less scary on?”

You nodded, reaching out of you blanket cocoon to grab a handful of popcorn. “Yes please.”

He was expecting you to pull away once there was a comedy safely playing on-screen. He waited for the warmth of you and the blanket you were buried under to disappear. But it didn’t. You stayed there just like that, casually stealing one handful of popcorn at a time till there was nothing but kernels left.

You made it halfway through the next film before you looked up at him again and said, “You’re up way past your bedtime.”

He laughed softly and shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”

Just as he finished saying that, he yawned. You smiled. “You sure about that?”

He felt his face heat up. “I’m good.”

“Slumber party rules, you know. First one to fall asleep gets it.”

He felt himself melting back into the couch cushions a little more, body finally starting to relax more from tiredness than anything else. “What’s the punishment? Sharpie mustache?”

You laughed, resituating against him as you did. “No, no. That’d be too mean—can’t have you walking around looking like Bradshaw.”

~*~

When you woke up in the morning, you were still on the couch. Alone. You had a pillow propped nicely underneath your head and rather than the throw blanket that you’d been using during the movie, you had a real comforter draped over you. It took a moment for you to put it all together.

You got yourself half upright, propped up on your elbows. Through half-open lids you looked around the apartment, the kitchen and the living room. You could see that it was empty but even so you called out a groggy, raspy, “Bob?”

When you were met with silence, you fell back against the couch again. Dragging your hands across your eyes, you tried to wake yourself up a little more. You stared up at the ceiling, watching lights and shadows fly across it as cars drove by your building. People who were up and about much earlier than you.

You weren’t sure how much time you’d spent simply lying there debating whether or not you wanted to get off the couch and attempt to salvage what was left of your morning. Just as you were getting ready to peel the blanket off you when you heard the sound of keys in the lock on your apartment door.

For a moment you about to sit upright, but then you could hear how quietly and slowly he was trying to enter the apartment. All those mornings sneaking in quietly after his runs so he didn’t wake you, and this was the first time you were not only awake, but ready for it. You heard him toe off his shoes, heard the rustling of a bag that you were desperately hoping had donuts or bagels inside of it.

You were so busy being excited by the sound of iced coffee rattling against its cup that you almost missed the sound of Bob murmuring to himself. You couldn’t quiet make out what he was saying exactly, only that he was whispering to himself as he set things down on the counter. Waiting a moment, you strained your ear in hopes to get a better idea of what he was saying.

When he stopped talking altogether, you sat upright. His back was to you as he pulled the drinks from the tray they were in, opened up the bag of pastries he’d grabbed. You smiled at the sight of him, a warm flutter in your chest.

“Got enough to share?” you piped up.

For once it was Bob’s turn to flinch, to spin on his heel in shock. His eyes were wide, paper bag clutched tightly in his hand. He was certain that if his life had been a cartoon you would’ve seen the outline of his heart beating in his chest.

“Um, yeah.” He nodded, holding up one of the coffees as though to prove he was telling the truth. “Yours.”

Standing up off the couch, you kept the blanket wrapped around you like the most oversized shawl you’d ever seen as you padded over to where he was standing in the kitchen. Reaching out, you took the iced coffee from him, a smile on your face as you took a sip. It was impossible to miss the way that Bob was looking at you, looking like he had something to say. You waited for it, but it never came.

“Rehearsing lines?” you asked casually as you reached for the bag he was holding.

It seemed to snap him out of the trance he was in. “What?”

You pulled out one of the donuts in the bag. “When you came in,” you took a bite, “thought I heard you talking.”

His eyes widened a little bit, cheeks starting to flush pink. “Oh.”

You smiled, tilting your head. “What?”

He picked up his own cup of coffee. He stared at it for a moment, swirling it around to buy himself a few extra seconds. His heart was beating so hard that he was expecting it to cause ripples in the coffee he was holding.

“I, um,” he cleared his throat, looking you in the eyes, “yeah.”

You set your coffee down, suddenly feeling a little foolish with the blanket wrapped around your shoulders. “You okay?”

He nodded. “I’m okay.”

Your smile was soft, warm. “You sure? Looking a little wistful over there.” You saw the way a few sentences started and died on the tip of his tongue. Your lips started to dip down into a frown. “Bob?”

“I really, uh, I really like…living here with you.”

Something akin to relief was creeping its way across your chest and you allowed yourself a small smile. “I like you living here.” You tilted your head slightly. “Why do you look so worried about that?”

He managed a chuckle of sort. “Because,” with each word he tried to get out, he felt like his heart was going to beat clean out of his chest, like his ribs weren’t strong enough to keep it in place, “I don’t want that to change.”

“Why would it?”

“I love you,” he blurted out. “I…I love you.” The blush on his face darkened and he gave a weak smile. “That’s not how I rehearsed it.”

You let out a laugh, one that was choked with emotion. It felt impossible to get the words out that you wanted, like they were all getting stuck in the back of your throat. You could see it on Bob’s face that he was trying to come up with the next thing to say.

Before either of you could implode, you collapsed the distance between you and kissed him. The blanket that had been around your shoulders fell to the floor as your lips caught his. There was a split second of hesitation, but once Bob realized that it was real, that this was all happening, he wrapped his arms around you. His hands splayed across your back, pinning you tight to him.

Your fingers threaded into his hair, leaning into him until he was snug between you and the counter behind him. Bob soaked it is, the way it felt to have the warmth of your body pressed against his. He was certain that this would be the time you’d hear his racing heartbeat, be able to feel it since you were so close. For once he hoped that you would.

You pulled away, just enough to be able to get a good look at his face. He brought one hand up to fix his glasses, the other staying on the small of your back. You toyed with the hair at the nape of his neck as you tried to commit everything about how he looked in that moment to memory.

“I love you too,” you said, voice soft when you finally had it in you to string the words together.

You saw the smile on his face and then you felt it as he kissed you again. It was all laughter and soft touches and wandering hands. Months of bottled up feelings starting to reach the surface. With your palm resting against his chest, you could feel the speed of his heartbeat, but he didn’t seem nervous now. For a moment you were surprised to find that you weren’t nervous either. Then you felt the pad of his thumb against your cheek as he pulled you in for another kiss and you finally felt like you were home. And there was nothing more comforting than that.

(divider by @firefly-graphics)

Top Gun Maverick Taglist: @garbinge @proceduralpassion @justreblogginfics (If you want to be added to any of taglists please let me know!)

#top gun #top gun maverick #top gun: maverick #top gun fanfiction #top gun maverick fanfiction #bob floyd #robert floyd #bob floyd fanfiction #robert floyd fanfiction #bob floyd x reader #bob floyd x you #robert floyd x you #robert floyd x reader #x reader #x reader fic #my writing #fanfiction #drabblesmc

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asscaverns · 4 months ago

Text

Long Time Coming - Daryl Dixon x FEM!reader

Synopsis: Reader and Daryl have been together for a long time, but have never been able to have sex. 3.8k words

minors dni/18+

Warnings: smut, fluff. So much praise! Oral f!receiving. Protected sex (kinda? they use a condom but it's expired bc duh). Daryl cums fast. I've never written smut before, I've never published anything either so go easy on me. Probably OOC Daryl. Not great writing, sorry.

“It’s quiet,” Daryl starts from his position on the couch, one of his legs propped up on the coffee table.

“Yeah, it’s a little unsettling. Even back in the prison there was always growling, or Beth singing, or Carol snoring all night,” you joke lightly mimicking her snores. You plopped down on the couch next to him and leaned into him, making him put an arm around your shoulders. “It feels safe though, yeah? Safest I've felt since the outbreak at least,” you wonder out loud, trying to gauge his feelings of your new home.

“Yeah, I guess,” he pauses. “Just feels like I'm waiting for the shoe, y'know.”

“The other shoe?” You ask, laying your hand on his knee, glancing up at him.

“Mhm, waitin’ for the shoe to drop.”

You hum in understanding. “I think. . .” you trailed off thinking of your next words carefully, “I think, there’s no use in just sittin around and waiting. Maybe we should enjoy what we have, while we have it.”

He sat up and turns to look at you like you were crazy. “And what? What about when these picket fence bastards decide we’re not good enough, we don’t contribute enough, or whatever the hell other reason they decide is fit enough to throw us to the wolves? We just let them blindside us?” he seemed incredulous.

“No, honey, of course not. I’m just saying,” you take a deep breath trying to make sure you are clear. “This is maybe our last chance, our only chance, to live a life without running from the dead every damn day. We got used to that, it was, or maybe it still is, our new normal, but this can be too.”

“I understand, sweetheart, I'm just. . .” he trails off.

“Nervous? On edge?” you finish for him after a moment.

“You could say that,” he answers, picking up a cup of water off the coffee table, taking a sip, and sitting it back down, then leaning back onto the couch and throwing an arm over your shoulder again.

“I know. You run for your life, hunker down in empty houses, broke down cars, and caves for lord knows how long. Next thing you know, someone offers you not only a home, but a house? To ourselves? And food, water, walls and defenses, plus people patrolling 24/7? It’s a big change, but this is the safest we’ve been for a while. I just think we should enjoy it while we can. We can stay on edge, sleep with a gun under our pillow or whatever, but we should enjoy what we have while we have it. We can live here for a while, when shit hits the fan we can run, like we always have.”

“Yeah, I reckon you’re right, y/n,” he admits, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Kinda boring though, innit? This whole ‘american dream’ life.”

You glanced at him and saw a small smile. “Boring?” you giggle, “I can think of something to entertain us.” You slide your hand from your lap over to his, putting your hand back on his knee and sliding it half way up his thigh.

“Yeah? What’s that sweetheart?” He questions innocently, but you can see the way his cheeks are redder than earlier, and you can see the way he looks at your lips.

You jumped up and offered him your hand with a wink, “Come with me and I'll show you.”

“Don’ need to ask me twice,” he jumped to his feet, grabbing your hand and letting you lead him up the stairs and into the bathroom. You open the door with your spare hand and spin around pulling at his shirt and winking at him.

“Oh I get it, you just want to see me naked, don’ ya?” Daryl teased, pulling his t-shirt off.

“You know I do, baby,” you flirted, grabbing his naked waist and pulling him closer for a moment, before pushing him away and leaning over to start the water, Daryl taking the opportunity to smack your ass. You giggle and turn around with your finger pointed, ready to scold him jokingly, but he grabs your hips before you can. He yanks you into his chest and kisses you hard, trying to slip his tongue into your mouth.

“At least let me get in the shower first, you horny bastard!” You laugh at him and pull away, yanking your shirt over your head and pulling your pants down and off. You feel the water to test its temperature and upon deciding it warm enough, you turn around to see him still in his pants. You reach towards his belt and pull on it, “You joining? Or are you gonna stand there and watch?”

“I’m happy to watch but I’d much rather join,” he responds, watching you step into the warm water. He tugs his belt undone and his pants down while you turn and let the water run over you.

Truth is, you were a little nervous, you knew what you were initiating. Sure you’d spent most of the apocalypse together, started ‘dating’ not long after arriving at the prison. Though you’d never officially talked labels, it’s been long assumed, by you and the rest of the group, that you were together. So, you’ve been ‘together’ a long time, but despite that you’d never really gone farther than oral or handjobs. If you’d had the time, then you hadn’t had the solitude. If you’d had the solitude, then you hadn’t had the safety. If you’d had the safety, then you hadn’t had the time. It had worked out fine, in the midst of the end of the world, sexual frustration wasn’t your biggest concern, you’d go as far as to say it wasn’t even in the top 15. This was your third night alone in Alexandria, your group had all slept in the same house for a while before gradually settling into your own.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve done this, huh?” you question, rubbing soap all over your body. You feel his arms wrap around you and pull your back to his chest, you lean your head back to rest on his shoulder.

“You’re sexier every time,” he whispers, nipping at your ear. His hands grab the fat of your hips and grip it to pull you even closer.

“Really? You don’t think I looked better when we were covered in walker guts and months of filth?” You tease him, pushing away and signaling for him to turn his back to you, and begin to clean his back with a soapy towel.

“You get prettier every day, Y/N, with or without running water,” he hums out, enjoying the soft scratch of the washcloth on his body. It had taken him a long time to get comfortable being this vulnerable, but years of relying on each other has built a trust unlike any other in his life. He trusts you fully, to see him wholly and unfiltered, who he truly was inside and out.

Once you both had been scrubbed you wrap your arms around his neck and push him against the wall. You brush your lips over his, testing the waters first. He grabs your face and spins you around, pressing his lips harshly against yours. You moan into his mouth and pull him closer. His arms wind around your waist when his tongue slips into your mouth, your grasp the hair at the base of his neck tightly in your fingers when you feel his leg slot between yours.

You grind down on his leg and gasp, throwing your head back against the wall. He takes the opportunity to kiss your jaw, trailing kisses down your neck, sucking little marks on your collar bones. You feel his hand slide from your waist up your torso to grab at your breast and your hands grab at the strong muscles of his back. He kneads your soft breast before rubbing your nipple with his thumb, he places sloppy kisses on the junction of your neck and down your shoulder. You whimper and grind harder on his leg when he pinches your nipple between his fingers, Daryl kisses back up your neck and puts his hands on either side of your face, pulling it to his to kiss it harshly.

“Please, Daryl, I want you,” you whimper against his lips, he hums into your mouth and slips his tongue into your mouth. “Daryl, please,” you whine as he willfully ignores your begging.

You keep kissing, clawing at his back with your short nails, just trying to pull him impossibly closer to you, his arms wrap tight around your waist, holding you down on his leg to help you grind harder against his knee. One of his arms abandons your waist to grab a fistful of your wet hair and he lets it tangle around his fingers, while he kisses you even deeper.

“You ready to get outta here, pretty girl?” He smirks at you. Before waiting for your answer he shuts the water off, grumbling about how you’re just gonna have to take another one later, and slides open the curtain. Daryl steps out and hands you a towel.

You rush past him into the bedroom, drying off and discarding your towel, then jumping on your shared bed. He walks in a few moments later, dropping the towel he had wrapped around his waist. You whistle at him teasingly, “How on earth did I get so lucky?”

He chuckles at you and sits on the bed beside your feet, running his hands up your calf, “I think I should be the one asking that, Y/N.” He crawls up to your body, pressing light kisses from your knees to your neck. If it weren’t for the lust in his eyes and the way he looks at you like you were prettiest damn woman he’s ever seen you might feel insecurity creeping in.

Daryl pecks your mouth, leaving you chasing his mouth until kisses back down your stomach, notching himself between your thighs. He peppers kisses all over the inside of your thighs, avoiding the one place you’re needing him the most. He finally caves, running his thumb up your slit, brushing away the soft hair that covers your cunt.

“You’re the sexiest damn woman I’ve ever seen,” he mutters, not giving you a chance to respond before he dives in, placing one long lick from your hole to your clit. The surprise movement leaves you gasping and squeezing his head between his thighs, which he softly pushes away. He does another long lick before focusing on your clit, alternating between gentle licks and circling it with his tongue. He wraps his lips around it and sucks, smiling when he hears you whimpering above him. He goes back to gentle licks and sucks, Daryl moves farther south until licking at our hole, he looks up at you for approval and instead sees a sight so beautiful he wonders what he did to deserve this. You, your back arched the perfect amount for him to see the soft expanse of your stomach leading to your breasts that were pushed into the air, one hand grasping clumsily at one of them, pulling at your nipple. With the image of you and your salty taste on his tongue he swore he could bust right then and there.

Daryl pushes his tongue into your hole, the mix of your wetness and his saliva creating a mess of your groin. He fucks his tongue into you, soft and steady.

It’s so much, his wet tongue sliding in and out of you, his hands gripping your thighs, his nose nudging your clit every now and then. It was too much and not enough. You gasp out, “Oh, my god, Daryl,” between your moans and heavy breathing. “D, you feel so good, I need more, please.”

He moves one hand from your thigh up to your mouth, pulling away to whisper, “suck on my fingers, baby.” You oblige, leaning forward eagerly to pull his thick fingers into your mouth and moan around them when he uses his other hand to squeeze your thigh. He fucks his fingers in and out of your mouth, coming up to press his mouth to yours, his tongue mingles with yours around his fingers. He pulls his fingers out and drops them to your cunt, using them to circle your clit, then sliding one inside of you, swallowing your gasps and moans in your shared kiss. He works his second finger into your pussy and abandons your lips to kiss down your chest, stopping to suck a nipple into his mouth briefly, but then continuing all the way back to your clit. Your hands grasp at his hair and push his face into your cunt, his tongue going back to playing with your clit while his eyes flicker up to see yours squeezed shut and mouth hanging open in ecstasy. Your hands wind in his hair so you have something to hold on to, his tongue and fingers making your head swim. He could ask you anything right now and you’d do it in a heartbeat as long as he didn’t stop. His fingers stretched you open just right and the drag of his knuckles in your pussy had you gasping for air.

His fingers were fucking into you hard enough in just the right spot that you were breathless, gasping each time they hit that spot. He groaned against your cunt and it left you whining and grinding against him, his spare arm wrapped around your hips drawing you even closer and holding you still against his mouth. He pulled away from you, protests falling from your lips at his withdrawal, “You’re doin’ so good for me, Y/N, sound so fuckin’ pretty. Perfect little cunt too, you know how much I love eating your pussy, don’ ya, baby?’ He draws, pressing more kisses and sucking little marks against the sensitive parts of your thighs, while his fingers slowly thrust in and out of you. You hum in response, hands trying to pull his head back to where you want- no need him most. “I want you to tell me, Y/N, tell me what you want,’ He insists, his dark, brown eyes boring into yours.

“You- you know what I want, honey,” you reply, face heating up, suddenly feeling almost bashful at your desperation for your partner. He pulls his fingers out of you at your less-than-satisfactory response.

“Oh, I do, baby, trust me,” he insists. “But I need to hear you say it. I want to hear you. Don’t go getting shy on me now. There’s no reason to, I know you love when I give you head, you know how much I adore buryin’ my head between your sexy thighs, feeling them squeeze me while i devour you,” he pauses to slide his fingers back into you, smiling at your quiet moan. “Hell, you should see the mess my cock is makin’ down here, leaking all over the blanket I just washed. I’m humping the bed like a damn virgin while I’m tongue deep in your pussy, sweetheart. I can feel how close you are, clenchin’ like a vice on my fingers. Now I’d love to have you make a mess on my face, but I want you to tell me what you want first. No need in getting all bashful, sweetheart, we’ve been here a dozen times before. Want to see your pretty face when you tell me, too.”

You lean up on your elbows, head foggy with need. “Daryl, I need you to make me cum, make me- make me cum all over your face,” you manage to stutter out. “Then, I need you to fuck-” your words are interrupted by a broken gasp as he dives back in, licking and sucking at your clit for all his worth. Your arms give out from behind making you drop onto your back, arching it and trying to wriggle your hips against his hold and let out breathless praises for the man eating you out like his life depends on it.

“Fuck! Daryl, you make me feel so good,” you gasp out when he goes back to licking circles on your clit. His fingers are curling into you just right, his tongue is circling your clit perfectly, your mind is buzzing and all you can think about is him. You feel your orgasm creeping up, warmth building and muscles tightening. “I- I’m so close, I-, oh my god, just like that, baby. Fuck, Daryl, please!”

You let out more whimpers and moans, a few nearly incoherent begs, although what you were begging for was unclear, all you knew is that you were so, so close to cumming on the fingers of the man you loved more than anything. Your fingers tighten their grip on his hair, which makes him groan into you and grind harder against the blanket under him, the vibrations of his groan make you buck your hips, so he tightens his hold on you. He was lapping at your cunt like it was water and he was dying of thirst. His fingers are pressing harder into you with every little thrust and you’re sobbing out as your orgasm finally washes over you. You can feel the pleasure wash over your body, making chills erupt all over you, the heat that’s been building in your core finally explodes and you’re shaking all over, back almost arching off the bed as he keeps lapping at you. You cunt is milking his fingers, legs shaking around his head as you moan out little gasps of his name. His fingers fuck you through the shock waves of your orgasm, but he doesn’t stop his movements. Your moans turn into little high pitched gasps when he pulls his fingers out of you once you stop pulsing around them, only to slide his tongue into your opening and fuck into you. It’s all too much, you can feel the rough drag of stubble on your soft inner thighs and his harsh grip on your ass as you come back down to reality. He finally lets up when you start to pull away from him and your grip on his hair loosens. He pulls away from you, his face glistening in the soft moon light peering in from the window. You grab at the back of his head and yank him into a rough kiss, tongues clash and the taste of your fluids on his lips and tongue make you moan into his mouth again.

“You’re too good for me, Daryl, honestly. You’re so good with your mouth, I’d let you eat me out for hours,” you breathlessly praise him once he pulls away to catch his breath, letting his forehead rest on yours.

“That can be arranged, darling,” he muses, starting to lower himself back to your pussy.

“No! No, not right now. I need you. I need more of you. I want your cock, please, Daryl,” you stutter, desperation fogging your brain. “Lay down, let me blow you.”

“No, sunshine, I’m not gonna last that long,” he insists, hissing when your hand wraps around his aching dick, using his own precum to stroke loosely. You reach into your bedside drawer for the condoms you had placed there a few days ago, they were past the expiration date, but it’s not like you can find any new ones any more, you had both decided you might as well try to use the protection.

“You sure?” You ask, looking at him with hooded eyes, licking your lips and ripping open the condom.

“Yes, Y/N,” he affirms. You slide the condom down his length and then use that hand to guide his cock to your entrance.

You can’t help but notice his shaky breath and the way his hands are shaking beside your head, “Daryl, are you sure you want to do this? We can stop now, we can go to bed, or I can jerk you off, if you’d rather wait.”

“I want to fuck ya, it’s just. . .” he trails off.

“Been a long time?” You finish for him. He nods to confirm your suspicion.

Before you can respond he begins to push into you, your pussy aching as he stretches you out, feeling every vein of his cock as it fills you up to the hilt. Above you, he’s grunting, arms damn near giving out as he rests most of his weight on you. He’s grunting into your ear, muttering a quiet “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” as he adjusts to the tightness of your pussy around him, as you grind and squeeze against him, your body begging for me.

“Hey, sunshine, look at me,” he’s leaning back to look you in the eye, once he got his bearings He brushes the hair out of your eyes, presses a kiss to your nose. “You feel good, better than I coulda imagined.”

“Please, Daryl.”

In lieu of a response, he crashes his lips on yours. Pulling out almost completely and pushing back in with a broken moan, your hand flies to his hair as he begins to rut into you. Short, fast thrusts that leave you gasping with your arms tight around his shoulders. He slows his pace when your nails start to scratch down his back. “I-I’m not gonna last long, y/n,” he moans, pulling all the way back and then thrusting back into you hard.

“That’s perfect, baby, please, that’s all I want. Jus’ want to make you feel good, yeah?” You pant out. Your legs wrapped tightly around him, his thrusts hitting so deep inside of you, you were seeing stars, his hips pushing flush against your own, you could feel his balls slap against your ass. He drops his head to kiss and suck on your neck, you tighten around him and reach down to rub our clit.

Daryl’s moans and thrusts get more erratic, a sign you know means he’s close. “Fuck, baby, I-” he gasps out.

“I know, I know, me too.”

“I’m sorry, you just feel so damn good-”

“Shut up and let me feel you cum inside of me,” you demand, your voice breathless and broken, he’s stretching you out so nicely and you’re rubbing fast, eager circles on our clit. “Oh- I- I’m cumming. Oh, my god, fuck! I love you so much, Daryl.”

The rhythmic squeezing of your tight pussy and your blissed out face sent him straight over the edge, he was grunting into you as you both rode out your highs.

Minutes later he was catching his breath, his legs shaking. “Was that worth the wait?” You joked. He laughed at you and slipped out, shaking his head at your sound of disappointment. Daryl pulled the condom off and threw it in the bin across the room.

In the morning he awoke before you, the sun shining across your pretty hair, he could see your relaxed face, your tits sticking out of the blanket. He wondered what he ever did to deserve this, to deserve you. He’d fight through a dozen apocalypses if it meant being with you.

#I tried yall #daryl dixon x reader #daryl x reader #daryl dixon #twd x reader #Daryl Dixon x reader smut #daryl dixon smut #x reader #the walking dead smut #the walking dead #smut #kt writes

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chaotic-birds · 1 year ago

Text

be with you || j.pt

Jason wakes up in the middle of the night and you're not there.

🌙 Pairing: Jason Todd x Reader (gn)

🌙 Genres/AUs: Fluff, (emotional) hurt/comfort, established relationship

🌙 Warning(s): mention of kidnapping

🌙 Word Count: 1.1k

🌙 Author's Note: I have so many Jason Todd fic ideas 😵‍💫 For now, I decided to just write this. I normally don't post such short fics, but I want to get used to doing so. Sometimes I just wanna write without thinking of intensive plots 😪 That being said, please enjoy this little fluff piece! Sometimes, we just need some fluff in our lives. Also, this is my first Jason fic after a few years so… 😬 (im a lil nervous)

masterlist

When Jason turns to his other side to pull you against him, his eyes fly open.

Your side of the bed is empty.

And cold.

Which means it’s been a while since you left.

You left.

Did you leave or did someone take you?

Jason’s distressed eyes scan the bedroom. There’s no sign of a struggle. Plus, he would at least hope he’d wake up to the commotion if something like that happened.

But if you didn’t get kidnapped, where did you go?

Worry fills his chest and his heart pumps faster at the influx of questions in his head.

All the doubt about whether he’s making you happy clouds his mind. Had he said something yesterday that had upset you? Are you not happy with him anymore? Did someone better come into your life?

Jason groans and rakes his hands through his hair, tugging roughly at the ends to feel something other than uneasiness.

His hands fall to his sides when he sees your belongings at your vanity.

That’s a good sign, right? Maybe you didn’t leave him after all.

Jason slides off the bed and heads out of the bedroom.

“Babe?” he calls.

There’s no answer.

He wanders to the bathroom. Empty.

He goes to the living room. Empty.

Finally, he goes to your home office.

You’re sat in your chair with your headset on, fingers clacking against the keyboard.

The heavyweight he had put on his shoulders instantly lifted. He releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

He takes three large steps before he encloses his arms around you from behind.

You yelp, jumping and hitting your head against his jaw.

He grunts at having bit the inside of his cheek in the process.

Although your arms are glued to your sides, you tilt your head and lift a hand as high as it can go to remove your headset.

“Jay?” you question. “Did I wake you? I was trying to be quiet.”

He shakes his head and nuzzles his face against your neck more.

You lax in his arms, rubbing along his forearms and resting your head on his shoulder.

“Why are you awake then?” you wonder after a while.

“You weren’t in bed,” he mumbles.

“Sorry,” you murmur. “I forgot I had to finish something for work.”

“But it’s half past three. Can’t it wait?”

“Sadly, no,” you sigh.

Carefully, you try to pull apart his arms to free yourself. Jason refuses to let you do so.

“Baby,” you laugh softly when he holds you tighter. “Go back to sleep. I’ll be done in a bit.”

“No,” he grumbles.

Knowing he won’t give up, at least not easily, you nod. “Alright then. Should I bring in another chair for you?”

Jason shakes his head and finally lets go. He slides your chair back slightly and sinks to the floor in front of you.

Your legs part when he makes a home between them, wrapping his arms around your hips and resting his head on top of your thigh.

“Comfy?” you ask with a small smile, slightly amused.

He simply hums and closes his eyes.

Your gaze lingers on him before you focus on your work once more. You hurry more now, wanting to get back to bed with Jason.

A few minutes have passed when Jason speaks again.

“I-I thought you left me,” he whispers.

Your hands pause in their movement.

“Oh Jace,” you begin gently and place a hand against his cheek.

His eyes flutter open at your touch. His blue eyes are filled with worry and fear.

“I would never leave you.”

His eyes move between yours, trying to find a reason not to believe you. There’s that rotten side of him that tells him he doesn’t deserve to have company. That it’s inevitable for him to be alone.

“Unless you want me to,” you add.

He shakes his head aggressively. “Don’t say that.”

You smile softly at him. “Then it’s a done deal. You’re mine until the end of time.”

Jason cracks a small smile at your words, lifting his head.

“I like the sound of that,” he says.

Your grin grows. “I do too.”

Jason leans up, and you meet him halfway for a tender kiss.

“I’ve still got more to do. You want to go to bed now?” you ask once you pull away.

“Nope, I’m staying,” he replies, resting his head back on your leg.

His tone sounds lighter now, making your heart warm. Although you love all sides of Jason, this may be your favorite one.

Happy. Soft. Vulnerable.

After forty more minutes, you finally finish.

Jason has fallen asleep and has filled the room with his light snores. Some of his hair lays on his face, some of it slightly ruffled from sleeping in the bed earlier.

Cute.

You bring a hand to his hair, carding your fingers through his soft locks. You scratch at his scalp gently to wake him.

His eyes open, drooping and groggily.

“I’m done, let’s go to bed now,” you say.

He nods and slowly stands up from the floor. He sways a little on tired legs.

“Come on, sleepy head,” you tease lightly and grab his hand.

He lets you guide him back to the bedroom. You sit him down on the edge then gesture in the direction of the bathroom.

“I need to pee; you gonna come with me or will you stay here?” you question.

Jason frowns but nods. “If you take longer than five minutes, I’m coming in.”

You laugh and kiss the crown of his head. “If you say so.”

You know he’s being honest so you rush. Luckily, you make it in time for him not to come get you.

Jason hasn’t moved from when you left. He’s staring at the doorway, feet thumping rhythmically against the floor.

“You’re so needy tonight,” you observe and climb into bed. Jason scoots back until he’s beside you.

“I just miss you,” he sighs, pulling you against him like he originally wanted to do.

You lean back against his chest to feel him more.

“I’ve missed you too, Jay,” you reply.

There's been a rise in crime lately, which resulted in Jason being out in the field more than usual. However, it feels as if there’s a break and you and Jason are making the most of it. You’re sure he will be summoned again soon.

Jason snuggles your body more—if possible—and kisses the back of your head.

“We’re so sleeping in today,” he mumbles, a slight groan accompanying his words.

You giggle. “I can’t protest that.”

“Hm, good,” he says. “Goodnight, baby.”

Smiling, you echo, “Goodnight, Jay.”

©️chaotic-birds // DO NOT REPOST OR MODIFY Please consider reblogging if you liked this work to show your support. Feedback/commentary is always welcomed.

#jason todd fanfic #jason todd fluff #jason todd hurt/comfort #jason todd #jason todd x reader #jason todd x you

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scarletwinterxx · 2 months ago

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cheeks are red like cherries in the spring - choi seungcheol imagine

hellllooooo yes back to back post😅 one thought, why is diet pepsi so cheol coded ??????? cherry???? cross gold chain???!?!?!?! LIKE OKAY MS ADDISON RAE THANK U FOR THE NEW CHEOL ANTHEM

and with that song in mind, here's a cheol scenario HAHA hope you like it!

if anyone want to be mutuals on X, i'm using the same un there😊

for my other svt fics, check them here

if you want, u can buy me coffee(totally optional but any donation is very much appreciated!) thank you🥺💛

All works are copyrighted ©scarletwinterxx 2024 . Do not repost, re-write without the permission of author.

(gif not mine, credits to rightful owner)

"Cheol, I swear to god get the fuck out of my shirt"

"Your shirt? This is my shirt"

The audacity of this man to argue back, you thought. Who knew a big buff man like Choi Seungcheol would be like a clingy koala, the answer would be you and only you. You're the only one who gets him like this.

Your fiancé knew exactly which buttons to push and when to push them. Like right now, you told him you were catching up on some work you missed while the two of you went on a quick weekend trip but ofcourse he would find a way to be involved somehow.

So here he is, half of his body inside your(his) shirt while you sit on his lap.

You're close to getting your work done but Cheol's being difficult, littering kisses and a few playful bites here and there on your chest.

"Cheolie, please give me five minutes to finish this then I'm all yours. If you don't stop, I'm sleeping in the guest bedroom"

You feel him move out of your shirt, now he's fully facing you. One brow raised and a sulky pout already placed on his lips "You're mean"

"5 minutes or no cuddles tonight"

He scowls before helping you off his lap so he can get off the seat. "I'm setting a timer, done or not I'm coming in here" And you believe him. He's petty like you, maybe because you're both Leos.

He kisses you on the cheek before walking away, closing the door behind him.

You finish the last three emails you had to send before doing a final run through. You look at the clock to see you're cutting it close. Testing to see if Cheol will really come in the room, you wait instead of going out to the living room.

When the clock turns, you hear the door swing open. Everything happening all too fast, Seungcheol already throwing you over his shoulder before you can protest. He walks to the other room where he throws you (gently) on the bed, hands on his hips as he watch you laugh

"You're so petty" you laugh

"And you're so pretty, you know just how to drive me mad huh" he tells you, climbing over the bed until he's on top of you. He slots himself between your legs, tangling them around his hips as he rests his body on you but not fully putting all of body weight on you

"You better not have left hickies on my neck again" you poke him on the cheek

"And if I did? It's not like somebody will come and check" he retorts, then leans down to start kissing your neck again as if to prove a point.

"Cheol, seriously. I can never wear low cut now" your words differ from your actions, tilting your head to the side to give him more room. He smirks against your skin, kissing the same spot over and over again.

He pauses to look at you, eyes looking back at him with so much love and lust it goes straight through him. "You know you have a few moles like from your neck down here" he trails his finger from your neck down the valley of your chest, leaving goosebumps on it's trail.

"Do I?"

"Mhm, and you know what they say about moles? They say that's where you were kissed the most in your past life"

You smile, already seeing where this conversation is going. "Jealous?" you tease him

"Pshhh me? Yes. Actually sometimes it pisses me off thinking someone loved you this much, someone who isn't me"

"But what if it was you?"

"Then good. It should be me. I can't even fathom any other guy loving you more than I do" he tells you, ever so sure and confident of his commitment to you.

"You're cute when you're jealous"

"I'm gonna kiss you here too, over and over again so when we're reborn you get all these moles again I'll be sure it would be because of me"

You stare up at your man, imagining a universe where you're not with him is simply impossible. Pulling him down to crash his lips against yours, he reciprocates the kiss with just as much passion. Like you're the air he's breathing.

When you pull away he speaks again, "I really hope it's me in every universe"

You smile at his words, giving him a more gentle kiss this time. The two of you share a smile and few more kisses before you tell him,

"Love me like this and I'll make sure of it"

#fic #fanfic #svt imagine #svt x reader #svt #seventeen #svt x you #svt scenario #svt seungcheol #svt scoups #seungcheol imagine #seungcheol x reader #seventeen seungcheol #seungcheol scenario #cheol imagine #scoups #scoups fluff #scoup imagine

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seancekitsch · 8 months ago

Note

Hazbin Hotel—Lucifer x Reader where he’s a love struck fool for reader? May or may not be inspired by that little imagine you posted not too long ago \(//∇//)\

uhhh this kinda got away from me. enjoy!!

You’d have to be a fool not to notice how the King of Hell acts around you, even Angel and Husk told you that. But you’re not blinded to situation, you know exactly what’s going on. You rest your elbow on the bar next to Angel as Charlie gathers the hotel residents and staff, a job not unlike herding cats. Everyone trickles in slowly, waiting for the next odd trust bond activity Charlie has come up with now. Last week was heartfelt letter writing, and the three of you at the bar had not taken it seriously. You handed Husk a comedic inner monologue about how much you needed to pee, Husk handed Angel a surprisingly detailed made up story about a talking whisky bottle, and Angel handed you a list of what roles he’d cast the entire hotel in a porno.

“What do you think they’ll have us do this time?” Husk mumbles to you, topping off your drink.

“Honestly, not a fan of the way Princess is smiling right now,” you answer.

Charlie waves everyone over, and Vaggie smiles uncomfortably, ready for everyone to start.

“Okay Good Afternoon,” Charlie starts, practically bouncing, “Today we’re going to try to form new bonds!”

Immediately, she’s met with groaning and mumbling, but thats never stopped her and it won’t today either.

“So what better way to do that then having a buddy for the next twenty four hours!” She shouts, and Vaggie’s face immediately makes sense.

“I’ve separated everyone from their regular group so they can build these bonds and be open!”

“…got something you could open…” you hear Angel mumble under his breath.

Charlie gives her dad a thumbs up.

“The first pairing is… my dad and Y/n!”

The Morningstar family sucks at being subtle or lying.

“So what did you have planned for the day?” Lucifer asks while sitting beside you, his voice short and clipped, his entire demeanor like he’s on high alert. It’s cute, really.

“Ah don’t worry about it,” you shrug, “What does the areat King of Hell do with his day?”

Lucifer rubs his neck, fidgeting under your question.

“It’s not… Its not actually all that interesting,” he admits, “You’ve probably got something cooler going on.”

There’s something he’s avoiding besides your gaze, but you don’t press the issue.

You look across the lobby to Angel, who pauses his conversation with Vaggie to mouth something that looked like the word “fart” to you, and then wink.

Your art gallery. Right.

“Have you ever been to Pentagram City’s biggest art gallery?” you ask him.

Lucifer is a gentleman. You understand how he stole the first man’s first two wives from him. Sure, he’s stumbling and stuttering and a nervous wreck, but he’s holding doors open for you and asking about your thoughts and feelings about the pieces on display, he’s accidentally on purpose almost held your hand three times now. Next time he does it, you’re just going to grab his damn hand.

You stare at the sculpture in front of you, noting that you should have someone move this to a different room. In fact, there’s a few things you’ve noticed while showing Lucifer the art that you should have moved around. Maybe you’ve been neglecting the gallery a bit more than you thought now that you live at the hotel.

“Hey, Can I ask you about these?” Lucifer’s voice booms from the next room over. Sighing, you type a quick note into your V-Phone and turn.

Oh shit.

Lucifer found THAT room.

You cross the threshold into the room you never go into, the room with your own work. Honestly, it’s not even curated the way the other rooms and floors are. This is where you put anything that you think can leave your studio. He’s in front of one of your biggest paintings, and one of your newest. It’s an abstract piece about your feelings about redemption, about your past sins, about adjusting to the hotel. Which it sounds stupid when you put it like that, but it made sense in the moment and you’re proud of it.

He turns and smiles before looking back at the painting.

“Is the uh, is the artist willing to sell this piece?” he asks, his cheeks and the tips of his ears turning red.

Now it’s your turn to get nervous. You’ve never actually sold any of your own pieces before.

“I uh- I’m not gonna sell it to you,” you tell him, “You can have it.”

It would be weird to take money from Lucifer, even if he is offering. You like him a decent amount and a transaction between the two of you would make it weird. It would feel like you owe him, even though your art would technically satisfy that. If he was one of the Vees or someone you dislike, you would have immediately taken money.

“But the artist-“

“Me,” you clarify, and you finally remember you don’t tag your own art. Lucifer’s jaw drops at your admission.

“I’d really like to support your work, it’s magnificent,” Lucifer insists, and you feel your cheeks burning. He turns to gesture to another piece, and his knuckles brush your own.

Fuck it. You told yourself you’d do it. You grab Lucifer’s hand in your own, a bold move.

“Just think about it as a gift,” you tell him, “A thank you for the lovely day we’ve had.”

You inwardly cringe, knowing that when you recount today at the lobby bar your drinking buddies are going to tear you a new one for that corny line. But it fits for Lucifer; he’s bringing out a side of you that you really haven’t seen in a while.

“Thank you uh, gorgeous,” he tacks on the pet name like even he isn’t sure about it, and with his hand still in yours, attempts to lean against a sculpture, stumbling as he misses it and bringing you along with him. He tugs you by the arm, jerking you closer to him. He’s majorly out of practice.

“I have a studio upstairs if you want to see more?” you offer, not really sure if you thought that through.

“More art? Absolutely!” He recovers quickly, enthusiasm dripping from his voice.

You smile as you pull him towards the hallway, butterflies in your stomach as it dawns on you that he’s going to be the only person besides you to see the studio.

You and Lucifer end up staying there until Charlie calls him the next morning.

You notice paint on his chin after you get back to the hotel.

#lucifer x reader #lucifer morningstar x reader #hazbin lucifer x reader

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zepskies · 10 months ago

Text

Big & Tall

Pairing: Sam Winchester x F. Reader

Summary: You steal Sam’s shirt. But that simple theft comes at a big price.

Request: Can you write something where Sam notices the reader wearing his shirt?

Song Inspo: “Look At You” by Screaming Trees

Word Count: 2,200

Warnings: 18+ only to be safe. Fluff, thievery, kitchen shenanigans, implied smut, tinge of angst and feels.

It was an honest mistake, really.

After the latest hunt, Sam graciously offered to let you wash your clothes here in the bunker (since most of them were bloodstained). You had to pull a finished load from the dryer before you could use it, not knowing if it was Sam or Dean’s clothes you were shoving into a nearby basket.

When you later went back for your clothes in the dryer, you’d apparently grabbed one of Sam’s black undershirts in all the fabric shuffling.

An accident. Though you hadn’t realized it until you were back in the comfort of your borrowed room in the bunker, sitting on your bed and folding your laundry.

You pulled out one of those big-and-talls and took one good look—and you knew it could only fit perfectly on Sam Winchester’s extra-long torso.

A smile unconsciously drew across your face.

You knew you should just bring it over to him. His room was a mere two doors down the hall…but instead, you gave into the quiet, secret urge to fold it up and put it with the rest of your laundry, knowing full well you were going to use it from now on as a sleep shirt.

The thing was so long it reached halfway down your thighs. (AKA: the perfect length.) But you really didn’t think he would miss an old-ass undershirt like this one.

The next morning, you made sure you were dressed in some pajama pants, your most comfortable bra, and an old college shirt before you ventured out of your room and into the kitchen.

Predictably, Sam was already up and dressed for the day, making some coffee. It was early enough that Dean was likely asleep, or at least still getting himself together.

Sam turned and greeted you with a smile. “Morning.”

“Mhmm,” you nodded groggily, though you offered him a “pleasant” smile before you accepted a coffee mug from him.

Sam’s smile deepened slightly. He knew you weren’t a morning person. He sipped at his own mug while you held yours with both hands, raising it slowly to your lips. You closed your eyes at its hazelnut warmth; trust him to stock the fridge with your favorite creamer. You hummed in delight.

Sam’s gaze was warm on you too, though you didn’t realize it.

“Hey, uh…we’re running low on stuff. Want to go somewhere for breakfast?” he asked.

You met his gaze and had to stifle your smile this time.

“Sure,” you nodded. “Want to wait for Dean?”

Sam shrugged. “We can bring him something back.”

Interesting. Your smile grew, despite your best efforts.

“Okay. Let me just get dressed,” you said.

And maybe you’d put a little makeup on, fix your frizzy bedhead. Apparently you and Sam were going on a brunch date.

Not a real one though, you rolled your eyes at yourself as you trekked down the hall. You had known the Winchesters for a couple of years now, and had gone through some real scrapes together whenever they needed your help, or vice versa. They were quickly becoming part of your people. Your family.

…But never more than that, it seemed.

Your smile slowly fell before you reached your room. You just couldn’t know that Sam was staring after you, down the hall, with a similar contemplation on his face.

“Think Dean’ll crap his pants when he sees the Impala’s gone?” you remarked. You were the passenger while Sam drove. You knew he must've been savoring this, as it was one of the few times he’d ever sat in that seat.

“I left him a note,” Sam replied in amusement.

“Aw, damn,” you teased. “Here I thought we were going on Mission Impossible.”

He shook his head, but his smile kicked up at the corners. He paused when something occurred to him.

“Hey, by the way.” He turned to you in askance. “Did you happen to see one of my shirts when you were doing laundry yesterday?”

You perked up internally, but you tried to school your features into something more nonchalant. Casual. Yeah.

“Uh, no,” you replied. Somehow, even that small lie made you feel a prickle of guilt. “What color was it?”

“Black,” he said. Good thing he was focused on pulling into the diner’s parking lot, and not on your blushing face. “Can’t seem to find it.”

You averted your gaze and bit the inside of your lip so you wouldn’t smile.

“Sorry, haven’t seen it. I’ll keep a lookout though.”

After a nice morning with Sam (you brought back a breakfast burrito for Dean), you spent the rest of the day catching up on Game of Thrones with the brothers.

It was nice to have a rare day off, even if you spent most of it trying to ignore how your thigh was resting against Sam’s. How you could feel his warmth radiating from his arm, laid behind your head on the couch, and how if you’d just leaned over a few inches, you could’ve been resting against his flannel-covered chest.

God. You’re such a girl, you inwardly lamented at yourself. Fucking c’est la vie.

At their insistence, you spent another night at the bunker while you rested up. That werewolf hunt had been particularly brutal on everyone, especially your wounded side. It was already starting to heal, but would definitely be uncomfortable while driving.

Now, ordinarily you weren’t one to let that keep you down…though it did give you an excuse to stay a little while longer.

When you all finally called it a night, you took a long, hot shower and pulled on the shirt over your underwear. It now kind of felt like contraband, but that thought also amused you. It also made you feel closer to him, in whatever small, pathetic way.

You spent the next couple of hours trying and failing to fall asleep in your room. You tried listening to music, daydreaming, even counting damn sheep for what that was worth, but your brain was wide awake.

You blew out an irritated sigh into the darkness and silence.

And then your stomach growled. Ugh, fine!

You got up. It was late enough at night that you didn’t bother changing clothes, lest you be spotted by a wild moose. You just padded out barefooted down the hall and into the kitchen, where you raided the fridge.

Geez, Sam was right about them being low on options, you thought as you perused a damn near empty fridge. There was milk and creamer, a couple cases of beer (of course), some crumpled ketchup packets, and a half-eaten burger that already had something fuzzy growing on it.

This is just sad. You grimaced, but you stuck your head in closer to see if you could find anything in the back. If you only knew about the hot gaze on your ass.

“Midnight snack?”

The voice, though familiar, startled the shit out of you. You banged your head on the edge of the freezer door when you jumped on reflex. You cried out and your hand flew to the back of your head, just before a larger hand covered yours.

You glanced up at found Sam’s handsome face—very apologetic, but somehow silently laughing.

“Uh, sorry. You okay?” he asked.

“Y-Yeah,” you replied. You faltered a bit as you realized how close he’d gotten, staring down at you with those earnest hazel eyes. But those eyes soon dipped and took in the rest of you…clad in only a black shirt that brushed your bare thighs.

You watched it start to compute on his face, in the tilt of his head, and the subtle raise of his brows.

“Is that my shirt?” he asked.

Your lips twitched, despite your blushing embarrassment.

“No,” you replied.

His gaze flicked up to yours. He smiled a little incredulously.

He knew you were a filthy liar. But you slipped your hand from under his and crossed your arms under your breasts, leading him to drop his hand from your hair.

“It’s soft…and comfy,” you said lamely. And you wished it smelled like him.

Sam was amused, and a little surprised…and undoubtedly turned on. He couldn’t help but notice your bare legs, the smooth expanse of skin, the suggestion of curves under his shirt, and the firm peaks of your nipples through the fabric.

“Okay. You can keep it,” he said, when his gaze finally drew back up to yours. “For a price.”

Your face felt hot. Your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth for a moment, but somehow you managed to answer him.

“Name it,” you said gamely. Your stance became an unspoken challenge.

Sam’s lips drew closer to a smile.

He reached for your chin and tilted your face up towards his. There was a moment of uncertainty there, as if he was giving you time to pull away, if you wanted to.

The truth was, you were holding your breath. It felt like you’d been waiting a small eternity for this exact moment.

Your arms uncrossed. Slowly you reached for him, grabbing onto the front of his blue flannel, and he bent down to you. When his lips finally touched yours, it almost short-circuited your brain. You inhaled deeply and melted a bit, raising your hand to the back of his head to keep him there.

You felt the gentle way he caressed your cheek, and later the strength in his hands when he molded them to the curve of your waist and pulled you in close. You wrapped your arms around his neck in response, and the kiss became a fierce, sloppy meeting of lips.

His tongue swept across your bottom lip and sought entrance. You welcomed him in with a wordless moan.

Your fingers slipped into his hair, nails grazing his scalp. It earned you a deep sound of pleasure from his mouth into yours. Soon enough, those same strong hands were roaming down your waist and hips, then squeezing your ass, and pressing you against the hard planes of his body. You also felt the hardening length of him against your stomach.

“Sam,” you gasped against his lips.

That seemed to pull him out of the frenzied haze. Panting for breath though he was, he broke from you, pulling away far enough to look down at you with furrowed brows. There was a question in his eyes that he still voiced.

“Too much?” he asked.

It was a loaded question, but you thought you could read them all.

Do you want this? Do you really want me? We can stop…

Your answer was simple. You pulled yourself up on your toes and claimed his lips with a devouring kiss. Sam’s eyes closed on a sharp inhale, but his hold on you tightened again. He bent down to move his hands down the back of your thighs, and he squeezed twice, wordlessly encouraging you to jump for him.

You had electricity in your veins and a warm pulsing between your thighs. In your frazzled state, you did your best to jump up, but he helped you the rest of the way. You were able to wrap your legs around his waist, though you let out a small yelp at being vaulted so high.

Now you had the rare privilege of looking down at Sam’s amused face. You smiled down at him, caressing his cheek.

“I think I want a tour of your room,” you said.

“Good,” Sam replied. Despite the care he took in how he held you, you saw the hunger in his eyes. “I could go for a midnight snack.”

You couldn’t help but giggle at that. You clung to his shoulders as he carried you down the hall and into his room, where he locked the door behind him.

The man was a furnace, you discovered, after your skin was dewy and glistening against his, and the sheets laid tangled between your bare legs.

He held you to his chest while he recovered on his back. You rested there, just enjoying the sound of his heartbeat slowly coming down from its race. His fingertips traced lazy patterns up and down your naked back.

Sam had taken great pleasure in tossing the shirt along with his other clothes onto the floor. Your panties had been flung to parts unknown.

You smiled at the thought, while your nails made delicate tracks of their own across his slightly furry chest.

“What’re you thinking?” he asked you. Quiet and steady.

With a sigh, you pushed up onto your elbow on his pillow, so you could see his face. Your hand found his cheek. There his stubble pricked against your palm, and you drew your thumb tenderly across his his lower lip.

“I’m hoping you want more from this than one…very awesome night,” you confessed.

Sam smiled, reaching up to grasp your wrist gently. It was a different kind of touch, where just a few moments ago, he’d pushed your body damn near to its limits. And yet, he knew his own strength. Controlled, even in his bed.

“Yeah, I do,” he replied, though his eyes gradually fell from your face. “I’ll be honest, it uh…scares me a little.”

“What does?” you asked with a frown. You waited until he looked up at you again.

“This matters to me,” he said at last. “You matter to me.”

And the people that mattered all too often got taken away from him.

Your throat constricted. Because in his wary eyes, you could almost see the thoughts that were likely plaguing his mind. Things that might’ve kept him from this night with you for so long.

In that moment, you made a decision. You lowered down to press a gentler kiss to his lips.

“Then let’s give it a try,” you said.

AN: It got a little angstier than I intended there at the end lol, but I went with it! I so hope you guys enjoy this. I love me some Sam. 💜

Sam Winchester Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Ko-Fi Me ☕

Sam W. Tag List:

@kazsrm67 @letheatheodore @agothwithheavysetmakeup @jacklesbrainworms @foxyjwls007 @wincastifer @iamsapphine @simpforbuckyb @roseblue373 @brianochka @branj19 @globetrotter28 @charmed-asylum @waywardxwords

@deanwinchestersgirl87 @this-is-me19 @rachiem4-blog @sweettimelady @leigh70 @clinicallydepresso @emily-winchester @xiphoidbones @skoveu @nyotamalfoy @kmc1989 @siampie @violetlilysunshine @nic-kolas @hobby27 @idiotdyslexic

@pizzagirlxnsfwx @malindacath @brujaporfavor @torchbearerkyle @sleepyqueerenergy @wayward-lost-and-never-found @thewritersaddictions @just-levyy @samanddeaninatrenchcoat @deanwanddamons @antisocialcorrupt @lacilou @deans-daydream @adoringanakin @sanscas @pap3rtigers @kaleldobrev @nix-rose @angelbabyyy99 @jackles010378

#big and tall #sam winchester #sam winchester x reader #sam winchester x you #sam winchester x female reader #spn #reader request #stealing Sam's shirt #supernatural #sam winchester smuttish #fluff #tinge of angst #zepskies writes

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stxrvel · 1 year ago

Text

hate is a strong word

summary: you hated Bucky and you were convinced that he hated you back. until one time he was talking to you and it started to sound... lovely? what was happening?

pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader

words: 6k

warnings: some bad words, a lot of arguments, a HUGE flashback, a little bit of angst i think? bucky and reader insult each other, reader doesn't like to listen, bucky is easily angered, bucky likes to destroy things when he gets angry but regrets it easily, this is not exactly a healthy relationship(? descriptions of weapons, missiles and buildings being bombed, reader is also very stubborn and likes to put her life at risk… or so.

note: hi guys!! so i came back and i am kinda proud of this one. i think i haven't felt that way in a long time. i gave myself the time to write when i felt like it and it was wonderful, so this came out. also i put the poll for a whole week and i can't change it now >:(, but i think this onsehot fits the angst with a happy ending (im not sure if this fits the angst tho, you gotta tell me) but im gonna try to do something else that fits the vibe, and i'll probably do some other poll to write about someone else. (also i think i should warn you guys that i dont think im that good writing action scenes or tension scenes, so if that's bad i hope you forgive me): anyway, hope you guys like this one!! i love reading your comments so if you want and can, please leave some <33 love you all and see you next time!

part 2

Bucky was really pissing you off too much at that moment. Or maybe you were feeling a little uncomfortable.

He hadn't spoken a single word to you since you had arrived at that tiny house, only shrugged silently and then exploded. You had seen Bucky explode several times before and you admitted that watching him was somewhat entertaining; seeing the faces of frightened people, trying to flee away from his angry face and destructive hands, but physically forced to stand by and listen to his scolding. You used to have fun with that. However, at the time, when you were the extreme recipient of that anger, it wasn't so much fun.

You had already heard a couple of broken glass, shattered wood and metal containers fall to the ground. Maybe five minutes or so had passed and he was barely pausing to look at his artwork. It wasn't too much that he had taken and thrown while you had stayed in the room, but it had all sounded very loud, so you had no choice but to go out and see what he was doing.

You were leaning against the threshold of the hallway to the bedrooms, right across from the living room and kitchen. Bucky looked like he had just finished getting all his anger out when he finally stood silently. He probably thought you were asleep while he was doing all that, as if that sound couldn't wake you up. Was he really that angry about what you had done? You mean, yes, it was very risky, but there you were alive, weren't you?

You felt the best thing you could do was to stay quiet and wait for him to say or do something, because you could risk that angry outburst really coming down in your face. For that moment he had only taken it out on the house, which had nothing to do with your problems, and you didn't want the arguments to start filling the silence that followed his stillness.

But, well, you didn't always do the right thing. That's why you were in that situation in the first place.

“Are you done yet?” you signed your sentence.

Bucky had a tense posture, squared shoulders moving in rhythm with his accelerated breathing. His back was to you, staring at the kitchen counter that had been left completely empty. You knew by the way he was clasping his hands that he was trying to maintain his composure.

“Are you serious?” his voice came out hoarse, a sign of his growing anger.

Maybe you should have stopped there, or when he continued to not turn to look at you, but you just couldn't keep your mouth shut.

“What's your problem, Barnes? Yes, I took a chance, but it's not that big of a deal. It's not for this,” you pointed to the mess around you, even though he wasn't looking at you.

“It's not a big deal, you say?” Bucky moved and you felt yourself watching his angry figure move in slow motion. “What's your problem?”

His beady eyes met yours. You felt a little intimidated by the ripples of annoyance coming off his body, filling the entire room with an unbearable, suffocating tension. His scowl and that strangely calm tone of voice made your hair stand on end.

None of the pieces of glass or splintered wood on the floor looked as dangerous as that expression on Bucky's face. He looked very angry, yes, but there was also something in his eyes when he looked at you. Something like concern… but that was impossible.

“Really, Y/N, what's your problem? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“Now, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“I was the mission leader!” his voice rose, his body moving forward as he pointed his index finger at himself. “And you were supposed to follow my orders.”

“I did, Barnes, I-”

“No,” he exclaimed, again moving closer. “You didn't do anything I asked you to do! Why can't you just…? Argh.”

You moved back a little as he planted his hands on the dining room table. You felt a little pressure in your chest at the sight of him like this, as if defeated and hopeless. Disappointed. But that was a common thing. That's why you used to have individual missions, and that's why you didn't really like working in a team. You mean, it wasn't wrong to do it, but everything always ended up in arguments because nobody liked the way you worked, so it was better to do it alone, right?

Seeing Bucky like that reminded you of how many times you had seen that look on the faces of Steve, Natasha, Tony, Clint, even Thor… It was never welcome nor were you comfortable with what was coming next, but it was the way you worked, how could you change out of nowhere something you had done your whole life?

Maybe you just had to apologize, sometimes that worked. Because you also knew that, knowing how bossy and caring Bucky was, you should have at least held back a little during the mission. Bucky's patience couldn't stand that sort of thing.

“Listen, I'm sorry, okay? I was a little careless, but that's how-”

“A little careless?” he interrupted you, his voice and face incredulous. "You almost got yourself killed."

“We're in this job under that risk, Barnes, that's not news.”

The man in the middle of the mess ran his hands over his face, elated, frustrated and surely overwhelmed. He let out a sound somewhere between a snort and a growl before turning back to look at you.

“Why can't you just listen?”

His accusing gaze enlarged a hole in your chest that you constantly tried to ignore, planting bitter feelings of sadness that you were usually very good at avoiding. But at that moment, for some reason, you couldn't stop your face from twitching at the strong, hurt tone of the man who looked at you as if he couldn't believe who you are and what you do. It seemed like Bucky was always in denial and today he realized that what everyone always told him was true.

That look, that dull gleam in his eye, that expression of understanding… All of that you were used to seeing, but coming from him it felt different. As if you hadn't really meant to cause those feelings, as if you wanted to turn back time to do things differently. The surprisingly incredulous and remorseful look was digging deep into your head, searing itself with hot iron to make sure to haunt you in the future.

At that moment you didn't care if Bucky realized how much his words affected you. Maybe you deserved to feel that way. Maybe he should have known that it affected you too much, that would surely do more than an apology.

“If only you had listened to me, we would have left sooner and without any trouble,” Bucky spoke again after what felt like hours of silence.

You couldn't take him back. It was true.

“Why did you…? Argh. Whatever. I'm going to report to Fury.”

His figure passed you like a blur. You barely felt his presence very superficially before all was silent again.

Your heart ached again. For some reason, it wouldn't stop hurting that it was still beating.

The day before.

“WHAT?” you exclaimed in disbelief and the director's tired look reappeared.

“It's already scheduled, Y/N, I can't undo it. So just go, try to cooperate together and come back in one piece,” Fury leaned back against the back of the chair, putting his feet up on the desk.

You looked at his shoes as if they were to blame for everything.

“It's funnier to think Bucky reacted the same way,” Tony spoke up, sitting in the chair next to yours, a mocking expression on his face.

“Shut up,” you smacked his arm before turning back to the director. “Sir, you know Barnes and I don't get along and knowing that, what makes you think we'll hit it off on a mission?”

Fury shrugged. “A hunch.”

“A hunch…?” you repeated in a low tone, twice as incredulous that the big SHIELD director had just said that.

“That's it, agent, you're dismissed.”

You left his office on your own, not because you had been dispatched. The walk to the housing complex took you longer than ever at that point.

You'd only had one mission with Bucky Barnes once a couple of years ago and it had been a disaster. Your group missions usually ended with a close call, but that time with Bucky it was like going to hell and back.

You two had never gotten along. Regardless of Fury's hundreds of attempts to get along, you had never managed to vibrate on the same frequency. It seemed more like you repelled each other every time you were together, and it was totally justified because Bucky was too bossy and wouldn't let you breathe for a single second. Every second of the mission had to be ruled by him because otherwise he was going to explode into a sea of rage and, God, no one wanted to piss Bucky off in that Complex. However, you were always the first to tell him that his tactics weren't working or that he was too slow and well, naturally, you ended up arguing.

You met Natasha and Steve halfway to the rooms and from the way they both looked at each other before the redhead approached you knew you must surely have a scrunched up face.

“Did something happen?” Natasha asked as soon as she reached your side and started walking at the same pace as you, slightly more hurried than usual.

“Fury assigned me a mission with Barnes,” you spat out the good news, impossibly frowning harder at the mention of that name.

“Oh,” Natasha nodded. “Well, you could try to work things out-”

“What things, Natasha?” you paused, turning to look at her as everything around you turned red. “There's nothing to fix here, because Barnes is a stubborn, obstinate, childish, bossy, stupid man who is incapable of speaking like a civilized adult and only knows how to shout orders everywhere as if he's the bossy one in the Complex. I can't stand him!”

“Wow.”

You heard his voice.

“I hope you know the feeling is reciprocated.”

You turned to see him, his body was leaning against the island at the entrance to the kitchen, in a strategic spot as if you could never realize he was there because your path was to the other side. Natasha watched between the two of you like a tennis match, fearful as if at any moment the screaming would start and she would have to run away.

You didn't know what to do. You were super angry, yes, and you felt your blood boiling inside your veins, too. And you'd said all that stuff to Bucky's face before, and God knows how many times before you'd argued just by seeing each other in the halls of the Complex. Despite that, you felt trapped. The anger was still there, yes, but his gaze pierced through you like a sword.

“Believe me, I don't want to go on this mission with a stubborn, obstinate, headstrong, ignorant, individualist like you either, who cares not for the safety of the team but for her own victory, no matter how she achieves it.”

With his eyes sharp, his heavy footsteps approached you, echoing in your head loudly like the second hand of a clock. He had stopped at a safe distance as he spoke and at one point Natasha had grabbed your arm when it seemed you had tried to approach him as well.

“You're a hypocrite,” you spat at him.

“Ha! Me?”

“You always play the saintly dove, but you know you're not much different from me.”

“I'm nothing like you,” Bucky wrinkled his face, as if the very thought caused him to shiver with disgust.

“You're an individualist, too, imposing your plans on others.”

“You never have a plan! What do you expect me to do, let you go and die?”

“I do have plans! But you don't like them because they are more effective than yours.”

“They're more effective at the cost of risking more of our lives.”

“That's what our job is all about!”

“Our job is about protecting! How are you going to accomplish a mission if you're dead?”

“Well, I've done pretty well so far, in case you haven't noticed.”

“If I had a nickel for every time you've gone airhead straight into danger and ended up nowhere near dead, I'd have as much money as Stark.”

“And if I had a nickel for every time your stupid, slow plans have caused you to lose sight of the target and made you come back empty-handed, I'd be twice as rich as Stark.”

“At least my kill rate is minus five.”

“And my hit rate is one hundred by the way.”

“Are you even listening to what you're saying?”

“That I always finish missions on the first try, unlike you?”

“That you're treating your life like it's something insignificant.”

“Ah, now you care about my life?”

Natasha tightened her hand around your forearm again preventing you from again getting too close to the man who was getting on your nerves. Before he could respond, you spoke again:

“Look, Barnes, to make it absolutely clear to you for the rest of your long life: I love my life and I love my job. I love my life because it allows me to have this job and I love my job because it allows me to have this life. If you have a problem with how I choose to do the job, that's just that, your problem. But don't think you're coming here to give me a psychology lesson to make me believe that I don't value my life just because now you've run out of arguments. It's because I value my life, Barnes, that I always come out of every mission unscathed. I don't put myself at risk because I'm oblivious. I always have everything figured out and that's why everything always works out for me.”

Bucky snorted, his body moving away from yours, but despite that expression on his face he didn't respond again. He gave you a sidelong glance before walking back into the kitchen.

Your shoulders felt a little lighter. For a moment you thought he was going to continue arguing.

Natasha next to you sighed, finally letting go of your forearm.

“Why did you hold me so tight?” you frowned at her, rubbing the part of your skin that was slightly red. “Did you really think I was going to fight a super soldier?”

Natasha shrugged under your gaze.

“We've known you to do crazy things.”

“I wouldn't have stood a chance of beating him even if he gave me the upper hand.”

Five hours earlier.

You hadn't seen Bucky for the rest of the day after that discussion, until the next day when you had to get on the Quinjet and didn't even glance at each other.

Steve was in charge of handling the airplane and, apparently, he was also in charge of briefing you on how you were going to proceed on the mission, because Bucky was too busy drilling holes with his gaze somewhere else on the Quinjet away from the two of you.

Neither spoke when you descended nor when you approached the base apparently in a state of abandonment.

Bucky's mission were flat and simple, but as usual he had no backup plan, because all his backup plans were the same: run away. Bucky had a chick's sense of survival, that's why when things went bad was the time when he would scream at you the loudest.

Just like it happened on that mission.

“This place is deadly quiet,” you spoke for the first time, barely earning a sidelong glance from the man next to you.

You had already finished thermo-sensor checking every floor of the building and it was indeed desolate. Still, you felt a strange uncomfortable chill run down your back.

“Well, that's what deserted means,” Bucky commented, his sarcasm sharp.

You rolled your eyes at him, even if he couldn't see you, and kept walking with your gun raised as you approached the checkpoint.

“I mean I can't even hear birds or crickets, doesn't that strike you as odd?”

“Well, we're on the fourth floor, wouldn't it make it stranger if you could hear them at this altitude?”

“Well, you can hear at this height. Tell me, do you hear anything down below?”

Bucky paused. They were a few steps away from reaching the room. His deadly stare caused you nothing but boredom and you would have ignored him completely except that he let out a sigh, dejected. You detailed him minutely as he seemed to focus his hearing on external sounds.

“There's nothing,” he spoke after a few seconds, his brow slightly furrowed.

“You see?”

“But that doesn't mean anything. We'd better finish this quickly.”

Ignoring the grimace on your face, Bucky moved to step into the room whose door was wide open. You stared offended at his back and felt the urge to smack his big head with the butt of your gun.

“Here it is,” you heard him exclaim from inside.

Sighing you made your way to where he stood. A large display of old computers anchored to the wall.

“You should do it yourself,” you looked at Bucky with a smirk. “I don't handle equipment this old.”

Bucky only snorted in response and moved with his gun to another side of the room, leaving you in complete silence to do your job.

You moved quietly and sat down in front of the machines. You plugged them into the power source you brought in your suitcase and in a few minutes they began to work.

The mission was simple. There was one of the old HYDRA bases that contained specific information that Fury needed to find. Up to that point, they had searched about seven abandoned bases without any success. So there you were with Bucky, at the eighth base they had identified, digging through old commands and in another language trying to find the information they needed.

Ever since they left the Complex that morning you were convinced you would find nothing. They had already raided several bases and there were still a few more to go. The probability that you would find that information at that time was…

Bingo.

“Got it,” you exclaimed to Bucky.

You heard his hurried footsteps and then felt the warmth of his body next to you.

“Is that it?”

“Just a folder.”

“And why does it load so slowly?”

“It's an old computer, Bucky, it works at its own pace.”

Bucky gave you a sidelong glance. “Wish you understood me like you understand that thing.”

“Aish,” you pouted by way of mockery. “Jealous, Barnes?”

The aforementioned just snorted.

The load was running at forty percent and truth be told, yes, it was too slow. But you could do nothing but wait, there was no way to speed it up.

Bucky paced back and forth behind you and you just watched the green lines move as if that helped at all. But, well, what else could you do?

At one point, as the charge was about to reach eighty percent, you heard interference on your communicators.

“Argh,” you shook your head and raised your hand to move the device a little away until the sound died down. “Steve?”

There was no response.

You turned to look at Bucky, who had the same quizzical expression.

The interference returned and then you heard Steve's voice distorted.

“… of… moment!”

“What the fuck is he saying?”

Bucky remained silent, tapping the device on his ear as if that would fix it.

But you saw it before you heard Steve's voice again.

A clump of people through the window. A freshly loaded cannon.

“Barnes…”

And at that moment, Steve's voice filled them with clarity.

“It's an ambush! Get out of there now!”

The quickness of the impact didn't let you process what was happening. Less than a second after hearing Steve the ground shook beneath your feet. The cracks in the floor started small and then swallowed you apart.

You held onto a beam, barely lucid enough. You propelled yourself upward, swinging your forearms over the patch of ground that was still intact. You heard Bucky's grunts in the distance. He was surely all right.

You heard him call out to you too, but as soon as you could sit down on the ground, the first thing you did was to reach for the pendrive.

Your heart was pounding, so hard it might as well have flown out on its own. Your breathing accelerated, with adrenaline rushing through your body was the only thing you could feel. At that moment you felt capable of anything.

You stood up quickly to look out the window again. The people were gone and the cannon had been destroyed.

It was at that moment that you realized that Steve was still talking on the communicator.

“I'm fine,” you replied, after being able to decipher his words amidst the constant buzzing from the sound of the explosion and the dizziness you felt at the sight of the hole next to you.

“Okay, you're both fine,” the Captain spoke again.

“Y/N, you can get down from there and get to the floor below. I'll catch you.”

At the sound of Bucky's voice, you moved away from the window.

Bucky had landed on the floor below, and yes, from where you were you could jump up and you'd probably have nothing but a cramp.

“How's it going up there?”

“Well, the shields are holding up okay, but I've got poor vision. I think they're regrouping somewhere else.”

You looked around.

Most of the floor had swallowed up the computers, but the main one was still loading the document. You could see the green from where you were. It was at ninety-seven percent.

But it was dangerous to get too close. The pendrive was dangling from the main computer which was about to succumb to the cracked floor.

There was some concrete left in front of the computers that you could walk across, so, without a second thought, you mapped out a mental guidance plan and moved forward.

“Y/N, what the fuck are you doing?”

“I'm getting the pendrive.”

“What? Are you insane? That side of the floor isn't going to support your weight!”

“Yes it will. I know how to do it.”

You started walking all over the remaining edge of the floor in front of what was left of the computers. Small pieces would break off as you passed causing Bucky to hiss.

“Y/N, you'd better stop and get down right now. There's still a risk of them firing again.”

“I'm gonna get it, Barnes.”

“Y/N! Get down, now!”

Ignoring his command, you held onto the remaining wall in front of you as you continued on your way, almost reaching where the pendrive was, about to fall into the abyss.

Ninety-eight percent.

“Y/N!”

“Fucking hell, Barnes, will you shut the fuck up? Your yelling is breaking my concentration.”

“You want me to just stay quiet while you walk to your certain death?”

“I'm not going to dieee- ahh-”

Your left foot, the one in front, wobbled as a piece of the floor came loose. You clung tightly to the wall as best you could, breathing deeply to calm your racing heart. Panicking at that moment wasn't going to do any good.

“God, I can't believe this,” you heard Bucky's voice, muttering to himself. “Now are you really going to get off?”

His voice sounded reprimanding, but agitated. In the midst of that mess, you wondered for a moment if he was really worried.

“I'm almost there.”

You heard him grunt in the distance.

You kept moving your feet in the direction of the main computer, this time more cautiously and more slowly. The floor all along that edge was too cracked, on the verge of falling. You were surprised it had lasted this long.

At that point, Bucky started talking to Steve, but you kept your full concentration on not falling. Maybe Bucky was right and you really didn't have any regard for your life, but…. No, no. You were very sure of what you were doing. You couldn't give up without trying everything. Maybe for Bucky it was too risky, but that was your life. And you knew you could do it.

Ninety-nine.

You had reached the critical point on the ground.

The voices of the two men were becoming too overwhelming, so you quickly took off your communicator and stuffed it in one of your tactical pants pockets.

“What the fuck did you just do?” Bucky exclaimed, a considerable distance away. He wasn't as far away as you thought.

“Your voices are distracting me!”

Good. You were close. Maybe from there you could reach it… if you stretched a little… a little more… a little- Whoop. Nope. You weren't that close. Another chunk of floor fell and with it everything around you shifted. The concrete was so unstable that it tilted further into the abyss after your not at all incredible maneuver.

You had to get even closer.

You had to use plan c.

But for that, the pendrive had to be one hundred percent charged and you weren't sure you could wait for that. Or well, you weren't sure the floor would hold. You had to be quick.

You heard Bucky behind you, but his words were carried away by the wind. You couldn't focus on him because that would be too distracting.

So, arriving at point x, you executed your plan as quickly as possible.

You ran. Even if the world was falling down, you ran. In the direction of the pendrive. The green number didn't change. You took a deep breath. You felt the sparks fly around you. The sound of the ground cracking was going to haunt you in several dreams.

You picked up the pendrive. You would have a few extra seconds as you leaned over and climbed over the computers to gain momentum.

The bing of the computer filled you with a rush of adrenaline.

One hundred percent.

You jumped. You held your breath for a second. Nerves built up in your throat. You felt like you were going to lose consciousness for a minute. Maybe you heard Bucky in the background, you weren't sure, but knowing him he was probably still scolding you.

In the midst of a deep exhalation…

Your feet hit the ground. You rolled. You moved quickly as you turned to see that the ground was still falling. You got up and ran.

You ran until you collided with a solid body. Bucky was shaking your shoulders.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" he exclaimed, his face angry.

You could hear Steve's voice through his communicator because of how close he was.

“Shit.”

He grabbed your arm and you ran again.

Somehow, Bucky managed to get you out of the building as they bombed it again. You had a gunfight the moment you touched the cold snow.

You moved alongside Bucky like a symphony, aiming and firing with your gun until you managed to get away.

When you noticed that you kept going and kept running…

“Where's Steve?”

“If you had your fucking communicator on…”

Bucky grabbed your hand again to keep running.

You quickly reached a shack that looked abandoned and the man next to you wasted no time in letting go of you and running in the direction of what appeared to be a garage. There was a motorcycle.

You reached into your pocket only to realize that the communicator had been destroyed.

And Bucky looked too angry to want to talk.

“Get on.”

He drove all the way into town, but he didn't stop there.

You were on the road for at least about two hours. You had no idea where you were.

Somewhere along that trip, Bucky stopped in front of another abandoned shack and from there he pulled out a car. He set the bike on fire.

You went back on the road, for at least another hour.

Until you reached a small town and Bucky finally stopped in front of a house that didn't look so neglected.

“They destroyed the Quinjet's shields at missile point. Steve had to leave. We'll stay here until I can get through to Fury and we know what to do.”

His voice gave no room for retorts.

Present.

Well, yes, you were a bit reckless during missions, but so what? You got what you needed thanks to your incredible action plans and always came out unscathed. If you didn't do that during missions, how far behind would they be now in their knowledge against the enemy? They would probably be sitting ducks. Bucky didn't see that.

You two didn't talk for much of the afternoon and evening. You had spent it in the living room, trying to avoid the mess he had made to get something to eat and rest. You had perhaps slept for about three hours when you woke up and saw him sitting in one of the dining room chairs. The room looked cleaner than before.

Bucky sighed when he realized you had woken up.

“I'm sorry I yelled at you.”

You frowned. “What?”

“Earlier when we arrived. And for all the mess,” he averted his gaze when you leaned on your forearm to get a better look at him.

“Don't you think it was the least you could do?” quizzical, you sat back on the couch.

“Weren't you the one who said I don't know how to talk like a civilized adult?”

You rolled your eyes at him. “Sometimes.”

“Well, now I want to. That's why I deeply apologize for reacting that way.”

You remained silent, not really knowing how to answer him. On the previous mission you'd had with Bucky, when the whole mess was over and you were quietly in the Quinjet taking it all in, Bucky had only said “you're fucking crazy” to you before exiting the aircraft. There was no scolding, at least not from him, no complaining, no yelling. Just that. And with that you stayed for a week because you never even saw him again.

Despite the number of times you had heard that, you couldn't see it that way. That was your job, that was what you did and you didn't dislike it. You had done it forever, it was basically your way of life and you had always done it excellently. You trained and practiced for situations like that, that's why you were part of SHIELD's risk management team for so long. You used to risk your life like that to save other people and it didn't bother you. Now you were still doing it, also to save people. There was no dark reason behind it. You were contributing to a common good and that was enough.

“I guess I haven't made things bearable for you either,” you admitted with a hint of remorse.

“No, never,” Bucky shook his head in agreement.

“I'm sorry I scared you,” the words slipped from your mouth. You wanted to say something else, but, well, that had to work.

Bucky let out a short laugh. His head jerked in sync, his shoulders loose as if he didn't have a care in the world. For a moment you felt like you were somewhere else; maybe in a living room, some alcoholic beverage in one of your hands as one of your favorite songs played softly in the background, and Bucky. Bucky sitting in front of you, just like that moment.

Wow. What the fuck was that?

“You apologize for my reaction, but not for what you did?” his sly grin was getting on your nerves. You preferred it when he wasn't trying to upset you at the point of smirks. You never thought that was a weapon he could use against you.

Feelings.

Ew.

No, I hate Bucky Barnes. This is unacceptable. Mind, get your shit together.

“Well, I tried to do that earlier and you didn't care. I don't know what you want from me, Barnes,” you turned your head away, nonchalantly playing with your hair to avoid seeing those light eyes again.

“You'd better leave it at that. I couldn't take that knack away from you if I tried for years,” the sigh that accompanied his words reminded you of something you'd thought of when you were in the building. His face still looked calm, but a little upset by the wrinkle between his eyebrows.

“Why do you care so much about that?” you asked him directly now that you had the chance.

You looked at him as he turned his head away, his eyes roaming over your face, confused.

“Are you asking me why I care about your life?”

Puzzled, you shrugged. His look almost made you think that was a weird thing to ask, but was it really? “Yes. Well…. You hate me.”

“What? I don't hate you,” Bucky shook his head, his face more contracted than before as if you'd said he had cat ears on his head. He looked almost offended.

And that was the really strange thing.

You mean, almost as long as you'd known Bucky your relationship had been based on fights and demeaning adjectives to each other. That he would say that made even less sense than you asking him why he cared so much about you. He had to be pulling your leg.

“What? But I hate you because you hate me,” you explained vaguely, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. That was one way of putting it; that is to say, Bucky never gave any indication that he didn't hate you. Or well…

“I don't hate you,” Bucky shrugged, his nonchalant expression confusing you that much more. “You're just a little… insufferable sometimes.”

You rolled your eyes. “That's just a synonym for hating.”

“I don't hate you,” he repeated, this time turning to look you in the eye. For a moment you felt like your breath caught in your throat and you were going to choke. “I know we argue and say a lot of things to each other, but… hating is too strong a feeling.”

“Are you really serious?” you shook your head to get the extraneous thoughts out; that wasn't the time to make a discovery, to realize you had lived a lie.

“Yes. And just to make you more sure, I wouldn't mind hanging out with you outside the Complex,” Bucky blurted out, matter-of-factly.

Your head went blank.

“WHAT?”

Several seconds stunned.

Bucky barely cracked a smile at your dumbfounded expression. It sure looked like you'd actually seen cat ears grow on his head. The things he was now saying… they didn't make sense. “You dislike the idea that much?”

“Do you want to not say things so drastically different every moment? You're changing my perception of reality.”

Bucky kept his small smile and you had to swallow hard to ignore the warmth that settled in your chest. It wasn't welcome, not at that moment. The sound of that music in the living room in your head was getting louder, as if your own mind wanted to mock your surprise.

“Well, back to your question,” Bucky moved his hands nonchalantly over his lap and your eyes followed his movement unashamedly, “I don't see why I shouldn't care about your life. We are partners, after all.”

Partners? After all you had been through? Were you partners? Did Bucky believe that?

“Are we?” you didn't try to hide the incredulous tone that accompanied your words, because it already sounded like you'd just stepped through the door into a parallel dimension.

“Sure,” Bucky nodded to emphasize your words and the calm expression on his face became more familiar with each passing second. Could it be that that had always been the reality and you had been deprived of it? “We've known each other for five years.”

“I always thought you hated me…” you mumbled to yourself, looking lost because your head recalling every fight of the last few years, since you met him, every tongue out and every exalted word, but his incredible hearing clearly picked up what you said as if you had murmured it in his ear.

“Surely it was a mistake in communication.”

“Mistake?” you frowned at his reassurance. “You always called me stubborn and childish every chance you got.”

“I thought we were annoying each other. Although, of course,” his face became a little more serious, “there were times when I knew you hated me intensely. You said really hurtful things, what was I supossed to do? That's why I never bothered to talk to you like this. You did hate me.”

“Because I thought you…! Argh.”

Bucky smiled again.

“You're the insufferable one, Barnes.”

You hated the way your head snapped back to that image in the living room, so peaceful and calm, so serene and warm, the moment his barely noticeable smile hit you again. You had barely managed to get those words out of your mouth before you felt yourself running out of breath again.

Were you asthmatic?

And why was your head suddenly filled with platonic thoughts you'd never had before in your life?

What the fuck was happening to you?

“This is the longest civilized conversation we've ever had,” Bucky spoke again, his gaze wandering somewhere in the room.

Yes, that was true. Whenever you talked for this long it was always to argue and say hurtful things to each other. But you were too surprised by everything he had said, because just yesterday he told you that he didn't want to come on this mission with you either and in his eyes you were sure you saw something like what you felt. Something of hatred, when you saw your eyes through his.

Did you just… imagine it all?

Did you think he hated you because you hated him too?

Or maybe you wanted to convince yourself that he hated you. Maybe it was easier to deal with that than with the idea that you…

Oh no.

No, no, no. There's no fucking way that's it.

But then Bucky stood up and with his smug, know-it-all, hateful look, with that sly, evil grin, like he'd always known everything, like he was squirming around enjoying your confused stare, he held out his hand to you and said:

“Shall we fix something to eat?”

Oh, no, you were screwed.

a/n: thank u so much for reading!! <3

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes angst #bucky fanfic #bucky fic #bucky barnes #bucky x you #bucky fluff #james bucky barnes #stxrvel talks #avengers #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky #james buchanan barnes #bucky x reader #bucky x y/n #winter soldier #the winter soldier

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akystaracer22 · 10 months ago

Text

Maybe in Another Life We Would Hate Each Other a Little Less

A chance encounter sheds a little light on Adam that Lucifer couldn't have predicted, leading to a moment he thought he'd never have with the man.

Notes (Aka my thoughts while writing):

God is a dick and I wanna kill xem

Adam folds his wings like a bird because monkey see monkey do

Both these guys were traumatised by the same person and we don’t talk about it enough

Probably Guitarduck/Adamsapple but in a fledgeling platonic kinda way

Refer to my ref for what Adam looks like!

I listened to Rät while writing this and- it kind of fits Adam???

Jesus is God’s favourite child and it fucking shows

How tf did this become a sickfic????

Lucifer gets the experience of being me whenever I make the impulsive move to boot up Char.ai and talk to literally any of the AI’s, get aunt agonied bitch.

Oh my god Adam has middle child syndrome.

Can you tell I attended a Christian school when I was younger???

Adam was hiding just how fucked over he was from the wing rot but he’s not having a good time in this. Most of the latter half of the oneshot is him dazed from both the one set of wing rot and the feeling of someone touching his wing.

Shit emergency wing HC for Adam ig: His wings grow warmer corresponding to his mood, as in when he is in general happier his wings radiate warmth and when he’s in a foul mood they’re just normal or even a little cooler.

In saying that yes Lucifer’s wings glow when he’s happy

Word Count: 1902

Fic under cut!

“Fucking- Shit!”

Lucifer paused, looking behind him and backing up to peek through the crack in the door. This ought to be good.

Sure enough, he was right, this was entertaining.

Adam was ranting again.

Honestly it was a nearly daily thing by this point, probably the only good thing about his daughters decision to let Adam stay at the hotel. He loved his daughter, he really did, by Adam was… Adam.

Lucifer knew he was a lost cause.

But still, didn’t mean Lucifer couldn’t tease the hell out of the man since he was stuck down here with the rest of them.

Lucifer’s smirk at watching the first man rant quickly died as he took in the guys appearance, he looked…

“What is wrong with your wings.”

Adam jerked and twisted around, scowling at him and oops he said that out loud didn’t he.

“Piss off!”

Lucifer, in his typical fashion, did not piss off and instead entered the room, “No seriously what is wrong with your wings.”

Now that he was closer, the king was certain they didn’t look like that a week ago. The feathers, while already having looked like a wreck were duller and the colours seemed almost… muted. Ignoring the already horrific state Adam’s wing were in, they shouldn’t look THAT bad so why…

“Wait-”

“I said-!”

“Have you not been preening you wings?”

Adam went silent, staring wide eyed at Lucifer much to the kings confusion. A beat passed, then two.

“What the fuck is preening?”

Lucifer blinked, he wasn’t serious, was he?

Surely not.

“By the heavens you’re dead serious.”

“What the fuck are you talking about.”

Lucifer debated whether he should explain it or not. On one hand, it’s Adam. On the other, Wings were a serious thing. He’d even seen Husker cleaning his wings from time to time, for Adam to just not know…

“You know what? For once my hatred of you is outweighed by my need to show you what’s what,” The fallen seraphim huffed, closing the door behind him and summoning a chair to block it from the outside so Adam couldn’t escape. “Come on we’re fixing this travesty.”

“What part of fuck off you do you not understand?!” The first man snapped, his wings mantling as Lucifer rifled through the closet, dragging out one of the many jars of oil he’d had the foresight to put in most of the rooms, perks of being a guy with basic common sense.

“The part where you’re being stupid and my daughter started rubbing off on me,” Lucifer shot back, his own wings serving well to corral Adam towards the bed, “How you don’t know how to preen your wings is beyond me but that’s ending today.”

“Again- what are you blabbering about.”

Lucifer paused, hand hovering just over Adams feathers. Preening someone elses wings was… intimate. It was something reserved for friends, family, lovers, and stuff… not enemies. Was he really going to just go ahead and clean Adams wings for him?

The seraphim’s eyes flicked over to where the ruined wing was draped over the bed. The wing was already in bad enough shape as it was, if he didn’t do this then wing rot was bound to hit it at some point and-

He didn’t really have a choice, not if he didn’t want to watch someone die of wing rot again.

Adam went stiff under Lucifers touch as he started work on the mans functioning wing, it was the easiest to work with, not the mention the safest to start with. The injured wing would no doubt be sensitive to any interaction, so better to start small.

Ish.

Adam shuddered as Lucifer moved between feather’s, periodically reapplying preening oil as he went. He was right as usual, looking closer most of the barbules had been separated and needed to be locked together again. Grimacing, the seraphim gently scratched out what looked like dried blood from where it was hidden in the base of Adam’s Secondary coverts.

“What are you doing?” Adam whispered, his voice for once lacking it’s usual bite. Lucifer paused for a second in confusion before Adam’s wing flexed back into Lucifer’s hand, “Don’t stop!”

“Okay okay!” The king huffed, working on his primaries, “What I’m doing is called preening. It’s something beings with feathers do to clean them.”

“Like birds?”

“Yeah, like birds,” Lucifer agreed, “The oil helps take care of bacteria, but you got to realign the feathers, get rid of the ones ready to moult, and fix the feathers that are out of sorts, though you can just shake the feathers to do that part quicker.”

“Mhm”

Lucifer shifted over to finally tackle the ruined wing and froze, a chill slinking down his spine. As he took in the state of the tattered appendage.

“Shit.”

This close the seraphim could see the red pimples under the thinning layer of feathers surrounding the injury, it was wing rot in its early stages.

“What?”

“Nothing!” Lucifer dove his fingers into the scapulars to shut Adam up while he discreetly conjured up some disinfectant for the rot, if he’s lucky he can treat it now and just get Charlie or Vaggie to deal with it now, knock it over the head before it becomes so visible the others can notice. He ignored Adam’s breath hitching as the seraphim started, just as predicted, the wing was sensitive from the damage done to it.

“But seriously you need to do this more, this is just horrific,” Lucifer grumbled to himself, not really caring if Adam listened, “Honestly I’m surprised this hasn’t happened to you before!”

“Mmmm tried once… I think?”

Lucifer, glanced at Adam’s face, it was pointed away from him, but he could still sense Adam’s attention was on him, “Yeah?”

“Saw the birds doin’ it and tried to copy ‘em,” Adam continued at the prompt, spreading his other wing, “It hurt so I stopped, didn’ know there was a method to this shit or someth’n.”

“You… nobody even tried to teach you?”

“I think they thought I knew,” Adam chuckled sourly, “I think they thought I fu’kin knew how to just- do this. ‘Cause I was meant to right?!” Another laugh, “I bit the fu’kin apple so I shou’da known this kinda shit! Apple of knowl’dge or what’ver.”

Lucifer, wisely, didn’t say anything, he just kept working on Adam’s ruined wing, applying the disinfectant, and fixing what few feathers were still healthy and removing the rest. If it was anyone else in this situation he’s wrap the wing and tell them to rest but… it was still Adam that was in this mess.

“I- why didn’t they teach me? Luci why didn’t they teach me this shit?”

“I… don’t know,” Lucifer replied carefully, deliberately skipping over the butchering of his name that sounded way to close to a nickname for comfort, “Come on, up you get he still got the underside to finish then I’ll be out.”

Adam grumbled but complied, sitting up a little to turn around as Lucifer summoned a pillow for Adam to lean back on. Rolling his neck Lucifer got to work on the auxiliary feathers, the lighter feathers were definitely in better shape, but then again that wasn’t exactly a high bar, and they still were looking rough.

“Jesus was prob’bly taught how to preen himself.”

Lucifer’s shoulders hitched as his wings tucked in against his back abruptly. Jesus… was a rough topic. For all sinners talked about him, Lucifer never met him but from the sinners around that time… it was never a fun conversation. Pretentious once kings cursing his name while hopeless commoners lined up for the exorcists blade, faithful until the end that Jesus would let them into heaven if they just believed in him.

… there was a pattern in there, wasn’t there. Like father like son, he supposed.

“Jesus was made from me and yet he’s God’s favourite fukin kid, course he’d fucking know how to preen,” Adam continued unimpeded, “Doesn’t matter if I was Gods first- Jesus was always fucking better than me.”

Okay! Lucifer was in no way prepared for this conversation, but he highly doubted Adam was even going to remember this conversation, so he just focused on the wings.

“…Luci, do they all hate me?”

Lucifer sincerely wished Anthony, or just anyone really would bust down the door at this moment, at least then he could get himself out of this conversation.

“Why do you think that?” the seraphim deflected, moving onto Adam’s good wing and going through his coverts.

“Because none of them ever fucking did this,” Adam waved his hand haphazardly before letting it rest on his chest, “You’re my enemy but you’re fixin’ my fu’kin wings because I’m too stupid and useless to just figure it out myself.”

“Not useless,” The words left Lucifer’s lips without his input, damn himself to double hell, but it managed to shut up Adam, so he kept on the thought train, “You’re not useless you were just never taught, it’s not your fault heaven doesn’t think.”

“Jesus-”

“Is God’s prodigal son and shouldn’t be counted.”

Adam huffed and leaned back on the pillow, “Why’re you good at this?”

“I’ve had aeon’s to learn, and over a decade of putting it in practice,” Lucifer thought about his daughter, a small smile making it’s way into his expression, she really was the best thing to happen to him.

He finished up with Adams good wing and moved onto finishing off the wrecked one. Applying the disinfectant to the infected spots on the underside before reaching for the preening oil again.

“Y’know, maybe in another life we would’ve hated each other less.”

Lucifer just laughed and started preening the wing, yeah right, maybe in a reality where the apple incident never happened, “You’re sick Adam, feverish even.”

“And you’re a wife-stealer.”

“Should have been better in bed.”

“Fuck you,”

Lucifer stuck his tongue out at the first man, earning a tired chuckle. Then the seraphim blinked at the sudden warmth radiating out from the feathers. What in the-?

“Oh… they haven’t done that in a while.”

Lucifer blinked up at Adam who was staring at his feathers in amazement, “Ackde-whuh?”

Adam leaned back and closed his eyes, “Yeah… sometimes they just get warm all of a sudden it’s weird. Hasn’t happened in a while though. Apparently it sometimes happened when Lute was around? I dunno why.”

Lucifer blinked a couple of times before letting out a small “huh” and running a hand through the ruined wing, it was definitely warmer.

Sighing, Lucifer let his hand fall away despite the wing chasing it, “Alright well your wings are definitely cleaner now, so I’ll be out of your hair now.”

The seraphim stood up to leave through the balcony, opening the window and almost stepping out when Adam called after him, still sounding exhausted.

“I can see why they left me for you.”

Lucifer paused, before smiling sardonically and looking back at Adam, who looked like he might have just passed out.

“Tell me that when you’re not delusional from illness and I might believe you.”

With that, Lucifer stepped out and left for his own room… though, if Adam woke up to a small plush duck on his nightstand, that was between Lucifer and the god that cast him down.

But there is one thing Lucifer will admit.

Maybe Charlie wasn't wrong about thinking Adam could be redeemed.

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#adam hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel #lucifer hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel spoilers #hazbin hotel fandom #guitarduck #platonic #written by an asexual #fluff #fallen angel adam #fallen angel #wing fic #angst #tw swearing #tw mentions of wing rot #i wrote this #I wrote with on four hours of sleep powered by caffeine and a cold #adamsapple #ashes to ashes dust to dust

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mermaidgirl30 · 5 months ago

Text

✨Dark Shades of Innocence Lost Part 3: Take It All✨

Series Masterlist

A/N: This series is quickly becoming one of my favorites to write. Thank you to @mountainsandmayhem for beta reading for me 🥰

Chapter Summary: Another night back at Club Inferno comes with more than you bargained for. There’s pleasure, but something else starts slipping through. That something might be feelings.

Rating: Explicit 18+ only MDNI

Word Count: 6.8k

Tags: Dom! Joel, soft! Joel, flirting, feelings, pining, unprotected piv, fingering, so much filth, a little angst, Joel takes you on the pool table

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

“Shut up! No he didn’t!” Brianna screams over the rim of her cold glass of strawberry wine.

“Yeah,” you giggle as Taylor joins in on the screaming chaos.

“You mean to tell me that man took you into his private room and went down on you?” Taylor asks excitedly as she pauses 10 Things I Hate About You and sets the black controller on the rustic coffee table.

“Mhm,” you hum shyly over a mouthful of bubbling wine.

Brianna leans forward on the violet couch and curls her fingers into the velvet of her cotton blanket. “Did he make you come?” she asks with raised eyebrows, like she’s investigating you for anything you might be keeping from her.

You swallow some wine and clear your throat as your cheeks turn a bright red color. “Three times,” you say shyly as you push a lock of hair behind your ear.

Brianna spits out a mouthful of wine into her glass, and Taylor nearly falls off the edge of the couch. “No he did not, shut the fuck up!” Brianna shouts as she reaches over and grabs onto your pink blanket that’s sprawled across your lap freely.

“Three times? Holy shit,” Taylor whispers as her green flecked eyes grow wide.

“Three times,” you confirm as you push your back into the soft cushions of the couch. “And I may have deep throated him…” you giggle out as your cheeks grow hot.

“You little slut!” Brianna teases as she jumps out of her seat and joins you on the opposite side of the sectional. “Three times? God, that must’ve been amazing. And his cock? Was he big?”

“So big,” you gush as you sip more of the cool beverage in your hand.

“You lucky girl! Evan doesn’t even make me orgasm three times,” Taylor whines as she leans over and grabs a handful of buttery popcorn. “He must like you a lot.”

“Oh, I don’t know…” you say skeptically as you play absentmindedly with the fringe on the end of the soft blanket.

“Don’t play coy with me!” Taylor shouts across the end of the sofa, glittering eyes all on you as she waits for you to continue. “So, what happened after?”

You rake a hand nervously over your thigh and look up innocently. “Well, it was kind of weird, I guess. He, ummm… he cuddled with me. Like in a soothing, gentle way, and he told me to relax because I was tense. And I just kinda sank down into his chest while his fingers brushed over my arms. And it just felt… safe.”

Brianna and Taylor give each other a knowing glance, one only shared between the two of them. You know that look, the serious and concerned look.

“Babe,” Brianna says gently as she puts a hand softly on your knee, “that’s called aftercare. It’s normal, or it should be.”

“Yeah, I know. It just kinda startled me. I wasn’t… expecting that, you know? It kinda scared me.”

Brianna nods your way and keeps her light brown eyes on yours. “Yeah, I get it. But not all the guys are going to be like… well, you know who. It sounds like Joel is a good guy. From the sounds of it, he seems to like you a lot.”

You smile warmly as you look back down and nod your head while you twist your fingertips into the edge of your silky shorts. “Maybe. He got me chicken and water after he cuddled with me. He didn’t even have chicken in the back of the club before last week. I kinda complained there weren't any food options at the bar, and I guess he took it to heart.”

“What the hell, that man does like you!” Taylor screams across the way which nearly sends you into shock. “Chicken? He made you chicken? One of your favorite things to eat? That’s insane, and you didn’t even have to ask. Yes, babe! He likes you a lot! I don’t know another man that would do that. None of my hookups ever went that far for me. Seriously, I’m so happy we pushed you to go talk to him.”

You giggle out and shake your head, flipping your phone over in your shaking hands as you think of those smoldering dark eyes and devilish smirk. “I’m glad you guys made me go talk to him. He’s ummm… pretty great.”

Taylor throws a sequenced teal pillow at your arm and talks through a mouth full of popcorn, “Are you gonna see him again?”

“Yeah, Saturday,” you blush as you smile nervously her way.

“Oh, look at you! Gonna go back to his playroom while he has his way with you? Kinky girl. God, it’s like something out of Fifty Shades.”

“Bri!” you laugh as you shove her in the shoulder while she nearly spills her wine all over her lap. “It’s not like that.”

“No? So the man didn’t have you ride his thigh in a dark hallway where anyone could see, and he didn’t take you back to his private room and give you the best three orgasms of your life?”

“I mean, yes, but no! He’s not like some intense BDSM man. He’s warm, gentle, a bit of a dom, and the man says absolute filth, but he’s so… sweet, too.”

Taylor and Brianna raise their eyebrows at you and smirk. Oh no. That can’t be good. Who knows what kind of insanity is about to come out of their mouths.

“Sounds like he’s the perfect Christian Grey then, yeah?” Taylor laughs while you throw the pillow back at her.

“You guys are too much,” you smile.

Suddenly, your phone lights up as it buzzes in your lap. You unlock the screen, and your eyes light up like a Christmas tree when you see Joel’s name scrolled across the screen. You giggle like a little school girl who’s about to get a handful of candy when you read his text.

Joel: Passed by the library today on my way to work. Made me think of you. Almost stopped in, but figured you’d already be off. Maybe I should’ve tried my luck. Might’ve got to see those beautiful eyes of yours in the sunlight. See ya Saturday, angel. ;)

You can’t stop smiling, your cheeks feel like they’re stretched to their limit as you curl your toes underneath you and squeeze your fingers around the delicate blanket. Joel sure knows how to make your heart flutter uncontrollably.

“What are you beaming about, hmm? Is it Mr. Club Owner?” Taylor laughs from the other side of the couch.

“Let’s see.” Brianna snatches your phone from your clutch, and you try to dive for it, but she holds it up to where you can’t reach.

“Bri, give it!”

“Oh, I was right. It is him! And holy shit is he obsessed with you. Look at how cute this text is, Taylor!” Brianna tosses it to Taylor, and she catches it with ease as she scrolls through your numerous texts with Joel.

Taylor practically loses it as she chokes on a sip of wine. “He called you beautiful! He can’t wait to see you again? And Christ, you guys have been texting a lot. Fuck me!”

You lean forward and grab the phone from her prying fingers and set it down underneath your fuzzy blanket. “Okay, guys. You had your fun. Happy?” you ask annoyed, rolling your eyes as you try to hide the flush of crimson that’s bright on your cheeks.

“Umm yeah, babe! He is totally into you!” Brianna squeaks as she tosses a piece of buttered popcorn your way. You dodge it and shake your head at her while she sets down her fizzy drink on the edge of the polished coffee table.

“You think so?” you giggle, biting your lower lip.

“I know so! Ugh, you’re so lucky. Love this for you, though,” Brianna smiles, tipping the wine glass back to her pink lips.

You sigh and shake your head as you listen to your two friends scream back and forth excitedly at each other. You just sit back and take another sip of wine and stare at Joel’s sweet message. Saturday can’t come soon enough.

Saturday comes faster than a blink as you’re standing in front of the flashing sign of Club Inferno. You shift your weight in your sparkly heels and adjust the short pink dress that barely covers half your thighs. You don’t mind dressing up if it means Joel Miller can’t take his eyes off you for one second. That’s what you want. You want his attention, and you have it. You have all of it.

When you walk through the dark doors, you’re shrouded in a mist of smoke. The stench of messy lipstick and alcohol surrounds you, and the spinning disco ball shimmers over your sparkly eyeshadow. It’s crowded tonight, bodies lined all on the dance floor, music coursing through your ears. It pumps the adrenaline that fills your shaky body because you know why you’re here. You’re here for Joel.

You spin in a circle, clicking your heels on the shiny floor as you look from the crowded bar to the sea of dancers. Joel, where is Joel? Maybe he’s…

You hear a man clearing his throat from behind you and then a long Southern drawl fills your ears. “Lookin’ for Joel, sweetheart?”

You abruptly turn, whipping your hair behind your shoulders as you eye the man who asked you about Joel. You blink once, twice as you take him in, a little surprised at how similar he seems to Joel. He’s tall, long slicked back almost black hair, the same chocolate eyes as Joel’s, even a similar smirk takes the stage.

You shift your weight to your left, notice the expensive leather boots he’s wearing, a silky black button-up shirt tucked into pressed dress pants, and a handsome face to go with the outfit. He definitely reminds you a lot of Joel, and his accent, the same Southern accent as Joel’s. Was this his brother?

“Huh, Joel?” you ask stunned, blinking up at the tall figure that now stands in front of you, hovering like he’s pressing for answers.

“Yeah,” he chuckles, nodding to the hallway. “Saw you with Joel the past couple of weekends. Figured you were lookin’ for him tonight as well.”

“How did you…”

He interrupts, holding his hand out for you to take. “Apologies, I didn’t even introduce myself. I’m Tommy. Tommy Miller, Joel’s younger brother, the other owner of this club.”

You take his strong hand in yours and let him shake, giving him a curt smile and a nod. “It’s nice to meet you, Tommy. Nice to put a face to the name.” You tell him your name, and he smiles at you.

He drops your hand and slides it in the pocket of his pants, giving you a quick once over to assess your outfit, an almost invisible smirk appearing over his dark mustache. “My brother treatin’ you good, I reckon? Takin’ care of ya?”

Before you can respond back with flushed cheeks, a big hand comes down on Tommy’s shoulder and out steps Joel with a wide grin on his face, a deep chuckle dropping off his tongue as he looks you dead in the eye.

“Yeah, Tommy. Takin’ real good care of her, don’t you worry.” The response makes you blush and tingle all along your spine, creating a girlish giggle in your chest that you hold in once you meet the chocolate eyes of Joel Miller, the prettiest brown eyes you have ever seen in your life.

“Don’t I know it, Joel,” Tommy says with a big grin, hitting his brother playfully in the chest before he steps back with the glow of his cell phone lighting up his palm. “Well, guess I’ll let you get to it. Take care, sweetheart.” He whispers something in Joel’s ear, something along the lines of “Beautiful girl. Lucky you, brother.”

Joel claps his hand on the back of his shoulder and shakes his head. “Down, Tommy. Why don’t you go find one for yourself,” he chuckles, stepping out to hook his arm in yours. “Guess you’ve met my brother now.”

“Yeah,” you smile, looking back to see Tommy give you a playful wink and then head towards the bar as he delves into talking with customers lined against the glossy black front doors. “Seems nice.”

“Mmm. Nice. Sure, but he’s a flirt and a pain in my ass,” he chuckles, leading you through a loud group of females drinking cocktails and gossiping to each other.

He stops a second to turn towards you, eyes flicking up and down your body, a little shimmer of excitement reaching his honey eyes. And then he smiles. “You look real pretty tonight, sweetheart.”

You blush, clear your throat and turn to look up at him. “Thank you,” you stammer. “And you. Well, you’re always handsome,” you blush again, biting your tongue when he smirks your way.

He does look handsome tonight. With his clean white button-up, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, always hugging his bulging biceps, and his dark jeans that cling to tight muscles. And his slicked back curls, and his salt-and-pepper scruff, and his gorgeous chocolate eyes and fuck. You like it all, you like everything about him. And deep down that scares you, like sharp teeth could wrap around your ankles and drag you down under the dark waves. Like this could end badly. So badly.

He yanks you out of your murky thoughts and leads you under more sparkling lights, pink signs flashing every which way, more than the crimson reds you first saw here.

You glance at the sea of dancers, bodies swaying and circling every which way, the disco ball throwing glittering lights over pressed suits and skimpy dresses. The song is upbeat, loud, humming across the ray of bodies lined on the dance floor. And it pulls you in, like you want to join in the madness.

“Do you ever dance?” The question leaves your mouth before you can even think of what you just asked. Of course he doesn’t. He’s the club owner, why would he do that?

“Sometimes,” he replies, chocolate eyes flashing towards the sea of people dancing with each other.

He looks down at you, raises a brow, and a question slides over his flecks of chocolate desire. “Why do you ask?” He’s leaving the question open, like he wants you to be the brave one and ask. He’s trying to get you out of your closed up shell, wants you to take initiative for once. And maybe you should. Maybe you should just give in.

His eyes bore into yours, eyebrow raising higher on his forehead, sharp lines cutting across tanned skin. “Umm no reason. I was just wondering what kind of dancer you were,” you say nervously, your free hand clinging to the fabric of your pink dress, glossy lips puckering with a fit of nerves. He wouldn’t, would he?

He chuckles, a sly smirk spreading across his mouth as he takes your hand and nods his head to the dance floor. “Guess we gotta go find out then, hmm?”

He pulls you through the crowded dance floor, past sweaty bodies, the flashing lights blinding your senses as he pulls you into his broad chest in a small corner, his back hitting the glittery dark walls while he pulls you flush to his chest, his hands sliding slowly down to your hips.

You gulp, completely breathless as he chuckles and starts to sway his hips to the rhythm, eyes locked tight on yours. Your fingers clutch around his cotton dress shirt, the air feeling thicker with every breath you take, a burning sensation starting between your thighs with every movement he makes.

He slides one hand dangerously close to your ass, the other entwining with your fingers, your hips magically doing exactly what he tells you to, like he’s using mind powers on your body. And you’re in a trance, a magnetic trance, all forces of gravity pulling you towards him like this is where you belong, beneath his body.

“So, how am I doin’, darlin’? My dancing up to par?” he smiles, teasing you in the best way.

“I’d say you’re a better dancer than I took you for,” you laugh, feeling the heat collide between your fingers with each touch he leaves on your skin.

“Haven’t even shown you the best part yet,” he smirks.

He spins you around quickly, pulling your back flush against his beating chest, hands skating across your body as he takes it even further, moving your hair to the side and slowly gliding his lips against your collarbone, enough to where you can smell, almost taste that addictive whiskey smell that trademarks Joel.

You get lost in the way his hips grind into yours, thick fingers dancing over the fabric of your dress, his breath blowing down your neck, causing stars to form in the flecks of your eyes.

He leans down and glides his plush lips across the shell of your ear, one large hand sliding up your thigh, thick fingers teasing your dress line, slowly inching it up until he teases the inside of your thigh, making slick run like a river against your lace.

“You know, you look mighty pretty in that little pink dress, sweetheart, but I think you’d look even better out of it,” he whispers, making you jolt from the filthy words that come out of his mouth.

“You think so?” you pant while he pulls you even closer, enough to feel the growing bulge in his pants as he grinds against you.

“Mmm, I do. I do.” He sinks his mouth down on your neck, stifling a moan from your throat as he nips and sucks the sensitive area, right where you have that sweet spot.

His hand brushes higher, pushing your dress dangerously high as his magnetizing lips set your skin ablaze. He knows what he’s doing, getting you all worked up so you’ll be more than ready for him. And you’re there, you’re already so fucking wet. He might as well just take you here in front of everyone. You think you’d let him, don’t even care who watches. You’re just so turned on that you can’t even register what song is buzzing against your eardrums, all you hear, all you feel is his hot breath and calloused fingers on your skin. And his lips melting like honey on your skin. It feels fucking incredible.

“Know you must be so wet for me, sweetheart. The way your shallow breaths and body’s reactin’ to me. Oh, you’re right there, ain’t ya? So fuckin’ wet,” he growls, slipping his thumb against your soaked panties until another moan comes collapsing from your glossy lips.

“Mmmm. Take me to the back, Joel. Need to… need to…” You lose your train of thought as his fingers drop from your thigh, snatching your wrist up and dragging you back to the room where he’ll have his way with you.

“Don’t have to ask me twice, angel. Gonna take real good care of ya, pretty girl,” he purrs in your ear while his hand clasps around your wrist, pulling you through the sea of crowded bodies on the dance floor.

You let the music thrum through your eardrums, let him drag you down the dark hallway, let your body buzz with the endless possibilities of you and him. All you see is him in the mirage of flashing and sparkling lights as he leads you down down down until he’s pulling you into the room that’ll be your dark awakening.

The first thing you see when you enter the dim room is the little coffee table packed with two cold water bottles, a glass of whiskey on the rocks, a mixed fruity drink just for you, and a cloth towel just sitting in waiting for the two of you.

“You really thought of everything, didn’t you?” you ask as he hands you your drink. You take a sip from the citrusy goodness and let the cherry, coconut flavor slide down the back of your throat blissfully.

He takes a gulp of his whiskey on ice and nods his head to you as he wets his bottom tongue. “Figured we’d skip the crowded bar, have a little alone time.” The way he says alone makes nerves run down your spine because you know what that’ll lead to.

“Your drink okay?” he asks, cocking his head to the right, honey eyes wading into yours.

“It’s perfect. Thanks,” you mutter, trying not to get lost in the shimmer of his captivating smile.

You take a few more sips and then set it down, letting your heels click across the polished floor, right to the edge of the large pool table. You let your fingertips run along the wooden sides, gently skate your hand across the red felt, let your eyes roam over every square inch of the table, wondering if Joel’s a good player.

“You play pool?” he asks, his voice deep floating across the room behind you.

“Not too much. You?”

“Sometimes. I play with the boys on Thursdays.”

“Sounds fun,” you muse, dragging your finger up and down the red velvet, analyzing the colorful pool balls in the middle of the table.

“It can be.” His voice materializes next to you as he sets his whiskey glass down on the pool table. “You think you’re any good?” He leans against the pool table, eyes directly on you.

You shrug. “I’m sure not as good as you,” you laugh, heels clicking against the floor as you turn towards him.

“What makes you say that?” His head cocks to the side, eyes lingering over your soft dress.

“Well, for one, this is your club, your pool table. And you’re good at everything, aren’t you?”

“And what makes you think you aren’t, hmm?” He steps closer, a playful smirk on his lips as his silvery scruff reflects under the dim lights. Suddenly, you feel a little warmer than when he was across the room just seconds ago.

“I don’t know. I’m not… I just…”

“You’re not what?” he asks.

“As experienced…” you say timidly, eyes flicking down towards the red trimming on the table.

He cups your chin with his palm and lifts your eyes up to his, deep brown eyes staring into yours like crystal clear pools. Pools you want to jump in. “Then let me show you.”

He slowly trails behind you, grabbing your hips and lining you up perpendicular to the table, your heart beating strongly inside your throat. “First, you gotta be in position. Eyes right on the target, exactly where you want the cue stick to move to.”

He backs you against his hips, pushing you flush against the edge of the pool table while you stifle a groan at the sensation of him behind your body.

“Then, you gotta take a deep breath, imagine you’re the cue stick, feel exactly where you want to hit.” His lips line with the shell of your ear, enough to where he’s teasing your skin, one hand slowly dragging up your dress, one leg spreading yours wider as you brace your hands on the table.

“Then what?” you ask, almost panting.

“Then,” he glides his calloused fingers up your inner thigh, right in the crease where his thumb drags along the edge of your lace. “You gotta brace your shoulders, open your legs jus’ enough so you can snap the ball right where you want it to go.”

He spreads your legs even wider by putting his leg between yours and teases your wet slit with his thumb, his teeth dragging down your neck as he coos against the shell of your ear. “Jus’ as I suspected. Fuckin’ wet,” he chuckles, moving your panties to the side as he starts teasing up and down your folds.

“Mmmm, been wet since the dance floor because aaaah,” you moan as he starts slowly circling your puffy clit, making a wave of slick spill between your thighs.

“Yeah, s’that right, angel?” he chuckles as he starts to unzip your dress, slowly working it off your body till it’s a pile around your ankles, and the only thing left on is your panties that are pushed to the side forcefully.

He tugs the lace free, stripping you bare and leaving you in a wave of arousal as he pushes you harder into the side of the pool table, your mind spinning in a blur as he starts circling your aching clit.

“Joel,” you breathe, hot gasps leaving your lips as two thick fingers curl up inside your dripping hole. You tip your head back into his broad chest and feel the way he lights a fire in your core with his experienced fingers.

“Yeah? You like that, don’t ya? Think you’re ready for more,” he chuckles, sliding his hand from your hip and then undoing the zipper of his jeans.

Your eyes grow wider when you hear the clank of his belt and feel the denim material being pushed to the ground, along with his boxers as you feel the hardening of his cock digging into the small of your back. You groan as he takes his tip and slides it along your wet folds, coating himself in your slick as you moan against the glorious feel of him.

He spreads your legs wider, bending your hips slightly over the firm table as he slowly pushes the tip inside your waiting hole. You squeak, silently begging him to continue. Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.

As if he can hear your screams inside your mind, he bends over and runs his tongue along the shell of your ear. “Now, for your next lesson, you’re gonna take all of me,” he growls, stifling a moan from you as he inches in a little more, his large head spreading you wide as you anticipate the full length of him inside you.

“All of you?” you whisper, curling your fingers against the red carpet of the giant pool table, imagining how good it’ll feel for him to pound his thick cock deep inside you.

“All of me,” he confirms with the snap of his teeth.

He gives you no time to think until he’s plunging deep inside you, hard. You gasp as he splits you in two, the stretch has you moaning his name, has more slick running down the bulging veins that surround his massive cock. And then he’s thrusting harder, deeper inside you, and you swear he’s kissing your cervix.

“Oh, fuck me,” you moan against the table, the side of your face kissing the red felt while your fingers dig into the soft material.

“Fuck you, huh? Ain’t that what I’m doin’, pretty girl? Or do you want it harder?” he growls, his thick fingers pulling you by the hips until he’s absolutely drilling you against the pool table.

You can’t think straight, can’t even comprehend how you got here, all you can think about are those smoldering dark eyes and his tower of a cock that’s throwing bolts of intense pleasure inside your entire body. And it feels so fucking good.

“Harder,” you plead, almost to the point of tears from how much he’s splitting you in two right now, but you don’t want it to stop, you never want him to stop.

“Fuck. C’mere then,” he snaps as he pulls his cock free from you and spins you around to where you’re sitting on the edge of the pool table, your legs straddling his hips until he’s pulling you to the very edge and lining up with your dripping core again.

“You want it harder? Then take it.” He smirks devilishly your way and then thrusts hard into you, so deep that you’re arching your back and calling out his name.

“Good girl, angel. Say my name. Jus’ like that,” he demands, and then his mouth latches to one of your breasts, his tongue flat against your pebbling nipple as you scream with a wave of pleasure that rides through your core. He does the same to the other one, lapping against it until your hands are laced through his tousled curls, making a groan slip from his own lips at the feel of your soft fingers latched around his messy hair.

“Yes, yes,” you moan as you feel his cock relentlessly driving up inside you, at an angle that kisses your spongy spot that makes you see entire galaxies, and his coarse hair ruts against your needy clit that screams his name with each stroke he gives you.

You’re right on the edge of breaking, and he knows. He knows. “Attagirl, angel. Takin’ my cock so well.” You try to pant out a response, but none comes. You’re so gone in the stroke of his cock, in the sensational bliss that Joel is giving you that you can only croak out another tired moan.

“Know you’re close, sweetheart. Let it out. Let me see you come on this cock,” he growls.

He cups your chin and lifts your head to where your eyes are level with his. You gasp, seeing just how beautiful those flecks of onyx and dark shades of chocolate are that coat his eyes, making them almost sparkle around the room.

You suddenly feel vulnerable like you need to avert your gaze, but you can’t. You just… can’t.

The way he’s looking at you like a starving lion makes you squeeze around his cock. He wants to devour you on the spot, but there’s also something else entirely in his gaze that softens just the slightest. And it makes you desperate to run, hide in the shadows so he won’t bring out these growing feelings that you’re feeling right now.

Do not fall for him, he’s not yours to fall for. You don’t need another repeat of before, you don’t need him. But you’re afraid you do need him, and that scares the hell out of you.

His eyes bore into yours so intensely that you swear you can see fireworks flashing off inside those gorgeous irises, numerous vibrant colors blinding you with shades of dark browns and flecks of gold that you swear you feel them colliding straight into your heart.

He smells of whiskey and forest cologne that have pine cones and chopped wood mixed into the very fabric of his being that you almost drown in the scent. It’s so overly consuming that it threatens to knock you off this table and onto the floor where you’d drag Joel down with you.

His lips are so close to yours, his forehead nearly collides with yours as you feel the sweat from his tousled curls drip down onto your forehead. And he’s staring directly at your mouth.

Oh, fuck.

You want to know what he tastes like, want to feel that beautiful mouth on yours, want to collide your tongue with the taste of his sweet cinnamon flavor, but you just can’t. Kissing is intimate, kissing means this is more. But you want it to be more, don’t you? And that thought alone drags you out of the intense trance you’re under.

Just when he’s about to go for your lips, you quickly turn your head, and his mouth lands directly on your flushed neck. His eyebrows furrow a little like he’s confused, a little hurt even that you moved your face, and the guilt takes a hold and wraps tightly around your insides, but you push it aside as Joel instead starts kissing down the side of your neck.

He tangles his thick fingers in your mess of locks, his hot breath breathing down your body as he starts to suck ravenously at your collarbone. His hips thrust hard up inside you, continually kissing that sweet spongy part that has your body begging for more. You’re so far gone that your head feels foggy and heavy as you start to combust.

You feel the blinding orgasm wash over his relentless cock, hear your own ragged breaths and loud moans surround the shiny black walls of this massive back room, and what sends you over the edge again is Joel’s crooked smirk and deep, gravelly voice as he calls you a good girl while you squeeze around his large cock.

You’re exhausted, body spent, but he’s not done with you yet. He hasn’t come, and you know he’s about to make you lose control again.

“Christ, you feel jus’ like velvet comin’ around my cock, angel. Wanna feel you do it again. Wanna take you over the edge,” he pants out, and then he starts to climb your body.

He pushes you back to where you’re sprawled against the middle of the pool table, your legs spread apart, the colorful pool table balls flying every which way as you topple over them, and then he crawls on top of you like he’s dominating your very being. You gasp when he folds your knees into your chest, your body being twisted like a pretzel.

He takes his thumb and starts spreading your slick over your soft folds, and he moans at the sensation of your wetness beneath him. “So fuckin’ soft for me, your pussy is like pure satin beneath my touch. Jesus Christ,” he groans as he brings his thumb up to his mouth and sucks the arousal off his calloused skin.

Your eyes grow wide at the mere vision of him above you delving into your taste, watching him moan against you as precum drips onto your messy pussy. You moan at the sight of him, the tousled hair, the expansive muscles that make up the shape of him, the dark eyes that penetrate you into place, the silver threads that lace his beard. He’s so fucking beautiful that you could lay here and stare at him for hours. He’s just that electric, and you’re afraid you’re falling hard for him, and maybe you can’t stop yourself from slipping into the darkness, but he’d catch you. At least you’d like to think he would.

“Joel,” you mutter, your voice almost a whisper, and you’re sure you look completely wrecked beneath him.

“What is it, angel?” he asks, almost softly as he brushes a strand of hair delicately behind your ear.

Intimate, that’s fucking intimate. But you’re not sure you have the strength to give a shit at the moment, you just need him to touch you again.

“Touch me, please,” you beg, eyes teary as you look up at him, clinging to his broad shoulders.

He chuckles and leans in, his warm breath blowing over your face. “That’s all you had to say, sweetheart.”

He quickly pins your arms above your head, his hands lacing around your wrists and then he��s plunging deep inside you like the hilt of a sword, his cock splitting you in two all over again as his dark eyes stare directly into yours.

It’s like an entirely different world in here than out there in the overly loud crowd, but in here it’s just the two of you, ragged breaths and tumbling bodies that seem to magnetize to each other. It’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced in your life, the insane pleasure coursing down every single nerve ending in your body, and Joel just makes it burn that much hotter.

He clenches his teeth the deeper he ruts into you. Your high-pitched moans collide with Joel’s, and the room is filled with a symphony of ecstasy. His hands go everywhere on your body, and you swear you’re about to ignite into flames in this very spot. You might just burn the entire club down.

His forehead falls down on yours, his lips so close, practically screaming for you to let him fall into the kiss. You almost want to, almost break as the cinnamon smell lingers against your nose, and you just know he tastes absolutely delicious.

“Joel, I’m not gonna - fuck - last much longer,” you grit through your teeth as he thrusts hard into that perfect spongy spot as his wiry hairs catch the edge of your puffy clit.

“Then let go,” he growls, digging his fingernails into your captured wrists as he thrusts faster and deeper inside you.

You happily oblige for him, arching your back off the red felt as you slip into oblivion and let the white hot heat slowly drip down your entire spine. It feels like warm honey sliding down his cock as your mind turns to mush, your lips moaning his name as you release everything for him.

“Good fuckin’ girl,” he praises, keeping his steady pace of sliding his cock in and out of your pussy that vibrates for him. You indulge in his praise, your body convulsing from the intense orgasm, and then you’re just waiting for him to release his own pleasure.

His body hangs over yours like a sturdy tower, his flexed jaw clenching as he groans to himself, angling your hips higher as he dives inside you, deep strokes that blend into pure need that consumes you whole.

He doesn’t take much longer, uncontrollably thrusting deep inside you as his thick eyebrows knit together, his breathing erratic from the intense fucking. You almost swear the pool table is about to collapse from the two of you igniting like flames together.

You thread your fingers through his dripping curls, and that’s exactly when he falls apart. He thrusts deep inside and throws his beautiful head back. You feel hot ropes of cum douse your insides, and you moan the way it feels like he’s dominating you and claiming you as his own.

He stays inside you for a few seconds after, his hot breath slipping down against your drenched skin like an ocean tide about to take you to your knees. He pulls out from your core, his hips leaving yours, and it feels like loss as his tanned skin leaves yours.

He collapses on his back next to you, trying to catch his breath as the two of you lay splayed on the pool table, indulging in the pleasure the last half hour has been spent between the both of you.

He looks over at you and smiles brightly, a low chuckle leaving his chest. “Jesus Christ, that was amazing,” he beams, his chocolate eyes absolutely sparkling as he gazes at you. It makes your heart clench.

“Yeah, that was… incredible,” you pant, still breathless from the unbelievable sex Joel had given you.

You feel your heart skip a beat as you look at the beautiful man that sits next to you, relishing in all the dark desires Joel keeps giving you. And you’re so scared that you won’t be able to stop before you’re thrown over the edge. Afraid that he will be the death of you. But you let those thoughts flit away from you, only focusing on his next movements.

He pulls himself up off the pool table, sliding his boxers and jeans back on, and then he does something that surprises you. He dips down and hugs you into his strong chest, cradling you against him as he carries you over to the leather couch. He lies back on the soft cushions and pulls you into his body, and then he starts softly stroking your hair, your back, giving you aftercare.

You’ll never get used to this, never get tired of this. This man. He’s so dominate, yet he’s so fucking soft. How can he be both? How can he be so… perfect?

As if he can read your mind, he interrupts your thoughts that tear through your mind wildly. “Whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout there, angel?”

His caramel eyes are so soft that you stutter as words tumble off your lips. “Just… ummm… just how amazing that was,” you breathe uncontrollably.

He chuckles and smiles down at you. “There’s plenty more I can show you, angel. Much more I can give you.”

Your throat closes up at that sentence. He wants to give you more? Suddenly, it feels like he’s offering more, but you don’t ask him. You just stare up at him with wide eyes.

He doesn’t say more on the subject, but you get the feeling this will come up at a later time. Right now you just want to focus on how warm his body is, how good it feels to be wrapped in his strong arms.

You rest your head on his chest and sink lower into him, letting the crackle of the fire send your eyelids fluttering shut, only focusing on Joel’s quiet breaths and his big hands that cradle the back of your head.

You swallow away anymore self doubt for the night, only thinking of Joel Miller, the hottest club owner, the most dominant yet gentle man you’ve ever met. You’re afraid you’re falling hard for him. And that’s exactly what you’re doing, what you’ve been doing ever since you met him.

Shit. You’re so fucked.

#joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #dom!joel miller #joel miller fic #soft dom joel #joel miller smut #joel miller #joel x female reader #joel the last of us #tlou fanfiction #joel miller pedro pascal #club owner! joel

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oddheadd · 9 months ago

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Frostbite °• : ⁠｡ - Chapter III

Skinwalker/Wendigo x reader

CW: Gross things like rotting :P

SMUT!! Rough sex, voyerism, non-consentual at the end(?)

I couldn't sleep last night. The screaming kept me awake.

Screaming? It sounded animalistic, the broken voice desperately wheezing and calling for attention. I laid there helplessly, clutching my pillow and worrying about wether I locked my doors or not. I was too scared to check them, so I just kept staring at the curtains, my heart almost popping out of its place as I tried to look away from them.

I couldn't, and at about 5-6 am, when the screaming had stopped, I dozed off. I later woke up at 4 pm, and weirdly enough, I was inspired to write some more. I put my nightly terror into descriptive paragraphs and created a monster.

One with long, grey, skinny limbs and hair thin enough to see it's pure white eyes... Rotten teeth caging the slithering maggots in its hollow mouth.

I take a deep breath and close my laptop. I grab my phone and see that Nathan had texted me last night.

"Do you drink?"

I can't help but smile and instantly start typing.

"after whatever the hell happened last night, I do."

I put my phone away and make myself a quick meal. My phone buzzes.

"And what happned?"

I chuckle at his misspelling.

"I heard someone or something screaming. I couldn't sleep all night :("

He answers quickly;

"Jackals?"

And I answer just as fast.

"Kind of... It had an artificial echo to it? Don't know how to explain."

I purse my lips and put my phone down. Taking a bite out of the poor excuse of a meal.

"You could demonstrate, when I take you to a bar in the town."

Smile grows on my face as I reread his messages. I should go, what's the worst that can happen? So, we text each other the details and it's a date!

I leave the cabin and decide to look around the village this time. Ain't no way I'm going into the forest after last night.

I try my best to remember the way home as I walk past the other cabins. I admire the architecture - simple, but charming nonetheless. Then I spot a girl, no older than nine looking at me through the window. I smile and give her a wave.

She stays still and keeps staring at me. My hand falls back to my side, and so does my smile. I avoid her gaze and keep walking. I take a few pictures and maybe make a few angels in the snow, before I see an old woman, just barely walking. I approach her. - "Hello, want me to walk you home?"

I get a better look at her face. It's wrinkled, as if her skin is melting off her face. Her eyes are marble like, despite being as dark as coals. I can barely make out her lips that stretch into an uncanny line. Her hair as thin as the monster's that I made up.

She looks at me before her face scrunches up, even more, into a scowl. - "...What are you doing here?" - My mood falters.

"...I used to come here as a child... My mother passed and I decided to visit for a while." - I explain myself. She raises an eyebrow and grabs my arm for support.

"(Your mother)'s kid. You've... Changed, quite a bit."

I tilt my head. - "Do I know you?"

"You'd always steal from my brother's cherry trees. You used to be an annoying, little rascal."

I chuckle awkwardly. - "I get that a lot. So you live down the road?"

"You've become... A very appetizing person." - She says, avoiding my question. I try not to think about her weird wording.

"...Thank you?" - I say after a long pause.

"I used to be like you. Maybe my skin was healthier." - She scoffs, bits of her saliva falling out of her mouth. - "...Not fair... At all." - she sighs.

I stay quiet as she rambles, a little more comfortable now that we've approached her cabin.

"But whatever it wants, it gets." - She says. She tightens her grip. - "Count yourself lucky, being able to serve it like that."

After that I head straight to my cabin. I can't wait to drink with Nathan tonight.

Now as I stand in the snow, my ass literally freezing off, I start to feel disappointed. He promised he'd pick me up, but now I'm getting worried he got lost and mauled.

Tiny snowflakes start falling, adding onto the already layered snow that's coating the ground. I sigh and check my phone again. My frown intensifies, when I see there's no new messages.

I almost fall off the bench on the porch when I see a figure in the corner of my eye.

"Jesus, Nathan. Do you always have to scare me like that?" - I rest my palm on my chest, dramatically so.

He flashes me the Cheshire grin - "Sorry."

I get off the porch and shove my hands into my pocket, a wave of disappointment washing over me when the pockets are just as cold.

"I thought the huge deer got to you." - I tease.

He narrows his eyes. - "I'm at the top of the food chain, you don't have to worry about stuff like that." - He brags and gives me his hand. I take it with a snort, his hands as cold as mine. - "I don't think we can make it to the Bar, it's too far away. And, it's getting dark."

I pout. He chuckles. - "But I know how to make it up to you~" - He says and takes out a flask from his coat.

I raise an eyebrow. - "Charming."

I then walk back to the front door of the cabin and unlock it, going inside. - "Come on in, I'm freezing." - I complain and look at him.

He follows after me with a smile and looks around. - "It's pretty cozy in here."

I chuckle and sit him down onto the couch. - "I think we have some old wine in the attic. Try not to miss me too much."

"Don't worry, I'm patient." - he smiles softly.

I turn on the flashlight on my phone after a hard struggle against the attic door, coughing my lungs out when the dust flies around in the air. I climb up and start looking around the boxes for the wine.

I smile when I finally find it. There's two blood red bottles with no distinct label on them, so I pick them up. My smile falls as I see a... Doll? It's made out of straws, clearly resembling a human body. I pick it up and inspect further. Is this a hex? I put it back down and get up, chills running down my spine when I notice a big red symbol on the wall. I stare at it for a while before turning around and leaving with the bottles in my hands.

I have a guest right now, I'll deal with it later.

On my way, I grab go into the kitchen to get glasses.

"I only have mugs and teacups, no fancy glasses." - I say before grabbing the cups and sitting next to him. He throws his arm around my shoulder.

"I don't look like the fancy type though, do I?" - He chuckles and I shrug.

I pour us some wine and sip from my cup. - "So, why did you move here again?"

"Nature always called out to me." - He shrugs. - "And you, Y/N? What's your job and why did you come here?"

I purce my lips. - "Well, I'm a writer. I've written some stuff but nothing special, really. I wanted to write a horror book and came here to set the mood, ya know?"

"And how's that working out?" - He tilts his head.

I sigh. - "I'm having the worst writer's block I've ever had. Barely wrote a few pages."

"Let's see then." - He says, and I hesitantly agree. I grab my laptop and open the file, handing it to him.

I stand up and approach the fireplace, tending to it as he reads for a while.

"It's great." - He smiles and I look back at him.

"Is it?"

"A little complaint... You're trying too hard to explain all the details. Reading is all about letting people warp characters and places into whatever their mind makes up."

"...That makes a lot of sense, actually." - I sit back next to him. - "Can you help me?"

He eyes me and nods.

I don't know how much time passes, but we're now sitting on the floor and already have finished the second bottle of wine, now taking turns on taking a swing out of Nathan's flask. I've been taking notes, typing away furiously.

As I let out a deep breath, I look up from my laptop screen and the whole room starts spinning. I grunt and put the gadget away, placing my head in Nathan's lap. He chuckles and strokes my hair. - "Are you alright?"

"...A little tired. And dizzy." - I pout. Nathan just keeps smiling and sits me up again, making me look at him by taking my chin in-between his fingers.

I keep looking into his eyes and his smile never falters, only getting closer to my own lips. I instinctively close my eyes and part my lips a little, almost melting into Nathan's arms when they connect with his.

My heated cheeks heat up even more when he lays me down onto the soft, warm carpet and lets out a deep groan.

Then I can't even comprehend what happened, when I look to my side and see both mine and his clothes on the floor. Then I feel his erected cock, rubbing against me and realize I'm not wearing any underwear neither. I look back at him and pull him into a kiss again, moaning in delight. He then pushes it inside of me, spreading the walls to make more room for himself and and starts gently grinding it deeper out of me.

I lose track of time and what's happening again, and this time feel him mercilessly thrusting his hips against my ass, almost steaming air of heat spreading into the whole room while his rough fingers caress all the right spots. I let out moans and whimpers in-between my breaths, while he muffles his in my collarbone.

"Don't stop... Fuck, Nathan..." - I moan out his name and he looks up at me.

He then runs his fingers through my hair pulls my head back, giving me a view of the rest of the room, before he buries his face into my neck and leaves a trail of sloppy kisses.

I get closer to cumming, feeling myself spasm and squeeze around him, before I notice something in the windows. There are people outside my cabin... They're chanting something while drawing a symbol on the windows...

It's the same symbol as the one in my attic. I huff and try to stop Nathan but he can't even see my expression with his head buried into my neck. I shut my eyes and try my best not to cry... And soon enough, pass out.

#skinwalker #wendigo #yandere #yandere x reader #yandere smut #monster smut #nonbinary reader #smut #roughfuck

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luveline · 1 year ago

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lovely jade if you were ever in the mood to write something for remus/reader where maybe they’re out with their friends and reader can tell that remus’ pain is flaring up but he doesn’t want to draw attention to it so she nudges him to lean on her i would be forever indebted to you

Remus has a strange laugh. It doesn't quite match his voice, which is unusual too. Sometimes he chuckles but mostly he giggles, this stringing, sweet sound as he grasps your hand or your arm or your elbow. And you love hearing it, laughing yourself at Sirius’ dirty joke, but you almost wince at the amount of weight he leans into you. It's over as soon as it began, he's moving away, his smile fading with his laugh.

You shouldn't be standing up, but the pub hadn't had a table and no one wanted to go home yet. You're waiting for an opening, a pitcher of Blue Lagoon between you all and a couple of bags of pork scratchings to ignore. Remus isn't made to stand this long, but it's not like him to mention it.

His jeans are starched under your fingers as you put a hand on his hip. He raises his eyebrows at you, semi-suggestive.

“She asked me who I was,” Sirius says, to Lily's disgust, and James’ poorly hidden amusement, “and I didn't have the heart to tell her. Remus ended up telling her we'd met before at a party–”

“Is this true?” you ask, standing closer to him than you need to.

He stares at you for a little while. Not long enough to be awkward, but longer than most people would pause. “I did feel a bit sorry for her, but she was lucky, really. Who'd want to remember a night with Pads?”

“Don't say it like that! I didn't touch the poor girl beyond helping her put a new shirt on. Such an unfortunate tattoo, that… It'd look nice on you, though,” Sirius says, grinning at James encouragingly.

“Think so?” James asks.

Lily protests this idea very loudly. James would not suit that kind of tattoo, and Remus should probably put a stop to it; Sirius’ power of persuasion multiplied by the danger of friendship (i.e. egging each other on relentlessly) could genuinely result in James getting a tramp stamp of the Welsh dragon before the night ends.

He's distracted, is all. Shifting from foot to foot, pulling his arms behind his back to prompt a click he won't get. You nudge him gently, and when he meets your eyes, you lean toward him deliberately with your shoulder clear for the grabbing. At the same time, you press your arm behind his back.

Miraculously, he accepts the offer of support. Remus wraps an arm around your shoulder and lets the majority of his weight rest on your centre of gravity, exhaling through his nose.

“Am I too much?” he asks, turning his head from his friends, his breath warming the shell of your ear.

“No. Lean on me as much as you want to.” Want, you say, rather than need.

Remus will appreciate the difference. He sighs as the pain in his back starts to ease off. If anyone were to look at you both, they wouldn't see you supporting him, just a lovers hug. You kiss his cheek a couple of times all squished together —one kiss or multiple?— before you lean away to brush soft strands of his hair behind his ear. “You okay?” you ask.

“I'm okay,” he says with a nod, a real grin on his lips as he does as you'd done, kissing your cheek. “I'm too tired for this. Do you think James can afford laser tattoo removal?”

#remus lupin x reader #remus lupin x fem!reader #remus lupin fluff #remus lupin x you #remus lupin x y/n #marauders era #remus x reader #remus x you #marauders #remus lupin drabble #remus lupin blurb #marauders x reader #remus lupin imagine #remus lupin fanfic #remus lupin fanfiction #the marauders

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bloatedandalone04 · 4 months ago

Text

Bets & Bargains - Part 9

Series Masterlist

➪in which you and bradley are happy and content with each other, but the girl he’s trying to keep in his past keeps trying to insert herself back in his life.

PSA: strongly suggested to read the warnings before proceeding.

WC; 4k | Do not repost this anywhere, reblogs are fine ♡

Now that the topic of sex had been discussed, you felt totally and completely comfortable with Bradley.

He didn’t want to rush into things if you didn’t, and that turned you on, strangely enough.

When Bradley left your place after that not-as-embarrassing as you thought it would be talk with him, you were left wanting him more than ever. How did you land yourself such a great boyfriend? And why did it take you so long to realize that the way Luke treated you was not at all the way a boyfriend should?

With Bradley, it felt right, it felt easy. He made you feel wanted and desired and like he actually wanted to be with you. When you were with Luke, it felt that way in the beginning, but slowly things started to fade, and it started pretty much right when he began asking for blowjobs and stating that you would get nothing in return.

Yeah, you should’ve seen the signs way earlier.

Unsurprisingly, the next day while you were in Eric Clarke’s class, you were thinking about Bradley. This was actually the class he walked you to the day after your first date at the gardens, funnily enough, so it was kind of obvious why you had a hard time focusing during the three hour lesson.

When the class ended, you were putting your journal and notebooks in your bag when Clarke - who very stoically asked to be called that on the first day of class - came up to your table that was in the middle row. “Miss Y/l/n,” he greeted, his eyes showing his older age as they wrinkled when he smiled down at you. He wasn’t too old, maybe in his early forties, if the gray hairs scattered around were anything to go by.

You looked up at him, your hand pausing halfway into your bag. “Oh, hi,” you say back, dropping your pencil into your bag before slinging it over your shoulder.

“I was hoping to speak to you privately about your recent assignment,” he started, leaning against the table and looking around at the others as they walked out of the room.

Fuck. The last assignment you turned in was one you were not confident about in the slightest. It was due yesterday, and you had to quickly write something up as soon as you got back home from Bradley’s place Monday night, right after he went down on you like a starved man.

To say you weren’t focused would be the biggest understatement. And Bradley was one hundred percent to blame for it.

“Oh,” you trail off, your brows dropping a bit as you look up at him. “It’s bad, right? I didn’t do very well?”

Clarke waited until it was just you and him left in the room before turning back to you and shaking his head. “Quite the opposite, actually,” he said and your brows lifted again.

“Wait, seriously?” You asked in disbelief, almost certain that the assignment was the worst one you had ever submitted in your entire life. “I thought I bombed it.”

“No,” he laughed, his eyes flickering down your body before settling back on yours. “It was good. Really good; well written, thought out, and not to mention the grammar was pretty much flawless.”

Now you were beginning to think he was just messing with you. The writing piece you turned in was bland, a bit boring and rushed, that much you knew. But maybe not? Why would your instructor lie to you? “Oh…really?” You ask again, feeling your phone vibrate from its place in your bag. “I wasn’t confident about it at all.”

Clarke nodded, crossing his arms and showing off his muscles against his tight fitting button up. You didn’t spend too long looking at them, out of respect for your teacher. If you were a few years older and attracted to guys twice your age, you’d be all over that, but thankfully you weren’t. “Of course there were a few errors here and there, but overall it was great,”

You smiled up at him. “Thank you,” then you looked around and noticed just how close he was to you now that you were alone. You look back at him with a smaller smile, “Is that all? I have another class right after this one.”

You didn’t, but you weren’t feeling all that comfortable right now. “Yes, that’s all,” he replied and thankfully stood back up to his full height, moving away from you. “Good work, Y/n.”

You give him another smile and quickly stand up, reaching for your phone as you exit the room. Just as your fingers brushed against it inside your bag, you bumped into someone in the hall and you instantly forgot about your quest of finding it. “I’m sorry,” you rush to say, but you immediately recognize the deep laugh of Bradley. You look up and meet his brown eyes, your gaze softening as you grin up at him. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he said back, resting his hands on your hips as he leans down to press a kiss to your lips. You kiss him back, your previous feeling of uneasiness washing away as you practically melt against him. “Did you get my text?” He asked when he pulled away.

You place your hands on his chest, shaking your head. “No, I haven’t checked my phone yet,” you answer, looking up at him. “Clarke kept me back for a few minutes after class.”

“Clarke, huh?” He teased, squeezing your hips playfully. “Should I be worried?”

You roll your eyes and gently push him away from you but then take his hand when he holds it out to you with a laugh. The two of you begin to walk down the hall towards the exit, your free hand pulling out your phone to check his text. You blush when you read it, looking over at him and leaning up to kiss his cheek. “I missed you too,” you beam, lacing your fingers with his. “And yes, you can walk me home after class.”

“Oh, good,” he laughed, holding up your joined hands. “Because this would’ve been really fucking awkward if you said no.”

You shake your head as you walk through the campus, and when you get to your building, you turn to look up at him. “Come in with me? Please?”

Bradley grinned down at you, squeezing your hand. “I was really hoping you’d ask me that,”

You were blushing as you guided him inside and right past Sam, who was sitting on the couch and looking up at the two of you with a scowl on her face. Bradley lifted his hand in a cocky wave as you passed her, and you held back a laugh as you pulled him down the hall and into your room. He turned to you with a smirk as you closed the door behind him, then he let his gaze drift around your room, and you realized he had never been in here before.

Now you were a bit nervous as you looked around your room as well, taking in the clutter. “Sorry, it’s kind of messy,” you trail off, dropping your bag onto the floor next to your dresser.

“Kind of messy?” He repeated with a laugh, letting you take his bag off his shoulder and drop it next to yours. “If this is ‘kind of messy’, what would you call my room?” He asked as he did one more scan before turning to you.

“Unorganized, untidy, cluttered, chaotic, maybe,” you listed and he raised his brow at you as he stepped forward and placed his hands on your hips.

“It’s not that bad and you know it,” he mumbled, pulling you close to him. His gaze softened as you smiled up at him, bracing your hands on his chest. “Is that Sam out there?”

Your smile faltered a bit as you looked down at his plain gray shirt. “Yeah,” you answer quietly, smoothing out the fabric with your fingers. “We haven’t been talking much. It kinda sucks. I miss her even though she’s right across the hall from me.”

Bradley hums, lifting his hand and tugging at your bottom lip with his thumb as he presses a kiss to your forehead. “Maybe I should go formally introduce myself to the person who can’t seem to stop upsetting my girl,” he mumbled against your skin and made a move to open the door, but you just laughed and pulled him further away from it.

“No,” you shook your head with a smile and tugged him towards your bed. “She’ll probably end up yelling at you and I’ll feel even more embarrassed.”

Bradley sat back against your headboard as he kept his fingers laced with yours. “Maybe I’ll hold off then,” he said, gently pulling on your hand until you were sitting next to him. “But I got you to laugh, though.”

You smile, moving to snuggle against his side as his arm wrapped around your shoulders. “Yeah,” you whispered, laying your head on his chest. “You did.”

He leaned down to press a kiss to the top of your head. “I want to take you out on a date,” he stated, making your smile grow as you propped your chin on his shoulder and looked up at him.

“Another one?” You teased, referring to the many dates you’ve already had with him. “What did you have in mind?”

Bradley looked in thought for a second before he said, “The beach,”

You raised a brow, “The beach?” You echoed, lifting yourself a bit higher so you could look him in the eye. “You mean the one that’s like a three hour drive away?”

He shrugged, “I can make it in two,” then grinned as he added, “Yeah, that’s the one.”

“You want to drive there?” You asked for clarification, playing with his fingers as you looked up at him.

“Yeah. You, me and the Jeep. My two girls,” he laughed and you blushed. “Plus, the drive will be like a test to see if we can put up with each other for that long.”

A laugh leaves your lips as you lean up to press a kiss to his jaw. “That’s a good point,” you agree. “What day?”

“Saturday?” He suggests, pulling you closer to him. “It’s supposed to be really hot and since summer is almost over, it shouldn’t be too crowded.”

You smile, leaning up higher to press a soft kiss to his mouth. “That actually sounds perfect,”

Bradley smiles back and kisses you again. “I’ll pick you up Saturday morning,” he mumbled against your lips and you nodded before kissing him for quite a while after.

The next day you were sitting on Bradley’s bed, your back propped against his knees as he leaned against his headboard. Your notebook was open on your thighs as you skimmed through the few notes you were able to write down during your lecture with Mal Scott, an instructor you actually really liked but had a hard time keeping up with.

Bradley was flipping through an old jet manual he said he found in his dad’s things, and the way he said it showed just how much he was used to not having a father figure, or a mother figure, around anymore. It made you sad, but that was a topic for further down the road.

You were trying to figure out if the letter on the paper was an e or a c when Bradley leaned in and placed his hands on your hips after setting the manual aside. “I’ll be right back,” he murmured, dipping his head down to press a kiss to the side of your mouth before he gently pushed you forward enough until he was able to slip out from under you.

You watched as he walked towards the small bathroom he had attached to his room, the one you were secretly jealous of since he has a fucking bathroom attached to his room, before looking back down at your notes.

Only a few seconds had passed before his phone went off from its place on the bed next to you. You glanced over at it, unsure if you were at the point in your relationship in which it was okay for you to check your boyfriend’s phone or not. After a few more seconds, you decide to leave it be and return your gaze to your book.

But then it went off again. And again. And then one more time and you grabbed it after the fourth ding. Maybe it was an emergency and someone really needed to reach him? That was what you thought, anyway, when you clicked on his messages.

Briana: I miss you, Brad.

Briana: I know you miss me, too.

Under those texts was a picture she sent, her blonde hair covering her left breast while her right one was on full display.

Briana: I know you miss fucking me.

You felt a bit sick and it only got worse when she sent a second picture, this one making your skin heat up. The photo was of the side of Bradley’s face, his lips pressed to her collar bone with his eyes closed. A faint smirk was on Briana’s face as she looked at the camera, her fingers tangled in his messy hair.

Briana: I bet that new girl hasn’t let you fuck her like this yet.

You quickly put down his phone and close your book, a feeling of nausea creeping up the back of your throat. You knew Bradley was with his ex for a while, and there was no doubt that they both have countless photos together on their phones, but the last thing you wanted to see was one of them unexpectedly like that.

Sitting up, you look around his bed for your own phone, wanting nothing more than to leave quietly and tell him you felt sick through text later, but then Bradley walked back into his room and made eye contact with you.

Bradley felt content for the first time in a long time. He has a great girlfriend, he’s doing well in his classes, and he’s spending less and less time holed up in his room.

Having you enter his life at this time was shaping out to be one of the best things to ever happen to him. When he was in your room yesterday, he saw your ticket from the gardens propped up against your mirror on your dresser, and the memory of it made him feel warm inside since you kept yours, just like how he kept his.

Bradley fixed his hair in the mirror from when you made it messy earlier during your pre-study makeout, and he was quickly figuring out that he definitely wanted to makeout with you before every study session from now on.

After smoothing out his hair, he left the bathroom and made eye contact with you, but instead of you looking happy like how you did a few minutes ago, you now looked like you were getting ready to bolt out of his room.

His brows furrowed and his smile faded as he quickly walked over to you. “Hey,” he said softly, sitting down next to you. Your expression was one of embarrassment as you reached for your bag and shoved your book into it. “What’s wrong?”

“Your phone went off and I left it, but then it went off again and again so I checked it,” you answer, not meeting his eyes as you zip up your bag. “I’m sorry.”

Bradley furrowed his brows. You were upset because you checked his phone? “Babes, it’s fine. I don’t care if you check my phone,” he said, but you gave him a look that told him you weren’t upset because of that.

He grabbed his phone and saw that Briana had texted him, and his face paled as he read the messages. “I shouldn’t have checked it without your permission,” you whispered as he quickly scrolled past the photos she attached. He’d never seen them before, he could tell that from the quick glimpse he got of both of them, and he had no idea when she took the one of him kissing her neck. It was obviously during one of the times they fucked during those eleven months, but he didn’t want to look at it again to further figure it out. “I think I should go.”

Then he realized that you saw the pictures and the texts and he quickly looked up at you. “Babes,” he started but you just shook your head and stood up from his bed. “Baby, wait, please.”

You made it all the way to his door before he caught up with you and gently grabbed your wrist. “You’re not upset that we haven’t had sex yet, right?” You asked before he could say anything.

“What? Of course not,” he assured you, sliding his hand down until it was holding yours. “We just talked about that and I told you I’m not in any rush with you. I’m sorry you saw those pictures, I don’t even know when she took the one of her and I.”

“I just…you were probably used to fucking her whenever you wanted and we haven’t done that yet and-”

“Hey,” he cut you off, using his other hand to firmly grip your chin. He waited until you met his eyes before he continued, “Yeah, Bri and I spent more time in bed together than out of it, but that was only because we didn’t connect very well any other time. I told you, fucking me was the best part of the relationship for her, and that’s all she saw me as. It’s still all she sees me as.”

You reached up and wrapped your fingers around his wrist. “She’s so pretty, Bradley…and the picture of you and her…I hate it,”

Bradley shook his head, his grip on your chin loosening. “Yeah, she’s pretty, but you’re fucking gorgeous. The most beautiful person I’ve ever met, inside and out,” he promised, pulling on your bottom lip with his thumb. “And I’d never seen that picture until a few seconds ago. I didn’t even know she took it, okay? I can’t do anything about the photos she has of us on her phone, but I can delete all the ones I have on my own. Just stay, please?”

You bit down on your lip and looked up at him with a conflicted expression. “I don’t want to be one of those controlling girlfriends, Bradley,”

“You’re not,” he said, and you thankfully let him pull you back towards his bed. He picked up his phone and handed it to you after opening up his photo gallery. “There’s not much, but delete anything you want. I promise you, Briana and I are done. We’re over.”

You took his phone from him, slowly sitting back down as you scrolled through the gallery. You’d probably stumble across some really fucking embarrassing photos of him in high school, but he honestly couldn’t care less.

“Bradley,” you said quietly as you clicked on the first photo he took with Briana. “Are you sure? I can get over it, I just-” But he just clicked on the delete button without saying a word, and you looked up at him with hooded eyes. “Okay.”

He gently pushed you onto your back as you held his phone up and scrolled until you found another one, and he hovered his body over yours as he waited for you to repeat what he did. “Delete it, baby,” he encouraged, running his hand down your body until his fingers grazed the zipper on your shorts. You tap the red button quickly and he grinned, pressing a kiss to the side of your neck. “Good job.”

Then he moved further down until his shoulders were pressed against your thighs and he was kneeling on the floor. He unzipped your shorts and slowly slid them down your legs, his lips pressing multiple kisses to the sides of your knees and inner thighs. “Bradley,” you moaned quietly and he could see your fingers shake a bit as you gripped his phone.

“Keep going, babes,” he murmured as he pressed a kiss to your lower stomach, his hands teasing your hips through the thin material of your panties. Your teeth sunk into your lip as you took a deep breath and continued scrolling through his photos, and he pressed a final kiss to your core before pulling the flimsy fabric down your legs and leaving your lower half bare.

A quiet moan left your lips when he leaned in and licked a stripe up your folds, his tongue gently spreading around your wetness. “Fuck,” you whispered, clicking on the delete button again as you found another photo of his ex.

Bradley grinned before wrapping his lips around your clit and sucking softly. Your body jolted a bit and he felt a sense of pride fill him as he remembered that he is almost already surpassing the amount of times Luke went down on you in the three years you were with him. You hadn’t even been his girlfriend for a full week yet and already Bradley had tasted you as much as your ex did in three fucking years. What a fucking loser Luke was.

Your body was writhing against his mouth as you held his phone with a death grip, your forehead forming a cute crease as you tried to focus on the task he had given you. “You taste so good, baby,” Bradley praised, releasing your puffy clit so he could slide his tongue through your wetness again.

“Oh, my God,” you moaned, your fingers moving faster on the screen as he spreads you out again before dipping his tongue inside you. He groaned as your arousal coated his taste buds, and he wrapped his arms under your thighs and pulled you closer. “Feels so good, Bradley.”

He fucking loved the way you moaned his name. His real name, not a shortened version or his last name. His real first name, and the only one you’ve ever called him.

Bradley grunted, bumping your clit with the tip of his nose as he kissed, licked and tasted every part of you. “How’s my gallery looking, babes?” He teased and you whimpered.

“Good..it’s good,” you respond, subtly grinding against his tongue.

“What’s good?” He smirked, taking your clit in his mouth again and tugging on it with his teeth. “Tell me.”

“Fuck,” you cry out, nearly dropping his phone. “You. You’re good. You’re so good.”

Bradley grinned, running his tongue along your bundle of nerves before slipping it back inside you. Your back was arching now and your legs were trying to close around his head, but his shoulders prevented them from getting very far.

“Holy fuck,” you cursed, quickly tapping on his screen one last time before dropping his phone next to you and reaching down to pull on his hair. “There. It’s done.”

Bradley hummed as he felt your fingers thread through his hair and make it messy again for the second time today. “Good,” he praised, flattening out his tongue as he licked your dripping core. “Now I want you to come for me.”

Your eyes rolled back and you pulled harder on his hair as you did just that. A high pitched cry left your lips as you came on his tongue, your hips slowly grinding against his face as you tip your head back on his bed. “Oh, my fucking God, Bradley,” you whined as he lapped up your release. “You’re too good at that.”

He grinned as he pulled away and crawled back up your body, his mouth and chin glistening with the remnants of your high. “It’s light work,” he teased, grabbing his phone and holding it up. “Come here.” He softly demanded and you moved your head to kiss him, your eyes closing as you tasted yourself on his lips.

Bradley parted his mouth and your tongue brushed against his just as he took a picture of the obscene kiss and officially added you to his camera roll, the intense photo surely going to fuel his need for you in the future.

154 notes · View notes

scary-grace · 22 days ago

Note

the boy anon spooky prompt here and it would be very cool to see it reader x shigaraki if possible. I just really like the way you write it and i think it would be interesting.

Hi! Thank you so much for the prompt! I had to go check out the movie for this one, and I agree -- it was really interesting to write! I hope you enjoy this take on it. Happy Halloween! (dividers by @cafekitsune)

d-o-l-l-h-o-u-s-e

You need a job and a place to hide. The Shimuras need a nanny for their five-year-old son Tenko while they take a three-month trip abroad. It's a match made in heaven -- or it would be, if it wasn't for the fact that Tenko's been dead for seventeen years, and they want you to look after a doll that looks just like him. It wouldn't take much for you to be convinced that the doll's haunted by Shimura Tenko himself. And it is haunted. Just not the way you thought. (cross-posted to Ao3)

You’ve been on and off apprehensive since you stepped off the train at Kurouzu station, and more on-apprehensive than off since the directions you printed off pointed you straight out of town, but when you actually reach the address you’re aiming for, the nerves kick into high gear. This is the Shimura family’s estate, all right. The address is right, and so is the sign. And you know the Shimuras have money, or else they wouldn’t be able to afford paying a broke twentysomething to live in their house and watch their son – but still, you weren’t expecting their house to be this huge.

It feels iffy. Is it actually iffy? Or do you just want it to be iffy because you’re into self-sabotaging and you’re nervous about babysitting a five-year-old for three months? Whether it’s iffy or not, you still need money. And somewhere to stay. And you made a promise. You take a deep breathe, then ring the doorbell.

The door opens so fast that it gives you whiplash, and you find yourself staring up at a tall, dark-haired man with fine features and a mouth that’s primed to frown. “Mr. Shimura?”

“Yes. You’re late.”

“I’m – sorry?” You stumble on the words. “I thought I was – just a few minutes –”

“You’re fine, sweetheart.” A pretty, brown-haired woman appears over Mr. Shimura’s shoulder, a nervous, strained smile on her face. “Kotaro’s just a little anxious. It’s been years since we took a trip, and he’s still a little worried that something’s going to go wrong.”

“Yes,” Mr. Shimura agrees. There’s a pause. “Come inside. Tenko is quite anxious to meet you.”

Right. The kid. You put on a smile. “I’m excited to meet him too.”

The Shimuras’ house is pretty on the outside, fancy on the inside – but dark. All the curtains are drawn, and the lights aren’t bright enough to compete with shadows. It doesn’t look like the kind of house that a five-year-old lives in. You don’t know a lot of people with five-year-olds, but you’re pretty sure that five-year-olds are messier than this. There should be toys around. Or kids’ books. There should be brighter colors, better lights, maybe an open window or two. It can’t be good for Tenko to have things this dark.

What do you know? You’re not a parent. Then again, you’ll be the one responsible for Tenko for the next three months, so maybe you can make a few changes around here. You bought a book on developmental theory to read on the train, but instead you ended up watching TikTok videos until the 5G vanished. Maybe you’ll start reading it tonight after you put Tenko to bed.

“So, um –” you start, as Mrs. Shimura leads you up the stairs. “Can you tell me a little bit about what Tenko’s like? I mean, obviously I’ll ask him, but –”

“Oh, we can tell you!” Mrs. Shimura’s voice is bright. “He’s –”

“After you meet him,” Mr. Shimura interrupts from behind you. “Wait here.”

You pause, and Mr. Shimura slips past you to join Mrs. Shimura up ahead. They duck into a particular room, and you can hear them talking quietly. In the meantime, you take stock of your surroundings. The Shimura house is sparsely decorated, but on the wall opposite from you, there’s a family portrait hanging. It’s a good one. Mrs. Shimura, Mr. Shimura, and two children. The boy, the smaller one, must be Tenko. But there’s another one. A girl.

She doesn’t look that much older than Tenko. Is she old enough to go on a European tour with her parents, or is she staying with somebody else? If she’s staying with somebody else, how come Tenko isn’t staying there, too? Before you can really wind yourself up over something that’s none of your business, Mr. Shimura steps out into the hall, followed by Mrs. Shimura, who’s carrying Tenko. He must not be very heavy – she’s beckoning you forward with one hand.

“He’s a bit shy,” she says, apologetic. You have a split second to realize that something’s off about the kid’s position in her arms before she steps forward, fully into the light. “This is Tenko, our son. Say hello.”

You can’t say anything at all. All you can do is stare, because Tenko’s not a little boy like you thought he’d be. Tenko’s not a boy at all. Tenko’s a doll.

“A doll?” Manami asks. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” you hiss into the phone. It’s a big cordless phone, and you’ve got it pinned between your ear and shoulder as you pack and unpack your suitcase over and over again. “A big, creepy doll. Why would I lie about this?”

“I mean, I don’t think you would,” Manami says. She sounds bemused more than anything else. Maybe you need to say “creepy” again, with more emphasis. “How big is it?”

“Like, kid-sized. They put it on the bed at night.” You can’t think of the whole bizarre ritual Mr. and Mrs. Shimura demonstrated for you without feeling like you’ve lost your mind. “They have a daily routine for it – I’m supposed to wake it up in the morning, and take it out of its pajamas and put it in its clothes and make it breakfast –”

“Why do you have to make it breakfast? Dolls don’t eat.”

“I know dolls don’t eat. Everybody and their mother knows dolls don’t eat! Even little kids only fake-feed their dolls.” You want to scream. “But they want me to make it breakfast. And play music for it. And read aloud to it – and make it lunch and dinner and read it a bedtime story like it’s a real kid. I’m even supposed to give it a goodnight kiss.”

“But it’s not a real kid,” Manami says. You hit your head against the bedpost, producing a hollow thunk. “Why do they have you taking care of a doll like it’s a real kid? Do they even have real kids?”

“They do. Did.” You wouldn’t let the Shimuras leave without giving you an answer about that one, and because they really wanted you to stay and look after their creepy doll for three months, they didn’t screw around. “Two of them. Tenko – the one they named the doll after – and an older girl named Hana. They both died in an accident seventeen years ago.”

“Oh, that’s awful.” Manami sounds like she’s tearing up. You probably would have teared up, too, if the Shimuras hadn’t told you that after they’d handed you the creepy doll they named after their dead son. “They lost both their kids at once? I would go crazy too.”

“That’s the thing. They didn’t,” you say. “Not all the way. There’s only one doll.”

“That’s kind of weird,” Manami admits. “Why wouldn’t they make one for Hana too?”

“It gets weirder. Hana has a shrine. I’m supposed to take care of it.” That’s the least weird part of your job. If all you were doing was taking care of shrines to the Shimuras’ dead kids, you’d be perfectly happy. “They don’t have a shrine for Tenko. And the only picture they have of him is in this big family portrait on the wall.”

“Huh,” Manami says slowly. “Rich people are weird.”

“That’s all you’ve got to say?” you ask, exasperated. “Rich people are weird?”

“They are. Poor people wouldn’t make a life-sized doll of their dead kid and pay somebody to take care of it like it’s alive,” Manami says. You think she’s probably right. You’re poor, and if you had a kid who died, you – well, you don’t know what you’d do. You definitely wouldn’t do that. “Does it look like him?”

“Yeah. Creepily like him.” When you were racing upstairs to drop the doll on the bed and lock it in, you were unnerved enough to stop by the family portrait and check. “And creepily accurate, size-wise. Like, if you didn’t look too hard, you’d think he was real.”

“He is real,” Manami says, and you almost drop the phone. “I mean, the doll is real.”

“Right.” The doll is a little too real for your taste. “I think I meant alive.”

“That’s creepy,” Manami says, and you breathe a sigh of relief. You called her looking for validation, and you got it. You should have expected her to ask for details first. You would have. “What are you going to do?”

“I can’t stay here,” you say, but even as the words leave your mouth, you know they aren’t true. “I can’t leave, either. I need the money. And I need to be – away. For a little while at least. Until everybody forgets.”

“Until he forgets,” Manami says. Your ex-boyfriend, everybody. He’s so popular in town that they might as well be the same thing. “He came around last night looking for you. Danjuro told him off.”

You were already on edge over the doll thing, but that piece of news soaks you in an instant cold sweat. “Did he say anything?”

“Danjuro or Keigo? Danjuro would never,” Manami says, offended. You try to pace your breathing, praying you won’t hyperventilate. “Keigo said he was just worried about you, because he didn’t see you come to work yesterday – and when he asked everyone said you’d quit – so he thought he’d stop by –”

“Fuck.” If you could go back in time and give your past self one piece of advice, it would be to send the town’s youngest police chief in history packing when he asked if he could buy you a drink. That one bad decision spiraled into a nightmare you’re still struggling to escape. “I don’t understand. What is it going to take to make him stop?”

“You’re doing the smart thing. Going away, letting things die down,” Manami says. “I know this new place is creepy, but you picked it for a good reason. They’ll pay you cash, so Keigo can’t trace your cards. It’s a small town off the map, so it’ll be hard for him to find –”

“And I’m supposed to spend all day playing house with creepy Tenko, so no one will be able to tell him they saw me.” You’ll wear a disguise if you have to go out into town. Now that you know Keigo’s still looking for you, you need to be even more careful. “I just wish I wasn’t stuck here. And I wish it was a real kid.”

“Real kids pee their pants and cry,” Manami says practically, and you manage a wheeze of laughter. You knew talking to Manami would make you feel better, even if nothing has changed. “Trust me. You’re better off with the doll.”

You might be better off with the doll than a real kid, but for the first week or so of your stay in the Shimura house, you neglect doll Tenko in a way that real Tenko would never have let you get away with. Real Tenko probably wouldn’t have put up with being locked in his room all day, or being fed breakfast at two pm because you stayed up late and slept in later the night before. And real Tenko definitely wouldn’t have tolerated being schlepped around feet-up because you don’t like having his scary porcelain face so close to yours.

Then again, real Tenko probably didn’t like listening to classical music at max volume, either. Real Tenko’s also been dead for seventeen years. It’s probably safe to stop worrying about what real Tenko would think of how you deal with his freaky little homunculus counterpart.

Whenever you’re not conspicuously ignoring Tenko’s schedule, you’re getting to know the rest of the Shimura house – and outside it, the Shimura estate. It’s beautiful, so beautiful that you have a hard time imagining how anything in Europe could measure up, and when the weather allows it you spend a lot of time outdoors, poking around on the trails that cover the property and watching whatever animals wander by. The animals here aren’t very scared of people. The Shimuras probably don’t allow hunting on their property, and based on what the mailman does when he stops by every afternoon, nobody in town likes coming near the property for too long.

One person does, though. The Shimuras let you know that somebody comes by to deliver groceries – and bring your payment – once a week, and you’re coming back from a walk on a grey, foggy day when you see him. He’s balancing four grocery bags in one arm and trying to unlock the door with the other. You hurry forward. “Here, let me get that. I’m sorry.”

“I rang the bell.” The delivery guy’s face is completely concealed by the pile of grocery bags he’s toting. “No answer.”

“Yeah, I was out for a walk.”

“I thought you were supposed to stay inside. You know, since Tenko’s allergic to the air the rest of us breathe.” The delivery guy steps through the door after you unlock it, then drops the bags on the kitchen table and looks around. “Where is the kid, anyway? He’s usually attached to Mrs. Shimura at the hip.”

“He’s, uh, taking a nap.” You look the delivery guy up and down, noting blue eyes and spiky white hair, along with some burn scars and a ton of facial piercings. “I’m sorry, they didn’t tell me your name.”

“It’s Touya.” He holds out a hand to shake, and you copy him as you introduce yourself. “Yeah, Mrs. Shimura mentioned that someone new was coming, but I wasn’t sure you’d still be here. They’ve tried out a lot of nannies, but Tenko’s kind of picky. Or so I hear.”

“Are you making fun of me?” you ask. Touya’s eyebrows lift. “We are talking about the same Tenko here, right?”

“The d-o-l-l? That’s right,” Touya says. You give him the weirdest look you can manage on short notice. “Yeah. The Shimuras get pissy if we don’t talk about him like he’s real, so we all got in the habit. You will, too, if you’re here long enough.”

“We,” you repeat. “How many of you are there?”

“Me and my siblings. The Shimuras hire us to do stuff,” Touya says. “The weekly deliveries are usually my thing, but Fuyumi or Natsuo might fill in sometimes, since they can drive, too. Fuyumi helps with their garden in the summers and Natsuo does maintenance shit. I won’t bring the brat out here until it’s time to chop firewood. One of these days I’ll get lucky and he’ll lose a limb.”

You think Touya’s joking. You’re not sure. “Which one’s the brat?”

“Shoto. My baby brother. Daddy’s favorite.” Touya scoffs. “He gets all the pocket money he wants. He doesn’t even need to work, but does he let that stop him? No. He makes me drag him out here anyway –”

Touya breaks off, glances at you. “Do you have siblings?”

“Yeah.” You have siblings the same way the Shimuras have kids, but you don’t bring that up unless you’re forced to. “I’m the oldest. I’m guessing you are, too?”

“That’s right.” Touya runs a hand through his hair, spiking it up even higher than it was before. “Not that I care too much about your backstory, but you must have something really shitty going on to make this the better offer.”

“Yeah. You could say that.” You’re not too interested in Touya’s thoughts on your backstory, either. You collect the envelope with your pay and sort through it quickly, confirming that it’s all there, then look up at Touya. “Do I need to tip you or anything?”

“Twenty percent is customary.” Touya doesn’t let that crack stand for very long. “No. The Shimuras might be off the wall, but they pay well for everything – grunt work like what I do all the way up to caring for their precious little boy.”

There’s a thud from somewhere upstairs, and you jump out of your skin. Touya startles, too, but he recovers faster. “Sounds like the monkey just fell off the bed. You should probably go check on that.”

“Yeah. It was, uh – nice to meet you,” you say. Touya snorts. “See you next week.”

You don’t actually think Touya would steal your money, but you take the envelope with you when you race up the stairs to the second floor, and drop it on your bed before hurrying into Tenko’s room. You spend as little time in here as possible. It’s like a time capsule, frozen on the day the Shimuras decided to replace their dead son but not their dead daughter with a photorealistic porcelain doll, and it gives off some of the worst vibes you’ve ever felt.

You leave Tenko in here most of the time because looking at him creeps you out, and in spite of Touya’s joke about monkeys on the bed, he’s exactly where you left him. What’s fallen over is a mostly-empty bookshelf, and there’s something behind it – a little alcove in the wall, with a pile of old, dusty toys. Action figures, mainly, along with a single plushie. You go to investigate, and discover that while you’re not much of a comic-book fan, you recognize almost all the action figures. They’re from Adventures of All Might, a cartoon your brother used to watch. It’s been off the air for ten years at least. What are toys from a show that old doing in a five-year-old’s room?

The answer occurs to you, and to your displeasure, it makes you even more uncomfortable than the question. This isn’t a five-year-old’s room. Shimura Tenko died when he was five years old – seventeen years ago, when Adventures of All Might was on the air. If Tenko was alive, he’d be about as old as you are. The thought weirds you out so badly that you nudge the action figures to the side and pick up the plushie.

Getting a decent look at the plushie first involves violently shaking the plushie until the dust comes up in a big cloud. Underneath the dust, the plushie’s dog-shaped, or more accurately, corgi-shaped. There’s a piece of yarn around its neck, with a cardboard tag hanging from it. You hold it up for a look and somehow manage to decipher the handwriting of a long-dead five-year-old. “Mon,” you say out loud. “That’s a good name.”

It's a good name, but thinking about it makes you miserable. A big, creepy doll might be all that’s left of Shimura Tenko, but Shimura Tenko was a real person – a little kid who liked cartoons and handmade a collar for his plushie, who’d be your age if he’d had the chance to grow up. Your eyes are stinging from the dust. You spend a few more seconds brushing it away, then carry Mon over to the bed and set him down beside Tenko.

You’re surprised at how much less unsettling the sight becomes now that you’ve added a toy to it. It’s improved enough that you feel okay spending a little longer in Tenko’s room, righting the bookshelf that fell and arranging the action figures on top of it, before you go downstairs to put away the groceries.

The Shimura house is old. Old houses make noises – weird noises, a lot of the time, and that’s just something you have to live with. You’re good at living with it most nights, but tonight, as the first really big storm of autumn rages around the house, the noises you hear sound less like old-house creaks and groans and more like footsteps. And voices. And laughter. No matter how hard you try to distract yourself, you can’t.

You tried to call Manami, but the phone lines are down, and while you haven’t tried the lights, you’re pretty sure they’re out. All you can do is huddle up in bed, the door to your room barricaded, mumbling to yourself like an actual lunatic. “This is fucked up, this is fucked up, this is so fucked up –”

You’re fucked up. You think something’s haunting this place? The ghosts of a five-year-old and his seven-year-old sister, who didn’t even die in here? Some haunting. It’s your overactive imagination putting you through hell, and you’ve got proof – your shitty ex-boyfriend Takami Keigo is very much alive, and your mind’s been telling you that one of the laughing voices belongs to him. If you were faced with a choice between a living Keigo and a ghost Keigo, you’d pick the ghost in a heartbeat. Ghosts can’t stalk you when you try to take a break from the relationship and enlist the entire town, police force included, to their cause. And you could probably exorcise him, which would be a lot easier than whatever you’d have to do to get rid of real Keigo for good.

The sounds get weirder, and they’re coming from all over the place – the ceiling above you, the hallway, the rooms on either side of yours, even inside the walls. Maybe you’ve got rats or something. You’ll ask Natsuo about that when he comes over tomorrow to clear leaves out of the gutters and branches off the roof. It’s fine if there’s rats tonight, right? You can take a rat in a fight. Probably even ten rats. You’re not going to get eaten alive by rats. Ghost Keigo could be dealt with. Rats can also be dealt with. It’s just your imagination. You need to get it together.

It's just past three in the morning, and you think the getting-it-together is going okay, when a particularly big gust of wind rattles the house. There’s a colossal bang from somewhere, but only one. The windows are shaking in their frames, producing an odd, warped sound, and somewhere beneath it, there’s another sound, a sound that’s got no place in this house. Someone’s crying. It doesn’t take much or any stretching of the imagination to convince yourself that it’s a kid.

You decide instantly that you’re not going to waste time trying to talk yourself out of it. You’ll go check on Tenko, confirm that Tenko is in fact still a doll and not a real boy, and then you’ll go to bed and sleep in as late as you damn well please.

The wood floors in the hallway are cold beneath your feet, but it’s only a short walk to Tenko’s room – and then you have to double back, because you don’t have a flashlight and the lights are out. You’re already spooked and already frustrated by the time you open the door to Tenko’s room, and when you open the door, you’re ready to be mad. You click on the flashlight, raise it, and pan it over the room. And then you freeze.

Tenko’s room is trashed. Multiple shelves have been overturned, toys and books spilling everywhere, and the curtains over the boarded-up window hang in tatters. The shade’s off the lamp on the nightstand, and the dresser drawers yawn open – or else they’ve been pulled free and scattered across the room. The sheets are askew on the bed, the bed itself shifted at a weird angle. Tenko is nowhere to be found.

“Tenko?” you say hesitantly. You pan the flashlight again, and for a split second, you see a shadow crouched atop Tenko’s bed, far too big to be the doll. You don’t need to see any more than that. You drop the flashlight and scream.

The storm drowns out your scream, and you run out of air eventually – and then you’re tired of it. Screaming’s not doing anything to help, and if the shadow was going to kill you, it would have done it by now. You crouch down and feel along the floor until you come up with the flashlight, which still works. You check the bed first, but there’s no shadow there. There never was. The only things in this house are you and Tenko, and neither of you was up on the bed like a gremlin five seconds ago. You keep looking for Tenko. He has to be in here somewhere.

And he is. You find him behind the door, Mon-chan in his arms, his knees drawn up to his chest. “Hi, Tenko,” you say, like a crazy person. “Did you get scared?”

He doesn’t answer, of course. Because he’s a doll. He’s a doll, and you’re crazy. Knowing that doesn’t stop you from looking around at the wreckage of the room, thinking about how scary it would be to have to go back to bed in here if you were a kid. Thinking about how you used to be scared of lightning and thunder – maybe still are. “If you’re still scared,” you start, “do you want to stay in my room for tonight?”

Five minutes later, you’re setting a line of pillows down the middle of your bed, leaving one half for you and one half for Tenko. And Mon-chan, because you felt less weird about inviting a doll to sleep in your bed if the doll has its plushie, too. Once you’ve got Tenko squared away, you block the door again. “It’ll be daylight soon,” you tell yourself. Then, to Tenko: “We’ll fix your room up and everything will be fine.”

Tenko’s eyes are open. His eyes are grey, like they are in the family portrait, with long lashes. You reach out and close their lids carefully. The chances that you’ll be able to get to sleep are slim, but they’re zero as long as you’ve got a doll staring at you.

“It’s weird, right?” you say anxiously as Natsuo scans the mess in Tenko’s room. Most of the Todoroki kids don’t come inside the house, but you managed to lure Natsuo inside by mentioning the really loud bang you heard last night. “The wind couldn’t have done this.”

“Not with all the windows boarded up, yeah.” Natsuo looks wary. “You sure you don’t sleepwalk or anything?”

“Never,” you say. “I just – it was like this when I came in.”

“This is creeping me out,” Natsuo says, but he doesn’t look away. He’s looking around the room. “Where’s Tenko?”

“I moved him. In there.” You nod toward your room. “Things got wild in here last night. I kept thinking I was hearing voices, or laughter – or kids crying –”

You sound like a lunatic, again. Why does everything that happens to you make you look and feel crazy? “Have any of the other nannies mentioned things like that?”

“No,” Natsuo says, backing away from Tenko’s room. He glances into your room again. “Hey, Tenko. What – wait, you found Mon-chan? I remember that thing.”

“Huh?”

“That used to be his favorite,” Natsuo says. “When he was alive.”

You didn’t get much sleep last night. You’re a little slow. “Wait, you knew him?”

“We all did. Hana, too.” Natsuo starts down the hall, aiming for the stairs to the third floor. “They’re the richest family in town, and our shitty bastard of a father only wanted us to associate with the best. We all played together.”

You wish somebody had told you that earlier. “What was he like?”

“I don’t really remember,” Natsuo says with a shrug. “I was four. Touya would know better. You should ask him.”

He disappears up the stairs, and you chase after him. You don’t spend a lot of time on the top floor – it’s the master bedroom, and Mr. Shimura’s study, and a lot of stuff you feel like you shouldn’t get involved with. Natsuo doesn’t seem to have the same problem. “The attic’s open,” he calls. You climb the last few steps. “I bet the thud you heard was the trapdoor coming down.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right.” The trapdoor and ladder look heavy enough to produce the sound. “Can you fix it?”

“I’d have to climb up in there.” Natsuo looks really wary now. Out of the three older Todoroki siblings, he’s the one who’s least comfortable with coming into the house. “How about you climb up and look at the hinges? I’ll tell you what to look for, and I’ll come up if there’s anything wrong.”

You don’t want to go up in the attic, either, but you also want to make sure this doesn’t happen again. You nudge past Natsuo and climb the ladder into the musty dimness of the attic. Dimness, not darkness – there’s a skylight, the first window on the upper floors of the house that’s not boarded up completely. The attic itself is cluttered and dusty, but there aren’t any cobwebs that you can see. Small favors.

You crouch down by the trapdoor. “Okay. What am I looking for?”

Natsuo tells you, but even without his instructions, you probably could have figured it out. One hinge has been completely sheared away, dangling by one barely-there screw. Natsuo climbs up to study it with you, frowning. “This doesn’t look like metal fatigue. And the wood’s still in good condition. I don’t understand why it would just break.”

“I don’t know,” you say. “Can you fix it or not?”

“Yeah,” Natsuo says. “You have to stick around, though. I’m not staying up here alone.”

“Fair enough.”

While Natsuo works, you investigate the rest of the attic, trying not to sneeze and create a dust storm. At least half the attic is taken up by objects labeled as belonging to “Mom”, but they’ve been there way too long to be referring to Mrs. Shimura. You blow some dust off of a big picture frame to see what’s inside and find yourself looking at a poster that could be from a circus. The background is black and yellow and grey, the lettering ornate but still legible. Psychopomp, Medium, Illusionist: See the Spectacular Shimura Nana!

The next picture frame in line has a picture of Shimura Nana herself, and it’s immediately clear to you where Mr. Shimura got his looks from. Shimura Nana is gorgeous, dark-haired and grey-eyed with a bright, almost cocky smile on her face, and there’s a birthmark just below the corner of her mouth that looks familiar. When you think about people who can talk to the dead, you don’t think of them as looking this happy.

You carry both picture frames back to Natsuo. “Did you know their grandma was a magician?”

“No.” Natsuo glances at the frames, then flinches, almost dropping his screwdriver. “Shit. If I were you, I’d get out of here.”

You raise your eyebrows, and Natsuo gives you an exasperated look. “Somebody who could talk to the dead used to live here. The people who own this place have a doll that they treat like their dead son. And last night something trashed their dead son’s room. Haven’t you ever seen a horror movie? This place is haunted.”

“Don’t say that. I have to live here.”

“It’s gonna be haunted whether I say it or not.” Natsuo gives you a weird look. “Is it just the money thing? There are other ways to get money.”

“It’s not just money. I have to stay out of the way,” you say. “There’s this guy – my ex – he’s a cop –”

Natsuo’s mouth turns down at the corners. “I get it,” he says. “Our piece-of-shit old man is a cop. Our mom couldn’t get away, either.”

Your stomach drops. You know cops talk to each other. “Please don’t tell your dad that I’m –”

“Are you kidding? I barely talk to him. No way am I telling him that.” Natsuo says. He glances at you. “I get why you feel like you have to stay here. This place is still haunted.”

“Yeah,” you admit. You don’t know what’s haunting it – Tenko’s ghost, his sister’s ghost, his grandma’s ghost, or all three plus however many ghosts Shimura Nana summoned to hang out with her – but you have the same thought you had last night, and this time, you say it out loud. “I’ll take my chances with the ghosts.”

You get Tenko’s room reordered, and when the next storm comes, it doesn’t get trashed again. Then again, you go and grab the doll from the room the second you hear the first clap of thunder – not because you really think there’s a scared five-year-old ghost haunting it, but just to be safe. That same night, you retrieve Tenko’s schedule from where you abandoned it a month ago and read over it. Again, just to be safe.

It’s not that bad of a schedule, really. It’s not that weird. Most of it just involves moving Tenko from place to place around the house. You’d probably want a change of scenery, too, if you were a ghost haunting a doll. You don’t mind playing him music, but you play stuff you like, at a volume that’s a little less than earsplitting. You don’t mind reading aloud, so long as you’re reading your own books, and editing out the parts that aren’t kid-appropriate on the fly. And because he’s just there, and he’s not going to give you any feedback, it’s okay to think out loud.

At first it’s just whatever thought pops into your head, but as the days slip past in the second month of your stay at the Shimura house, you find that you’re getting into some stuff you haven’t talked about with anyone. And then, one day when you’re in the kitchen making your own dinner and setting out a plate for Tenko that you’ll inevitably throw away, you find yourself talking about something you swore you never would.

“I used to be a big sister,” you tell him. “Not like you and Hana. A bigger sister. My brother was five years younger than me, and he was my parents’ favorite, right from the start. That always used to confuse me. They liked him better even before he did anything.”

Confused is downplaying it. You were hurt. You still are, when you scratch the surface even a centimeter down. “I wanted to be a good sister, but it seemed like everything I did was wrong. I played too rough, or else I wasn’t playing with him at all. I didn’t share my toys, or I gave him toys he wasn’t supposed to have – and when I took them back, he’d always yell. And then my dad would yell. And I’d cry. But my brother was crying, too. And my mom always went to him.”

You glance back over your shoulder at Tenko. He’s sitting and waiting, like always, expression still and remote. You can’t look at him and say this next part. “When it happened, I was nine,” you say. “He was four. I was playing marbles, and he kept trying to grab them from me. He could talk by then – a lot – so I made a deal with him. He could pick any marble he wanted to play with, and let me have the rest of them. So he picked one – this big shooter, my favorite. Right out of my hand.”

The echo of your nine-year-old self’s anger still echoes through you, made all the more sickening by what happened next. “I tried to get it back, and he stuffed it in his mouth so I couldn’t. And then he started choking.”

You couldn’t get it out. You tried, screaming for help the whole time, but nothing you did made any difference. Nothing your mom did made any difference, either, and your baby brother was blue by the time the ambulance got there. Your parents didn’t blame you. You thought they were going to. You expected them to. But in their version of the story, you were barely there. You were their only kid again, and they couldn’t afford to hate you. Your brother grabbed the marble and swallowed it, and choked, and died. You just happened to be there. It wasn’t your fault.

But it was. You were the one who offered any marble he wanted. You should have known he’d pick the one you were holding – one that was too big to fit down his throat, one he’d try to keep away from you at any cost once he had it. You’re the one who couldn’t save him, and thinking about it doesn’t even make you cry. You’d say it makes you feel sick, but sick is too small of a word for the hollowness inside you. The place where you used to be a sister. The place where you used to be good.

“Today’s his birthday,” you tell Tenko, dry-eyed. “You’d be twenty-two like me if you were here for real, and he’d be seventeen, and I never told anybody that I gave the marble to him until just now. I don’t even know why I told you. I guess I thought you should know that it’s a good thing you’re not a real kid. Because I really don’t have great luck with those.”

You set Tenko’s plate down in front of him, knowing the food won’t be touched, then turn away to fill yours. When you turn back, the entire plate is gone.

You’ve gotten comfortable with the fact that the Shimura house is haunted. As comfortable as it’s possible to be when you don’t know exactly what’s haunting it. You put up with weird sounds at night, and with things being moved around, and you put up with some of your stuff going missing – but a whole plate of food vanishing because you turned around for two seconds? Nope. Not a chance. “Put it back.”

“He knows.”

You almost drop your plate, then tighten your grip. You’re losing it, officially, but you’ll be damned before you drop a bunch of food all over the floor. If you’re going to the mental hospital, you’re going well-fed. “I didn’t hear anything,” you say aloud. “I’ve just been talking to myself. That’s it.”

You stuff one bite, two bite, three bites of food into your mouth, and something speaks again. “Your brother. He knows.”

It’s not a little kid’s voice. Not the voice you’d imagine for Tenko as a ghost – but it doesn’t not sound like Tenko. It keeps talking. “He knows you tried to save him. And it matters that you tried.”

“How do you know?” Your voice rattles around the question, and there’s no answer. The strange voice doesn’t speak again, and the plate doesn’t reappear. “Please –”

“He knows,” the voice says. “He’d forgive you. If there was anything to forgive.”

The hollow place inside you has been there so long that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to have anything there. When something floods backs in, it hits with such violence that it drives all the air from your lungs. You shove your plate to one side and double over, gasping for breath. Your eyes burn and your throat closes, and before you know it, you’re crying.

You don’t really cry. Keigo always said something was wrong with you, that you didn’t show your feelings and he wasn’t sure you even had them. Crying feels awful. The headache it generates is all-encompassing, and you put your head down on the kitchen table and shut your eyes, waiting for it to stop. It seems like it’ll never end, and somewhere amidst the pain and embarrassment and relief, you find a shred of hate in your heart for Keigo. You never cried in front of him? He never made you feel anything worth crying about.

When the crying stops, the headache remains, and you sit up, rubbing at the crick in your neck. You must have fallen asleep; it’s dark outside, and the kitchen’s gloomy along with it. Not gloomy enough, though. Not so gloomy that you can’t see Tenko’s plate sitting back in front of him, wiped perfectly clean. The glass of water you poured for him is empty, too. And something clicks into place in the back of your head, only slightly warped by the headache.

Hana has a shrine. Hana’s shrine has offerings on it. Maybe the food you leave for Tenko is an offering, too. “Did you like this?” you ask. Your voice sounds awful. “I can make it again sometime.”

You have to start paying more attention to what Tenko eats, if he eats any of it. It’s the least you can do, after what he told you today. Even if it isn’t true, even if the ghost haunting the Shimura house decided to tell you a lie, this is the first time you’ve ever been able to think about your brother without feeling like you’re the one being choked to death. That’s worth a meal or two, in your opinion. You might actually need to learn how to cook.

You clear Tenko’s plate away, and on an impulse, lean down to kiss his forehead. “Thank you,” you say. It feels weird to be kissing a doll, especially when you’ve been skipping the goodnight kiss so religiously, but this is a special occasion. “I feel better now.”

“Wow, have you lost it,” Touya says, laughing. He drops the groceries on the far end of the kitchen table, well away from where you and Tenko are eating lunch. “You know he can’t eat, right? He’s a doll.”

“I know. But he’s dead, so it’s like – an offering,” you say. “Since he doesn’t have a real shrine.”

“Yeah,” Touya remarks. He opens the fridge and starts shoving things in haphazardly. “Real nice piece of work on his dad’s part.”

That reminds you of something Natsuo said a while back, something you’ve been meaning to ask Touya about. “Your brother said you all knew the Shimuras. That you played together. Is that true?”

“Yeah. My assclown father and their assclown father both fell out of the same assclown tree.” Touya shuts the refrigerator, then opens the freezer. “We’d play together sometimes. Go to the birthday parties and shit. Hana went to the same school as me and Fuyumi. That’s about it.”

He glances sideways at you. “Natsuo said you were going to ask. What do you want to know?”

“What were they like?”

“Hana – she was cool. Nothing threw her off, and nothing kept her down. Everybody liked her. Even my shitheap father, which is really saying something.” Touya shuts the freezer, too, and turns to face you. “Tenko, though – he was kind of a crybaby. Everything made that kid cry. Didn’t matter if it was good or bad. If he had a feeling for longer than two seconds, there went the waterworks.”

You didn’t have a real idea of Tenko’s personality in your head. You had what Mrs. Shimura told you – shy, sweet, playful – but you threw out most of what she said on principle because she was saying it about a doll. “He was a lot,” Touya continues, “but he didn’t have a mean bone in his body. It makes it kind of hard to believe the official story about what happened.”

“The official story,” you repeat. “The Shimuras just said it was an accident.”

“Yeah, they would.” Touya leans back against the kitchen table. “Both their kids drown in the well on the same day? Better be an accident.”

Your stomach lurches. “They drowned?”

“Both of them.” Touya pats his pocket, then comes up with a pack of cigarettes, followed by a lighter. “There are three schools of thought about what happened, and they all start with the well cover. I can take you out to look and prove it, but trust me when I say that thing’s a bitch – 20kg at least. The first school of thought says that Tenko got the well cover open and fell in, and when Hana heard him calling for help, she ran to help and fell in, too. And they both drown in there.”

You don’t understand why they need more than one school of thought. The first one is awful enough. “The second school of thought says somebody else opened the well cover and both kids fell in – and in that case, the question is who? The third one says that Tenko opened it himself and pulled Hana in after him. Guess which one the Shimuras went with.”

“They think he opened a 20kg well cover so he could drown himself in it and decided to take Hana with him, too?” You can barely believe it. You can’t imagine ascribing that kind of malice to a little kid. “I mean – I never met them, obviously, but – I don’t think he would –”

“I did meet him, and I don’t think so either. None of us do,” Touya says. He glances around the kitchen, his eyes lingering on Tenko for a second before drifting back to you. “Something really fucked up happened here. Fucked up things happen in the house I grew up in all the time, but not like this.”

He’s frowning. “My dad plays favorites, but he’s indifferent to the rest of us. Hana’s dad hated Tenko. You could tell.”

“How?”

“Because Hana wasn’t scared of him. Tenko was.” Touya lights his cigarette and takes a drag. “I wouldn’t spend too long thinking about it, if I were you.”

“I don’t know how I’m going to not think about it,” you say. You wish you’d asked what happened to Tenko and Hana sooner. “Is that why they’ve only got the one shrine?”

“Couldn’t tell you.” Touya shrugs, then heads over to the pantry to start unpacking the dry goods one-handed. “I can tell you this, though. When they went down into that well to get the kids out, they only found one body. And it wasn’t his.”

As if this couldn’t get more horrible. Picturing the children’s bodies floating together in the cramped quarters of the well is bad enough, but picturing just Hana, knowing that Tenko’s lost somewhere in the depths, never to be found – your skin crawls. You start unpacking the dry goods alongside Touya, trying to get through it quickly so he’ll leave. You need to be alone to think about this. You can’t talk to Tenko about it while someone else is here.

“One more thing,” Touya says under his breath. “Natsuo told me and Fuyumi about the thing. Dad cornered Fuyumi on it and she caved. So –”

So now a cop here knows that you’re hiding out from another cop. Your hands shake so badly that you drop the bag of rice you’re trying to put away. “Keep it together,” Touya warns. “We fucked up but we’re fixing it. The brat’s going to keep his ear to the ground, and we’ll keep an eye out. You should get as much advance warning as you need.”

“Okay,” you say. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank us,” Touya says. “Just think about what you’re going to do when the Shimuras get back.”

Right. You can’t stay here forever. It’s not like the Shimuras are going to let you keep taking care of Tenko when they’re here to do it themselves. Your expenses here are zero. By the time they come back home, you’ll have saved a lot of money, enough to do – something. Like get out of the country and never look back. Or hire someone to put a hit on Keigo so you never have to look over your shoulder again. Either way, you’ll be getting out of here. And you won’t see Tenko – or hang out with his ghost – ever again.

The thought shouldn’t make you sad, but it does. But nothing could possibly make you sadder than the thought of the Shimura kids trapped in the well. No matter how they got there.

Some part of you knew it couldn’t last – the part of you that’s familiar with the kind of guy you almost married, the one who always gets what he wants and can’t take no for an answer. Some part of you always knew Keigo would find you. But you weren’t prepared for what it would feel like to actually see him standing inside the kitchen of the Shimura household, surrounded by grocery bags and wearing a self-satisfied grin. You’d stammered out a question about what he was doing here, and Keigo smiled at you. “The police chief here’s a good guy. He let me know that his kids handle some of the work around here, and I offered to bring the groceries by so we’d have a chance to talk alone.”

He’d nodded meaningfully at Tenko, who you were holding. “We are alone, right? That’s just a creepy doll.”

You said yes, if only because you didn’t want Tenko anywhere near whatever you and Keigo were going to talk about. And now you’re in your room, under Keigo’s watchful eyes, packing up to leave.

The door to Tenko’s room is closed, but you’d be crazy to assume that his ghost couldn’t hear you no matter where you are in the house. “I can’t just leave,” you say for the millionth time. “This is my job. I made a commitment.”

“To take care of a human child. Not a doll.” Keigo is smiling, but his eyes are hard and glinting. “Getting out of here with me is the sanest thing anybody in your position can do. He’ll be fine.”

“No,” you say. Keigo raises his eyebrows. “They’ll be back in a month. Let me finish doing my job, and then I’ll come back.”

Keigo shakes his head. “I’m worried about your mental health. When I talked to the police chief here, and he told me his kids were helping you take care of a porcelain doll in a big house with boarded-up windows, I got even more worried. And I don’t want to be the one to break this to you, but the Shimuras were never planning to come back.”

“What do you mean?” you ask. Keigo reaches into his back pocket and produces a letter – one that’s clearly been addressed to Shimura Tenko, and one that’s already been opened. “Hey. You can’t just open people’s mail.”

“If it’s linked to illegal activity, I can do whatever I want.” Keigo slides the letter out of the envelope and clears his throat. “Dear Tenko, We are heartbroken to tell you that we will not be returning home. We can no longer live with what you have become. The girl is yours – the girl. That’s you, right?”

You can’t think of who else it would be. Keigo keeps reading, projecting his voice. “The girl is yours. She is yours to love and care for. May we all be forgiven. Yours, Mother and Father.” He lowers the letter, raises his eyebrows. “They’re sacrificing you to the memory of their dead son. You know, the one who was so sick and crazy he drowned himself just so he could drown his own sister?”

“That’s not what happened,” you say. Keigo laughs at you. “Shut up! You weren’t here –”

“Neither were you,” Keigo says. “I’ve read the police reports. The statements from the parents –”

“The ones Touya’s dad took?” You remember Touya and Natsuo comparing their dad to Tenko’s dad, and not in Mr. Shimura’s favor. “Sure. I guess they have to cover up for each other, or none of them would get away with it.”

“Okay. That’s it.” Keigo lifts the last pile of clothes out of your arms, drops them unceremoniously into your suitcase, and zips it shut. “The sooner you get out of this house, the better. We need to be far away from here by the time it comes out.”

“By the time what comes out?”

“This isn’t just the Shimuras’ goodbye letter, it’s their suicide note. Their bodies were recovered yesterday.” Keigo looks almost gleeful in the always-dim light of the Shimura house. Or maybe you really are just losing your mind. “Lawyers are going to be all over this place any day now. Let’s go.”

He pulls the suitcase off the bed with one hand, then grabs your arm with the other. “Come on. Don’t make this so difficult –”

“Give me the letter,” you say hopelessly. “I want to read it to Tenko.”

“You want to read a letter to a doll.” Keigo looks skeptical. “What’s that going to do?”

You invent something on the fly. “Closure.”

“Closure?” Keigo repeats. “Huh. I guess if it keeps you from fixating on this the way you fixate on everything else, sure. Go read the doll his parents’ suicide letter.”

Despair keeps your footsteps heavy as you make your way across the hall into Tenko’s room. You settled him on the bed with Mon-chan, like always, and you sit down on the end of the bed, the same as you do when you read him a bedtime story. “Tenko,” you start. “Um, I have to go. And I have something to tell you. I feel like you should hear it from me and not somebody else.”

You lay out the situation carefully, fighting back tears. “I’m sorry to leave like this. I don’t want to, but Keigo’s here, and he says –”

“Don’t want to?”

You haven’t heard the ghost’s voice since it talked to you about your brother. “I don’t want to,” you say. “Keigo says I have to.”

“Don’t make me sound like a dictator. I want what’s best for you,” Keigo says from the doorway. “That’s enough. Let’s go.”

“No.”

That was audible. Keigo should be able to hear it. “Keigo, did you hear –”

“You talking to yourself? Yeah.” Keigo grabs your arm, yanks you sharply away from the bed. “You went crazier than I thought in here, huh?”

“No.”

This time Keigo hears it. You can see it in his face. A split second later, the lights go out.

Keigo’s grip on your arm tightens. There’s a crash from somewhere else in the house, and his grip tightens further. He drags you out of Tenko’s room through the darkened house. “Did you plan this or something?” he asks you as you stumble down the stairs after him. “It’s a good show. If you put this much effort into making our relationship work –”

“NO.” The lights in the front hall switch on, revealing something standing dead center in the hallway, between you and the way out.

Keigo curses and rocks back a step, but you know instantly what you’re looking at, who you’re looking at. “No,” Shimura Tenko says. “No means no.”

Tenko doesn’t look very much like the doll anymore. His grey eyes are red, and his black hair is white, but you recognize his features. They’re the same ones from the doll, from the family portrait, from your memories his parents and the poster you saw of his grandmother. He’s thin, almost skeletal, his hands and limbs spiderlike. He looks filthy, and his clothes are ragged. If you’d had a nightmare of what might haunt this house the first night you moved in, it would have looked exactly like this.

You’re looking at Shimura Tenko. Shimura Tenko’s supposed to have been dead for seventeen years. You don’t know how or why he’s here, but you know one thing, one thing that’s been true since you realized the Shimura house was haunted: You’d rather take your chances with a ghost. “I don’t want to leave,” you say to Tenko, ignoring Keigo when he orders you to be quiet. “I promised I would stay.”

Tenko’s crimson gaze shifts from you to Keigo. “She stays,” he says in that strange, not-quite-human voice. “You leave.”

Keigo laughs. “Sorry, I don’t think you get it. We’re leaving. You’re staying right where you are.”

He starts down the hall again, your efforts to fight free barely making a skip in his stride. The front door opens a crack behind Tenko, and you can see a white-haired someone peering through. One of the Todorokis, maybe Touya or Natsuo who promised they’d warn you if they saw Keigo coming. Touya points at you, beckons. “I’m going to tell you this one more time,” Keigo is saying to Tenko. “Get out of the –”

Tenko lunges at him. Keigo lets go of you. And you run straight out the front door, down the front steps. Past the Todoroki siblings. As far and as fast as your legs will carry you, until you trip on something, hit your head on something else, and black out on the ground.

Smoke stings your nasal passages, and you wake up coughing. Someone is breathing raggedly next to you, and someone else is shaking your shoulder. “Come on,” Natsuo is saying under his breath. “Come on, come on –”

“No, be careful, she hit her head –” Fuyumi is patting your hand. “If you can hear us, we need you to wake up. It’s Tenko.”

Tenko, the doll? No, Tenko the – whatever he is. The thing that’s alive. The thing that’s real enough to challenge Keigo to a fight. You sit up with the worst headache you’ve had in maybe your entire life and look around. The grounds of the Shimura estate are eerily backlit, and when you glance over your shoulder, you see that the Shimuras’ house is in flames. “What – happened?”

“Tenko killed the cop,” Natsuo says. You look blankly at him. “Touya said we should burn down the house to hide it, and we thought Tenko understood. But then he went back inside.”

“He won’t come out,” Fuyumi says. “Touya’s been yelling for him, but he’s not responding. If we don’t get him out soon he’ll die. If he won’t listen to Touya, then –”

“Maybe he’ll listen to you,” Natsuo says. His expression twists. “He used to be normal. What happened to him?”

You don’t have a clue. Tenko’s alive. Somehow, some part of him – something that looks like him, or is him, or answers to his name. Tenko’s alive, and Keigo is dead, and that’s so difficult to process that your mind skips straight past it. Or tries to. Tenko is alive, and Keigo is dead because Tenko killed him, and for some reason Touya thought it was a good idea to try to burn down the Shimura house. You squeeze your eyes shut and try your hardest to compartmentalize. You can’t stop the house from burning. You can’t bring Keigo back to life. But there is someone alive in there. You can do something about that.

You get to your feet unsteadily and turn back towards the house. The top floor is in flames, light flickering behind the boarded-up windows, and although there’s smoke flooding the grounds, the lower floors of the house look clear of fire. It’s safe for you to go in. Safe enough. You duck past Touya, who’s been hollering up at the windows for Tenko to get “his creepy man-spider ass” out here, and in through the front door. And from there you have no idea what to do.

If you knew anything about who Tenko really is, you’d know where to look. The habits of doll Tenko tell you absolutely nothing. When he’s moved, or been moved, there’s no rhyme or reason to where he’s ended up – except for one time, the first time the doll ever moved from the place you left it. You climb the stairs, turn down the hall, dart past your room. The door to Tenko’s is open, the room itself trashed all over again. The only thing still in place is Mon-chan, sitting on the bed.

You grab it, in case it helps. Then you turn back to the place you found Tenko last time, and sure enough, he’s there. Right behind the door. But while doll Tenko could conceal himself perfectly in the space, the real Tenko is too tall and gangly. Even hunched in on himself with his knees drawn to his chest, there’s an elbow sticking out of the shadows in one spot, a foot sticking out in the another. His red eyes stare out blankly through the tangle of matted white hair. He’s not moving except to cough.

You’re coughing, too. It’s hard to speak. “Tenko, come on,” you say. “It’s not safe anymore. It’s time to go.”

“Dead.” His voice sounds even less human now. “They left me.”

His parents. “That doesn’t mean you have to stay here,” you say. “You don’t have to die because they did. You can come with me.”

There’s blood on Tenko’s hands, on his clothes. It’s smeared on the lower half of his face, draining from his nose and from a cut on his forehead. You pull your sleeve down over your hand, reach forward, and wipe it away, clamping down on the shiver that runs through you when he turns his head against your hand. “Come with me,” you say again, and he shakes his head. “Okay. Then move over.”

Tenko looks up, startled. “I said I didn’t want to leave you,” you say. “I meant it.”

You were wondering, all this time, if you’d know you’d finally lost your mind when it happened. The answer is yes, and the magical thing about losing your mind is that you don’t care all that much. The ex-boyfriend you were running from is dead. The house you were staying in is burning to the ground. You’ve spent the last three months taking care of a doll in a house you thought was haunted by a ghost, only to realize that everything you’ve been doing for the doll, you’ve been doing for the man it was modeled after, too. The world is upside down, twisted, backwards. Nothing and everything make sense right now.

“Either we both go,” you say, coughing harder now, “or we both stay. It’s up to you.”

You pull your hand back from wiping at his face and hold it out for him to take. He looks at it, then at you, and you wonder what he’s thinking. You wonder if he’s even scared of dying, if dying matters to something like him, whatever he is. If he really is Tenko, he’s died once before already, hasn’t he? Is it any harder to die again? Whether it is or not, Tenko doesn’t seem interested in finding out. He takes your hand, lets you pull him to his feet, and then yanks you out into the hall himself.

The air is thick and grey, and the flames are catching up, but Tenko’s fast as he drags you down the hall to the stairs. You stumble over a body at the base of them and make the mistake of looking at the face. Or what’s left of the face. Tenko doesn’t let you look for long. He pulls you past Keigo’s body to the front door and shoves you out of it – and then, before he can retreat, Natsuo and Touya seize him by his arms and yank him out after you.

The four of you tumble down the steps, landing in a heap in the driveway. Tenko is coughing, a wet, horrible sound, and while you’re able to get to your feet, he barely moves. You and the Todorokis have to drag him away from the house, down the driveway until all you can see of the house is the pillar of flames billowing up from the roof. You stop to catch your breath, and the others stop, too. You and Fuyumi, Touya and Natsuo, and Tenko sprawled on the ground between you.

It’s quiet for a second. “Wow,” Touya says to Tenko. “You’re even weirder-looking than I remember. And you reek.”

Fuyumi smacks him. Natsuo’s got bigger things to worry about. “What are we going to do with him?” he demands. “If that’s even him. If it’s some kind of monster that’s bad enough. If it’s him, he’s been dead for seventeen years – and he just killed a guy!”

“That guy was a fuckweasel,” Touya says. He glances at you. “Right?”

You don’t want to say yes. “He wasn’t a very nice guy,” you say, and Touya snorts. “I was scared of him.”

“And you’re not scared of that?” Natsuo demands.

“He’s not a that,” you say. “He’s –”

You don’t really know what. Tenko bleeds red like a human. Based on the way Tenko was yanking you around, he’s really strong. He’s so thin that he’s almost a skeleton, and he smells like he hasn’t showered in seventeen years. But whatever he is, he’s alive. That’s where you’ll start from. “He’s Tenko,” you say finally, for lack of a better way to phrase it. “I don’t know what his deal is, but I’m not scared of him right now. If I do get scared, I’ll deal with it then. I’m not leaving him here.”

“No one thinks we should do that,” Fuyumi reassures you. “We just need to think of where to put him. I know a place.”

It’s quiet for a second. “No,” Touya says suddenly. “He’s not staying at my place.”

“Just for tonight,” Fuyumi urges. “We can sneak him in now – Dad won’t be back for hours, he’ll be coming to investigate this – and clean him up before we figure out what to do with him.”

“She can stay there, too,” Natsuo says, nodding at you. “If Dad comes by, she can answer the door, and Dad will be so thrilled at the idea that you’re having straight sex that he won’t bother you for a week.”

Touya snickers at that. “Fine,” he says to Tenko. Then, to you: “You can borrow some of my clothes for him, but I’m not helping you give him a bath.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” you say. The idea of giving doll Tenko a bath felt so weird that you never did it. The idea of giving adult Tenko a bath is less weird but still something you aren’t looking forward to. You can hear sirens in the distance. “We should go now.”

Tenko’s semiconscious as you and the Todorokis load him into Touya’s car. Nobody wants to sit in the back with him, but someone has to, so you and Tenko have the backseat to yourself while all three Todorokis jam together up front. Tenko buckles his own seatbelt, but as soon as Touya pulls onto the main road, he unbuckles himself and crawls across the backseat towards you. You retreat, but there’s only so far you can go. “Uh –”

“Guys, he’s climbing on her!” Natsuo’s keeping an eye on you. “Leave her alone!”

Touya meets your eyes in the rearview mirror. “Need me to pull over?”

You shake your head. Tenko’s settling into the seat next to yours, and he buckles himself again before twisting sideways to face you. He looks awful, and somehow worse than that, he looks scared. You can’t tell if it’s a childish fear or not. Tenko hasn’t left his house in seventeen years – it wouldn’t surprise you if he was agoraphobic. And if you’d just left the only home you’d ever known in flames behind you, you’d be scared, too.

And you remember what Tenko said to you, after you told him what happened to your brother. He probably wasn’t talking to your brother from the beyond. But if the story Touya and the others believe about how Hana and Tenko ended up in the well is true, Tenko knows how it feels to have an older sister who tried to save him. Maybe it’s still okay for you to believe that your brother, wherever he is, feels the same way, too. Tenko didn’t have to give you that, but he did.

You open your arms slightly, and Tenko collapses forward into them, his spiderlike hands grabbing fistfuls of your shirt and hanging on tight. He’s too tall to hide his face in your shoulder, like he seems to want to do. His mouth ends up pressed against your ear instead. “I’m not a doll anymore,” he says. His voice is roughened with smoke, but there’s a softness to it, incongruous enough to make your skin crawl. “I can take care of you, too.”

It could be a child’s innocent insistence on fairness, a man’s confident assertion, a monster’s implicit threat. As Touya’s car speeds down the road, you come to the conclusion that it might be all three at once, and something more – the promise of a lover, sealed by cracked, bloody lips pressing against your cheek.

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