#I'm nearly done with the Missing Link

[moonheavens]

me & Nic talking about our "marked for later" fics and what to read after we finish The Missing Link (by @lostmykeysie who is a genius btw) 

I just... have so many ... so I'm very tempted to just let y'all pick a random number and I'll just sort my spreadsheet (yes I have a spreadsheet for fics I read and want to read don't even say it pls) and just. pick that way. I'm suffering how do y'all do this

[aisnextdoor]

DISJOINTED - han taesan x reader

there are far worse things to be addicted to

PAIRING: taesan x reader GENRE: established relationship, fluff | WORDCOUNT: 1.7 k WARNINGS: weed/marijuana use, smooching, minimally suggestive

The high hits you slowly, then all at once. Each time you double over to echo Jaehyun’s laughter at Riwoo’s jokes, your consciousness moves first and your body follows, slow and stilted. 

There’s a fuzziness behind your eyes, like the static of Taesan’s old records that has you reeling, head tilting back against the seat of the scratchy sofa. 

You stay like that for a bit, letting your thoughts drown out the faint hum of noises bouncing around the walls of Leehan’s basement. Thinking of nothing and everything. Losing yourself in the haze. 

There's a drag of cold fingertips against your cheeks, wandering to tuck your stray hairs behind your ear, that brings you back. The same touch tugs at the lobe gently to coax your eyes open. 

You’re rewarded with a glimpse of Taesan’s soft eyes as he takes you in. The lazy smile that pulls a bit wider at your lips, and the breathless laugh that escapes them as you reach out for him instinctively. 

Taesan obliges, like he always does, scooping you up from your spot on the floor to flop unceremoniously half on the sofa, half on his lap. 

“You’re finally here. I missed you, you took fucking forever,” you complain with a stifled yawn. A swift kiss is pressed to your cheek, the silent apology accepted with a roll of your eyes. 

“You can't possibly have missed me that much. Looks like you were having tons of fun on your own, getting started without me,” Taesan teases. His hands slide under the hem of your shirt to rub at the small of your back, snorting as you jolt at the icy temperature. 

You try to wiggle away from his frosty touch but Taesan only snakes his arms around you tighter, trailing goosebumps across your skin. “I didn't have much choice,” you grumble, “It was either smoke or have Jaehyun hog and finish it all before I can even get a whiff.” 

There's a faint yell of indignation from across the room that you ignore, instead busying yourself with untangling Taesan’s chains. You follow and separate the twists in the links up towards his neck. Your boyfriend stills his motions, busying himself instead with admiring the way your brows knit as you pull them apart.

(It was a mystery to you how Taesan’s necklaces always managed to get so tangled. You could never recall him having such problems before you started dating. Luckily for him, you were more than happy to indulge his whims and untangle them at the beginning of every meeting.)

When you’re nearly done, and you've reached the nape of his neck, the pads of your fingers brush against the long strands of Taesan’s overgrown hair. They come back cold, and you freeze looking up to blink at him owlishly, “your hair’s wet,” you say, voice tinged with bewilderment. 

Taesan leans back in a laugh, hands too occupied holding your waist to shield his smile like they normally would. “You’ve only just realized?” He shakes his head like a dog, spraying you with the remnants of the droplets that cling to his bangs. 

The splatter of cold beads makes you shriek and once again you try to cringe away from him but Taesan keeps you firmly in his grasp, smirking as you resign yourself to your captivity.  “I showered before I rushed over here,” his voice teasing as he raises an eyebrow at you, “how far gone are you that you didn't even notice?”

It's futile to deny it when your eyes are so clearly rimmed red and your head so far in the clouds but you do it anyway. “I'm not that high,” you wink, “I was just too distracted by your pretty face to pay attention to anything else.”

Taesan simply snorts, unconvinced but amused enough to not contest your obvious lies. He settles into the couch, resting his head atop yours and a comfortable silence descends upon you. Drowsiness tugs at you and you melt with your head lolled in the crook of his neck while the pair of you watch the antics of the others. 

Normally, you'd be thrown in the mix, bickering with Jaehyun and playing tricks on Sungho, but the high has you choosing to refrain from participating. Instead, you’re buried in Taesan’s arms, refusing to shift from his lap even when he jokingly whines about being suffocated and crushed. 

Past all the exaggerated groans, Taesan loves nights like this when you’re pliant, putty in his hands and clinging to him like a second skin. Taesan is free to monopolize you without any teasing remarks. Relishing instead the way you shake with laughter at the jokes he whispers into the shell of your ear, and the giggles he draws from you when he noses at your neck playfully. 

“Alright lovebirds, if you’re done being gross, I rolled the last of it. We’re headed out to grab some pizza if you two want to come,” Leehan approaches with a joint held out in his grasp. You immediately perk up, reaching for it eagerly when a much longer arm intercepts, grabbing it before you can blink.

“You guys can go, we’ll stay here. Y/N is more out of it than usual,” Taesan interjects, ignoring the way your jaw drops and the subsequent protests that follow. The whole time he holds the joint firmly out of your reach as you wrestle the limb down to try and take it. 

The commotion is enough to attract Jaehyun's attention, and he descends upon you like a hyena. “Awww little baby Y/N can't hang?” His laughter rings mockingly through your ears as he pinches your cheek. 

You splutter at the accusation, staring at Taesan to see if he was really going to let your dignity be slandered like this. “Taesan you're not serious?” you whine, trying to shake reason into him as the rest of the boys file out of the basement with calls of goodbyes and laughs. 

“I am serious, I’m not gonna let you smoke yourself sick baby,” Taesan shakes his head, easily slipping in the pet name now that it was only the two of you. You give up on arguing any further, making your displeasure apparent with the way you cross your arms tightly, refusing to face him. 

Taesan only chuckles in amusement at your petty display, digging into the pocket of jeans for his lighter. He dangles it in front of you, the familiar scuffs marring the engraved silver. “Wanna do me the honors?” his eyebrows wiggle goadingly.

There's a brief silence as your narrowed eyes ping pong between the smirk on his face and the lighter, your initials that Taesan had etched into it staring back at you mockingly. With a tortured sigh you snatch it from him, “I can’t believe you’re making me light you a joint that you won't even let me smoke,” you grumble.

“But if I light it myself you’d end up sulking because I didn't ask,” he snorts, knocking his head softly into yours. You don't bother responding (mostly because he’s right), busying yourself by popping the cap off and flicking the lighter on.

Taesan ducks closer to let the tip of the roll between his teeth meet the flame, the fire casting a warm light across the contours of his face. His eyes flicker up to meet yours and you're trapped in the warm amber of his gaze, remembering just why this was one of your favorite things to do.  

The soothing chill of his fingers wraps around yours to hold the lighter steady until a tendril of smoke rises between you two and he’s leaning back with a content hum.

It's a captivating sight, the subtle rise and fall of his chest as he inhales. The smoke billowing from Taesan’s plump lips to curl and swirl upwards, charting the lines of his features. You can see the moment he takes to assess you, mulling over an idea while you patiently wait for him to share what's occupying his mind. 

His answer comes in the form of hands tracing your jaw to pull you in closer, fingers tilting your chin upwards. There’s a gentle tap on your lower lip prompting you to part them, you comply and Taesan grants you a pleased smile at your uncharacteristic obedience. 

It makes your cheeks burn with an odd satisfaction, but you have little time to think further as Taesan takes a deep drag of the joint, your chin still firmly in his grasp. He leans in, pausing to wordlessly ask your permission and when you lean closer, he meets you halfway. 

There’s a quick brush of his lips against yours, lingering for just a second till he’s exhaling. And Instinctively you inhale, the whisper’s distance between you bridged by a stream of smoke. 

You hold it in the back of your throat for a moment before letting go, and in the same breath you rush to tease him airily, “I thought I was banned from smoking for tonight, your highness.”

Taesan slides his hand from your chin down towards your nape, his touch sweeping against your jaw. “Well… you looked so pitiful I decided to have mercy on you,” he drawls, eyes glinting mischievously in the dim light.

“Yeah right,” you scoff, “More like you just wanted an excuse to kiss me.”

Taesan shrugs, looking far from bashful as he admits smugly, “Not that I need an excuse to kiss you but sure, that might have been a motivator.” 

And now you’re breathless for a different reason as Taesan takes full advantage of the complaints that threaten to spill from your lips, silencing them instead with a firm press of his mouth on yours.

The minutes pass by like that, the two of you caught in languid kisses, only separating for much needed air or for a heatless glare when Taesan bites at you teasingly. 

The joint’s long abandoned, lost somewhere in the crevices of the couch to be found weeks later. For there's no high quite as intoxicating or as addicting as the one you get from Taesan’s lips. 

a/n: this started as a 2 am brain rot that I ended up spending way too much time on. hope u enjoyed :)

stream HOW? n EWF!!! n tell me ur fav song off the album (mine's amnesia)

[scourgeofmyownbrain]

More "Bumblebee and Optimus meeting as ✨Adults✨ but still being Father and Son" stuff I came up with, plus extra because I can't get these chuckle-fucks out of my head.

Link to my prev. post for context. incase yall missed it bc I'm not explaining myself, we're just diving right into the deep end

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bee knows Optimus isn't one for physical affection, and he fully understands and accepts that. He doesn't want to make Optimus uncomfortable by disrespecting one of his boundaries, that's just a shit thing to do. And Bumblebee is not a shit person. But... he's also desperate. Look, being deprived of physical parental affection your whole life fucks you up something good, let Bumblebee tell you, it makes you do some odd shit just to get a taste of what you've been missing out on. And! And most of the stuff Bumblebee has done are perfectly normal things to do! Plenty of casual stuff, leaning against his chair to look at what Optimus is working on, high fives and fist bumps (Optimus rarely, if ever, does these but for Bee he'll do anything just to make him smile, see Optimus acting totally normal about his feelings what are you talking about), leaning against him for a second when he's tired, totally normal! There are, less normal things, like when one of Bee's legs nearly got torn off on a mission and Optimus had to carry him back to base and Bee curled up close in Optimus's arms the whole time- because of the pain, totally 100% definitely only the pain that was Not mostly taken care of by some field anesthetics. It felt nice to be carried like a kid, sue him.

Getting injured is a special case with giving and taking affection. For example, when Bumblebee had to drag Optimus to a med bay after he passed out from a mission. They were walking into the common room together; Optimus was telling Bee he was fine when he CLEARLY wasn't because he didn't want to wake the medics for something as Trivial as THEIR LEADER and FREIND'S HEALTH (Bee is this close to strangling him) when Optimus just pitched over onto the floor.

Optimus, clearly tried and hurt: I will be fine, there is no need to wake the medics, I just need some energ... *faceplants*

Bumblebee: What did I say? What did fragging I say?! *Hefts Optimus's limp body onto his shoulders* fragging, stupid, slagging, moron, 'I don't need a medic, I'll be fine' he says, if I had been the one doing this, you would have torn the base apart getting the medics up, fragging idiot. *drags Optimus's body out of the room*

Optimus: *Mumbles something about not wanting to bother anyone*

Bumblebee: Too fragging bad, big man, you are going to take care of yourself and you're going to like it!

So now Bee has to drag a bot much bigger than him back down the hall and into the Medbay, just because Optimus was being fucking stupid. Yes it looks as funny as you're thinking. Optimus is semi-conscious but delirious as they make their way down the halls of the base and says "I don't want to take anything that would be better served helping any of you, I care about all of you so much I don't want to see you hurt. I love you." and Bumblebee's like Optimus, I feel so loved and so angry right now, but fuck what you want you're getting taken care of. No, you did not just make my fucking day, I lOve yoU tOo dAd-. He gets Optimus into the medbay on a berth then goes to forcibly wake the medics up to calm himself down because he is seconds from crying.

Optimus eventually gets better with affection, and now Bee gets a hug whenever he asks. He has yet to come down from this high.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bumblebee calls Megatron his "Shit Ex-Stepfather". The entirety of team prime thinks this is hilarious. Even Optimus can't help but smile, though he tries to hide it. Someone, probably Jazz, changed Megatron's file name to "Worlds Worst Stepfather". After the war, if Megatron is still alive, he will mysteriously acquire some kind of award saying "Cybertron's #1 Worst Stepfather". He is very confused.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you could get Optimus drunk, he would become such a sap. Like, insufferably soft and emotional. And he would be talking about Bee damn near the whole time. He would be so annoying.

Optimus: *Drunk* Did I ever tell you about Bumbl-bee? He's, he's my boy, my bumble boy, my gold'n boy, my buzzy boy, my sweet cheese. An, he's really yellow, you'll know it's him, he looks like- he's really yellow, it's hard not to see him, but he's really really good at sneaking. Even though he's so yellow. He can sneak around so good, no one sees him. I can see him, 'cause he's my boy. He can sneak around and nooo one finds him, 'cept me, 'cause he's my boy. He can hide so good, he hid under sshockwave's chest once. Riiiight under his eye, his big purple eye. Bee's so funny, he tells such funny stories. He tells his stories better then me, they're a lot funnier. I'm not good at funny stories. He's really good at it. He's really good at lots of things. Bee's so cool. I'm so happy he's here, he's so cool and funny and nice and cool. And he fights real good too, he's so cool. he once- Bee once punched my ex once, right in the face. Riiight in the kisser, just, boosh. My ex sucks, Bee's so cool. I like him, he's my boy. An-and he taught himself how to do aaaaall the cool things he does. He didn't have anyone to teach him, he did it all by himself. All alone... I wish I met him sooner, when he was small. He says he was really cute when he was small and I want to see him small. I like him big though, he's really fun when he's big. He's- *Sobs* He's my booooy, and I love him so muuuuch.

This continues for hours. Luckily he never drinks so no has to suffer through this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you thought Optimus was the Serial Adopter, you'd be wrong. It's Bumblebee. No bot is safe from his clutches. He scoops up family members like a pelican scoops fish. Optimus is barely aware of how many family members he technically has, he stopped keeping track a long time ago.

Bumblebee: *Bursting into the room dragging some bot he was on an extended mission with* OPTIMUS, I GOT ATTACHED AGAIN YOU'VE GOT ANOTHER FAMILY MEMBER

Optimus: *Not looking up from his data pad* That's great, son, go put it with the rest.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Optimus would be such a good grandparent. In the future, after the war ends, Bumblebee comes into possession of a kid; whether he finds someone and takes them under his wing or he just fucking makes one, I don't know nor care, but he gets a kid. And when he introduces them to Optimus, Optimus just fucking melts. He was already a huge softie before but he's so much worse now. He goes full grandma mode. He has snacks in his pockets (or whatever bots have) that he sneaks to the kid every time he sees them. He gives them money at random. You best believe he would destroy anything that even looked at his grandbaby wrong (Bee: Optimus, stop attacking the door. Optimus, the door just bumped them, they're fine. Dad stop, omp(rimus))

The "Bee finds a kid and both of them get attached and now are a family" is the funnier option. Because the kid knows who these guys are, they saved Cybertron. The kid's still getting used to having Bee as their guardian, so when they meet the 13th Prime: Holder of the Matrix of Leadership, Savior of Cybertron, they don't expect Dotting Grandparent Extraordinaire.

Bumblebee: and this is Optimus Prime. He's your Grandpa.

The kid : *nervous* He's my what?

Optimus: *on the verge of tears* mY grAnDbABy-

The "Bee made a kid" version is still pretty funny.

Bumblebee: *Exasperated* Optimus, give me my child back.

Optimus: *violently crying* nO, It'S mY bAbY nOW.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Imagine, if you will, Optimus and Bumblebee sitting on a roof together, not talking, not touching, just watching the sun set. Just enjoying the silence together, maybe with some energon to go with it. Because they get it, oh they get it. Sometimes you just need to be alone with someone. That good mutual respect and love from a found family that understands you. this is why I need bee to be an adult, I need both of them to be hurting and find some comfort in each other, to find solace in each other, to be a family and to be equals, is that too much to ask?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A list of things Bumblebee is allowed to get away with:

Interrupting Meetings to Tell Optimus Something, important or not (hi dad)

Casually touching the Usually Touch Adverse Optimus (Physical affection ftw)

Calling Optimus out on his self-sacrificial bullshit (you're going to see the medics and you're going to like it, old man)

Using the three points above to drag Optimus into the Medbay by force (Ratchet is so smug about this)

Getting Optimus to do something fun and relaxing (father son bonding time, as Bee says.)

Swearing aggressively (for everyone else it's unprofessional, for Bee its therapeutic. He stretches this excuse as far as it goes)

Making Insulting comments about others to their face (look they deserve it if the Perpetually Friendly Bumblebee is saying it)

Talking about Megatron (Usually team prime avoids talking about Megsy outside of war related convos out of respect for Optimus's history with him. Bumblebee does not give a shit, Megatron is a bitch and he's going to make his opinions known (Everyone thinks it's funny dw))

Illegal activities (this fucker street races in every universe, you think he isn't doing shit like this on the daily?)

Murder

Stealing/Sneaking snacks (he shares with Optimus)

Making jokes about Optimus being his dad (he thinks it's funny bc they're not related and they met like 6 years ago. Optimus explodes with emotion every time bc you consider me good enough to be your dad?)

Bee is a fucking menace, Optimus loves him so much.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Misc. funny word vomit I came up with that have no context, reason, or sense

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Optimus is working at a desk focusing on some data pads. A tiny energon cube flies into frame, bouncing off Optimus's forehead and landing on the desk. Optimus grabs the cube and eats it without looking up from the datapad. A few minutes pass, another energon cube flies and bounces off Optimus's head. He eats it without looking. Bumblebee is sitting off to the side in the room with Optimus with a bag of energon snacks, periodically throwing one at the distracted Prime. This is Bee's and Ratchet's newest scheme to get Optimus to actually eat, and it's working splendidly. (Actually, Bumblebee originally was throwing the energon onto the desk, but over time he got bored and started just throwing the cubes directly at Optimus. He hasn't noticed any of the cubes hitting him at all, so Bee's started trying to do trick shots.)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Bumblebee?"

"Absolutely, now throw me."

"Alright... Three, two, one- Ngha!"

*distant loud metal slam*

"..."

*distantly* "I'm good! We're in business!"

*quietly* "oh thank primus..."

*distantly* "Okay, I'm done. I'm coming back down."

"Wait-"

*distantly* "Hup!"

*loud crashing metal noises*

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's early morning, everyone got back to base late the night before. Everyone is tired. Optimus is sitting at the table in the common room, slowly drinking a cube of energon. His eyes are half open and bleary. Bumblebee is beside him, head in his hand, dozing. Bee's head falls from his hand and slams onto the table. Optimus doesn't even blink at the noise, just takes a sip of energon.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Bumblebee takes a lot of pictures. Mostly of his team. He's pretty sneaky about it too, usually just taking a capture from his visual feed and saving it to his personal datapad. And at a glance none of the pictures are all that special, captures of a group of bots hanging out between missions, selfies of Bee and company on missions, drunken mishaps, quiet moments, he's got this really funny one of Cliffjumper stuck in a storage closet, but Bee keeps all these photos out of sight. The others are aware of his habit but they never see most of the photos, they never ask. Bee only opens his photos folder when ever he has a quiet moment alone and just scrolls through, reminiscing. His favorites are the ones where he caught someone's genuine smile. Sometimes they're in the background of a larger group shot, or it's just them smiling at Bee in conversation. He's got a lot of Optimus's smile. Optimus doesn't smile a lot, but he always seems to smile when Bee's around. Bee's proud that he can do that for him.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

this could literally be anyone on team prime: *teasing* You playing favorites, Prime? Giving Bumblebee all this special treatment is making the rest of us feeling left out.

Optimus: You all treat him the exact same way I do.

again, literally anyone on team prime: ... Touché, Boss bot, touché...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

After spending an extended period of time in close proximity to Megatron (for what ever reason), Bumblebee and Optimus talk.

Bee: You had terrible taste in partners.

Optimus: *sighs*

Bee: Physically, I can see the appeal, but everything else is a wild thing to say yes to.

Optimus: ...

Bee: His personality, his interests- just why none of that clocked you onto how fragged up he would be is beyond me.

Optimus: ........

Bee: You're not stupid, I hope that your next partner will be leagues better than him. Ratchet maybe, oh or Elita, they would make great partners (and even better step-parents), or maybe-

Optimus: CanwePleasestoptalkingaboutmylovelife??

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Bumblebee: If you get back together with Megatron I'm disowning you.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

BB: This is... so dumb.

OP: The higher I am the better I can see.

BB: You can- You can fly.

OP: Hush now Bumblebee! I am searching...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ idk man, brain rot hits something different when I think about it for long periods of time

[krypticcafe]

i wanna know how u think 141 + König & Alejandro would react/feel about reader doing this trend with them, ofc reader doesn't upload it or anything they just record it for fun :]

if the link doesn't work the trend is basically a person is putting on lipstick and they "mess up" and their s/o wipes it off for them and the camera pans to their s/o covered in kissmarks

this has been on my mind for a while i think its so sweet 🥲 i lovelovelove ur writing!! its so good lik oml <33

Lipstick trend w/COD:MWII men

rating: teen

character(s): Kyle "Gaz" Garrick, John Price, John "Soap" MacTavish, Simon "Ghost" Riley, Gary "Roach" Sanderson, Hound König, Alejandro Vargas / GN!Reader

warning(s): language, suggestiveness

wordcount: ~1.6k

summary: Silly little lipstick trend with your silly little military boyfriend.

a/n: the money I'd pay to kiss these men dizzy.

Gaz

Knew about the trend for a while, was wondering if you'd do it, so it's not much of a surprise when you come to him asking about it.

Honestly, he thinks it's a little cheesy, but he's not so insecure that he doesn't want to do it, he's happy to make you happy.

Literally won't stop teasing you like "You sure you're doing this just for the trend?" when you're smooching him all over his face.

When you're done, you can't but stare for a bit.

"What, too pretty for words, love?"

"Shut up, Garrick."

"Make me."

Now his lips are a bright red to match yours<3

The recording goes pretty smoothly, but by the end of it, Gaz can be seen bursting into giggles which in turn makes you giggle a little until the recording cuts off.

You guys don't post it publicly, but I like to think Gaz posted a screenshot of when the two of you are in frame, looking at each other with goofy smiles.

Price

The last person you'd expect to be up with any trends, but it's alright, you're here to help him!

He's hesitant, only because he's a bit bashful! When it comes to these silly little recordings and any of your playful schemes, he gets a little shy about it.

But if you really bat your eyes, pout a little, maybe even tug on his sleeve...

"Please? Just this once, sweetheart?"

He sucks in a deep breath. He's a captain for Christ's sake, he's resisted things worse than this, and no amount of hellish torture has ever made him crack in the slightes-

"Pretty please? For me, Johnny?"

What was he thinking about again?

He sits there while you practically bounce in your spot while you lather on thick layers of lipstick, wondering if this will haunt him.

But all his bashfulness goes out the window when you cup his face oh-so-gently, smother him with kisses, giggling about how ticklish his facial hair is, how it nearly messes you up, how you smile proudly at your work and at him.

You swear you won't post it because you know he can't risk his reputation as a captain... but you also know nothing is stopping you from bringing it up every now and then to him.

Pulling up the pictures and videos, smugly grinning and ogling them while he groans at how smug you are.

Real proud of that one, aren't you?

Soap

"So basically for the trend I just need to put on some lipstick, kiss yo-"

"Say less."

Literally he doesn't care what he has to do, this man wants his kisses.

He'll be all "You missed a spot" when you're applying the marks on his face.

Your guys' version of the trend is a little different.

Instead, the video starts with you putting on lipstick, Soap takes it, commenting how the shade would look good on him, applying it on his lips before smothering you with kisses in the video, leaving the two of you all covered in lipstick stains.

After you wiped your face off, you notice Soap hasn't.

He's just staring smugly at the mirror, rubbing his chin, talking about how "Y'know, I think this actually looks good on me" and "Think I'll keep it on for today, yeah?"

"Honey, you can't go out like that."

"An' why not? I'm jus' wearin' makeup."

"Don't be a smartass- hey! Get back here MacTavish!"

Every day that man tests your patience, but you wouldn't have it any other way.

Ghost

"You won't budge until I say yes?"

You're sitting on his lap on the bed, keeping him still, batting your eyes with faux innocence. He could lift you off if he wanted, but he doesn't, and that alone is enough of an answer for you.

"Nope."

He's trying to pretend so much that he doesn't care too much about it, that he's just letting you do whatever you want. Obviously, he's just playing along.

However, it isn't until you kiss that particular spot of his neck just right under his jaw where the stubble stops that it escalates.

"Oh? Is the lieutenant feeling ticklish?" You coo.

"'m not ticklish-" He's cut off by more kisses peppered around the area and a few extra on his face.

"Mhm, really, because," You're giggling in between your words, "When I kiss you here," He forces the fakest cough he's ever made when you kiss the same spot against, nipping it slightly. All he can do is lean back into the couch, leg bouncing impatiently, trying to bite back a chuckle or two until he finally cracks. The two of you are in a quiet fit of snickers and giggles until you finally let up.

After making the video, you silently gush over it, replaying it over and over. There's a hint of redness on his cheeks, and his eyes seem to flicker from you to the camera, it's the most flustered you've ever seen him be and you got it all on tape, lucky you.

Roach

"That's so dumb, of course I wanna do it."

Roach is all for goofy little couples trends, so it's nothing new if you ask him to do another.

"Babe, stay still would you?" You pout, "I'm gonna have to start over if you keep squirming!"

"Mmm, I think I'd like that."

"Of course you would." Rolling your eyes, you pinch his cheek and he yelps, apologizing and letting you continue. He really can't help it though, it's really ticklish for him.

It takes maybe three tries for you to get the video right, ending with one where Gary messed up your makeup for you by swooping in to give you a sloppy smooch and clumsily wiping it only to further smear it while in a fit of giggles. He claims you were taking too long so he put matters in his own hands.

"So when do I get to do you?"

"What are you talking about, that's all there is- Gary!"

"Nuh-uh, c'mere!"

Hound

He's confused as ever but agrees to it on a whim since he's often entertaining your needs and wants anyways.

As you settle on his lap, his hands rest on your sides and he looks up at you with affectionate eyes. He was looking at you like that when you were putting on your lipstick, too. You almost don't want to ruin his pretty little face, but at the same time, you think it'd look so much prettier with your kisses all over it<3

His eyes close and he stays still while you mark his face all over, even when your lips tickle sensitive spots like his scars. Patient as ever.

When you pull away, he looks like such a doll for you. Your hands cup his face and his lashes flutter open, showing those big brown eyes still giving you the same adoring look, and your chest is basically hammering. He can probably hear it, too. He reaches up to hold your hands and presses his lips against the knuckles. You swear your heart just stopped.

"Everything alright, sugar?"

Oh fuck, what were you supposed to be doing?

"Mhm." You nod frantically, face burning while his thumb brushes over a knuckle, "Y-You know, maybe we can just... tonight... haha... holdmeplease?"

Yeah... you never did quite get your video.

König

"What, with me?" He asks, bewildered.

"Of course?? Who else am I going to do it with? Oh sure, let me call up Horangi, I bet he'll be happy to-"

"Nonono! I want to do it!"

Moments later, he's sitting on the edge of your bed, hood off, fidgeting awkwardly, and watching you quietly. Now you know what he meant when they told him he couldn't stay still for the life of him.

"König, honey, you act like I'm going to hurt you or something." You chuckle, popping your lips as you apply your lipstick in the mirror. He wasn't even this skittish in bed so what had him all jittery?

Setting your hands on his shoulders, you reassure him with a kiss first on the forehead. "Relax, I just want to take a video, that's all."

"Sorry schatz, I'll behave." He hums, easing up at your touch and you smile, planting kisses all over. It seems he just didn't know what exactly he was in for.

You show him how he looks on your phone, "Thoughts?"

"Not bad..." He attempts to wipe off the marks, but you swat his hand away from him.

"You think we're done, mister?"

"Huh?" Practically pouncing on him, you cut him off with a hungry kiss, hovering your body over his. What, he didn't seriously think all you wanted was a video, did he?

Alejandro

He snickers, "If you just wanted my attention, you could've asked."

"I'm serious, Alejandro, it's a thing!" You beam, pointing to the videos on your phone.

He jokingly dismisses your claim and settles onto his office chair, looking at you expectantly. You're confused for a moment, what was he staring at you for?

"Are we going to do this or not? Don't tell me it was actually an excuse now, mi vida."

"No!" You blurt, though now you're debating if you should do this or just leave him waiting with how much he wants to tease you. Then again, you can't pass up this opportunity.

While applying your makeup, you can spot him quietly admiring you in the corner of his eye, and it nearly throws you off your game.

As you kiss him, he keeps his eyes on you, a grin on his lips. Not for a single moment does he tear his attention away from you, instead pointing at a few spots for you to mark.

"I got it, I got it," You huff, mumbling to yourself, "You're certainly enjoying this, colonel..."

Post-production, when you get up to wipe off your lips, he looks at you with offense, "What, that's it?"

"Yes..?"

"Nonono, I think we need to do it again, my way, this time." He snickers, pulling you in by the waist.

"Your way? Alejandro!" You whine without fighting back as he pulls you in for a longer kiss, all your protests forgotten.

a/n: homies i kinda regret writing this so close to valentine's day haha...

[anamericangirl]

What's telling to me about how sick people can be is that Trump was nearly killed, someone in the crowd WAS killed, multiple other shots went out, the whole thing was a terrifying event that everyone in the world should be able to agree was scary And yet I see the media on the left trying to spin this "Well this is to be expected, he's so radical and so fascist that of course someone tried to kill him" and "#YOUMISSED" is trending on Twitter Mask is fucking off and I'm done hitting Anon when I send asks to you, these people have truly shown they have no empathy, no sympathy, and are bloodthirsty. People get shot up in a school and their first thought is "This is why we need to ban guns" and "This is because of ultra-MAGA"

Some unhinged motherfucker actually attempts to kill the former president and kills someone in the crowd and the left turns it into a fucking hashtag and an opportunity to try to blame it on Trump even though he's the one that got shot at.

The left are fucking deranged, and I know better than most because I used to be ON the left. I shaved half my head, I had blue hair, I lived with liberal pedophiles (literally) in Ohio for 2 years who wore diapers around the house and bitched about Elon Musk and Trump every fucking day. I know these people are psychopaths and now they have finally just outright announced to the world how sick they are.

Even fucking Biden tried to call the hospital Trump was at to ask if he was okay, EVEN DARTH FUCKING BRANDON CARED ABOUT TRUMP and yet these Twitterlibs and liberal media fuckwads are just jumping on the opportunity to go "Aww man #YouMissed, you fired 5 shots how come you couldn't get him, you fucked up, omg"

For fuck sake hate the man all you want but SOMEONE TRIED TO KILL HIM AND AN INNOCENT PERSON'S BRAIN GOT REMOVED FROM THEIR HEAD, FOR FUCK SAKE HAVE AT LEAST A MODICUM OF SYMPATHY FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE YOU FUCKING SAVAGES.

If this doesn't turn people away from the democrat party then nothing will. Trump was not the only victim of this shooting. A couple of people were injured, an innocent person was killed and still the only thing we hear from leftists is annoyance that the shooter missed.

And while we are rightly angry at the spins the msm is putting on this assassination attempt, they have to put that spin on it or eat their words for the last 8 years. They've been characterizing Trump as a fascist tyrannical dictator since 2016. They've spun him to be Hitler 2.0 telling everyone he's a threat to democracy and leading people to believe he's a threat to their very lives. The "trans genocide" and "kids in cages" the "don't say gay" bill all that nonsense is always, always linked back to Trump and if they turn around now and condemn this attempt on his life what would that say about them? Either they will have to expose themselves as the liars and propagandists they are or they will have to be seen as being sympathetic towards literally Hitler. And narrative is more important to them than anything.

Which explains why they were trying to avoid reporting what happened like the plague. The headlines I saw in the aftermath, after we already knew Trump had actually been hit by the bullet were things like "Trump escorted offstage after gun shots were heard." "Loud popping noise heard at Trump rally." And other variations of that headline. And still leftists don't question why after Trump was shot every single mainstream media outlet had the same headline and they all avoided saying Trump had been shot or an assassination attempt had been made.

They can’t come out and say this was wrong because it will mean they will have to admit to something even worse: that they were wrong.

But of course the people currently in office can't come out and condone the shooting. That would look very bad. So yeah, it's good that Biden stood up there and said the right words and made an effort to contact Trump but how convenient that this happened a mere couple of weeks after the democratic party has abandoned and turned on Biden so his words and condemnation will be buried and ignored and mean nothing.

For the last 8 years, though, Joe Biden and every other democrat in office, paired with the media, have been villainizing Trump for his rhetoric. Everything bad thing that happened was directly the fault of Trump because of his "dangerous rhetoric." But the rhetoric they've employed against Trump and all conservatives since that time has been the worst fearmongering and slander I've ever seen so they are directly to blame for this shooting because of their rhetoric. No more "rules for thee but not for me." They have to live in the world they made.

Leftism, as I'm sure you've seen first hand what with your experience of being one and living in that environment, is no longer about what you support, it's just about who you hate. And every sane person still aligned with them is waking up. The mask has been slipping for years and most of us were able to see who they really were way before it fully fell off but there is no mask now. They're not even trying to hide it.

They have the ideas they pretend to support when told to, but all leftists are only united by one thing: hate.

Their heroes are criminals like Michael Brown, George Floyd and Trayvon Martin. And they hate police until they shoot and kill Ashli Babbitt who's only crime was being a Trump supporter at the capitol on January 6.

They still bemoan the killing of a pedophile, wife beater and injury of a career criminal who were shot because they tried to murder a child while villainizing the child they tried to kill because he successfully defended himself against their attack.

To this day they spin their violent riots as "mostly peaceful protests" while the January 6 protest was a "violent insurrection."

The rapes and murder on October 7 were a justified response to "occupation" but anything Israel does is "genocide."

During covid they freaked out about "public health" and wanted everyone vaxxed and masked to "save lives" but when Trump got covid they all immediately wanted it to kill him.

When a white boy shoots up a school it’s an example of how evil white people and right wing gun nuts are but when a trans person shot children at a Christian elementary school the main focus of leftists, all the way up to the White House, was the danger the trans community would allegedly be in from right wing retaliatory violence and how “hateful Christian rhetoric” was responsible for the shooting.

And none of this has anything to do with the values they claim to adhere to. All of their positions on every single issue come down to who it is they hate the most of the people involved. So their "values” change by the second.

So the violence, depravity and dangerous rhetoric is pretty much 100% on their side but watch them try and spin this assassination on Trump as Trump's own fault. And watch leftists just unquestioningly go with it or just try to distract people with more fear mongering about Project 2025 or something else stupid like that.

The only thing that bothers them about this shooting, other than the fact that the shooter "missed', is that this has pretty much guaranteed Trump is going to win the election. And of course they can't stand that after all they've done to try and make sure that doesn't happen.

[rillils]

Do you have Wakanda Stucky fic recommendations ? I'm just weak for them in that phase with their looks 😭

I most certainly do, my dear nonnie! 💕💕 I'm gonna link a few of my favourites below, and I hope you'll find some of them to your liking :3

Just a heads-up, though: some of these are only visible if you're logged in on AO3, so make sure you're not there "only" as a guest, otherwise you won't be able to access them!

NOW LET'S GO:

Let this be light work by caughtinanocean (rated T) (8,628 words)

On the run with Sam and Natasha, Steve finds the words to describe his commitment to Bucky. As with most of Steve’s decisions, there are unintended consequences. “It’s no use,” Natasha tells Sam. “You won’t get him to go out and flirt. Steve here’s a married man.” They’re somewhere in Croatia, and Sam’s been hard at work, trying to pull Steve away from a busy night of sketching and staring at his phone. He wants to go out and drink plum brandy and dance with the locals. “You should go without me,” Steve says, hazy. Married. A married man. Isn’t that something?

Correspondent by girlfromcarolina (rated E) (8,049 words)

It started with Bucky sending him photos: the river with the sun gleaming on the surface or the moon’s silver streaks across the water. The children gathered around Bucky, teaching him a game. Words came eventually, thoughts and emotions laid down a few sentences at a time as they each began to feel more comfortable. The messages represented the chance to reconnect in ways they couldn’t while they hunted Zemo and tried to clear Bucky’s name. Some things were too difficult to say face-to-face; some questions were too complex.

deserving by sunflower_dragon19 (rated E) (1,401 words)

While Steve was away on a mission, Bucky spent his time eating whatever he liked and resting as much as he wanted. Steve very much appreciates the results.

Get It Right by sangha (rated E) (4,426 words)

He's been sweet on Steve for as long as he can remember. It's as natural as breathing to Bucky. He reckons a life without Steve wouldn't be much of a life at all. Or: a tale of two weddings, nearly 80 years apart.

ready, able by rohkeutta (rated T) (1,370 words)

Steve snorts, helplessly charmed. “Harold like your gang boss uncle Harold?” “A gentleman does not name his goats and tell,” Bucky says solemnly, but he leans a little more firmly against Steve’s side, and there are crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes when he smiles. He’s the best thing Steve has ever seen.

so here we go head first by endofadream (rated T) (1,631 words)

Steve rests his hand on Bucky’s face and says, so quietly Bucky could have easily missed it, “I missed you.” The first tear falls, then the next, and Bucky doesn't bother to try and stop them.

time on my hands (could be time spent with you) by thedoubteriswise (rated M) (23,023 words)

"You doing okay, kid?” Steve releases a breath, deciding how honest he wants to be. No point in lying. No point in telling the truth, either. "Glad to see you." "That’s not what I asked, but same to you, punk."

It's Waiting There for You by sunflower_dragon19 (rated E) (3,228 words)

"Shuri, me and Steve… we're not --" "Could have fooled me." She shook her head, muttering under her breath in Xhosa as she connected a series of wires in his arm. "My brother offered him the nicest guest suite in the palace and you know where he decided to stay instead?" She pointed an accusing finger at him. "In your hut. That has one bed." -- Steve visits Wakanda and Bucky decides he's done being afraid of his feelings.

i love him and our goat children by talkplaylove and wearing_tearing (rated T) (5,526 words)

“Bucky, why does Sam have a photo of you surrounded by goats and the words “Always be happy with Jesus” on it?” Steve asks, looking at him on the screen. Or the one where Steve and Bucky move in together, adopt some goat kids, and live happily ever after.

Moon River by sangha (rated E) (5,763 words)

Steve and Bucky are reunited in Wakanda and they can no longer run from their feelings for each other.

a line that goes all the way by napricot (rated E) (45,218 words)

"About six months after he left Bucky in cryostasis in Wakanda, Steve got a text from an unidentified number: He is awake and well, and wants to see you." Steve and Bucky reunite and reconnect, with some help from modern technology.

all my bones are begging me to beg for you by dragongirlG (rated E) (2,711 words)

After Thanos is defeated at the Battle of Wakanda, Steve accidentally doses himself with an aphrodisiac hidden inside of a celebratory alien drink. The ensuing side effects lead him to confess and act upon his feelings for Bucky, who readily agrees to help Steve work through his urges, much to Steve's surprise.

Not Bad (for the End of the World) by relenafanel (rated T) (2,425 words)

Bucky comes in from a day of work to get ready for an impending war, blow-dries his hair, has a small crisis over his nascent attraction for Steve. Just usual Bucky Barnes things.

love is blind (steve and bucky are just dumb) by talkplaylove and wearing_tearing (rated T) (4,409 words)

“You shouldn’t have interrupted their date, then,” Natasha pipes up, finally showing her face as she gives Bucky a wave and a tiny smile. “I like the hair.” “Thank you.” Bucky preens a little. He ignores the teasing about this being a date; Nat and Sam somehow got it into their heads that Steve and him were dating via Skype calls. They’re not. They’re just friends who video call sometimes. Friends do that.

Found My Place in Time by Cap_D, humapuma (rated E) (12,430 words)

“Buck,” he heard Steve say, “wake up. We’re here.” Bucky opened his eyes and rolled his shoulders, trying to ease some of the tension out of his back. When Steve’s words sunk in, though, he turned and leaned forward, staring past Steve’s chest to look out the window. Beyond the wing of the plane, he found a beautiful coastline with white sand, blue waters, and palm trees, as well as rows of bungalows on the water. “Wow,” he murmured. “We’re staying in one of those, right?” In which Steve invites Bucky on a trip to Fiji and they discover something a lot more than beautiful vistas and friendly locals.

What a Bright Time (It's the Right Time) by sunflower_dragon19 (rated G) (2,531 words)

Bucky gets a Christmas surprise.

(i'll be home for christmas) if only in my dreams by crinklefries (rated T) (13,728 words)

“I told my best friend that story,” Steve says after a moment, voice thick. “When we were seven years old. And he told me he’d do the same for me. And that year, when I opened my present, inside was a small wooden bird to hang on the tree.” Bucky looks up at Steve, the little bird in his hand and Steve--well he’s smiling. “I don’t remember,” Bucky whispers.“I’ll tell you,” Steve says. *** (or; six Christmases Bucky Barnes doesn't remember--and one he will)

[twola]

Sorta got carried away with the prompt list…(I must be ovulating because DAMN the pregnancy prompts got me going)

But #161, 154,151,140,125- where the reader is preggo and miserable walking around camp so the gangs giving out ideas (sexy time) and Arthur’s like ;) then later on the reader is like ya know what get over here.

Do with it what you will.

You do the best with anything you type!

Xoxo

Oh - trust me, I am into this.

I'm also eight months pregnant myself so I am SUPER into this. Am I projecting something here? Perhaps…

Pain Relief

Arthur Morgan x F!Reader Smut (18+), MDNI, Pregnancy Sex, Breeding Kink

➵ Fic Masterlist ➵ AO3 Link

You are very over it at this point. Really. Very over it. It’s a struggle to get yourself out of the cot that you and Arthur share. 

The morning sun beats down on the worn canvas of your shared tent, and you know it's by some divine providence that Miss Grimshaw hasn’t summoned you to work yet. Or maybe it was Arthur snapping at her when he saw you struggling to carry a basket of laundry.

That must be it.

But a laze you are not - even now, when your swollen stomach makes any kind of movement difficult - when your sleep is nearly non-existent and the pains and swelling and overall discomfort are driving you crazy.

Pushing yourself up, you huff, annoyed that seven months ago you were chasing down bounty hunters on horseback and now getting up out of a cot makes you lose your breath. 

God, this was terrible. Finally getting around to standing up, you glance at yourself in the small mirror Arthur uses for shaving. Your chemise stretched taught over the swell of your belly. The dark circles under your eyes from lack of quality sleep. Sighing, you run your fingers through your long hair to tame it, or at least attempt to. After fighting with the fabric of your dress to cover your frame, you shove your feet into your boots and breathe out heavily as you sit back on the cot to tie the laces. God damn everything is a struggle with how swollen your belly is.

By the time you make it out of the tent, the midmorning sun beats down, and you shield your eyes for a moment before you feel a small tug on your skirts. You look down to see Jack give you a toothy grin, one small hand fisting the cotton of your skirt and the other clutching the most recent toy Charles had carved for him.

“Auntie, you’re so big! You look ready to pop." Jack pipes up excitedly.

You laugh as you hear a cluck of disapproval as Abigail follows in her son’s footsteps, “Jack - that’s very rude of ya - shouldn’t make comments about ladies like that.”

“It’s alright, Abigail,” You smile at her as she frowns down at the boy, “I do feel ready to pop.”

“Y’look like the baby’s dropped… ain’t long now.” Abigail’s eyes trail down to your belly as she shoos Jack off to play elsewhere.

“Too long in my opinion.” You roll your eyes and Abigail chuckles in return.

“Ladies!”

Susan Grimshaw’s voice cuts through the peace of the morning. Abigail’s gaze looks past you to where the sharp disappointment came from, and you frown as you hear footsteps stomp ever closer before the camp matriarch pushes into your view.

“There’s laundry to be done,” Susan eyes you up and down, “You can certainly sit and still do the washing. C’mon, get to it.”

She waves her hands at you dismissively, Abigail rolls her eyes and starts to head over toward where the other women have started doing the day’s wash.

You scowl at Grimshaw’s retreating figure, rubbing your aching lower back as you too make your way over to the edge of the camp, where the large tub is filled with soapy water and the pile of men’s shirts seems to be overflowing. You sigh tiredly, finding the stool 

Mary-Beth places her hand on your back slightly over your own, massaging gently as you sigh in a moment of temporary relief. 

"Try walking, I hear it helps. Tilly and I will cover for you for a few minutes.”

You thank her quietly and slowly make your way to the woodline of camp, taking a few minutes to walk back and forth before giving up and sitting down on the stool, letting out a long, labored breath as you wince in pain.

“Y’know….”

You open one of your eyes to see Karen across the tub, a mischievous look on her face. Cocking your eyebrow, you wait for her to continue.

Karen smirks, "You should try having sex."

Well - volume was never her strong suit. Across the camp, the men’s conversation falls silent as several pairs of eyes glance at you.

You flush from your hairline to your chest as you dunk a shirt into the tub, trying to ignore the stares you know you're getting as Karen merely chuckles.

“Aye, Arthur- sounds like you're needed elsewhere.” Javier chuckles and you're mortified.

You spare the quickest glance up in his direction, the man who got you into this mess in the first place. You can see Arthur’s smug grin from under the rim of his hat.

-

You silently scrub at the rest of the laundry load, handing shirts to Tilly for her to wring out and hang on the line.

“Don’t let her get to you, you know how Karen is. Tilly places a hand on your shoulder and squeezes gently to assure you before returning to the laundry. You sigh, taking another shirt and dunking it into the water.

A pair of boots land in your vision before a hand reaches down toward you. You look up to see Arthur ready to pull you up to stand, a gentle smile on his face.

“C’mon now sweetheart.” 

You sigh and take his hand, secretly grateful for the assistance to stand up. He steadies you before pulling your hand to his lips and pressing them to your knuckles.

“How’s about you lay down for a little.” He offers, holding his arm out to you as you wind your own around it, letting him walk you slowly to the tent, holding back the canvas for you to step inside. 

You let out a long breath, bracing your lower back with both hands for a moment before sighing. There was just no getting comfortable at this point.

“C’mere, let me help you.”

Arthur stoops down on one knee and loosens your bootlaces enough that he can pull them from your feet one by one. You let a breath out once both boots are off, unable to deny it felt good to get your swollen feet out of them.

“Better?” He looks up at you for a moment and you nod, your hand moving from his shoulder that you were balancing on to your lower back again, idly rubbing at near-constant ache that has settled there. 

Arthur stands up and places a kiss to your forehead before turning around and taking his hat off, placing it on the small table where he kept his shaving kit.

Karen’s suggestion echoes in your mind as you watch him run his fingers through his short hair absentmindedly.

You roll your palm over your distended abdomen, frowning.

“You don’t have to lie and tell me you want me.” Your voice cuts through the silence and Arthur swings around to look at you, puzzled.

“Darlin’, it ain’t a lie. It’s never a lie.” He responds softly, taking a step closer to you.

“Really? Lookin’ like this… it does something for you?”

Arthur blushes before looking down at his boots. “Well, I… uh... Yes?”

You quirk your eyebrow, placing your hands on your hips, “I’m a goddamn watermelon-”

“You’re pregnant-”

“Literally swollen up like a damn cow-”

“C’mon now darlin’-”

And damn, if you can’t hold back the tears from collecting on your eyelashes as you spin away from him.

His broad arms wrap around your swollen waist, pulling you back half a step and against his large frame. One hand spreads wide over your belly as you feel him press his lips to the top of your head.

“I… ain’t the woman you was chasin’ after anymore.” You admit with a cracking voice, the tears spilling down your cheeks as your hand falls upon his over your belly, “Who knows when I’ll be able to ride or shoot or do anythin’ like that again.”

His lips move from the top of your head down to your earlobe, where he nips gently. Arthur’s low voice rumbles in your ear, causing a delightful shiver down your spine.

“Whole world knows you’re mine -” He pulls you another half backward and you gasp as you feel the long, hard line of him against your rear, “Christ, you’re the most beautiful thing alive, all big with my child.”

“A-Arthur - ” You whine as one of his hands cups a swollen breast through your blouse.

“Have half a mind to keep you like this.” Arthur continues, his other hand moving downward to slide between your legs and the needy sound that escapes your throat is loud enough to make him shush you as he presses at your core through layers of cotton.

Your hands fly to grasp his forearm as he gently gropes at your breast, and you turn your head up toward his and he greedily pushes his lips upon your own, tongue pressing inside your mouth as you moan into his.

You have no idea how long it is you spend wrapped up in his arms - your hips pressing back into his, his hands groping at your breasts and cunt, your knees shaking as you pant into his mouth. 

Those damned hands of this, they keep you under his spell as somehow, he unlaces your skirts and they fall to the ground in a heap around your ankles. He spins you around in his embrace, and his lips fly to your neck as he opens the buttons of your blouse. You let him pull the sleeves down your arm, leaving you in just an old cotton chemise stretched tight over your belly. The seam of your bloomers, soaked, chafes delightfully against your cunt.

It’s only another moment before he’s shrugging your chemise down over your shoulders to free your breasts.

“What’s gonna be the best for you?” Arthur whispers into your ear, his warm, somewhat rough palm engulfing your breast, squeezing it gently.

Your head tips backward as you lean against him, a high and flighty moan bubbling up from your chest. “On- on my side-”

Your chemise flutters to the floor, along with your bloomers, his hands pushing the cotton down of your body.

“Go on, get in the cot and get comfortable.” Arthur nips at your ear again and gives a playful swat to your rear.

You nod, eyes falling from his face to his hands as he pulls his suspenders down his arms and begins unbuttoning his work shirt. You back up two steps to the cot, slowly sitting down upon it, your gaze refusing to leave him as he strips himself down.

With the speed of a man on a mission, he rids himself of his boots and the rest of his clothing and stalks the few steps to the cot.  You turn yourself over to lay in it, burdened by your stomach as you let out a long breath as you finally settle down on your side, facing the wagon that makes up the side of the tent.

Arthur slides into the small cot next to you, that warm, big hand finding its way to your belly as he situates himself behind you, pressing all six feet of his frame against you, his body hard, hot, and wanting.

“You tell me what feels good, darlin’.” He mouths against your neck as his hand retracts behind your hip to stroke his cock.

You moan lowly and press your hips back against him, you can feel his smile on your skin as he guides himself to your entrance. The blunt head of his cock presses into the rim of your cunt, and his hand moves to sling your thigh back over his, opening you to him more.

“Mm, that feels good.” Your voice strains as he slides himself deeper into you, a deep, satisfied rumble coming from his chest when his hips press fully against your rear, fully sheathed in your cunt.

His arm swings across your hips, pulling your thigh backward even more as he languidly rolls himself into you. His fingers find that small bundle of nerves as he nibbles on your earlobe.

You mewl aloud at the stimulation, panting as he continues to press himself into you. His low, rough voice whispers in your ear, vacillating from sweet nothings to filthy utterances. The slide of his cock into your cunt is the constant, grounding thing as his fingers that rub at your clit speed up and slow down.

“A-Arthur-” you pitifully whine, gasping as you huddle toward that precipice. He grunts into your ear as he slightly picks up the speed of his hips rolling into yours, still gentle. He pinches at that nub and you’re gone, your legs shaking and hips seizing as you meek through your release, your slick glossing his cock and dripping from your body, even with him filling you.

“Tha’s my girl…” Arthur slurs as his hand moves up to cup at your lower belly, “Christ, I ain't ever gonna be able to stop fillin’ you-”

His murmurs fade into a groan as he presses forward one final time, burying himself deeply in your warmth as he shudders his release into you.

You sigh in contentment at the feeling, warmth blooming from your joined hips. His lips touch the back of your neck as his large hand rubs gently at your hip as he catches his breath.

Arthur gently pulls out, you gasp slightly at the feelings of the loss of his flesh and the dripping of his warm spend from your body. He shushes you with a kiss over your jaw, rubbing circles over your swollen belly.

“Feelin’ any better?”

Your hand covers his over your belly as you lean back fully into his embrace.

“Much better.”

[skyward-floored]

Whumptober Day 24 - Equipment failure

I give Four (especially Vio) a Bad Time!!

I'm so behind on these, but I’m determined to finish, so don't be worried about that. I WILL get these done, even if it takes until thanksgiving 😤

...hopefully it won’t though.

Warnings: mental anguish/issues (magically induced), brief injury

Ao3 link

————————————————————

Four knew swords.

Strong swords, weak swords, big and small, light and heavy, he knew them all. Four wasn’t a master at blacksmithing like his grandpa yet, but his knowledge was pretty good, he thought. Especially when it came to his own sword.

The Four Sword had been a beauty from day one, even before it had been the Four Sword. After three adventures with the blade, ones where he'd helped forge the sword itself, and make it more powerful, Four knew every single inch of it. He could tell when the balance was off, knew the moment it needed to be sharpened. Saw every fleck of dirt, and cleaned ever speck of blood from the metal, rubbing it down and polishing it bright.

Four knew his sword more than he felt like he knew himself sometimes.

Which was why when Vio desperately raised his sword to block a swing from a spiked ball, he more felt the sword crack rather than heard it.

Pain hit like a bolt of lightning to his heart, and Vio gasped, dropping to a knee. He saw the others stumble in his periphery, Blue missing a swing, Red crying out, Green clutching at his chest.

“What was that?!” Blue yelled, but Vio couldn’t reply, out of breath from the sear of pain and trying to keep himself alive in the meantime.

The knight with the ball and chain continued to advance on him, and Vio struggled backwards, nearly screaming as what felt like jagged cracks shifted around in his chest. The knight seemed to smirk at him, and Vio hissed in pain. The weapon must have been enchanted, no regular weapon would be able to crack the four sword, even only a fourth of it.

Infected. Must be.

Vio grunted as his hand slipped, scraping his palm as he tried to back away. He knew he needed to assess the damage to himself and his sword, figure out what to do about it and keep his weapon safe in the meantime, but also his sword was the only weapon he had right now.

He’d lost his shield. The knight kept getting closer.

And his sword had a crack that spiderwebbed right down the middle of the blade.

“Vio!” Red called in a panic, watching as the spiky ball nearly crushed him again. “Hold on, we’re coming!”

Red was stuck battling his own enemies, as was everyone, but Green managed to make it over to where Vio was struggling, throwing his shield out to block a vicious swing.

“The sword...” Green said, sucking in a breath, staring at Vio’s blade. “Vio...”

“I know,” Vio forced out through the pain squeezing his chest. “We can f-figure it out later, we have to—”

The spiked ball slammed against Green’s shield, and he grunted, feet skidding through the dirt as he nearly fell on top of Vio.

“Where is everyone?” Vio bit out, and Green looked out at the battle, then back at the monster they were fighting.

“They’re all upstream, by that big collapsed tower,” Red shouted, having heard the question. “Too far for help!”

“We don’t need it!” Blue growled, slamming his hammer into a stalfos and shattering it to pieces. “We’re almost done with these goons.”

“Not the knight though!” Green said through gritted teeth, and Vio ducked under a swing, his fingers shaking where they clutched his sword. “Vio’s sword is cracked! Would one of you get over h— whoa!”

The spiked ball slammed into Green’s shield, launching him away from where he was protecting Vio. He yelped as he went flying into the nearby stream, and Vio stared up at the knight, breath rasping as he tried to scrabble backwards.

His back hit a large piece of ruin, and Vio clutched his sword as the knight swung his chain back, preparing to launch the ball forward. Blue and Red both shouted his name, and Vio swallowed, then watched as if in slow motion as the ball and chain swung forward.

But the same time, he gathered his meager strength and lunged forward, a yell escaping him as he plunged his sword into a gap in the trooper’s armor.

The ball and chain trooper howled, stumbling backwards, but Vio held on despite the cracks shifting around in his chest, blood roaring in his ears. Vio worked on logic, but despite his brain screaming at him to let go, he kept his sword buried to the hilt, his vision sparking, body cracking.

The trooper finally fell to its knees, dark blood pooling, and Vio felt another sudden crack, one that made his vision split into jagged shards.

Pain slammed into him and Vio screamed, something deep inside him cracking, unsettled, unraveling and deeply, deeply wrong—

The trooper fell, someone screamed his name, Vio’s hand clutched the blade as a blinding flash of color lit up the clearing and then

he

gl i t

c h

e

d

...

.

(...)

Twilight climbed over a fallen pillar, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sun as he looked around. Everyone was busy patching themselves up from the battle, but Twilight hadn’t seen Four come back yet.

He’d seen him split from the main group to go chase off some skeletons, but Twilight had thought he was right over here. Four would know better than to go too far, but he didn't seem to be here anywhere. Where could he have gone?

Twilight scanned the small clearing next to the stream, stepping around ruins and monster parts and blood. He was beginning to get downright concerned when his eyes finally caught on something that wasn’t stone or blood, and he gasped.

Four was curled up in the fetal position on the ground, his breath coming out in short gasps. His hands were clutched in his hair and there was a small puddle of vomit beside his head, and Twilight scrambled over the ruins and to his side, already scanning for injuries.

“Four, Four what happened?” Twilight breathed, brushing Four’s hair away from his face. He’d expected blood, but all he saw were Four’s eyes, rolled back in his head so far he could barely see the irises.

Twilight frowned and carefully tilted Four’s head up, then sucked in a sharp breath.

There was a jagged line running down Four’s face, purple and oddly shiny. It cut across his face like a scar, and different ideas of what had happened began whirling through Twilight’s mind, each more terrifying then the next.

He hesitated, then lightly touched the line with the pad of his thumb.

Four keened in distress, startling Twilight as he jerked away from him, and his eyes rolled around unsettlingly, limbs twitching. Twilight froze, and suddenly realized Four’s tunic was missing a square, the place where the purple should be oddly tarnished.

“What the...” he whispered, brushing a hand over it as Four stilled.

Four whimpered, and Twilight glanced to the side and saw Four’s sword sitting nearby. He leaned over and picked it up, and frowned. The blade was lacking the shine it usually held, strangely dull, something about the color just... off.

And he knew Four had split before running off.

“Link? Can you hear me?” Twilight tried again, carefully pulling Four up into his arms. Four just curled up tighter, mumbling something under his breath so rapidly that Twilight had no clue what it was. It grew in volume though, and Twilight listened in dismay as Four’s voice rose.

“Don’t know what— why can I hear— stop panicking, it’s not— why are we—”

Four’s disjointed sentence broke into another keen, and he curled into a ball, pressing his head to his knees.

“Fix it fix it— can’t! He’s missing— head hurts— Green what’s—”

Four wailed, then went limp so abruptly Twilight jumped, and he hurriedly checked to make sure he was still breathing. Four’s heartbeat was fast, but it was there, and Twilight ran a hand along his cheek where the line wasn’t.

What had happened?

A different groan came from nearby, and Twilight’s head shot up, his ears pricking. He leaned his head around the piece of ruin that was next to Four, his hand hovering near his weapon, then stared.

Vio lay motionless on the ground a few feet away.

Twilight looked rapidly between the two Fours, brain going a mile a minute as he tried to quickly process the sight, then cautiously scooted over and touched Vio’s shoulder.

“Hey, Vio,” he said, still holding the other Four tight. “Vio, wake up bud.”

The violet fourth of the smithy groaned, then twitched as his eyelids flickered.

“Vio, what happened? Why aren’t you... in Four? How is this possible?” Twilight asked worriedly once he looked at him, eyes exhausted. “Are you hurt?”

Vio’s breath hitched.

“The sword...” Vio rasped, ignoring Twilight’s questions. His hand shakily reached through the grass. “Ran...cher, get Le...”

His breath caught, and Vio’s hand clutched weakly at the handle of something hidden by the grass. Twilight reached forward to look at it, and sucked in a sharp breath at the cracked blade of Vio’s sword. It looked like it was barely holding together. He ran a finger over the purplish lines spiderwebbed across the metal, and Vio jerked like he'd been struck, a rattling gasp escaping him.

Twilight quickly drew back, and looked at Four and Vio, then between the two swords.

Four was only three. He’d merged without Vio somehow, and the cracks had something to do with it.

Twilight blinked hard, and swallowed, running a hand over Vio's head. How this was even possible was beyond him, but Four was in trouble. He didn’t have to know magic to see that.

"Twi," Vio rasped again, and Twilight immediately focused his attention back on him. "Le...gend. Sword. Know... fix."

"You need your sword fixed? That'll fix things?" Twilight asked, and Vio confirmed it with a pained mumble. "...Legend can fix it?"

"No... j-just..." Vio rasped, then coughed, his free hand clutching at the grass. "He knows... tell... him..."

Vio trailed off with an agonized wheeze, and Twilight gently took his hand. There must be some way Legend could fix the Four Sword, or at least something here that could do it for him? This was Legend's era after all.

Maybe he knew a way to help.

Four (or should Twilight call him Three?) suddenly jerked in his arms, and Twilight yelped, quickly stopping him from falling to the ground. Four froze again, twitching oddly, eyes still rolling around, and Twilight wondered with a brief spurt of panic whether he was having some kind of seizure.

Four stilled again after a moment though, and Twilight breathed out, holding him tight, but careful to avoid the purple scar along his face.

"Okay. Okay I'll tell him. We'll fix you up, I promise," Twilight reassured.

Vio gave a pained nod, and Twilight carefully set down Four, reassuring the violet smithy he'd be right back.

Then he ran off back towards the others, fear speeding his steps.

(...)

“...take it to... trust them to fix...”

“...sure? If... this wrong...”

“...only choice. He...”

...

“Okay.”

Something touched him.

Vio stiffened, then gasped as arms carefully pulled around him, lifting him up. The broken pieces in his chest shifted around, and he choked back a cry, trying to stay still so they’d settle.

He felt shattered, cracked into pieces that would never be fixed. Something inside of him was broken, something that shouldn’t have been able to break, and it felt like it would never be fixed.

Was this how Shadow felt?

“We got you Vio, we’re fixing this,” a voice assured somewhere above him, and he tried to listen. “Legend knows a blacksmith, one who once worked on the Master Sword. He’ll be able to help.”

“O...kay,” Vio managed to croak out, and whoever had picked him up set his head on their shoulder.

Vio let out a quiet hiss of pain as the cracked pieces shifted again, and he flinched as someone else rested a hand on his head, saying something he couldn’t make out. But he was also relieved.

They’d figured out what he meant. They were bringing him to a blacksmith.

Vio’s breath hitched as whoever was holding him began to move, and his consciousness sank back under a sea of broken glass.

(...)

Vio woke up to a splitting pain in his head, like Blue had somehow smacked him with his hammer, and he cried out, trying to get away from the pain.

"Oh no— hold him!" someone cried out.

Arms grabbed Vio and he gasped, trying to stay still, but unable to stop himself from flinching violently as the pain hit again, an earth-shattering noise accompanying it.

“He’s connected to it, this must be agonizing—”

“At least the rest of him isn’t reacting—”

“Vio? Vio relax, I know it hurts,” a closer voice spoke up, and a hand rested over his. “He’s working on the sword right now, but it won’t be too long.”

Vio dragged in a raspy breath, and clenched his teeth to stop another scream as the noise slammed into him again. Right. The sword. He could handle this. It was being fixed. It hurt, but it would be a good hurt in the end. He knew what you had to do to forge a sword.

Unfortunately knowing that and living through it were two very different things.

Another hit shook through him, and Vio curled around one of the arms keeping him from thrashing, trying to take slow, steady breaths. If he weren’t in so much pain, he’d be rather interested at the physical effects currently hitting him like a hinox. He’d worked on the Four Sword before and never experienced anything like this.

Probably because this time it was actually broken, his mind whispered, and he whimpered as the sword was struck again.

A hand brushed over his head in steady motions, wiping sweat off his forehead, and smoothing wild hair. Vio tried to focus on that, not the regular pound of pain and sound that slammed into him like a physical weight.

“Hold on Link,” someone said quietly, and Vio lost himself in the steady hits of pain as the blacksmith fixed the blade tied to his very existence.

(...)

Four woke up.

He blinked slowly, a gentle light falling over his face as he tried to figure out where he was and what had happened.

A splitting headache throbbed through him, and he raised a shaking hand to his forehead, wincing as he rubbed the space between his eyes. He felt like he’d been through an avalanche or something, what had happened?

Also... hadn’t he been split before?

“Four!”

Someone took his hand, and Four squinted up at the group of blurry figures that had suddenly appeared around him. Their faces slowly swam into view, revealing themselves as the other heroes, and he saw expressions of worry and expectancy all around.

“How are you feeling, Four?” someone asked. Time, maybe.

“Drained,” he answered honestly, voice a hollow rasp. He closed his eyes, then reopened them, staring up at the others. “There was something...”

Four trailed off, and then a brief memory flickered through his mind, one split and jumbled and chock full of pain and cracks.

“My sword,” he said suddenly, and tried to sit up, arms shaking. At least three people tried to push him back down, voices overlapping with worries and admonitions, making Four’s headache worsen. “My sword,” he repeated urgently, sitting up anyway. His memories were a disaster at the moment, but he remembered feeling the crack in his chest, panic and terror and pain accompanying it.

“Here, here I’ve got it,” someone spoke up, and Four watched Legend push his way past the others, something held gently in his hands.

The Four Sword.

Whole and complete.

Four reached out with a shaking hand, and Legend gently handed it over, his face exhausted, but pleased.

“We fixed Vio’s sword up as well as we could, used the finest ore we had,” Legend explained as Four ran a hand over the blade. “I oversaw it myself. We did as much as we could with what we had, if there’s anything wrong with it it’s my fault.”

“The moment we handed it back to Vio you reformed,” Twilight said next, his hand on Four’s arm. “And you’ve been out ever since. We... weren’t sure it worked.”

“It did,” Four said softly, clutching the sword to his chest. He could tell there’d been work done on it, but the magic inside was stable and clear, four tendrils weaved intricately together working in harmony again.

It was fixed. It was whole.

Legend had sat down on the bed next to him, and Four leaned against his arm, overwhelmed with relief.

“Thank you,” he whispered, blinking back the sting in his eyes.

Legend nodded with a little smile, and Four held his sword tight as the others gathered around him, relieved and glad he was okay.

[lizardsfromspace]

Sylvia Browne was one of the most famous psychics of the turn of the millennium, and one of its most despicable. You may remember her from when she told the mother of Amanda Berry her daughter was deceased, which she believed, and she died believing that...but Barry was alive the whole time. Or from the dozens of other times she did something similar

Sylvia Browne released her predictions for the new year every year, like many psychics, but she was stupid enough to keep them online so people could judge them later. Her predictions for the year 2000 include Bill Bradley beating out the Reform Party for the Presidency (he lost the primary to Al Gore, and the Reform Party finished fourth, behind the Green Party with less than half a million votes), that David Letterman would retire (he stayed with the show for 15 more years), that small businesses would flourish in the 2000s, and that Donald Trump will not have a career in politics. Which did technically come true in that he didn't run in 2000, but uh

Also, from reading these at the time, she predicted the big one in California and the death of the Pope nearly every year. Only a keen psychic mind could predict that a man in his eighties could pass away from old age

There's one year she left out, though. She wiped her 2001 predictions from the internet...and her 9/12/2001 predictions. But thankfully, someone preserved them (they're not in the Wayback Machine bc its only 2001 save is in October. And apparently the thing below was a pop-up)

Let's unpack this

She says bin Laden was behind it. An amazing prediction, except she posted this a few days after 9/11, when the media was already speculating he was responsible

She was "given information", which I guess is a way to phrase "watched CNN"

She just makes up a country. She says 9/11 was done by the "Palestinian Republic of Bundi". I can find forum threads from then wondering what the fuck she meant, and all these years later it's still baffling

Did she mean Burundi? A country in Southeastern Africa? There's villages named Bundi in Iran and India, but I can't even begin to imagine what she was even imagining, or why she didn't even begin to stop imagining it

"Triad of Jordan" also turns up nothing

The first name she mentioned just brings up Linkedin pages.

The second only turns up this post. Neither of those names seems to exist in any language

She tried to explain why she didn't predict 9/11, by saying she's not omniscient, and she warned of terrorism...in 1999. But that article I linked dug up her 1999 predictions, bc she left them online, and she said there'd be terrorism...in Florida and London

At the end of this, she takes care to note that 9/11 will NOT stop the Sylvia Browne cruise through Greece and Turkey!!

She saw 9/11, and rushed to make a statement trying to explain why the spirits didn't show her 9/11, and also make up a few countries to blame 9/11 on. Then she sold a cruise, deleted the page, and wrote a book claiming everyone who died on 9/11 was led there to die by their spirit guide to be martyrs to bring patriotism back. I'm glad we don't have celebrity TV psychics anymore but I almost miss them. Simply not justice in how she got off scot-free and our passive aggressive, intermittently-Jamaican queen Miss Cleo got nabbed

[dreamwatch]

Part 2 Part 3 AO3

Written for the @corrodedcoffinfest Black Friday pop-up event.

Prompts: Black, Friday, "I'm not standing in line for that", Leftovers, Trampled, One Day Only, "I am giving thanks."

Yeah... all of them, and you're right, it was a stupid idea.

Part 1

Word Count: Pt1 - 3080 | Rating: M | CW: Past suicidal ideation (very subtle, blink and you'll miss, I'm just being cautious) | POV: Mixed - Pt1 Eddie, Pt2 Steve, Pt3 Eddie | Pairing: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson | Tags: Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington, Gareth CC, Jeff CC, Matt CC, Wayne Munson, disabled Eddie Munson, pining, protective Gareth, protective Steve, kissing, guitars, reference to canon typical injuries, references to blood and injury - - please let me know if you think I've missed any.

I'm posting in 3 parts, because this is nearly 12k in total, which is a lot. Mods - hope that's ok! I'll link them all together. :)

There’s a wispy smell of smoke wafting under his bedroom door.

Something’s on fire.

His eyes fly open. Holy shit, something’s on fire!

Eddie pulls himself out of bed as quick as he can; in a fraction of a second his mind has managed to flick through his options like a rolodex  - grab his crutches, yes or no? Should he put clothes on? It’s freezing outside, he should at least bring a sweater, right? Shoes though, those are definitely important. Maybe he doesn’t need to go out at all, maybe it’s small and he can deal with it himself—

He’s hears crashing and banging from his kitchen, followed by a loud “Mother fucker!” 

That is definitely not Wayne.

He’s on fire and he’s being burgled.

He grabs a crutch with the full intention of braining someone with it, and drags his sleep addled body through the house. He stumbles into his kitchen, crutch raised to find Steve Harrington waving a towel around, and something smouldering in the sink while being doused with water.

“Uh, what the fuck is going on?”

Steve spins around, the towel waving come to an abrupt end.

“Shit, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Eddie limps to the kitchen table and gingerly lowers himself into a seat. It’s been eight months since… since. His mind is in a surprisingly good place, all things considered, but his body, not so much. After everything, after Chrissy, God rest her soul, and Patrick, and being hunted by an entire town, and then being ripped apart by creatures that shouldn’t exist outside of comic books and fantasy games, after all of that his body just said ‘enough.’ The bats got enough bone, muscle and tendon to leave him changed in ways he couldn’t imagine when he was sitting under Skull Rock trying to make sense of what his life was going to be like if he lived long enough to see it;  court cases, long prison sentences (or death row), and a complete and utter mental breakdown. He avoided the court proceedings and prison, but he got his mental breakdown eventually, once the relief of being alive and the undoing of handcuffs had sunk in. He was free. He was going to live. Time for his mind to try and process the tsunami of emotions that overwhelmed it during the summer.

He got through it.

There’s a number of reasons for that. Wayne, first and foremost. Wayne, who never doubted him, who had always done his best by Eddie, somehow managed to step it up another notch. He took extended leave from work, that Eddie knows he couldn’t afford unless he had managed to dip into what Eddie knew to be an extremely meagre savings account. Eddie doesn’t love easy, trusts people even less so. People leave. People can be bitterly mean, people can hit and lash out when you’re least expecting it. His father was a viper in their nest of a home, always coiled, ready to strike. Wayne was never like that. Eddie pushed that mans buttons so hard but there were no hands raised, no words that couldn’t be taken back. Just disappointment. Anger was rare, but Eddie had been beyond a fucker to him at times, when he was young and the world had torn away everything he knew, the good and the bad. They fought, then they made up. Nothing was held over his head, nothing got filed away and thrown at him at a later date. They fought, they said sorry, they moved on. 

Eddie doesn’t love easy, and he trusts people even less so, but the exception to that is, and always will be, Wayne Munson.

Of course, there is also the Nerd Brigade that he kind of thought he would just never really hear from again, if he’s honest. They went to school together, he ran campaigns for them, and okay, they saved him from something horrific but like, it’s just something he got caught up in right? He didn’t really mean anything to them, after all. 

Except, they visited him in the hospital. They came to visit him at home. They brought him books and tapes and magazines, and kept him company when he was stuck in bed most days. Brought him movies once he could make it to the sofa. He wasn’t in the mood for them in those early days, especially when he was stuck in his little tar pit, but they kept throwing him ropes until he hung on. Stubborn to the bitter end.

Gareth, and Jeff and Matt. Well, that was more complicated, because they couldn’t ever know what had happened, and explaining away injuries like his was tough when you can’t say the words ‘inter-dimensional bats.’ There was a wall there for a while. It’s a fence now. They can see over the top of it, can link hands and shoot the shit, but it’s still a divider. Maybe one day they’ll get to push the last of it down.

The last reason he managed to climb out that nasty fucking pit of self loathing and pity was currently standing in his kitchen with an exasperated look on his face, dish towel over his shoulders and hands on his hips. 

Dustin and the other kids he could understand. They’re excitable chimps, nerds of the highest order. They have things in common, things to talk to him about that gave him a reason to wake up in the morning, and get out of bed. And his band, well they’re his band, you know? Brothers in arms, even if the arms are linked a little looser than before.

But Steve Harrington turning up to their new home? Nope, that was not on his recovery bingo card.

Steve was there in the hospital, dropping off and picking up kids. So sometimes he sat with him a while, when the chimps were visiting Max. And then one day Chief Powell walks in, mutters some half assed apology and uncuffs him. Just like that. As it turned out, those cuffs were the finger in the dam. And once you take the finger away, it all comes pouring out.

Eddie’s not entirely sure about what happened next. He knows he let out the most embarrassingly loud sob, and that spurred Steve into motion because then he’s being held; Steve was on his bed wrapping his arms around him, and fuck if Eddie didn’t hurt all over, his skin, his legs, his everything on fire, but it felt good to be held. To have someone to press their mouth so close to his ear and tell him it’s okay, you’re going to be okay, for someone to stroke his hair, lay a comforting hand on his back. For someone to reach the pain that morphine could never dull.

After that, Steve was just there, with or without the little assholes that tormented him. He was there the day the doctors told him they couldn’t do much more for him, he was there the day Eddie went home. He had been there even when Eddie wasn’t; the asshole had helped Wayne move into their new little house and decorate the place. 

He was there through the summer, there with the kids, there without. He was there when all Eddie could do was stare blankly at a wall, and he was there when all Eddie could do was cry. He was there when things started to get better.

And now he’s here, setting fire to Wayne’s new kitchen at eight P.M.  on Thanksgiving. 

“Not that I’m not pleased to see you, obviously, but um… why are you setting fire to my home?”

“I wasn’t setting fire to your home, asshole. I was trying to—“ he gestures angrily at the sink, “make you dinner. Or heat, it up at least. But that’s ruined, so…”

“Dinner?”

Steve shrugs at him, flushes a little across his cheeks, and Eddie does his best not to think about that too much.

“I just— when you said Wayne was working tonight, I just thought, you know. Like, your first Thanksgiving after… and I just thought—” He’s beet red, looks firmly at the floor, at the wall, at literally anywhere other than Eddie. “I just didn’t want you to be on your own, thats all.”

It’s not a revelation, exactly. He had several offers for Thanksgiving dinner; Hop and The Byers, which would have been desperately awkward, the Wheelers, an absolutely firm but polite no, and even the Sinclair and Hendersons. And it was all lovely, honestly, that people were over the Satan workshopping thing, but they’d moved onto the pity thing. And more fundamentally than that, their Thanksgivings were never going to be like his and Wayne’s Thanksgiving, and that’s fine. Variety is the spice of life, and he’s sure they’ll have a great time. It’s just not for him.

But maybe it is. Because Steve didn’t want him to be alone, and there’s a little lump growing deep in his throat. 

“That’s… really nice, actually.”

Steve huffs, dramatically. “Yeah, well, it’s ruined. Mom gave me all this left over food and all I had to do was leave it in the oven,” he scrabbles around on the counter, in amongst the dishes and retrieves a piece of paper. “It’s all here, all the times, the temperatures. And I fucking nodded off and now it’s—“ he gestures to the sink again.

Eddie climbs out of his seat and makes his way to the sink. He winces at the sight of what he thinks might have been some turkey.

“It’s pretty black.”

Steve sighs. “Understatement.”

“If you were trying to make charcoal you did a pretty good job.”

“Ha ha.” 

Steve flops into the chair Eddie vacated. “I just wanted it to be perfect for you. You know, it’s been a shitty year, like for everyone, but you especially.” He tails off, his voice gets quieter, as if he’s embarrassed by it.

Something swells inside of Eddie, a knot of happiness. Not at how dejected Steve is, but at how much it had clearly meant to him that this was good for Eddie. 

Perfect. He wanted it to be perfect. 

He needs to not be reading into things so much. There be dragons, after all.

Steve looks miserable, and Eddie hates that, can’t bear it actually, so he makes his way back to the table and flops into the chair facing Steve’s.

“Hey,” he says softly, nudging Steve’s hand with his. “Honestly I really appreciate the thought.” 

And who is this Eddie Munson that doesn’t mock people for being considerate, for putting effort into things he’s never considered important? A habit born out of bitterness at not having parents like everyone else’s, at not just being different, but having to lean into the different, to own otherness before someone else takes it and wraps it around him anyway. 

He does appreciate the thought. He’s revelling in it and trying desperately to keep a lid on just how much it means to him. Outside of Wayne, who has cared this much about whether he has nice things?

Steve leans back in his seat, that quick flash of red colouring his cheeks again. “Yeah, well, the thought isn’t much good if it’s sitting in the sink burnt to a fucking crisp, is it?”

“How was your Thanksgiving?”

Steve shrugs. “It was okay. Mom was hosting this year, so we had like, a million people in the house. My cousins are a fucking nightmare, honestly, probably ripping my room apart as we speak. Animals.”

“Was the food good?”

The confused little ripple on Steve’s face is cuter than it has any right to be, and Eddie doesn’t even make an effort to stop the little smile that he knows is pulling at his own lips. He rests his head in on hand, elbow planted on the table.

“Yeah, it was good. You’d know that if I didn’t fuck up reheating it. I should have just put it in the microwave, seriously, I don’t why my mom—“

“Was the company good?”

“Uh, sure. It’s nice to see the family, yeah.”

“Was it perfect?”

There’s a silence, a little wrinkle as Steve wonders on the question. There’s something about sitting here with Steve, just the two of them at the kitchen table, burnt food in the sink. Something warm. Something homey. Like Steve fits in ways Eddie had never imagined anyone fitting. It’s resolute and fast and comes from nowhere - I want this. Eddie buries it as fast as it came.

“I mean, it was nice, sure.”

“But was it perfect?”

Steve shrugs and it strikes Eddie that Steve might think he’s being made fun of, that Eddie is goading him somehow, and nothing could be further from the truth.

“You know how I usually spend Thanksgiving? Wayne usually works it, money’s too good to pass up, you know? So he works, and I get up early and then we have a couple of Turkey dinners and a couple of beers, and maybe pie if we could get one. And then we sit in front of the TV until Wayne falls asleep in his chair. And I cover the old man up in a blanket, and I leave him to sleep for the day. I go to my room and I listen to music and I read and then when it’s time to wake him up we have waffles and ice cream and maybe some more pie if we’re feeling extra decadent. Then he goes to work. 

“And I’m here by myself and yeah, it’s lonely, sometimes. But I have Wayne, and so I get a day to be thankful for that. It’s not perfect by most people’s standards, but it’s perfect for me.”

Steve looks at him, awed.

“Holy shit.”

It feels reverent, oddly, like Steve has seen this gentle part of him, like he’s unpicked locks for Steve, like he’s—

“You’re such a sap.”

Asshole!

“I am not!”

Steve leans back in the dining chair, wood creaking dangerously, grinning widely. 

“You are! You’re a fucking sap, Eddie Munson. How did anyone think you were cool enough to be a Satan worshipper?”

Eddie damn near splutters at it. “Oh fuck you Harrington! Look at me, I’m practically the Prince of Darkness.”

“Okay, so that’s Ozzy—.”

“You remember—“

“—and also you’re a fucking pussycat.”

He has to bite his tongue, can’t say anything else or it might be something he can’t take back. And he doesn’t want to lose this. He’s never been short of friends, he has the band, and okay, they’re like eleven years old or something, but Dustin and the dweeb crew are friends now, too. There’s Robin, and Nancy - Nancy fucking Wheeler for Christ’s sake - and then there’s Steve.

There’s something to be said for people seeing you at your worst and sticking with you regardless. All of those people - okay, not the band - have seen him at his worst. Dead is probably him at his worst. Bloodied and torn open is not a good look for anyone. He feels sick thinking about it. But they saw it. 

Steve saw it, then he tried to fix it.

Or well, Steve gave him CPR; no one wants to know they’ve had CPR performed on them, it’s a window into an event that he really doesn’t want to think about. But it was Steve, and somehow that feels big in a way he can’t put his finger on.

And then Steve got him out, and Steve kept him alive in the car all the way to the hospital, and Steve screamed at a nurse until they brought a gurney, and Steve, Steve, Steve. It always comes back to Steve.

Crushes are childish things, things for hair twirling girls and handsome boys, and Eddie has never had crushes. He watches someone from afar and then stuffs it away, squashes it before it gets that far. He watched Steve, once, before folding that feeling neatly and stuffing it in a box marked ‘I Can’t Have It.’ 

But there’s something to be said for a man saving your life, for risking his own to save yours, and then for sticking with you for months after. For not just being there physically, but mentally, emotionally. There’s a bond that has been growing, a root deep within Eddie, a seed that’s been there for years but has finally been watered, has had the sun of a long hot summer to grow it; Steve is his best friend. But the flutter of more, of want, sings within him.

Sitting here with him, hands almost touching over the worn top of the kitchen table, burnt turkey in the sink, over cooked potatoes and solid gravy on the counter, it’s as close to looking at that neatly folded thing as he dares, and this time when he stuffs it back inside it hurts.

“So,” Steve says, with a soft knock-knock on the table. “Have you got plans for tomorrow? Hitting up the stores?”

Eddie can’t help the snort of laughter. “Uh, no. Just chilling here, I think. The guys asked me to go with them to Indie, but… not really in the mood for walking around the mall all day, you know?”

Steve flashes a look, like concern maybe? 

“Oh. Everything okay?”

“No, yeah, everything’s fine. Just tired is all. And you know,” he taps his leg, the only shorthand he needs for the shit show that has become his body. He smiles, big and as genuine as he can make it and it does the trick as Steve’s shoulders relax.

“What about you? Big plans?” Eddie crosses his arms and leans across the table with a wide grin on his face. “A date, maybe?” It stings his lips to say it.

“Yeah, right,” Steve scoffs. “Robin wants to get away from her family for the day, I think she has about a hundred Buckley’s camped out in her place. You’re welcome to join us?”

That flutter again. He’s so close to saying yes before he reins it in.

“Nah, I think I’m just going to laze around in my pyjamas for the day. But thanks for the offer.”

“Okay, well, if you change your mind…”

They spend the rest of the evening throwing out what’s left of Mrs Harrington’s prize, and very, very black, turkey, and ordering a pizza. And Eddie doesn’t think anymore about that thing folded up inside of him.

[karlachismylife]

For the celebration! The Prompt: laying their hand on the other’s leg. The pairing SoapxReader or DammonxReader, you choose! >:3 pls and tyyy

Never ask me to choose again, darling, I'm polyamorous for a reason >< You get both! And also lots of love from me for your support and overall awesomeness <3

Link to the celebration post for anyone interested here!

Emotional Support Dog

John "Soap" MacTavish x gn!civilian!reader

Even the air around you feels charged with anxiety. No amount of meticulously created comfort can tone it down: tucked into the soft corner of your couch, surrounded with pillows, a blanket, a steaming cup and a bowl of snacks to accompany fat stacks of papers to read, you still feel nervous. No one can blame you though: your boss wasn't particularly fair informing you of the upcoming meeting late. Very late. Couple of days before a very important meeting with your place at the company depenging on it - that sort of late.

Goddamn corporate.

So it's not surprising that you're slightly crumbling under pressure to get prepared with all available documentation; maybe they're trying to set you up to be at their mercy or fail, but you're not going down without a fight. Even if the fight makes your knee bounce nervously and the almost-forgotten nail biting come back as your eyes scan one bureaucratic word vomit page after another.

You're so engrossed in the process of absorbing vital information from the bulky speech figures and long columns of numbers that you nearly miss the sound of the apartment door opening and closing - and the one entering isn't even trying to be subtle about it. Poor door suffers a concussion in its core each time it gets slammed shut by the overly excited to be home individual; then follows the jiggling of keys thrown to their place, two hasty thuds of boots being enthusiastically kicked off, and finally - a dramatic pause. Were you a little less busy, you would've already been at the door, right where one hearty hug awaits, arms opened and everything; maybe you would've made him wait on purpose, just to see a sulky pout of an impatient pup light up with pure inner sunlight by your presence; but you can't just pull yourself away from this very important reading.

So in a minute Johnny peeks around the living room entrance, wary expression immediately replaced with a loving glint in the aquatic eyes at the sight of you. In two strides he is already at the sofa, plopping his ass right next to you and nuzzling the side of your face with one, two - three kisses: to the temple buzzing with brainwork, to the soft cheek and to the corner of your sightly frowned mouth.

"Whit are ye doing there, bonnie? Thought ye fell asleep, didnae even come hug me at th' door," here comes the famous pout, eyes full of betrayal boring straight into your soul in hopes of coaxing more kisses and cuddles. Would've definitely worked.

If not for the bloody headache fussing over this goddamn meeting planted into your skull.

You open your mouth with a sigh, planning to answer him - you're going to hug and kiss him alright, just a second, you just have to finish this paragraph, so wordy and inhumanely written that you almost don't doubt it was done by a real person - to deliberately make every reader's of this file head explode. An efficient way to balance the workforce market.

Soap, however, reads into your frowny silence and immediately smells that something's wrong. And it very much might be his fault - even though he did the dishes, took you to your favourite Italian on the weekend, showed impeccable restraint when a guy at the parking lot ran his mouth at you (that prick was lucky Johnny didn't want to start the date with a fight: "Ye better thank tis guardian angel 'ere fur haudin' me back, or ah'd teach ye a lesson, ye sod," - all said with a firm hand placed on the small of your back while you glared at the mouthy motherfucker), folded the laund- oh shite. It was the laundry, wasn't it?

"Bonnie, ye're nae angry at me, are ye?" Johnny tilts his head, trying to catch a direct glimpse at you, and almost shoves himself between you and your reading, squeezing in more kisses. "Ah'll dae th' laundry, ah promise, must've forgotten-" - you finally blink and emerge from your hyperfocused state, immediately cupping the Scot's worried face and planting a loud smooch on his nose.

"I'm not angry... not at you, at least," you give him an apologetic kiss on his pouty lips and look back down at the paper in your lap. "It's just work. Gotta read all this or I'll be in trouble, boss gave me a really short notice this time. It's like they're trying to set me up... sorry for ignoring you, sunshine."

Initial relief on Johnny's face that showed there when you confirmed he didn't get on your bad side (he did fold the laudry after all, just managed to forget that he did) gets replaced with a concerned look once again. Leaning back a bit, he gauges the stacks of papers laid out on the coffee table in front of you and furrows his full brows.

"'N' how long ye 'ave tae read all tis?" - "The meeting's two days away, morning." You rub your neck with another exasperated sigh, and a much larger hand, warm and calloused, comes up to do it for you, squeezing the sore spots and making you shudder as it forces the knots away. How long have you been sitting here, hunched over the papers?

"Steamin' Jesus, tha's a lot of reading tae dae," he mutters, squinting to try and make something out of the corporate gibberish - and inevitably failing. With a sigh, Johnny reserves to kissing your temple again. "Well, shite, nae lik' ye 'ave much choice, dae ye? Wanntae 'ave pasta fur dinner? Ah'll cook."

With a confirming nod and a grateful grunt from you, already deep in the papers again, he raises from the couch that creaks with relief, but then pauses and sits right back down. His big hand finds its way to your leg, squeezing your knee reassuringly and stopping the jittering with warm, heavy weight. You lift your eyes once again, meeting his bluest ones with a net of crow's feet around them, nothing but warmth towards you. This sight makes breathing, constricted by the pressure put on you by the situation, easier.

"Ye got tis, aye, bonnie? Ah ken ye got tis. Ye gonnae show 'em."

With a pat, meant to gently hammer in this confidence in case you were still worrying and doubting yourself, Johnny finally gets up, and your knee immediately feels cold without his big paw on it.

"Ah'll go start th' dinner, and ye holler if ye need anything, aye? Ah heard snoggin's good fur yer brains."

Of course he did. Bloody rascal with his innocent blue eyes winking at you and calming your wired self down. Well, why refuse such considerate service when offered?

Forged Under the Stars

Dammon x gn!reader

The cool of the night yields under the relentless burning of several campfires and torches lighting the clearing your celebratory party takes place at, their heat amplified by mulled wine and other drinks generously shared between everyone present. Sitting close to one of the campfires, you quietly observe folks with genuine smiles on their faces that only add to the pleasant warmth in your chest. It's nice, you think, seeing them relax and shrug off the heavy weight of barely avoided danger. They deserve this small moment of peace and quiet among impending doom, and so do you.

Drunken laughter at one of the barrels people gather for the good ale distracts you, your curiousity piqued as you lazily try to make out what caused the whistling and hooting - some brave soul trying to compete against others in absorbing a humongous mug in one go, perhaps? Whatever it is, it keeps your attention long enough for someone to stumble a bit clumsily and seat themself down with a quiet "oof", warm knee nudging your leg in an accidental move before the person straightens up. Snapping your eyes to the right, you can't help the wide smile tugging at your lips.

"Hello to you too, Dammon," you raise your clay mug as a greeting, taking in the view. The blacksmith doesn't look too out of it, but he's clearly tipsy - you aren't surprised, he does give off the impression of someone easily getting lightheaded from a drink or two. Even the warm orange hue of the campfire can't hide cute rosy blush on his cheeks and pointy eartips; neither manages he to conceal a certain glint in his bright glowing eyes.

"Sorry," he mumbles, probably referring to his clumsy landing, but you just shake your head - he didn't even really disturb you, holding up quite well. Same can't be said for everyone: with another glance around, you notice a completely plastered tiefling maiden try and dance with Wyll, who ends up catching her and preventing a fall after fall for the giggling girl. A quiet rustling from behind alerts you, but even without looking you realize it's just Dammon's tail getting restless, usual reserved attitude lifted by ale or whatever he was drinking.

You two sit in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, watching the party and stealing glances at each other, smiles widening and chuckles escaping when you catch each other looking - after one of these accidental eye contacts Dammon and you burst out in particularly loud fits of laughter, leaning forward and shaking your heads. Alcohol makes it so much funnier, fuzzy, pleasant feelings coiling like furry cats in your stomachs.

"Gods above, I haven't laughed like that for a long time," Dammon sits back up and tilts his head back, inhaling fresh night air and watching the night sky. His vision makes the stars shine brighter, and while you watch him instead of the nightsky, you think you see the celestial bodies swirling in his eyes, reflected as if they were a crysral clear lake.

"Not much laughter in Avernus, eh?" Your slightly intoxicated tongue works faster than your brain, and you immediately stutter, cursing yourself for bringing The Descent - of all things, damn it! - up. "Sorry, didn't mean to..."

"It's alright. I know what you meant," Dammon's smile doesn't falter and he tears his gaze away from the sky to look at you. Maybe it's a play of the flickering flame you sit at, but it seems as if his eyes only shine brighter when looking at you. "And you're right, that wasn't... although there was this one time..."

He briefly checks if you're listening and goes off - waving his mug, unusually expressive and talkative, clearly encouraged when you prop your cheek on your palm and listen on. Maybe you don't quite keep up with the amout of terms and unkown words his slurred speech is littered with, but you still laugh, when he puffs his blushing cheeks, reenacting the way some poor apprentice thrown into his forge held a heavy anvil and tried to use it as a hammer when they ran out of those (how does a forge run out of hammers? why yes, of course, when a whole squadron of unprepared for battle soldiers swarms it and takes everything and anything they can use as a weapon. yes, the firepokers too.)

At the sound of your laughter, loud and unbothered, Dammon pauses with his antics and turns back into his shy self, holding his breath and drinking in the sight of you with a surprisingly sober shine to his eyes. Your fit of giggles dies down, when you feel a warm hand on your thigh, barely squeezing, long tiefling claws carfully denting the skin underneath your clothing.

"Thank you," sincerely whispers Dammon, looking at you like you've hung the moon in the skies and lit up the fire in his forge, "for everything. For this night."

He leans in closer, lips slightly parted, something else dancing on the tip of his tongue, something he can't brace himself to say out loud. You smile, covering his palm with yours - his is strong, warm, a hand of someone working hard, rough and with visible burns from accidental sparks scorching through the protective mittens. It startles Dammon, fingers twitching and squeezig a bit harder before he lets go of your leg and moves his eyes away. His ears slowly start glowing brighter, tail swishing behind you and nearly swatting your bum - turns out, it almost coiled around your waits while you two were sitting next to each other.

Unwilling to let his bashfulness to get in the way, you catch Dammon's hand before it slips away and hold it gently, allowing to rest on your thigh again, your fingers almost intertwined.

"I'm glad you're here," there's enough courage in you for the both of you, added in liquid form or coming to you naturally - doesn't matter. Dammon's shy smile grazes his lips once again, and he finally allows his tail to wrap around your seated form, carefully, ready to pull away if you show any signs of discomfort.

You don't.

"I hope we see each other again," with your support, Dammon allows his thoughts to spill out. It's a little bittersweet, a reminder that the celebration will eventually come to an end and you both will have to move on, heavy burdens on both of your shoulders. But maybe, just maybe the knowledge that wherever life chucks you, if there's a forge nearby, you might see a familiar face - maybe that knowledge lifts the weight just a little bit.

After all, this blacksmith has some fine, strong shoulders you can lean on.

If you know anything about the Faerûn traditions, it's that lovespoons are carved out of wood. Unlike that little forged one that you find among your posessions the next morning.

[mandalhoerian]

ghost to its haunt, I | leon kennedy x reader

read part 1: moth to a flame pairing: leon kennedy x f!reader summary: Even if it is full of love, all a ghost can do is haunt. But this time, it has to be different. word count: 6K warnings: angst, hurt no comfort, peppers of fluff as a treat, smut (blink and you'll miss it), leon being feral from day one like seriously he's unhinged, his negative self-talk notes: this installment comes in two chapters. chapter two is still being written and will be published and linked here when i'm done. header template can be found here. we're nearly at the end besties, thank you for sticking with me until the end, and please enjoy.

🌀 read on ao3! 🌀 NEXT CHAPTER

i. Leon knew right from day one when you’d breached the solitary safety of his shadowed corner in the bar of his unusual drinking choice, that you were tempting and twice as dangerous as a mirage to a parched man lost in the desert. 

In the pleasantly neon-lit sanctuary of a bustling bar, amidst the cacophony of clinking glasses and spirited conversations, he stuck out like a sore thumb with the air of melancholy around him, making people near his booth uneasy with the way he was observing everything — to them, he was not to be approached, as if one look to his way would be enough for him to start a fight, but in reality it was his inability to relax in crowds, subconscious calculating for unlikely scenarios to unfold and contingency plans on how to get away. Yet he’d wanted to come here just once anyway, see what made here one of Major Krauser’s favorites, it was psychological torture, but Leon did it to himself anyway, knowing so.  

You came to Leon first when nobody would approach him, setting a starting point of the pattern in your relationship where this’d be repeating over and over again. 

The stifling hot humidity of the South American forest and how heavier the stench of blood stuck at the back of his nose still followed him around months after, and you tracked the trail like a shark in the water, it was in the way you’d been openly watching him upon spotting him in his corner, in the way you slid towards him in the booth, eyes glinting, seeking, curious, expecting — giving straight away of how fresh you were to this compared to the poor unfortunate soul before you chasing after Operation Javier. 

You looked young, around his age, but had a certain softness and eagerness that reminded him of an unprepared rookie back in 1998, so before you could get a word in, he’d said, “I suggest you walk away for your own safety. You know how this ends.”  

You know how this ends. 

Such first words. What a way to doom an entire relationship and a person. 

If Leon knew how his words had shaped the reality he’d chosen, he’d have gone with something promising, more open, like, “How’d you know I wanted company?” — he’d expressed himself more, made his attraction more prominent, secured you to him better, but he was always about safety and protection, wasn’t he? Paranoid beyond belief, self-sabotaging. Of course he’d warned you about taking caution so you wouldn’t get hurt, especially given what had happened to the previous journalist looking into the operation. 

Your reaction to this was opting to buy him a drink instead of getting intimidated. Leon had made it clear over and over again he wouldn’t tell you anything and to go your own way. You didn’t know anything about him other than being a connection of the White House to Operation Javier somehow and he certainly wouldn’t be the one reporting this back to the base, so he made sure this was about saving one more person’s life from being ruined in vain even after this brief encounter had led to a hasty hookup in a bathroom stall and eventually to a hotel room like he was some teenager with no control over his dick —

You had ruined everything. 

Unabashedly interested in him and just pushing, eager, genuine, passionate as you kept talking about your job in wanting to expose corruption the more he kept things dry and silent, and he just saw the same spark in you that he had once; how naive, how idiotic, how endearing — such respect-worthy dignity and enthusiasm and drive that you had managed to find him of all people in your pursuit. He’d never been attracted to anyone quite like this, not the same way with Ada, not in that elusively mysterious and alluring, dangerous and unapproachable, thrilling distance, but the other end of the spectrum, the sort that fed on kinship and admiration that made him want to protect you from what he knew would happen if you kept going like this. 

Jesus, it should have been discouraging you from this path and nothing more, instead, Leon had been randomly snapped out of years of dissociation and autopilot since Raccoon City, and for what? Mind-blowing sex he didn’t even know was coming for his throat on a random fall night in 2002? 

Really, it was his routine being broken that had done it.

His life was meticulously governed by strict routines and unwavering habits, as if each day were a precisely choreographed fight, a paragon of order and structure. Leon’s world thrived on meticulous organization, where every document, tool, and weapon had its designated place. Even the symmetry of his living space mirrored the precision of his mind, with every item aligned flawlessly, punctuality eventually becoming second nature to him, his internal clock a finely tuned instrument, ensuring he was never a moment late, not at all a result of being late in his first day as a cop. Time was a precious commodity, a resource he safeguarded fiercely, as he understood that even the smallest delay could have dire consequences. This devotion to structure allowed him to remain laser-focused on his objectives, and also avoid hellish punishments back at Offutt Air Force Base located near Omaha, Nebraska where he had spent quite some time as a special agent trainee.

Military would make a clockwork out of anyone, but being trained under Major Krauser had turned him into a well-oiled machine that only had training and mission objectives in mind. Leon used to be highly adaptable and open to surprises before, but his encounter with you had revealed just how unprepared and anxious to impulses he’d been molded to become. Spontaneity had ended up a stranger to him, an unwelcome disruption that threatened to dismantle his carefully constructed world, and as an extension, anything else was regarded as losing control — which was, an unthinkable notion; he had been trained to maintain composure in the most chaotic of situations. 

There wasn’t even the semblance of composure in how he handled you. 

Never in his wildest dreams would he entertain the thought of someone managing to unbelievably, randomly, turn him on so uncontrollably one day that he’d lose his mind enough to risk public indecency in a fucking bathroom stall with pants around his ankles not only once, but twice. 

Sitting on the toilet with your back to his chest, one leg spread wide open over his knee and the other hiked up in the air from his elbow, you basically limp in his arms as all you could concentrate on was shutting your mouth tight enough not to make noise as he wildly bounced you up and down on his lap — and the next thing he knew after blowing his load right after with no rest whatsoever was that he had you flat against the graffiti-stained door separating a bunch of girls from what the two of you were doing, one hand clamped on your mouth, having you press your thighs together so he could languidly slip back and forth against the tight crevice of your wetness and the plushness combined that he had to use all his control for the door to not rattle and feeling your pussy spasm each time he grazed your clit, his head buried in the crook of your neck whispering filth he didn’t know his mind was capable of conjuring right to your ear with no filter —- how much of a pervert you were to be enjoying this when all it had to take was a peep from you for people right in front of you to discover you were getting off to the thought the humiliation of being looked at while getting fucked from behind, all the while it was Leon who was dying to explode from how horny he was that it was unbearably painful. 

And the only thing he could think about was to hell with it all and the hammering of his heart to hear you moan uncontrollably, he could just plunge inside you right then and there, had to bite down on your clothed shoulder to hold back the impulse, hell, it took everything in him to keep his breathing steady and not heave, every second the girls didn’t leave was dragged torture, his legs were trembling from holding back and the sheer excitement, but holy shit was it concentrated ecstasy that had his eyes rolling behind his head when they had finally left and he’d rammed himself in to the hilt so forcefully that the hinges of the door had almost broken off.

You had consumed him whole, your skin, your scent, your taste, wrapping him in a cocoon of warmth and pleasure and just digesting his whole being that he didn’t even have one grain of logic or common sense as a pea brain or nothing — just that he wanted to keep fucking and it was so soft and everything just felt so good and good god Leon was going to have an aneurysm from overheating because of you.    

The post-nut clarity after all that was interesting to say the least. 

A blood clot had to have shot up to his brain for his sanity to have snapped like that … And for him to think this wasn’t enough and he wanted more as you rested in his embrace — in a fucking bathroom stall. He wasn’t a people person. He simply didn’t do this shit in the first place, what was even happening?

Leon didn’t know what to be embarrassed about: of himself for doing this kind of thing in a place like this or disrespectfully exerting a woman to this degree, he had no idea whatsoever where all the talk about getting discovered had come from, didn’t that make Leon the pervert? Good lord. 

He had to be thankful that you were coming down from a high and had no energy to turn around and look at his face, because you surely would see him transition from all shades of red out of shame. What the actual hell had come over him?  

Leon was made aware that night that it’d been such a long time since he’d felt such a visceral physical response to someone that his whole body was in a flushed flurry — the kind of intensity that hadn’t even scraped the top of his heated need, he couldn’t even think before suggesting you two take this to somewhere else better that he could drown in this feeling some more. 

The man who said this basking in your afterglow and the man who warned you about how this ended were two different people. 

The man at the very beginning of this would have known better than to let himself indulge in you. 

But your pull was worse than that of a black hole’s, and in Leon’s mind, him taking you to a hotel room was equivalent in his mind to tossing you over his shoulder like an impatient caveman foaming at the mouth, and he knew he’d looked so constipated and unenthusiastic about it back then because he was trying to keep his shit together and not let his libido rush straight to his head, it was absolutely batshit crazy that his mouth was fucking salivating over you and he had to physically fight not to get hard where he stood, especially after having a taste of how you melted in his arms and he just couldn’t keep his together and — this was unreal, Leon had never went into a frenzy over someone before and you’d just taken it. 

He wanted to be gentle, enjoy it, savor it, and you weren’t even going anywhere, but even after he’d gotten him and you a room, Leon had taken you like he hadn’t fucked in his life before, like his dick had gotten hard for the first time in his life, and pathetically like he was desperate for his skin to touch another human being’s — and you… 

You. 

You had made everything worse. 

He still remembered that exact moment when your hands found his hair, the gentleness of the caressing contrasting his rough rutting, he remembered how the rhythmic squeaking of the bed stuttered and gave it right away that he was caught off guard even though his head was buried in the cushion of your tits — embarrassing, utterly disgraceful, all that you’d done was pet his fucking head and his heart had purred like a goddamn cat, and even more shameful was that he’d come right on the spot when you’d started pulling on his strands, Jesus fuck, he wanted to die on the spot. 

One condom change and a carry to the bed later (because Leon had shattered upon passing the threshold of the hotel door and he’d wrapped your legs around his hips and had you against the door, again) things had finally begun to become mellow and sensual as he’d started enjoying you, significantly calmer and more collected compared to before, paying more attention to how you liked it and what you liked, where you liked better, putting those observational skills to more gratifying uses. 

Somehow this was the most satiated he’d been yet, actually taking in the sight of you struggling against the pleasure brought him the unexpectedly superior fulfillment to chasing his own height. He was alerted and awake, sensitive to the very last cell watching you, endeared, wanting to give you every last drop of euphoria he could just to see how you’d react to it. And the more he explored, the more he couldn’t get enough, so adorable, so sexy, so hot, how could he take pleasure in making someone cry? How and why the hell couldn’t his dick stay down for five minutes? 

By the time he’d finally become downright spent and quenched the fire inside, the sun had already risen, the floor was just littered with ripped condom packets, you were covered in hickeys, bite marks and bruises that he’d questioned if he was a feral animal, and the sheets were… disgusting. 

Leon was a repenting sinner with an imaginary tail between his tails when he’d wrapped you in clean linen and laid you on the sofa, changed the sheets, and straightened the pillows, getting you to pee and drawing a bath for you afterwards, it was mortifying he’d made you basically unable to walk for the time being, and he surely didn’t deserve your insistence that you two share the bath together, twice as horrified and disturbed at the tender intimacy with which you’d washed him, warm fingers massaging his scalp almost lulling him to sleep.  

Sharing the room service breakfast, streaks of golden sunlight of the early hours washing your face and making the white of your bathrobe glow as he tried not to make it obvious he was ogling, you’d tricked him into promising you a date for all that he’d put you through that night, you’d be calling in sick; and Leon was covering his face in guilt and embarrassment inside even though all that he’d presented you was an abashed grin and an, “As the lady wishes.” — stupidly giddy enough to have lowered his guard (like that idiot in 1998) that you hadn’t suggested this because you wanted information out of him but were genuinely interested in his company, in him. 

He wasn’t overthinking it back then, just reveling in your presence, luxuriating in the fluffy, satisfied, peaceful feeling, new to him, not afraid of how it could be ephemeral. He was drunk, and not conscious about the fact just yet.  

The withdrawals had hit right after parting ways with you — this was a mistake, this was a huge mistake, he shouldn’t have promised anything, he shouldn’t even have done this in the first place. Leon had no time for this, couldn’t even keep a plant alive if he committed, didn’t know how it’d work, nobody was allowed to know about the kind of work he did, the world of bioterrorism was a secret kept so tightly it became nooses around the necks of nosey individuals. 

He just couldn’t allow himself to loosen the leash around his normal because if he did let go of himself, he would make a mistake. That mistake could doom you. 

More importantly than it not being fair to you, he’d be putting you in danger just by being in your proximity. 

All that fretting around, putting the stress of wishing to see you again but the garbage feeling he mustn’t (that he hadn’t expected to make him this moody) into exercising more intensely than before, and ending up scaring the folks around the office unintentionally in work, only to feel immediately like spring had come at the drop of a hat when you’d called saying because he hadn’t, apparently, and you were waiting for him. 

This was terrifying. How you made him feel... It was entirely out of his control. 

I suggest you walk away for your own safety. You know how this ends.

Leon should have kept telling this to himself. 

ii. The date was at your place, planned from start to finish by you, an attentiveness and special treatment he didn’t deserve, but Leon got warm inside anyway, especially after you said this seemed like the better option since he didn’t seem to do well in crowds. Something about him being noticed on this kind of personal level had caused him to confuse his right from his left and he was sure his palms were sticky just from that and the way you smiled. 

You’d said you wanted to get to know him, and Leon unfortunately didn’t have enough going out experience to decide if cooking together and then sitting down to solve a murder mystery game was the most creative thing ever or not, because he thought it was. 

At the end of this, he knew you much better, and had shown you himself in a way that wouldn’t be possible by answering questions. 

Leon had approached the murder mystery solving game with a calculated and analytical mindset, trained to think strategically, he had diligently assessed every clue, scrutinizing them for hidden meanings and connections. He hadn’t meant to get invested this much, but he had ended up approaching the game like a covert operation and a blast from the past to his police academy days, examining evidence with sharp attention to detail and requiring evidence instead of just a hunch like you kept hitting him with. Each clue was like a piece of intel, and he’d taken the murder of Mrs. Huntington very seriously. Relying on his instincts, leveraging his experience in decoding complex situations to unravel the layers of the mystery, his logical thinking and ability to tackle every single thread of this one by one had brought structure and organization to their investigative process.

In contrast, you had embraced the game with innate curiosity and unlike him, a childlike interest — like a game should be perceived. As an investigative journalist, he’d seen that you had a natural knack for delving deep into stories and uncovering hidden narratives, embarking on the game with a keen eye for the human element, looking beyond the surface level clues to understand the motivations and emotions of the characters involved. You thrived on the adrenaline rush of piecing together the puzzle, always seeking out the next lead or breakthrough, and brainstorming on the possibilities, which clashed with Leon, leading to a sort of bickering that was entertaining, really. Your inquisitive nature and intuition led you to explore alternative perspectives, constantly questioning assumptions and seeking out overlooked details.

When was the last time he’d had this much fun? Leon didn’t remember. 

All that you’d given him that night was a kiss, he hadn’t minded you halting things before the heavy makeout session that had his brain melting like jello could escalate into something more, and he definitely didn’t mind being hypnotized into saying yes for doing this again sometime in the future — when he should have cut things off. 

Leon really couldn’t seem to think coherently around you.

And, despite his better judgment, there was a third time. There also was a fourth. A fifth. A sixth. Seventh. Until he forgot it was a matter of numbers and he simply kept seeing you — that was it. 

Amidst the unlabeled dates that unfolded between you and Leon, there was an undeniable disparity in your cooking styles. While he considered himself a decent cook, you couldn't help but find his dishes lacking in flavor and spice, often describing them as bland. Nonetheless, there was a silver lining to this culinary discrepancy: Leon's competence in the kitchen ensured that all ten of his fingers remained intact, a feat that seemed elusive whenever you attempted to prepare a meal.

Your culinary misadventures had reached a crescendo one fateful day, as Leon returned home to a scene of chaos. The kitchen lay in disarray, food scattered about, a bloody rag, and a knife ominously present. Heart shooting up to his throat, he practically shouted, "Oh my god, what the hell happened?"

It was then that you revealed your mishap, a deep and severe cut that required stitches. Despite the severity of the injury, you had opted not to seek medical attention to avoid the burden of an exorbitant bill. Unbeknownst to you, Leon possessed exceptional suturing skills, honed through the necessity of tending to his own wounds after the hazards of his missions. He hadn't disclosed this fact of course, but rather emphasized his meticulousness when it came to first aid that he’d taken a course on it in the past.

He kept on boomeranging back to you every time he regretted the previous entanglement the morning after, dreading this was bound to end badly and he should leave you alone. He could… He could get sex elsewhere, he was a dog on a leash because stumbling on physical compatibility on this level had made him an idiot, that must have been it, he thought.  

But that wasn’t the issue at all. Nothing had thrown him off and even affected his daily life the way your absence did. It wasn’t craving the skin contact and fantasizing about the next affair that did Leon the damage, it was simply wanting to see you and be by you that even his appetite was lost along the way — he had been scared of what this was. The utter enormity of it made him panic. 

In the depths of his soul, a bubbling longing simmered up and up, getting close to the surface the more he deprived himself of you, taking over him with an intensity that defied description. His heart echoed with the fading echoes of your laughter, a melody he yearned to hear once more and came back to him when he least expected it — in the field he could chase away all thoughts and concentrate, but in the waking moments devoid of action, his thoughts collapsed toward you, unable to escape the gravitational pull of your absence. A hunger, primal and unyielding, gnawed at his core, a hunger for the touch of your hand in his hair, the warmth of your embrace, the nightmare-free, cloud-soft sleeps by your side. He’d come to find solace in fragments of memories, savoring the remnants of your presence, like faded polaroids etched in his mind. It was unbelievable to notice the world around him grew muted and colorless, as if drained of life's vibrancy, each passing day intensifying the ache, searing his heart with an inconsolable longing, fueling he urge he kept resisting to bridge the chasm of his own making that separated him and you. 

Leon had to accept he liked you despite himself, liked you to the point of no return, and that he was afraid to admit the stronger word. 

iii. He couldn’t tell you who he truly was and precisely because of that, couldn’t fully let you in. 

Countless reasons came up to defend why this was for the best — it not only protected his heart but also protected you by keeping you at a certain distance from all of this ridiculous baggage…

And he took notice of you noticing and being accepting regardless, settling for whatever you could when you shouldn’t. 

He was such a selfish man to keep taking advantage of that to stay however he was able to, a hedgehog’s dilemma. 

Leon had managed to find boundaries of your unpredictability and had managed to establish a routine, an ebb and flow of some sorts, entirely dependent on the volatile schedule of his missions that you had no idea of and tried acting nonchalant about — the absences, the bruises, the emotional unavailability after losses he had to keep to himself. He had to be wearing you down, crawling back through the dirt and the blood and the undying monstrosities only to be mute about everything and go straight for your embrace in search of a moment's peace. 

And what about you?   

The part of himself that was still sane knew he was making you suffer because of his selfishness, stringing you along in this unlabeled affair with the excuse it was with your eventual well-being in mind when it was easier for him — in the sense that if it came to the worst, you’d be able to come out of this on top and just hate and keep blaming him so you wouldn’t be hurt in the long run. 

But it was selfish, he still wanted to keep being around you, though, didn’t have the right or face to say he wanted you, so orbiting you was the best he could afford to do. 

Just for a little longer. A bit more. 

Leon wished you would be done with him and tell him to leave you alone so he could finally get out of your life for good, but in all his returns you welcomed him coming back with open arms. It was the garden of Eden and he didn’t belong there, feeling like a pillager sneaking in and getting whatever he wanted and fucking right off afterwards, each and every time leaving you with less and less and a faded viridescence. 

But he couldn’t stay. Not for as long as he wanted. Never in the way you deserved. 

And before Leon knew it, he and you had toppled two years of his bullshit — and you were still here throughout it all.. 

In 2004, the truth of bioterrorism and the existence of monstrous abominations with no regard for human ethics were thrust upon the world, and wiped yet another Raccoon City off from the map of the mediterranean — and things got so much more confusing in regards to what was allowed to be secret or not.

Unbeknownst to you, it was this incident that unknowingly contributed to the growing rift between you. Leon carried the heavy burden of witnessing the President's decision to deny AUPIT’s assistance to the FBC, leaving him as a mere bystander while hundreds of lives were lost due to the incompetence and inexperience of those involved. Even Terrasave, an organization not known for its extraction expertise, fared better in their efforts.

The Terragrigia Panic became a turning point, a catalyst for Leon's introspection, the weight of the world he couldn’t lift one finger to help pressed upon him, driving him towards self-destruction and an ever-deepening spiral of despair, soul scarred by the consequences of inaction and the haunting memories of present lives lost and a past city long in the dust. He questioned the system that bound his hands, preventing him from making the difference he so desperately yearned for. It was during these tumultuous times that you stood by him, unaware of the inner battles he fought and the toll it took on his well-being, and it made him feel so much worse about everything. 

His heart trammeled with the inevitable conclusion he could no longer ignore, he made the painful decision to set you free from the grip of his own shortcomings. Overwhelmed by a sense of unworthiness and consumed by his own greed, he knew he had to release you, unable to bear the weight of his own inadequacy any longer.

The timing, eerily close to the anniversary of the day he first met you, held a bitter irony. It was as if fate had conspired to test the limits of his resolve, presenting him with the most challenging mission of his life just as he made this life-altering choice. Bound for Spain, his path was paved with uncertainty, fraught with danger — but he’d sworn that things would be different this time and he could actually return, reformed and squeaky clean, somehow this mission could be his saving grace and actually wipe his brain clean of grime and rust.

The break-up had loomed before Leon like an impending storm, and he had steeled himself for the emotional turbulence that would surely follow, however, what caught him off guard was the resignation from you, as if you had anticipated his intentions and thoughts, ready to release him with open arms — eager to say yes the moment the words would slip out of his mouth. 

Devastated would be an understatement to describe him — he’d sat frozen on the kitchen chair, his mind a tempest of confusion and disbelief, the composed and scripted nature of your words waterboarding him as you continued to speak, nonchalantly expressing your expectations of this inevitable departure. You seemed braced, almost as if you had been reading his mind, as if you knew this day would come. The nonchalant manner in which you spoke of his leaving, seemingly devoid of any emotional attachment, tore at his heart. It was like time itself had paused, and Leon felt the dissociation creep in, his mind unable to process the scale of what was happening, the world around him blurring, finding himself lost in a void of numbness. How could it be that you were so ready to let him go? How could you speak of no hard feelings when his heart was shattering into countless fragments?

Yeah, right. 

Betrayal was it. 

He’d felt betrayed by you when he had no right to be angry like that — because he had warned you right from the start. 

You know how this ends. 

You’d taken his advice. Leon should have, as well. 

iv. It wasn’t only his jacket that’d got taken away by the village freaks, but also the watch you had given him as a gift — which the loss of was more personal and lethal to him.

And he had no time to look for it between saving and taking care of Ashley and trying to navigate a much bigger conspiracy. 

Coming to terms with the fact that it was gone, just like you, seemed poetically fitting, a form of karma that he should lose a memento of you when he hadn't proven himself deserving of it in the first place.

At the back of his mind was the memory of you trying to act like it wasn’t for anything special when Leon knew it was the first anniversary of the day you and he met, you just didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, walking around eggshells around him with the vaguest boundaries and definitions unspelled so he wouldn’t run away — Leon knew all too well. 

He had mentioned going for some type of Casio G-Shock when recounting he’d been meaning to buy a new one, and you’d apparently paid attention to that, not at all questioning why he would want a solar powered watch with 1312 ft. of water resistance — and had given him another much more sporty Longines stainless steel chronograph watch on the side, absolutely humbling him on the spot with just how much money you had to have spent on these two — and the amount of thought you had put into it. 

Modifications on both watches were specifically allowed by him, he'd gotten your initials and the Roman symbols of that day in the fall of 2002 engraved at the back of them to deceive himself, interchangeably using them, the Casio one in the missions, and the Longines in casual days, not bothering to buy any other watch for himself after that. You would see him wearing it all the time, but fortunately for his abashed pride, never commented on it, having no idea just how important they were to him. 

And it was Ada who casually reunited him with it, her throw of the watch certainly gentler than that of the jet ski key’s, as she was walking away with the Amber, a mysterious, knowing glance in his way, a perfectly shaped smile on her glossy lips. “Here. Consider this an equal exchange. Learn to take better care of special things, Leon.”

Somehow she wasn’t just talking about the watch and it irritated him, but she was right. 

v. The depths of Leon's feelings for you were intertwined with an overwhelming sense of terror. 

It terrified him to realize how much he needs you, how your presence has become an integral part of his existence, that you were now the surface he swam up to breathe after hours in the dark of the ocean, and the desire for reciprocation, for you to need him just as deeply, and knowing that you do but unable to bring himself to do anything about it, all filled him with longing and apprehension, both holding hands hiding behind the walls of his own making, pulling each other back as they kept watching you from afar. 

He feared that he may not be enough for you, that his flaws and past were going to inevitably cause harm and ruin.

The emotions that surged through him when you were near, the way his heart raced and his thoughts became consumed — it was new, it was unknown, it was exhilarating, it was petrifying. The spotlight of the vulnerability he’s put in was a double-edged sword, for it exposed him to the potential for joy, but also, immense pain. 

He could lose everything and it would lay waste to his soul, yet in the face of this fear, he couldn’t bear the thought of pushing you away completely, because the terror of being without you somehow had become equally paralyzing that he couldn’t breathe in the PTSD-rooted nightmares of them anymore.

Thus, you had found yourselves trapped in a state of limbo, unsure of where to go or how to proceed, but it was his fault, he thought of himself as a flightless bird sitting up on a roof with you, who could obviously fly; if he attempted to follow you he could fall, if he let you go you would migrate to warmer lands and would never come back. so you were both stuck there, and none of the scenarios involved — what if he could also fly? What if he could do what he thought he wasn’t capable of?

The thought of losing you now, after experiencing the depth of how far he could go with you; the promise, the mirage, the illusion, the dream, was a sense of impending devastation. And yet, he was plagued by the fear that it may already be too late to salvage what he once had with you. What he could have with you, if he allowed himself to surrender — 

Leon had changed, he wasn’t the same person, but he also hadn’t changed, hadn’t lost himself no matter the cost, hadn’t strayed from the original path he was treading on — he was capable of saving people, capable of changing the ending.  

Spain was as traumatizing as it was eye-opening and life-changing, through the reunion with Ada, the betrayal of Major Krauser, the loss of Luis and the successful extraction of Ashley, one single thread of hope had been holding Leon up and running:

He had to get back to you. 

He would come back to you, no matter what, even from the grave, even knowing there was a chance you wouldn’t take him back. To hell with taking comfort in a self-defined ending, to hell with the facade of protecting you when it was just protecting him, to hell with everything. 

This time, it had to be different. 

[ssa-atlas-alvez]

cowboy!reader likes pop music I've decided. he also drives a truck that looks like it's a fossil yet runs perfectly fine. he knows about horses and will try to talk about old wild west movies whenever. definitely loved woody from toy story as a kid. 1000% baby talks dogs. goes to pride parades in full colorful cowboy outfit. can do bird calls back. stress eats sunflower seeds instead of smoking. the list of ideas goes on really

- 🦦

More (Not) Allergies

Okay, so I've only focused on the pop music for this one. Also it directly follows from 'Alergies (Not Really)' (which wasn't titled earlier but it was the one with Mia in). But I do have them all noted down (I'm working on the sunflower seeds on at the moment).

EDIT: Sunflower seeds one is now done and available here

Warnings: minor sad reader

Word count: 621

PART ONE

Taglist: @xweirdo101x @xdark-acadamiax @ara-a-bird @heidss @chubbyboyinflannel @pendragon-writes @migwayne @bigolgay @technikerin23

"Hey, where's your cattleman?" Spencer asked as you sat down in your usual seat. 

"I er, I need to find a new one."

"Did you lose it? We've probably got time to find it before we take off-" Spencer said, already starting to stand up.

"Nah, I didn't lose it. I gave it to Mia," You said. "I'll go lookin' for a new one tomorrow,"

"Isn't that your favourite one?" JJ asked, turning to you.

"Yes ma'am," You answered, 

“Wait, is this the one you wouldn’t let any of us try on?” Derek asked, looking up from his ipod.

“That would be the one,” You said with a small nod.

“Oh man, you must be getting withdrawal,”

“A little,” You joked. "She's a special kid. Plus, I think she might’ve tried to steal it off me anyway. Y’know she called me old? Three times? Imma spring chicken,"

"I don't know about that," Emily teased, "You're nearly thirty,"

"'Scuse me ma'am, Imma spring chicken."

When the conversation dialled down, you sighed slightly, sliding your hands into your pocket out of boredom. You furrowed your eyebrows when your fingers brushed against a small chain. You gently removed it from your pocket.

"Where'd you get that chain?" You asked, seeing Mia fiddle with it, running her fingers along the links. 

She shrugged, "I found it on the floor a few years ago," 

"'s pretty," You commented, she looked at you in disbelief. "What?"

"I wore it once, it turned my skin green," 

"Maybe you're just a zombie." You said with a shrug

"Rich coming from you old man."

"Hey, you okay?" You look up at JJ in confusion and she motioned to your eyes, red and brimmed with tears.

"Oh, yeah," You clear your throat wiping your eyes slightly, "Allergies."

She has a knowing look on her face, but goes along with it. "Allergies are the worst,"

"Tell me about it." You muttered. 

"But," She whispered, despite the team chatting amongst themselves, "If you are… upset or concerned about anything, I'm always here if you want to talk about it." 

You pause for a moment, brushing your thumb against the chain as you frowned. "I-" You paused, "I dunno," You stuff the chain into your pocket as you looked at JJ, giving her a small smile. "'M fine," You gave her a nod, "Just missing ma cattleman, is all," 

"Uh-huh," JJ said with a raised eyebrow before she gave you a small smile, dropping the subject (not wanting to push you). "Alright, well, I believe we are all going for drinks, you should join us."

You look unsure for a moment before nodding, "A'right," You said, "Just don't tell my Mama I'm getting drunk,"

“Ooo cowboy’s finally gonna get drunk?” Derek asked with a grin, “How about you sing some good ol’ country music for us?”

“It’s gonna take a lotta shots to get to that point,” 

“Well, we have tomorrow off,” Rossi smirked. 

God damnit. 

“Y’all do know I don’t just listen to country, right?”

“Yeah, okay,” Emily grinned, “What else do you listen to?”

“I started listenin’ to er, what’s her name?... Arianna Grande, she’s a’right,” You said with a nod, furrowing your eyebrows as the team all let out a laugh (minus Spencer, who was just a bit confused). “What?”

“You listen to Arianna Grande?”

“She’s good!” You argue, “N’ she hits the whistle tones well. I listen to Dua Lipa ‘n’ Selena Gomez sometimes too,”

“Oh my god…”

“What?”

“You have the music taste of a teenage girl!” Derek snorted loudly.

“JJ, defend me here,” You said, turning to JJ.

“Sorry cowboy,” She teased, “They’re right…” You groaned, letting your head fall to the back of your seat. 

“God damnit.”

[armins-main-hoe]

Hi i rlly liked ur recent haikyuu manager post!! Could u make a karasuno and nekoma version to that?

Take ur time :D (ignore if don't want to do)

Thank you for liking the post! I'll write up any type request as long as I know who the characters are :)

Here is the link to the previous post.

"Oh no, you've got it all wrong. She does bite."

Karasuno and nekoma version

When you first signed up to be the manager for the boy's volleyball team, you really didn't think much of it. You only signed up because your parents wanted you to go to some sort of after school club.

You didn't like any of the clubs so you decided to be a manager for a sports team. Besides, you didn't think a manager would have to do much since most of the organisation for matches would be done by the teachers and coaches.

So here you are on your first day being introduced to the boys in the team.

Karasuno

(You can decide whether its Yachi or Kiyoko's place your taking)

You honestly didn't know much about volleyball but this was the only club left without a manager so here you are standing before the boys as you are introducing yourself to them.

"Hey, I'm Y/n L/n and I'll be your manager from now on."

Things went well and your parents laid off your back for a good while. Though for the first few practices you really didn't have a single clue with what was going on. You would sit, leaning your back against the wall, on the side and watch the ball go from one side to another while they yelled at each other.

To be honest, you didn't get the hype about the sport but you did your duty as manager as best you could.

The boys were wary of their new manager. Often glancing at her every now and then and she would always be looking at them with the same scary expression.

They knew the girl's scary reputation, everyone did. Why she ever chose to be their manager baffles them even to this day.

When Asahi said 'hello' to you for the first time he was pretty nervous and he ended up sounding a little odd. You thought he was trying to intimidate you or something so you glared at him.

Square up Asahi, Y/n about to swing some arms.

Daichi came in between you both, explaining to you that Asahi doesn't mean any harm. He is a friendly giant, promise.

"Yeah he better be."

But over the next few practices, you realised that Asahi really was the BFG so you apologised to him later.

Nishinoya gets on your nerves everyday. Like everyday. He'll be walking back to class and he'll bump into you on purpose. He'll shout "YO MISS MANAGER!" if he sees you across the hallway or streets. Unlike Asahi, this boy was looking to get beat up. He is the cause for 90% of your headaches. The other 10% goes to Kageyama and Hinata's bickering.

Not even a whole month goes by with you as their manager and you have nearly given each team member a smack or punch.

Over time though, you do get pretty close to the boys and you care about them though you might show it, you wouldn't actually ever say it.

When they have practice matches with other teams from other schools and that other team decides to talk shit about your team, you having a field day swinging your fists like helicopter blades.

Though you don't actually ever get very far with your punches to have a field day before the coach or a teacher stops you.

Oikawa once tried to flirt with you. He failed miserably.

By now you understood the game much better and 100% agreed with the hype about it. Would you ever play the game yourself? With these boys? No.

Why? Well have you seen the force at which they smack those balls? (lmao great wording) Like you smack other balls with that force but as a beginner who hasn't ever physically payed volleyball herself, they'd hand your ass back to you even if they were going easy on you. Help, Nishinoya would be a PAIN to deal with after.

Maybe you'll stick to being a delinquent manager and not a player.

Nekoma

Believe me when I say that Taketora was over to moon when he found out his team now has a manager. He was gushing and blushing about it for days.

He came back down to earth when he saw it was you though.

The infamous Y/n.

Just his luck.

But little did he and the rest of the team know, you actually really liked the sport and knew a lot about it. You would give them lots of pointers and took down notes of their strengths and weaknesses.

You threatened to beat them up if they didn't improve in your given time frame.

Did you ever beat them up? No you didn't, apart from Lev.

Lev has a very cheerful and playful personality and he doesn't even realise when he teases you for your height or whatever else. So he gets beat up with your clipboard one to many times.

Okay now I think about it, I think Kuroo would also be on your 'to hit' list. He is very good at provoking people and you. So he is also hit by your clipboard a few times too.

the poor clipboard is worn out.

You took this sport very seriously. The members often wondered why you didn't decide to play as a member on the girls team instead. When they asked you, you replied with

"It pains me to think that you lot would miss out on an awesome manager like me if i were to be a player instead, also because I know I would just be too good at the sport as a player so I decided to be nice and give you amatures a chance."

"Y/n you sound like Kuroo now..."

It wasn't long before Taketora began bragging about his team's manager to Hinata. Hinata thought you looked too scary and competitive for anyone to even see your feminine looks but the nekoma boys can see it clear as day.

Yaku was the only boy who never got told off by you. In fact, you actually get along with him pretty well, you both have very engaging conversations and he's the only one who receives pointers from you in your calm voice.

You have confiscated Kenma's phone a few times because he would get distracted by playing games on it and the poor boy wouldn't even glare or fight you about it like he would with Kuroo because he knew better.

The first time the boys saw you genuinely smile at practice, a smile that didn't have malicious intent or sarcastic, they were fawning all over you. That was also the first and last time they saw you flustered before being chased around the practice hall by you and your fists.

They'd see that smile again whenever they win a practice match or a real match in a competition and to them it makes victory taste that much sweeter.

Think even Hinata would agree with Taketora that you looked cute with that smile.

The boys sometimes forget that you do get into actual fights outside of school and practice so it often comes as a shock when they see you with some injuries when you go back to practice.

But they wouldn't want any other girl as their manager. They are more than happy to have you!

not proofread :/

But I had fun writing this like I did with the other post so thank you for the request!!

[xunandran]

Fuck it Friday (Firepilot Edition)

This episode was so good! But of course, I gotta make it nasty, lol! I would have been done, but I actually had to go back to work for 4 more hours after the episode was over, so I'm still working on the full fic, but have some Firepilot in honor of 07e06!

Full fic in the link! Not as nasty as I was going for, but still sweet!

“Mmmph.”

The enthusiastic crash of Evan’s lips against his is bewildering and intoxicating. He presses into the other man’s rough lips, crashing and tasting. He’s trying to be careful, trying to avoid imprinting too much of the fire’s afterthoughts into Evan’s clothes and skin. Evan is a beast though, the very definition of what he’d called him, and he’s ravenous. 

When they pull away, Tommy’s breathless, nearly dazed. This wasn’t “go looking for hot chicks” Evan or even “I don’t know what I’m ready for” Evan. Tommy stares at Evan’s resolute blue eyes, twinking with so much devious glee that he feels inexperienced and small. Evan’s face is smeared with soot, his lips are plump, pink, and Tommy just wants to kiss him again. 

Evan’s pulling him by the hand though, pulling him through the hospital’s halls toward Chimney’s room. “Evan. Your face.” But the other man doesn’t listen. He barrels forward singularly. Tommy might have been late, but he was going to be there. 

They’re out of breath by the time they reach the press. Whether that’s from the mad dash, the fire, or Evan’s kiss, Tommy doesn’t know. Evan turns and places his hands on Tommy’s scorched turnout jacket. “They’re man and wife. They’ve kissed the bride and groom. Wish them well, but be quick.”

“Why?” Tommy asks, confused.

Evan smirks, and it spikes through every nerve in Tommy’s exhausted body. “Because I really need to get those off of you… right now.”

“I-uh-Eva…” 

He doesn’t get to finish as Evan pulls him into the hospital room. “Hey! Look who almost made it!” 

The crowd turns to them, and Tommy smiles, soot stained and exhausted. “Congratulations, you two! I’m sorry I missed the ceremony!” 

Chimney nods and smiles. “Thanks Tommy! Looks like you two were… busy.”

Tommy’s honestly thankful for the grime to cover the blush, but Evan’s beaming, and he looks so handsome, soot smudged and all. 

Evan scoots through the crowd to hug his sister and Chimney, and Tommy does his best to make pleasantries without spreading the ash on his clothes. To his left, he hears Evan and Eddie talking, and then they hug, a great tight thing that suggests that maybe everything he might have assumed from yesterday was just a misinterpretation.  

As Evan takes his hand to pull them out of the door, Tommy hears Evan’s mother. “Where are you going?”

Evan stops and looks, first to Maddie, who smiles and nods, then to Eddie, who lightly shakes his head, almost as if he knows Evan’s thoughts better than the other man does. Finally, he looks back at Tommy and smiles before rounding on his parents. “I’m taking my date home to help him get cleaned up.” He doesn’t wait for their response. He pulls Tommy from the cramped hospital room and back down the hall. 

“Evan.” Tommy stops the other man’s frantic pace by digging in. Advantages to having size and muscle mass on your partner. Evan turns to him, smile dopey and giddy, but faltering slightly. “Are you okay?”

Evan scrubs at his mouth, and Tommy swears it just digs the grime in further. Tommy can hear the other man’s nervous swallow. “I-I just did that, huh?”

Tommy scoffs, but it’s a friendly sound. His eyes crinkle with warm affection, and his nose creases with a smile that is apparently enough to calm Evan, because the megawatt smile returns, teeth and sunshine. “You just did that. I hope you don’t feel like I-”

“No,” Evan interrupts, resolute. “I said you were my date today. You’re my date today.” He takes Tommy’s fingers in his, and the older man lightly thumbs along their joined digits. 

“Okay.”

Tommy watches in real time as Evan’s confidence returns. The man that had just been shaken from coming out to his entire world squared up and cockily slid closer. Tommy liked this Evan. No, that was accurate. He liked Evan - Neurotic, infodumping, nervous, and now cocksure, he liked them all.

“You wouldn’t think less of me if I put out on the first date, would you?” Evan’s words ghost between kisses. The kisses are warm and sweet, but Evan’s gaze and the way it rakes over him is anything but sweet. 

“I mean,” Tommy shrugs, lips in a tight smirk. “This isn’t our first date, so your virtue’s intact.”

Evan’s fingers slide into Tommy’s hair and lightly pull at the scalp. He kisses him again, fevered and needing. Tommy groans as Evan’s nails lightly rake against the back of his neck. “Let’s take care of that, shall we?” 

Fucking hell, Evan. How was he supposed to resist an invitation like that?

Tommy lets Evan lead him to his jeep. He’s sore. He’s dirty. He’s exhausted. In all honesty, he doesn’t know how high Evan’s expectations are. He only hopes that the other man is understanding. They drive in comfortable silence to Harbor so Tommy can stow his kit and gather his things. Along the way, Evan takes Tommy’s hand and thumbs along the knuckles. Tommy watches him drive, cast in nothing but the slow strobe of streetlights to illuminate him. The lights pull shadows along his strong jaw, his nose, his adam’s apple. Evan catches him looking more than once, but Tommy doesn’t care.

[daddy-dins-girl]

Playdate - Chapter Nine

Main Masterlist Series Masterlist

AO3 link

pairing: Marcus Pike x f! Reader x Dave York

Word Count: 9.1k

Notes: All the feelings in this chapter... I'm so sorry everyone. I swear I have an end goal in mind and I'm gonna make it better... just not YET.

Chapter Warnings: (skip if you don't wanna be spoiled, if you've made it this far in the series, you'll be fine). 18+ MDNI. Angst. Hurt/Comfort. Confessions of infidelity. Dry humping. Oral Sex. 69 sex position. Unprotected p in v. Creampie. Daddy Kink. Rough sex. Breathplay. Daddy!Marcus. Dom!Marcus. Aftercare. Consensual somnophilia. Lots of feelings. Severe lack of Dave York (I'm so sorry, I'll make it up to you I swear).

HUGE thank you to @janaispunk for beta'ing and letting me talk her ear off when I get an idea in my head and helping me work it out lol. And also for calming my anxiety every time I go to post a chapter :P

You woke up to a bed that seemed suddenly too large and missing the warmth Dave’s body heat provided it with. Marcus was sleeping soundly next to you and you’re not even sure when that had happened or when he got in but clearly it was after you had passed out.

But where was Dave? Did Marcus walk in and find you and him in bed together and an argument ensued? Surely that would have woken you up so you quickly shake that notion from your head. Maybe everything was fine and you were freaking out preemptively over nothing. Dave had probably just gone down to the lobby again for coffee and when he came back the three of you could sit around and hopefully have an honest and open conversation. That sounded, to you, a logical reason for his whereabouts as any so you decided you weren’t going to begin to fret about something without any warrant and snuggled up to your husband to wait, but when nearly half an hour had passed and he didn’t return, you decided to pull out your phone to send a text in your group chat.

Your throat nearly dropped into your stomach at the words that greeted you when you opened it.

Dave York has left the group.

Without giving it a second thought you quickly scroll through your contacts until you find his name and hit the call button but after a single ring it goes to voicemail. Unsure what exactly that means you try for a text instead. Simple, direct, to the point.

Hey, are you ok?

The blue bubble pops up on your screen and you wait, however neither the “delivered” or “read” notification appears underneath it and that’s when it hits you.

Dave has blocked your number.

Confused and hurt, you toss your phone over to the nightstand where it clatters to the surface, skids across the smooth wood and then falls to the carpeted floor with a light thud, though you couldn’t be bothered to care right now. The commotion however rouses your husband who, lying on his stomach, quickly pushes himself up onto his elbows and glances around the room before his gaze lands on you.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, voice groggy with sleep.

You don’t answer him right away, because, how could you. Everything. Fucking everything was the matter! What you had done last night, it all comes flooding back to you in an instant and you suddenly feel overwhelmed with emotions and you have no choice but to burst into tears, your knees coming up to your chest as you wrap your arms around them and bury your face, shoulders shaking with every sob that leaves your body.

“Honey! What…” Marcus sits up in an instant, panicked. His arms immediately envelop your frame and his voice frantic as he pulls your whole body into his lap and holds you close to his chest. “Hey, hey, hey, shhhhh. Sweetheart tell me what’s wrong” he tries, fear still lacing his tone as he attempts to appear outwardly calm, holding you to him and gently rubbing a hand up and down your back.

You feel so absolutely wracked with guilt that you can’t even find words to even begin trying to explain yourself to Marcus so instead you just bury your face further into his throat and let him comfort you, though you know you don’t deserve it. The moment he hears what you have to say for yourself you fear he’s going to be putting as much distance between the two of you as possible so you need him to just hold you a little while longer before that happens. It’s selfish. You’re selfish. But at this moment, you don’t care. How could you have done this to Marcus? And for what? For Dave to just leave you both like that? Like these months have meant nothing to him? You want to believe that’s not true, but what choice has he left you with?

Marcus worries endlessly as he holds you in his arms, honestly surprised you’re even allowing him to hold you but he’ll take it for as long as he can get it. Dave must have told you what he’d done yesterday while you were asleep and now look at the problems it’s caused.

You both lie there in each other's arms, taking in whatever comfort you can get from one another. You’re openly sobbing while Marcus’ tears are more subdued, but definitely still there. You can feel them on the naked flesh of your shoulder as he buries his face in your neck and the two of you clutch onto each other, terrified of the other letting go. What you don’t realize is that you’re both fretting over the exact same thing.

After several long minutes of just holding each other your words echo each other as you both let them out at the exact same time into the heat of each other’s flesh.

“I’m sorry.”

The words cause you both to stiffen momentarily and then slowly pull back, finding each other’s watery gaze as you both stare, confused.

The murmured apologies eventually turn into a good hour of confessions from both of you. You take turns spilling everything about what happened last night without the other present all while failing to hold back the flow of tears. Marcus admits not only to his indiscretions in the shower with Dave, but how there was no work emergency last night and he’d lied to you because he was too scared that he’d ruined everything. He tells you how absolutely horrible he’d felt, leaving you on your birthday like that but he felt so confused after what had happened, he couldn’t even bear to have you look at him knowing what he’d done and was keeping from you. The admission about what he and Dave had done in the shower nearly had your eyes bugging out of your head, though you tried your absolute best not to outwardly react too much, you didn’t want to make Marcus uncomfortable or have him hold back anything so you kept quiet and mostly just nodded your head, though your brain was working a mile a minute trying to process everything. You’d decided near immediately that you weren’t upset at him for it. The only thing you were upset about in that scenario is that you hadn’t been there to witness it; though you keep that admission to yourself for now. You were upset, however, that he had left. If he would have just stayed maybe you all wouldn’t be in this position now. Maybe Dave would still be here. You know though that Marcus isn’t the only one to blame and it’s not fair to put this all on him. The fact was he did leave, and you did what you did afterwards, knowing full well how it could affect things.

You tell Marcus how Dave had originally left but had come back and that the two of you had slept together. Your tears turned into sobs as you admitted the last part. You knew it was wrong, you felt in your heart that it was cheating, regardless if Marcus saw it that way or not. He’d tried to quickly shrug it off at first, to make you feel better, reminding you that “you’d slept with Dave lots of times” but when you responded with a quiet “yeah, but not like this…” and were unable to look him in the eyes, you could see the moment the realization dawns across his sad, handsome face and he lowers it to look away, gently nodding in understanding.

Marcus swallowed the lump in his throat but wrapped his arms around you and held you tight to his chest, peppering kisses to your hair and ensuring you over and over that he loved you.

It only made you cry harder.

Eventually the tears subside and Marcus drapes the bedclothes over you both and pulls you into his side, gently petting your hair until you both fall back asleep, it was barely 7am after all and you didn’t even know how late Marcus had got in. You still had a lot to discuss but you were both exhausted, physically and emotionally. Your head was pounding from the amount of tears you cried and you just needed to shut out the world for a little while longer, held safe in the comfort of your husband's arms until you fell back asleep.

When you do wake up again, barely an hour later, Marcus is already out of bed and wandering around the suite, freshly changed into a new set of clothes and shoving his old ones into the suitcase you had already packed. There’s a takeout coffee cup waiting for you on the bedside table when you open your eyes and you sit up, wordlessly taking the simple peace offering and taking a drink.

You get through a few sips but your stomach is doing somersaults. All the anxiety and emotions of the last twelve hours or so wear heavily on you so you place the cup aside and climb out of bed, holding the sheet tight around your frame as you head over to the dresser where Marcus had kindly laid out your last clean outfit for you.

You barely speak a word to each other as you both get ready to leave this room behind. Occasional questions like “did you remember to grab your toothbrush” or “is this your lotion or the hotel’s?” as you putter around the room and prepare to leave.

Finally everything is packed, you're both dressed, the room is mostly back in one piece and you’re ready to go. You meet Marcus at the door and you both take a breath, a heavy sigh leaving your lips as your shoulders settle and you reach down and slide your hand into his. His fingers interlace around yours and for the first time all day you finally feel grounded again.

“Come on, let’s go home” he says, pulling the door open with his free hand and guiding you out.

The first week that you’re back home goes by in a blur. You both had to go back to work on Monday and you manage to settle back into your usual routines easily enough but there’s still a strain between the two of you. You know you need to talk more but had both decided you needed time to just let everything sink in and process. You missed Marcus immensely, despite the fact that he still slept in your bed every night and kissed you goodbye every morning, things were far from how they were before your birthday weekend happened.

Perhaps fortunately or unfortunately for you both, your work lives were very busy. Typically Marcus left before you because his commute was longer and you both worked long shifts most days so your time together at home while you were both still awake and functional was limited. Some nights you managed to both be home to eat dinner together, but this week it was a pretty quiet affair. You’d ask each other about your days, small talk mostly, and then if you weren’t too exhausted you’d cuddle on the couch and watch a little tv before bed and start the process over again the next day. Despite the rift, you still wanted to be close to each other. Neither of you were angry at the other; more so at yourselves than anything. That, and you were confused. It was hard to have a conversation together about all the feelings you were having when you hadn’t quite sorted them out for yourselves. And with Dave AWOL it made it even more confusing and hurtful to navigate. It was difficult to figure out where the three of you stood when there were only two of you willing to talk things out.

Your mind often wandered to Dave, particularly when you were at work and would have a few minutes of downtime. You pulled up your private message chat with him every couple of days too just to see if your single text to him ever got marked as ‘delivered’ or ‘read’, wondering if he’d unblocked you, but nothing. What was so frustrating is that you know it wasn’t one-sided. It couldn’t have been. You know what he felt with you that last night together because you felt it too. Perhaps the real reason he left is because of his loyalty to Marcus, he didn't want to be a burden on your marriage, but the truth was Dave just enriched it. And you had a feeling Marcus might feel the same way, you just needed him to admit it to you. You hoped the two of you would have a good chance to talk this weekend, you felt like it was time.

Saturday evening was finally upon you and you lay on the couch after a simple dinner, wine glass mostly untouched on the coffee table in front of you as you half paid attention to the movie playing on the TV. Marcus had had a busy day, having to work for a couple hours from home in the morning and then running some errands for his elderly father that he typically would do on a Saturday. Today took a little extra long due to him being away last weekend for your birthday so by the time he got home he was exhausted so you had offered to cook and now the two of you were laid out on the sofa, Marcus behind you with his back to the cushions and you on your side snuggled with your back to his chest and laying your head on his arm.

You attempt to focus on the movie playing in front of you because you know how tired your husband is, but he makes it difficult when the fingers of his right hand trail absently up and down your side where your shirt slightly rides up, the delicate trace of his fingertips leaving goosebumps on your flesh in their wake. You shift slightly and in doing so the fabric of your shirt catches a little more on the seat of the sofa and rises up further, and Marcus’ hand reaches a little higher too until his fingers are at your ribs. You let out a little whine at the contact. He’s barely touching you but it's more than you’ve had all week and you’re missing him so desperately so you give up the facade and turn fully onto your back, causing his hand to slip even higher until it rests just underneath your breast.

You hear his breath hitch slightly and he turns his head down to look at you, your soft, wanting gaze boring into his. Wordlessly you reach your hand up to rub at the side of his neck and turn your body again so that you’re face to face. He moves his hand voluntarily, finally, splaying it across your breast and giving it a gentle squeeze, his breath catching in his throat when he sees your eyes fall shut and your lips release a hum of pleasure.

“Marcus” you whimper, your voice barely a whisper. “Please”

It’s all Marcus needs to hear. In a moment he’s got both his hands going underneath your ass and hauling you up on top of him, positioning himself on his back with your full weight resting on him, hands still on your ass and pushing downwards to grind you against his already stiffening length. You surge forward, sealing his mouth with yours. The kiss is sloppy and desperate and filled with pent up sexual desire and you’re both moaning into it, reveling in the dominant dance between your two tongues.

“Do you wanna go to bed?” he asks breathlessly a few moments later when you’re forced by lack of oxygen to pull apart.

“Mnnnm mmm” You shake your head before your mouth latches to his again. “Need you” you mumble against his lips. “Take me right here”

“Fuck” he groans, both hands squeezing roughly at your ass as he continues to ground you down into him, his own hips thrusting upwards to meet yours. “God I fucking missed you” he confesses, mouth trailing down the side of your throat now instead as his hands reach up to the waistband of your sweats and push them down along with your underwear.

You help him free you of the confines of your pants, kicking them down your legs and finally flinging them off to the floor while Marcus grabs for the hem of your t-shirt and pulls that over your head. You're grateful at this moment that you had foregone a bra tonight, dressed for a comfortable evening at home. Marcus, on the other hand, is far too overly dressed in your opinion, still in his jeans and a long sleeve Henley. Though you find it hard to complain at the delicious friction the unforgiving denim gives to your now bare core and it's no secret to Marcus either, the way you moan and writhe against him.

“Baby, please” you whine, hands desperately grasping at the buttoned enclosure of his jeans. The button pops open and you manage to drag the zipper down but before you get any further he’s growling into your throat and shaking his head, repositioning your body until you're straddling on just one of his thighs.

“Need you to cum for me first” he demands, already sounding wrecked and breathless and you think he needs you to for his sake as much as your own, probably trying to extend this experience for longer than it would have been were he to push inside you right now like you both so desperately want him to. You let out another moan, eagerly obeying his wishes as your hands go to his chest and you push yourself upright so you’re sat on his muscular thigh and begin to rock back and forth against it, the delicious drag of denim against your weeping cunt creating a wet patch on his jeans that neither of you could be bothered to be embarrassed or care about. His large hands come up and each grab hold of a breast, expertly manipulating and teasing the soft mounds of flesh, thumbs and forefingers coming down to pinch and squeeze at your nipples until they’re hardened peaks under his touch.

“Oh fuck,” you cry out, head thrown back as you continue to ride his thigh, amping up the pace as you feel yourself getting closer and closer to your orgasm that is just within reach.

“That’s it baby,” Marcus encourages, his own pupils blown wide with lust as he watches you arch your back and grind desperately against him. His hands leave your breasts and go to your hips, helping you reach that point of long awaited bliss. He bares his teeth as he watches your features contort into what can only be described as pure ecstasy and growls out the words that have been lingering on his tongue since he actively took charge of your impromptu makeout session just minutes ago, “Good girl, come on, you’re gonna fucking cum for your Daddy now.”

“Fuck!” His words, along with the relentless rocking pressure of your cunt digging into his thigh sends you flying over that edge with a screamed curse leaving your lips, your arousal pooling out of you, body trembling and spent but Marcus doesn’t let up, continuing to drag your folds along the strong muscle and it’s too much, you try to push off of his chest with your hands but his grip is strong and fierce at your hips, ensuring you get every last drop of pleasure from your prolonged orgasm.

“Fucking soak me baby” he groans and you look down to see the own wet patch he’s created in his boxers that are peeking through his partially opened jeans. It doesn’t appear to be enough that he’s finished and he’s still visibly hard as steel underneath the soft cotton, but he’s certainly gotten himself worked up to the point where the precum is eagerly flowing from him.

Evidently satisfied with you as you slow the rocking of your hips to indicate the waves of pleasure have subsided Marcus repositions you again so you’re lying back fully on top of him. He pushes his jeans down to his thighs but leaves his boxers in place as he gently ruts into you from underneath, the strained fabric of his boxers rubbing against your oversensitive sex, causing you to whimper and tremble.

“Let me suck you baby” you breathe against the hollow of his throat where your face is currently buried. Not only does your cunt need the reprieve but he’s got you so turned on you feel like you might just combust if you don’t get him inside of you in some form or another.

“Yeah? You wanna suck my cock, dirty girl?” Marcus growls and lord help you if it doesn’t send another pool of wetness right between your legs. Marcus was not normally like this. Sure the two of you could get a little kinky sometimes on your own but he’d never been like this before and it was driving you crazy with want.

You both knew what he was doing, filling a void a certain someone had left behind. Something you both craved without having to admit to each other. You both needed this, and so, you went along for the ride.

“Please Daddy, want you in my mouth, please” you beg helplessly, your lust-filled brain reduced to complete mush and barely able to string a sentence together and Marcus audibly groans at your submission to him.

“Turn around, want you to sit on my face while you do it” he breathes against your cheek and then slides his hands down to grab at your ass and squeeze firmly. His hands release you but he gives you one sharp swat to your left asscheek that has you crying out and arching into him before he helps you reposition yourself so you’re kneeled overtop of him with your knees on either side of his head and bent over his body so your face hovers above his pelvis. He pushes his boxers down to meet his jeans at his thighs then brings his hands to your hips to lower you down to his mouth just as your head retreats to take his leaking tip between your lips.

The groan he lets out into your cunt as you fully envelop him in your mouth has your lower half spasming, your thighs involuntarily squeezing his head as your hips chase the pressure of his tongue.

“Oh fuck!” You cry out, mouth falling away from him as you crane your neck back to try and get a glimpse of the feast Marcus is making of what’s between your legs. It doesn’t last long however because his hand comes up and swats at your ass again, reminding you without words what you’re supposed to be doing and you quickly oblige, turning back and doubling your efforts on sucking him off, taking him as deeply down your throat as your body will allow and swallowing down before you ease back up and repeat the action. Your hand soon joins your mouth, wrapping around the base of his shaft and stroking it in time with each bob of your head and he hums and groans his approval of your actions into your core as he continues to lick and suck and prod at your clit and hole with his talented tongue.

When he feels your thighs trembling again and his own release too rapidly approaching he goes for what knows drives you crazy and will easily pull another orgasm from you and sucks your clit into his mouth, relentless and unforgiving until your mouth rips off of him and you cry out, your hand pumping him furiously as wave after wave of your orgasm crashes around you and you ramble out little mewls of pleasure and praise at how hard he’s made you come.

He lets out a content, satisfied sigh as he slows the efforts of his mouth, gently bringing you back to earth with slow licks and prods of his tongue until you're shaking and trembling begins to subside and your rocking against his face finally slows. Your hand wrapped around his length has also slowed to barely moving, not having brain capacity or muscle coordination to simultaneously pleasure him and ride the aftershocks of your own orgasm but Marcus is thankful for the reprieve, needing to be inside you before he finishes.

“Up,” he gently demands, tapping lightly against your hip and you pull away from him with a long drawn out groan, your limbs feeling like jelly as you attempt to get control over them again. Marcus chuckles a little but is quick to help you, gently raising your hips and then pushing you forward as he manages to snake his own body out from underneath you until you’re on hands and knees on the couch and he’s behind you.

“Lean forward, just relax” he instructs, pushing lightly on your shoulders so your elbows collapse and you slowly slide forward, knees still bent and kneeling on the couch but your face now buried in the seat cushion. “Yeah, just like that” he coos, fingertips tracing down your spine and you arch at his touch, desperate and ready for him. He lets his hand trail further still, over the swell of your ass until he’s between your legs and he gently plays with you, fingers gliding through your slick folds and up to circle at your clit before they slide back down and prod at your entrance.Your body keens at his touch, back arching, ass up in the air as your arms stretch out in front of you, not unlike a cat waking up from a long nap in the sun and Marcus lets out a little chuckle.

“Yeah, this is where you need me, hmm?” He rasps, voice low as he teases at your entrance with his fingers. “Poor baby needs her pretty little pussy filled up?” His hand leaves you only to go to his own mouth so he can wet his fingers with his own saliva before he brings them back between your legs and presses two inside of you, curling them just right and sliding in and out of you a few times before he adds a third. It’s so much, feels so good, and yet still not enough.

“God, Marcus, please. Please fuck me” you cry out, desperate and needy, hips beginning to rock back and forth against his hand, anything you can do to get some relief.

He gets up from the couch suddenly to rid himself of the rest of his clothing before positioning himself behind you again, grabbing hold of his hard, leaking member and guiding it between your legs. He groans when his naked flesh finally makes contact with yours, his smooth length pushing back and forth between your wet folds, coating himself in your slick and the tip of his cock teasing at your clit. You whimper unintelligibly at the contact that stimulates every last one of your nerve endings, your whole body keening with delight.

Marcus marvels at how soaked your folds are as he slides through them with ease. “Yeah you’re nice and ready for me, hmmm? Gonna be my good girl?”

“Yes, please, take me. I fucking need you so bad.” You’re not above begging at this point, especially if it gets you want you want, need, crave.

With your desperate pleas still lingering in the air Marcus lines himself up at your entrance and presses forward, filling you completely on the first push of his hips until he’s buried to the hilt, his hands gripping tight around your waist, thumbs digging in deep to the meat of the top of your ass.

“Holy fuck” he groans as he takes a moment stilling inside you, needing a second not only to let you adjust, but to resist his own temptation to let go and finish before he’s even begun. It’s only been a week but it somehow feels like an eternity since he’s last had you. He’s done his best to distract himself with work and other obligations but not a minute of the day has gone by where he hasn’t thought about you, about how much he missed you, how much he needed you. It had taken everything in him not to beat himself off in the shower every morning this week, the only thing holding him back was knowing how much better it would feel when he finally gets the relief the way he wants it; being inside of you.

After a few long moments and steadying breaths, Marcus manages to collect himself and center himself back into the moment. His hands grip you a little tighter and he finally begins to move, pulling back with a slow and delicious drag of his cock against your walls until he’s almost fully out before he slams forward, driving himself back deeply inside with a single snap of his hips that sends you lurching slightly forward, something between a gasp and cry punching out from your lungs.

“Marcus! Oh my - fuck. Baby, fuckfuckfuck” You’re a mewling, writhing mess underneath him as Marcus keeps up his steady pace, fucking into you with reckless abandon, hips pistoning back and forth, fast and hard.

“Yeah you like that” Marcus grinds out through clenched teeth before he lifts his right hand and lands a sharp smack to your ass, causing you to jolt forward again. “Can feel you fucking trying to squeeze me out baby, choking my cock. Good girl. Good fucking girl” he groans, railing into you even faster and you’re reduced to just mumbled cries and gasps into the couch cushion your face is still buried in.

“I can’t hear you” he suddenly growls, one hand leaving your hip to grab your hair and force your head to tilt up and oh fuck if Marcus pulling your hair doesn’t do something to you.

“I fucking love it!” You cry out, breaths coming out hard and fast. “Love taking your big cock Daddy, don’t stop”

“Shit… baby, shit I… fuck!” Marcus curses, not faring much better as he ruts into you like a man possessed. He lets go of your hair and repositions to your hips, his fingertips digging into your sides so desperately that you know come tomorrow you’ll be bruised but you don’t care. You want the reminder, you’ll welcome it even.

“Take me. Takemetakemetakemetakeme” You chant breathlessly, the words punching out of your throat timed perfectly to each of his rough forward thrusts.

Somehow despite you being fucked into a near stupor, you find the wherewithal to sneak a hand underneath yourself and reach between your legs, fingers desperately rubbing fast and furiously against your aching and needy clit. It only serves to empower Marcus, seeing how desperate you are to climax again and despite the less than comfortable position he’s got himself into kneeled on the couch he takes full advantage, leaning down slightly to wrap an arm all the way around your throat so it’s caged in by his bicep, the other gripping the back of the couch to get as much leverage as he possibly can from the position and he doubles his efforts. He pushes harder and faster until the room is filled with the debauched sounds of wet slaps of skin and heavy breathing and moaning and within a few short moments your vision goes white behind your eyelids and you cry out a shuddering gasp turned moan and your hand falls away from your now oversensitive sex as your orgasm takes over, the effects of it gushing out of you and coating Marcus’ length, dripping down to his balls and surely leaving a mess on the couch that you can’t begin to care about right now.

“God Baby, you’re so fucking good, fucking soaking me” Marcus manages, voice faltering along with the steady rhythm of his hips as he bucks into you sloppily now, the sheer force of your constricting walls inciting his own release and with a few more pushes of his hips he begins to paint your insides.

“Holy fuck” he reiterates, body spent and breathing heavily as he slowly continues to rock in and out of you. You whimper and moan underneath him, the overstimulation bordering on too much as you wait for your trembling to subside.

Marcus’ grip on your throat loosens significantly so you can fully catch your breath and he brings his hand up to run soothingly down your back instead, still fucking into you deep and slow and honestly you don’t know how he’s found the stamina or managed to stay hard but you’re not about to complain, he feels that fucking good.

“You want me to stay inside you?” He asks, though you both know he already knows the answer.

You bring your bottom lip between your teeth and manage to mumble an affirmative “mmmhmmm” into the couch cushion.

“Fuck you full of my cum, you like that baby?”

“Yes, fuck,” you tear your face away to the side so your words are no longer garbled into the couch cushion, you want him to hear you. “Fucking me so deep Daddy, holy shit it feels so good.”

Marcus hums his apparent satisfaction at your words, his hand that was gripping the back of the sofa coming to join the other to soothe up and down your back and sides, occasionally smoothing over the globes of your ass before they come back up and make their way up towards your shoulders again. He manages to keep going for another minute or so until he physically can’t, his cock softening inside of you eventually slips out and you both groan at the loss but his hands don’t stop touching you. When his spent dick leaves your swollen sex he leans down and places little kisses all over whatever inch of flesh on your back and shoulders he can reach until finally he pulls away, standing up from the couch and offering his hand to you. You take it, and with a groan (and Marcus’ help), manage to pull yourself up from the sofa. His fingers interlace with yours when he grabs your hand and he wordlessly leads you out of the living room, up the staircase to your bedroom.

Once inside he guides you immediately to the ensuite bathroom and turns you to rest with your back against the countertop while he busies himself grabbing a fresh facecloth from the linen shelf and turns on the hot water, wringing the cloth out a few times before turning off the taps and turning to face you. To your surprise, and a night and day contrast to how he was acting just minutes ago, he sinks to his knees on the unforgiving marble flooring and gently pries your thighs apart and then stares up at you, holding your gaze as he gently cleans up the mess between your legs. Your hand comes down to push through his hair, pushing it back past his forehead and a smile pulls at your lips. Once he’s finished cleaning you up he rises to his feet again, tosses the cloth in a nearby hamper and then his hands go straight to your hips, a gentle barely-there hold and he looks down at them, murmuring under his breath at the little discolored indents on your soft flesh, “I didn’t hurt you did I?”

It catches you off guard, the question. He seems unsure and maybe even upset with himself and you frown, reaching for his face and forcing his gaze back up to meet yours.

“Baby, no, of course not. You could never hurt me”

“Promise?” he asks just to clarify, soft, round brown gaze boring into yours.

“I promise. Marcus, that was… thank you” is all you can think to say. He seems to accept your answer, leaning forward and capturing your lips in a gentle kiss, hands leaving your hips to come up and cup your face as his tongue parts your lips and slips inside to entangle with yours. When he finally pulls away you’re breathless and lean your head forward to rest on his shoulder, arms going around his waist.

“I just love you so much” he whispers against your hair. “I’d do anything for you, you know that?”

“I know” you murmur. “You do do everything for me Marcus. I love you too, more than anything” Your arms tighten a little more around his middle and you bury your face in his neck, unable to hold back the few tears that spill out. Marcus nuzzles at the side of your face and you can feel his own tear stained cheeks as he holds you close in the quiet serenity of your bathroom. You both take a minute to just let the moment settle over you before finally Marcus heaves a little sigh and pulls back, quickly wiping away at his face with the back of his hands.

“Come on, let me take you to bed”

You spend the night in his arms. The steady beat of his heart where your ear lays pressed against his chest lulling you into a peacefulness that you hadn’t felt in days.

Sunday is a whirlwind. The first time you wake up it’s to Marcus with his head between your legs, slowly lapping at you like a cat with a bowl of cream. He’s not hurried or frenzied or even seemingly trying to work towards an end goal of an orgasm for you, he just needs to be close to you, taste you. He lazily licks and kisses and sucks at you while you gently writhe your hips against him, hands lost in his soft hair and fingernails occasionally scraping against his scalp, which you know he loves. He murmurs little sweet nothings into your heated core while he pleasures you for what seems like a small eternity, never tiring or complaining, just reveling in the closeness. You end up orgasming twice during his time down there, which you’d guessed to be about an hour, both coming on quick, strong and sudden and from seemingly nowhere. Your hand fists in his hair and your hips arch upwards and still as he works you through each one and then he continues on. By the time your second orgasm has fully settled you gently push at the top of his head and he takes your wordless request, single digit slipping out of you and mouth moving away from your over sensitive sex to kiss and lick at the insides of each of your thighs, the top of your mound, and eventually making his way up your body until he’s lying on his side next to you.

He’s being his soft, sweet, gentle self this morning, you think it’s his way of making up for last night. Not that he has anything to make up for, at least in your mind.

“Baby,” you sigh, right hand coming up to cup his cheek.

“I love you” he says, in a way that makes it seem like he needs to remind you, like he’s saying it for the first time and needs to ensure you hear him.

“I love you too” you assure him.

He opens his arms and you crawl into them without question, letting him hold you, his arms wrapped around your shoulders and you half draped over top of him with your face resting on his chest. He gently pets your hair and places little kisses to the top of your head while he holds you and you let out a content little sigh, snuggling deeper into his chest. You feel the unmistakable hardness of him between your two bodies but he seems to be trying to ignore it so you do your best not to grind against him like your body’s instincts want you to.

“We should talk” he murmurs against your hair and you gently nod your head in agreement.

“We should”

“How do we start?” He wonders honestly and you shrug your shoulders a little.

“I think first and foremost we need to be honest, no matter how hard it is to say or how hard it may be for the other person to hear”

“I agree” he says quietly, heaving a sigh.

A long silence stretches on before you realize you’ll have to be the one that starts this conversation.

“I miss him” you decide to start with, straight out of the gate. You agreed to be honest, after all, and that was the first thing on your mind, and it’s been on your mind all week. Your voice is quiet, meek even, but loud enough you know he’s heard you.

“I do too,” Marcus confesses, his arms tightening a little more around you, like he’s afraid you’ll be upset with his response.

You do gently pull away from Marcus’ hold, but only because you want to be able to look him in the eyes while you have this conversation so you gently push back and raise yourself up a bit so you’re fully on your side facing him. You settle his nerves by quickly wrapping both your hands around one of his and giving it a firm squeeze, bringing it to your lips to place a kiss on it.

“Why do you think he left?” You ask next, unable to hide the hurt in your voice.

“I don’t know” Marcus sighs deeply, his free hand coming up to scrub over his face. “I thought, at first, maybe you know it was me? Like what we did… he… didn’t like it or regretted it or something”

“Did you like it?” You flip the question back to Marcus. You assume he did, but you two really hadn’t had much of a conversation about it. He’d told you what they did, but didn’t dwell on it or how he’d felt about it.

“Um,” Marcus turns his face slightly away from you and you can see the tips of his ears turning a brighter shade of pink.

“Hey,” you say firmly, hands dropping his so you can place one on his cheek and force his gaze back to you. “Honesty, remember? There’s nothing you can say that will change how I feel about you, ok? Ever”

“I know, I’m sorry” he closes his eyes and takes a breath before opening them again and his gaze finally settles on you. “I… I mean, yes, ultimately. It was amazing. I came like… really fucking hard” he admits with a laugh to cover his obvious nerves and you offer a reassuring smile, nodding your head for him to continue. After a moment, he does. “I don’t know though, like I’ve never done anything with a guy before, or ever wanted to, so I think it was more so because it was Dave, rather than what we were doing? If… if that makes sense?” He tries, trailing off and unsure of how to articulate himself.

And it does make sense. At least to you. Because what had started between the three of you was supposed to be Dave offering you both something different, new, but then last weekend you had been with Dave in a similar way that you are with Marcus and you’d loved that too. And last night how Marcus was with you was everything Dave typically brought to the table and you loved that as well and yet, you still missed Dave. Not just the way he grabbed your hair when your mouth was around him, or the filthy words he’d murmur against your ear when he was deep inside you, or how his hand would tighten around your throat and release just moments before your orgasm inevitably crashed around you, but you missed him. You missed Dave.

“No, I get it” you finally say out loud, gently nodding your head. “Last night was… God Baby, that was fucking amazing” you admit, grin stretching across your features as you tilt your gaze back up to look at him and his own smile tugs at the corners of his lips like he’s elated to hear you say that.

“Yeah?” He questions with uncertainty in his tone.

“Yeah” you affirm with a solid single nod of your head. “But that’s kinda my point. Last night you gave me everything I could’ve wanted before and you did it so perfectly but…” you trail off, wanting to make sure you choose your words carefully but then you don’t have to because Marcus picks up on it immediately.

“But you still miss him”

“Yeah,” you shrug, your voice soft and you bring your gaze down to your lap, fingers absently picking at the sheet covering you. “Is that okay?”

Marcus heaves a sigh, pulling you close into his chest again and you go willingly, snuggling in his warmth and letting him hold you.

“Of course it’s ok”

There’s a long stretch of silence until finally Marcus murmurs into your hair, barely above a whisper but you hear him clear as day, “do you think you love him?”

Tears instantly well in your eyes and you turn your head to bury it in your husband's neck, bringing your own arms out to wrap around him and keep him close. You don’t give him any type of verbal confirmation or denial, because you haven’t really figured that out for yourself, but the non-answer is perhaps an answer enough itself for Marcus. He knows it the moment he feels the hot tears on his skin and he hugs you tighter, large hand splayed across your back gently smoothing up and down your spine and whispering quiet little affirmations about how it’s ok as he holds you in his arms.

You don’t need to assure Marcus that you still love him, or that your feelings for Dave in any way take away from what you feel for him. He knows, because deep down inside in a place that he hasn’t allowed his head or heart to go yet, he knows has similar feelings for Dave too but that it doesn’t change a single solitary thing he feels for you.

“I know, I know” he gently soothes, slightly rocking you in his arms as your tears begin to flow freely.

He continues to hold you, letting you cry until finally he hears you sniffle a few times and he knows the tears have begun to subside before he speaks again.

“I uh… went by his office. This week”

That gets your attention. You gently push away from his chest, quickly swiping at your wet face with your hands before you lean back enough so you can look at him again.

“He wasn’t there” Marcus quickly offers, before you get too invested. “But I asked around and someone eventually told me he took a sabbatical. I guess he was due for one for a while and never took it but Monday morning he came in and put in the request and told them it was urgent so they let him take it” Marcus finishes with a shrug.

Your heart sinks even further as Marcus tells you this. You had no idea it was this bad that Dave would rather abandon his job just to avoid seeing either of you. You still don’t understand it all, what happened. You wish he would just come back and talk to you, explain himself. Even if it was to officially end things, at least you’d know where he stands.

“Wherever he is, I hope he’s OK” you sigh, snuggling further into Marcus. At least you still had each other. Your mind doesn’t want to wonder whether or not Dave has someone in his own bed to help ease the pain away. Not that he doesn’t have every right to, but it hurts your heart too much to even consider that he might.

“Yeah, me too” Marcus echoes your sentiment, bringing his lips down to press to your forehead.

You spend the rest of the day naked in bed together, making love for hours. It’s slow and sensual at first as Marcus explores every inch of your body and you of his, re-cementing your bond through every touch and kiss. You both need this. When more urgent needs arise your pacing and breathing picks up but what doesn’t change is the way you hold each other's gaze the entire time, refusing to look away even as you both reach your climaxes and your eyes beg to squeeze shut. As the day drags on and the sun begins to set outside your bedroom window you’ve lost count of your combined orgasms, only taking breaks when you need a refractory period during which one of you will patter off to the kitchen to get something easy to eat in bed along with some water and bring it back for you both to refuel your energy.

You talk more too, in those in-between moments when your bellies are full and your libidos are taking a much needed rest. Eventually you even get into hypotheticals, what you would have done had Dave not left that night, how it would change things for your relationship going forward. You both agreed you wouldn’t mind him being a more permanent fixture in your lives,if that’s what he wanted. And not just for sex. You wanted to have dinners with him, and lazy Sunday mornings in bed. You wanted him to come over after a long day at work and all cuddle up on the couch together, or for him to let the two of you take care of him in whatever capacity he needs whenever he needs it. You just wanted Dave. Both of you did.

You realize though that talking like that only makes it hurt more, knowing Dave clearly didn’t want the same thing. Maybe you and Marcus had gotten too familiar with him, too close, and that’s why he left. He never signed up to be part of your marriage and maybe what you’d thought you’d felt that last night with him was just delusion on your part. If he’d felt what you felt, how could he have just walked away?

You both ultimately resign to the fact that it’s over, whatever you had with Dave, and you mourn the loss together and make the united decision to put all your efforts into building your marriage even stronger than it had been before. The two of you need each other more than ever to fill the Dave York sized hole that was left in both your broken hearts.

Less than a couple hundred miles away the man in question sat at a small dining room table in the overly priced and blandly decorated vacation cottage he had rented for the summer. The sound of his children laughing and playing in the front yard brought a smile to his face just as he lifted his coffee cup to taste that first morning sip. He’s thankful in this moment to his ex-wife for allowing him to take his girls on an impromptu summer getaway to the quaint little beach town just one state over in Delaware. He missed them, of course, and always wanted more time with them, but really and truly he needed an escape from his life. He knew it was only a matter of time before you or Marcus would come looking for him and knew that Marcus could easily get access into his office building with the credentials he had so he felt he had no choice. He couldn’t face either of you right now, it was too painful. He knew if he didn’t stop seeing you now, he’d never want to stop, and that’s not what either of you had signed up for. It was easier for everyone this way, he’d let you get back to your lives and he would rebuild his own into what it was before. Quiet, solitary, comfortable.

Over the two and a half months he was away he would occasionally pick up his phone and check on your social medias. Neither of you posted a lot, but when you did you always looked happy. Marcus with his arm around you at an outdoor music festival, cocktails on a patio somewhere at sunset, a picture of Marcus in a sharp suit at one of your work fundraiser events standing next to the coat check with a slightly crooked smile on his face and holding your purse for you with your cute little caption that read ‘name a more perfect husband, I’ll wait’. Marcus had ‘liked’ and replied to the post saying “anything for my perfect wife.”

And they were perfect, Dave mused with a heavy sigh, clicking off his phone and tossing it across the table before burying his face in his hands. He needed to stop this, it only made it harder instead of easier. His children were a great distraction during the day, but at nights when he was alone in bed, his mind and his dick always betrayed him and thought of the two of you. He’d wrap a fist around himself and close his eyes, picturing the way you looked up at him on that last night together when he stood broken and desperate at your doorstep. Or Marcus sinking to his knees in front of him in the shower, or the way he felt when tremors racked his body as he came with Dave’s strong arms wrapped around his wet body.

God he missed you. Both of you. And unfortunately for him his sabbatical was coming to an end and the school year would be starting for his kids again and he had to go home, face reality. It was ok though, he doubted you still thought of him or would even bother to come looking for him after all this time. He could go back to the way his life always was. Dave had always been good at compartmentalizing and he could do this, too, he thinks. Washington was plenty big for the three of you, what were the odds he’d even run into you?

He didn’t know it at the time, but he was about to find out.

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