#IT IS SEVEN IN THE MORNING IT TOOK ME OVER HALF AN HOUR TO WRITE

[grayscale-sparks]

I got hit with inspiration after @flying-fangirls made this post and compared Noel to Ophelia

Okay! Buckle up because this post is going to be extremely targeted towards One Person and that person is Me (maybe two if Cherry is into this)

tw for suicide (by drowning) and death including that of a child. Spoilers for all of Hamlet, Malevolent, and The Man in the Mirror

also this is under a cut so yall can ignore me easy <3

Okay!

Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a young girl who has lost everything. When she was young, she lost her mother, although the source material never says to what. During the play, Ophelia loses her father, her love, and her mind. Ophelia is one of the strongest symbols for lack of agency in literature, and has long since inspired many works of art and pieces of media. Including Malevolent.

Malevolent is well known for its lack of women, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist prior to the show. Our most obvious examples would be the Lester women. Just like Ophelia, they are plagued from the very beginning with lack of agency. Bella Saltzman, just like her Shakespearean counterpart, lost her mother very young, and lost her infatuation with Arthur just as Ophelia did with Hamlet. Arthur and Hamlet also narratively mirror each other with goals and pride so strong that it destroys everything and everyone he comes across. Bella also loses her father to Arthur, just as Ophelia did. While Arthur did not kill Daniel, it stands to reason that metaphorically he did. He took Bella and their child away from Daniel, leaving him in the dark away from his family. Daniel and Polonius are morally dubious characters, but you can argue that past their manipulation they did care about their daughters.

Now comes in the symbol of drowning. Drowning and water itself is a strong recurring symbol in Malevolent the same way it is in Hamlet. Just like Ophelia, Faroe drowns due to Arthur’s inaction. But the same case can be made for Bella. Bella dies giving birth to Faroe, but the theme of drowning is still present. On the most literal level, the “waters of the womb” is what killed her. However, there is the more metaphorical “drowning” as a symbol for being buried under burden. Faroe herself was a burden that Bella did not want to carry, especially for a man she didn’t love. She was, to make the symbol clear, drowning in responsibility.

now, as the original post describes, there is the matter of Charlie Dowd. While Charlie isn’t as clear of a parallel to the symbol of Ophelia, he is still plagued with lack of agency his entire life. The most notable example was when the King in Yellow took Charlie to the Dreamlands. The King, like the men in Ophelia and Bella’s lives, is a symbol for the one that strips Charlie of his agency and humanity. The King’s manipulation is more literal than that of Hamlet and Arthur, but it is very much present for the entirety of Charlie’s life. In The Man in the Mirror, Charlie has been in the Dreamlands for two years before he attempts to end his life. Charlie attempts to so by drowning himself in a bathtub. Although the attempt is unsuccessful, the intent is still there. The King drove Charlie to madness by taking away everyone he loves and his sense of control. Another example is in canon, Part 40 The Order, where Yellow manipulates Noel. To Noel, he is once again in the Dreamlands. Yellow has shown he can manipulate people into killing themselves in gruesome ways, but he makes Noel jump and fall. We are so transfixed on Ophelia’s drowning that we forget that she fell from the branch into the water. The balcony in the Order represents that branch. Again, this attempt at suicide is not successful, but they are clear parallels to Ophelia’s death.

Ophelia is a recurring theme many stories, and it is especially prevalent in Malevolent in the form of Bella, Faroe, and Charlie. She represents everything that was taken away, and the hopelessness that all three characters felt their entire lives.

…thank you for reading

[southernbluebellereader]

Peach Pie and Cream

Jack Reacher x F! Southern Waitress Reader (Amazon TV show, Alan Ritchson)

Warning: Some fighting, suggestive descriptions, cutesy

Summary: Our giant man Reacher meets a charming young waitress :) and takes care of people ;)

Word Count: ~2,115 words

A/N: There will be a part 2 eventually lol

Master List - Tag List Sign-Up (tags at the bottom)

“What can I get you, sugar?”

God, the way she called him “Sugar” practically dripped from her lip-gloss covered lips like hot honey. Her breasts threatening to spill out of her lacy unpadded bra - it’s dark color barely showing through her low-cut white top.

He knew not to look, he shouldn’t, he couldn’t.

But one peek wouldn’t hurt.

It wasn’t even seven-thirty in the morning when she’d walked over to him with a pen and a little notepad.

Reacher sat up, his body erect as she spoke so sweetly to him. His eyes quickly glanced at her bosom, then made eye contact with her, showing a crooked smile, “Good morning, what are your specials?”

Y/N gave him a small smile as she caught the flicker in his eyes as he lifted them to meet yours. “Our breakfast specials include the garlic biscuit sliders with chicken, sausage, or ham…” She leaned over slightly and pointed on the menu on the table at the various specials.

Y/N’s perfume smelled so sweet. Hints of peaches and vanilla.

No. He can’t be distracted. He had to meet Neagly later. 

He smiled as he looked back up at her, he didn’t hear half of what Y/N just said about the menu, just glancing at the worn out name tag that said her name. Her cheeks blushed slightly as he looked at her, the two of them were rather close.

Smiling at her, he asked, “I’ll have the garlic biscuit with the sausage special. Can I get extra bacon and a slice of your peach pie?”

“Yes, sir, you can. You want ice tea or coffee to drink?”

“Coffee is fine. Just black.”

She quickly glanced down at his large and firm chest and then back up at his eyes. He smirked even more.

Y/N bit her lower lip and then stood upright, writing his order down, “Sure thing, honey. I’ll be right back in a few.”

And those few minutes took an eternity. Reacher’s thighs began to itch as he watched her walk back to the back counter, leaning over so she could give the chef his order through the heating lamps, blushing in playful annoyance, with the cook winking and pursed lips, making kissing noises at her until she rolled her eyes and sighed, shaking her head.

He barely knew her but the sight of the cook irritated him. That’s no way to treat you - even if it was banter between coworkers. He’d been in town for merely a few hours.

He tried to look away. He really did. But the way her hips swayed and her chest moved, her apron tight and snug around her waist, her soft body spilling out from the sides of the apron and the top of her jeans. Every time she stood by a table to take an order, she always shifted her weight to her left, her left hip pushing out of the top of her jeans.

He always liked a full woman.

Chuckling to himself, he turned slightly to keep himself from boring holes on her ass. He glanced out the window but was thankfully disturbed by the smell of her and the food he ordered.

“Here we got today’s special with extra bacon and a cup o’joe, hot and ready just for you, honey. I’m all out of peach pie but I got one coming out of the oven any secon’ now. You want some ice cream with that pie?” She laid his food down gently, he gave you a grin and thanked you, “Careful, plate’s hot, honey.”

“Ice cream would hurt my teeth but I’ll take it since you suggested it.” Reacher caught her blush. 

“I’ll make a note of it. Enjoy your food and let me know if ya need anything, ok?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He chuckled and picked up his utensils.

She winked at him and walked away, picking up a pot of coffee to replenish cups of other patrons and swatting away advances from men in their sixties on her way back to the back counter.

After a while, Y/N walked back with a plate of peach pie covered in a large scoop of vanilla ice cream and placed it in front of him.

“One large piece of fresh peach pie with a heaping scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream for the gentleman,” She said cheerfully and replenished his coffee.

He couldn’t help but smile at her, “Why on earth would you work here?” He asked bluntly, but with a soft chuckle at the end.

“Well, I got bills to pay. Just like everyone else.” She chuckled. “You ain’t got no bills?”

God, he’d do anything to hear Y/N laugh again.

“No, I don’t.”

“No bills at all?” She shook your head slightly, smiling still, thinking he’s joking.

“I have no reason to lie.”

She stared at him, not quite sure if she actually believed him or not. Most of her customers told her a few wild things here and there. But no one around these parts looked quite like him.

He was a behemoth of a man standing taller than the green giant on a can of peas, bigger and more muscular than those lumberjacks on those Brawny paper towels. His one arm was probably the size of one of her soft and plush thighs that seemed to be restricted on those skinny jeans she’s wearing.

“Aight.” She chuckled again. Her name was called, and she glanced at a group of young men about your age who dog-whistled and hollered at her. Y/N turned back around to Reacher and forced a smile, “You enjoy your pie, sir, I’ll be back in a bit with your bill. Just holler if you need anything, yeah?”

“You know them?” Reacher suddenly turned serious. His attention was on those young men who banged on the table, demanding that she serve them.

“I-I’m sorry about them, I’ll tell them to quiet down in a minute. They’re just a little rowdy-“

“That’s not what I asked. Do you know them?” He asked again, looking up at her. Her demeanor changed. Embarrassment. She could pick out that pleather jacket out from a crowd. 

Blushing slightly in embarrassment, she answered, “I know one of them… that one in the sport’s jacket. The rest are his little friends. But I’ll tell them to-“

Before she could finish, Reacher stood up from his seat, his mere size making you gasp. She hadn’t realized how large he actually was until he stood up, she hadn’t seen him when he first walked in.

“Sir- please you don’t have to talk to them, what are you doin-“

“Your name is Y/N?”

“Y-Yes…” she clutched the handle of the coffee pot to make sure she didn’t drop it. He glanced down at her and gave her a half-smirk, “Just go stay behind the counter and put the coffee back on the machine so it doesn’t get cold.”

Not knowing what to think, Y/N did what he asked, the other waitresses following suit, other customers either staying in their seats or moving away as they watched Reacher walk up to the group of rowdy young men who still tried to get your attention.

He grabbed a chair and sat it by the edge of the table and sat down. Even sitting down, his large body frame towered over them. He didn’t say anything at first but looked at them smugly for a moment as they all stared at him. 

The main culprit looked like he had a vein about to pop out of his forehead, “Can I help you?”

“Any reason you need Y/N to help you?”

“She’s a waitress, and I’ve been trying to get her number for a hot minute - she works here, of course she’s going to serve us.” He scoffed.

“I don’t appreciate you calling her over like she’s a dog, Pleather.”

—

“This will just sting a little-“

“Y/N, I’m fine-“

“No you ain’t, Reacher. Your brow and your lip is all busted up and that one guy had a knife.” Y/N shook her head as she cleaned up his brow with some alcohol and then put a small bandage on his forehead.

Reacher smiled at her the whole time as he let her patch him up. She’d taken him off to the side. Moaning in the distance outside, incoherent cursing could be heard from the parking lot as the group of young men eventually stood up from the ground and made it back to their car. The main culprit was hanging out in the parking lot, looking through the window at Y/N and Reacher. He spit on the ground before finally going back to his car.

“But I’m serious, Reacher… you ain’t have to do that…” Once she finished, Y/N put the extra bandages back in the First Aid kit and looked at him with concern.

“Well, I did it anyway. And last I checked, you’re not a dog.”

Y/N couldn’t help but smile and then patted his shoulder. “You’re sweet. Sorry about your pie, the ice cream is all melted. I’ll get you a new one.”

“You eat that new one, I’ll eat mine.” Reacher was not one to waste food if he could help it - especially when trouble seemed to follow him. Smiling softly, she nodded and patted his shoulder before going back behind the counter and cutting her own slice of pie as Reacher walked back to his seat, waiting and watching as Y/N walked back and sat opposite of him.

Like teenagers, they couldn’t keep eye contact while trying to eat their peach pie.

“That was some military fightin’ back there, Reacher? Is it ok if I call you Reacher?” Y/N managed to muster out, clearing his throat and looking up at him.

Chuckling softly, Reacher nodded, “Yeah, I was in for a while.” He paused for a moment, watching her eat. The stories she must’ve heard from people. The restaurant was quiet again. She looked up at him, giving him a small smile. “Jack is fine too.”

“Jack? That’s your first name?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Jack Reacher.” She said. She was quiet for a second as she examined him. Taking in his appearance. Committing him to memory. She sucked the inside of her cheek as she tilted her head. Savoring his name, as if she took a bite of him like she did that pie. The sweetness in her voice dripping from her lips as she said his whole name. Sweeter than the half-eaten peach pies sitting before them.

“I like it. Hard to forget a name like that. It’s different. You stayin’ here long, Jack?” She scooped the last bit of pie and placed the spoon face down on her tongue, sucking off whatever peach pie remnants were left on the spoon before placing the spoon on her plate.

Very few people’s opinions mattered to Reacher, he barely knew Y/N but it made him smile when she said his name and that she liked his name. It gave him an unusual feeling. Couldn’t help but wonder what peach pie would taste like when it’s on her tongue. 

“Just passing through.” He leaned back once he finished his slice of pie, admiring the woman in front of him. Her lipgloss still glistened. Her eyes sparkled. Her breasts barely contained in her bra.

“That’s unfortunate. I would’ve loved to see you again, Jack.” She smiled when she took notice of him admiring her. It was a different type of admiration. “Can I call you?”

“Don’t have a phone.”

“Can I send you a letter?”

“Don’t have an address.”

“Well, damn, how will I talk to you and get to know you when you leave? Will this be the last I see of Jack Reacher, the man who saved my life?”

“I’ll come back tonight.” Reacher chuckled, smirking at her.

Y/N chuckled and then leaned forward slightly, resting her forearms on the table, making the softness in her breasts very obvious as they pressed up. “Is that so? Well, would you like me to tell you the dinner specials now or later?”

“What time to do you get off?”

“After dinner tonight. Would you like to join me for dinner?” 

“I should be asking you that.” Reacher mirrored her actions, leaning forward, his massive arms made of military grade steel rested on the table. Their faces were mere inches apart.

“Well, I asked first.”

Reacher wasn’t one to pursue women. But Y/N? From the little time he got to interact with her, he might hang around this little country town a little while longer.

TAG LIST

@redpool @mykneeshurt

[incognit0slut]

Much Ado About Nothing (Act II, Scene II: The Crazy Idea)

After being cornered by your friends, you find yourself in an even more complicated position due to your impulsive decision.

Part warning: none, just my bad attempt at crack humor Words: 2.6k A/n: If you paid attention, I've been using his gifs from season 9 so the timeline is somewhere along there. And while writing half of this, I realized Emily wasn't even on that season, but for the sake of fanfiction and pure imagination, let's ignore the human error of this stupid author. Thank you. Let me know what you think!!

SERIES MASTERLIST | MAIN MASTERLIST

It took you exactly seven hours and fifteen minutes to finally gather the courage to head to Penelope's lair. The morning had been a blur of paperwork and reports, leaving you mentally drained and chained to your desk. But no matter how much work you plowed through, your mind kept drifting back to last night's disaster and how your friends had planned the whole thing.

Frustration wasn’t enough to describe how you felt. You found yourself gripping your pen so tightly it threatened to snap in your hand, and your fingers pounded the keyboard harder than necessary as you typed out reports.

Eventually, you found yourself daydreaming about ways to get back at them. You imagined a dozen different ways to plot your revenge, each more elaborate than the last, and although it provided a temporary sense of satisfaction, it wasn't enough. 

By the time you wrapped up your last report, your frustration had reached its peak. You decided you couldn't wait any longer. You headed to JJ's desk first, hoping to catch her and get some answers, but it was empty. With no sign of her anywhere and your patience wearing thin, there was only one other person who might have the answers you needed.

You made a beeline for Penelope’s office. The moment her door came into view, you knocked sharply and then entered without waiting for a response. You weren’t surprised when you found Penelope and JJ huddled over a monitor, their heads snapping up in sync at your abrupt entrance.

“There she is!” Penelope exclaimed, turning around in her chair. “We were just talking about you.”

“Oh, really?” you replied, crossing your arms. “I wonder what could possibly be so interesting about me.”

Penelope and JJ exchanged a quick look, barely suppressing their chuckles. 

“How did it go last night?”

You groaned at the memory. “I can’t believe you guys tricked me!”

JJ laughed and turned to you, her expression almost apologetic. “Look, we’re sorry, okay? We just thought it would be…” she looked over at Penelope, trying to come up for a word before settling with, “Fun.”

“Fun?” You exclaimed. “Manipulating your friends into awkward situations is your idea of fun?“

Penelope waved her hand dismissively. “It couldn't have been that bad. Did you guys talk it out?”

You stared at her pointedly as if the idea of you having that conversation with him was absurd.

“No.”

“Did he apologize for anything?”

“No.”

“Come on, there had to be some deep, meaningful conversation,” JJ chimed in, trying to hold back a grin.

You scoffed. “No.”

“Did he walk you home?”

“No—wait, yes, he did,” you admitted, recalling the memory. “But he complained the whole time about how inefficient my route was and how there were, and I quote, statistically shorter paths to my apartment.”

“How sweet of him,” Penelope observed, deciding to ignore the last part of your rant. Then she wiggled her eyebrows. “Did he lean in for a goodnight kiss?”

“What? No!” You sat on the only empty chair in the room, feeling the heat rise to your cheeks. “Nothing happened.”

“Did he at least say something sweet when he walked you home?” Penelope prodded, trying to dig deeper.

You shook your head, a resigned sigh escaping you. “No, because it was nothing like that. We talked, we ate, he walked me home. That’s it.”

“Sounds like the start of something to me.”

“Totally the start of something,” Penelope nodded enthusiastically.

You rolled your eyes. “There’s nothing to start because we can’t even stand each other.”

“Well you know what they say,” Penelope sang. “There’s a thin line between love and hate.”

You narrowed your eyes at her, trying not to show how unnerving her assumptions were. "That's ridiculous."

“But he walked you home,” she pointed out.

“So?”

“So that’s got to be something,” JJ joined in. “Spencer’s not exactly known for going out of his way unless he wants to.”

“He was just being polite,” you insisted, feeling cornered. “He walked me home because my apartment was on the way to his place.”

Penelope tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Hmm, on his way, or making a way?”

You pinched the bridge of your nose, feeling a headache brewing. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Maybe he’s being subtle about it,” JJ suggested, trying to sound reasonable. “He’s not that forward when it comes to expressing his feelings.”

“No, guys, it wasn’t anything like that,” you insisted, your voice rising slightly in frustration as your eyes moved between the two of them. The room felt smaller with each passing second, the walls closing in as they stared at you expectantly. They were enjoying this way too much.

“Oh, but it could be,” Penelope persisted. “You’re both single, smart, attractive people who spend a lot of time together.”

“You two are unbelievable.”

“It’s okay, you can tell us,” she continued, her voice softer now as she reached out to pat your hand. “We’re your friends, and if there’s something more, we’d love to support you.”

“Or if you prefer to keep it a secret, we won’t tell anyone.”

“Exactly. You can trust us. We’re really good at keeping secrets.”

“So good.”

“So good.”

Your patience snapped, frustration and pressure boiling over. “Fine! Yes! We’re going on another date!” You blurted out, the lie spilling out in a moment of desperation before you could stop. “Happy now?”

Silence fell over the room as Penelope and JJ stared at you, stunned. Then slowly, realization dawned on their faces, and a chorus of excited squeals filled the air.

“Oh, I knew it!” Penelope exclaimed, clapping her hands in delight.

JJ grinned at you. “Really?”

The weight of your words hit you like a cold splash of water.

What had you just done?

“This is so exciting!” Penelope gushed, her enthusiasm mounting. Then she turned to you. “Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

You suddenly felt a wave of panic. You scanned their faces, seeing only genuine excitement and curiosity, no hint of doubt and discomfort swelling inside you. How could you explain that there was nothing to tell because there was no second date? That it was just a knee-jerk reaction to their relentless teasing? You couldn't possibly confess now, not without making everything infinitely worse.

But how were supposed to tell him? The idea of deceiving not just your friends but also involving Spencer in this lie made you feel sick. The room seemed to spin as you tried to come up with some way to ease the damage.

“I... I wanted it to be a surprise?” You managed to say, although the words sounded more like a question. Your lie felt hollow even to your own ears, but Penelope and JJ seemed to buy it, nodding and exchanging excited glances.

“This is going to be amazing,” Penelope said, practically bouncing in her chair. “So when’s the next date?”

Your mind raced. For there to be a next date, even a pretend one, you needed to talk to him. The realization hit you hard, the full weight of the lie you'd just created sinking in. You'd have to involve him in this deception and the thought made you feel queasy. You imagined the awkward conversation, the look of confusion—and likely frustration—on his face. This was going to be a mess.

You opened your mouth, then closed it, scrambling for a response. “Uh, soon. I-I’ve got to go talk to him about it, actually.”

Penelope’s eyes lit up even more. “Oh, planning it together! That’s so sweet!”

You forced a smile, slowly rising from your seat. “Yeah, super sweet,” you mumbled, your voice barely steady. You could feel your cheeks burning as you stumbled over your lies. “I, uh, better go find him now.”

Without waiting for a response, you bolted out of the room, your heart pounding in your chest. You mentally kicked yourself with every step. You had let them get to you, allowing their teasing to push you into this mess. You couldn’t believe you had let yourself get caught up in this lie.

You paused in the hallway, briefly considering turning back and telling them the truth. The thought lingered for a moment, the idea of ending this charade before it spiraled further out of control. But you quickly shook your head, knowing that backtracking now would only make things worse. You could already imagine how unbearable the teasing and explanations would be.

No, you’ve gone too far to back out now.

Continuing down the hallway, your steps quickened as you searched for him. You finally spotted him by the pantry, absentmindedly pouring too much sugar into his coffee. You walked up to him and leaned against the counter, watching him stir his coffee with more force than necessary.

“I did something stupid,” you blurted out, catching his attention. He looked up before glancing back down at his cup.

“Why am I not surprised?”

“No, listen.” You leaned in closer, lowering your voice. “It’s about last night.”

He finally looked at you, eyebrows raised, clearly surprised as to why you would bring up anything from last night.

“What about last night?” He asked, bringing his cup to his lips.

The words tumbled out in a rush. “I was with JJ and Garcia, and they were teasing me about us, how we supposedly have this… thing going on now. I couldn’t take it anymore. So…” You watched him take a sip of his coffee. “…I told them we’re going on another date.”

He choked, the drink catching in his throat. Coughing, he set the cup down with a sharp clatter, his eyes watering slightly as he regained his composure.

“You told them what?”

“I didn’t know what else to do!” You rushed to explain. “They wouldn’t stop pushing and I just wanted them to shut up. I thought if I said something like that, they’d just leave me alone. But now they expect details, and I… I need your help.”

He took a deep breath, trying to process what you were asking of him. “Let me get this straight. You, of all people, told them we’re going on another date, knowing full well how we—” He paused, searching for the right words. “How we don’t get along. And now you want me to help you keep up this lie?”

You nodded, and he called out your name in frustration.

"Last night wasn't even a date!”

“I know! The words just… came out.” When you saw him shake his head disapprovingly, you let out a groan. “I’m not thrilled about it either, okay? But I’m kind of… desperate here.”

Spencer took another sip of his coffee, his eyes never leaving yours. After a moment, he set the cup down, gripping it in his hand.

“No.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “No?”

“No,” he confirmed before turning around, walking back to his desk. “I’m not going to help you.”

You shuffled along, trying to match his pace. “Why not? This could actually get them to stop.”

“Do you even hear yourself? This is crazy. You can’t just spin lies and drag me into them because you want to avoid a little teasing,” he retorted, sitting down and starting to shuffle through some papers on his desk, clearly trying to end the conversation.

“It’s not a little teasing! They’re relentless,” You pressed, leaning against his desk. “Come on, don’t you ever get tired of them trying to set us up?”

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to pretend to date you. What’s next? A fake wedding?”

“Don’t be dramatic. We just need to show up together a couple of times, act mildly interested in each other, and then we can break up. We fake it, we tell them it didn’t work out, and we move on. It’s simple.”

“Of course, because nothing says ‘simple’ like faking an entire relationship.”

You crossed your arms and took a deep, calming breath. “Look, I know it’s not the greatest plan, but can you think of a better way to get them off our backs?”

Spencer stared at you, his eyes narrowing as he considered your words. “You realize you’re trying to deceive a team of profilers, right?”

He had a point, but you weren’t about to back down. “Wasn’t this your whole idea in the first place?”

“My idea was for us to act like we get along, not pretend that we’re in love.”

“It doesn’t even have to be convincing,” you argued, leaning in slightly. “Just enough to make them back off for a while. Besides, if you start laying it on too thick, they’ll never believe it. They know you don’t have much experience to begin with.”

Spencer looked offended, his brows knitting together. “I have experience,” he countered. “Just because I’m not flaunting it doesn’t mean I’m completely clueless.”

“Oh, yeah? When was the last time you were in a relationship?”

The words slipped out of your mouth before you could stop yourself, and when you noticed the sudden change in his demeanor, you realized what you had just implied. There was a tensed pause as you both stared at each other. You both knew the answer to that question, and you both knew you were treading dangerous territory.

But before either of you could break the silence, a voice cut through the tension. “What are you two lovebirds fighting about now?”

You turned to see Derek standing by his own desk, a mischievous grin spreading across his face. And then you saw it, an opportunity. If Spencer wasn’t going to agree to help willingly, you were going to take matters into your own hands.

You straightened your shoulders and faced Derek. “We need to tell you something.”

Spencer sensed what you were about to do and quickly stood up. “Wait—“

“Reid and I are dating.”

You heard Spencer take a sharp inhale. There was no turning back. The nerves in your stomach tightened, but you decided to ignore it and focus your attention on Derek instead. His eyes widened in surprise, looking between the two of you.

“You’re serious?”

“Yes,” you said firmly, crossing your arms and standing your ground, while Spencer remained silent beside you, his expression unreadable. “We decided to give it a shot.”

“At dating? As in romantically?”

“I don’t think there’s another way to describe it.”

Derek stared at you both for a moment longer, then his shock gave way to a broad grin. “Finally.” He let out an amused laugh “Took you two long enough.”

He approached with a playful swagger, clapping Spencer on the shoulder and ruffling your hair, which you quickly swatted away. “Can’t say that I’m surprised, but congratulations.”

Spencer looked at you, and you glanced back at him. Derek, oblivious to the tension between you two, grinned widely.

“I guess all that tension was just unresolved passion, huh?”

Your eyes snapped at him. “Morgan!”

“Alright, alright.” He raised his hands in mock surrender, still wearing a broad smile. “I’m just happy for you both. Seriously.”

You stared at him, bracing yourself for more teasing, perhaps a joke about what supposedly happened last night, or worse, something embarrassingly inappropriate. But to your surprise, Derek didn’t press further. Instead, he simply nodded with a genuine smile and returned to his desk, resuming his work.

You and Spencer stood there, dumbfounded, not quite sure how to process the sudden shift. You both were so used to his relentless teasing that his quick exit left you momentarily speechless.

You slightly leaned towards him as you continued to stare at Derek hunched over his desk.

“Do you hear that noise?” You whispered.

“What noise?”

“Exactly. This is the sound of peace,” you replied with a slight grin, turning back to Spencer. “See? This is already working. If we keep this up, we can finally get them off our backs.”

“I still think this is a bad idea,” he muttered, giving you a pointed look.

“Do you have a better plan?” you challenged, raising an eyebrow. “Because I’m all ears if you do.”

Spencer sighed, his shoulders slumping slightly. He studied you for a moment, his eyes searching your face as if weighing the pros and cons. “I can’t believe I’m even considering this…” He trailed off, looking genuinely conflicted. “This is going to backfire, you know that, right?”

Sure, he could be right, but at the same time, you believed this plan was harmless. It seemed like a simple solution: a fake relationship played out convincingly enough to appease your friends. It was supposed to be straightforward—an act, a performance without real consequences. Nothing could go wrong if you controlled the narrative.

You finally looked up at him. “Don’t worry,” you said, trying to sound confident. “It won’t.”

But as the words left your mouth, you realized, you weren't entirely convinced.

[bouquet-of-flow3rs]

!Pairings: Ot8!Poly!Straykids x Reader!

Genre: A/B/O dynamics, Established poly Relationship, Fluff.

Warnings: Suggestive themes but no smut, making out, shirtless Changbin, hickeys, bite marks, mating marks, Lino threatening people with a soup ladle. mentions of voyeurism(only watching others make out.), nicknames(baby, princess, pup.)[Let me know if I missed anything]

Synopsis: A day with the straykids pack

[A/n: This took me 8 hours to write and edit so I hope you all enjoy It as much as I did writing it, still learning to write things on here so please be kind!]

I wake up in the warm embrace of my alpha, his warm, strong arms delicately wrapped around my waist, I smiled up at him admiring his beauty I especially loved his naturally curly hair, Chan was still sleeping and we all know he usually struggles to sleep so I continued staring at his features as he sleeps. the slope of his nose, his thick lashes, and pink, pouty lips, his tousled curly brown hair which he didn’t like but everyone in our pack adores. He is perfect. I smile as he snuggles his head into the crook of my neck, his hair tickling my skin. He groans out shifting slightly and tightening his grip on me before it loosens and he opens one of his chocolate brown eyes at me, his face scrunching at the small streaks of light seeping in through our black-out curtains, “Hi princess,” he mumbles out smiling dopily at me, “how long have you been up?” he questions, I hummer out “not long.” I study him through my half-lidded eyes. His curls were sticking out in all different directions and he has dark bags under his puffy eyes that were glazed over with a sleepy look. It was still early in the morning, barely past seven AM, so I was still a bit sleepy. I sighed curling back into his embrace as he lightly chuckled at my actions, “You wanna sleep some more?” He asks, his voice low and raspy, “No,” I stretch up from our lying position, “I wanna surprise the others with breakfast.” I say getting up and slipping on my pair of pink, fluffy slippers that were gifted to me by Hyunjin on my birthday.

He groans out, attempting to stretch out and stop me “No~” he whines out “don’t leave me, you're so comfy.” He pouts voice heavy with his thick australian accent, he sits up on his elbow, his other arm stretched out to try and stop me.  I giggle at his cute antics and lean over to kiss the crown of his head. “I’m sorry Channie but I promised Lixie and Innie that I’d make them pancakes today.” I stated casually, pouting down at him from my standing position. He playfully glares at me “Omega~” he drawls out, I stiffen and turn back to look at him “hm?” I hummed out “did you need something more Channie?” I ask teasingly, already knowing what was about to happen. It was always routine that I would give him a kiss goodbye even if I was just walking out of a room we were both in. “I think you're forgetting something omega,” He smirks, “oh? And what is that alpha?” I question teasingly, “My kiss.” He raises his brow looking at me expectantly, I giggle before leaning down, pressing my lips against his pouty ones, his eyes close and he hums out, reaching a hand over to place on my waist and gives it a gentle squeeze. I hum into the kiss and place my hands on the back of his neck, my fingers playing with the ends of his curls. He attempts to deepen the kiss but I lean back and giggle at the look on his face, his lips are swollen and there's a bit of drool coming from the corner of his lips as he looks at me in a daze before his expression changes at the loss of our proximity and he pouts again, “why’d you stop?” He questions sadly, I can’t resist the look he's giving me so I lean back in and litter his face with butterfly kisses before placing one more delicate kiss to the tip of his nose, “Okay Channie, I’m sorry but I really need to go make breakfast for the others before they wake up.” I apologize to him, he nods his head sadly but says he understands, so I walk out of his bedroom. I usually rotate which room I sleep in so it's fair for everyone, and that way I get to cuddle with all of them but there are some days where there are exceptions like yesterday when Chan had come home late with tired eyes, me and the boys were waiting up for him all cuddled on the couch in a cozy pile, last night was supposed to be Felix and Jeongin’s night with me but when I saw the defeated look on Chan’s face I had to explain to them that I was going to sleep in Chan’s room tonight, they pouted but agreed that it was for the best so I promised to make them pancakes in the morning as an apology and that cheered them right up.

As I rounded the corner of the kitchen I was shocked to see Minho up and cooking already, “Min?” I blurted out, surprising him as he whips around spatula in hand looking as if he were ready to smack me with it, he sighs in relief seeing that it was just me, “pup?” he questions back, "What are you doing up?” He stares at me incredulously. “I told Lix and Innie that I’d make them pancakes since I didn’t sleep in their room last night,” I stated, still staring at him in confusion “But what are you doing up?” I threw his question back at him. “Oh,” he sighs, rubbing his hands over his face in exhaustion, “I was trying to surprise Chris with breakfast since he seemed so down yesterday.” He mumbles out in embarrassment, he usually wasn't very open about his feelings we all knew he loved us but he liked to pretend he didn't, I coo at him and walk closer placing my hands on his cheeks that are flushed with a light blush at his admission, I rest my forehead against his closing my eyes, I feels his breath on the tip of my nose and giggle at the ticklish feeling, “you’re such a good mate Minnie.” I breathe out, he sets his hands on my waist and sighs again before kissing the tip of my nose and releasing his grip me, “You’re such a tease [Y/n],” He rolls his eyes before turning back to whatever was cooking on the stove stirring it to make sure it didn’t overcook, “Is there anything I can help with Min?” I offer but he shoo’s me out of the kitchen and tells me to go wake the others, I pout at him and whine saying “It's too early to wake them yet,” “Besides I wanna spend time with you~” I whine out making my best puppy eyes at him, he groans out but takes my hand leading me back over to the counter, picking me up and setting me on the counter before trapping me between his arms and sliding himself between my legs leaning towards me, “you’re such a tease kitten.” He whispers out seductively, I gulp and flit my eyes down to look at his smirking lips, my shyness becoming apparent due to the flush on my cheeks, he studies my face before slowly leaning it brushing his soft, pink lips over mine

but as we were about to kiss we were interrupted by someone clearing their throat, Minho jumps away from me and we turn towards the hallway where Changbin another one of my alphas stood, his buff arms crossed over his pecs, he was shirtless with his gray sweats hanging so low on his waist you could see his V line, he was smirking with a tilt to his eyebrow, “am I interrupting something?” He muses staring at Minho and I’s flushed faces, I stared at Changbin with wide eyes, truthfully there is no real reason for me to be embarrassed I’ve done this with all of them and been caught and it doesn’t help that some of them enjoy watching me and the others make out, but that isn’t the point. Minho grumbled most likely cursing Changbin under his breath, He just chuckles at Minho before uncrossing his arms and walking over to Minho who had turned back to the stove aggressively cooking, Changbin Chuckles at his antics before wrapping his arms around Minho’s tiny waist and pressing a kiss to the back of his neck, Minho shudders at the feeling of Changbin’s plush lips on his skin and stops cooking for a moment before scolding the short alpha, Binnie shrugs before turning towards me and copying Minho’s previous actions of caging me between his thick, built arms that I loved to drool over, he smirks noticing where my gaze is before cupping my jaw with his hand and tilting my head up towards him as he softly presses his lips on mine tilting my head to the side and deepening the kiss, he swipes his moist, pink tongue over my bottom lip, I can feel the desperation seeping into our kiss, I grant him entrance as he deepens the kiss even more our tongues swirling together, I then slowly let his tongue explore my mouth, my hands reaching up and tangling my fingers into his knotted, burgundy hair, I can taste the freshness of his breath and a subtle hint of Seungmin, they were probably making out before he decided to get up, Minho clears his throat and me and Bin pull apart, a string of salive connecting our lips together before he turns to look at Minho with a glare for interrupting us. Minho stares at us with a raised eyebrow and a deadpan look, “so you two can suck faces,” he grumbled, “but I can’t even kiss our omega once?” He complains shaking his head in disbelief at the unfairness, and I giggle at his pouting face before he swats the ladle towards me and I yelp sliding back farther on the counter to get away from him, Changbin stares at us in amusement before gently taking Minho’s wrist in his big hand while his other hand grips onto Minho’s waist and turns him back to the stove “focus on the food Min or it might burn.” He muses, Minho just grunts but begrudgingly listens to him, “Okay, I guess I’ll go wake the other now,” I say amused at the sight of the alpha and beta's interactions, As I walk away from the two down the hallway I hear Changbin yelp and laugh to myself thinking about how Minho must’ve smacked Binnie with his threatening plastic ladle, giggling as I continue walking down the hallway not paying attention I end running into Chan’s broad chest stumbling back a bit from the initial impact, but he grabs my waist and pulls me closer to him smiling down at me his eyes crinkling as he does so, “where are you headed in such a rush pup?” he asks in amusement, and smile up at him, “Min's making  breakfast so I was headed to wake up the others!” I say happily, he coos at my cuteness patting my head, “You’re such a good girl, pup.” He squishes my cheeks forcing my lips to pucker before he pecks me, I giggle at him again before he sends me off further down the hall to wake the others. 

The first door I stop by is Minho and Jisung’s softly knocking on the door, when I receive no answer I assume he is still sleeping and I carefully open their door trying to make sure it doesn’t squeak, when it opens enough for me to slip in I slide through the crack, my slippers make louder footsteps than I wanted but I shrugged it off since I was here to wake him up anyways. I make my way towards his side of their bed and coo at his soft appearance, his squirrel like cheeks squished on his pillow as he cuddles it close to his body, Minho wasn’t a huge cuddler but Jisungie most definitely is, so Minho often had to force Jisung to snuggle a pillow instead of himself, but he looks so soft and squishy I almost wanted to squeeze his face and leave kiss marks all over it, and normally I would but he looked so peaceful so I decided to wake him up softly instead of with my cuteness aggression, I softly shook his shoulder and he lightly groans before forcing their black, plush comforter over his head and shifting away from me, Ji’s scent has always been so sweet especially for a beta, all of my mates smelled divine but Jisung’s was one of my favorites he smelled of fresh, blooming jasmine and vanilla sweet for a beta but amazing nonetheless, Chan’s scent was that of the ocean and mahogany, Minho our big bad beta had a spicy cinnamon smell, Binnie smell was musky and he naturally smells like mens cologne, Hyunjin’s was that of black cherries sweet like omegas are expected to smell like, and Felix another fellow omega smells like toasted coconut, while Seungmin our beta baby has a fresh linen smell, and last but not least is Jeongin our baby alpha who smells like strawberries and cream. I coo once more at Jisung before shaking him a bit harder “Come on Ji,” I whined a bit, “Min told me to wake everyone up and if I don’t he’ll come wake you up himself.” I threatened, this immediately catches his attention as he slowly sits up his long, fluffy, mop of dark,  brown hair sticking in all directions as he sleepily rubs at his eyes “G’morning,” he yawns out as he stretched, “Thanks for wakin’ me up.” he mumbles out, and my face flushes at his raspy, deep morning voice, “morning Ji,” I smiled at him, he sniffed the air smelling whatever it is that Min is making for breakfast and his stomach growls as he groans and slowly pulls his comforter and sheets off himself, wobbly standing up, I move my arms to try and stabilize him but he's fine after a few seconds he then leans down and kisses the crown of my head and walks towards the door, most likely to brush his teeth but not before smacking my bottom and making me flush in embarrassment as he laughed to himself and continues on his way out. 

Next, I walk across the hall to Seungmin and Binnie’s room, I once again do my best not to make their door squeak as I shuffle in, staring at Seungmin’s back as I enter deeper into their room, Seungmin was a pretty light sleeper so it shouldn’t be to hard to wake him up but I still wanted to ensure the beta doesn’t wake up in a startle, “Seungmin,” I whispered, “Seungie, it's time to wake up hun.” I lightly shake his shoulder, his eyes slowly flutter open and the corners of his lips tilt up into a lazy grin as he stares up at me, I decide I want to be a bit of a brat and slowly climb onto the bed straddling his hips, he continues to stare at me with that smirk of and his,  he stared up at me with his puppy-like eyes and gazes up at me from his lying position, his hands grasp onto my waist his thumbs stroking over my silk night set and over my hip bones, “Morning pup,” He lets out, and I giggle at his sleepy expression and at the nickname he calls me that I share between all the boys, “Morning Seungie.” I coo at him sliding my hands up and down his chest before I lean down and pepper his face in small kisses before reaching his lips and leaving a lasting kiss, After kissing him I attempt to sit up but he forces me back down crashing our lips together so I can feel all the passion behind it, but for the second time this morning I am interrupted by Changbin as he walks into his room, “Oh,” he says shocked at seeing me straddling Seungmin, “Hey pups.” He once again muses before walking over to Seungmin and me leaving a kiss on both of our foreheads before walking over to their closet and finding some of his gym clothes, Me and Seungmin both oogle him as he changes showing us his broad shoulders and muscular body.  My favorite part of his body has to be our mating bite marks that litter his back as well as the hickeys all over his neck and shoulders, while I was busy drooling over Changbin Seungmin was staring at me with adoration written all over his face, he quickly leans up pecking my cheek before, before slightly lifting me up and setting me off his lap so he can get up and stretch, after I've finished making heart eyes to my buff alpha I get off their bed and walk towards Changbin who is still shirtless, I slide my hands up his back over our marks and up to his broad shoulders and wrap my hands around them before pecking the back of his neck like he did to Minho earlier, he hums in satisfaction before speaking “you should probably go wake up the others before Min gets mad princess.” I swoon at the nickname but agree nonetheless and walk out of their room towards the last room which happens to be Hyunjin and Innie’s I knew Felix would also be in there since they decided to have a movie night last night, but based off of the moans I'm sure we all heard that wasn’t the only thing they did last night.

Opening their door I find that I am right and the 3 of them are cuddled up together, cooing at the adorable sight of Jeongin’s black hair, Felix’s blond mullet, and Hyunjins long black hair all peeking out from under their white comforter, I walk over to the trio and first shake Hyunjin awake but he groans out and ignores me, I chuckle at his stubbornness and start stroking and smoothing out his bed head, he hums at the feeling of my ringers raking through his hair and smiles, his plush lips a pretty shade of pinky-red looking very kissable, so that is exactly what I do I lean over his body and kiss his lips, at that his eyes shoot open and he moans into the kiss trying to deepen it, I let him for all of 2 seconds before pulling back and continuing to stroke his hair he sighs and sits up, “Min made breakfast.” I say softly to him and he mutters a small “hell yeah.” Under his breath in celebration. After he gets out of bed to go and brush his teeth and wash his face I slide into where he was lying down before and start threading my fingers through Felix’s hair, which with the amount of bleach he puts in should be dead but somehow it is miraculously still soft and silky, I chuckle in surprise at the feeling of his non-crunchy hair, I admire the freckles that paint his golden skin with  stars and start tracing them with my finger, his eyes start to twitch and he lets out a deep groan at the feeling of his face being tickled by my nails and I giggle at the cute,  scrunched up expression on his fairy like face, God he is such a pretty omega after enough of the tickling feeling his eyes flutter open but immediately scrunch up at the blurriness you get after just waking up, he rolls his body over to face me, wrapping his arms around my waist forcing me to lay down where Hyunjin used to be, I giggle as he snuggles his face into my chest and I pet his hair again, “Morning baby.” He rasps out, I swoon at the sound of his unusually deep voice, of course, his voice is deep but in the mornings it's especially deep, it is so incredibly attractive but I can’t get distracted because breakfast was probably done and there is a good chance of Min bursting through the door and threatening all of us to get up (affectionately of course), but nonetheless I needed to wake these two up no matter how badly I wanted to cuddle up to them,  “Morning Lixie,” I smile, “I need you and Innie to get up before Min yells at us for getting up for the breakfast he made.” I giggle at the thought knowing how Min has a soft spot for us 'pups’ so he probably wouldn’t but he'd still be grumpy, Felix just hums before snuggling in more he acts as if he wants to melt into me which I wouldn’t mind but I'm honestly hungry so I need to get these two up, “Lix,” I try and warn him but he only hums dismissively, “Lix, baby I’m serious I’m hungry~” I whine and he chuckles his voice deep and rich,

I guess we were making too much noise because Jeongin struck us with his pillow and grumbles something that sounds like a “shut up.” Which makes me and Felix cackle, he finally releases me so I try and crawl out of their bed but unfortunately, that's the time Innie chooses to sit up and sees me, instantly his face lights up, “noona!” He exclaims happily, “I didn’t realize it was you!” He laughs and pulls me back towards them by my ankles which makes me yelp, my reaction causes the two troublemakers to giggle and they make eye contact before nodding, I start to protest knowing what they are about to do but they ignore me and start to attack me with tickles, I start laughing very loudly and shouting for one of my other mates to come and save me, “Channie, Min,” I yell out, “anyone please save me!” I holler out to them hoping somebody will come and save me, I guess my pleas for help were heard because Chan comes to my rescue and saves me from my tormentors all while laughing at the scene happening in front of him. When we all finally make it to the dining room the breakfast Min made looks incredibly mouth-watering. Min had made a nice warm stew with a side of rice and banchan which we all laughed at and tease Channie for, making him blush and shush us.

After breakfast, we all split up to do our own things. Changbin heads off to the gym and later heads to the studio Chan and Jisung are headed to, Min goes off to his dance studio, and Hyunjin to his art studio leaving me, Lix, Seungmin, and Innie home alone. We 4 decided on watching some random YouTube videos in the nesting room but before we all settle in Felix and I go around all the rooms and steal items of clothing and even blankets that have our mates’ scents on them after we gathered all the materials we went back to the nest and started to rebuild it, normally we'd have Hyunjin help us since he is also an omega but since he went to his studio we couldn’t get his help which saddensLixie and I but we push through it to make a perfectly, pretty nest for the packmates we have here with us now.

 when we make it back into the room I chirp in surprise seeing our mates in our unfinished nest, at hearing my chirp they both whip their heads towards me and Lix, my face is one of betrayal even though I know it isn’t a big deal my omega is telling me that it most definitely is, I’m sure Felix has a reaction similar to mine as he pouted at the two of them being in the unfinished nest. Seungmin and Jeongin both scramble to get out of the unfinished nest messing up the border of it which makes both me and Lix more distressed, they both try to hurriedly fix it but that made me growl at them it wasn’t very threatening seeing as they just coo at me and tell me and Felix to rebuild our pretty nest for them. After it is finished me and Felix set them where we want them and then sat ourselves down between them, our order was Jeongin closest to the border near the door then me, and on my left were Felix and Seungmin next to him by the border.

When the others got home they tried calling out to their mates but received no reply so they went searching for them, they checked all the bedrooms but seeing nobody in there they started to panic a little, “Have any of you found them yet?” Chan hurriedly asks his pack mates who all shake their heads no, they finally decide to check the nest room, and when they open the door they all sighe in relief at seeing their pups there, Jeongin had fallen asleep along with Seungmin leaving Felix and [Y/N] awake with Frozen playing on the TV, Felix was sat behind [Y/n] as she sat in his lap watching intently at the movie on the TV where Elsa was singing ‘Let It go’, she was fussing a bit at what she thought was Felix pulling on her hair “Ssh relax, I’m just braiding your hair.” he says softly brushing his fingers through her hair in an attempt to detangle it. The 5 standing by the door all coo at their cute packmates and walk further into the room finally making the two omegas notice them, when they finally do they immediately sit up and stop what they are doing to get up as fast as they can to reach their packmates who had been gone all day, Felix runs towards Changbin first while [Y/n] jumps on Chan, they chose those 2 first because they were the closest to the nest,  the two omegas made sure to rub their scents glands against the 2 alphas so their scents would stick onto them after they scented those two, they rushed to Minho and Jisung and scented them just as good as they did the other 2 before them, last but not least was Hyunjin and the three omegas sag into each other happily chirping content at the skinship, the others admire their mates, and then Jeongin and Seungmin are awoken by the commotion but also immediately get up to greet the others after they've scented each other they go around delivering them kisses to everyone as a second welcome. “So what have our pups been doing all day, hm?” their pack leader asks, staring at his lovers in adoration, “Mm, well we mostly watched YouTube but when Seungie and Innie fell asleep me and Lixie put on Disney movies!” [Y/n] explains excitedly and Felix hums in agreement, while the others snicker in amusement at the 2 wholesome omegas.

After everyone gets ready for bed [Y/n] goes around trying to convince everyone to sleep in the nesting room, her pitch to them is “It's so comfy and Jinnie, Lixie, and I remade it perfectly for all of you,” she pouts up at all of them giving her best puppy eyes, after getting Hyunjin, and Felix to assist her in convincing them the alphas and betas finally give in and they all pile into the nesting room together, the three omegas arranged their mates to where they want them and make them sit in their places before finally settling into the nest themselves, the nest is huge with pillows covered in heavy blankets making up the border, Felix and [Y/n} have lots of influence on the others so the nest is made of mostly pastel soft colored blankets and of course Hyunjin agrees to his adorable mates no hesitation, along with the nest they have candles set around the room courtesy of Hyunjin because he believes they ‘set the mood’ and lastly Felix hung LED lights so they could have a pop of more color. They've all settled into the nest for bed, all of them cuddled together the soft atmosphere lulling them all to sleep.

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Please reblog and like if you enjoyed this!

[ophelieverse]

Can you please write anything you want with Aegon and Tully!reader?I love this house and no one use them to write images🥺

ʚ the lovers ɞ 

Aegon II Targaryen x fem!reader

I also like House Tully,even though i don’t like Cat and Lysa but I’m more than willing to write a Tully reader.

Aegon and Y/n are married,now that he is king he doesn’t have much time to spend with his wife so she takes the matter in her own hands.

A little smutty piece that i don’t know how to feel about😪

Thank you for requesting and let me know what you think💕

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

The midday sun was burning in the sky with all the violence this time slot could offer on a mid-summer day.

The hot rays of the sun were beating on the streets markets,roofs and the chairs at the corner of their balcony.If she squeezed her eyes,Y/n could even see the air vibrating on the railing.

Till a moment ago,in the shared maritals chambers of their majesties a small servant girl was using a fan,moving the hot air from one side to the other,without really doing much to bring relief.

The temperature was so high that even the floor had cooled,and staying there lying on the ground was becoming counterproductive,as well as uncomfortable.

Y/n turned on her side,grunting when the hard stoned floor met her bones,the heat that killed her every initiative to get up was trailing up her bare legs till her back.

Not too bad... from the new location she could admire a much better view than the sky paled by the heat.

Aegon,the new King of the Seven Kingdoms and her adored husband,was sitting at the large table in the middle of their chambers a few steps away from her.The thin shirt sleeves rolled up over the elbows,the unbuttoned collar and a wrinkle of concentration between the eyebrows.In front of him a stack of backlog reports to complete.

His cheeks were redden thanks to the heat and the wine,pale hair stuck to nape of his sweaty neck and lilic eyes moving fast through the pages in his calloused hands.He was so beautiful when he was assorted,becoming king had changed his demeanor,taking the responsibilities and duties on his shoulders more seriously.

Y/n didn't understand why he decided to get to work with that heat,especially when it was Sunday morning and they could have done anything else.Also,the fact that she hasn't had his attention for almost an hour made her want to go there and tear up that paperwork in front of his beautiful eyes.And she would have done it even if she hadn't been too hot even to stand up.

Of course,it would have been great if he had gotten up to come to her instead.The two of them had been married for three years and knew each other for six,Y/n knew that Aegon would’ve done that.Seeing her,so beautifully tempting in her white transparent nightgown,long hair wild on her shoulders,full red lips and soft cheeks with sparkling needy eyes.He would’ve pounced her like a starving animal.

But that was prince Aegon,the same person that took her on Dragonstone beach,promising her that he would made her his queen,the mother of his children and that made love to her like it was their last night on earth.King Aegon was a different story,he had his head on his shoulders and his mother and grandfather on his back constantly.Ruling a whole continent was hard, tiring and took all of his attentions.

«Aaaegon.»Y/n called him,stretching the first syllable of his name,with a sweet voice.

«Mmh?»he replied with a distracted murmur,without even looking up from the table.

«Do you still have a lot of those?»she asked him,watching the pile of papers becoming smaller not fast enough.

He shook his head«I'm almost done.»

«You said that even half an hour ago!»she emitted a sound of affliction.

«I would do it faster if you got up and came to give me a hand,instead of standing there complaining.»he scolded her,not in the same teasing and playful way,but almost irritated.

Being Queen wasn’t easy and it was something that Y/n never wanted.Her mother had planned that future for her since she was a child,promising her to prince Jacaerys in the beginning and then to prince Aegon.The only thing that her mother taught her about marriage was being a good and docile wife and give her husband healthy and male heirs.No one taught her how to be a queen,not even her husband mother.

Y/n was good at being a gentle and loving wife,she supported and took care of her husband and gave him two beautiful sons,heirs to his throne.But she missed him,she knew he loved her very much and that they should have other children to strength the blood of the dragon,if only he wasn’t so busy all the time.

Not at all satisfied with the kind of reactions she was getting,Y/n pouted and reached out towards the golden cup lying on the floor:the only thing in her range that had a temperature of less than thirty-six degrees.She brought the cup to her mouth and the last residue of cold wine now vented into her throat.

When she finished,she passed the empty cup behind her neck and chest,continuing to observe Aegon out of the corner of her eye.

As much as he was trying to keep his eyes fixed on those papers,it was evident that his body was also suffering from the heat.The silver locks stuck to his sweaty forehead as his shoulders lifted and fell under the weight of long,fatigued breaths.He put the ink down for a second and sipped his wine too.

Y/n watched him arch his neck and swallow,adam’s apple moving rhythmically over the larynx.She bit her lower lip in front of the show,her hand automatically slipped below the hip line.

Fuck… “Family,duty,honor”as her House words said,looked so good on him.The ethereal aura of his royal presence,the way he carried himself and spoke in the throne room or in the Small Council,the crown on his head.Even though she missed care free prince Aegon,the King was something so divine to look at.

Seriously... they could have done anything else in the moment,she could still give him another child and show him how much of a great job he was doing as a ruler.Literally anything but staying there on the floor while he worked.

An idea caught on her mind.Suddenly the heat stopped being a problem.

«Aegon.»she called again,voice now lower.

And again,he replied without looking at her«What do you want?»

Y/n opened her mouth,then closed it.She reflected on what were the best words to use,those that would be best to persuade him.It was supposed to be something provocative,but not too much.Something sober,but impactful.

She rubbed her legs,the ache between them,and uttered candidly:«You,my King.»

She couldn't help but smile triumphantly, because at those words Aegon finally looked up from the table.His deep purple eyes stared at her,a spark of involvement and desire shining under his eyelashes as he took in all of her appearance.

It didn't last long.

«Not now.»was his calm answer,as he looked away and brought the focus back to his work.

As he spoke he wrote something with his pen and Y/n thought she wanted to bite his fingers.

«Also it's too hot for it at this hour,»he added,«better tonight,when the sun is down.»he continued.

Y/n stretched her limbs on the floor and lazily curved her back like a cat«I thought that dragons preferred the heat.»she smiled,licking her dry lips.

«Yes.But little,cute fishes like you are too sensitive for it.»the smirk in his voice made her shiver and smile even more.

He wasn’t wrong,she was still a pure maiden when they first laid together and since that time,as he showed her the immense and colorful world of pleasure,her appetite had been insatiable.Especially with a husband like him.He would take the lead and have her crying underneath or on top of him in less that five minutes.

«Hmm... I don't know if I'll be able to wait until tonight.»she purred with a vibrating throat.

Aegon scoffed,tracing the paper in his hand with a finger,rereading the same sentence for the third time«Then go on our bed,put a pillow between your legs and do it yourself.What do you want me to tell you?»he sounded exasperated.

They both were,pent up and dying by the hot weather.

«If this was a dirty talk attempt,know it was really terrible.»a laugh escaped from her.

Aegon stopped responding,bowed his chin and went back to immerse himself in the silence of concentration.

Y/n accepted the challenge.

It wasn't the first time she found herself playing with Aegon self-control since he was crowned and so far she had never lost.She had often enjoyed making him restless and starving for something else during dinners with his family:fleeting caresses under the table and winking glances between the glass bottles.

But it was easy to shake him like that when they were in public,surrounded by other eyes.The fact that they were now alone in their room,the only spectators and participants of their game,made Aegon less tense,and therefore more firm on his positions.

It would have taken a lot more to move him.

«All right...»she whispered,more to herself than to him.

Y/n stretched on her back on the floor,oriented her delicate hand vertically on her soft belly,and slid two fingers under the hem of her small cloth,trailing up her body the thin layer of her nightgown.She began to touch herself nonchalantly,lazily at the start,describing slow and interspersed circles around the clitoris.She kept her head turned to the side,ready to catch the slightest sign of distraction from Aegon.

She had to wait five long minutes before the pen slowed down on the paper.

Y/n grabbed the opportunity and began to speed up the work of her fingers.Her body was giving in to stimulation:a pleasant tingling was building up in the lower abdomen as moisture began to cover her fingertips.When a choked moan of his name formed in her throat she did nothing to repress it.

That's when Aegon raised his eyes for the second time.

His gaze on her was a mixture of surprise,opposition and embarrassment,with a small spark of lust.Y/n pointed at that.

«Y/n.»he began,with what clearly wanted to be a warning,but which did not go beyond her name.

She saw him licking his lips and swallowing.

«What?»she bent her lips into a smile«Wasn't what you told me to do it myself?»she asked sweetly.

Aegon blushed in spite of himself,he felt like a twelve years old again«Yes,but not here on the floor.»he said.

«Why?Am I distracting you?»she said with a fake tone of concern.

«What do you think?»he sarcastically said,his eyes not leaving the hand that was still moving between her legs.

The ache growing in his pants and the fire tickling his lower belly,made her proud of herself.The look he was giving her,filled with lust and irritation,told her that she was winning.

«Well,my love,as a refutation of your thesis:so far you didn't notice at all.And it's not like i started at this very moment.»she informed him with a breathy and witty response.

The blush on Aegon face reached the tip of his ears,but his gaze remained of ice«You've been... silent... so far.»he noted,trying to find a comfortable position on the chair.

«Oh?So if I keep my mouth shut I can continue without any problems?»Y/n immediately asked.

It took him a while to answer her.He stopped staring at the spot under her navel where her hand lay and took a big sip from his cup full of cold wine.The two countermeasures seemed to work.With his mind a little more lucid and the trail of freshness in his esophagus,he started talking to her with the same firmness as before.

«Absolutely not.Get up and go.»he said with the same seriousness he had adopted in the last year as a ruler.

In front of his serious face,Y/n smiled even more.He was cracking and was trying so hard to keep it together.

“As if you didn't want me here.”she though.

Y/n huffed«I don't want to.I'm too hot to move.»she said,returning to distractedly moving her fingers.

Aegon made an effort with all of himself not to look at her.He took the pen in his hand and began to turn it between his fingers to have something to engage his eyesight in.

«Your logic doesn't make any sense.»he pointed out to her.

And in fact no,it didn't have it.But in all honesty Y/n was starting to lose the thread of the argument,the need for release was becoming more pressing and Aegon had not yet moved from there.In the absence of a witty response to counter,she raised her hips and moaned his name deliberately,trying to appear as provocative as possible while doing so.

A few seconds of silence followed,then the ticking sound of the pen on the table,and finally a sigh.Y/n didn't bother to hide her immense satisfaction in finally having Aegon body bent over her.

«Can you stop?»He blew on her lips.The baritone voice with which he said it threw a burning pang between her legs.

Y/n raised her chin.The game of the challenge that made her blood tingle in her veins«Make me.»

Aegon wrinkled his forehead.He knew exactly what game his wife was playing,and he also knew he would win.He always won.He was the one in control.

«Gods,you can be so childish sometimes.»he said with a long exhale.

«And you can be serious and snoty like an old man... sometimes.»she told him with a childish attitude.

Yes,sometimes.

Aegon mind went involuntarily to the other times,where it was the exact opposite.Between him and Y/n it worked like this:they almost always ended up at the antipodes,at the two ends of the line,exchanging places with each other all the time.There was almost never a balance.And when he was there it didn't make it easier for him to define their relationship.

Sometimes Y/n was a little girl,hungry for affection and attention.An accomplice mistress who kissed and touched him when she didn't have to,who stretched out her fingers under his arm and who filled his glass when he didn't look.

Sometimes it was him,with his hands sneaking under her gowns,his lips trailing dow her neck in the empty hallways.Playing with her foot under the table.Whispering dirty thing in her ears and watch her blush in front of everyone.

Other times Y/n was an adult woman,with a deadly seriousness in her eyes and a melancholy over something lost.A kind of younger sister - or even a mother - who seemed to have lived a hundred lives,who applied patches to him even on the smallest scratches,and who stroked his hair when she realized he had cried.

Other times it was Aegon who takes the responsibility,guiding and sheltering her.Much like a king would,a husband who duties were to make her a happy wife,a old friend to keep her company and loving to read and sit together in their solarium.

When they were like this,when they took a part and left the second one for the other,Aegon remembered those few years of difference that separated them,remembered how much ambiguity there was in what they did and in the behaviors they adopted towards each other when he promised to marry her on that beach,the first time they had laid together on the cold sand when he was drunk and guided only by lust.

And an unpleasant cold ran on his back. Despite this,he had never done anything to change things.Because Y/n was still very young and was tremendously good on both sides,because - after all - condoing by that ambiguity was convenient for him... because he liked it.Because he did kept his promises and married her.

He liked to play lovers,he thought,looking for her lips.For two like them it was easier than really being king and queen.

Aegon lips were warm,but Y/n welcomed them as if they were the freshest and purest of waters.She liked it too.The lover was her favorite role.Not the wife,the mother or the queen,but his lover.

«The balcony... is open.»Aegon felt a duty to remind her of it,of all the servants that could be outside,snatching words from her increasingly insistent kisses.

She stroked his cheekbone with her tongue«Good,some fresh air.»she replied,letting him know that she didn't care.

«You are shameless.»he told her as if he didn’t taught her to be like this,but the balcony remained open and the papers abandoned on the table.

Y/n smiled as she felt his hand run down her stomach to get to surround her wrist.Her wet fingers slipped away from her throbbing sex,and her hand was carried to the height of their faces.The lack of contact caused her a bit of annoyance,but it took a back seat when Aegon put her hand close to his lips.

He began to place soft kisses on her knuckles, without stopping for a second looking at her. Slowly.Meticulously.Y/n closed her eyelids and breathed a sigh.She contemplated in awe of his lips opening,then the index and middle fingers disappear between them.Aegon moved his tongue under her phalanges,sucked them, enjoying the taste of her melting in his mouth.

«Aegon...»she called him,he groaned around her fingers in response,without interrupting his occupation.

«Take this thing off,»he continued,pointing to the skimpy nightgown she was wearing.«It's too hot.»

«You first.»Y/n whispered out and he smirked.

Receiving the message,Aegon began to unfasten his belt with his free hand,then his boots,and the first buttons on his shirt.He soon realized he couldn't do much else.Surrender,he let go of her fingers to allow both of them to undress.

Although he was now used to seeing her walking around their chambers with just one or two garments,Aegon would never stop appreciating his wife body.At that moment the sun in its apogee illuminated her nudity like white marble,skirting the curves of her profile with light.

If beauty was something describable in words,Aegon would have described it that way.

He stood to contemplate the play of light on her skin as he went back to lying down,unaware that similar thoughts were going through his wife mind.

In fact,the more Y/n looked at Aegon,the more she was convinced that there could be no such thing as graceful and aesthetically pleasing in the world.She would spend hours observing the way his moon locks cast shadows on the clear features of his face,or tracing the veins paths on the muscles of his arms.

As she thought about these things Aegon caught up with her,taking her wrists with his hands and slowly crossed them over her head.

Y/n gaze lit up,not surprised and intrigued.

She had never shown a particularly dominant personality during sex;she usually just indulged in his initiatives,following the instructions of his voice and body,doing and letting herself do whatever he decided.

Aegon was never displeased,on the contrary.In that way of behaving in intimacy he found the same confidence as when they risked their lives together: proof that she was ready to put herself in his hands in any circumstance.

That’s why seeing herself caged to the floor by his body,with his austere eyes scrutinizing her from above,made her lower belly languish in the same and delightful way.The idea of being the one who abandoned herself in his hands once again was tempting,having her king finally giving her all of his attention and devotion.

At the expense of his expression,Aegon 's grip was not very firm and the slowness in his actions betrayed a certain insecurity.It’s had been a hard week and he was tired.

Y/n caught him in a kiss to reassure him.She could still taste herself on his tongue,along with a vague aroma of cherries and wine.She was already addicted by the combination.

Aegon moved aside first,his lips ran down her jaw to the curve of her soft neck.Y/n did not oppose it,waiting for his next move with a rapid beat.She felt him adjust his grip on her wrists, then place his knee in the middle of her legs.

A soft command tickled her ear«Grind on it.»

Y/n gasped.She felt on fire,little fishes like her were too sensitive to the heat and her body's reaction was unexpectedly immediate.Her hips lifted obediently,then lowered,then went back up,until she found herself rocking against his knee at a fast pace.

Aegon kissed her neck with his mouth open, feeding on her accelerating heartbeat.He could feel her skin moistening at the point where she met his leg.

«Good girl.»he whispered in her ear,hot breath tickling her.

He bit her shoulder to suppress a moan,she arched her back and her breasts brushed his chest.His erection was throbbing in pain,but Aegon gritted his teeth.He thought of those backward papers that would force him to do the wee hours tonight,and pushed his femur forward,wishing for a little revenge.

Thanks to the previous stimulation,Y/n was already on the vege of an orgasm.She groaned restlessly,debated her hips and calves to the ground,squeezing his thighs around the bone bump.

Aegon free hand traveled along her waist and went to surround one of her tits,stroked the perky nipple with his thumb,soon replaced by his mouth.

It was hot.Y/n felt it inside and out,in every single particle of the air and in every single fiber of her body.

Sweat dripped from Aegon hair on her chest, his mouth left hot trails where he touched and his breathless breath condensed on her skin.But oh,he never wanted to stop.

Y/n moved her hips faster,craving that sweet, liquid pleasure that was heralding.

She was so close,so close...

«Stop.»the sound of the word reached her ear indistinctly,all her senses blurred,her body continuing to move tirelessly.

Just a little more...

«I said»Aegon grip on her wrists tightened,his hot palm pressing on her pulses«Stop.»with such an authority that made her even wetter.

One hand stuck her hip against the floor and Y/n stopped,stunned.Aegon bowed to one side and removed his knee,leaving fire in her lungs and her belly burning for release denied.

He looked at her,with the power of a man and curious like a child,his purple irises reduced to two thin circles around his dilated pupils.He waited in silence for her to calm down,then relaxed his fingers and released her wrists.

Y/n reached out for him,numb arms circling his neck to bring him closer.A compressed energy that still permeated it from head to toe.

«Aegon,please.»she whined,kissing his jaw and holding him.

«I know baby,you were close?»He asked her,kissing the reddened inside of her wrists with a mest expression.

She moved a lock of hair behind his ear and nodded enthusiastically«Yes.»with a cute pout on her lips.

Aegon nodded in turn,looking slightly relieved.

«I'll make you come,only if you promise that you won’t bother me and let me work for the rest of the night.»he caressed her cheeks,his thumb playing with her lower lip.

«B-but-»she tried to protest.

Aegon hand gripped her face,their noses touching«Will you do that?Will you be a good girl and do what your husband asks you?»he murmured on her lips slowly.

«Yes!I promise!»she immediately answered,trying to get him to kiss her again.

He ran his hands over her hips for a few seconds,focused,as if he was about to make an important decision.Y/n wasn’t surprised when from his mouth came another command,albeit more docile than the previous one.

«Turn around and lay on your stomach.»he ordered,before kissing her and caressing her hair.

She did as he had told her,turning around to give him her back.

The floor was warm and she was so sensitive that the mere pressure of her flattened belly against the stoned pavement was enough to snatch a moan from her.Meanwhile,a finger began to trace her spine,slowly flowing the vertebrae from the coccyx to the cervical.

Y/n curved her back under that touch,while looking for more friction under her hips.

«So desperate to get fucked on the floor?»Aegon murmured on the back of her neck,before licking the salt from her skin.

«F-fuck yes.»she whimpered out.

«Oh»Aegon said amused«I thought i married a proper lady not a slut.»his shoulders trembled with a laugh.

Y/n face was crimson red«I’m not a-a…a slut!»she answered embarrassed,but she knew he was right.

«Mmh,i should’ve know since you had let me fuck you on that beach before we were even betrothed.»he kissed and bit the skin of her back making her tremble.

He kissed her between her shoulder blades,with one arm separated her abdomen from the ground and held her to himself,hip to hip.And Y/n felt him,damp and hot,stinging her entrance.

«Please.»Y/n called for him,hands digging on the floor and wiggling her ass up to get more friction.

«Behave,or I’m leaving you here.»he spanked her,the sting of the slap and the way he caressed the redden skin of her ass made her choke on her saliva.

«With how eager you are,the castle should be filled with our children.»Aegon continued,massaging her.

«Maybe you should give me another,»Y/n breathed out,closing her eyes.

She felt him curse under his breath and holding her closer«Is that what you want?Another kid to keep yourself occupied with?»the idea of seeing her full with his child made his head spin.

The anticipation was a tongue of fire that tickled her from the inside,licking the walls of her stomach in an agonizing way.

She didn't have time to perform in the plea she had thought.Aegon grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him as he sank into her. The movement was unique and fluid,facilitated by abundant lubrication.

Her mouth opened,the air scratched her re-stuck throat.He began to move slowly,with soft and precise blows,while with his tongue he explored her mouth and swallowed her moans.

Her neck hurt from the position,but she still stretched out backwards when he brew the kiss to pay attention to her shoulder.Aegon moved his lips over the curve of her neck and marked the skin with his teeth.He bathed her with his tongue,feeling genuinely guilty.

He thought maybe he wasn't cut for a more dominant role in sex,but the moment he did,Y/n voice shouted«More!Please!»And his mind was silent.He was the one in control and yet he would give her anything she wants,even another child if that meant having her happy.

He anchored her to his body with one arm and used the other as a lever to increase the pace and intensity of the thrusts.And every time she asked to go deeper,faster, stronger,something stretched inside him,like a rubber band on the breaking point.

It was his turn to moan.To feel how warm,wet and tight her welcoming cunt was for him every time.Made by the gods for him.

The open balcony remained a distant detail,the world restricted to that fierce union of their bodies,a bubble of heat,blood and pleasure.Just like when they got married and unite House Targaryen and House Tully.

«You’re there already,baby?»he was out of breath as he felt her clench around him again.

All she did was nod and the hand he was pressing on abdomen dropped lower.One,two,three circles and the pleasure poured into her,dense and glowing like lava, poured out from that point deep that he kept hitting with his thrusts.

Above her Aegon looked at her with fascination and desire.The torso raised to admire her body contracting in irregular spasms,his head tilted to grasp fragments of her face.

«You are...so beautiful...Y/n.»he moaned.

Y/n hoisted herself on her elbows,bent her arm to reach his head,and kissed him as if he was the most precious thing in her life,because he was.He really was the love of her life.

Aegon moaned in the kiss,feeling Y/n last contractions taking him to the limit with her«You want it inside?»he asked her urgently.

«Yes.»she pleaded again.

Her approval,in a seductive tone and oblique smile,was the last straw.He poured into her,moaning and growling on her shoulder,until his muscles gave way.

They lay facing each other on the sticky floor, their limbs suffering and heated by the effort. Only when they both stopped having a shortness of breath,Aegon pulled her close to him to let her lay her head on his chest.

«We are going to have another baby.»Y/n suddenly murmured,placing a hand on her stomach.

Aegon didn't seem upset by the information.He remained silent looking at her,as if at the moment there was nothing else in the room that deserved more attention than her.And Y/n lived on moments like these,the exclusivity of his gaze on her,his needy touch on her skin, shared kisses,his worries.

«I pray for a girl.»he said then«Baeron and Rhaego are going to drive me insane.»he continued thinking about his sons and how much they were like him.

This time he wanted a baby girl that,even though she would probably look like him,taking in the Valyrian features,she would be just like her mother:sweet,gentle,a little playful.

«They just miss you.»she whispered,almost feeling guilty«Like I do.»she admitted with a sad tone.

Aegon held her closer,he felt ashamed for neglecting his wife and his own children.As soon as he become king he forgot that first he was a husband and a father.

«I’m sorry for interrupting your work-»she started to apologize.

«Don’t.»he stopped her immediately«I’m the one who’s sorry for not being around lately.»he said kissing her temple sweetly.

Y/n smiled warmly«How about we have dinner together tonight with the kids?»she asked hopefully.

He nodded,it felt like forever since he had last spent time with his little family all together«Sound perfect.»he kissed her on the lips one last time before closing his eyes and drifting to sleep.

[seresinhangmanjake]

Rather Be With You

Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Reader

Summary: Jake has been away for six months and he just hopes you waited for him.

Warnings: cursing. I think that's it.

Notes: this was inspired by an ask (💐) from a bit ago. Sorry it took so long. So much happened in the last week and a half, some good some bad, and it just got on top of me. Writing had to come second. I have probably written better in my life haha, but I tried.

Words: 1972

---

“You know he's only messing with you, right?”

He wasn’t sure how long he’d sat there, hunched forward with his elbows on his knees as he wrung his hands together. Surely it had been a while. For the entirety of the morning, perhaps? Rooster had made his teasing comments at seven a.m. sharp and they were due to dock at noon. Had it been that long? Or had he really managed to shove many hours worth of painful thoughts into just a few short minutes? Somehow, he figured, it was one or the other. No in-between.

When his eyes flicked up, Nat’s face seemed to hint at the former. 

It made sense, he supposed. Spending hours thinking about you wasn’t exactly uncommon. Usually, though, those thoughts were a bit nicer, with you naked and smiling, laughing, or whispering sweet words to him. He liked those better than the ones that had plagued him for…well, however long he’d been sitting there.

“He knows what he said isn’t true,” she continued. “He wouldn’t have had the balls to make jokes like that if he thought they would hold any weight. Trust me, no one particularly enjoys pissing you off.”

He wasn’t pissed off, though. He was devastated at the seeds of doubt planted in his head; at the pain and insecurity that came with the twisted knife to his gut. He hated the images forced into his mind at his friend’s words; the ones of you with other men; the ones that made it terribly clear how little you considered or missed him in his absence. 

“Jake, she waited for you. I know she did.”

“Yea? How?” he asked. 

Phoenix opened her mouth quickly, just as he would have had someone asked him a few hours ago if you loved him like he loved you—ready to confirm with a smile on his face. But if made to think of the answer for more than a half-second, without the hope and giddiness fueling his enthusiasm, he realized he couldn’t actually say for sure if you loved him, just as Nat now could not say with certainty that you had waited for him. 

Her mouth closed. 

"Exactly. You don't know," he said. "It’s not like I was smart enough to ask her to be my girlfriend before we left. She has no obligation to me, so why would she have bothered to wait six months to have me when she could have anyone?"

The brunette shook her head. “I don’t believe she's like that."

Leaning back against the bench and crossing his arms, Jake just barely held himself back from a scoff. "Like what, Nat? That wouldn't make her anything other than a woman who found someone new to sleep with after the guy she was sleeping with disappeared for half a year.”

“But you didn’t—”

“I know I didn't disappear. But I’ve been gone longer than we’d been together," he said, his voice drifting as he imagined what he hadn't stopped to consider before; a nightmare that, if proven true, would cleanly snap his heart in half. "Joke or not, Rooster could very well be right.”

—

"You're overthinking,” Penny’s voice snuck in from your left. 

She reached out to take the beer glass from your hand, polished almost too clean after the twenty minutes you spent absentmindedly running a rag over it. Your mind had been too occupied with troubled thoughts to notice your unceasing drag of the dishtowel around the cylindrical shape of the glass. 

It came free from your hand with ease, and as Penny placed it back on its shelf, you spewed, "What if he hooked up with someone? What if he decided six months was too long to wait for a woman that isn't his girlfriend?” You finally faced her just to find her rolling her eyes. “He likes sex, Penny. A lot. There are plenty of willing women and he's practically insatiable."

"When it comes to you, maybe."

The tenseness in your shoulders from well-formed stress was heavy with your exhale, forcing your shoulders to fall forward and your posture to take a hit. "Penny…" you groaned.

"I'm telling you, there's no way he messed around with anyone,” she swore, leaning back against the bar. "Besides, it's frowned upon to get involved with your coworkers."

"You think that's ever stopped Jake?"

She pursed her lips and tilted her head from side to side as she considered. "Ok, fair enough,” she agreed. “Once upon a time, that definitely wouldn't have stopped him. But after meeting you, he hasn't looked at another woman."

You couldn’t say that provided you with any relief. Jake had always presented as an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ type of man. He wasn’t a worrier. Once something exited his periphery, it promptly left his brain, discarded with all past challenges or predicaments. And wasn’t that what you were? An obstacle? He hadn’t asked you to be his girlfriend for a reason. Holding on to you for more than just the night didn’t necessarily make you more special than any of the other women. Perhaps it simply made you convenient.  

"You don’t know, Penny. You’re not with him 24/7."

Penny muttered something under her breath. Her fingers rose to rub at her temple and when they dropped back to her side, the stare she shot you was imbued with determination. "Look, my bar is where Seresin used to do his "best work," as he liked to say,” she said, and you made a face. "But the only work he's been putting in since he met you has involved getting you to like him and making you happy after you two started your little…thing." 

"You may not pay attention, but I do," she practically scolded. "Now, a month ago you were excited to meet him when he got back, and then you let your thoughts get away from you and it’s fucking everything up." 

To your own shame, you couldn't deny that. So you didn't bother, rather opting to nibble on your thumbnail.

"They'll be back soon, so are you coming with me or not?"

—

He didn’t know what he was doing, standing there with his bag over his shoulder. But he felt like a heavy weight, an anchor in a sea of levity. Looking around, the men and women he’d been packed in with for the last six months were thrilled, the room sprinkled with smiles and laughs of giddiness in anticipation of having their families in their arms again. 

He didn’t have that. 

He wanted to have it, but that was fully reliant on you. Your feelings. Your wants and desires. Your plan for your future. Jake could imagine a world where he had the strength to beg to be a part of your life—to plead as desperately as if fighting for enough air to fill his lungs—but reality made that entirely out of his will and control. So he didn't shove his way forward when they made it home. He couldn't bring himself to jump in front of the others who had people waiting for them upon their return. Instead, he let them file out, his team included, until he was one of the final few to step back on dry, solid land. 

As he walked by couple after couple, family after family, his already weak composure began to crumble at its edges. The people milling around him felt like a mocking montage of the life he didn’t have. Men and women kissing their partners or spouses, hugging their children with no intent of letting go, their tears coating the ground with joy. 

Jake's chest constricted. He needed to get himself on the other side of it, but weaving through the mass of bodies proved harder than he expected. 

His shoulders bumped into theirs, his chest skimming across backs and limbs when he turned to his side to sneak through narrow openings. Little kids ran into his legs like spinning tops on the loose from their wound-up energy finally releasing, though each one quickly recovered and returned to their parents, maintaining the same level of enthusiasm they had prior to smacking face-first into a muscled calf. 

With each unintentional nudge, he apologized, but no one so much as noticed, too engrossed in their relief at making it home unscathed or in seeing their loved ones still intact. Somewhere, his teammates were doing the same. They’d found their partners, and he thought he’d found his, but his overconfidence in your feelings kept him from ensuring you were actually together. And maybe it was too late. Maybe he would have no choice but to watch you move on from him.  

Finally breaking through the edge of the crowd, Jake took his first deep breath. He didn’t look back as he made his way to his truck. He didn’t turn when rushed footsteps grew closer until they sounded as if right on his tail. 

“Jake.”

He paused and sighed. He should’ve known he would imagine your voice. Six months without that lovely sound, his only chance at hearing it being within his dreams, took its toll. It haunted him like a ghost on that ship. Of course it wouldn’t cease just because he was home.

“I was calling you, but you didn’t hear me.” There was a soft chuckle, then, “Well, at least I hope you didn’t hear me.”

He spun on his heel and was greeted with your smile. It lacked its carefree nature, instead just barely failing to conceal a twinge of nerves, but beautiful nonetheless. He couldn’t help but smile back. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked, taking a few steps closer. 

“I came with Penny.” The roundness of your cheeks turned pink from your blush. You lightly shrugged. “I missed you.”

With those words, Jake knew Rooster was deserving of a swift smack upside the head, one he very well may deliver. You cared. You missed him, even. 

Fucking Rooster.

“Oh, I, um,” you continued, your eyes falling down to your hand. “I got you these. It feels silly now, but at the time I thought they would be nice, I guess.”

He followed your line of sight to the small bundle in your hand. Five long stems were tight in your grip, the bulbs on their ends made up of layers of silky red petals. 

"I was thinking," you swallowed hard and met his gaze, "I don't actually know if you like flowers. And if you do, I didn't know your favorite. I just picked mine." The sweet grin that returned to your face practically demanded he kiss you. Your lips, your cheeks, your forehead, your nose. All of you. Every little bit. 

And you weren't wrong. He hadn't had a favorite. 

He did now. 

Jake swallowed through the tightness in his throat, fighting back the stinging in the corners of his eyes. 

He didn't get gifts, and certainly not from the women he was with. But then again, with the exception of you, he hadn't chosen to be with a woman for more than a night or two in the last decade. 

"I like the yellow ones but they symbolize friendship and that wasn't really what I was going for, so I—"

"I love you.”

Your smile, your jaw, your hand, fell. "You…what?"

He let out a chuckle and reached for you. "Come here."

You didn't hesitate sliding your hand into his and he quickly pulled you to him, your chests hitting, lips meeting with an intensity that he hoped expressed even just a lick of how much he missed you. You draped your arms around his shoulders and the petals of the flowers tickled the nape of his neck. 

"Six months was too long," you whispered when you separated. 

He nudged his nose against yours. "Way too long."

---

tags: @wkndwlff @kmc1989 @sagittarius-flowerchild @dempy @oliviah-25 @rosiahills22 @xoxabs88xox @cinderellasmissingshoe @leila22rogers

[whimsiwitchy]

I hear the secrets that you keep (series) 

chapter seven: k.

Pedro Pascal x plus size F!reader 

series masterlist

series summary: 24 year old y/n is an insecure and struggling actress in Los Angeles until she finally books a leading role in a big Hollywood movie next to her leading male, Pedro Pascal. A spark of friendship flickers between the two and slowly begins to blossom into something more. As y/n is navigating a new found fame and a new found romance, she fears that a lie she has been sitting on might ruin everything.

Warnings: plus size afab reader, she/her pronouns, use of y/n, swearing, age gap (24/14 years), descriptions of the female body, use of the word fat, descriptions of a bigger body (stretch marks, cellulite, rolls, etc.), descriptions of nudity, sexual themes. 

Please let me know if I missed anything! Warnings may change as the story progresses. 

chapter summary: conversations and intimacy training. 

authors note: Y’all this took me way longer to write than expected. I had something else planned for this chapter but it ended up coming out like this. I really like the first half but I feel like it goes downhill towards the end. This idea is way more complicated to write for than I thought it would be lol. I still hope you enjoy!

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“It never made sense for you to love me.”- Twilight New Moon

Love wasn’t what Pedro and you had- you understood that- but the consistent pain in your chest was telling you otherwise. In your short lifetime, you had never felt such strong emotions towards someone like you have towards Pedro, it was easy with him. He was so respectful and sweet- his charisma and it was all beginning to piss you off. Why couldn’t he just let you do your job and leave you alone? You were grateful for the friendship he had initiated because it meant your on set experience would be easier, but now that everything has gotten out of hand, you honestly wish the line between professional and personal was never crossed.

It's been a short 24 hours since your conversation with Pedro and after your intense two hour cry sesh the night prior, you felt numb. Not numb in a painful way but numb in a sense that you'd accepted what had happened and were trying your best to move forward in a reasonable manner. When you woke up this morning, you spent 20 minutes sitting on your toilet holding two icy spoons to your puffy eyes trying to reduce the swelling as much as you could, trying to hide any evidence of the pain that sat deep in your chest. It didn’t help. 

Keeping yourself busy seemed like the only way to keep your mind occupied on anything other than Pedro. At first, you found it best to read over your upcoming scenes but after about 30 minutes, your head was hurting. Your mind wandered back into the forbidden territory, flashes of Pedro’s award winning smile appeared every time you would read over one of his lines. Seeing his face in your head reminded you of the hurt in his voice and the look of disappointment he had given you. Everything you did brought your thoughts right back to him. You closed your script abruptly and picked up a book instead. You’d been rereading the Twilight series and were currently nearing the end of New Moon. You hoped that Pedro and yourself would have a similar ending, that you two would be brought back together and realize that you needed each other, that you couldn’t live without each other. It was dramatic and cliche but you didn’t care. All of your common sense left your body when it came to him. Thinking wasn’t something you needed to do with him, you just had to feel. You finished a single chapter before shutting the book and giving into the inevitable thoughts that clouded your mind. 

Letting out a sigh, you let your mind begin the analyzing it had been begging to do. The next time you would see Pedro would be in two days. The two of you have intimacy training early that morning and you'd film those scenes later in the afternoon. Having fake sex in front of a room of people isn’t exactly ideal for the first time you’d be seeing him again. Maybe you should reach out to him beforehand, talk things over, but you being the one to reach out first wasn’t something you wanted to do. It didn’t seem like the right thing to do. You had absolutely no clue as to how Pedro was feeling right now. He said he wasn’t mad but the tone of his voice and his body language said otherwise. You didn’t want to upset him more by bothering him before he even had time to process everything. He was at the forefront of your mind and you were praying that he wasn’t as hurt as you were. You couldn’t imagine that he was. 

It never made sense, the connection, the spark, the comfort. It was all too confusing and quick. But you let it happen without much thought and looking back, you wish you hadn't been so stupid. It has never bugged you so much, losing someone, no one ever mattered enough. All Pedro had to do was actually be nice to you and you were a puddle at his feet. It was a little pathetic- but he said he liked you too, so maybe it wasn’t that pathetic. 

─ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ─── ♡ ─── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ─

The next two days passed by way too fast, leaving you in the studio parking lot trying to find the will to leave your car. Your body was filled with anxiety from the thought of seeing Pedro- and from being late. You waited until the very last moment to get out of your car, being late this one time was something you were willing to do to avoid any early interactions with him. With slow strides, you made your way towards the studio doors, to the reception desk, and to the room where intimacy training would take place. 

When you entered the room, Pedro was already there surrounded by a few other people. His eyes quickly met yours before he looked away just as fast. 

“Sorry I'm late…traffic.” You muttered out before sitting in an empty chair across the room, praying that no one saw that you actually pulled into the parking lot 30 minutes prior, sitting in your car staring down at the steering wheel for longer than you'd care to admit. 

As soon as you sat down, a woman immediately grabbed the attention of the room. She introduced herself as Elise, a trained intimacy coordinator. She briefly went over how the training would go, letting us know that we would go through some safety procedures before starting. Elise spoke for about 40 minutes on how important it is to feel comfortable with your co-star and the proper way to go about doing these types of scenes without incident. As she introduced the other crew members in the room, you stole a glance at Pedro. It’s as if he could feel your eyes on him, because he turned around, once again his eyes leaving yours just as quick as they met them. 

“Okay, so before we get started, I'm going to have the two of you do a check-in. Let each other know what you’re feeling and if there's any boundaries that need to be set.” She takes a seat and is talking to one of the other people in the room. Pedro doesn’t move, so you take that as a sign to walk over to him. You were hoping he’d at least be mature enough to work with you without dragging anything personal into it. 

“Good morning.” You took a moment to look at him. He was wearing a pair of charcoal gray cotton shorts with a random graphic tee. You thought he looked divine, drool worthy even.

“Morning.” He still doesn’t look at you. 

You take initiative to start the check-in, letting him know where you’re at today and that you’re ready to go, no boundaries. When he responds, his voice is very mundane and his eyes continue to avoid you. You awkwardly let out a brief ‘cool’ to acknowledge that you had heard  what he had said. There was a silence between you two, leaving the only noise coming from the light conversation from the group of crew members across the room. 

“So, are you guys ready to get started?” Elise asked with excitement in her voice. She was way too cheery for the uncomfortable mood that lingered in the air. However, you decided to match her energy as best as you could to make the day easier on yourself. 

“Of course!” You let out accompanied by a smile that didn’t quite match your tone of voice. 

Everyone in the room was then instructed to make their way to the set. You walked closer to the group of crew members, while Pedro walked slower leaving a good six feet between you guys. The set wasn’t anything too crazy. Just a cliche 70s themed bedroom, filled with orange, red, and brown. A king size bed sat in the middle of one of the makeshift walls with two night stands on either side. There was a funky pattern that lined the walls and a shag rug on the floor that matched. Everyone took a seat at some chairs that sat behind a white taped line that ran across the floor behind a bunch of expensive looking equipment, leaving Elise, Pedro, and yourself standing. 

“Okay, so we’re going to start by giving you a quick rundown of what you’ll be learning today.” She’s opening a binder that she had been holding and starts to spew the details of the scene. 

“So this scene follows Daniel admitting to Janet that he has feelings for her ,this is going to be a very passionate and steamy shot.” She turns towards the set and instructs the two of you to do the same. 

“To start, you’ll both bust through the door into the room. Daniel will be leading the makeout session, slowly pushing Janet towards the bed, but stopping right at the red tape that’s on the floor.” She’s pointing across the room with her pen as she speaks and looks back every few words to make sure Pedro and yourself are listening. 

“Once you’re there, you’ll have a moment to show the love between the characters. At this mark, you’ll both be removing some clothing and Daniel will push Janet onto the bed to crawl above her, leading into sex. Any questions?” She turns to look at the both of you. Pedro shakes his head and you follow. 

“Cool. Okay we’re going to run through it, stopping a few times along the way to choreograph each touch between the characters.” 

This whole process was so fucking awkward. You were trying your best to be professional, but nothing was ever professional when it came to Pedro. Every time the intimacy coach placed his hand on you or vice versa, you felt your body tingle. It had only been a few days but you had already forgotten how good it felt to feel Pedro’s skin on your fingertips. He still hadn’t looked at you, avoiding your eyes when you had to be face to face. 

“For the push, it doesn’t need to be a harsh push. We want it to be more of a sexy playful push rather than a dominant one.” She's speaking directly to Pedro but turns to you right after. 

“When you fall, try to land with your arms propping you up on the bed. Your forearms should be touching the bed, like this. If it’s uncomfortable at all, we can change it up.” She falls back onto the bed to show you her vision. You give her a thumbs up and stand at the red mark on the floor. 

“When you’re on the bed and he starts to climb over you, you’re going to crawl backwards, using your arms as leverage. Let’s have you guys try that out real quick.” Elise steps off of the set and stands past the cameras where the other crew have been sitting. 

She yells a quick ‘action’ and Pedro is pushing you onto the bed. When you land onto the bed, you look up at his face to see that he’s already looking at you with an intense stare. He starts to lean onto the bed to crawl over you and you’re moving backwards as instructed. Once your head hits a pillow, Pedro is fully hovering over you. The two of you never break eye contact and you could feel your heart beating out of your chest, your breath wavering. You could feel the temperature of your body rising rapidly and a slight pulse hit your core. Having Pedro completely over your body like this was torture. His hands were on either side of your head and if you looked down towards his lower body, you could see the weight of his- 

“Perfect!” Elise lets out with an excited squeal, making you snap out of the trance you were under. 

─ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ─── ♡ ─── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ─

Elise had you guys run the full choreography three more times in full, minus the kissing and getting naked part. Once she and the other crew members were satisfied, everyone was sent on an hour and a half break before you all had to come back to actually film. You were feeling extremely hot and bothered. Pedro’s touch was intoxicating and the way he looked at you when he was on top of you made you feel feral. 

You desperately needed to talk to him. You scanned the room and saw him walking out of two large doors that led to the parking lot. Following him, your eyes sweep over the large parking lot as quickly as possible, hoping you’d be able to catch him before he was gone. 

“Pedro!” You called out the moment you found him. He was reaching for his car door but abruptly stopped when he heard his name. 

“Can we please talk? Just give me five minutes. Please.” You knew you were probably the last person he wanted to talk to, but you really needed to clear some of the tension between you two. 

“Okay.” He stands there for a minute before motioning for you to get into his car. When you sit down, you can feel all of the emotions from the last time you were in this seat still lingering in the air. 

“How are you?” You asked genuinely with a hint of awkwardness. 

“Fine.” He huffs out. 

“Pedro please don’t be like that.” You practically begged. You were hoping for a productive conversation but this wasn’t going to do any good if he wasn’t willing to actually talk to you. 

“Like what y/n?” He finally looks at you and he looks pissed. You let out a sigh. 

“Look…I know that you’re mad at me or whatever but I don’t know what else to do here P. I didn’t mean to lie to you and I told you the truth before anything furthered between us. If you can’t forgive me then at least be professional and work with me as a costar. Please?” Your voice began to waver but you held it together. You see his eyes soften slightly. 

“I told you I’m not mad at you.” His voice is soft. 

“Then what are you feeling? You’ve left me in the dark P. I’ve given you space and I understand if you want nothing to do with me, but can we at least talk this out? Let me know how you feel so I’m not jumping to conclusions in my own head?” The car goes quiet, no sound other than the light thumping coming from your nails tapping the center console. 

“You’re so young…” He practically whispers. “You have a whole life ahead of you, I'd only be holding you back baby.” 

Your heart flutters at the endearment. 

“And with how the world works, no one would approve of us. You can’t start out your career like that, having people judge you because of me. You deserve someone your age, someone you can have fun with.” 

“Were we not having fun before I told you my real age? How does that change anything?” You could feel the frustration rising in you. You absolutely hated when people tried to tell you what was right for you. Pedro just struck a nerve he didn’t even know you had. 

“Yea but it’s different-” You cut him off before he can finish. 

“How exactly is it different P…hm?” There's a slight hint of anger in your voice, the patience you once had completely dissolving. 

“You're just a kid.” 

If it were physically possible, you would have steam shooting out of your ears from how angry you are right now. Looking away, you take a deep breath and think over your thoughts before your mouth spews words you’ll later regret. 

“I understand that the age difference between us is way more than you bargained for but I’m not a kid. I am fully capable of making my own decisions and deciding what’s best for me and my career. I appreciate the concern but it’s not your place to think for me. If this whole thing is too much to handle then that’s fine. We can just be friends, or not even friends.. I don’t know P. I just can’t do whatever we’re doing now.” Your irritation falls off towards the end, feeling more hopeless than anything. 

“I don’t want to be your friend.” 

Ouch. 

You’re searching his eyes trying to find any hint that he’s being mean to make this ‘breakup’ easier and not just being mean because it’s the truth. 

“Okay…we can just be coworkers then.” You turn your head forward. All you can feel is the same pain that you had felt that night, but this time it felt final. There wasn’t more guessing Pedro’s feelings, no more maybes. This was it. 

“Y/n…I don’t think you understand.” His hand reaches out for yours but you're moving it away before he has the chance to grab it. 

“Then make me understand P… I’ve been trying to understand.” 

“I can’t be your friend because I won’t be able to be close to you without longing for you every second. It’s been so long since I felt what I feel with you and it’s been eating me alive, sweetheart. All I want to do is be near you, hold you, be with you, but fuck y/n, I shouldn’t want you the way I do. I can’t have you the way I want you.” His eyes were on yours the entire time, showing you the sincerity behind every word.

You don’t know if it’s his confession or the pent of horniness you'd been harboring for the past two hours that made you jump at him but before he, or even yourself really, had a chance to process what was happening, you were leaning across the center console, lips moving with his. All of the tension in your body melted away as Pedro softly grabbed your face with his hands. This kiss was soft and full of passion, like you were making up for lost time. It was nothing short of perfect. When you pull back, you’re smiling. When you open your eyes to see the look on Pedro’s face, your smile drops.

“Y/n we can't do this.” He says giving you a pitiful look and pain tucked behind his eyes.

“K.” 

You’re getting out of the car before he could protest, you needed to get away from him. Slamming the passenger door, maybe a little too hard, you’re practically stomping back to the studio. You decided to get your hair and makeup early to calm your brain down a little bit before you were surrounded by people again. God you were being so childish right now but why would he kiss you back if he still didn’t want you. 

─ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ─── ♡ ─── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ─

You were zoned out the entire time you were sitting in the dressing room getting dolled up for the cameras, only speaking when one of the stylists asked a question. Your brain was working overtime right now, trying to calm your emotions while also trying to focus on the scene you'd have to film in just a few minutes. 

Over the past hour, you’ve been trying to create some sort of plan to get Pedro to change his mind. You didn’t want to lose him, he was too good of a man to fumble, so you decided that you wouldn’t stop pursuing him until he told you to your face that he didn’t want you. What you were planning wasn’t ethical at all and broke all kinds of work relationship rules but your relationship with Pedro had already crossed that line the first day you had met. 

Walking over to the set, you could feel the nerves rising. You wanted to seduce Pedro as best as you could. He was obviously attracted to you and you were going to abuse that. You were hoping that him seeing your naked body for the first time would send him spirling, leaving him no other choice than to want you enough to take the chance and be with you. 

“Quiet on set! Can we get Daniel and Janet on set please? Thank you.” 

You step onto the small platform that separated the set floor from the studio floor and walk over to Elise. Pedro stands next to you, ignoring your presence once again. 

“Are you guys ready to run it?” Elise is asking with a big smile. You could see Pedro nod his head and you do the same. 

“Okay, just make sure you’re doing exactly what we rehearsed. If anything feels uncomfortable let us know and we’ll stop rolling and fix the issue. You guys got this!” Elise raises her hands to give you both a high five and she's walking to sit next to the director. 

“Places!” 

You're both walking over to the door that you'd be bursting through in a few moments. Pedro places his hands on you, preparing for them to yell “action”. You’re looking into his eyes, getting into character and he’s doing the same. 

“Ready baby?” You ask him with a smirk, wanting to fuck with his head as much as you could. His eyes go wide but before he can say anything the director's voice booms over the space. 

“Action!” 

He gives you a nod before diving down to kiss you. He's pushing you into the door that flings open as you walk backwards, lips still attached. When you reach the red mark on the floor, you pull apart from him. Looking into each other's eyes with the love and passion you so badly wanted from him outside of this scene. You’re reaching down to grab the hem of his shirt and lift it, just as rehearsed. He pulls the rest off by himself, leaving you to marvel at his chest for a moment before he’s reaching for your own shirt. You're looking at his eyes but he is trained down onto your cleavage, which is pushed up slightly by your bra. 

When he looks back at your face, you could feel your core pulse in excitement. He had this hungry look in his eyes and you were confident that it wasn’t because he was acting. You grab his face to pull him back into you, continuing to clash tongues and teeth. Pedro reaches behind you to grab your ass, pulling you closer to him in the process. You let out an involuntary whimper. He slides his hands up the sides of your body, trailing his hands to the clasp of your bra. He pulls back and pulls each strap down your arms, letting it fall onto the floor, leaving your chest exposed to him. 

“fuck ..” He lets out but it’s barely audible and it definitely wasn’t scripted. 

He’s pushing you back onto the bed and the two of you began the crawl that you had practiced many times before, never breaking eye contact. Once you were laying down, Pedro hoving over you once again, you started to feel exposed and slightly insecure. Before you can think further, Pedro is pulling down your pants, leaving you in nothing but the lacy black thong that had extra lining that matched your skin tone. He takes a moment removing his own pants, leaving him in a pair of tighty whities. Even with the protective sock he wore for actor protection, you could still see the outline of his dick. 

He crawls back over you, his eyes dark. You reach up to kiss him again and you begin the ‘grinding’ into him. All that was going through your head were the events of the night in your trailer. How he felt against you. Another weak moan slips past your lips and his hands are reaching down, removing the black thong and leaving the skin tone underwear that sat under it. 

This was feeling way too real and you were soaked. You knew that whoever was in charge of cleaning costumes would hate their life when your soaked underwear made their way to them. Your mind refocuses to see Pedro’s own underwear had been removed, leaving him in his own weird skin toned thing, sock thingy. He looks down, pretending to grab his dick and ‘enters’ it into you. You let out a breathy moan, not entirely fake as you imagine how it would really feel. Pedro lets out a grunt and starts to rock his hips forwards onto you. The pressure of his heavy cock was rubbing you a little too good. There definitely wasn’t enough protection between the two of you and if you hadn’t had such a strong attraction towards Pedro, you’d definitely feel uncomfortable right now. He’s kissing you again but all you can do is let out tiny breathy moans into his mouth, trying your best to focus on acting. He’s giving you a nod, signaling to start the big finish. You’re both letting out boasting moans, his head falling into your neck as your hands are clawing at his back. Both breathing heavily, he gives your neck a small kiss. 

You can’t help but let your mind freak out. That kiss wasn’t for the camera, it was out of view. That kiss was just for you. 

“Cut!” 

Pedro makes his way off of you, grabbing a robe that is being handed to him. You slowly got up, feeling dizzy and confused. You wrapped the robe that was offered to you and listened to whatever was being said by whoever was talking. You couldn’t focus even if you had tried. 

You sat in the corner as everyone watched the footage, making sure it was good before releasing the team. Once the director gave the thumbs up, you were rushing back to your dressing room to get undone. 

“You guys were amazing out there, the chemistry was insane. Everything looked so real! I guess that’s why you guys get paid the big bucks huh?” One of the girls in the room gushed about the performance. You simply let out a small thanks to show your appreciation. 

You wanted nothing more than to go home and wallow in self pity over a man that doesn’t want you. You still planned on not giving up but you really needed a breather and a break. 

╚══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╝

Thank you for reading <3

series tag list: @nuetralcolorsenthusiast, @kungfucapslock, @hansilandgretel, @ashleyfilm, @titabel, @fifitheragertot, @maryfanson, @ktluvsmen, @eldauvs, @dionneroyal49, @godlypresley, @bloody-bunni666, @beautiflybybri, @a-beautiful-but-sassy-world, @amo-nix

[lockes-woods]

That's on Period(t)

(1/2)

A/N:

Mihawk eases your period pain in a way only he knows how. This was supposed to be a short drabble pwp, but apparently, I can't write straight smut, I have to have a plot. No request; just the ramblings of a dysphoric enby.

Mihawk x reader (x Shanks in spirit)

Content warning; period sex, dysphoria, fingering, and P in V sex.

MDNI

This low-key ended up being 4715 words (longer than most of my chapters in my other fics). This one kinda got away from me, hopefully, it's coherent.

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

An unintentional groan escaped you as you shifted in your seat trying to find a comfortable position. Despite the fact that you had been camped out on your couch for the better part of the past ten hours nothing felt right. You felt powerless as another onslaught of cramps started in your lower abdomen. You whined as you hugged your heating pad as close as you possibly could to your lower stomach, praying to whoever was listening that it would stop. At this point, you wish you could cut yourself open and stuff it inside of you. Every sharp pain felt like your uterus was screaming to make its presence known. That paired with the breast tenderness that made it impossible to bind left you feeling like a dysphoric wreck.

It didn’t help that the last time you were out you kept getting misgendered by everyone you encountered from older women needing help reaching the top shelf in the grocery store to the pharmacy tech that helped you fill your birth control prescription. The latter also dead naming you because you haven’t been able to legally change your name yet. If you weren’t so desperate to make sure you could start up on your next pack as soon as possible you would have avoided that interaction altogether. Logically you knew they were just doing their job, but it was still a shitty situation to go through when you already felt awful. You were counting down the time in hours til you could start your next pack of birth control and put a stop to this mess.

You just had to wait til Sunday at seven in the morning when you took that along with your other morning medications. You immediately regretted glancing down at the time on your phone. The countdown you had going on informed you that you still had eighty-two and a half hours of your period left. You sighed to yourself; you still have over three days to go. You were just thankful that you had off from work today. You needed time alone after all the triggering encounters you had the day before. Most of them wouldn’t even have been a blip on your radar normally, but your hormone imbalances made each small inconvenience feel life-altering. That was the main reason you hated your period, while the dysphoria and physical pain sucked, it was most annoying not being able to regulate your emotions regularly. You still felt bad about snapping at your roommate before he left for his shift.

Shanks was always annoying and a bit of a brat but his comment about how cute you looked in your Christmas pajama pants and oversized t-shirt (that you had stolen from him) was the last straw. He was always playfully flirting with you. While you knew it meant nothing to him it pulled at your heart as a constant reminder you would never be anything more than friends. It wasn’t like you wanted him to break up with his boyfriend. It was quite the opposite you often wished the three of you could be something more but you knew that was a pipe dream. You still felt sensitive about your lingering crush on him and his boyfriend. Those feelings were only amplified by your hormone imbalance.

You had told him to fuck off and threw pillows at his head til he made his way out of the apartment. While this was far from the first time you had told him to fuck off it was the first time you said it in a genuine tone; instead of your normal playful way. You knew you would just need to buy him a beer the next time you went out to apologize, but it still made you cry in frustration as soon as you were alone in the apartment. Because of the nature of his job as a firefighter you hated leaving things on a bad note before his shifts. It was in a similar vein as the old saying that you should never go to sleep angry. Despite your exhaustion, you’d probably end up staying up until he got home at one in the morning out of guilt.

Speaking of Shanks, his boyfriend, and your defacto third roommate, should be home soon from his twelve-hour shift at the hospital. You had an anxious turn in your stomach at the thought of him. You hoped that he hadn’t told Mihawk about your altercation. It was already hard to get a read on him and you didn’t know if you could handle him being mad at you while your emotions were already a hot mess. You tried not to focus on it as you queued up another episode of your comfort show and snuggled deeper into your secondhand couch. You absent-mindedly snacked on the candy and chips you had strewn about the coffee table. Your eyes began to droop as you took in the familiar storyline you had seen countless times. You had just begun to phase out into sleep as you heard the familiar opening and firm shutting of the apartment door. A groan was pulled from your throat as you suddenly shot up into a sitting position causing a cramp to shoot through you. Blinking up with bleary eyes you took in Mihawk slipping out of his shoes and placing them on the rack next to the door.

“Hey, Angel did I wake you?” Mihawk asked, staring down at you with his honeysuckle eyes, as he slipped off and hung up his work bag.

“No?” You said, shifting in your seat for a more comfortable position. Your passing grimace as another round of cramps cut through you wasn’t lost on Mihawk.

“Are you feeling any better?” he asked, taking a seat on the armchair facing you.

“Not really,” you sighed, “I’ve been tethered to this heating pad all day and the Tylenol I took barely took the edge off of my cramps. I wish I wasn’t allergic to ibuprofen.” You groaned as the cramping continued.

“Have you tried any alternative methods to relieve the pain?” he asked.

“Like what?” you asked back, outside of drugs and heating pads you weren’t aware of any other methods to ease cramps.

“I’ve heard orgasms are a good method to combat menstrual cramps.” He answered casually. You immediately broke eye contact and began to play with the frayed edges of your well-loved heating pad. You could feel the heat rush to your face at his suggestion. While you weren’t a virgin, you were still kinda prudent when it came to things of a sexual nature. You were getting better at feeling less embarrassed about discussions involving sex, but it was times like these that you reverted back to your abstinence-only upbringing. It didn’t help that one of your closest friend’s very attractive boyfriend was the one prompting the conversation. You were so in your head that you didn’t hear Mihawk shift from the recliner to the cushion next to you on the couch until you felt the coldness of his hand tilting your chin upward to meet his gaze.

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable in any way, it was just a suggestion. You know we hate seeing you in pain.” He said.

“It-It’s okay, I just don’t know if the mess is worth it.” You said meeting his gaze. Your heart softened at the concerned look in his eyes. It almost made you want to cry.

“You could always do it in the shower?” he suggested.

“What about the no fucking in common areas rule?” you ask, the look Mihawk gave you was more than enough to confirm what you already suspected.

“You motherfuckers,” you started pulling out of his grasp and swinging a pillow at him full force, “You really broke the one rule I had before you moved in?!”

“To be fair we had already broken the rule before and I moved in,” Mihawk responded with a slight upturn of his lip, “I believe Shanks’ exact reasoning was that we were grandfather in.”

“You’re the only other people who live here! Who else would it be for?!” you responded raising your voice at the prospect of Shanks’ audacity. You were about to hit him with the pillow again, before dropping it once you realized what it could have come in contact with.

“Both of you are cleaning this apartment from top to bottom on your next day off,” you say glaring up at him.

“That feels more than fair,” Mihawk responded, a smirk still present on his face. You were about to lay into him more before another wave of cramps made its way through your lower abdomen.  

“Now are you going to shower?” Mihawk asked, promptingly.

“It wouldn’t work anyway,” you sigh turning your gaze back to the cloth covering your heating pad.

“How do you know before you’ve even tried it?” Mihawk asked.

“I i-it won’t-” you started, “I c-can’t” You tried again before giving up and attempting to make a hot exit back to your room. Mihawk locked his hand around your wrist in a firm, but gentle grip as your feet hit the ground. You could feel the heat of embarrassment spread from your face to your ears, back down to your chest.

“What can’t you do?” he asked calmly, keeping a steady grip on you.

“I-I, fuck,” you sighed, before reluctantly meeting his gaze, “I’venevermademyselfcum” You rush out attempting to get away, before Mihawk’s other hand grips onto your other wrist.

“Have you ever cum?” he asked, with no trace of judgment in his voice.

“I mean yeah, but only with certain partners. It’s not like I’m seeing anyone now, so it’s pointless to even attempt it.” You sigh, sliding back into your seat with a pout. Mihawk released his grip on your wrists once it became apparent that you were not going to try and run away again.

“Do you want help?” Mihawk asked. You almost laughed before meeting his gaze and realizing that his offer was completely genuine.

“But-Shanks,” was all you managed to get out before your brain stalled out. You were half a second from spirally before he gently cupped your face and pulled your attention back to him.

“Shanks will be fine with it, trust me,” Mihawk said as he gently ran his thumb against your cheek; gaze never leaving yours. “The only reason I can think of that would make him upset is the fact that I’d be with you first.”

“But-how?” you asked, still trying to absorb this new information.

“Shanks has been holding a torch for you for years,” Mihawk said, “He’s liked you from the moment you met.”

“Why’d he never make a move?” you asked after a moment.

“He did the night you met, but you just thought he was being friendly.” Mihawk explained, “He didn’t want to lose you, so he took on the role of a friend.”

“But we’ve been friends for over three years,” you responded, “He was the first friend I made in the city,”

“Trust me I know. I was jealous of you for the longest time, but after getting to know you I get why he didn’t want to lose you,” Mihawk confessed. He gave you a moment to process before continuing, “We’d love to be with you if you’d have us,”

“Wait-So is it an open relationship? Are you like polyamorous?” You ask trying to process all of what Mihawk had just told you, but your brain was too busy buffering.

“I believed it would be considered closed polyamory,” Mihawk said stroking your bottom lip with his thumb, “There would be three of us, and any of us can be together, but there would not be any additional people,” he explained, patiently. You nodded pensively, as you began to get what he was saying.

“Okay,” you reply after a minute.

“Okay? Like you’re in?” Mihawk asked to clarify.

“Yeah, I’m still not totally sure what the logistics would be, but I know I want you both.” You confessed looking up at him through your lashes. Mihawk didn’t waste a momentary second before pulling you in for a desperate kiss. You moaned as his tongue came into contact with yours for the first time, you let him lead the kiss. One of his hands remained cupping your face the other gripped your waist and pulled you into his lap. A gasp escaped you as you felt his hard-on press against your core. You let out a loud unobstructed moan as he pulled back from the kiss and began to nip down your neck, while shamelessly grinding up against you.

“Fuck, Mihawk” you whine, before his lips once again connected with yours. You instinctually wrapped your legs around his waist and looped your arms around his neck as he stood up from the couch and made his way to the bathroom. He delicately placed you on the bathroom counter, you whined at his loss as he pulled back and stripped off his top. You bit your lip to contain a groan as you took in his backside when he turned to turn on the shower. It wasn’t the first time you’d seen him shirtless, but it was the first time you felt okay checking him out. Steam began to envelop the bathroom as he stalked back towards you.

“Are you sure you’re okay going from kissing straight to period sex?” You asked looking up at him.

“Angel, I’m a surgical resident; little blood isn’t going to scare me off,” he said, with a small quirk on his lips, “Are you okay with going straight to sex?” he asked as he stroked the waistband of your pajama pants.

“Yes, Sir” you answered, a mischievous smile never leaving your lips as Mihawk gripped your chin and jerked your face upward in a firm grip.

“What did you just say Angel?” he asked with an unsettling air of calmness.

“Sir,” you responded smugly, doubling down, “That is what you like Shanks to call you right?” you asked, “Or is there someone else he’s calling out to when he cums?”

“Darling, I’d tread lightly if I were you; I’d hate to have to spend our first time together correcting your behavior.” He said, stroking your cheek.

“So, you don’t want me to call you Sir?” you asked, with an air of faux innocence. You bit your lip to contain your smile as you saw a phantom twitch in his right eye. You had only ever seen Shanks be able to warrant that reaction. You decided to reel in your teasing before you crossed to the point of no return.

“Angel, as long as you’re cumming on my cock you can call me whatever you’d like,” he whispered into your ear, nipping at it. The smirk returned to his face as an involuntary whine left your lips.

“Now, I’ll ask you again. Do you want this?” he asked pulling back to see your whole face.

“Yes,” you whined as a wave of cramps shot through you; reminding you of why you were here in the first place.

“And your safe word?” he asked.

“Peach,” you answered, “Yours?”

“Code,” he answered, “Do you have any hard stops?”

“Just please don’t touch my chest or refer to me in feminine terms.” You say trying your hardest to maintain eye contact while being vulnerable.

“Of course, darling,” he said pecking your forehead, “Is it okay if I take this off?” he asked tugging at your oversized top. You nod enthusiastically lifting your arms to help him. Once it’s off you tug off your pajama pants and period underwear leaving you bare. It takes everything in your power not to cover your chest as Mihawk takes you in; a soft look on his face.

“What?” you ask after a moment.

“I always knew you were a beauty, but I never expected you to be this lovely,” he answered earnestly stroking up and down your sides. You could feel the heat return to your face at his genuine response.

“Can we get in the shower now? I don’t want to bleed on the counter” you ask looking up at him. He nodded; your comment seemed to snap him out of his daze. He once again had you wrapped your legs around his waist as he picked you up and walked over to the shower. He shed his pants and underwear before stepping in. A pleasant sigh escaped you as the hot water graced your skin. Thankfully you and Mihawk both preferred showers that were just below scalding. He placed you down and turned you so that his front was to your back. The shower head spray was adjusted to hit your lower stomach and core. An involuntary whine escaped you as you felt his hard-on pressed against your back. You were about to start grinding back against it before Mihawk placed a firm hand on your hip to keep you in place.

“Patience, love,” he said, reaching down to rest his other hand above your mound, “I have to prep you first; is this okay,” he asked reaching between your legs. You nodded, spreading your legs to give him better access.

“Words,” he said, hovering right above where you wanted him.

“Please, Sir,” you whine, unable to grind up to meet him because of his other hand holding you stationary. He hummed in approval finally stroking over your slit. He made a few agonizingly slow passes before finally breaching your slit. He again traced your entrance twice before inserting a single finger.

“Please, Sir more,” you whined, “I can take it-” You started before a moan cut through you as he ground his palm against your clit. He looped his arm around your waist pulling you back so that you could rest your body weight against him giving him better access to your core.

“Shh, it’s okay, just let Sir take care of you,” he responded, placing a kiss behind your right ear, before kissing and sucking his way down to your shoulder. You fell lax against his sturdy frame as he slipped another finger into your core, he pulled another whine from you as his fingers thrusted and curled around your front wall. He easily hit spots you could only dream of reaching on your own. A cry erupted from you as he suddenly increased his pace and depth of his fingers. Now every thrust had his palm smacking down on your clit. His own urges reared its head as he began to shamelessly grind against your back. You moan in response as your own resolve fades quickly as the coil inside you winds tighter and tighter.

“It’s okay Angel, you can let you. Just give me one and I’ll let you cum on my cock as many times as you like,” he said encouragingly, before pulling you in for a desperate kiss. You put up more resistance than you did in your initial kiss causing him to nip at your bottom lip. Simultaneously his arm wrapped around your waist loosened and joined his other hand at your core. You moan into the kiss as he began to rub your clit in succession with his thrust. Your climax began to build as you both found a rhythm. You had just gotten used to the rhythm when he suddenly pinched your clit. Your climax snapped through you at the sudden change in stimulation. Your pussy held his fingers in a vice grip as you rode out your high on his hand.

You fell fully slack against him as you came down from your high.

“Fuck so good Angel,” he praised slowly easing his fingers out of your core, “Knew you’d be perfect.”

“Sir, please,” you whined grinding back against him.

“Love,” he said in a warning tone hand back at its station on your hip.

“I want you, please Sir, I wanna be full again,” you moan as the momentary relief from cramps lapsed and the pain in your core returned. You stretched your head over your shoulder, pulling him in for another kiss. You were so focused on his mouth you didn’t realize he had switched positions until the coldness of the tiled wall met your back. You pulled back in a daze now front to front. You were snapped back to reality when you pulled back and felt the twitch of his cock against your stomach. Your eyes widened as you took in his size. You now understood why Shanks was so loud during sex, if you were being fucked by that on the reg you’d be screaming too.

“Sir,” you say hesitantly breaking eye contact with his cock and looking up at him.

“It’ll fit,” he said, seemingly reading your mind. He rubbed reassuring circles into your hips with his thumbs, “We’ll go slow. I’ll make it worth your while if you can be patient for just a little bit longer.”

“Unless you want to stop now, I won’t be mad if it’s too much for you right now,” he said offering you an out.

“No-” You answered quickly, “I mean, I’m comfortable continuing,” You corrected yourself, trying to play off how desperate you were for his cock. Despite your efforts, a knowing smirk still pulled across Mihawk’s face.

“Are you sure?” he asked teasingly,

“Yes,” you replied much calmer than your last response. He nodded hiking your right leg over his hip for better access.

“Are you ready?” he confirmed one more time. He began to tease his tip between your folds as you said yes one last time. His cock was soon lubed up with your blood and slick as he gently pushed the head of his dick into your entrance. He rocked back and forth slowly allowing you time to adjust to his jarring size.

“Fuck,” you moaned as he bottomed out. You found it almost impossible to focus on anything other than the pulses of his member deep inside of you.

“Shh, relax darling; I got you,” he said, pressing you firmer into the wall as he once again scooped you up into his arms. Both of your legs were wrapped around his middle as he leaned into you to keep you from sliding down the wall. You were effectively sandwiched between him and the wall. You held onto him for dear life as he suddenly began to thrust into you at a slow pace.

“More, please” you whined desperately. You were so full of him that his tip just kissed your cervix without pressing into it uncomfortably. While the slow pace was nice at first as you adjusted it began to drive you mad as you wished more than anything that he would start to fuck you like he means it.

“Patients,” he cooed down at you with a self-satisfied look, “I don’t want you to accidentally hurt yourself.”

“Fuck,” you groaned, tears beginning to kiss at the corners of your eyes. You wanted, no need to cum. The languid pace he had set was driving you mad.

“Sir, please,” you whined desperately.

“Please, what Angel?” he asked, the stupid smirk still plastered on his face.

“Fast,” you panted.

“You want me to go faster?” he asked, with fake ignorance.

“Fuck, please!” you border-lined shouted, “I’ll do whatever you want, please fuck me” you cried as tears began to fall down your face in two lines, one below each eye.

“Anything?” He asked bemused with a smirk, speeding up slightly, but not enough to make cum any faster than before.

“Yes,” you cried. He hummed in fake contemplation before responding.

“Okay, but you owe me one,” he answered coyly before he slowly pulled out and slammed back into you full force. A sigh of relief leaves you before he leans down. It felt like the wind was knocked out of you at the new angle. He quickened his pace, stroking longer and deeper inside you at every thrust. Your nails dug into the pristine white plane of his back leaving scratched down the stretch of his upper back as you tried to hold on the best you could. All you could do was helplessly moan as Mihawk used you as he pleased.

“Fuck,” he moaned, followed by a deep groan of your name. You could feel the pleasure building up in your core as you quickly approached your end.

“Fuck, please Sir can I cum? I’m so clos-” you started before you were cut off by your own moan. Tears began to prick at your eyes again, not out of frustration like earlier, but at the pure feeling of overstimulation you were now experiencing. “I’m sooo close please Sir” you whined.

“Go ahead Angel,” he said before pulling you in for a desperate kiss that he dominated. That was all the permission you needed; your body seized up like you were possessed as your orgasm ripped through you. Your pussy milking Mihawk’s cock for all it was worth.

“Fuck,” he groaned as he pulled out seconds before his own orgasm. He painted your stomach with his release, as your empty cunt clenched around nothing. He carefully lowered you back to the floor as you both tried to get your heart rates down to normal levels. He made quick work of cleaning your body as he raced against the now lukewarm water falling against your body. He had just managed to finish cleaning both of you seconds before the water went cold. He took his time drying your body, before bundling you up in one of his towels and placing you on the ledge of the tub.

A shiver ripped through your spent form as the cold air of your air-conditioned apartment invaded the space when he opened the door. A yawn escaped you as you patiently waited for him to come back. Your eyes had just begun to droop when he came back clad only in a pair of boxer briefs. He helped you into a pair of your period underwear and an oversized shirt. You bit your lip to contain your smile as you took in the logo of his medical school across the chest of the t-shirt. He had specifically gotten a shirt from his room instead of one of the ones you had stolen from Shanks over the years. You sleepily followed him through the living room and down the hall to the doors of your bedrooms.

On autopilot, you turned left to go to your room before a gentle tug on your wrist stopped your movement. You sleepily glance up at Mihawk and tilted your head in lieu of talking.

“You can stay in our room if you want,” he offered avoiding eye contact as a blush bloomed on his cheeks.

“Oh, okay,” you say as the proposition snaps you out of your daze. You followed Mihawk in and crawled into the bed.

“Wait, what about Shanks?” you asked.

“What about him?” Mihawk asked back.

“Would it make him feel weird to share a bed with me without a heads up?” you asked, tilting your head at him.

“No,” Mihawk said, the ghost of a smile forming on his lips, “I think it’d be a nice surprise; especially after a long shift.”

“Oh, okay,” you reply as fatigue begins to overtake your body.

“Do you need anything else before we go to sleep?” Mihawk asked, leaning against the door frame.

“Um, maybe my heating pad and some water,” you answer.

“Okay,” he nodded, taking off back to the living room and kitchen. You couldn’t help but smile as you lay enveloped in their scents. You managed to stay awake just long enough to take a few swigs of water and position yourself on your side with the heating pad flush against your lower abdomen. Mihawk curled up behind you, your fingers interlaced over your heating pad. You slept better than you had in a long time, especially for being on your period. You couldn’t tell if you had dreamt it or not, but you could have sworn someone had pecked your forehead and cocooned you between their chest and Mihawk’s. The faint smell of sandalwood was the last sensation your body recognized before drifting off to the next dream.

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

PART 2

A/N:

Hope you enjoyed this one shot! Hopefully, this can find some other baddies suffering through their period. As always thanks for taking the time to read.

-Locke

[melissatalks]

Been thinking bout you

Request: "A story where it’s a person with adhd at a Renee concert, and she sees them stimming or smth and they have a talk and exchange numbers, ect ect. Go crazy with it !!"

A/N: I was soooo excited to write this one!! Also I didn't know if you wanted gender neutral but I only write gxg. It's not my best tho.

Y/n pov:

It's a Saturday morning, my friend had gotten me Snow Hard Feelings tour tickets as an early birthday gift since the show happened six days before my birthday. I grew up being a huge Broadway nerd so when I had the opportunity to go to New York to go see Mean Girls I made sure to have the best tickets and have a chance to meet some of the actors at the end of the show. Luckily, I met Reneé and I have been following her work ever since.

It was 7 AM and I was now getting ready to go line up to have a chance to get barricade. Léa said that she would pick me up by seven thirty so I had to hurry. I put on a long white skirt with my snow angel crop top. I put my hair up in a half up half down adding a little blue heart shaped hair clip. As I finished my look, I heard the buzz of my apartment ring. Grabbing my coat, I got downstairs then took the bus with Léa down to MTELUS.

After queuing for a few hours, we got to the barricade right in front of where my long time celebrity crush will be standing in a few minutes. I had forgotten to take my pill this morning so my energy was taking over. In such a crowded place it was hard to move which meant that I couldn't let any of it out and it resulted in me playing with my rings, picking my skin or even hitting myself. As the concert finished, my once long nails were short, the buts on my fingers were bleeding and my arms had a few bruises on them. I felt incredibly guilty knowing that it was all my fault but it is what it is. Léa and I were crying in each other's arms before walking to the meet and greet line even though I have met her before, I'm still so nervous.

Léa was filming as I walked up to Reneé. She immediately pulled my into a hug while I sobbed in her shoulder. When I calmed down Reneé asked me if I wanted her to pull away and I shook my head slowly.

"I do gave limited time baby but let me tell you, I've been thinking about you a lot recently and when I saw you in the crowd I was like genuinely so happy." She said in a low tone all while continuing to smile. She has such a warm and welcoming smile.

"Also I dont wanna be indescrete but I saw your hands are you okay?" Reneé continued this time looking right into my eyes.

"Uh yeah...I needed to get energy out and so I stimmed...you know how it is." I answered feeling honestly embarrassed even if I know I shouldn't be.

"I do, do not worry. Alright well I have to go but check your pockets." She whispered in my ear, tapping the left pocket of my coat discreetly.

When I got home, I remembered what Reneé had said and found a note that was scribbled "You're cute and funny, you also seem really fun to hang out with. Here's my number." I feel like if I'm in a fanfiction. Let's just say I went to sleep feeling pretty good that night.

A/N: short oneee made that while rewatching spirited away 🫶🏻

[formulaforza]

miss americana & the heartbreak prince

—05. Monte Carlo Ave. —word count: 9.3k —warnings: obvious implications of sex, no smut. club activities, so much fluff you'd wish you were dead. angst in the middle. love, mackie... so, just like chapter 4, there is a nsfw cut of this chapter whose link is embedded in the post. all nsfw warnings will be on that post. thank you for bearing with me while I took my sweet ass time writing this next part--there is no exaggerating how busy my life has become in the past couple months.

He wakes up at five-thirty-seven in the morning, exactly twenty-three minutes before his alarm is set to go off. Charles can’t remember the last time he was awake before his alarm, or the last time his alarm at home was set to go off before the sun rose. 

It was fear that woke him up—fear of waking her up. 

Her. Chris. His girlfriend, who is sound asleep next to him, in his bed, in his apartment, in his city. 

She’s a cute sleeper, he knew—he knew, because she’d fallen asleep on FaceTime calls half a dozen times, because he’d watched her for a nearly creepily amount of time in Abu Dhabi, when he couldn’t believe she was actually there. She’s a cute sleeper, and yet, the shine hasn’t worn off yet, because he still watches. 

She’d gone to bed in a hoodie from work and no pants, because, of course she had. Of course she had. She’s got one hand awkwardly craned under her pillow and another wrapped up in the comforter like it’s a finger trap, and her hair is messy, so messy and half-stuck to her cheek. It’s fucking adorable, and he feels so lucky. 

He gets nervous then, nervous that she’s going to wake up and he’s going to be staring and it’s going to be weird, so. Instead of continuing to ogle, he reaches for his phone from the nightstand, turns the volume all the way down and scrolls through social media pretending not to steal a glance every time she takes a deep breath or moves a muscle. 

It’s half an hour before she yawns awake, and he’s relieved that he doesn’t have to wake her up, after all. 

“Morning,” he says, clicks the power button on his phone and lets it fall face down on his chest. 

Chris smiles. “Morning,” she breathes, and leans over to kiss him. 

“Mmm,” he hums, pushes his index finger against her lips. “What happened to morning breath?” He asks. 

“Nope,” she speaks against his finger, threatens to bite it. He knows he wouldn’t stop her, but moves his finger anyway to kiss her properly, to let her smile out of it. “You’re stuck with me now, boyfriend and all that.”

“Gross,” he smiles. “I love it.”

She flops back against the mattress with a laugh, “What time is it?” she asks, leaning over to reach for her own phone. 

“Six,” he hums. She scowls at her lock screen. “We have plans at seven.”

“Oh?” She peruses, sits up to stretch properly, to yawn again and ruffle her hair and God, she is so beautiful. He might never get over it. 

“Padel…” he smiles, wonders if he’s about to get in trouble, to start their first fight as a couple at six in the morning on a Tuesday. He probably should have run this past her, he thinks, run all of it past her. He’d just gotten so caught up in the planning of it all. “...with my brothers.”

Her hands flop from her hair onto the comforter, landing with a soft thud on the padded fabric. When she looks at him, she’s still smiling, but her eyes are tired, confused. “Baby, what is padel?”

– – –

They cook breakfast together—well, Charles cooks breakfast. Chris spends the entire time leaning against the kitchen counter cradling her phone, watching a YouTube video on the basis of padel playing. Charles keeps leaning over her shoulder, plastic spatula in hand, and correcting the man in the video. That’s not what you do, he hums. They don’t know what they’re talking about. 

After the fifth comment in as many minutes, she turns to him with a chill-inducing glare. “I’m going to padel you upside the head,” she says, with a smile on her face—which only makes it that much more terrifying. He nods, steps back from her shoulder and returns to the crepes he’s butchering on the stovetop. 

– – –

“I have to know,” she asks, sat on the floor in the bedroom, in the limited space at the end of the bed, tying her shoes. “What was the plan if I didn’t pack workout clothes?”

“Eh,” he mutters, rifling through the hangers of sweatshirts hanging in his closet. “I would have put on you some of my clothes,” he continues, pulls his two best options down from the hangers and holds them up for her. One, a blue Ferrari crewneck. The other, gray, from his friend’s line. 

“You would have put me in your clothes,” she corrects his English, and if it was anyone else he’d find it insufferable. But he doesn’t, not with her, so he chuckles and his smile grows and he can feel his dimples. For the dramatics, though, he rolls his eyes. 

“Which one?” He asks, taking turns raising the two sweatshirts. 

“As tempting as the team kit is,” she laughs, and he tosses the gray one to her. He could have guessed the gray one, he thinks, but she’s surprised him more than once before. “Thank you,” she hums, pulling it over her head and carefully fixing the wisps of hair that fall from her ponytail when she does it. 

“Always,” he nods, holds a hand out to pull her to her feet.

– – –

Arthur and Lorenzo are already at the court when Chris and Charles arrive, attempting—and failing—to play a round of singles padel on the doubles court Charles had reserved for the morning.

Just as they approach, a shot ricochets off of Arthur’s racquet and flies past Lorenzo, colliding with the glass wall behind him with a thud. Lorenzo jogs after the ball, laughing, pointing at his brother in a sore act of celebration. 

Arthur is just as sore a loser. “Ah!” He calls out, gesturing with his own racquet to the tape that runs along the top of the net. “Filet!” Net!

Lorenzo blows air from his cheeks and scoffs, firmly bouncing the ball against the ground a few times before picking it up properly. “S'il te plaît!” Please!

“Mon pote, allez,” Mate, come on, Arthur groans. “Ça tremble encore!” It’s still shaking!

“Arthur, j'étais à trois mètres,” I was three meters away. 

Charles grins, pulls open the door to the court, holding it open for Chris to step in front of him. “Retiens ton feu,” hold your fire, he calls out to his brothers, “trouve ton anglais,” find your English.

Both boys' heads shoot over, scowls still apparent. “Do you see this? Do you see him run into this net?” Arthur shouts, still gesturing wildly with his racquet. 

“Do not let him convince you, you know what you saw,” Lorenzo interjects, carries on even though the game has been abandoned and they instead jog over to greet Chris and Charles. Lorenzo is first over, kissing either of Charles’ cheeks. “You saw this?” He asks, and Charles laughs, nods. 

“I did.”

“Bullshit,” he laughs, shoves Charles’ shoulder and turns to greet Chris. “You?”

Charles expects to find some apprehension on Chris’ face, something that shows she’s not sure of her place yet, but he doesn’t find any. Confidently, she speaks, “He’s crazy, you weren’t even close,” and then kisses each cheek. 

Lorenzo tosses his arm around Chris with a laugh. “Charles,” he speaks, points to her with the same hand that’s thrown over her shoulder. “My team.”

Charles chuckles. “I try not to make a habit of telling my girlfriend what to do.” Chris blushes at the very mention of it—girlfriend. If he knew it would be that easy to make her blush he would’ve asked weeks ago. He might’ve asked in Austin, if he’s being completely honest with himself. 

“Oh-ho?” Arthur’s already teasing, clapping his hands on Charles’ shoulders and laughing like a madman. “Girlfriend, huh?”

Neither of them—Chris or Charles, say anything. Between the flush of her cheeks and the depth of his dimples, they might as well have it spray painted on their foreheads. “Right,” Lorenzo offers, “well, Chris, as the only person around here with some sense, you’re on my team.”

“You can have her,” Charles teases, Lorenzo quirks a brow. “She has no idea how to play, but also she is a rule master.”

“Abandoning your own girlfriend,” Chris interjects, the same teasing tone laced in her voice. She pretends to shiver, grand and dramatic, even though it’s eighteen degrees and sunny and she’s got long pants and a sweatshirt—his sweatshirt on. “It’s cold, man.”

He rolls his eyes, sticks a racquet in her hand and moves to kiss her, which is more than close enough to Lorenzo for him to abandon his position next to Chris, retreating to the safety of the court, bouncing the padel ball as he walks. “Ready to take us?” Charles asks quietly, just to her. Arthur is somewhere in the space behind him gulping a water bottle in an almost comical manner. 

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she replies, half-chuckled, demeanor light and bouncy. There’s something about her that always seems full of energy, ready to take on whatever is put in front of her head-on.

“Don’t worry,” he practically whispers, winks and gives her shoulder a soft squeeze. “I’ll go easy on you.”

Chris clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth, feigns offense and scoffs loudly, bringing the head of the racquet up to the center of his chest, pushing him back a few steps. “Don’t you dare.”

He doesn’t know what’s gotten into him, offering—practically promising—to let someone else win. There’s still a basket somewhere in a storage closet full of broken video game controllers from his childhood. And once, for three entire weeks when they were six and nine, he and Arthur weren’t allowed at the dinner table together because they would race to finish their food and promptly get sick. Then again, it is Chris, all bouncy ponytail and quick wit in his home in his clothes, so. Maybe it isn’t as far-fetched as it seems. 

As expected, it becomes apparent quickly that Chris is a beginner at a game the boys have spent years playing. She misses shots and struggles to find her footing and the best positioning, but it doesn’t crush her mood, dampen her energy. Lorenzo—her teammate, takes on quite a coaching role, offers an equal amount of encouragement and advice. 

She’s a quick learner, though. Charles knew she would be. So, despite the sound loss she and Lorenzo take in the first game, she manages a decent amount of solid shots and a spattering of genuinely impressive ones. She’s quick, that’s her advantage. She might not know what to do when she gets to the ball, but she always gets there. And, when she scores her first point, actually jumps into the air when she gives Lorenzo a high-five, he can’t help but find himself soft, a smile tugging on his lips, holding back on the points that follow in hopes of seeing her goofy grin again. 

“You did quite well out there,” he tells her when they’re between games. Her eyes light up and she hums around a mouthful of water, hurries to swallow it before she laughs. 

“Really?” She coughs, clears her throat. “You think?”

He nods. “You’re quick,” he mutters before taking a drink of his own water. 

“I ran track in high school.” He quirks a brow, which makes her smile, which makes him choke on a laugh mid-swallow. You’d think neither of them had ever had a drink from a plastic water bottle before. 

“Really?” She nods, hums her response, toying with her ponytail. Her bangs are loose, untucked from her ears and her hair-tie, and he feels the overwhelming urge to brush it from her face. “Why did I not know this?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “Why didn’t you know that?”

“Google said nothing about this.”

“You Googled me?!” Briefly. Briefly, he had googled her at the very beginning of it all. Really, it was more Googling her family than it was her, they are the ones with all the information out there. He needed to make sure he wasn’t starting something with a raging white supremacist or a murderer. 

“You didn’t Google me?” She scratches the back of her head, not-so discreetly looks anywhere but her. “Yeah,” he laughs. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

With a playful eye roll, she promptly changes the subject: “you want to be on my team?”

“I…” he laughs, “...don’t know if we are there yet.”

“Oh,” She laughs, brows raised with a goofy smile and it’s official—her laugh is never going to not give him butterflies, never not going to be so much better in person. “The truth comes out.”

Chris is soundly defeated in three straight games, despite finding herself with a new teammate each round—first Lorenzo, then Arhur, and finally, after five minutes of her best puppy-dog eyes, the most competitive man alive ( her boyfriend) agreed to be her teammate. 

It’s hours later by the time they leave the country club—no, no, Charles said it was specifically a padel club. They part ways with his brothers and then they’re driving back through the winding streets to his apartment. She ogles, like she’s been doing since she got here, all the careful, intricate architecture and the perfectly manicured manner of the whole place. It’s like people don’t live here, like she’s in a made-up land. She latches onto every imperfection—a crack in the sidewalk, a shrub with a single projection, a half-ragged French flag on the stern of a super yacht. It makes it all feel human, lived in, like the place someone can grow up, the place he grew up. 

After two hurried showers and a change of clothes they set off for lunch at Charles’ self-proclaimed “favorite restaurant.” It’s a sushi place, which she finds interesting, because not once has she heard him talk about sushi when talking about his favorite foods. 

Charles parks in a garage that’s a fifteen minute walk from the restaurant because, as he puts it, she’s walking the streets with the nation’s best tour guide. He starts the tour with the middle three corners of the Grand Prix, in reverse order—the hairpin, mirabeau bas, and portier, and then they take the quarter-or-so mile walk to the first of many monuments that Chris wouldn’t even attempt to pronounce in her own head. It’s there, somewhere between the forced tourist photos he snaps of her at Le Pêcheur and the one at the Promenade Princesse Louise-Hyppolyte, the truth comes to light. 

“What do you mean you did not tell anyone you were here?!” He exclaims all dramatic-like, dropping the phone from in front of his face, abandoning the search for what he considers the perfect angle. “You left the country, Chris.” She shrugs, doesn’t really see the big deal in all of it. It’s not like she… no, it is like she purposely didn’t tell people. That’s exactly what it is, actually. 

“I thought we were keeping this on the down-low.”

“Not that low!” He scolds, but she can tell he wants to laugh. He should, she thinks. It’s funny. “What if you die?”

She rolls her eyes. “Are you planning on killing me?” He glares daggers, burns a you’re not funny look into her head. “Letting me be killed?” She’s sure it annoys him to no end, positive almost, but it’s not like she can go back in time and tell everyone, and even if she could, she’s not sure she would. She likes this being just theirs, at least for now, while they can still manage it. She likes not having to report back to her parents—to her dad, especially—about her hotshot, young punk racing driver of a boyfriend and the silver spoon he feeds her french delicacies with. 

He sighs, shoulders wildly heavy, and holds her phone back out to her. His eyes are soft, frustrated in a way she didn’t expect them to be. She really didn’t think it was that crazy of a decision. “You should have told someone,” he says, and she feels immensely guilty. 

“Hannah knows,” she blurts, an honest offer of anything she has to not get such a serious look from him. He’s not meant to be serious.

“Hannah knows?”

“She knows I went somewhere. I didn’t tell her where,” she says.  I didn’t tell her where because my brother and father don’t want me to date a race driver, she doesn’t say, because that would only make him more nervous. 

“You should have told someone you were here,” he says, drags out the vowel sounds and tosses an arm over her shoulder. He kisses her temple, pulls her into him and chuckles. Okay, okay. He’s not actually upset.

“Probably,” she nods, a smile pulling on the corners of her lips. “I can tell them when I get home, if you want. Start some drama over Thanksgiving dinner.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure making a good impression will not be hard after that.”

MayaBay, that’s the name of his favorite restaurant, Thai and Japanese and a sushi bar that Charles talks about for the entire walk there. Apparently securing a reservation at the restaurant was hard enough, but a seat at the coveted sushi bar was something else entirely, and, according to Charles, was his first failed call after Chris’ visit was planned. She tries to tell him that it doesn’t matter where in the restaurant they eat, but he’s insistent that he’s going to try again and again, and again every time she comes to visit until he can manage to get them in. 

Her cheeks flush red at the revelation and she continues to hold out hope he’s oblivious to the heat that radiates from her face every time he meets her with some sort of compliment or insistence of inclusion. She doesn’t even think he’s conscious of the latter, which makes it all that more special. He doesn’t have to take special care to include her in his life, he just does it—does it like he’s always been doing it, always been sharing these small parts of his life with her. 

Lunch is enough to leave her full for the entire day. Po Pia Kung and Ceviche and Roti and Nigiri—two plates, no wasabi, per Charles’s request—and she’s worried that she’ll be full before getting the chance to lay eyes on their entrees. 

“This place is so special,” she tells him from across the tiny table, around the too-big centerpiece. “Thank you.”

He hums around a mouthful of Roti, brings a napkin to his mouth when he swallows so he can start talking that little bit sooner. “For what?”

Chris shrugs. Thank you… for. For. For everything, she supposes. “For wanting me here.”

He smiles, dimples digging deep, cheeks turning a rosy shade of pink when he adjusts in his seat, leans forward enough that it’s just barely perceivable. “Thank you for wanting to be here,” and you blush right back. 

It’s got to be quite the sight for any onlookers, the two of them acting all middle-school. They aren’t aware enough of the other people in the restaurant for it to be of note, and even if they were, they wouldn’t care. 

It’s Pad Thai for the main course with a side of three bites of Charles’ Kadou Yang stolen in the midst of quiet conversation, and then, as if they haven’t shared everything else already, they split the restaurant’s signature, meant to share dessert. 

“So,” he hums, somewhere on the walk back to the car—or, to the surprise Charles refuses to reveal that’s on the way back to the car. He swings their interlocked hands between their body, drags the action out in the same way he does the vowel. “When do I get to come to Georgia?”

It takes her by surprise, puts a kiddish smile on her face. It should be obvious that he would want to come, because, well, it’s where she lives. But, every conversation has always been about her coming to him. And it makes sense to her, because he’s always moving and she’s always in the same place. It makes sense that he wouldn’t come to her, but now that she thinks about it, it makes more sense that he would. “You want to come to Georgia?”

“That,” he laughs, “that is a silly question. Of course I want to.”

“Well, I mean. You’re always welcome, but I don’t know what your schedule looks like.” She knows it’s a mess, undoubtedly, even if she’s never laid eyes on it. She can only imagine the amount of people wanting him in places year round, and having all of that squished into a couple month period of time? She wouldn’t be surprised if he spends more time traveling in the offseason than he does when he’s actually racing. 

“I don’t know what it looks like, either,” he takes out his phone and clicks through half a dozen apps with his free hand—the one not intertwined with hers. “Uh…,” he chuckles at the screen like even he can’t believe just how in demand he is. “Next month I’m in Italy for some days, then France for Christmas and London for New Year.” Chris leans over to look at his calendar. 

“What about there?” She asks,  pointing to the block of dates that are empty between his color-coded trips to Italy and France. “My brother’s wedding is that weekend,” she says, and then realizes how crazy the proposition sounds and instantly attempts to retract it, “but you probably don’t want to go to that.”

She’d love more than anything to have him at Chase and Hannah’s wedding, but she can understand why he would want to do anything else. It’s one thing to make him travel all that way, but then to make him travel all that way for a wedding, where he’ll have to meet the parents and the siblings and dog—that’s just a cruel thing to imply is expected of him. It’s certainly no way to keep him wanting to come back for another visit. 

He bumps his shoulder against hers. “I love weddings.”

“Yeah?” She bumps back, dumb little smile on her face. “When you don’t know anyone there and your girlfriend is in the bridal party?”

He nods. “Yes.”

Unconsciously, she puts distance between their arms, to keep from getting too hot or to keep them from tripping or maybe for no reason at all because she really doesn’t notice that she does it. “My whole family’ll be there,” she continues meekly, and their arms are almost taught. 

“Good,” Charles scoffs, and pulls her right back to his side, like even an arm’s length is too far.  “I can fix the first impression you’re going to break.”

Chris rolls her eyes, both at his words and his actions—painfully endeared by both.  “Why are you so convinced I’m going to have something bad to say about you?”

“I’m not worried really about what you say, but your father is not going to like me if you say to him, ‘this is my boyfriend who I saw in two different countries without telling to you.’”

“Yeah,” she nods, bites back a laugh against the skin on the inside of her cheek. It shouldn’t be as funny as it is to her; the state of her life. “Yeah, you definitely have a point there,” she cuts the vowel short, chokes on a laugh, sucks in her own lips in an attempt to keep them from spilling, the laugh escaping silently through her nose. He meets her with a matching—no, a somehow dramatized mirroring—of her expression that only makes it that much harder not to laugh. When she finally does break, there are practically tears in her eyes, and it was never even that funny. 

He smiles at her laugh, like always, and shakes his head. “I will have to come to this wedding to do damage control.” 

“Probably,” she nods, still laughing. It’s like it’s all just sunk in for her—the boyfriend. The long distance boyfriend, as in, long distance. Whatever everyone else considers long distance, times the distance of the Atlantic Ocean and the average net worth of his hometown. The fact that he was a stranger just a few months ago, and now she’s in her second foreign country in three days with him and it all feels so normal. The fact that she didn’t even want to go on that Hot Lap—hot laps, plural— or that she didn’t have any interest in going to the race. If she’d tried just a little bit harder to get out of it, or stayed in the beer tent for just ten minutes longer or, or, or. It’s not funny at all, and yet it’s hilarious. 

“You’re ridiculous, you know this?”

“I know this.” She sighs, deep and slow and grounding, one stray chuckle slipping through her lips before she can continue. “Don’t book any flights, then—Until I make sure it’s all good with Hannah.”

“Yes ma’am,” he says, salutes her with his phone still in his hand and everything.

“Okay, so,” Charles sighs, drops his head against the pillow with a soft plop. Lunch was hours ago, now, succeeded by a walk around the Japanese Gardens, a trip to the supermarket because his fridge is, as Chris so affectionately referred to it as—bachelor pad chic—and a personal tour around the Prince’s Car Collection where he got to show off his favorite memories. It’s after dinner, even. After half-stale pasta made by him and meal-saving chicken expertly prepared by her, after two episodes of a French reality show with English closed captioning, after a day he won’t soon forget. It’s then, in bed, while she reads the final pages of the book she’s been cutting away at for weeks now, that he tests his knowledge on the information he’s been quizzing her for afternoon. “Chandler is the oldest, and she’s dating Alexis.”

“Correct,” Chris says, turns the page on her book. 

“But the drama is that Alexis doesn’t like any of your family, so she and your sister moved away and don’t come to anything.” She hums her response this time, and he wonders if she’s even listening all that much or if he could get her to agree to anything right now. “And then Chase is in the middle, he’s marrying Hannah. But the drama is Hannah was—” before he can even get the next word out, she’s glancing over at him to interject. “Hannah is your best friend, and was before Chase dated her. And she has a little boy named Reid with a dickhead.”

“Yup.”

“And then you, my perfect little angel.”

She smiles at the pages of her book. He likes making her smile. “Don’t forget it.”

“Your parents are Bill and Cindy, short for… William and,” he pauses. She pauses. He has no idea what Cindy is short for. “Lucinda?” Chris blinks, hard, dog ears the corner of her page and shuts her book. If he didn’t already know it was a pretty shit guess, he sure knows it now. Sometimes a blink is worth a thousand and one words. 

“No,” she says, furrows her brows so subtly that it shouldn’t be recognizable, but it is. And then she blinks again. 

“I knew that,” he boasts, his best cocky tone and a matching smug expression on his face. “I was just testing you.”

She chuckles, leans to her right to set the book down on the bed-side table there. “On my own mother’s name?” She questions, tucking herself under the covers and scooching over, leaning against his chest comfortably. He would let her lie like this as long as she wanted. It’s so sweet to have her in his arms.

“Well, you call her ‘Mom,’” he explains, even down to the forced American accent when he says ‘Mom.’ “So maybe you did not know.”

“Cindy isn’t short for anything.”

“Like I said,” he twists her hair around his finger slowly, mindlessly, without any sort of purpose or intention. When she uses him like a pillow this way, he can always smell her shampoo. He’s been trying to place it for days now. Coconut, he knows—but there is something else there, too, something he can’t put his finger on.  “I know this.”

“Okay, continue then.”

“I will,” he says, lets the twirled hair fall from his finger and kisses her head with a smile on his face. “They have a dog called Beans that you call Beanie-Baby,” he pauses. “And the drama is, your parents do not like me.”

He can see the apples of her cheeks flare in his peripheral, a laugh stirring in her chest. “The drama is: there is no drama with them,” she says. “They’re all bark no bite.”

He adjusts underneath her, sighs all heavy and deflated because the thought of it—her family, her parents. It’s so fucking intimidating, it is. Because he knows how important they are to her, how highly she regards their opinion, even if she pretends that she doesn’t. He knows that it’s everything to her, and if he makes even a single mis-step he could ruin it all—their opinion, her opinion, all of it. And something in his gut, a pit in his stomach tells him that she’s already made a mis-step for him when she came over here without telling anyone she was coming. Why wouldn’t she tell anyone she was coming? “What do I even talk to them about?”

“I don’t know,” she says, adjusts to accommodate his adjustment, and eventually they’ll get properly comfortable. “Racing.”

“We race in different cars.”

“But it’s all cars.”

He opens his mouth to speak, pauses, clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth and then finally, “it’s different.”

“I think you’re overreacting a bit, here,” she says, and he rolls his eyes. He’s not overreacting, she’s underreacting. “I get along with your Mom and your brothers and I don't know what anyone is saying half of the time.” Okay, okay, maybe she has a point there. He did kind of throw her to the wolves this week—not that his family are wolves, just. Meeting the parents before the relationship is even a relationship is. It’s just messed up for him to do, and she’d handled it gracefully, perfectly and flawlessly charmed everyone. 

But then again. “Yeah, but you’re you.” Anyone would be charmed by her. She’s very charming. 

“And you’re you.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t understand.” She can’t possibly understand it because he doesn’t even properly understand it, the way he feels about her. The fear he feels about losing all the indecipherable feelings. It’s just good, everything about her, about being near her. It’s all so sweet and nice and good and he really, really doesn’t want to screw it up.

“You’ve already met my Dad,” she starts, clearly trying to calm him down, to ease his nerves. “My brother is just like him but more annoying,” she laughs, and even though he’s half deflated, her laugh still puts a weak smile on his face. “My sister probably won’t speak to you, and my Mom loves anyone that calls her ma’am and tells her she looks young. Just don’t talk about racing with her.”

“You just told me—”

“With the boys,” Chris clarifies.

“Your Mum doesn’t like Chase racing?”

“Does yours?” Good point. Is there a mother on the face of the planet, over all of history, that loved the idea of their kid racing other kids around high speed corners without any regard for their own lives?

“Then why did she let him?”

“I’m sure the same reason yours let you. Dad’s can be very convincing.”

His stomach drops. “Yeah. Yeah, they can be. My dad was.” His fingers trace mindless circles on the skin of her arm, soft and warm and clean. His eyes focus on the little red light on the bottom of his television, the one that’s only on when the TV is off. “He would spend so much time at the karting track with my brothers and I, you would not believe it. Sometimes my Mum would say that we lived there and should take blankets to sleep in the karts,” He says, and Chris laughs, makes him aware of his tracing fingers, but doesn’t stop them. “She would always say to us, ‘be careful, drive slow,’ and my Dad would always say ‘be careful, have fun.’ Now Mum will say to us just to be careful.”

“Did your Dad drop the ‘have fun,’ too?”

Red Light. Soft skin. He knew it was coming, it’s always coming, only a matter of time before he had to tell her. Honestly, he’s surprised it had gone this long, that she hadn’t asked about his father the moment she met the rest of the family and he was absent. He can’t stomach the look of pity she’ll give him. She can take it from everyone else, always had—but the image of that look on her face, the dead dad look. He never wants her to look at him like that. 

Red light. Stupid shapes. “No, uh,” he drags out his own words, putting off the inevitable by even a few more moments. “My father died when I was a teenager.” 

At least he knows her google search of him months earlier wasn’t too in-depth. “Oh my God, Charles,” She says, voice quiet and soft, like she thinks her words will break him. They won’t. He wishes she knew they won’t. 

“No,” he chuckles, kisses the top of her head. “No. Don’t look at me like that,”

“I’m not,” she protests, but he doesn’t have to look at her to confirm. Nobody is above the look of pity. 

“You are.”

“You’re not even looking at me,” she says, sits up off his chest. He keeps his eyes on the red light. “Look at me,” she insists, a soft hand on his jaw, pulling him back to her. 

He rolls his eyes before he looks, before there’s an eternity of silent eye contact because she doesn’t have the look on her face. Anyone can tell she feels bad, especially him, but it’s different. It’s different, and he doesn’t feel like some pathetic puppy in a cold corner. He doesn’t feel like a nineteen year old who’s world is in shambles. He just feels like him. Like it’s all okay. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t know,” she finally speaks, and he hears it now. She doesn’t think he’s going to break, that’s now why she’s meek. She feels guilty, guilty that she brought it up, that she didn’t know, that he thinks she would ever think he would break.

“How would you?”

Sincere in her apology, in her guilt, she doubles down. “I’m still sorry.”

Her eyes are filled with something pure, some innocent kind of affection and he feels awful that she feels awful. “I’m sorry for going on about him.”

“I’ll listen as long as you want to talk.”

He smiles, a genuine laugh falling from his lips. “I can talk forever.”

“Then,” she smiles, leans over to kiss him before getting comfortable again, snuggling into his chest like before. “Tell me all about him.”

They sleep late the next morning. Maybe they’re adjusting to the timezone—unlikely, especially in Chris’ case—or they were just up to late talking, but Chris is stretching against the sheets, against Charles, just after nine.

It’s no surprise that she wakes up tangled in a mess of limbs, not even something she minds. Even with her hand asleep and painfully tingley. She knows that she won’t get to wake up like this tomorrow morning, or the morning after, or every morning for at least a month, so. She doesn’t mind the heat and the sleeping limbs and the threat of a knot in her shoulder. 

She wiggles out from his grip without waking him, grabs her phone from the bedside table and checks the time. She scans the room, eyes floating over all of her things scattered about. She should start packing up, she thinks. Start packing and getting ready to leave. 

She tiptoes across the room, around the corner into the bathroom to start there, far away from his sleeping body. Quietly, carefully, she brushes her teeth, washes her face and tugs a brush through her hair, tying it back into a ponytail. Slowly, she gathers her stuff—makeup and hair tools and skincare—and packs it away carefully into her toiletries bag. 

When she comes back into the bedroom, still cringing with every creak of the floor under her feet, she finds Charles awake in bed, soft, sleepy smile when she turns the corner. “Come back to bed,” he’s pleading before she can even mutter a good morning. 

“I have to pack,” she argues half-heartedly, because she wants nothing more than to climb back into bed, and his voice is no help—all hoarse and raspy with sleep. 

“Why?” He asks, drags the letter sounds out into a yawn that makes her smile. 

“Because,” she says, draws out the e-sound to tease his cadence. “It’s almost nine-thirty, and I'm leaving in two hours.”

“You don’t have two hours of stuff,” he protests. 

“I don’t like to be late,” she continues over her shoulder, opening her suitcase and laying it flat on the floor at the end of the bed, readjusting the still-folded clothes she hadn’t ended up wearing. 

“Well,” he says, stretches against his sheets and then he’s getting out of bed with another yawn. “Let me help you, then.”

He steps around her open suitcase carefully. There isn’t exactly a surplus of floorspace for him to find his footing in. He disappears into the bathroom, locks the door behind him while she continues to gather her things, reappearing ten minutes later. “Give me a kiss,” he says, trudging over to her with open arms. 

“You’re so needy this morning,” she quips, slinking her arms around his neck and pulling him down into a kiss. He hums against her lips in agreement and the vibration makes her giggle into his mouth. 

Chris makes an attempt to return to the task at hand, but he has different plans, and follows around right behind her. His arms wrap around her torso everytime she stills for even a moment and he hugs her from behind, kisses her shoulders and her neck and her hair. 

“You make it hard to pack,” she tells him, and he laughs into the crook of her neck. What she really means is: you make it hard to leave. 

“Come back to bed.”

“I want to,” she sighs, leans back against his body.

He turns with her so they’re facing the bed. “It is right there,” he says, and she groans. “Look at it, all warm and comfy.” He’s right, the sheets look so soft, the pillows so fluffed. It’s a bed begging to be slept in, to be lounged on, to be snuggled by. 

She wiggles from his grasp, backs away from him towards the door and makes a challenge that she knows she has no intention of winning; “We can go back to bed,” she starts, still inching further away from him, further away from the bed, “if you can catch me,” and then she bolts. 

Chris’ high school claim to fame might have been that she was an all-state track and field athlete, but she’s got nothing on her boyfriend, who’s made a career out of his reflexes. It’s all pants and squeals and laughs that go on for entirely too long. 

She realizes that she’s trapped when they’re stood on opposite sides of his dining room table, and she couldn’t be the least bit bothered. She tries to fake him out, to move left and then right, but he predicts the move before she even makes it, catches her with a strong grip around her waist and lifts  her off her feet, carries her into the bedroom and tackles her onto the bed. 

click here for the nsfw cut

Chris’ flight leaves Nice at 12:30 pm, and then it’s a two and a half hour layover in Amsterdam, until finally, she lands in Atlanta long after sunset. She Ubers home and by the time she’s flopping down onto her couch, it’s almost eleven. Charles is the only call she makes before crashing. Then again, who else would she call? He’s one of two people who knew she was anywhere but home, and the only one who’d made her promise to call—despite the time difference and the Uber delay—with the threat of calling the first Georgia police number he could find on google to report her missing. 

He answers on the third ring, voice with the same rasp of that morning. “Hello?”

“Hi,” she speaks through a yawn, lays the phone beside her ear on the couch cushion and leaving it on speaker. 

“Hey,” he laughs, and she can perfectly hear the smile on his lips. She can almost feel it, the way the room reacts to it. 

“You gave me a hickey,” she says, fingering the bruise that lies an inch above her collarbone. His giggle on the other end is loud and boyish—particularly teenager-ish. 

“So, you made it home safe?”

“Well, if you ignore the vampire bruise on my neck.”

“Sorry,” he says, but he’s still laughing like a little kid. 

“It’s not funny,” she warns, thinly veiled because even she can hear the tired laugh at the back of her throat. 

“It’s a little funny.”

Chris rolls her eyes. “I have to see my entire family tomorrow!”

“Eh,” he hums, and just like the smile, she can see the shrug. She can see him so well it’s like he’s here or she’s there or that they’re somewhere together. Somewhere that doesn’t really matter, because they’re both there, smiling and laughing and shrugging. God. God, she already misses him so much. “They already don’t like me.”

“Charles!” She scolds, but she’s laughing now, too.

“I’m sorry,” he smooths. “I am. I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“I know,” Chris sighs, pokes her own neck. “I’m not upset, I’ll just have to whisk it all morning.”

He chuckles. “You have to do what?” 

“You know, like. For eggs…or baking. A whisk,” with every word that leaves her mouth, another letter is types into her phone’s search bar. Google Translate: whisk.  “Le fouet?”

“Le fouet??” He questions with a tone that would make her think she’d called him a slur. “I do not think that is right.”

“Le fouet à…” she trails off, debating internally over the pronunciation of the words in front of her. “How do you say the ‘o’ and the ‘e’ when they’re together?” She asks, butchers it before he has the chance to give her any answer. “Œufs?”

“I have no idea what you are telling to me.”

“Telling you,” Chris corrects. “What I’m telling you.”

“Oh, mon dieu,” he groans. “This is sad. We can talk in the morning.”

“Okay,” she nods, yawns again. It’s long past her bedtime, and she has no idea how many hours now she’s been awake for. It’s gotta be going on twenty or more, surely. Surely. 

“Thank you for calling me,” he says, softly, genuinely grateful for the call. She’s grateful he’s grateful. It’s sweet, all the little things he does to show he cares. The way he does most of them without realizing it. 

“Thank you for wanting me to call.”

last chapter masterlist next chapter

[cuckoo-on-a-string]

Promises Four: A Request

Dark!Morpheus x (female)reader, fantasy/medieval AU, 18+

Master List

Dream of the Endless had been promised a bride.

Chapter Track: "Blue" bardcore cover by Cornelius Link A/N: SHORT chapter. A necessary bit before a bigger scene. Obviously not updating as often as I'd like, but I have some mental health stuff going on that's actively interfering with my creativity/ability to write. Your comments and support mean the world! <3

A Request

The bard found her opportunity in the midafternoon.

The court wheeled slow. Too early to dine, too late for anything but quiet meetings over tea. Gossips bartered in corners, warmed by sunlight and conspiracy. The oldest and youngest members of court disappeared for a private rest before the night’s feasting, and the empty spaces they left behind became walls between cliques and families. Everyone found a place and settled there. Or most did, at least. Even the king wandered from his guest to attend to matters of state – his new mistress, rather – and Dream of the Endless sat like a black tear in the golden hangings and wreathed roses.

A cat, perfectly still, intent on everything and nothing as it watched for something worth the bother to hunt. A flicking tail would suit him well.

She’d spent the morning watching his frown cut over the assembled nobles, more judge than hopeful husband, and each failure to notice a pretty girl or answer an eager boy drew a new line in the web she suspected he wove over the court, the trap under the façade. The Endless’s true motive and threat.

She twiddled inoffensive tunes with her lute, banished by her own free will to the minstrels’ corner. Her songs had a purpose, even when played softly. She saved a queen’s reign once, sitting quietly and listening to courtiers sing in traitorous whispers. With busy hands and a clear purpose, she was invisible. Even her friends only remembered her every hour or so, and most knew her well enough to let her be.

The Endless did not leave his seat on high. He did not lower himself to converse with the lowly mortals gathered for his pleasure, and he raised his wine to his lips but rarely. Everything moved like a dull play someone bribed him to sit and watch.

Stealing strings from the growing web, the bard wove a tapestry, working until she could see the shapes and faces, until something resembling sense appeared. The scene in the unfinished fabric looked more like a war than a courtship.

And when the slow hours crept over the castle, and Dream of the Endless sat alone, she turned like the shadows over the wall to settle at on the steps of the royal dais.

“You must enjoy your misery, King of Dreams, to subject yourself to seven full days of this.”

He looked at her, nearer than the rest of court, but still so clearly beneath him, and lifted a brow.

“My misery?” It was the most he’d engaged with any of the lesser beings he sat amidst, and each word weighed heavy, spoken slowly so she’d feel the burden of his attention. “What inspires your assumption?”

Assumption was not presumption, and she took it as permission to continue. He would deign indulge her questions. For the moment. But she must tread carefully, and she continued playing, a gentle ballad a half-step removed from a lullaby.

“Your bearing,” she said, keeping her eyes on the chords. “Your face, your manner.”

Music and mathematics came from the same house. A simple melody and simple addition led to answers most preferred to ignore.

 “You seem terribly bored, majesty.”

A ghost of a smile shadowed his face, a passing eclipse over the moon’s bright face.

“And you would entertain me, little bard?”

“I would not presume to know your tastes, though they clearly do not walk this court.” He didn’t even pretend to show interest. When the king left the room, the Endless’s starry eyes turned flat and cold, proof that the promised bride hadn’t lured him back. Which left only one possibility. To ensure she was heard, she turned to meet his gaze, filling the natural pause of her lute’s tune with her request. “I wouldn’t ask it as a favor, but if you would deign consider it – perhaps whatever cautionary tale you spin will spread farther carried by survivors.”

Now, she truly had his interest. Graceful as a snake, he shifted in his throne. His dark figure blocked the sun, and the only light to creep over his shoulders caught in the ruby at his throat. The bloody glint drew the hair along the back of her neck to stand straight, and she hoped the goosebumps didn’t betray her by running down her arms. She didn’t dare look away to check.

“Do you fear for your life?”

Not at all, and the unnatural confidence of immortality buoyed her courage, lifting a smile from the deep pit in her chest where it sank before she came to sit at Dream’s feet.

“Your sister will not have me, as I’m sure you know.”

The stars in his eyes flashed, and while his shadows didn’t grow any brighter, their knife’s edge softened.

“I’m asking so I might advise a few wiser birds fly the coop before the fox comes calling. They’d make excellent messenger pigeons, if they escape.”

It was too much to hope for a direct answer, and she didn’t wait for one. She rose from the step to sink back down in a far more honest curtsy than she’d offered the mortal realm’s king the night before. Here was a monarch due much greater respect.

And for the second time, she took her leave of him.

[megamett44-lover]

Could you write about going to the beach with Chris??

Love this. I feel like Chris would be the like the little kid that keeps pestering you to get in the water the whole time you’re there.

Chris Sturniolo x Reader

Summary: In which Y/n wants to tan, but Chris has other ideas

Warnings/Notes: Profanity, she/her pronouns

Requested? Yes!

Beach Day

Going to a California beach has been the one thing I wanted to do when I got here. So when Chris woke me up telling me to pack a beach bag, I wasn’t surprised.

Piling in the car, Matt announces we’re going to Santa Monica Pier.

“Dude, it was supposed to be a surprise!” Chris says.

“How am I supposed to be surprised when you tell me to put on a bathing suit and pack beach towels and sunscreen?” I ask.

“Exactly.” Nick agrees. “Common sense, use it.”

“We could’ve been going to a pool!” Chris protests.

“Right…” I say, rolling my eyes.

The drive was fast, the traffic being slow that morning. We arrive at the beach and I begin setting up my towel. Grabbing a book from my bag, I stretch out on the towel, eager to tan a bit before the beach got crowded.

“We’re gonna go take some pictures, we’ll be back in a little bit.” Matt says as Nick grabs his camera from his own bag.

“Sounds good.” I hum, reading.

As Matt and Nick walk off, Chris stands over me, blocking the sun.

“Can I help you?” I ask, peering at him over my book.

“You’re not getting in the water?” He asks.

“In a bit, I just wanna tan for a little while.” I say.

Chris huffs, crossing his arms. “You come to Santa Monica to tan?”

“Yes.” I respond, flipping a page.

“Well, hurry up.” Chris says, before walking off to the ocean.

I peer over my book, noticing Chris splashing around in the water. I smile, looking back down at my book.

After reading for about 15 minutes, I roll over onto my stomach. Getting comfortable, I lay my head down. With the embrace of the warm air, my eyes feel heavy. I slowly began to drift off to sleep, soaking in the rays of sun on my face.

I don’t know how long I had been asleep for, but I was awoken by a cold splash on my entire body. I roll over, very confused. I look up to see Chris running away, a small bucket laying behind me.

“Chris!” I yell, getting up and chasing after him into the ocean.

I can hear him laughing as he goes deeper, urging me to continue chasing him. At about waist high, he stops and turns around.

“Oh hey, you decided to get in.” He says.

I roll my eyes. “Why did you do that?”

“You’ve been sleeping for an hour and a half.” He says. “Plus you look like a lobster, I thought the water would cool you off.”

I look at the back of my arm, and sure enough, Im as red as a lobster. “Damn, that’s going to hurt in the morning.” I say.

Chris laughs. “Yeah, but doesn’t the water feel good?”

“I guess.” I say, sinking down in the water, enjoying the cooling sensation. I suddenly have an idea. I go all the way under the water, swimming around for a moment, before grabbing Chris’ ankles and pulling him under too.

I swim up, a triumphant smile on my face.

Chris comes up, gasping slightly, with his hair sticking to his forehead.

“What was that for?” He asks, rubbing his eyes.

I smile. “Paybacks a bitch.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He chuckles softly.

By then, we hear Matt and Nick calling for us on the beach. As we make our way over, I can’t help but wonder where Chris had gotten the bucket to splash me with, seeing as we didn’t bring any beach toys with us.

“So, where’d you get the bucket?” I ask Chris.

“Oh some little kid said I could have it.” He says, pointing to a kid, who looked to be about seven years old.

“So you enlisted the help of a child to get me into the water?” I laugh.

“Yeah, if that’s what it took.” He replies.

As we make our way to Nick and Matt, they both begin laughing.

“Y/n you are so burnt!” Matt laughs.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” I say.

“Why, are you feeling crabby?” Nick asks.

“Oh my God.” I grumble as they all laugh at Nicks stupid joke.

With our beach day over, we gathered all of our stuff and made the drive back to L.A.. The rest of the week was filled with lobster jokes, crab jokes, wearing Chris’ t-shirts, and aloe gel.

[j-eryewrites]

Long, Long Time

Part Three of A Sinner’s Redemption

Previous | Next

SERIES MASTER LIST | MAIN MASTER LIST 

Word Count: 12.3k

Warnings: Language, mentions of death, mentions of mass killings, descriptions of gore and violence, dark topics concerning mentality. (Let me know if I missed anything)

Author’s Note: Piper and Ellie make up, we get a look into Piper’s past, and Joel starts to warm up to the girls. I had fun writing this chapter, but it’s gonna get a whole lot darker with these next few chapters so get ready for heavy angst. 

It was nice being out in the forest away from the city. Piper had never been out here before yet the longer she was breathing the fresh air and feeling the dirt and tree roots beneath her shoes she knew she never wanted to leave. The scent of the pine trees as their sticky sap oozed out of the bark filled her nose and the noise of the rushing river flooded her ears. 

Joel had come down earlier to do whatever Joel needed to do. Piper didn’t ask. She didn’t feel like talking. Her nose still hurt from when Ellie broke it a day prior. Since her nose still plagued her vital need to breathe, she had an even harder time talking without wincing in pain. 

As Piper neared the water, she saw Joel’s familiar figure crouched over the river bend. It looked like he was resting his swollen hand in the cool water trying to soothe his injury. 

Part of Piper wanted to go up next to Joel and treat her injuries near him. She knew Joel was safe and could barely be trusted; something that Piper loathed to admit. Instead, she slowed her step and turned farther downstream. She’d washed her blood-soaked face and clothes far away from Joel. It was the least she could do to be considerate after losing Tess. 

She missed Tess. It was another thing Piper didn’t want to admit. The young girl scolded herself for feeling an absence from Tess’s sacrifice. Piper had only known Tess a day and a half. Thirty-nine hours and seventeen minutes she had known the woman. That’s all it took. Thirty-nine hours and Tess was able to find a place in Piper’s heart. An accomplishment only her mother, Ellie, and Riley had achieved. An accomplishment that Piper began to fear was a curse. After all, three out of four of the achievement owners were dead. 

Piper shook the thoughts from her head and covered the aches of her heart as she stepped to the river’s edge. Her body ached as she crouched to the ground. Piper decided against squatting and instead sat on the pebbles and round rocks of the riverbed before dipping her hands underneath the crystal-clear surface of the water. 

It was cold. Really fucking cold water. Perfect. The water was even colder as Piper splashed it against her face. After a few more handfuls of water, the river beneath her turned a rusty red before disappearing. If Piper could see herself, she assumed the blood was washing away. She took extra care when splashing water near her nose and the bruising around her eyes that had formed. The ice-cold water felt nice. It soothed her skin and aching bones.

After a few minutes more of cleaning, Piper was finally satisfied. She leaned back away from the river’s edge and sighed. Water ran past her. Morning birds sang their songs from the tops of the trees. They were solemn songs. Although maybe that came from the hurt in Piper’s heart. Everything seemed a bit more depressing after yesterday's disaster. She lost Tess. She lost a part of Ellie. She lost another part of herself. Piper feared that she’d have no more if she lost once more. First was her mother. Second was her childhood. Third was Riley. Fourth was her freedom though Piper had lost that a long time ago. Fifth was Tess. Sixth was a piece of Ellie ergo, seven, a piece of her was also gone. 

On the river’s edge, Piper looked at the remaining pieces of her soul in the palms of her scared hands. The largest share of them all was Ellie. Piper had put a part of herself into Ellie long ago. With a promise, she had become Ellie’s. She felt a few tears fall as her mind brushed over the cracks in the piece. Each crack was deeper than the next, bringing more pain. One or two more cracks and that piece of Piper’s soul would be shattered beyond repair. Ellie was her soul. Ellie was her reason. Ellie was her promise. Ellie was her sister. Ellie. Ellie. Ellie. 

Piper sniffled and wiped away her tears. Ellie and she weren’t talking. Piper didn’t want to speak and neither did Ellie. They had fought. Piper could never remember a time when they did fight. Ellie was angry. Her anger was a scream in the three Fate’s faces. Piper’s anger was an acceptance. There was no screaming, no crying, or fighting. It was silent. It was patient. It was infinite. An anger that could never be satisfied. An anger that one could only be born with. 

Piper sighed. It was growing cold. Her hands were numbed from the river. Her face was damp with its cleansing. No amount of water from the river could ever baptize her anger away. She was born a sinner cursed to fall deeper and deeper into the depths of hell. 

She groaned as she pushed herself up into a standing position. Piper didn’t bother looking back at the river before finding her way back to the makeshift camp. 

꧁_____________꧂ 

“I’m in a motherfucking tree!” Ellie exclaimed as she hugged the trunk of a gigantic pine tree. It was amazing. The thrill of the adrenaline pumping into her veins from the height and the exercise was more than enough to brighten Ellie’s countenance. The air never felt fresher here in the forest. Despite the lack of car exhaust, the QZ’s air always felt stiff almost like you wanted to choke on it. 

Here in the forest a distance away from the Boston QZ the air was air. That’s all Ellie could describe it as. This shit was the real deal. It was real fucking air. It was air that she could breathe freely without coughing. Her lungs cheered as fresh oxygen flavoured with pine and spruce filled the organ to its limits. 

Ellie chuckled at herself. She was throwing a fit over the air quality. Instead of fangirling over the air in her lungs, Ellie decided to move her sights to the view in front of her. 

Being up in the trees high above the ground really allowed Ellie to have the cleanest view of the horizon. Testing her grip, Ellie raised her thumb in front of her to measure the distance the sun was from the ground. She squinted her eyes to get the exact measurement, but the sun was too bright for her to see clearly. Suddenly her grip slipped and some bark from the trunk scraped off and tumbled to the ground. 

“Fuck…” Ellie nervously said to herself as she tightened her hold on the branches keeping her up. 

The ground seemed miles away and Ellie scolded herself. She hadn’t realized how high she had climbed up the tree. Her mind was blinded by the child-like excitement of having the opportunity to climb a tree. Maybe it was time to climb back down. Yet as Ellie’s foot fumbled beneath her, she felt her stomach drop and her palms sweat even more. 

“Shit!” Ellie cried out as she quickly readjusted her grip. Her arms were growing sore. Her mind was screaming at her. She was going to fall. She didn’t feel very brave anymore as the height from the ground taunted her. Maybe Joel was right to warn her and Piper about the boardwalk in the city being scary. 

A branch snapped below and Ellie shut her eyes tight. 

“Need some help there?” Piper asked. 

Ellie’s eye’s opened as she realized she was in no danger of falling…yet. The sight of her sister seemingly irked Ellie. 

“Oh now you talk to me,” Ellie scoffed. The tone of fear was horribly concealed in her voice. 

Piper rolled her eyes and Ellie was amazed that she could see it from where she sat in the tree. Maybe she wasn’t as high up as she originally thought, thought Ellie. Yet when she looked back at the ground the tree seemed to grow in height. Fuck. 

“I’ll help you down,” Piper said and Ellie’s fear seemed to dissipate. “…only if you apologize.” 

“Piper!!” Ellie called out her voice wavering. 

Piper chuckled and Ellie was sure she was rolling her eyes again. However, her mind was a bit more occupied with not falling to her death.

 “You broke my fucking nose, Ellie!” Piper said before clutching the area near her nose. It hurt just talking to Ellie and the angle of her head wasn’t helping with the pain. There was a pause in Piper’s voice as she waited for what, Ellie assumed, was an apology. 

If it was an apology her sister wanted then no fucking way. Piper deserved it. Piper deserved it for–now Ellie wasn’t so sure. 

“...Fine, figure out how to climb down then. If you fall, I’m sure Joel will be just fine taking me to the Fireflies and leaving you behind,” Piper sang as she turned to walk away. Piper winced at her own words. She wouldn’t be fine if Ellie fell. Christ, what was she doing? 

“…Piper! please... I’m sorry, I was–” Ellie shouted. 

“I don’t need an explanation, shithead. Sorry is all I wanted.” Piper explained before returning back to the trunk of the tree. She had to crane her head back quite far to see Ellie’s predicament. 

“Okay, Jesus! How do I get down?” Ellie questioned. She was eager to have her feet touch the ground once more. 

“It’s just climbing backwards. Step down and then move your grip down as well.”

Ellie nodded and tried to do as Piper said when another piece of bark fell to the ground halting Ellie’s movements. “Piper…!?” Ellie pleaded. 

“You’ve got it,” Piper encouraged, …worst case scenario you fall, and break a limb.”

“Piper!” 

“What? Consider it payback for my broken nose,” Piper muttered. 

“I thought you forgave me,” Ellie said as she finally dared to move her body a branch down. 

“No,” Piper corrected. “Just said sorry was enough. 

“Pip–” Ellie said before the snapping of a branch froze her progress. 

Ellie looked down to seek her sister’s comfort, but Piper was no longer looking at her. Ellie followed her sister’s gaze and found Joel. He had an unreadable look on his face as he glanced from Piper to Ellie high up in the tree. After a few moments of observing the fiasco in front of him, Joel heaved a sigh and turned away. 

Ellie took another step down. Her fear of falling and the height dissipated as she grew more confident in her descent. Ellie took another step and then another. Soon the ground was in sight and all Ellie had to do was make the final jump. Her feet hit the floor and she gasped in relief. 

“There you go! You got it.” Piper congratulated her sister with a slight shove. “Why the fuck did you climb a tree if you couldn’t climb down?” Piper laughed. 

Ellie punched her sister’s arm in retort. 

“What?!” Piper rubbed her sore arm. “I was just asking, Jesus.” Then Piper punched her sister in return. Now they were even so long as Ellie didn’t hit back. 

“I don’t know…” Ellie replied. Her voice was no louder than a whisper. Even so, Piper heard her. 

“Yeah, sure.” Piper turned away from her sister and looked over at Joel who was shuffling through his bag. His hand was looking better so soaking it in the river must have done it some good. The next thing Piper noticed was the tiny bumps along Joel’s forearm. He was cold. “You want your jacket back?” Piper blurted out. Her mouth moved faster than her mind. She quickly yanked Joel’s jacket off her back and stuck it out to him. “Mine’s dried now,” Piper muttered. 

Joel just stared at the jacket in her hand. His face was stoic and unmoving. Piper began to think that maybe Joel didn’t want the jacket back since she tainted it with her blood. She was sure she washed it out. Still, Joel did not take the jacket.

Piper sighed and turned to look back at Ellie over her shoulder. Her sister was now sitting comfortably against the tree with the majority of her body in contact with the dirt floor 

There was a thud against Piper’s chest and her hands instinctively reached to catch it. Piper was soon to discover that in her hands lay food. It was what was left over from Joel’s sandwich. Just enough for her and her sister to take a few bites. For a moment, Piper stared at Joel in awe before shaking the expression and passing the food onto Ellie. The younger one needed it more than her. 

Ellie happily took the leftover meal and shoved it into her mouth. “I've never been in the woods,” Ellie said with her mouth full. Her heart had finally calmed down from the adventure of a few minutes prior. “More bugs than I thought,” Ellie noted. It was an invitation for someone to speak. More of an invitation to Joel. Piper had already spoken to Ellie today. When no one spoke, Ellie tried a new tactic. “Look, I've been thinking about…

“I don't want your sorries,” Joel spat. 

Piper sent Ellie a warning glare. She knew that it was too early to talk about it. However, Ellie ignored her sister’s silent advice.

“I wasn't gonna say I'm sorry,” Ellie barked back at Joel. “I was gonna say that I've been thinking about what happened. Nobody made you or Tess take me and Piper. Nobody made you go along with this plan. You needed a truck battery or whatever, and you made a choice. So don't blame me for something that isn't my fault.” 

Piper froze at Ellie’s words. It was the truth. The cold-hearted, brutal truth. Piper glanced nervously at Joel worried that in his silent anger and grief that the worst would happen. His previous threats from before resurfaced in the young woman’s mind. Instead of growing anger in Joel’s face, Piper saw a softness. Joel knew what Ellie was saying was the truth. There was no one to blame. 

The weight of Joel’s jacket carried Piper’s arms down. In his moment of weakness, Piper handed him the jacket. Joel took the clothing from her hands and placed it into his bag. “How much longer?” She asked changing the tense subject. 

“Five-hour hike,” Joel stated. 

Ellie smirked to herself. Now both Piper and Joel were talking again. “We can manage that.”

꧁_____________꧂ 

Piper was surprised to discover that there was a trail to follow. She was sure after twenty years since outbreak day that the forest would be overrun with ferns and other plants. Yet here she was, her feet moving step by step on a dirt path. While it wasn’t as defined as it would have been years ago, it was still enough for Joel to know where he was going. 

He had taken this path many times to Bill and Frank’s. Being in the forest was one of his favourite parts, yet his countenance did not show it. It was a place where he could relax a bit. Just like Piper, Joel appreciated how in the thick of nature there was no one. The Infected stayed near the cities and places with people for them to turn. FEDRA existed in the big cities and the FIREFLIES existed wherever FEDRA was. The raiders kept to themselves but close enough to those that they could raid. There was nothing out here in nature for any of them. Nothing out here except Joel, Piper, and Ellie.

Joel hiked along the path. Ellie was a step behind him and Piper was behind her.  The thick mixture of vibrant green leaves and web-like branches provided the three of them with protection from the harsh heat of the sun. A cover that soon would fade the closer they got to their destination. 

While Piper and Joel were content to enjoy the peaceful silence that the forest provided, Ellie was not. “You've gone this way a lot? No Infected?” Ellie asked Joel. 

“Not often, no,” Joel replied. 

After a while of Ellie’s continual talking the group reached the end of the trail. The dirt path and the tall grass halted as the concrete river cut through the forest. Unlike all other roads, this one was clear. There was not a rusted car in sight. Joel paused for a moment. His head looked side to side before he stepped out from the cover of the treetops, his boot coming into contact with the road underneath. 

“What are you looking out for?” Ellie questioned Joel’s actions. 

“People,” Joel uttered. He was a man of few words and each word he spoke told Ellie he’d rather be doing anything else than answering her questions of child-like curiosity. 

“Oh,” Ellie replied, taking the hint to calm her mouth. 

The sun was unforgiving as it bared down on the trio. Piper rolled up her sleeves and readjusted her backpack so that the coarse material hardly touched her back. Ellie had removed her jacket and tied it around her waist with her sleeves rolled up just like her sister. After a few more minutes of the heat, she stopped to roll up her pants so that they looked more like botched capris. Joel seemed to be taking the heat well. He made no move to cool himself down. 

Ellie considered complaining about the heat but decided against it. She wasn’t the only one suffering from the heat. Instead, she did what she did best, she talked. “Are Bill and Frank nice?”

“Frank is,” Joel stated. 

Piper raised her brow up at Joel, not that he could see her. “So if Frank is nice, then what is Bill?” Piper found herself asking. She would rather be prepared to deal with someone not-so-nice than not at all. 

Joel just looked back at the girl and answered her with a look in his eyes that said ‘I think you know.’ 

“How'd you get that scar on your head?” Ellie asked, catching sight of the scar as the sun glared down on it. 

Joel stopped in his tracks and turned around to the two girls behind him with his hands on his hips. This provided the perfect opportunity for the two girls to reach his sides and walk alongside Joel. 

“What? Is it something lame?” Ellie prodded. She turned to Piper and nudged her arm. “What if he fell down the stairs or something?” 

This earned a smile from Piper. “Maybe he got into a fight with a cat or walked into a door,” Piper giggled.

The two girls were talking about Joel as if he wasn’t there. It reminded me of something he lost during the outbreak. The conversations that his brother and daughter would have whilst he was in the room sounded all too similar to the words coming from Piper and Ellie’s mouths. The pain was threatening to storm his heart. He changed the subject. 

“I didn't fall down any stairs,” Joel said. He should have known those few words wasn’t enough for Ellie to stop talking.  

“Okay, so what then?” Ellie questioned. 

“Someone shot at me and missed,” Joel sighed. 

“See,” Ellie nudged her sister again, “that's cool.” Then Ellie craned her head up to look at Joel. “You shoot back?”

“Yeah,” Joel said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

“You get him?” 

“No, I missed too. It happens more often than you think,” Joel explained. 

“Piper doesn’t miss,” Ellie said proudly looking at her sister. “There’s a reason why FEDRA started using her at 12 years old–” 

For a moment Joel’s eyes flashed a look of intrigue at the two girls before it disappeared as quickly as it came. Piper cleared her throat and looked over at her sister. Ellie knew that look. Her sister’s dark brown eyes were telling her to shut up. 

Except Ellie didn’t want to stop talking. If she stopped talking she’d be thinking more about the unbearable heat. Instead, she continued to pester Joel. “'Cause you suck at shooting or, like, in general?” 

“In general,” Joel answered. His hand unconsciously dropped down to hover over the rifle at his side. 

Ellie’s curious eyes followed Joel’s bruised hand to the gun. She glanced over to Joel’s other side. He had two guns. More than enough to share with her. 

“You know, seeing as it's just the three of us, I was thinking I should pro–” and before Ellie could finish her proposal, both Joel and Piper exclaimed. “No.” 

“Oh for fucks sake,” Ellie grumbled. She looked at her sister with pleading puppy eyes. A secret weapon of Ellie’s. However, the heat of the sun must have negated its effects because Piper was glaring at her sister asking her to try and get a gun. At this rate, Ellie felt like she was never going to get a gun. 

Even in her brooding, Ellie was quick to notice the decrease in Joel’s pace. His steps got shorter and his speed slowed down as they approached a big yellow sign pointing to a building off the road. The words had faded so much over time that Ellie couldn’t make out anything. Instead, she turned her focus on the building Joel was now approaching. 

The building itself was a small gas station.  It looked like it could have been home once with the wrap-around wood porch and style in which the building had been constructed. There were broken power lines that haven’t been used in over two decades. The long black wires flowed in the breeze of the summer day. The parking lot had been overgrown with weeds, tall grass, and some budding trees whose roots were destroying the unnatural concrete day by day. Like all other places Piper and Ellie had been to, there were broken-down cars in the back of the parking lot. The tires had all been sliced open, doors rusted shut and windows shattered. All signs of the post-apocalyptic world. 

As they got closer, Ellie could see the corroded ice coolers alongside the building. She knew they were ice coolers because the big bold red letters were still visible even twenty years later. She smiled, proud that she knew what they were, maybe FEDRA school wasn’t that shit of a school anyway. 

“Cumberland Farms,” Joel stated as if he knew the girls would ask him what this place was called. He turned around to face the girls who were looking around in awe. He forgot that they had probably never had some of this stuff back in the QZ. “Hang back a minute. I gotta grab some stuff I stashed.”

“Stashed?” That piqued Ellie’s interest. Joel winced at her words. He knew he shouldn’t have said anything. “Why do you have stuff stashed here?” Ellie asked. 

“You ask a lot of goddamn questions,” Joel grumbled as he marched up the steps into the gas station. 

“Yes, I do,” Ellie said proudly. Questions were one thing she was good at. “So, are you gonna answer me or what?” 

“We hide supplies on routes in case we find ourselves short on gear, which I currently am 'cause…” Joel waved his hand around motioning to the gun and his backpack. 

Piper nodded in understanding. It was smart to have a stash place. She had one herself in the QZ just in case something happened. Ellie never thought it was necessary. In fact, her sister told her on a few occasions that it was stupid to save stuff for a rainy day. 

Speaking of Ellie, the young girl dashed to the side of the room. Her eyes lit with a fire of excitement at a busted arcade game. It seemed like time had been kinder to the machine as the only noticeable damage was the cracked screen and the layer of dust that covered it in its entirety. “

No way! You ever play this one?” Ellie asked. Neither Piper nor Joel was sure who she was asking and instead chose to ignore her. “I had a friend” who knew everything about this game. There's this one character named Mileena who takes off her mask and she has monster teeth, and then she swallows you whole and barfs out your bones! Ah. Oh, man.” Ellie’s excitement turned sombre. Her expression faltered as she glanced at her dusty reflection in the cracked glass. It was Riley who loved this game so much. It was Riley who showed her the arcade in the old mall. It was Riley who died in that old mall. Riley– “You forgot where you put your stuff.” 

“No,” Joel scoffed as he pushed over shelves and moved debris around the room. “I'm just zeroing in on it. It's been a couple of years.”

Piper chuckled as she helped Joel move things around, which earned her a glare from Joel. Piper took that as her sign to back off and give the old man some space for a bit.  

“Okay, well, I'm gonna take a look around, see if there's anything good. Ellie, come on,” Piper said. She spotted a back room and looked at Ellie. It seemed like the two girls had the same idea. 

“Trust me, it's all been picked over already,” Joel explained. 

“Maybe, maybe not,” Ellie smiled. She looked back at Piper knowing her sister’s insane skills to find things in ‘looked-over’ places. “Is there anything bad in here?” 

“Just you,” Joel mumbled. 

Ellie rolled her eyes and stepped into the backroom. “Ah. Getting funnier.”

The back room was in a horrific condition compared to the rest of the run-down gas station. Piper and Ellie could hardly see the ground underneath their feet. Without a word, the two girls got to work moving around the pieces of collapsed ceiling, a stray desk from the middle of the room, and discarded glass bottles and junk. After moving one particularly large chunk of debris a dome of dust kicked into the air and into Piper’s lungs sending the young girl into a coughing fit. 

Ellie was giggling at her sister’s struggle with the dust cloud when she spotted a latched door on the floor. She crouched down and started to move over the clutter of things covering the hatch. 

“Ellie, find anythi–What are you doing?” Piper wheezed, the dust still lodged in her lungs. Ellie’s brow furrowed in determination. All her focus was on getting the hatch open. 

“Ellie.” Piper coughed. 

“What?” Ellie looked up at her sister and laughed. Piper was covered in dust from head to toe. It looked as if she could have been a statue that had been sitting in the back room for twenty years. 

Piper rolled her eyes and dusted herself off as best she could. “Yeah, yeah, go ahead and laugh.” Once Piper was done, she spotted the object of Ellie’s fixation. “Move over. We’re gonna push this off together,” Piper instructed Ellie as she retrieved her flashlight from her bag. Ellie moved over slightly and got ready to push the remaining blockage off the door.  “On three. One, two, three–” 

“You alright back there?” Joel’s voice cut off Piper.

“Yep!” The girls uttered in a strained voice as they finally cleared the door. With a creak the hatch was open.

Piper stuck out her open hand to her sister.  “Give me your knife.” 

“Why?” Ellie asked. 

“Cause I’m going down there first,” Piper explained. Ellie opened her mouth to refute when Piper continued. “To make sure there’s nothing down there.” 

Ellie sighed and reached into her pocket to pull out the knife. Her morbid curiosity would have to wait until Piper gave the all-clear. Even so, Ellie did not do so without grumbling. 

“Thanks,” Piper said before hopping down into the cellar.

It was a short and soft landing. Once Piper had found her ground, the flashlight went up alongside Ellie’s switchblade. The soundtrack to her brief sweep of the cellar was Ellie’s grumbling. Piper rolled her eyes at her sister’s weakness in showcasing some patience. By the end of her search, Ellie’s grumbling had turned into quiet puppy whines that seemed to echo in the cellar. 

“Jesus, fuck! Fine, come down Ellie,” Piper hissed. 

Ellie doesn’t miss a beat dropping down into the cellar. Her sister’s landing wasn’t as graceful as hers, but Ellie showed no sign of stopping as she jumped to her feet and began to scavenge the empty cellar. Piper clenched her jaw and decided that their way out of this cellar was a better use of her time. As luck would have it there was a metal garbage can near the hatch door. It was tall enough and sturdy enough to serve as a stepping stool for the two girls. 

Piper rolled the trash can over to the spot they had dropped down onto not moments before when Ellie triumphantly cheered. 

“Fսck yeah!” Ellie waved around a fresh unopened pack of tampons. Piper smiled at her sister and made a step to congratulate her when a sickening snarl filled the air. It was low and quiet and could only come from the cellar. 

Piper darted to her sister’s side and flashed the light around. The switchblade in Piper’s hand was ready to be used at any second. Ellie stepped behind her sister and used her own light to look around. 

It was Ellie’s beam that caught sight of the Infected first. Like a spotlight, the two flashlights landed on the body caught underneath a foot's worth of brick, stone, and debris. It was a pathetic excuse for an Infected, as it flailed around trying to reach the girls. It growled at them with silent sorrow. Its’ yellow eyes glossed over reflecting the light from their flashlights back at the girls. It almost looked human if it weren’t for the fungus that was creeping outside of the creature’s cracked skull.

Piper was mesmerized by its sorrow. A creature that was the cause of the downfall of the world lay trapped in its own undoing. Still, the thing was still so desperate to get out, to get to the girls, to feed, to bite, and to convert. Its’ life’s only purpose was keeping the monster going in the dark, cold, and wet cellar of a broken-down gas station. Piper felt a bile rise in her stomach looking at it. The sick wasn’t from the creature itself, but her own mind. She saw herself in that thing. She was buried under the pressures of life and the traumas of her mind. The one thing keeping her going in the sinister trap of her mind was the promise. It’s you and me until the end. 

Ellie’s mind had a different path set. The years of anger and pain came boiling up to the surface. The hot liquid of her sorrows only fueled her fury. Ellie found herself stepping closer and closer to the Infected. She only stopped until she was just out of arm's reach of the creature. The perfect taunt. She watched how the creature writhed in pain as it put everything in its being to reach her. It was only fair for it to suffer. It was the thing that destroyed the world. It was the thing that brought an end to the things she loved and the life she could have lived. Her legs bent down as she crouched to the ground. Ellie’s thought was a wire with a new purpose. In her blood, was the cure. The end to the end. She’d save everyone. She’d save Piper. She’d saved them all for those she couldn’t save. She put an end to each creature. Let the people go and the monster dies. She hoped that her blood would make them suffer. She hoped that something in her made them shrivel up and die. It was only fair. Pain for pain. Suffering for suffering. However, Ellie wasn’t sure how much pain was enough. Maybe nothing ever will be. 

Silently, Ellie extended her hand behind her. Her finger stretched out to Piper. There was only one thing she could want, and so Piper obliged. It was the only thing she could ever do. Ellie was her purpose and Ellie asked. 

With the shiny silver switchblade in hand, Ellie raised it to the creature. Its’  eye followed her movements. The failing stopped as it realized its defeat. Its purpose would be its end. And in the Infected’s acceptance, Ellie sliced open the decaying skin of its head. There was a thud. A sickening gasp followed. Then all fell quiet. The Infected dead with Ellie’s blade lodged in the centre of its head. Its’ lifeless eye on the young girl, frozen on the spot. 

꧁_____________꧂ 

He finally found it. Joel leaned over and pulled out his spare supplies as he grumbled to himself. He was getting old and was sure that his mind would never be able to remember this spot again. He contemplated finding a different spot, but then it would just make it easier for raiders and other stragglers to find the gear. However, Joel was smart. With a quick look in his bag and a scan of the supplies, he concluded that he could just take it all with him. 

A few canned foods, ammo, and some first aid supplies were all stuffed into his bag. He stood up and lugged the bag onto his back. It was heavy and would slow down his step, but that was better than some other fucker getting his goods. As he adjusted the bag, the sound of silence grew louder in Joel’s ear. With how loud the two girls seemed to be, silence was never a good thing. 

“Ellie? Piper?” Joel called out. His words were met with the clanking of metal, yet there was no reply. His throat tightened and he felt his heart pick up in pace. “Girls!” Joel yelled. Again there was silence. He cocked his gun and walked to the back room. The door was closed. “Ellie? Piper?” Joel said as he turned the doorknob and pushed the door open with the tip of his gun. 

“Picked over, my ass,” Ellie uttered as she flung the door open and walked out of the back room. She waved the Tampax in Joel’s face with a smug look on her face.  

Then Piper came out behind her. “You better fucking share with me,” she told her sister. 

“You wish,” Ellie joked as she opened the Tampax box taking a handful and stuffing them into her bag. Then she handed Piper the rest to carry in her bag. 

Joel watched the two girls as they shared the tampons like popcorn, passing them back and forth until they were split evenly. The girls were fine. Good. Joel turned around and made his way back to the storage spot before dropping his empty rifle into the hole.  

“What are you doing?” Ellie asked as she watched the weapon be discarded. 

“There's not much ammo out there for this thing. Makes it mostly useless,” Joel explained. 

“Well, if you're just gonna leave it there,” Ellie suggested.  

“No,” Joel growled. The last thing he needed was a teenager with a gun; loaded or not.  Without another word, Joel trudged to the door and out of the gas station. 

“I’ll get you a gun, sooner or later,” Piper whispered to her sister. She patted her sister on the back and made her way to follow Joel. 

“This one?” Ellie asked with a pleading look in her eye. 

Piper turned around to look at Ellie. “Nah,” Piper shook her head. “no ammo. Plus how the fuck would we hide the thing from Joel?” 

Ellie nodded solemnly. Her sister's promise did somewhat ease her want for the weapon. Hell, Piper promised, and when Piper promises she keeps them. It was something that Ellie knew well. 

꧁_____________꧂ 

“People are driven by fear and desire,” Levi told Piper. “The two sides of the same coin that everyone carries with them.”

Piper swung her legs back and forth on the ledge and nodded her head in acknowledgement. Her mouth was occupied with the sandwich whose ingredients were smuggled into the QZ. 

Piper liked Levi. He was a guard working for FEDRA and he had a soft spot for her. He gets smuggled goods for her and her sister and treats Piper to ham and strawberries. Food that people would kill for in the QZ. Yet for some reason, Levi got them for her. 

As the two of them sat on the playground in the QZ watching the other kids play, Piper couldn’t help but think that Levi was an older brother of sorts. While she watched over Ellie, Levi watched over her. He showed her the ropes, told her the places to avoid, and told her to trust in him and only him. He’d keep her safe. 

“Piper!” Ellie screeched as she ran up to her sister on the swing set. The young girl tapped Piper on the shoulder and ran away as she screamed “You’re it.” 

Piper giggled as got up running after Ellie and the other children who were playing. It was only fair if she got Ellie back for tagging her. It’s how these games went. It might as well have been called tag the person who tagged you or tag back. 

A whistle blew and the children were ushered back inside the facility. The sun had set over the city. The sky was a bright orange merging with the dark purple of the night. Levi wasn’t sitting on the ledge when Piper looked behind to say goodnight. 

꧁_____________꧂ 

Despite the warmth of the sun falling down on Piper, there was a chill under her skin. It was chill and seemed like it would never go away with how fast it spread on her body. 

Joel and the girls were walking along a dirt road. Green hills of grass and wildflowers were found alongside the road. Green leaves from the trees near the street shimmered in the sun like diamonds as they rattled in the breeze. Birds sang their songs and all was peaceful. 

“Holy sh¡t!” Ellie exclaimed as she pointed to the top of a hill near the road. “You fly in one of those?”

Piper turned her head to look where was pointing. It was a plane. In all its glory shattered in pieces against the ground. It was a distance away, yet Piper could clearly see inside the machine with the wings and side ripped off from the impact. She had heard a few tales from her teachers in the QZ about planes. Something that would take you into the sky and you’d be across the country in a few hours. It seemed impossible, but so did the outbreak. 

“A few times, sure,” Joel noted. He didn’t pay the plane much attention as he continued to walk along the path. 

“So lucky,” Piper muttered. 

“Didn't feel like it at the time,” Joel grumbled. “Get shoved into a middle seat, pay 12 bucks for a sandwich.”

“Dude, you got to go up in the sky!” Ellie said with all the excitement her vocal cords could produce.  

“Yeah, well, so did they, “Joel replied. 

Piper’s eyes widened. Ellie’s excitement had been killed. “Grim. So, everything came crashing down in one day; literally and figuratively?” Piper asked as she pointed to the plane on the hill. 

“Pretty much,” Joel said. 

Ellie pursed her lips in confusion. “How? I mean... no one was infected with Cordyceps, everybody's fine, eating in restaurants and flying in planes. And then, all at once? How did it even start? If you have to get bit to be infected, then who bit the first person? Was it a monkey? I bet it was a monkey!” 

Joel sighed. “It wasn't a monkey. I thought you went to school.” 

“FEDRA school,” Piper spat. “They don't teach us how their shitty government failed to prevent a pandemic.” 

Joel rubbed the back of his neck. Both at a pause for Piper’s statement, but also how to answer Ellie so that the creation of more questions could be squandered.

“No one knows for sure, but, best guess... Cordyceps mutated. And some of it got into the food supply. Probably a basic ingredient like flour or sugar. There were certain brands of food that were sold everywhere, all across the country, across the world. Bread, cereal... pancake mix. You eat enough of it, it'll get you infected. So the tainted food all hits the store shelves around the same time, Thursday. People bought it, and ate some Thursday night or Friday morning. Day goes on... they started to get sick. Afternoon, and evening, they got worse. Then they started bitin'. Friday night, September 26, 2003. And by Monday, everything was gone.” 

Ellie kicked the ground. “I like the monkees idea better,” she mumbled. 

Piper chuckled and then turned to Joel.”It makes more sense than monkeys. Thanks.” 

“Sure,” was all Joel could say. Then he halted. His step was unsure as he glanced back at the girls. 

“What?” Piper asked, noticing Joel’s hesitancy. 

“We'll cut across the woods here,” Joel instructed. 

Ellie raised her brow. “Isn't the road easier?” 

“Yeah, it's just…” Joel paused. “There's stuff up there you shouldn't see.”

Ellie smirked. “Well, now I have to see.” 

Joel raised his hand out in front of Ellie as she tried to find the source of Joel’s concern. “I don't want you to. Serious.” 

“Ellie, come on,” Piper said.  

Ellie turned around and walked backwards as she conversed with Piper and Joel. “Can it hurt me?” Ellie asked. 

“No,” Joel said too quickly for his own liking. The quick remark only furthered Ellie’s curiosity as her pace quickened into a jog. Her curiosity only grew with each step closer to whatever it was that Joel didn’t want her to see.

Joel sighed and cursed himself. He was rusty and forgot the power of a kid’s curiosity. You say no and the kid is gonna do exactly what you just said. 

“You're too honest,” Piper told Joel as they walked over to where Ellie stood. It seemed like she found what Joel was trying to conceal. “Should've said ax murderer,” Piper smiled. 

Joel had to double-look to make sure he saw Piper correctly. She had just smiled and made a joke. It was something he was sure was only reserved for Ellie. Despite this newfound discovery, Joel’s face remained ever as stern. 

“Fuck…,” Ellie muttered once Piper and Joel were standing right next to her. “Uh... whatever it was... think it's gone.”

Piper agreed. Fuck about summed up the horrific mass grave in front of them. Charred bones were sticking out of an enormous pile of ash. The two girls could make out skulls of all different shapes and sizes. Some of the smaller bones, Ellie was sure, could only belong to a baby. She felt sick to her stomach, with only one question on her mind–why?

Joel could sense the unease coming from the two girls. It’s not every day you find yourself standing over the graves of dozens of people. “About a week after Outbreak Day,” Joel began to explain,” soldiers... went through the countryside, and evacuated the small towns. Told you you were goin' to a QZ, and you were... if there was room. If there wasn't…”

Piper’s throat tightened as memories flashed in her mind. Screaming children, begging parents, pleading people all praying for a chance to survive. She turned away and walked to the other side of the road. Her hands clutched so tightly her nails were breaking the skin. It was the only way to calm herself down. Pain for pain. The commands echoed in her mind. 

‘There’s no room. I’d say it's time for some target practice.’

A gun was placed in her hand. A shot rang out. Then another. Screams filled the air. The horror of a trapped animal brought to the slaughter. Practice makes perfect and so Piper never missed a shot. 

Joel can see the horror in Piper’s eyes as she walks away. Her glossy dark brown eyes reflect the torture of her soul so clearly that Joel isn’t even sure he saw it. It’s a look of a lifetime of pain. A look he always finds in the mirror. His heart wrings itself at the thought. Part of him wants to console her, yet he knows he has no right. Instead, Joel stands still next to Ellie staring at the corpses of the past. 

“These people weren't sick?” Ellie dared to ask. 

“No,” Joel shook his head. “Probably not.” 

Ellie’s face paled. “Why kill them? Why not just leave 'em be?” 

The hurt in Ellie’s voice was what sent Piper over the edge. As the contents of her stomach spilled onto the side of the dirt road, Piper was glad that she hadn’t eaten anything this morning. She’d rather have her throat burn than waste any food. 

Joel clenched his eyes shut at the sound of Piper’s sick. “Dead people can't be infected.”

꧁_____________꧂ 

Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. 

The words rang like a bell forcing Piper to remember every minute of every hour of every day. She was guilty. There was no doubt about it. No one could protect her. Levi was gone and Piper was alone to fend for herself against FEDRA. 

No one cried any tears when the twelve-year-old received her verdict. It was all swept under the rug along with the bodies and the lies. Piper wished someone could cry for her because no tears seemed to fall from her eyes. She wanted to cry but everything was numb. 

The hallways were empty as she returned to her room. Her face and shirt were wet, but not with tears. Everything was quiet. The floor didn’t creek like it used to under her feet. The running water never dripped or splashed as Piper baptized herself under the tap. The towel never rustled against her skin and hair. The bed never groaned and squeaked as she laid down next to her shivering sister. 

Piper couldn’t sleep and she was sure she never would again for her mind was trapped in its own self-inflicted prison. 

Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. 

꧁_____________꧂ 

Silver fence as far as the eye could see. It looked so out of place wrapped around the small town full of brightly coloured homes and buildings. The barbed wires and warnings of electric death only furthered Piper’s concern about the whole ordeal. She remembered what Joel had told them earlier. Frank was nice and Bill…Piper imagined Bill to be the death trap of a fence protecting the sweet and welcoming town inside. Part of her hoped that she wasn’t true. 

Joel’s face tensed as he looked at the neighbourhood in front of him. It felt dead. Even the world inside the fence seemed stale, a fate Frank would rather die than see come to pass. “Stay there,” Joel told the girls as he approached the gate. The girls ignored him and continued to walk alongside him. 

Four buttons are pressed on the keypad. A ching noise rang out. The gate was opened and they all stepped inside allowing Joel’s concern to grow.

 “What the fսck? Bill? Frank?” Joel called out as his pace quickened. He marched to a large white house. Pots once filled with beautiful blooming flowers now lay wilted. The sun had soaked up every source of life on the street. “You two stay there. Ya hear anything, you see anything... yell,” Joel commanded as he opened the black door with peeling paint.

The girls paused for a moment before entering the home after Joel. It was beautiful. Walls painted vibrant colours that Piper and Ellie had never seen before. The blue in the living room called out to Piper beckoning her, and at that moment she knew what her favourite colour was. There was a couch untouched by moths and time, a piano in perfect condition, paintings and art supplies stuffed in a corner of the room, and a rug that wasn’t covered in dirt and mud. For a moment, the two girls could finally imagine what it was like before the outbreak. At last, the two girls could see what a real home could look like. 

“What if they're gone?” Ellie whispered to Piper as she strolled into the dining room. Wine bottles open, glasses lay empty, and leftover food lay rotting. 

Piper found herself gliding over to the piano. She had only heard of these things before and only once had she heard one being played. Another kid in the QZ had a tape of piano songs. Piper only got to hear it once before it was taken away. Curiosity got the better of the girl and she lifted up the covering for the keys. The white and black keys glistened in the sunlight that crept through the window. Her fingers hovered over the keys waiting for the right moment. She had to remember this for the rest of her life. Her pointer finger found a key and pushed it down and the piano sang. It was a chord that struck her soul. 

“Ellie? Piper?” Joel said as he walked back into the main room. He saw Piper’s awe of the piano. He could see the love she had for the instrument. There was a shuffling behind him causing Joel to turn around. 

Ellie raised a slip of paper into the air as she sat down on one of the chairs at the dining table. “It's from Bill,” Ellie explained. Joel stood there watching her, not a thought in his mind or a word in his mouth. Ellie took his silence as an okay and began to read. "To whomever... but probably Joel.” 

Joel adjusted his stance as Piper entered the room upon hearing Ellie’s voice.  

Ellie looked up at Joel worried she had offended him. “I figured I fell under whomever. Came with this.” 

Ellie passed a set of dusty keys over to Joel. He removed his bag and snatched up the keys. Piper took that as her chance to move and pulled out a chair to sit down on. 

“So they're dead?” Piper asked as she observed Joel holding the keys. 

“Mm-hmm,” Ellie nodded. “You, you wanna?”  Ellie offered the letter to Joel. 

“Go ahead. You do it,” Joel replied as he stepped back waiting for Ellie to read the message Bill and Frank had left him. 

"August 29, 2023. If you find this... please do not come into the bedroom. We left a window open so the house wouldn't smell, but it will probably be a sight. I'm guessing you found this, Joel because anyone else would've been electrocuted or blown up by one of my traps. Hehehehehehehehe.”

Piper winced at Ellie’s attempt at a written laugh. Ellie stuck her tongue at her sister before continuing. 

“Take anything you need. The bunker code is the same as the gate code but in reverse. Anyway... I never liked you, but still, it's like we're friends... almost. And I respect you. So, I'm gonna tell you something because you're probably the only person who will understand. I used to hate the world, and I was happy when everyone died. But I was wrong because there was one person worth saving. That's what I did. I saved him. Then I protected him. That's why men like you and me are here. We have a job to do. And God helps any mοthеrfսckеr who stands in our way. I leave you all of my weapons and equipment. Use them to keep..." 

Ellie’s throat caught on the next words. Tess. She couldn’t say it. Piper sat up in her seat watching her sister’s sudden wave of silence. 

Joel clenched his jaw and grabbed the letter from Ellie’s hands. His eyes scanned the paper over until he reached the line that caused Ellie’s hesitation. 

Joel couldn’t stand it any longer. The stench of dust in the air was clogging up his lungs. His eyes burned aching to find some release. “Stay here,” he said to the girls before darting out of the house and shutting the door behind him. 

The sun seemed to be shining even more than usual when Joel emerged from the house. ‘Use them to keep Tess safe.’ The wilting flowers, the dead brown yard, and the peeling paint. Each thing he looked at glared in his face like a headstone in a graveyard. It was inescapable. The letter was read. The paper now lay crunched up in the palm of Joel’s hand. He wanted to squeeze the letter so tight that it vanished from existence. He wanted to wash away the effects of Bill’s words. He wanted to clean himself of the pain, the memories, and the emotions. So the first time in a long time, Joel cried. It wasn’t a sob or a cry that brought you to your knees. No, Joel’s face bunched up and a single tear fell down his cheek. Joel knew better than to stand there and cry. The heavy weight of a key in his hand reminded him of the weight of what he promised to the dead. Joel knew better than anyone that the best way to mourn was to move on in the world of the living. 

꧁_____________꧂ 

Joel was surprised to find both Ellie and Piper exactly where they were when he left the house a while ago. He was sure they would have at least explored the house. Instead, it seems they explored dust art as tiny stick figures and horrible renditions of animals and flowers now decorated the table. 

“Show me your arm,” Joel asked the two girls. Piper was the first to stick out her arm. The wound had scabbed over and was beginning to fade. Ellie’s bite mark was only a scar on the skin of her arm. Joel thought back to Tess’s words. This was real, these girls are real. 

“I just finished makin' a truck battery. It's charging right now,” Joel told the girls. 

“Okay…” Ellie said. 

“I have a brother out in Wyoming,” Joel explained to two girls. “He's in some kinda trouble, and I'm heading out there to find him. And my guess is he knows where some of them are out there. Maybe they can get you to wherever this lab is.”

“All right,” Piper agreed. 

“Uh, listen, about Tess, uh…,” Ellie began to say when Joel cut her off. 

“If I'm takin' you with me, there are some rules you gotta follow. Rule one, you don't bring up Tess. Ever. Matter of fact, we can just keep our histories to ourselves. Rule two, you don't tell anyone about your... condition. They see that bite mark; they won't think it through. They'll just shoot you. Rule three, you do what I say when I say it. We clear?” 

“Yes,” Ellie nodded her head. 

Joel turned to Piper. “Repeat it.” 

“What you say goes,” she muttered. 

“Okay,” Joel sighed as he looked around the room. 

“So, what now?” Ellie asked. 

“We grab what we can,” Joel said. He waved his hand telling the girls to follow as he led them to Bill’s bunker. 

80s music was blaring from the computer’s speakers, and Joel knew a headache was coming. Immediately, he marched over to the computer and silenced the sound. 

“Ho-ly shit,” Ellie was in awe of the bunker. “This guy was a genius.”

“Why was the music on?” Piper asked as she hopped off the ladder. 

“If he didn't reset the countdown every few weeks,” Joel explained,” this playlist would run over the radio.”

“'80s,” Piper whispered as she glanced over the wall of firearms. Some of which looked brand new. 

“Grab some cans from over there. Nothin’ dented or swollen,” Joel instructed the girls as he pointed them to the corner of canned goods. 

“Dude,” Ellie uttered, she pointed to the wall of guns. A hopeful look was born in her eyes. 

“No,” Joel said, squandering the hope in Ellie’s gaze. 

“But there's a wall of them…Piper?” Ellie pleaded.

“Let’s go, Ellie,” Piper replied.

Ellie groaned and her whole body heaved over. Piper chuckled at her sister’s dramatics before Piper moved to the canned goods and began to stuff bags full of food. 

꧁_____________꧂ 

The whole house was stocked with things that were a rarity in the QZ. Ellie found an entire closet full of toilet paper and women’s toiletries. It was a fucking gold mine. As Ellie filled bag after bag, Piper stood in the kitchen rummaging through the food. She had never seen some of the spices and foods that were stored in Bill and Frank’s kitchen. Part of her wished that she could have lived here with them in this life of luxury as the rest of the world fell apart.

“Needs another hour,” Joel said as he closed the front door behind him. He walked over to Ellie and looked at the bags before nodding and doing the same for Piper. 

“Come on, you two,” Joel uttered as he walked up the stairs to the second floor of the house. 

There were fully decorated homes with beds. The rooms had beds that were in amazing condition compared to the wilting mattress of Piper and Ellie’s bunk beds. The two girls would kill to have at least one night's rest in this palace of a home. 

Joel led them into a room and cracked open the closet doors before dropping cardboard boxes onto the bed. 

“Look in there,” Joel said before reaching into a box labelled men's shirts for himself. 

Piper and Ellie smiled as they walked over to the boxes full of new and clean women’s clothing. There were thick jeans unworn by anyone and shirts without holes and any signs of thinning. 

“Grab an extra shirt Ellie and a warm–” Piper began to say as she shuffled through the piles of clothing. 

“Yeah, yeah. I know. Grab something warm for when winter comes and extra clothes just in case.” Ellie repeated the words as if she was a robot. 

Piper smiled before placing her hand on Ellie’s head and roughing up her hair making it all go frizzy. Ellie groaned before smacking Piper’s hand away. 

“Alright, got my…holy shit!” Ellie exclaimed as she open a door in the bedroom. Before her was a pristine bathroom. She stepped inside and turned on the water “Piper! They have hot water!” Ellie stuck her head out of the bathroom. “I'm takin' a shower. And then you're showering because seriously.” Ellie waved her hand in front of her nose as she pointed to Piper. 

Piper rolled her eyes as she bagged the last piece of clothing in her backpack. “Oh fuck you, Ellie” Piper smiled. 

꧁_____________꧂ 

They really did have hot water and fuck did it feel amazing against Piper’s skin. As she stood underneath the raining showerhead, she could never recall a time when she did have warm water. If she was lucky to get a shower back in the QZ, all the water was freezing cold. Piper thought that she could get used to how the water eased her aching muscles and soul. She likes the feeling of the water trickling against her skin turning it a shade of pink from the heat. 

For a large majority of her shower, the water that rinsed off her body and hair was a dark brown. One could say it had been a long time since she really cleaned herself. While the river from earlier was nice, it was river water and Piper could only do so much when it came to bathing. 

Piper was quick to realize that the shower had a nice supply of fancy shampoos, conditioners, and body washes. Each bottle with a different scent that pleased Piper’s nose. To be safe rather than sorry, she used each of the five shampoos, the six conditioners, and the three body washes. She even contemplated using the razor to shave, but after remembering she had no recollection of how to wield the blade, she chose against it. 

The water washed away the dirt and grim and crusty blood that had stuck to her skin and some part of Piper believed that it washed the deepest parts of her broken soul. The heat of the water melded together the shattered pieces into one stronger shard. Piper felt renewed. Who knew a shower could do that? 

She shut the water off and stepped out of the shower before wrapping a towel around her body. She practically moaned at how soft the fabric was. All the towels she had ever used before were coarse and left scratches against her skin. Yet these towels were gentle as she guided the towel to soak up any remaining water. 

By the time she dressed herself the steam that had fogged up the mirror evaporated leaving Piper with the perfect view of herself. Her mind was torn from the view. Part of her cherished the sight of her dark eyes and long hair that took forever to dry as they shine in contrast with her pale freckled skin. The other more menacing part caught sight of the bruise along her nose and the dark circles under her eyes. What was worse was the look in her eyes. Piper already knew that she was broken, but to see it? That was a fate no one deserved to have. All of a sudden, Piper wished the mirror was fogged up again. She wished she never looked in the mirror and saw what it saw, so she bundled up her dirty clothes and left the bathroom. 

“It’s your turn,” Piper muttered to Joel as she passed him in the hallway. “I made sure to keep some warm water for you.” 

Joel nodded and took in the sight of the clean yet broken figure of Piper as she glided down the hallway and out of sight. He pushed himself off the wall and entered the bathroom. With a quick check of the water, he knew Piper told the truth. She did leave some hot water for him. 

꧁_____________꧂ 

“You clean up nice,” Ellie whistled to her sister as she stepped off the last stair. 

With a scoff and a raised brow, Piper brushed Ellie’s comment off. “Yeah, whatever.”

Piper glanced up the stairs in the direction of the bathroom and turned on her listening ear. Watering was running. Good. 

Dark eyes scanned Piper’s movement to the basement door. “Where are you going?” Ellie asked. 

“The bunker,” Piper replied as she carefully turned the knob to negate any creaking. 

“But Joel–” Ellie began glancing upstairs. 

“Is in the shower and won’t know a thing if you don’t tell,” Piper assured. The door was now fully open, and the smell of dust lay filled Piper’s nose. 

“...and what about the code?” Ellie pondered. 

A sigh escaped Piper’s mouth. “I saw the code at the gate,” Piper explained, “so I just have to put it in backward: 6791.” She widened her eyes at her sister as if to say ‘duh’ before closing the door and trekking to the bunker. 

Ellie sank deeper into her seat as she picked at her fingernails. For the first time in her life, they were clean. There was no dirt or grime hidden under the nail bed of each finger. It was weird and now there was nothing for her to pick at anymore. Huffing a breath of air, Ellie dropped her head back. Her skull banged against the back of the seat. 

“Fuck,” hissed Ellie as she rubbed her injury. 

Maybe sitting in a hard chair wasn’t the best idea when she was bored. It was then Ellie remembered where she was. It was a house that was a treasure cove of goods. She was sure she could find some good to keep her boredom at bay. Besides, it’s not like Bill and Frank would mind, they were dead. 

While the living room was an enticing start with all the painting supplies and the piano, a small desk in the corner of the dining room caught Ellie’s attention. It was small as it buried itself deep into the corner. The young girl almost would have missed it if it weren’t for the funky shape of the desk. 

Unlike all the other desks and tables Ellie had seen back in the QZ, this one was rounded at the top. While there was a flat surface in the middle, on the sides there were walls that curved to meet the top edge of the desk. The bottom half of the desk was as you’d expect. It was flat with multiple drawers to hold all of one’s belongings. Drawers were the perfect place to search for something to quench boredom, so that’s exactly where Ellie went looking. 

There was the odd thing-ama-gig here and there and by the time Ellie searched through the first drawer, she had found three packs of gum and some toothpicks and pads of paper. Boring. The next drawer was the same. And the next until Ellie’s hands glossed over the top drawer of the desk. 

It was long and thin, and Ellie was sure there wasn’t going to be anything in it. The drawer groaned as it was pulled open. Ellie’s eyes widened. 

“Fuck yeah!” She triumphantly whispered. 

Inside there were two notebooks and upon further inspection, they were both empty. Brand new and just waiting to be used. One for her and one for Piper. There were also some assorted pencils and pens, which weren’t as exciting, but Ellie grabbed them just as well. She needed some to draw with after all. Upon further inspection, she found some magazines and a comic or two. Quickly, she put them in her bag. She was sure she’d need reading material at some point. 

With the drawer closed Ellie sat back in her seat at the dining table and got to work. She always loved to draw and knew she was shit at it, but she remembered that Piper always told her you can never be good without practice. First, Ellie drew a tree to help her remember her adventures from that morning and the thrill of being in the sky. Next was the arcade game she saw in the gas station. However, she gave up after drawing a funky box with weird angles. She’d have to work on dimensions and perception if she was to get any better. The last thing she tried to capture on the blank page of the notebook was her and her sister. She wanted to do better than some stick figures and a bright yellow sun in the sky. At first, there were two circles, which then became ovals. Then there were circles for eyes but eyes don’t look quite like that so Ellie erased them and…

“What’s that?” Piper asked as she peered over her sister’s shoulder. 

Ellie jumped out of her seat and a long dark line was scratched against the paper. “A notebook,” Ellie muttered, collecting her nerves. “Here found you one.” She handed Piper the notebook and watched as her sister flipped through the pages.

A smile grew on Piper’s face as she hugged the notebook close. “…thanks, Ellie.” Ellie beamed up at her sister. For once she gave something to Piper, and it made Ellie’s heartbeat with pride. 

“Here,” Piper said, placing down her backpack and placing the notebook safely inside. “Shove this deep in your bag, but someplace easily accessible,” Piper instructed. 

At first, Ellie was confused about exactly what she was supposed to store in her bag, but her expression quickly changed to one of pure excitement. “Fuck yeah!” exclaimed Ellie. 

Piper chuckled. “Just hurry up.” She placed the gun in Ellie’s hands. 

“Ai yai captain,” Ellie saluted as she shoved the gun into her bag. “Thanks, Piper for–Oh shit.” Joel had come down the stairs. “Well, don't you look pretty?” 

Joel paused for a moment staring at the girls. Their faces were flushed, and they were oddly still. “Shut up,” he told Ellie. “…Ready to go?”  

Piper and Ellie nodded a bit too enthusiastically for Joel’s taste, but these were weird kids, so they’d do weird things. “Let’s go.” Joel opened the front door and motioned for the girls to follow. 

꧁_____________꧂ 

Joel let a sigh of relief fill his body once his aching bones sat down on the leather seats of the truck. It was going to be a luxury to drive instead of walk. A true luxury it would have been if he could have been taking this trip alone. 

“You’re in the back,” Piper barked at Ellie. 

“There’s no way in hell,” Ellie growled. 

The two girls had a hand on the door handle to the passenger seat. Their bodies were vigorously pressed up against each other in an attempt to knock the other over. Their yapping was already giving Joel a headache. He pinched his brow hard and clenched his jaw. Maybe if he thought hard enough the girls would be silent. Alas, their bickering only grew. 

“Because I said so,” Piper said as she shoved Ellie to the side. 

“That’s bullshit–”

“Girls!” Joel scolded. He knew that if he didn’t conclude the fight, they would never leave Bill’s and Frank’s. 

Silence came from Piper and Ellie as they stood watching Joel carefully. 

“Who knows how to read a map?” Joel asked, his tone was much softer. 

Ellie looked down just as Piper began to smirk. “I do,” Piper smugly replied. 

“Piper’s in front. Ellie, you’re in the back,” Joel stated. 

“Yeah! Told you,” Piper muttered to her sister. 

“Fuck you,” Ellie grumbled as she took the back seat of the truck. 

“Love you too,” Piper smiled back at Ellie as she got comfortable in the passenger seat. She pulled the sun guard down and looked in its tiny mirror after she scanned all the buttons for the stereo. “Nice,” She whispered. 

“It's your first time in a car?” Joel asked curiously as he watched the two girls' reactions to the vehicle. 

“It's like a spaceship,” Ellie noted as she stared around with wide eyes. 

“No, it's like a piece of shit Chevy S10, but it'll get us there... I think,” Joel said. “Seatbelt.”

“Hm?” The two girls looked at him with confusion. Joel stared back with a look of bewilderment. 

“Seatbelt,” Joel repeated. The girls’ reactions didn’t change. 

The seat groaned as Joel stretched back and reached for Ellie’s seatbelt. In one swift motion, she buckled her in. Her hands roamed the material as it lay strapped across her torso. Next, Joel buckled in Piper. His large hands clasped the buckled guiding across Piper’s torso before hearing the click. 

“Okay,” Joel said to himself once the girls were seated. With a turn of the key, the engine whirred to life. One hand on the wheel and the other on the shift. 

Piper watched in awe as Joel backed them out of the garage and onto the street. It was an odd sensation to feel the rumbling of the engine beneath her seat. 

“So cool,” Ellie whispered as she looked out the window and the moving world. 

Joel placed the map in Piper’s lap as they approached the gate. She carefully unfolded the paper, her eyes scanning over the numerous lines and illustrations to find their location. With a quick glance outside the window to check for street signs, she found their location on the map. 

In the meantime, Joel had opened the gate and began to leave the ghost of a utopian neighbourhood behind.  Ellie sat with her head laying against the window as she watched the homes disappear behind her leaving the open road ahead. 

“Would ya leave it?” Joel said to Piper pulling Ellie out of her trance as the trees flew by. “Put it back... Piper.”

Piper turned to Joel and smirked as she placed the tape into the stereo. With a click the tape began to play and the song came to life. 

The sound of instruments seeped through the speakers of the stereo playing the intro. It was slow as they set up the start of the first verse. 

Ellie huffed. “This sucks, come on, change it,” she told Piper. 

Piper rolled her eyes and made a move to skip the song.

“Oh, no, wait. No, leave it. Leave it,” Joel said as he swatted Piper’s hand away from the stereo. “Oh, this is good. This is Linda Ronstadt. Do you know who Linda Ronstadt is?” He turned back to look at the girls. 

“You know I don't know who Linda Ronstadt is,” Piper replied as she sat back in her chair. Her ears tuned in to listen to the music. 

“Oh, man. Eh,” Ellie sighed. “It's better than Piper’s shit music.”

Immediately Piper sat up in her seat. “Hey! Try having a music taste in this shit world…and I’ll have you know Fleetwood Mac isn’t shit music.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say…”

This was going to be a long car ride. 

꧁_____________꧂ 

 ♪ Wait for the day ♪ ♪ You'll go away ♪ ♪ Knowin' that you warned me ♪ ♪ Of the price I'd have to pay ♪ ♪ And life's full of loss ♪ ♪ Who knows the cost ♪ ♪ Livin' in the memory ♪ ♪ Of a love that never was ♪ ♪ 'Cause I've done everything I know ♪ ♪ To try and change your mind ♪ ♪ And I think I'm gonna love you ♪ ♪ For a long, long time ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Love will abide ♪ ♪ Take things in stride ♪ ♪ Sounds like good advice ♪ ♪ But there's no one at my side ♪ ♪ And time washes clean ♪ ♪ Love's wounds unseen ♪ ♪ That's what someone told me ♪ ♪ But I don't know what it means ♪ ♪ 'Cause I've done everything I know... ♪

꧁_____________꧂

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꧁_____________꧂

[kitsunexgari]

Chapter Ten Summary: Kitsune is a wealthy billionaire on the hunt for the Front Man of these legendary Squid Games she’s heard so much about. However, in her attempt to find this man’s true identity, the hunter will become the hunted. Relationship: Hwang In-ho/Original Female Character Tags: Kidnapping/abduction, assault, non-consensual drugging, sadism, fear play, knife play, blood play, Dom/Sub, consensual but not safe or sane, dub-con, sexual activity, torture, knives, language, humiliation, slapping, biting, stabbing. Note: The tags are general tags not all things happen in every chapter I just want people to be warned what they could potentially get into.

[Chapter One] [Chapter Two] [Chapter Three] [Chapter Four][Chapter five][Chapter Six][Chapter Seven][Chapter Eight][Chapter Nine]

Story Masterlist [Link]

The next morning when she woke up, she was very glad to see In-ho in bed next to her. Still asleep. Her alarm had been set for the usual 6am wake up time but she planned to call into the office saying that she would be mobile for the next week or so and have her assistant take over anything that needed to be done at the actual headquarters. She grabbed her phone and headed towards the bathroom to check her text messages, still kind of half asleep from the events of the previous night. There were a bunch of text from her assistant but that was normal for first thing in the morning. What wasn’t normal were the texts from Leila. 

Do you know some guy named Seo-jun?

She absolutely didn’t know a guy with that name but since it was a Korean name she could kind of do the math and figure out he had to have something to do with In-ho in some capacity. Other than some of the investors and partners she had in Korea she didn’t speak to anyone casually, not other than In-ho but why would Leila know that name? Whoever it was? The text had been sent a few hours prior which made sense because of the time change. All she could do was text back and wonder why there wasn’t any follow up texts. As she was writing she saw the ellipsis come up to denote that Leila was currently typing. She paused for a moment when a picture was sent to her. 

A man she had never seen before, with the move devious smile, in a very sharp looking suit was standing there holding the camera up with Leila behind him, she looked to be passed out and tied up. They were on a plane, obviously a private jet. Though there was no way for her to know who this guy was, she had a gut feeling it was the man that she’d known as Snake on that island. Quite possibly why he’d been given that animal and designation. 

“IN-HO!” She yelled even though she could see that something was still being typed as she headed back into the bedroom. He was only half awake from her loud yelling of his name but she passed by him quickly to a framed painting on the wall which she slid back to get to a safe which could only be opened with her thumb print. 

“Hmmm? What’s going on?” 

She glanced at him over her shoulder and pulled the door to the safe open. From inside she pulled a Ruger and aimed it right at him. That definitely woke him up a lot faster. He put his hands up to show her that he didn’t mean her any harm, or at least she assumed that was the case. She had been out there in the forest with him, on that island. He could probably disarm her if she looked away for too long, she’d be lying if she said she didn’t think that. 

“You have a gun.” 

“I have several actually but that’s another conversation for another day.” She took a few steps towards the bed, “Explain this.” With her other hand she held up her phone so he could see the image she’d just received via text. 

“Can I come closer or will you shoot me?” 

“Slowly, don’t make any sudden movements, I will kill you and on top of that I’ll get away with it.” 

“Oh, I believe you.” He nodded and slowly moved closer reaching out one of his hands to take the phone from her. 

“Don’t do anything stupid.” 

“I wasn’t planning on it.” He replied, his voice hardly above a whisper as he looked down at the phone in his hands. His expression shifted from confused and concerned to practically enraged in a split second. Well, not really his entire expression, she could see it in his eyes somehow.

“Who sent you this?” 

“Who do you think?” 

“I mean this…that’s your friend. Leila,” He motioned to the screen but she was sure he meant what was in the background of the picture. 

“No shit.” 

“Why…what is he-” 

The phone buzzed in his hands and he looked down at it again. His eyes narrowed into a glare and he held the phone back out to her. She took it to see what it said. 

Bring In-ho to the island, alone, and no one gets hurt. 

This was just great, it would certainly thwart their plans of figuring out how to get back there and take him down to reinstate In-ho as the rightful director of the Squid Game. Though why he wanted her there when he could have just told In-ho to come alone was raising huge red flags to her. 

“Why both of us, why not just you? This was a setup wasn’t it? You come here and distract me, send your men after her. That's what this is, isn’t it?” 

“What? How would I benefit from that?”

“Money? Power? Resources?”

“Rika,” He sighed and shook his head, “I suppose I can’t fault you for thinking that this is a possibility. I would imagine with your job, and such a prominent position here, this wouldn’t have been the first time someone has tried to screw you over.” 

“Get to the point.” 

“I wouldn’t need to. You think I don’t have connections? Money? Not as much as you, I will admit but I don’t need more money. Even if you hadn’t agreed to help me, I wouldn’t be hurting with finding hired guns to do it. You think they make me run the Squid Game by force?” 

He had a good point. Though she really hadn’t considered what kind of salary the Front Man of this game would make, it would have to be a high one to keep him doing it and also keep him quiet. Even if he enjoyed doing it, and she wasn’t really sure if that was the case since she hadn’t asked, they’d still need to make sure of it. If he didn’t like it, then they’d have to be sure of it even more than that. Offer enough of an incentive to keep his mouth shut. She could also imagine if he knew the types of people who organized this then the combination of that and the money he possessed wouldn’t make it a problem for him to do what he needed. 

“Why did they let him take over in the first place? Huh? These people who you work for?” 

“They care less about who does it as long as someone does. I was forced out. I don’t know what he told them, exactly, but they do know him too. Seo-jun, they know he can be trusted so whatever he made up they wouldn’t care but he’s not like me. He’s a psychopath. This isn’t a good situation for anyone. Least of all the people who play the game.” 

“No offense but aren’t they all just homeless street trash no one cares about anyway?” 

“The players? Yes, but the investors are going to want a real game, he’s kind of a bit too sadistic and power hungry to handle this right, it’s complicated but he had his other job for a reason and I had mine.” 

She paused for a moment, attempting to analyze what he was saying. Examine it for the possibility of a lie. It kind of made her think about the difference between John Kramer and Mark. Maybe this situation was similar, maybe it was more about pride, or fairness, she didn’t know. The real painful irony of the situation was how much shit she’d given Leila for being married to Mark and falling for a guy like In-ho, who in very many ways wasn’t all that different. Slowly she lowered the gun. 

“You’re going to have to take me back to that island, I’m not letting anything happen to her and I will shoot you if you even-” 

“I don’t doubt that.” He interrupted, “But my business isn’t with Leila, it’s with Seo-jun and your safety as well.” She looked down at the phone and texted him back, asking him why she was required to come along as well. 

“Well, looks like we are going on a trip.” She sighed, “I’ll need to call to make arrangements for my plane. It'll take about 6 or so hours to file a flight plan but then we’re leaving. Make sure he understands this.” She tossed the phone onto the bed by him and he picked it up. 

“I’ll make sure of that.” 

“I’m keeping this gun on me, just so you know, they aren’t going to check any of my shit when I get on my plane, they never do.” 

“I assumed as much.” 

She nodded and went to her closet to grab a suitcase so she could start packing. It was one of her smaller ones, but if she showed up to this plane without anything it would look weird and she wouldn’t be able to pass it off as the business trip that she planned to. It wasn’t as if anyone would be very happy working on the expense account if she used the jet for personal reasons. As she packed up she kept the gun close, and her eyes on In-ho as much as she possibly could. She could only hope that he wasn’t just a very good actor, and really was telling the truth about not needing to hold her hostage for any reason. Her or Leila. She guessed there was no way to know that without continuing to move forward, so that was all she could keep doing. Leila was getting off of that island alive, even if it was over her own dead body. 

“Did you know him? John Kramer I mean.” In-ho asked her kind of out of the blue while they were on the plane. Seo-jun had been contacted and given a time range of when they could get to the island. It was the fastest amount of time possible but that was still quite a while given the type of travel they were going to have to do. Though they had talked about what they were going to do when they got there and potential ways to to take Seo-jun down over the hours leading up to the flight, there was a huge problem with that. Namely the part where they really didn’t know what he had planned, if they would be together or separate, and how Leila would fit into all of this. 

By the time they had boarded the plane they hadn’t had much to say to each other. Even though she did believe she could mostly trust In-ho, at the same time she didn’t know. The way she’d been brought to the island in the first place had all be highly suspicious and now this? He shows up and suddenly Leila is captured and there are demands to meet a guy who had stabbed her for his own sexual gratification back on that island. Maybe she had seen the mutiny with her own eyes but that didn’t mean it wasn’t staged or there wasn’t some level of deception here. She also hadn’t let go of her gun for any longer than she had to around him. He hadn’t given her any reason to believe he was going to turn against her, yet, but things could change quickly once they were on the island and she had no means of escaping. 

“John? I never met him. I think Leila did at some charity benefit thing. She mentioned it once but she doesn’t like to talk about it.” 

“But you knew Mark?” 

“Oh, very well.” She laughed softly then lit up a cigarette, at least that was one of the benefits of having a private plane. She took a drag and sat back in her chair. He was sitting across from where she was on a couch. Her gun was right next to her, she’d gotten it out of her bag as soon as they’d gotten on just to let him know not to try anything. Not that he seemed stupid enough to try it on a plane but she wasn’t willing to take any chances on that end. “I never liked him, not from the start. He just didn’t seem…right. I don’t know how to explain it. He didn’t like me much either. Leila says the reason we probably didn’t like each other is because we are both sociopaths.” 

“She thinks you’re a sociopath?” 

“She knows I am,” She sighed then took another drag from her cigarette and stood up to head to the mini kitchen area to get herself a drink. “I told you what she does right?”

“FBI agent, but not what she does there.” 

“She’s a forensic psychiatrist, writes profiles, sometimes does autopsies though that’s not typically part of the job. Anyway, it’s not really the best practice to diagnose your best friends and sometimes sex partners but I trust her judgement when she says that about me and I completely believe it about Mark.” She grabbed two cans of coke and walked back to her seat, sliding one of the cans across the table to him. 

“Do you think I’m a sociopath?” 

“Well, I’m no psychiatrist, but think about what brought us together and what you do in your spare time and take a wild guess on how I might answer that.” She smirked and opened her drink then took a few gulps. “It doesn’t bother me much, I mean, I guess that would make sense. CEOs and all that are very likely to be sociopaths, same with law enforcement.” 

“Point taken.” He chuckled, obviously understanding that she was alluding to his former occupation as a police officer. “But her? She’s not?” 

“We all may gravitate to those occupations but that doesn’t mean it’s everyone and no, she’s not. If anything, she’s too empathetic. I told her that her bleeding heart would probably get her killed one day.” 

“And yet you care enough about her to do this and possibly lose your life in the process?”

“Sociopaths can care about people they just typically choose not to. I care about Leila. Just like I’m sure there was someone at some point in time in your life that you cared about. Maybe even currently.” She shrugged. 

“I was married.” He grabbed the can from his side of the table and opened it, “I loved her, it’s been years…” He trailed off. 

“Loved?” 

“I mean I suppose I still do feel that love when thinking of her but she’s dead.” He frowned and took a drink from the can, “I know what I feel for you though.” 

“Really? I’m supposed to buy that?” 

“In all honesty, I don’t think you’d ever replace the feeling that I had or still have for my wife but, I do know that I don’t wish for any harm to come to you. I don’t want to lose you, and most importantly, I will do what it takes to get you off the island as safely as I can.” 

“And you should know my first priority is Leila.” 

“Then she will be mine as well.” 

“The good news is that if you do get her off of the island she’ll gladly tell you if you're a sociopath or not.” 

“Good to know.” He laughed softly. She smirked at him, it was nice to hear that he had strong feelings for her. If they were the truth. She didn’t want to prod him about it because if he was lying it wasn’t as if he’d tell her. It did kind of suck that she knew she felt very similarly about him. Something she had not felt for a man in a very, very long time. All she could do was hope that he wasn’t lying to her and that they both had the same motivations of taking Seo-jun down and getting everyone off of that island safely. It would be a shame to have to shoot him in the face if he betrayed her, but she wouldn’t hesitate to take him out if it was going to save Leila or herself. This was one of those things where only time would tell, and it was already driving her crazy. 

Getting to the island was a whole ordeal that annoyed the shit out of her. Though he did allow her to keep her gun he wouldn’t allow the boat to go anywhere until she was blindfolded and sat down in some sort of cargo hold where there weren’t any windows, which was definitely overkill. Even if she had been able to see where they were going, she would in no way know how they were going to get back. It would have been mostly water and her internal compass was broken. For all she knew they were going any direction, for any amount of time. There would be no way for her to pick out some secret island from any of the others in the area. That was for sure. At least he hadn’t drugged her but about an hour or so into the trip she was kind of wishing he had because it was getting very boring. 

She refused to talk to him the whole time too. He tried to start conversations with her but she was pissed off. She told him they could talk if he took off the stupid blindfold but he wouldn’t relent so she figured she’d just be stubborn about it because he was being stupid. Yes, he had to cover his ass, but she was certain that even if she had a good enough memory and sense of direction to get back to the island herself, no one would believe her anyway. That and she had no real motive to get In-ho caught when she wanted to be one of the VIPs herself. If they got out of this alive he was going to owe her big time. 

Finally, after some unknown amount of time had passed, maybe a few hours, he removed her blindfold as they docked. He led her off of the boat and down the pier. He didn’t say anything to the guy who had brought them there but the boat left pretty much immediately as they stepped onto the dock. Which also seemed to be so in the middle of nowhere she didn’t know if this was the right island or he was just taking her out here to try to kill her. She turned and raised her gun to his head. 

“Where the fuck are we?” 

“This is the other side of the island. That’s why you don’t see anything familiar. Are you going to insist on holding that gun on me the whole time? You know they are going to make you give it up when they get here. They are aware we are coming.” He spoke oddly calmly for a man with a gun to his head and a woman who didn’t entirely trust him holding it. She knew he was right about what he was saying even if she didn’t want to admit it so she tossed the gun off to the side into some bushes. 

“Where’s the welcoming party? I assume this whole area is monitored.” She glanced around trying to find security cameras but before she was able to spot any a black SUV pulled up around the corner on the dirt road at the end of the pier where they were standing. “Never mind.” The vehicle stopped in front of them and two guys in black guard uniforms with those black guard masks got out. Both were holding rifles. They were ordered to put their hands up and she complied slowly. From there they were both handcuffed and shoved into the back of the car. “At least there isn’t a blindfold this time.” 

“QUIET!” One of the guards shouted in Korean. She rolled her eyes but went silent. Obviously they wouldn’t want to give them time to talk about anything, or make plans. Not that they would have done anything like that in front of Seo-jun’s men in the first place. Though they had discussed several scenarios for this inevitability, she wasn’t sure how much of that was still going to work out or if they were just going to have to improvise when they got the chance. They both knew that it was better to cooperate than fight, unless they absolutely had to. They had both agreed to do what they could to remain calm and look for a weakness to exploit in order to form a better escape route. The biggest problem was that even without a blindfold, she was going to have absolutely no idea how to get through that maze of rooms and hallways where she had been kept before. He had the entire map in his head. She was going to need him to save her for at least that part of it, which she knew. It meant hoping and praying that luck was on her side and he wasn’t going to screw her over in favor of saving his own ass. She really wished she could believe he wouldn’t, but she kind of knew that it was in her own nature to do that to someone else if she had to. Knowing how similar they were, it scared her just a bit that he may be thinking exactly the same way and there would be no way of knowing it until their lives were on the line. 

[r7leee]

a job well done | t.c.

i’m gonna start by saying this is for a friend’s birthday, there is absolutely no other reason i’d be writing this otherwise 💀 anyways, love u ava, u better enjoy 🤬

pairing: timothée chalamet x actress!reader

summary: it’s you and your boyfriend’s first day filming. timothée’s a sweetheart while he helps you adjust.

warnings: cursing, mentions of sex but no direct smut, actress!reader and timothée are filming something together, probably very ooc!timothée, basically just a bunch of fluff

word count: 965, should take about seven and a half minutes to read

listen to: banana pancakes by jack johnson

IT WAS UNUSUAL for you to be asleep this long. your boyfriend had been beside you awake for a while now, when usually, it was the other way around.

the way your schedule worked, you were used to early mornings filming or getting on flights that it just became a habit. so to say it concerned timothée when it’d been two hours since his awakening and you were still sound asleep next to him was an understatement.

he didn’t want to be disruptive, but he didn’t want you to stay asleep much longer. he started by gently shaking you, which didn’t work. he tried a bit harder, but again, that road led to a dead end.

“darling…come on, wake up…” he whispered, which again, led nowhere. “darling!” he tried a bit louder. he sighed when your eyes stayed shut. with one final, heavy push, your eyes shot open.

due to the light coming into the trailer, you immediately threw your hands over your eyes and groaned. “what’s the deal?” you whined. he just laughed.

“it’s 11:00 in the morning, honey. you gotta get up.” you quickly took your hands off your eyes, which was a bad idea, since the light made you squint. you looked him dead in the eyes while doing so, however.

“funny joke. why did you actually wake me up?”

“i’m not joking.” he grabbed his phone from the bedside table. “look.” you widened your eyes just the slightest bit to see that the lock screen did indeed read 11:16 am.

“oh my god…” you muttered. “i don’t know how that happened, i’m so sorry, you should’ve just done stuff without me,” you rambled.

“hey. look at me.” timothée placed his hands on your face. “it’s not your fault. it’s okay. i just didn’t want to be late to get on set.” he placed a gentle kiss on your lips.

you giggled and raised an eyebrow. “you sure?”

“100%.” he got up and started stretching. “you hungry? i can get us some breakfast before we have to leave.” you laughed at his little routine. “what?” he asked, stopping. all you could do was shake your head and laugh.

“oh, so this is funny to you, huh?” timothée leaned over next to you to grab a pillow. without warning, he threw it straight at your face. you just gasped.

“don’t start a fight you know you can’t win.”

“trust me, honey, i’m planning on winning.” you threw the pillow back at him, but he caught it.

more pillows got added to the mix, and soon enough, they weren’t even being used anymore; just you two wrestling on the bed. it was all giggles and laughs until you all but pleaded him to stop.

there was a moment of silence after that as you lay on the bed underneath him. the air was thick and heavy as he remained on top of you, panting. timothée brushed a lock of hair out of your face. you could see his pupils dilate. you, in turn, gently swatted his arm. “don’t try anything. we have places to be in a few hours.”

you crawled out from underneath him and started to walk to the kitchen. the pillow fight gave you a bit of energy to enter the trailer living area. you could hear him yell. “i wasn’t going to-”

“save it,” you giggled. you turned around, hearing him exit the room. his mouth opened, trying to say something, but you grabbed his hand. he looked down, confused. you grabbed his face to kiss him.

it was just a little peck to distract him. your plan worked as he stood with a small smile afterwards. “so, you’re getting breakfast?” you confirmed cheekily.

all he could do was nod. “on me.” you concluded it was a job well done.

AFTER THE BREAKFAST your boyfriend "very lovingly," in his words, ordered, you two got ready to head on set and meet your castmates. that was all it would be for the day, so you didn't know why you felt so nervous.

timothée noticed it as you walked out of the trailer. "you okay?" he asked, furrowing his eyebrows. you nodded.

"ya," you quietly mumbled. you were playing with your hands, a habit he noticed you did when you were stressed. he grabbed one of your hands gently as an ailment.

"it's gonna be okay," he promised. you blushed at the simple touch and turned back to where you were walking. he smiled at this and ruffled your hair, only after giving the top of your head a chaste kiss.

meeting the cast wasn't nearly as bad as you imagined, and by the end of it, you actually wished you had more time to stay.

when you got back in your trailer, you mostly spent the evening unwinding. you two ordered more food since you were too bothered to make anything.

the night ended with you filing your nails after the picking you'd done at them earlier while you watched a movie. you were sitting on your boyfriend's lap as he braided your hair. the only light in the room present was the soft glow of your laptop with the movie playing.

you really weren't paying too much attention to it. you were too focused on timothée's fingers gently pulling strands of your hair over one other. it was a kind of weird thing he did in spite of boredom; he liked doing your hair. it came from watching his mother do his sister's hair. he was a fast learner from just simply observing. you teased him for being a hairdresser in a previous life.

"all done," he mumbled, snapping you out of your daze. you turned around, craning your neck to give him a gentle kiss.

"thanks, baby."

"anytime, honey."

[littlesniggy]

Seduction Part Seven

Well, this is the last part of the Seduction series. I'm still not back with writing but I really wanted to finish this story because it kept bothering me. I had so many different ideas how to finish this but I liked this one best. I can warn you ahead, no happy ending.

Please enjoy!

Warning: ns.fw, 18+, sm.ut, older man x younger woman, no happy ending, swearing, p in v Pairing: Sakazuki x female reader Word count: 3.7k Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six

It’s been a couple of months since you showed up at his house, wounded and maybe even near death. Ever since then Sakazuki knew that something needed to change but he couldn’t quite figure out what exactly. Sure, it all needed to start with you no longer coming to his house and risk his career. He was honestly amazed at your skills to blend in and conceal yourself when you came to Marineford but still, the risk was too high. 

Secondly, he needed to distance himself emotionally and physically from you. Since he was the fleet admiral and basically spent all his time at Marineford you were the one coming to see him. He couldn’t describe it any differently, but he’s gotten used to you; to your presence, to your body, to your personality… and that was also something that needed to change. He was the fleet admiral, for fuck’s sake! He had no business getting comfortable around you!

The only way to get out of this dilemma was to end once and for all. 

He took a deep breath from his cigar, his back leaning against the wall behind him, and turned his head to look at your sleeping form. Your back was turned towards him and his blanket only covering the lower half of your body. He noticed some angry red handprints on the side of your stomach where his hand had heated up just the tiniest bit last night. 

He let the ash drop into and ashtray standing next to his futon before he sucked on the cigar once again, letting the white smoke escape from his mouth. He looked up at the clock on the wall. He still had three hours before he needed to be at work. Three hours to figure out how to proceed from now on. Though he already had a plan that has been manifesting in the back of his mind for quite some time now…

His attention was drawn back to you when you turned around with a soft sigh, inching closer to his warm body. Sakazuki twisted his face a little at your peaceful and blissfully unaware behavior. You shouldn’t feel comfortable around him. You shouldn’t feel safe around him! But here you were, sleeping soundly next to your supposed enemy. 

He puffed again on his cigar, his other hand grabbing one of your locks between his fingers and absentmindedly playing with your hair. 

You were woken up by a tickling feeling on your cheek and the smell of something burning. Groggily, you opened your eyes and were first met with a very big and very muscular thigh next to you. Your gaze followed the leg, the curve of an equally muscular ass, and up the torso until you were met with a familiar pair of harsh eyes that were studying you as well. 

“Morning.” You mumbled after a while, receiving no response from the fleet admiral. Instead, he lifted his cigar up to his lips to puff on the toxic stick. He also let go of your hair and instead casually placed it on his stomach. 

You sighed and sat up but winced at various body parts that were more than sore from last night. Next to you, you heard an amused huff at your reaction and you shot him a glare from over your shoulder. 

“You should be glad you’re a devil fruit user. Otherwise, I’d fuck you up just the same.” You mumbled under your breath and started inspecting your body for any major bruises. 

“I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t change a thing, Y/n.” he mocked. 

Another half-hearted glare in his direction only made him shake his head with the tiniest of grins and you decided to not press it any further. 

Your eyes widened at the angry red imprint on your side that looked suspiciously like his hand. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t burn me to death just because you got too excited.” You reprimanded him annoyed but he ignored your comment. Instead, he placed his free hand on the other side without the handprint and let it heat up as well. 

“Fuck!” you hissed and jerked away from him, climbing onto his lap to get away from his hot hand. “Are you crazy?!” You turned around to look at him, straddling his lap with your legs and an angry look on your face. Sakazuki tilted his head to the side, his hand finding your side once again but he refrained from heating it up again.

“Maybe that was a hint for you to leave.” Pissed, you wanted to get up and really just leave as he had “suggested” but you felt the weight of his hand holding you down on his lap, commanding you to stay where you were. So, you didn’t move.

He lifted his cigar back up to his lips but before he put it between his lips you reached out and grabbed his wrist. Confused, he looked at you. Your hand slowly let go and instead took the cigar between your fingers and took it out of his hand. Sakazuki let you and watched as you instead put it between your own lips and puffed on it. The taste was not really pleasant and you twisted your mouth in slight disgust. 

“How can you willingly smoke this?” you ask. Sakazuki didn’t reply and reached for the cigar again but you pulled your hand away. With a challenging look you moved the cigar towards his bare chest, stopping only inches from his skin. The fleet admiral didn’t stop you but his expression hardened.

“I want you to think hard about your next move.”

“Wouldn’t it only be fair if I got to burn you as well?” you replied, the burning end of the cigar still hovering over his chest. 

“Life isn’t fair.”

You swallowed, contemplating on the possible outcomes. You really wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine but there was still his hand on your hip, dangerously warm. 

You sighed and removed the cigar from his chest and stubbed the cigar out in the ashtray. 

Sakazuki hummed contently and put his other hand on your hip as well, caressing your warm skin with his calloused palms. You looked up at him and put your hands on his chest, slightly moving them up and down before your placed them on his shoulders. 

You lifted your body up and pressed it against his, your breasts being squished between your two bodies. Your head leaned forward and you started to follow his chest tattoo with your lips. Sakazuki’s hands slightly traced your back and butt, squeezing it now and then. 

You panted against his skin, pressing your body closer against his. Your mouth moved up his chest, over his collarbone and to his strong neck. You breathed in his musk. Paired with his gentle massaging your butt your felt how your core got wet and your body heated. 

You whimpered against his skin when his hands started massaging the back of your thighs, kneading the soft flesh and inching closer to your hot core. 

Your kisses on his neck go more heated in return and you started letting your teeth graze over the sensitive skin on his neck and your heard him take in a sharp breath as a response. 

You stretched your body a little bit more to reach his ear, your warm breath ghosting over the shell of it. Your hands moved over his chest, his stomach and grazed against his stiff member. “You like that?” you whisper into his ear. He could hear your grin in your voice. 

“Don’t get too cocky.” He growled and gave you a sharp slap on your butt. 

You gasped in surprise. Your body started to rub against his, your hard nipples appreciating the friction. Sakazuki grabbed both your ass cheeks and spread them apart, then resumed to kneading them, this time stronger. 

His beard scraped against your face as you started kissing his jawline. You felt his jaw tense the closer you got to his mouth and also his hands stopped caressing your ass. Uncertain, you stopped and looked up at him, his face extremely close. Your body longed for him and you had the urge to feel his lips on yours. And why would it be wrong? You’ve had sex plenty of times before so what was one kiss? But back in your mind you knew that a kiss could be much more intimate than simple sex. It’s been an unspoken rule between the two of you that there was no kissing involved. Kissing was something reserved for lovers and your were….fuck buddies. But still…

Your lips moved closer to his, feeling his breath against your skin. You looked into his eyes, searching for any sign of permission. 

“Don’t.” he mumbled, his lips almost brushing against yours. The smell of the cigar on his breath is fogging your mind and his voice is somewhere in the distance. 

He should push you away. He is the older one and he has a responsibility not to behave like a horny teenager. You shouldn’t kiss him. You shouldn’t want to kiss him. But here you were, mere inches away from his own lips, your eyes longing but also unsure. He can see the internal fight you’re currently having with yourself and he hopes the reasonable voice in your mind will win – because he knows he won’t stop you.

“Why not?” you hear yourself ask, your lips inching closer to his until they brush against each other. Your lips are parted and you’re waiting for his response. But he doesn’t speak. 

This is the sign for your to throw all remaining doubts over board.

You place your lips against his; they’re firm and warm yet inviting and surprisingly gentle. Your heart starts hammering in your chest and there are a million butterflies going rampant in your stomach. 

You are hesitant when you start moving your lips against his, thrown off guard when you notice that Sakazuki is not reciprocating the kiss. Your heart sinks into your stomach; what’s going on? Doesn’t he want this? 

You open your eyes and look right into his harsh eyes which are staring right back at you. Oh no! Your body runs. Is this bad? This must be bad!

You want to retreat from his lips, the horror plastered all over your face. You know you messed up. You know you should’ve listened to the small voice in your head! He told you not to! He will be mad at you! He will yell at you! He will-

His firm lips capture yours in an intense kiss that takes your breath away. His hands press you against his body, his nails digging into your skin, while his lips move against yours. 

You are completely thrown off guard by his sudden action and are stunned. 

You hear yourself whimper when his gently nibbles on your bottom lip and you start moving your lips in tandem to his. 

His lips move precise and purposefully against yours; there is no unnecessary movement, no sloppy tongue. You try to get your tongue between his lips but he won’t let you. But that’s fine. Your body is on fire and you let him feel how horny you are by grabbing his wrist and leading his hand between your legs where your dripping pussy desperately waits for his touch. 

His fingers brush against your wet core and he growls against your mouth excited. His thick fingers rub against your folds before he inserts two. Your core clenches around his digits and you moan pleased, moving your hips against his fingers. 

Sakazuki places his lips against your neck close to your ear.  

“Fucking slut.” He growls and inserts a third finger, spreading you to his liking. You moan again, your fingers finding support on his shoulders and your nails dig into his skin und his skin breaks and a little bit of blood starts running down his chest. 

“Shit!” you hiss, felling how your orgasm is rapidly approaching. You want to push him away, trying to remove his hand from between your legs to prolong the nearing climax but Sakazuki won’t let you. The fleet admiral grabs both your wrists with his free hand and pulls them above your head while his other hand pistoles in and out of your dripping pussy, wet sounds mixing in with your unhinged moans. 

“Fuck!” you curse, throwing your head back and pressing your eyes shut. Your mouth hangs open as you desperately gasp for air, face red and sweaty, a few strands of hair clinging to your skin. 

“C-cumming!” you moan, biting your lip in anticipation of your orgasm. 

Sakazuki leans forward, his teeth nibbling at your jaw.

“As if I’d let you cum.” His voice is dangerously sadistic and your brain processes his words not fast enough. Otherwise, you could’ve prepared for his fingers retreating from your pussy, leaving you hanging and frustrated. 

Your eyes snap open and your head shoots forward. Angrily but also desperately you glare at him. 

“Don’t stop!” you pant, your arms wriggling in his iron grip. Sakazuki lifts his free hand that is covered in your juice and holds it in front of your lips. “Suck.” He orders and you open your mouth willingly. You taste yourself on your tongue as it swirls around his digits, licking up every last drop of your slick. 

With an audible plop he retreats his fingers from your mouth before wiping them dry on your breasts. 

“Please….!” You look at him desperately, wiggling your ass a little to maybe encourage him. Sakazuki leans forward and kisses your lips hard and longing, even biting at your lips again until he suddenly turns and brings you underneath him, his hand still holding your wrists but now pressing them into the futon below you. 

“Please what?” he asks, his eyes boring into your own, making you feel small and vulnerable underneath his big man. 

“Fuck me.” You press out, adrenaline rushing through your veins. His grip around your wrists tightens and a displeased look is on his face. 

“Please, fuck me, Sakazuki sama.” You breathe out, knowing exactly what he wants to hear. The fleet admiral smirks at you before letting go of your wrists and grabbing your hips tightly, lifting them up until your body is aligned with his dick. You look up at him, your position kind of awkward because of the angle you’re lying on the futon. 

Sakazuki looks at you for a moment, then he presses the tip of his dick into your dripping core and then pressing further and further, stretching you almost uncomfortably until he is completely buried inside you. A long and guttural moan is pressed out of your lungs and you grab the pillow behind you for support. 

He thinks about giving you time to adjust but then decides against it, coming to the conclusion that he’s already spoiled you enough. He starts with slow but intense thrusts, letting you feel every inch of his hard cock; and you love it. Your eyes are pressed shut, enjoying what he is doing to you. His fingers are gripping your hips hard, pulling you closer with each thrust.

Your legs are stretched wide apart to fit him in between them and you are generally unable to move, let alone move away from him if you wanted. 

Sakazuki leans forward, pressing your lower body closer to you upper to get a better angle. He picks up his pace, his hand moving from your hip to your tits and squeezing them in the process. Another moan leaves your mouth and you arch your body against his touch, trying to move against his thrusts but it’s just not possible so you let him manhandle you. 

His hand moves from your tits to your throat and he closes it tightly around your neck, squeezing your windpipe shut. You try to gasp for air but to no avail, your hands instinctively claw at his larger on to loosen his grip but he is unforgiving.

Not long after does the lack of oxygen go to your head and you feel high. His dick inside of you feels more intense and Sakazuki seems to notice it as well since he slows down and lets you once again feel every inch of his hard dick which keeps rubbing against your walls. 

You open your eyes to look up at him, his lips slightly parted but otherwise having himself under control. Your lips form the word ‘air’ and you hope that he grants you the much-needed breath of oxygen. Sakazuki waits a little longer until panic starts to settle in, then he loosens his grip and you take in a long and deep breath of air but let it out right away through another loud moan he draws from you when he changes angles again in his dick presses against your special spot. 

“Shit!” he hisses when you tighten around him and his grip around your throat tightens reflexively again. You watch him close his eyes for a moment while he starts pounding into you before he opens them again to look at you. 

You watch your breasts move in tandem to his thrusts and how his massive dick is forced in and out of your cunt over and over again. 

Soon, this familiar tingling inside of you makes itself known again and you know that you’re close. 

Your legs twitch at the feeling that becomes more and more intense with watch thrusts, your body tenses and relaxes to cope with how quickly your orgasm is approaching. Sakazuki notices it as well. For a moment he considers denying you this one as well but he does not have unlimited time and he knows you need to leave soon. 

“You wanna cum?” he asks, stopping his thrusts for a moment, his dick still buried deep inside of you. Your walls are clenching around him, trying to force him to move but he doesn’t budge. His hand lets go of your throat and instead he places it right next to your head on the futon. 

Your eyes are red and watery due to the lack of oxygen but you know exactly what you want.

“Please let me cum, Sakazuki sama.” You whisper, biting your lip seductively. The fleet admiral presses his lips into a thin line and his hand clenches into a fist when he starts ramming himself into you, pressing you even further into the mattress while he fucks you into oblivion. 

You almost scream at this onslaught of his member and your orgasm hits you hard. Your whole body tenses, your toes curl, and your back arches from the futon. You throw your head back and let out one last long and loud moan while you cum hard around the older man. 

Sakazuki grunts in response, feeling how your pussy is trying to milk him and he is tempted to just let you squeeze him dry but he can’t do that. 

The small voice in his head forces him to pull out at the last moment before he unloads on your stomach and your tits, his cum covering you almost completely. 

He keeps his eyes closed for a moment to compose himself again, then he looks down at your wrecked form. 

“Fucking brat.”

.

.

.

He wa already fully dressed and ready to go when you came out of the bathroom after getting rid of all the evidence of your morning session. 

He threw your clothes right at you, urging you to hurry since he had to go. You silently got dressed without complaint and then stood before him. 

“You’re not getting a goodbye kiss.” Sakazuki simply said and you huffed. “Why would I want that?” you retorted but internally not being completely against it. 

“Good. Just so we’re clear. This will never happen again.” He said and you rolled your eyes. You already knew this spiel and he always caved when you came back. 

“Sure. Whatever you say.” You turned around and walked towards the window. For a moment, you contemplated turning around one last time but decided against it. Instead, you just lifted your hand and gave a half-hearted wave goodbye. Then, you were gone.  

Sakazuki watched you disappear, not moving for a moment as if he was frozen in place. Then, he reaches for the den den-den-mushi on the cupboard.

“Borsalino, there might be a rouge pirate at Marineford.”

.

.

.

.

The marine caught you by surprise and you were completely unprepared. You tried to get away from them but there were simply too many and you had to surrender. Now, you were led towards the big navy headquarter with its prison cells underneath the building, ready to be shipped off to Impeldown. 

First, you had no idea why and how they found you but realization hit pretty quickly when you heard admiral Kizaru speak into his den-den-mushi.

“You were right, Sakazuki. There was a rouge pirate running about Marineford.”

Of course, you thought to yourself with a bitter smile on your lips. Would’ve been too good to be true.

.

.

.

“Do I wanna know why you knew there was a pirate running around HQ like this?” Borsalino sat on Sakazuki’s sofa in his office while the fleet admiral stood at the door, looking at the endless ocean. 

“You don’t need to know, Borsalino.” Sakazuki simply replied and with that the conversation was over for him. 

He felt weirdly dissatisfied but he dismissed it with the fact that he would simply miss having sex with you. This whole situation between you two was purely physical, nothing more. The kiss this morning was simply a slip-up and he just got carried away. It would never happen again. He would never see you ever again. Was it the right thing to have you locked up for the rest of your life?

Yes, absolutely. There was nothing wrong about locking up a criminal. He had his fun but if he kept this going this whole situation would simply cloud his mind and he couldn’t let that happen. 

Was it selfish to lock you up for the rest of your life?

Probably. But Sakazuki has never been known for being particularly selfless. 

He was the fleet admiral, after all. He didn’t get this job by being considerate but by being ruthless. And he would not change just for some good pussy.  

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Thank you for reading and staying with me all these years! I hope you enjoyed this whole story and I'm sorry not really for the not so happy ending. It just seemed right and fit Akainu's personality. He just seems like the type of guy who puts the marines over everything else.

Well, thanks a lot again!

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