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mariasont · 5 months

Text

Spoiled - A.H

a/n: felt feral writing this hope y'all enjoy it as much as i did

think im ovulating or something YALL IDK

anyhow happy reading let me know what yall think 🤭

masterlist

‧₊˚ ✩°｡⋆♡ ⋆˙⟡♡ ⋆˙⟡♡⋆｡°✩˚₊‧

pairings: aaron hotchner x fem!reader

summary: in which hotch overhears your conversation with penelope and decides to do something about it

warnings: 18+ MDNI, phone sex!, sex toy!, fem solo masturbation, penelope being a little instigator lmao, dirty talk, soft dom!hotch, established relationship, honestly a little bit of angst whoops, reader is slightly dramatic like hotch has been gone for prob 5 hours STAND UP!

wc: 3.3k

"Penelope Grace Garcia!"

Her comment earned her the full government name, igniting a burst of laughter that you attempt to smother behind your hand. Sinking deeper into the couch, you dismiss the absurdity with a shake of your head. You even find yourself glancing over your shoulder even though you know no one is home.

"You know, I really shouldn't be telling you this, but trust me, that's the least of our worries in this relationship."

"Look, whatever floats your love boat or rocks your bed frame is strictly your business," she comments as if that were the most casual thing to say.

You giggle, a warmth spreading through you as you tread across the kitchen tiles, the phone pressed against your ear.

"Oh my god, Pen," you let out a laugh, feeling a soft crimson spread across your cheeks, while your thighs swell with the thoughts of your doting boyfriend. "No, no, like I said we're more than okay in that department. It just gets, well, lonely when he's away."

Your hand curls around the neck of your favorite bottle of red, easing the cork free with a satisfying pop. The liquid swirls into the glass, a little more than probably necessary, as the gentle hiss of water beginning to simmer breaks through the kitchen.

"You, my dear, are a saint among mortals."

"Well, he makes it easy," you shrug, pouring the rice into the bubbling pot, a cloud of steam rising to paint the windows.

"Honestly, I don't know how you manage. I'd be itching for it, especially if it's as good as you say," Penelope admits with a dramatic sigh.

You laugh, propping the phone against the backsplash, its speaker projecting the conversation into the room. Aaron stands just out of sight, unnoticed, taking in your every syllable.

"When he gets back, trust me, every second apart seems like a small price to pay."

"Ever thought about getting yourself a toy? You know, for those long nights?" Penelope hints not (at all) so slyly.

The wine almost sprays from your mouth as you stifle a surprised splutter. Aaron, still unseen, raises an eyebrow.

"Oh, um, no, I haven't really considered... a toy," you murmur, cheeks burning. You clear your throat, pretending to be engrossed in the simmering pot. "Aaron might have an opinion on that, I guess."

Your attempt at nonchalance was failing, you definitely knew that.

Aaron rested casually against the door frame, a soft smile touching his lips at the sound of your bashful laughter. He'd always had a soft spot for the way your cheeks bloom with color--a sight he wasn't afraid to go great lengths to witness. The idea of a toy seemed to pique his curiosity, drawing a pensive frown as his attention stayed fixed on you for a moment longer.

He slips away silently, his steps carrying him to the front door as you continue your conversation with Penelope.

The call disconnects with a soft click, and you're left in the quiet of the kitchen, unwittingly promising to keep Penelope updated. Turning back to the stove, you stir the sauce with a distracted hand, your lips downturned. Aaron should have been home by now.

The dining table is set, candles flickering, their glow falling on the chair he's yet to fill. You let out a sigh, stealing another look at the ticking clock. The food is ready, but with each passing minute, it grows cooler, just the unfamiliar feeling of disappointment settling in your chest.

The audible twist of the key catches your attention, and you can't help but glance over your shoulder. Aaron walks in, his lips curving into a smile upon seeing you.

"Hi, my gorgeous girl," he greets, his voice a familiar sound that kindles a familiar flutter into your heart.

He places his briefcase down, the sound muted, and as he approaches, his lips brush a tender kiss against your temple. The annoyance that had been bubbling inside you melts away with his touch. Damn him.

You turn to him, a sheepish "Hi" fluttering out, your cheeks tinged with heat. It's a feeling that's always fresh, the way he still makes you feel like you're back in high school, hearts doodled in the margins of your notebook.

Aaron settles into his chair, the soft scrape of wood against the tile following his movements.

"Sorry 'M late," he offers, his tone warm, appreciative. "Everything looks and smells wonderful, honey. Thank you."

His fingers gently sweep a loose strand of hair from your face, his smile softening you, disarming you. He's so beautiful.

"You're welcome," you reply, your cheeks growing warmer with each word. "And, um, I hope it's okay. It might be a bit cold. I thought...I guess I assumed you'd be home sooner."

You voice trails off, leaving behind a trail of embarrassed concern, wondering if perhaps you'd somehow overstepped.

Aaron looks at you, his eyes turning kind as he discerns the unease on your face.

"I'm sorry, baby, got held up with a little errand." He bites into the food, and a gratified hum indicates his approval. "This is delicious."

You find yourself beaming at the praise. He had a talent for that--praising you, almost as if he'd made it his life mission. This was a first for you in a relationship, and it's exactly why the late nights and time spent alone didn't weigh so heavily.

After dinner, you're rinsing off the plates when Aaron's hands draw you close, his hands claiming your waist, the heat of his palms radiating through the fabric of your shirt. He plants a soft kiss on your shoulder.

"Let me help with that. You're spoiling me," he insists, his words spoken into your damp skin.

You lean back into his embrace, his chest flush against your back.

"I like taking care of you," you admit, heart skipping a beat under the weight of his gaze, the softness in his eyes dissolving your concentration on the task at hand.

A deep, affectionate groan escapes Aaron as he pulls you even closer. But all good things come to an end, and the ringing of his phone seems like an icy intrusion, like a sudden draft into the kitchen.

"Hotchner," he answers, and even though the word leaves his lips, his fingers gently sketch patterns across your hip.

You feel your heart sink. When he hangs up, his eyes lock with yours, brimming with an apology he doesn't voice. It's unnecessary, you already know.

"A case?" You hate how small your voice sounds, dipped in an understanding you wish you didn't have.

He nods, a simple stupid gesture that sends a lump of disappointment soaring up your throat, which you desperately try to swallow down.

"Okay... just, be careful, okay? I'll miss you."

"And I'll miss you, angel. Be good for me."

There's a hollowness in the house that follows you through each room. You were well aware of Aaron's demanding job when you started dating--the unpredictable schedule, the sudden departures, the cases that required his immediate attention. Still, this awareness did nothing to soften to sting of his absence. At all.

You found yourself wandering aimlessly, picking up a book only to set it down unread, starting a movie but not really watching. Eventually, you ended up in the bedroom, his bedroom, where the subtle scent of his cologne lingers. It's both comforting and heart-wrenching. God, you felt like you were being so dramatic.

You climb into the bed, the sheets cool against your skin, too big and empty without him. Your eyes darts to the phone resting on the nightstand. You've always been careful not to disturb him while he's working, but tonight felt different.

With a trembling hand, you pick up the phone, your thumb hovering indecisively over the screen. Reluctantly, you returned it to its place. There was no point in bothering him.

A sudden draft sent a shiver up your spine, reminding you of the blanket Hotch had bought for you a couple months ago. You sighed, rising from the bed and moving to the closet.

But your eyes skipped over the blanket, instead fixating on a shiny pink bag tucked away in a secluded corner. Compelled by a spike of curiosity, you grabbed the bag and pulled it open. Your eyes widened, cheeks burning with a sudden flush as you placed it on the bed. How long had this been hiding here? And the timing--just after your conversation with Penelope--felt almost too uncanny.

You went back to your phone.

The message was simple. You hit send before you can second-guess yourself.

Almost immediately, your phone vibrated--Aaron's name illuminated the screen. You answer, and his voice was there, infused with immediate concern.

"Hi honey. You okay?" His question was straightforward, cutting through the noise.

You nodded, forgetting for a moment he couldn't see you. Shifting on the bed, you said softly, "Um, yeah, I'm fine. I didn't mean to bother you. Is it a bad time?"

His response is quick. "You could never bother me."

A blush flares on your cheeks, and a smile instinctively forms. You fidget on the bed, the sheets sighing with your movements, sounds that don't escape Aaron's attentive detection.

"Can't seem to find the right spot without me there, huh?"

"I can't seem to do a lot of things without you here," you grumble under your breath, intended more for yourself than for him. The bed emits a soft creak as you turn again, your breath hitching in a pout that he can almost see through the phone. "Aaron, I found something in the closet..."

You lost your words, fingertips tracing the toy's edge, as you fumbled with the strings of your shorts.

"Hmm? Care to enlighten me."

"You know."

You weren't in the mood for his teasing, because you knew he knew. You could sense his smugness, his voice dripping into that familiar, velvety register that prompted your lips to purse.

"I don't know, sweetheart."

Once again, you found yourself stirring against the linen, nibbling on your lip as a wave of exasperation washed over you, your eyes rolling into their sockets.

"Where are you?"

"Just got to my hotel room." You could hear the subtle movements in the background, accompanied by the soft groans of the mattress under his weight. "What did you find in the closet that was so urgent you needed to text me in the middle of my case?"

Your face was warm. "You said it wasn't a bother."

"And I meant it, now spell it out for me."

Your hands cautiously pushed over the toy, examining its buttons and sides. Subconsciously, your tongue swept over your top teeth. You lowered your voice as though someone else might overhear.

"The toy...is it for me? I mean, I would hope so. If not, well, we'd have a rather awkward issue."

"Yes, it's for you, baby."

You stifled a grin. How could he have known? That profiling business was really no joke.

"Why?"

His muffled chuckle filtered through, and you could almost see the flash of his pearly whites. You really missed him, so much so that you were conjuring vision of his mouth of his on places that should not be said aloud.

"I just want to make sure my best girl is taken care of when I'm not home." You could practically hear the smirk on his lips.

You were deep in your fantasy now, your free hand sliding down your shorts as you envisioned him propped against the headboard of his hotel bed, tie hanging loosely, hair tousled just so.

"I'm always taken care of by you, Aaron," you said quietly.

You didn't know how to go about this, whatever this even was. You were treading into unknown territory; never having had phone sex with Aaron--or anyone for that matter. It was a far cry from the occasional suggestive text.

"That's right." His voice flowed like honey in your ear, causing a shiver as your finger skimmed over your underwear, your breathing momentarily faltering. "You're going to be well taken care of for the rest of your life, yeah?"

"Yeah."

You could hardly breathe, squirming against your own touch, glancing over at the toy that sat beside your hip.

"I want you to know how much I appreciate your patience. You're a good girl, honey. Far too good for me." You weren't. It was the other way around; you didn't deserve him. You told yourself that every day. "I know you get lonely, and I know it's something you'd never admit to."

"Aaron..."

He didn't let you finish. "Why don't you tell me what you're doing right now?"

Your actions came to an abrupt standstill, thumb suspended above your clothed clit. You entertained the thought that this FBI gig might have been a front for a psychic, maybe one of those fortune teller types.

You were mumbling into your sleeve, a private conversation with the threads. "Just...um, well it's hardly worth mentioning, honestly."

Wow you're sure you fooled him.

"I'm not fond of dishonesty." The low rumble of his voice sent a tremor through your core. "I'm giving you a final chance. Tell me what you're doing, sweetheart."

A hard swallow passed your throat, your thumb rubbing idle circles into the band of flesh on your hip.

"Well, I, uh, was touching myself." The words felt as awkward as they sounded, an internal wince accompanying each syllable at how unsexy you were speaking.

"Where, sweetheart?"

You exhaled sharply at the question, heavy with exasperation at his insistence on drawing this out. But the slickness between your legs was undeniable. Your hand slid back to the delicate skin between your thighs.

"Aaron, please," you breathed out so faintly it was almost inaudible.

He was playing a cruel game, and he knew it. You hardly cussed let alone talk about your lady parts so openly.

"I hope I've never given you a reason to feel judged, honey." There was a sweetness in his voice that masked his darker intentions. "Just tell me where. I want to help."

Your tongue flicked nervously across your lip, your finger dipping into the valley of your folds as you mulled over his offer. You were wet, far more than you had anticipated, practically coating your thighs in the process.

"No, 'course not," you said softly, biting back a sigh as your thumb worked slowly against your inflamed clit. "It's just, you're so far, Aaron."

"Why do you think I got you that toy?" Your gaze darted to the pink thing, resting against your hip. "I want you to use it. I'll walk you through it, just like I would in person."

You could melt. You could liquefy into nothingness on the spot. Your fingers pressed more urgently against yourself, a deep-seated wish for him to be here surfacing, knowing all the while it was a baseless hope.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

"There you go, that's my girl."

You couldn't hold back the whimper that fell from your lips as you arched against the bed, fingers diving into your cunt.

"My needy girl," he repeated, his laughter resonating with a patronizing tone that oddly egged you on. "Alright, can you pick up the toy for me?"

You wedged the phone snugly between your shoulder and ear, your hand closing around the pink, curved object, scrutinizing its every detail with careful eyes.

"Okay."

It was big, not as big as Aaron, but its dimensions were nonetheless imposing. You felt your chest heave in anticipation, waiting for his instructions.

His silence was stretching your patience thin. You turned it on, and it came to life, watching as it vibrated, the soft buzz permeating the space. You let it trail over your stomach, fabric gathering as your shirt rode up. Nearing your clit, you braced, taking in a quick breath.

But that breath was released in a strangled moan as you pushed the toy firmly into your sopping hole, legs spreading expansively as a taut sensation gripped your center.

"Did I say you could use it already?" he questioned, his tongue clicking in disapproval as you strained against the device, the second prong vibrations coursing against your nub, your whole-body jerking in response.

"N-No, 'M sorry," you panted, your focus narrowing as you pushed to toy in and out, your lips rounding into an 'o'. "It feels really good, Aar."

"I'm sure it does, baby," he teased, his voice carrying a certainty that your own lacked. "Let me hear you fuck yourself with it.

You loved hearing him curse, it was rare, and usually reserved for intimate moments like this. It fueled your actions, your wrist quickening, driving the device deeper, your stomach twisting in tight knots, a loud moan escaping unrestrained, suddenly you were thankful for the distance between Aaron's house and the next.

It felt so good, and yet somehow still not comparable to how it was with Aaron. Weren't you spoiled?

"Miss you so much," you slurred, your movements stuttering as the device worked your body in ways you didn't know were possible.

"Miss you too, angel. You're doing so good."

"Can you, ah, come home, p-please?"

You weren't even sure of what you were saying, all your thoughts on chasing your high and pretending the toy was Aaron's cock. Thinking about how he'd fill you up right now, how he'd press you to the mattress, how his body would cover yours.

"Your present isn't enough?" His tone was taunting, your eyes welling with tears, clouding your vision as your hips bucked against the toy. "That's a shame, sweetheart, think maybe you've been a little spoiled. You can't have my cock all the time."

You were completely dazed, his sentences barely making their way through the fog as you'd like them to. You were crying, you think, hot and relentless tears carving a path down your face as you fucked yourself harder against the toy.

The noises coming from your pussy were obscene, soaked and squishing as you tried to respond to Aaron, but nothing but small hiccups were escaping your mouth.

"It's okay, baby, I know. You're doing so good for me. I can hear it."

Your cheeks and ears flared with a heat that spelled out your shame, but it was the least of your concerns. Your walls tightened against the device, the pressure on your clit suddenly all too much and not enough at the same time. Gasping for air, your breaths came out in uneven bursts. When you tried to call out Aaron's name, it emerged as nothing more than a choked sob.

"C-Can I? Please, need to so bad." You weren't entirely convinced you were speaking English, but Aaron understood.

"Go ahead, sweetheart."

That was all you needed. Your cunt contracted again before vaulting over the edge, nearly losing consciousness in the process, a string of moans and half-said words pouring out of your lips.

You could hear the sound of his voice, but the words were just out of reach, not fully making sense. You felt your body twitch, and you blinked deliberately, once, twice, three times, in an effort to reconnect your body to your mind.

"You're so good, baby. So good. Miss you so much."

You pulled the toy, now soaked, from yourself, cringing at the lewd sound as you laid it beside you, making a mental note to wash the sheets later. Although if Aaron had his way that wouldn't happen.

"I miss you." You hated the way your voice betrayed ever emotion you had.

"Need you to go pee for me, sweetheart."

He sounded so soft and tired, but somehow still present. You let out a soft snicker as you curled onto your side.

"Can't move my legs," you mumbled, the sound muffled by the way your cheek was squished into the pillow. "Need you to come carry me."

His laugh was something you wished you could bottle up. "Spoiled."

"And who's to blame for that?" You were ready for his witty retort, but it was cut short by the sudden flash of your phone. You squinted at the caller ID. "Sorry, Penelope is calling me, can I call you back in a second?"

"Course, honey. Thank her for the idea, yeah?" Your mouth fell open as you scrambled for the right words. Of course he had heard. "Also, I plan on spending a few solid hours fucking you when I get home, so I suggest you get some rest."

taglist: @hotchhner @khxna

#aaron hotchner smut #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x fem reader #criminal minds smut #hotch smut #hotchner #aaron hotchner #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #aaron hotchner fic #Spotify

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visacardteamloverrr · 5 months

Text

ex's or not? cs55

summary: y/n and carlos once were the it couple, how are their lives after the breakup? did everyone move on?

warnings: writing this i was sick, i was done and i was ready to delete so enjoyy

i also was supposed to write part 2 to i'll be waiting but oh well...

y/njazzy

liked by lilymunihe, carmenmundt, and 65 000 more

y/njazzy Prague you've been great, next up my beloved Vienna 🍒

comments

y/nstan mother is GLOWING

lilymunihe music to my ears (literally) 🫶🫶

y/njazzy i'm blushing 😊 💋

alexandrasaintmleux i haven't heard you play for agesss, see you in Vienna ig

y/njazzy and whose fault it is?? clearly not mine missy

alexandrasaintmleux oh look at the time, i have to go !!!

chillis the post breakup glow up is reaaal

loverofy/n can we expect some album soon queen?

charlesleclerc exactly @/y/njazzy, care to share with the class???

y/njazzy i will not confirm nor deny

y/njazzy and lord perceval do not push my limits. besides, if you would honour me with your presence, you would know. the choice is yours

charlesleclerc no comment.

user1 she calls him the way that carlos does...

jazzychill she looks so hot in red 🔥

chillistan don't you find it weird that after all charles is in her comments?

y/nfan through all the years y/n was with carlos, she formed a friendship with charles (especially with carlos in ferrari) and other people from the paddock, so it's nothing weird

jazzlover besides, alex and y/n are besties, no?

y/nlos do you remember how carlos would always melt when y/n wear red??? because i do.

carlossainz55

liked by landonorris, charlesleclerc, y/njazzy, and 2,093,728 more

carlossainz55 🌶🍔☀️

comments

soylago ON MY KNEEEES

charlosfan what do they feed our drivers, he and charles are soooo hot

chillis the second photo, two plates, carlos sainz is that a date?

landonorris and where are pics from our little golf tournament 🤔🤔🤔 oh, maybe they aren't here because YOU LOST AHAHAHAHHA

carlossainz55 cabron we all know you cheated.

landonorris what a sore loser we have here

charlesleclerc do you remember when we played uno once?

maxverstappen i wonder why you played uno only once

charlesleclerc lando almost lost an eye

landonorris I ALMOST DIED, HE TRIED TO KILL ME

carlossainz55 do NOT listen to them, those situations did not happen

carlossteponme Y/N LIKED???!!

y/nfan they actually still like eachothers posts, i believe they said something about mutual breakup and that there's no hard feelings between them

y/njazzy

liked by yourbestie, lilymunihe, and 64,728 more

y/njazzy new project coming up 🔜

comments

landonorris tell me who he is.

y/njazzy no❤️

landonorris and why exactly ???

y/njazzy i'll tell you, you'll tell oscar, oscar will tell logan, logan alex, and then magically the whole grid will know

landonorris you won't even tell your best friend?

y/njazzy you're talking about yourself or ?

landonorris PARDON #exbesties #friendshipover #offended

y/njazzy WAR IS OVEEEER

landonorris bye.

lilymunihe A MAN? A MAN? A MA-A-A-AN

lilymunihe girlies to the gc riGHT IN THIS MOMENT

lilymunihe avengers ASSEMBLE @/alexandrasaintmleux @/carmenmundt

carmenmundt i think we've missed a chapter here...

y/njazzy alex didn't.

carmenmundt excuse me !

lilymunihe SHE DID WHAT

alexandrasaintmleux tf y/n? i thought i meant something to you?

y/njazzy if i'm going down i'm taking everybody with me 😘😘😘

alexandrasaintmleux DO NOT QUOTE CHANDLER RN

user1 carlosy/nnation how are we feeling

user2 we don't.

user5 i have an idea...

user3 don't. don't give me hope

user7 fuck the guy NEW PROJECT IN THE MAKING ??? NEW MUSIC ???

user9 do i sense some movie soundtrack

liked by autor

user2 can you imagine

user5 Y/N LIKED !!!!!

carlossainz55

liked by maxverstappen, y/njazzy and 2,836,267

carlossainz55 getaway with mi amor

comments

charlesleclerc i pay my respects to her

carlossainz55 ¿disculpe?

charlesleclerc for putting up with you 😘

user carlos sainz jr i was NOT familiar

user1 which one of you bastards stole my man

reyesvdec ❤️

user2 APPROVED BY MAMA SAINZ

user6 i miss her and y/n together in the paddock

user5 that's y/n. mark my words

user1 i truly aspire to be as delusional as you

y/njazzy she's a lucky girl

carlossainz55 im a lucky boy*

user8 y/n's comment? im dead

user3 carlos' response?????? i am crying, the boy really is in love

y/njazzy

liked by carlossainz55, reyesvdec and 482,471 more

y/njazzy love. love love love.

comments

user8 our girl is in loooove 🥹

alexandrasaintmleux match made in heaven

carmenmundt you compliment eachother so well 🫶

landonorris you two are disgusting

y/njazzy jealousy, jealousy

user5 the luckiest girl???? i wonder why... maybe because she has carlos sainz

user ring ring, that's the mental ward calling for you

lilymunihe i'm heartbroken, how could you leave me

alex_albon execuse me? i'm right here??

y/njazzy lily it's just an act, let's run away together

lilymunihe i am ready to go

alex_albon HEY ITS NOT FAIR

alex_albon he can't even stand up for himself

carlosssainz55 he can

carlossainz55

liked by y/njazzy, landonorris and 5,839,821

carlossainz55 mi amor, you're the closest to heaven that I have ever been. I don't know what I did to deserve you, but I promise to cherish you forever. I am so incredibly grateful for you and everything you do. I want to thank you for being there for me, even after we broke up. there is no one else on this earth taht i would spend my life with. you are my person, and I am yours.

comments

georgerussell mate leave something for us

alex_albon what I am supposed to do rn, lily won't let me in to our apartment

charlesleclerc gentelmen we are so finished

landonorris die lol 👎

oscarpiastri yk that they can see you crying, right?

y/njazzy my one and only ❤️

user can somebody check on user5

user5 I KNEW I WAS NOT CRAZY

user5 PARENTS ARE REALLY BACK TOGETHER

y/njazzy

liked by carlossainz55, reyesvdec and 171,729,819 more

y/njazzy the only ex i would ever come back to 💋💋💋

comments

alexandrasaintmleux finally the ferrari girls are reunited

y/njazzy not for too long

alexandrasaintmleux foul

charlesleclerc too soon y/n, too soon

maxverstappen i won't even ask about the last pic

carlossainz55 the less you know the better you sleep

landonorris i cannot belive this is happening

y/njazzy sucks to suck ig

carlossainz55 only ex i couldn't move on from 🫶🫶🫶

y/njazzy you flatter me

user1 the difference in the capitions pls ✋️

#carlos sainz x reader #f1 social media au #f1 instagram au #carlos sainz fluff #carlos sainz x you #carlos sainz smau #f1 smau #carlos sainz imagine #f1 imagine #formula one x reader

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harunayuuka2060 · 6 months

Text

Savanaclaw students: Wait— Is that Yuurin?

Yuurin: *running laps*

Savanaclaw student A: *shouts* HEY!!! YUURIN!!!

Savanaclaw student A: HOW MANY LAPS ARE YOU DOING?!!

Yuurin: *signals with her hand that she's doing 50 laps*

Savanaclaw student A: Oh. Okay. That's not bad.

Leona: *sips his coffee* She meant last 50 laps.

Savanaclaw students: Eh?

Ruggie: Yuurin woke up at 4AM.

Leona: Yeah. The lady already finished 100 laps.

Savanaclaw students: ...

Savanaclaw student B: HEY, YUURIN!!! TAKE SOME WATER BREAK!!!

Savanaclaw students: YUURIIIIIIN!!!

Leona: You don't feel sleepy at all after running like that?

Yuurin: No. Actually, I feel wide awake.

Leona: ...

Leona: You remind me of an Arctic tern.

Yuurin: ...

Yuurin: I don't think that animal suits me.

Leona: It does. Here. I bought you a hairpin that looks like one.

Yuurin: ...

Leona: This will look good on your hair.

Yuurin: ...

Leona: You didn't need to send a photo to your parents, did you?

Yuurin: No.

Leona: That's good. *clips the hairpin on her*

Yuurin: ...Thank you, housewarden.

Leona: You're too formal. Just call me by my name.

Yuurin: ...

Yuurin: Leona-senpai.

Leona: *ruffles her hair*

Yuurin: *her hair gets messy*

Leona: Shit— Let me fix that.

Other first-years: *staring at MC because of her bird hairpin*

Ace: *teasing smirk* That looks good on you, bro.

Yuurin: ...

Yuurin: Thanks.

Ace: ...That's not what I—

Yuurin: *ignores him and focuses on class*

Professor Trein: Yuu, can you answer this question?

Yuurin: Yes, professor. *then proceeds to answer the question correctly*

Professor Trein: *smiles in satisfaction* You didn't forget any details. Great job, Yuu.

Yuurin: Thank you, Professor.

Ace: *mutters* Nerd.

Deuce: Dude, what?

Ace: What? He reminds me of Housewarden Riddle!

Yuurin: *looking at him*

Ace: ...

Professor Trein: Yuu? Is there something wrong?

Yuurin: Nothing, professor. *sits back down*

Akihiko — You look great with your hairpin, Yuurin. (⁠✿⁠^⁠‿⁠^⁠)

Yuurin — Thanks, Aki. How's your health?

Akihiko — It's great. I haven't been sick for a week now. (⁠ ⁠◜⁠‿⁠◝⁠ ⁠)

Yuurin: *smiles*

Ace: *approaches her* Yo! *smirks* You were textin' your girlfriend?

Yuurin: *her face turned serious* No. It's my brother.

Ace: Eh? *stands next to her* You enjoy talking with your brother?

Yuurin: Yes. Is there a problem?

Ace: Whoa— You don't have to look at me like that.

Yuurin: ...

Ace: Anyway, who gave you that hairpin?

Yuurin: ...My housewarden.

Ace: ...

Ace: You're just new here and you're being bullied? *clicks his tongue*

Yuurin: ...

Yuurin: No one's bullying me.

Ace: You must be naive then.

Ace: No decent guy would think that receiving a cute hairpin is a good thing.

Ace: What you're experiencing is lowkey bullying— Hey! Where are you going?!

Yuurin: *has already walked away from him*

Ace: Hey! I'm still talking to you! Hey!!!

Jack: What? ACE SAID THAT?

Yuurin: Hm.

Jack: ...

Jack: Well, does it make you want to take off the hairpin Leona-senpai has given you?

Yuurin: ...

Yuurin: I don't want to take it off, but at the same time, I don't want anyone to think that Leona-senpai is bullying me.

Jack: ...

Jack: Well, I can wear hairpins too.

Jack: So we're matching.

Yuurin: ...

Jack: ...

Yuurin: Won't that cause an even bigger misunderstanding?

Jack: ...

Jack: You think?

Yuurin: Yes.

Leona: That's not a problem. I'll start wearing hairpins too.

Yuurin: ...

Leona: Oi, Ruggie! Buy every freaking hairpins from Sam!

Ruggie: Sure. You want the cute ones?

Leona: Yeah. The cuter the better, that little shit. (referring to Ace)

Yuurin: ...

#twisted wonderland #twst yuurin #twst akihiko/akane #twst leona #twst jack #twst ruggie #twst ace #twst savanaclaw #twst trein #twst unveil

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woso-dreamzzz · 2 months

Text

Helper III

Lia Wälti x Mariona Caldentey x Child!Reader

Summary: You help your Mummy's girlfriend

Mariona knew about you before she started dating Lia.

It would be practically impossible otherwise.

She can still remember the uproar that went through the gossip vines when Lia took a break due to injury only to announce she was pregnant. At the time, Mariona hadn't paid much attention to it.

She'd seen the pictures, of course, announcing your arrival but she hadn't had any plans to see you. She and Lia weren't close back then.

But then Ana started talking about you both.

First it was 'my best friend Lia' and 'my little niece' that Ana seemed to throw out randomly but then Mariona started paying attention to it. You and Lia had existed on the fringes of her awareness for a while until Lia joined Mariona and Ana's girl's holiday.

You hadn't been there, spending the time with your grandparents back in Switzerland so Mariona got to know Lia without you and then, as time went on, she got to know Lia with you too.

Now she was here though.

At Arsenal after ten years at Barcelona.

"You ready?" Lia asks.

They'd driven separately today.

Mariona had gotten her own apartment rather than moving straight in though both she and Lia know she'll be spending a lot of time with you and Lia at the house.

"Yeah. I think so."

"It'll be great," Lia assures you, opening one of the backseat car doors and undoing your seatbelt," Won't it, guppy?"

"Uh-huh!"

You slide out of the car as Lia goes to get all the bags out of the boot. You place your hand in Mariona's.

"You have to hold hands in the car park," You tell her," Mummy says so. And you can't run either. That's dangerous."

"Oh, wow," Mariona pretends to be surprised," Thanks for telling me."

You beam at her and Lia looks at you both fondly.

"I'm going to school this year," You tell Mariona," So I won't be around a lot."

"I heard you are very excited."

"I am. Mummy already taught me how to read and how to add and take away."

"Well, I think you'll do very well at school then."

Your little chest puffs out in pride as the three of you make your way into the locker room.

You drop Mariona's hand then to go running over to Codi.

You didn't get to see her for most of the summer so now that preseason's rolled around, you just can't contain yourself.

Codi's your best friend at Arsenal, you think. She's fun and cool and has cows back home in Spain that she sends Mummy pictures of for you to see.

Codi does puzzles with you, at Arsenal and at home too. It's quite fun.

She's friends with Mariona as well and she told you once that Mario is just a big puppy sometimes. You haven't met a lot of puppies in your life except for Jordan's Blu and Beth and Viv's Myle but you think you understand what Codi is saying.

Mariona has an infectious kind of happiness.

Infectious is one of the words Mummy taught you last night when you were reading together so you're very proud of yourself for knowing how to use it.

"Guppy!" Mummy calls," Come on, breakfast!"

You usually have two breakfasts. One at home which is your main one. It's cereal most of the time and you and Mummy clean the dishes together before you come to training to get your second breakfast.

This one is usually a bacon roll or something smaller depending on how much first breakfast you eat.

You tell Mariona this as you walk with her, swinging your joint arms.

"I just need to go talk to Kim," Lia says," Guppy can take you to grab food, right Guppy?"

"I can help!"

You lead Mariona over to the buffet and hand her a plate.

"What do you want?" She asks.

"I'm meant to be helping you!"

She laughs and it's that infectious kind of laugh that has you giggling too.

"We can help each other."

In the end, you both end up with food on your plate and you practically drag Mario over to where Leah is eating.

"You're not eating properly," You tell her and Leah groans.

"Come on, it's the first day of preseason! Have we got to start this now?"

"Yes. That's not proper food, auntie Leah!"

Mariona has to smother her laugh. She's not really sure what to make of Leah now that they're on the same team but she knows Leah's important to you and Lia. She's just not sure where the boundaries are right now.

"Yeah," Leah says," You laugh it up Caldentey, just you wait. She'll be on you of your eating habits."

"No I won't!" You insist," Because Mariona eats healthy!"

At first, Mariona was a little confused about how you would fit in with the Arsenal girls. She couldn't wrap her head around what it would be like with such a little kid running around with the team would look like.

But, as she watches you wander around with a clipboard in her own apartment, she can see you're exactly like you are in private.

Overwhelmingly helpful.

She hasn't unpacked yet so she was a little confused as to why you and Lia followed her back from training, only for Lia to get out of the car and tell her you've been preparing for this moment for weeks now.

You hold the same clipboard from training right now and number boxes with a little pencil.

Lia sits on the sofa, watching you with a fond expression.

"Don't mind her," She tells Mariona," She'll let us know when she wants to put us to work."

"Are you sure? I can-"

"Leave her," Lia insists," She gets annoyed when people interrupt her 'system'. She'll get us when it's time."

You touch every box twice, tapping the top before noting down the number on your little clipboard.

"She's very smart."

"She cried last year when I told her she just missed the cut off date for school. She spent all of her time trying to learn what she'll be learning this year."

"Scarily smart, then."

"She's a good girl." Lia watches as you do a second sweep of the boxes. "And she's very excited that you're here."

"Is she?" Mariona frowns. "But-"

"She thinks you're super cool like Codi."

"Does she?"

"I mean, you don't have cows like Codi does but Guppy really wants to see how well you can puzzle. It's her favourite activity."

"Puzzling? Really?"

"Why? Are you surprised?"

Mariona turns her head to watch you poke around a box that she's sure has all of her electronics in.

"No. That tracks. I think I'm more surprised that she got Codi into puzzling."

"Mummy!" You call out before Lia can respond," Mariona! I'm ready."

Lia stands smoothly, "Alright. Where do you want us?"

You look down at your list, quiet for a moment as you sound out what you've written there. "Boxes one and four need to go in the kitchen! Two and three are all clothes and five has a bunch of decorations. Six and-"

"Let's take it room by room," Lia says," Let's start with the kitchen."

You nod, head bobbing up and down twice. "Okay! Boxes one and four!"

Lia grabs one of them, hefting it up into her arms and heading into the kitchen to start unpacking.

"Come on, Mariona," You say, taking her hand," Me and Mummy are going to help!"

#woso x reader #lia walti x reader #lia walti #mariona caldentey x reader #mariona caldentey #woso community #woso imagine #woso fanfics #woso

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sparklingblu · 3 months

Text

Inferior Activities

Lia x M Reader

"How's the salad?"

"Oh, it's great" you answer as you try not to grimace after swallowing the lettuce that taste no different from paper.

"I made few twists to the dressing, you know. A family secret" The bald man winks as he takes another bite of the potato that would have turned to coal if it have been roasted a minute more.

Studying the plates of green laid out all across the table, you make a firm decision never to become a vegan. At least not if your father in law is gonna be your chef. Lia has warned his cooking skills are terrible but you didn't expect it to be this awful. The only tolerable content of the table seems to be the so-called vegan meat and even that's starting to taste lesser and lesser like meat with each bite. No offense to all those animal loving vegans out there but they really are missing out a lot in their life. You wouldn't have lasted a day if you have to survive without meat.

Your eye flicker up to Lia, seated across, to see if she's on the same page with you on the matter. She lazily plops a broccoli into her mouth, her eyes betraying no signs of disappointment. The corner of her lips twitch in a thin smile as if to mock your suffering. She looks contented even.

In the end, you only have yourself to blame. When Lia suggestsled you visits her dad on the weekends, you agreed with a simple nod. Sure, it's your first time meeting her old man but what could go wrong? Right?

Except that everything does. As soon as you enter the house, the first thing the dude asked you was your opinion on wildlife conservation. At first you thought he was joking then you find out he's actually very serious about the matter. Weather talk would have been a good starter. Seriously, who starts a conversation like that?

Then after seeing the dishes he has prepared, you find out making conversation is the least of your worries. He's your father in law and you have respect for him and all but this dude is horrible at being a vegan. If he calls his mushroom soup which tastes more like mushroom-flavored dishwater 'a masterpiece', you might as well consider becoming a chef. Who knows? Maybe you will even get a couple michelin stars.

You are thinking of a way to escape this organic hell and the constant ear rape about how billions of animals are killed per year for human consumption when Lia finally comes to your aid.

"Dad, we are nearly done. Why don't you go make your signature smoothie? I haven't got the chance to taste it since I left for college" she suggests and the old man's eyes twinkle with maddening joy.

"Oh, of course! How could I forget that? It was your mother's favorite" his tone turns solemn at the mention of his late wife but you are too focused on the idea of finally getting some breathing room to care. "Two smoothies. Coming right up! You will absolutely love it" He winks at you again and leaves the table.

You drop your utensils and exhale in relief. "Finally. I was gonna turn into stone if I hear one more second of his animal talk"

Lia chuckles. "I get used to it after living with him for 18 years. He's actually a really sweeet guy. He just tries to focus on something else after my mom passed, I guess"

If the fact is supposed to make you feel sorry, it doesn't work. But you are not gonna tell her that. "How do you survive with this kind of food all these years?"

"It wasn't always that bad" Belle protests. "And sometimes he even cooks meat. But his skills get rusty with old age"

"Yep, I'm never becoming a vegan"

Lia pouts in annoyance. "Oh, come on. It's not that bad"

"Suits yourself"

"You just hate vegetables in general"

You roll your eyes in feigned annoyance. "Look, who's trying to follow her father's steps"

"Whatever" Lia finally gives up, pushing up her glasses from her nose. "I'm still hungry you know...."

"Maybe we can go to McDonald's or something later"

"No, daddy" Lia's voice turns low and sultry. "You know exactly what I want"

You look around in a panic to see if her dad has overheard your conversation. Thankfully, the guy's busy cutting carrots on the kitchen counter.

"Lia, I told you not to call me that in public. Especially not when your literal dad is right here" you warned, though you can't deny the fact that hearing her call you the name get your blood flowing backwards.

"Oh, come on, daddyyyyy" she pushes on, stressing the last word to make it sound even more fervorous. "I know you secretly love it"

"Look, babe. I love the name but this isn't the right place. Seriously, your dad's right there"

"So what?" Lia puts her elbows on the table, propping her chin in her palms. "Don't you enjoy a little risk?"

"Come on, babe. Not right now. I will make it up to you when you come back"

"But I want it now" Lia whines, the pout reforming on her lips. "Need to taste daddy's big cock. Need it shove down my throat"

"Lia...." you hiss, becoming aware of her tone, increasing by the second.

"Daddy pleaseee" she gives you those bambi eyes she knows you can't resist. "Let me suck your huge cock. I need you to fill up my mouth with your hot cum. I have been a good girl, haven't I? I deserve my reward" Lia runs her tongue along her top lips to punctuate her wish.

With the way her words get your asleep mamba waking up, you already know you are fighting a losing battle but you still need to be the one in charge here. "Alright, fine. But-"

"Oops. I drop my spoon" The metal hits the floor with a loud clang and Lia immediately dives down the table. It's an overused trope. You have seen it in hundreds of porn videos and you are no stranger to it. But you have never thought you would be in a similar situation and this time, the risk is very real. Her dad is not a paid actor who would pretend to be oblivious at the scene which would soon unfold.

"Is everything ok?" Lia's dad shouts from the kitchen counter, now washing.....are those eggplants?

"Yes, mister! We are gold!" You replies, hoping he would stay focused on his veggies.

You look down and find Lia already kneeled between your legs, a flicker of amusement in her eyes behind those glasses. Her lips curve into an impish smile. "Just stay still and let me do all the work, daddy" she whispers, her hands already working on your zipper. With one swift pull, she opens it up, revealing your red underwear underneath. "Oh, daddy's wearing my favorite colour today" Lia muses as she grabs your cock over the thin fabric, her thumb tracing slow circles. "Daddy, you are already so hard"

As much as you want to prolong this pornographic session, her dad is not going to be in the kitchen forever and you don't want to give him a heart attack. "Babe, enough teasing. Make it quick" you warn and her thumb rests on your head, pressing down on that sensitive spot she only knows. You let out a half-formed moan, not daring to be loud.

"You know the magic word, daddy. No need to be so formal" she presses again and you grit your teeth.

"Start sucking my cock, you slut" you calls her by her favorite nickname, which intsantly gets her engines revving.

"Yes, daddy" she release her grip, pulling down your underwear. Your rock hard cock springs out in a flash, hitting her spectacles. "Someone's eager" Lia chuckles, placing her brown locks behind her back, preparing for the main course. Her left hand close around your base, pumping it up and down in an agonizingly slow pace. She looks at your cock like it's something glorious, something she should be worshipping. But that's not so far from the truth. If this slut wants to choke on your cock, you are gonna permit it happily.

"Daddy, you are so big" Lia mutters dreamily, her free hand fondling your balls each at a time. The combination gets your mind cloudy, basking in the pleasure you nearly forget the whole point of this.

"I don't see you sucking my cock?" Lia stops her movements at your words and you nearly reget telling her to stop. But that doesn't last long because Lia instantly starts obliging to your command.

"Patience, daddy" With that, her rosy lips seal around your tip, taking you partly into the warmth of her mouth. Meanwhile, her hands grab your shaft, working in unison with each drag of her lips. The twist of her fingers along with her tongue that swirls around your slit gets you throwing your head back, letting out a graon. Then you quickly recompose not to expose yourself.

Lia doesn't seem to be bothered. Getting caught seems to be the last thing on your mind as she slurps on your head with fevorous vigour. Like it's the most delicous lollipop she has ever tasted. Her tongue gathers up any pre cum that leaks from your slit, taking it straight down to her stomach. She would takes anything your cock has to offer.

Every moment or so, you would check on her dad, making sure the guy's still busy brewing his organic potion which contents are starting to get weirder. But as long as he's busy, you don't care what he's putting into that blender. It's the best for him and you. You doubt the old man would be as merciful to you as he is to wildlife if he finds out his daughter is giving you head under his table.

But the task proves to be harder because Lia's dad would throw you ocassional glances and you have to put on this stupid grin everytime, which is not so easy with how Lia's sucking you off. Now she has taken half your cock into her mouth, her cheeks hollowed with unfathomable suction. Her hair sways with every bob of her head, forming silky waves of hazel. All the while, she keeps her eyes on you behind those circular frames, those pools of black seems to be asking if she's doing a good job.

"God, Lia....just like that" you grip the edge of the table to compensate for not being able to rejoice in the bliss of Lia's wet hole freely. Your head darting up and down as you keep watch on her father as well as enjoy the view between your legs.

Your shaft is now ringed with red as Lia leaves tarces of her lipstick mixed with her saliva while her lips glide smoothly along your cock, making it a red wet mess. Not like you mind. She can keeps messing it up all she wants.

Her tongue action doesn't waver either, licking up any available part but escpecially under your tip to tackle your weak spot each time she takes you in. To add icing on the cake, she has her left hand wrapped around your base to pump the lengths unattended by her mouth, not leaving out any throbbing vein.

You are helpless against her attack, the only action from your side to keeps grabbing the tablecloth into an unshapely tangle. And even that's starting to fail at holding back your moans.

A loud whirring sound fills up the place as Lia's dad starts brewing all those green stuffs in the blender. He gives you a thumbs up and you smile back, shammming excitement. The sound of the blender blades reminding you of the disguisting smoothie you will soon have to drink.

However, Lia takes advantage of the noise by taking your whole length down on her throat, the loud gagging sound lost in the echoes of spinning blades. You take the chance to make any audible sound that would let you express your euphoria. A moan. Then two. Then a couple more. It no longer seems to be ending as Lia devour your cock like a hungry animal, hitting the back of her throat each time she deeothroats.

Drops of saliva litters the ground. The evidences of Lia's godly work. Gags after gags escape her mouth in rhythm with your moans. However, escape won't be suitable here with the way your cock is blocking her airway. But that isn't a problem because she would choose your dick over oxygen.

The blender keeps whirring and Lia keeps choking on your cock. Her glasses now tilted at a strange angle from the force of her movement, the temple hanging on one ear only. Currently, her vision isn't as important as the taste of your dick on her tongue.

Lia finally pulls back, trails of saliva running from your tip to her lips. A waterfall of saliva staining her white shirt. Her tongue rolled out and her temples dripping with sweat.

"Daddy....am I...good?" she pants like a bitch in heat, all her lipsticks all gone.

"Very. But you gotta finish what you start my little slut"

"Yes, daddy. Feed me your thick cum. I want it all"

"Then come and take it"

Lia dives back on your cock, immeditaely swallowing your whole length. You groans out at the burst of pleasure, her throat constricted around your shaft. Lia holds her position, her nose pressed to your pelvis for a few moment before pulling back, just to start fucking her throat on your cock again and again.

The sound of the blender stops and you hear the clink of glasses. Turning your head, you find Lia's dad pouring the green liquid into two glasses. It would only be a few minutes before he comes back.

Lia seems to realize to because her lips form an airtight seal around your head and her hands satrt pumping your shaft furiously. Using all your willpower to hold out from finishing earlier leaves no strength left to withstand Lia's final assault. Your cock starts throbbing and soon you are spilling your cum into her mouth. Some reaching her tongue, the other flowing straight down her throat. Lia's fingers keep twisting back and forth and you empty the last drops of your protein rich fluid into her welcoming hole.

You close your eyes, breathing hard. The relief is instant as much as the build up is agonizingly blissful. Lia releases your cock with a pop and lick up the remnants of cum on the tip. You are too lost in the euphporic finale you totally forget the perilous situation you are in. When you realize, it's too late.

Lia's dad is near the table, two glasses of the green smoothie in his hands. His face is a mixture of shock and distress as he stands rooted to the spot, his eyes fixed on her daughter's face a few centimeters away from your spent cock. His mouth opens but before he can speak, Lia chimes in.

"Thanks for the meal daddy. But I don't think I'm going to need the smoothie. I already have dessert"

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

#itzy smut #lia smut #kpop smut #male reader

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ohisms · 3 months

Text

↪ 𝑽𝑨𝑵 𝑯𝑬𝑳𝑺𝑰𝑵𝑮 . ( a collection of sentence starters from the 2004 film . adjust phrasing as necessary . mature themes present . )

oh , [ name ] . it's just you .

where are you going to run , [ name ] ?

what are you saying ?

why do you think i brought you here ?

you said you believed in my work .

i would kill myself before helping in such a task .

you've been so kind to me , [ name ] .

you can't kill me , [ name ] .

so , you're the great [ name ] .

we all have our little problems .

let's make it your decision , shall we ?

i wish you a week in hell .

why don't you do something about it ?

this is all a test of faith .

i can curse all i want , dammit .

you . turn around .

strangers don't last long here .

the laws of men mean little to me .

i don't need your help .

you stay here . they're trying to kill me .

nice to see you too , [ name ] .

did i do something to you in a past life ?

i hope you do have a heart , [ name ] . because someday i'd like to drive a stake through it .

your reputation precedes you .

i am hollow ! and i will live ... forever .

please , say you will not try again .

do not fear me ... everybody else fears me .

i was unprepared . it won't happen again .

do you understand forgiveness ?

i would rather die than help you .

don't be boring , everyone who says that always dies .

may he rest in peace .

how long has it been , 300 , 400 years ?

you don't remember , do you ?

what exactly is it i am to be remembering ?

it's no surprise you would know all about me .

we have such history , you and i .

have you ever wondered why you have such horrific nightmares ?

[ name ] , it's alright , i'm taking you home .

what , did you think we haven't tried everything before ?

no one knows how to kill [ name ] .

i could have used that information earlier .

would you like me to refresh your memory a little ?

allow me to ... reintroduce myself .

i think we've overstayed our welcome .

don't give me that look .

you were right . i'm sorry .

monster ? who's the monster here ? i have done nothing wrong !

look , there's still time .

you were right . i'm sorry .

do you have any family , [ name ] ?

if you value your lives , and the lives of your kin , you will kill me .

evil may have created it , may have left its mark on it , but evil does not rule it .

now you know why they call me a murderer .

oh my god ... you've been bitten .

so much trouble ... so much trouble .

now you will become that which you hunted so passionately . may others be as passionate in their hunting of you .

don't worry , god will forgive us .

how many commandments can we break in one day ?

oh my god , you should be terrified .

how does it feel to be a puppet on my string ?

neither of us has ever settled for half .

you make my skin crawl .

i'm not gonna like this , am i ?

one brief moment of pain , and we can be together forever .

you have no heartbeat .

you are nothing but damned bones , and damned souls .

well , that doesn't sound like a good thing .

we don't have a choice . just don't get killed .

you don't understand , it doesn't matter what happens to me .

god is not the only one that can create life .

you can't go until i say you can go , and i say you can go when you're dead !

you're supposed to die .

we are both part of the same great game , [ name ] , we just find ourselves on opposite sides of the board .

you are being used , [ name ] , as was i . but i escaped , so can you .

if you're going to kill someone , kill them . don't stand there talking about it .

all i want is life . the continuation of my kind .

some things are better left forgotten .

#ohisms #rp meme #inbox meme #inbox prompts #vampire prompts

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marcsburnerphone · 8 months

Text

And they were roomates

(Captain John price x F!reader)

Summary: that captain wants somewhere more homely to settle down and when an offer like yours comes alight on Zillow he must take up on it.

Warnings: angsty (very minimal), injury(very minimal), john not knowing how to handle certain situation.

part 1 - part 2 - part 3!! - part 4

-----------

That's when it started, the weird energy that set the scene for every interaction between the two of you. He couldn't help but start to see this so-called “tension” gaz had mentioned fulfill its way into your lives. Not only was it your beauty, it was the domesticity that settled in your relationship. You need that lightbulb in your room replaced, you politely knocked on his door, car troubles? Yeah John should know how to do that. But what scared him the most wasn't the attraction he felt towards you, it was your lack thereof. He never seemed to catch you sparing him any extra glances than were necessary. Unlike him he couldn't help but catch his greedy eyes secretly soaking in every inch of you when given the opportunity.

But he couldn't be further than wrong

Because at the opposite end of your home your mind seems to be obsessed with the thought of john. What a man he was. He must’ve been getting some back on base and you couldn't even be jealous, aroused though definitely. He's actually all 6 foot something of fine, absolutely climbable. But god does that man often look like he wants not a thing to do with you. Especially most recently you rarely even see him and when you do he barely speaks or spares you a glance.

—-----------------

“Hey, haven't seen you in awhile.” you surprise him extremely early in the kitchen one morning.

“Oh um good morning, I’m fine just been a bit busy. Why are you up so early?” He lies then quickly changes the topic knowing being awake during these hours of the morning isn’t your forte.

“Scheduled a client for 6AM instead of 6PM and it's too late to cancel.'' He hums in response, willing himself to say something more but his mind comes up blank as it often does in your presence.

So he leaves without a word and nothing in hand he just leaves. And you stand there absolutely thrown through the loop at the moment that you two just shared.

—--------------

“We were doing great as roommates. You know I was comfortable and he seemed comfortable but now I swear that man avoids me like the plague.” you say to the longtime client in your chair.

“Maybe he’s just not social.” She chimes in, you concentrate while trying to part her hair before replying.

“I could see that being the case if he hadn’t been so social the previous two weeks you know, we’ve made meals in the kitchen together, watched television in the living room so I don’t understand what changed.” you say applying product to the sectioned hair.

“What if he doesn’t like you?” your hands pause for a second as you ponder the thought.

“Well I guess he doesn’t have to like me to live with me.” you say with very visibly discontent.

“But you on the other hand strive when people like you.” she replies, reading right through you.

“Well yeah I think anybody would.” you shrug.

“Not a military man who’s probably widely hated.” She's always right and you hate it.

“What's not to like about me?” you genuinely couldn't come up with an answer yourself.

“Are you a messy roommate or do you bother him a lot or do you nag him for his mess?” You can’t think of doing any of those but maybe asking for his help from time to time.

“I might be bothering him but nothing I would consider too much , just some help from time to time.” she laughs from her seat and you unenthusiastically spin the chair she's in to face you.

“Was it in the contract that he'd have to help you from ‘time to time’.'' You give her a quizzical look and she just continues.

“Men like to do the bare minimum and that's it. They hate being bothered. Take it from me. I'm married with three sons and they're all the same. Oh they have to do the dishes, sure, but will they dry them, or put them away? No, because that's not what I asked.” you hum understanding her point but still finding it hard to see john really feeling that way.

“So then I shouldn't ask him for anything and maybe he'll come around?” you ask in an unsure tone.

“yup.” she replies blunt, fast and very sure of herself.

—-----------

So you listened, this whole week you've not asked John for a thing which was pretty easy up until now. Your luck never fails to run out at the worst times. A flat tire in the middle of the road on your way home. You pull off to the side contemplating what to do as the sun is beginning to set and there's really only two options.

One, call John and ruin your streak of leaving him be. Two, call the car service company and pay their ridiculous prices to change the tire out. Of course you go with option two cause calling john seems to make you more nervous.

It takes 3 hours for the mechanic to get to where you are, change the tire, and point out other imperfections about your car that you pay no mind to. When you finally make it home you’re bothered, exhausted and broke.

John doesn't miss the unusualness of your late arrival but also doesn't question it, even though he wants to. Your groans of frustration echo through the hallway and he immediately can tell it was a bad day.

You change out of your work clothes and go into the kitchen for a snack as you do your daily phone call to your sister to tell her about the events of your day. John creeks his office door open to hear a little better but nothing noticeable.

“He charged me six hundred dollars, I mean how is that even legal?” You complain into the phone that’s balanced between your neck and shoulder.

“It was just my tire that was flat, nothing else.” you follow up while chewing on an apple. You swear you could cry by repeating that monstrosity.

John can't help but feel a bit confused and upset that you hadn't just called him instead of calling whatever dick that charged you that much for something so simple. Changing a tire is an easy 30 minutes that he definitely had on his hands especially for you. You had not hesitated asking for help before so what's changed now?

—-------------

“Okay, unscrew the old bulb and screw in the new bulb, very simple.” you reassure yourself as you stand on top of the tall ladder to replace the porch light. It’s icy outside and cold sweeps under your layers of clothes making your normally shaky hands shakier.

“Okay okay- damn it.” You drop the bulb that burnt out onto the floor watching the glass scatter.

You screw the new one in and step down, closing the latter with frustrated groan, then going to pick up the bigger shards to toss out before sweeping. You should’ve known that bulb glass was insanely thin and sharp but sometimes your brain leaves out the important stuff.

“Ow, fuck fuck fuck.” You cry out at the shard of glass that forms a long clean cut on your palm. You cry as you run into your home holding the cut tightly. Finding the sink you turn the water on and rinse it clean. Your ears don’t comprehend the loud footsteps that make their way towards the kitchen.

“What happened?” A deep voice sighs out behind you.

“Nothing.” Your hiccups escape involuntarily as it continues to bleed dramatically. You squeeze your eyes shut as it begins to burn more and more.

“Let me see.” He tries to grab at your hand genuinely concerned.

“I’m fine, it’s just a cut.” You resist him by keeping your hand under the water.

“Cut from what?” he's a bit frustrated at your refusal of letting his trained mind and hands help.

“I was changing the light bulb outside and one broke.” you admit quietly.

“Why didn’t you ask me to do it?” once again what is with you no longer asking him for his very available help.

“Cause I can handle myself John.” You’re irritated at the obvious evidence that you cannot. Your non wounded hand rips a paper towel from the roll and you hold it to the cut to go bandage it in your room.

You leave John standing in the kitchen and don’t even look back as you make your way to your room. He stays in that same spot for a second wondering where your random change in attitude is coming from but in the end he comes up blank and goes out to the porch to clean the rest of the glass up.

—----------

You feel terribly guilty when you wake up the next morning to see the porch swept clean and ladder put away from the previous night. You toughen up and put your big girl pants on to go apologize. You knock on his bedroom door and hear ruffling on the other side before he answers.

“hey john i'm really sorry for-” you stop noticing him dressed from head to toe in his military attire and damn.

“For what?” He takes notice of your pause and one up.

“For um the way I acted last night I know you were only trying to help and um why are you dressed like that?” You can’t help but question it.

“I have to go on base for a little bit, maybe a day or two. It shouldn't be too long but who knows, let me grab my check for you.” He walks back into his awfully clean room and grabs something out of a drawer and hands you a white envelope that consists of his monthly rent.

“Oh okay.” You can’t even hide the blush that laces between your features and although he notices it he can’t pinpoint the reasoning.

“Also don’t be sorry we all have our days and I shouldn’t have overstepped.” You nod in response not really knowing what to say.

“Okay bye then I guess.” You awkwardly wave at him even though you stand mere inches away from his tall frame.

“Bye doll.” He says before you walk away entirely thrown over whatever conversation that was.

----------------------

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capslocked · 11 months

Text

KINKVEMBER DAY: 8

[prompt: phone sex]

male reader x shin ryujin

16k words

The phone rings one too many times, and Ryujin is in the middle of scrunching up the paper slip that Chaeryeong handed her earlier that afternoon when she hears your voice.

The sounds of her scrambling for the receiver and her head smacking against the headboard come through in pretty good quality.

That never gets old.

"Stimulating conversations," you offer smoothly, like it isn't a euphemism and instead some high-brow intellectual pursuit. "How can I help you?"

Ryujin is speechless for an unbearable five, ten seconds until she lets out the kind of low chuckle that probably sounds better than it looks. "Hi," she says, "hello, I, uh- I don't know how all of this works."

"Why don't we start with who you're looking to speak with tonight?" you ask.

Ryujin sighs. She runs a hand through her hair, looking at the messy tangle of clothes on her bedroom floor with mild resentment. She’ll take her chances, figuring a direct approach is the best route when she doesn't really know where any of the lines get drawn or who is allowed to say what and who isn't.

"Um. Okay. Who you got?"

"We have a large variety of operators to suit any taste," you explain kindly. She appreciates that. "Do you have someone specific in mind? A gender perhaps, to start?"

"Well," Ryujin starts, running her tongue along the edges of her teeth. Lia has this thing she constantly says, that there's always a thousand and one reasons not to do something, and Ryujin is the first person to make fun of her for it - but here she is, finally putting that adage to use.

"I was actually calling to, um," she exhales loudly. "A guy? I mean look - girls. Girls are great, but if you - mmm." She clears her throat. Because she knows how she wants to do this, and it's most definitely: "A man."

You wait for a second before replying, and Ryujin allows the stillness to expand over and fill out every corner of her bedroom before a bright, "Alrighty, well," comes filtering out her phone, tinny but as enticing as ever. "That would be me."

"Oh."

"Yeah," you reply, easy and unhurried. You sound exactly like the kind of person whose company people pay handsomely to be around; the professionalism is undeniable, but there's something to be said for your tone. The softness to the vowels, the almost imperceptible upward lilt to the words - Ryujin gets that, maybe.

You're pretty confident in the answer, but you ask anyway, "have you ever done anything like this?"

Ryujin opens her mouth and hesitates for a brief moment.

"Well," she muses. She's tried porn, she's tried her own fantasies, she's tried cranking up the hot water and touching herself with the head of the shower aimed somewhere she's told by other girls: it's there, free of charge. "I haven't."

"But you have a boyfriend," you state. "You have a man, who you enjoy things with?"

Ryujin laughs nervously. "It's...it's been a little while. Not recently. Sorry. I know you don't-"

"No, no, not at all, you're doing fine, it's just that you sound very attractive over the phone. Excuse the assumption."

Ryujin laughs and rakes her fingers through her fringe. She knows it's a line, but she laughs anyway. She could - if she was looking for the deranged fulfillment of it - pore through a billion comments on instagram, on twitter that call her a lot of things: gorgeous, beautiful, hot. The last comment she read before almost deleting her app entirely was someone who decided to textually imitate a dog barking to a picture Yeji had taken of her in a coffee shop. There's a novelty, she thinks, in being charmed by someone who has no idea who she is.

"You have good ears then," she says, smirking into the receiver. "So do you normally do, what, ask questions? I have no idea."

"Yeah, it helps me build a profile," you reply, "but if you had something else in mind-"

"No, please, shoot." She grabs the pillow from behind her back and flops against the mattress, staring up into the ceiling fan.

"Do you feel comfortable sharing your age with me?"

"Twenty," she answers without missing a beat, even though that isn't right. It's weirdly important to her, keeping it private, and she isn't sure why - but then you say something pleasant and complimentary about college and new experiences that she's unable to register, and you ask her for her name so quick she just blurts it out:

"Ryujin."

"Pretty."

"Fuck," Ryujin grins, immediately chewing on her knuckle to bite back a gasp. "Sorry. The name is cute or, whatever. Whatever. Sorry for the curse. God, I don't really have a filter - what about you? Do you have a name, Mr. Operator?"

"I do."

Ryujin lifts a leg up and puts it down again. She doesn't know if she should already have taken off her pajamas or if that's weird. Or if the fact that it doesn't bother her means this is more or less wholesome. She turns over onto her stomach, humming into the phone and now she doesn't know why she's thinking about your face. You could be- well, fuck, you could be anyone, but there's this gnawing compulsion to put something together.

You tell her your name and she scoffs for a second, before quieting down and returning you a, "pretty."

"Ryujin, tell me." There's probably a slightly too long pause from your end of the line before you get on with asking her, "when was your last orgasm?"

She drops the phone right in her face. It bounces off the bridge of her nose before landing in bedsheets beside her and her eyes are welling with tears while she scrambles blindly across her bed, cursing into the receiver and squirming. She pulls the phone to her ear and catches the last couple seconds of you reassuring her that it's okay, that it's completely fine if she's hung up or gone.

"Actually, I have," and she curls her fingers into a fist, "never came in my whole life."

You clear your throat to keep a less than professional sound from coming out. A quiet space she feels necessary to fill: “Not even once.”

"Really?"

"I know. And I've only recently realized that's, uh - er- a pretty un-normal thing." Ryujin makes a waving motion with her hand even though you can't see it, trailing off into silence and blushing furiously. "Sorry," she apologizes. She doesn't know what she’s apologizing for, but she does it again. "Sorry about that."

"I should be the one feeling sorry for you," you rib.

"Fucking tell me about it."

"Hey, this reminds me, would you be averse to the idea of touching yourself?"

The question stutters Ryujin in her tracks, and she doesn't even say no but a drawn-out "nngh" leaks out before she can stumble into something more intelligible. "Isn't that, like, what you're supposed to do on these calls?"

"Every call is different, Ryujin."

She chews on her lower lip, rolling it under her front teeth. You say her name like you know her, and it's throwing her for a loop. The comfort you have with the whole situation - asking her a million questions and not demanding answers, taking cues and reassurances in stride and turning everything into some sort of ploy for getting her naked. Fuck, she'll take a bit of a plunge:

"Should I be touching myself?"

"It's not my place to say."

"Okay, well that's kind of a frustrating answer."

"So you're saying you like being told what to do," you tell her, and you hear the sharp inhale in reply.

"If I knew what I liked, you think I'd be calling a sex hotline and hoping some stranger might take pity on me?"

You laugh out loud, and her response is the quickest, the cutest little, "seriously!" before she chuckles too.

"Ryujin?" you ask.

"Yeah?"

"Are you straight?"

She nearly chokes - because it's like you're able to just read her mind - and if you can do that then there's nothing you can't do, maybe. And here, excitement feels a lot like apprehension. She twists and curls in on herself, thighs rubbing together, the flat of her hand traveling across her stomach.

"I'm-"

"Because no one should have to pretend that they're interested in guys," you interrupt her and, god, for as much time as she's spent dwelling on that, she wishes it were that simple.

It would be a hell of a lot easier if she knew why she wanted to get her face between Yeji's thighs and drag her tongue all over her clit until that prettier-than-perfect face of hers cinches up in a pleasure that comes with just the right amount of agony - or if she knew why she didn't feel anything like remorse or guilt or envy when her boyfriend came around instead of wanting, you know, to get on her knees with her mouth around his cock too -

Fuck, it's all very complicated.

"Straight," she answers. She likes cock, as much as anyone realistically can, and she knows the body on a man can get her dripping and easy in all the right ways. So, she just swallows. Says, "straight enough."

"If you were to touch yourself, right now, and someone - say, a man - were telling you exactly what to do: what would spring to mind, if anything."

"Mmm. Is this you asking me to touch myself?"

"Again. That's up to you."

Your voice is light. Very pleasant. Very male, Ryujin realizes. She gulps.

"Can you, I mean," she says, running a hand down the length of her thigh, pressing down at the hollow.

"Ryujin,” you say, letting her mull over how it sounds in your mouth. “Take a breath for me, please."

Her exhale leaves her with a heavy push and she tries not to laugh. Nervous tic. She's getting goosebumps, but she feels warmer than before.

"We could say this isn't the first time, you and me, in some very broad and abstract sense. How does that make you feel?"

"Strange." She touches her outer thighs again and arches her back. "Kind of horny," she admits. And it is odd - your words, the things you say - and maybe it's her nerves because the experience is new, and so are you, and so are her feelings, all wrapped in one.

"Do you want to do something about that?"

There's silence between you for what seems like a very long time, your breathing quiet but apparent - a signal you haven't abandoned her in some state of vulnerability. Ryujin inhales deeply. She's shaking in her fingertips. The tension has her taut and waiting, and that's funny, really, because it's what she's been doing for years. The rubbing. The touching.

Her hips rock forward gently and she answers the unasked question with a sweetly husked, "uh-huh."

"What are you wearing?"

"Ah, really?" Ryujin laughs. Her fingers pause at her waistline. "That old, bad porn trope."

"I like hearing about people's clothes, is all," you excuse yourself lightly. "Helps me get a sense of things."

"Yeah, alright. Sweats. Baggy ones." Her lips fall apart. "Shirt."

"Is that all? Nothing sexy."

"What's sexy?"

"Sexy is…"

She listens to you mull it over, listening for a ruffling or two. "For a girl with a nice body - some body - some curves," you continue, and Ryujin has to drop another finger to the hot line of her thigh, her lower belly. "You need lace. Silk. You've gotta leave the best bits a little hidden, at least for a while longer."

"Wow. You sound a hell of a lot like you'd enjoy taking someone's pants off," she half-teases. "Do you make all your calls like this? One sordid fantasy at a time, huh?"

"Something like that," you reply. And then, as if reading her mind, "are you doing anything, right now?"

"I'm touching myself," she exhales. "Are you?"

"Ryujin, not yet. Please be patient."

She makes a face even though you can't see it or taunt her. That's an unfair request - you have an unfair request.

"Just, wait," you tell her. She's drawing lazy, winding circles across her thigh. "Let me show you something, will you do that for me?"

"But, what."

"Tell me everything. All the things you're thinking. Things you want to do."

"Everything?"

"Yes."

She blinks away her initial disbelief and reaches around for her lamp to switch it off. Until it's just the hallway light peeking in through the crack between her door and the door jamb and you, a stranger who won't be seeing her face or hearing her say anything stupid. She shakes out a few more breaths, shuffles against the sheets, and glides her fingertips past her belly button.

Her hand rises up her stomach in one decisive movement, until her fingers curl beneath the bottoms of her bra, trapped in its underwire. "I'm thinking - unh - about, ah. My friend?"

You're quiet and let the silence linger, until she seems like she might not find her way; so you repeat, "Go ahead."

"And a guy she used to like, fuck, she'd show up here, drunk on, ah. A weeknight. Somewhere, fuck, around midnight. Walk past me into the kitchen where we had the - the light. God." Her hips stutter and she grits out the rest through her teeth. "In the refrigerator. Ah, yeah, a midnight snack. Always looked way too fucking good for, um, oh, for a casual booty-call."

"Does your friend have a name?"

"Yuna," she practically pants, and immediately realizes she shouldn't have said that either.

"Did you always know what was going on? Between Yuna and her-"

"Boy-toy, yes - it was so obvious, I always knew, yeah," she said, clumsily grabbing the sheets with one hand as she drifts further between the peaks. "Just - fuck - he'd be picking at, ah, something with chopsticks."

"In your kitchen?"

"My, uh, table. And I'd be working up the nerve to ask."

You sigh over the phone, "ask him what?"

"What it was, like, I knew she was only- shit." She keens high in her throat. "What it was like, fucking taking that cock of his, and bending Yuna's tight little, ah, ass over and, mm, railing her on the side of her fucking bed - and just pumping her full of cum just like that until- Jesus, she would walk around after and sometimes-"

You groan softly. This encouraging little sound.

"-fuck - sorry, I mean. Yeah, he, sometimes he'd make her walk around with his, ah, stuff inside. Down her fucking pants and, it's like, fucking disgusting, I swear-"

"And?" You breathe a heavy edged noise over the line.

Actually okay, so maybe this was more than she bargained for, maybe she bit off more than she can chew - maybe, she feels like her insides are collapsing; all the fire pooling around in her stomach and gathering into a melting sort of weightlessness.

"And it makes me feel fucking-"

"Fucking what."

"Why am I talking about this, why-"

"Talking to me? Fucking wet, Ryujin, answer the question."

She pants down at her phone and then turns her face into her forearm, rubbing and making sounds. She thinks about, oh, fucking Yuna and how she showed up to hang out once, with cum leaking down the crease of her inner thigh, smearing against her skin and down between her legs.

"Wet." She swallows. "How do I-"

"Say that you wish it was you," you tell her. "That you wanted that, to be fucked. To feel a cock inside."

Her head falls back. "That," she manages, "fucking, that."

You drawl so that the question might roll off, easy: "Is that the kind of girl you are? Told not to curse, not supposed to let anyone else play with you - you just need it, don't you? Do you need someone's cum? Just tell me."

"I think so, ah," and she stops moving her hand. "I think I'm gonna go now. This is fucking embarrassing, like. Okay, sorry."

"Don't hang up," you tell her, and the soft edge to it is one she really wants to indulge. "Don't," you repeat, a little louder.

You start talking, about the same sorts of things she's imagined herself: the sex and the sounds and what he can do to her. You build a slow and aching heat between her thighs that has her dripping through her underwear and grinding against her fingers. Telling her how she's the one that needs to be filled, needs a man who can wrap her legs around his waist, get to the deepest parts of her, the parts untouched and willing.

Ryujin gets that - she wonders, half out of it and stroking faster than she usually would be, how much of it has anything to do with who the voice is on the other end of the receiver, and how it could be what a desperate, pathetic, tired part of her has always wanted.

"Are you?" she asks, panting over the phone.

"Am I what?" you whisper back to her.

"Are you," and you hear how she inhales sharply through her nose, a desperate gasp leaving her lips on the exhale, "going to, um. Are you touching yourself right now?"

Your reply is immediate, and her eyes flutter and close the second you tell her exactly what she wants to hear:

"God, yes."

She drags her hand up the center of her body, runs her fingertips over her jaw and presses the heel of her wrist to her neck to feel her pulse slamming hard.

"I'm fucking throbbing, Ryujin; you sound gorgeous like this, like nothing I've ever heard, I'm stroking my cock just picturing you, please-"

"Tell me." She's mouthing into the center of her palm, saying the words, tasting salt and musk. "Fuck, ah," she babbles, "tell me what you would do with me."

"I'd get you on your knees," you tell her without hesitating for a beat.

"Fuck."

"I'd come up behind you and tell you not to be scared, baby. I wouldn't hurt you, I'd just touch you real gentle. Push my fingers past your tongue, slide a little down your throat."

"Uh huh," she moans, her head falling back and rolling, rocking against the mattress.

"Want you sucking on my fingers. Need your hands around my cock, or better, my balls, play with them. You're going to take those fingers - every finger I got, all five, yeah?- all ten of them," you joke, "and open up your tight cunt - like you are now, like such a good fucking girl-"

The girl fucking yelps. Just this honest sound of depravity; it's what she's paying you for. It's a silly line of bullshit, but it makes her bite hard and ache a little around her own knuckles and moan in her palm and dig her nails hard into her flesh. Her thumb fumbles across the top edge of her underwear and you pant again into her ear as if on cue, giving her a small bit of guidance that has her jolting in pleasure. She didn't know that was there, fuck, fuck-

"Like that, Ryujin. Breathe," and she does.

"Please," she whines, trying to find somewhere for her arm to settle, resting finally in her hair - setting the phone to speaker in a foolish moment of lapsed-judgment, just before it nearly clatters off the side of her bed.

Keep going - she's telling you over and over - keep going, and you’re picturing her there: eyes closed, legs spread wide, bent knees quivering and toes curling into the sheets. It doesn’t sound fake - you've heard a million of them, you've learned them in their different tones and accents and you can spot a faker a mile away. And the girl on the phone right now isn't pretending or thinking about whatever's happening somewhere else.

(You don't join in for everyone. You can't. It's an asinine consideration that you'd be rubbing your fist up and down your cock while it's sore and wanting - aching from the neglect or lack of rhythm. You have to remind yourself it's just a job, that the logistics just can't support such selflessness.

But then there's the very fucking premise.

That the girl on the other end of the line is inches from the goalposts, fingering her cunt and sighing into the throes of her first orgasm - first ever, because you did this, you brought her this far - you're the fucking culprit, and no matter how many girls, or boys-pretending-to-be-girls, how many people have gotten off with the help of your voice, your instruction, this one sets a different fucking precedent.

You're not lying when you say, "I'm rock fucking hard, Ryujin," or "there's precum all over my knuckles, baby."

Because there is, and the poor thing chokes out another desperate sound when you tell her.)

"I'm right there, ah, fuck, keep going-"

"I've got my hand around my shaft, just enough that I can fuck it, can't I? The head is getting slick - baby - and my palm is gliding nice and easy. Are you cumming, Ryujin? You better be, you better be cumming right now."

There's a heaving gasp and she calls out for you, babbling curses and "please" and "fuck" in alternating succession, with enough punctuation for you to have to let your lip slip under the hard bite of your front teeth. "Don't stop," she tells you, voice thready.

"You need this so bad."

"Yes," she gasps. "How would you-"

"How would I fuck you?" you finish her thought.

She waits a moment, sucking in shallow breaths and then replying weakly, "I really like... I like doggy."

"On your knees?"

"Yeah," she stammers, "I like when, like- ah, like, pulling my hair."

"Fuck, I love that," you say into her mewling. "Splayed out with your tits against a pillow and getting your pretty, little pussy pounded? I bet that'd feel so good, huh? Hands so rough on your hips, on your throat, squeezing your neck so you'll turn pink. Just to see you smile, I'd probably fucking let you take whatever you want."

You're met with a broken moan, a long string of syllables ending on a note that has your shoulders clenching and cock jumping in your grip.

Tense over the things you can't see: Ryujin biting down into the side of her hand, the other knocking painfully against the wooden side rail on her mattress, her thighs tightening and screaming and clamping around her wrist as she pulls weaker, wilder whimpers out of her chest each time her fingers drag across her slit and the sensitive curve of her swollen clit. She's dying, she thinks, she's going to fucking die - the in and out of her soaked pussy, through all that sticky, satiny skin, slick fingers diving in, twisting until there's nowhere for them to go.

No other recourse than to fuck in, fuck, fuck, like that, fucking god.

There's heavy silence on the line for god knows how long - well, you have to check the log. But for her, it feels like fucking forever. That was - that was it. It's so fucking mind-wracking how good it was, she can't quite wrap her brain around it. Nowhere near. She thinks she'll have a better idea after two rounds, definitely by four. She'll buy something, use the discount, go shopping - an orgasm just to make sure she's not bullshitting herself.

You clear your throat.

She moves sluggishly, away from the side and against the headboard - the heat still unbearably oppressive, her t-shirt clinging and sticking. "That," she stumbles through the afterglow.

"Do I need to apologize to you?" you ask lightly.

"What? Oh god, no - no way. No way. I just."

"Yes?"

"Like I didn't know it was this-"

"Did you just cum, Ryujin?"

She's laying there with the phone pressed to her brow. A hand palmed over her own racing pulse. The faint smell of her own cunt lingering around her face.

"I don't know," she tells you, and promptly hangs up.

The darkness in Ryujin's bedroom is punctuated only by the faint, hazy light streaming in from the hall, and her bedroom fan making its creaking little circles, as she waits in her post-nut-high for her breathing to normalize. Her mind is buzzing, and out of all this, she has a hell of a bill and a couple conclusions:

She's a coward and a pervert, but definitely, definitely bisexual.

Or, like. She's in some weird gray area between not liking whenever anyone buys her drinks, but also the girls at least let her dance a little close. That's a strange thing, isn't it? For how often her mouth does stupid shit - you think at least someone would figure it out for her.

But you, oh fuck. You-

She's fucking shaken up, for sure.

(It's a home office set-up, actually.

Your desk isn't organized; you're sure the photos on the wall are askew and the paint looks slightly worse for wear if you were to turn the lights on - which you never really do. There's an aging lamp tucked into the back corner, a bottle of scotch next to your handset that's closer to halfway empty than halfway full, and you can't stop imagining it.

Promise, This never happens.

You've got the name stuck to the roof of your mouth even though you know it's fake. Stuck with something so painfully abstract. Imagining this girl that is probably as brash and bawdy as her voice, or more exciting than either - maybe her hair is long enough to brush along her breasts. Or maybe it hangs just over her shoulders. God knows just how that would frame her features.

You can see it, really. You pump a handful of coconut oil into your palm and the details solidify so easily in your head: her pretty mouth, nose, the dimples in her cheeks - eyes glazed and sultry and gazing at you.

Smelling sweet, all the places you need, skin hot, clit swollen-

Just- fuck. Fuck.

Ryujin, huh, imagine that.

Ryujin.

And you jerk off right into the soft embrace of a tissue.)

A little more than a week later:

Ryujin's all wrapped up on the couch, with an arm cushioning her head and watching TV when there's a sudden commotion from the front door. Yuna - her friend, her very nice, very male friend who never shows up after midnight unless there's a promise of sex - comes bumbling into the room.

He has no regard for boundaries.

So,

Yuna starts to say, smug, from where the hallway becomes the living room, "Ryujin - look at us. Stuck on a Friday night. You gotta boyfriend or something?"

She's completely unfazed by this interaction. She's pretty sure he has his own key, so like, he should be used to it by now too.

"Kind of." She shuts off the TV to turn her attention towards the topic at hand. "Why?"

Yuna runs a hand through all her long, silky hair and gestures her cock-du-jour on over to the door of her room. "Waiting for a call, maybe." She waggles her eyebrows. "Are you any good, I mean, you never seem to..."

Annoying brat.

Ryujin smacks the back of her neck and interrupts, "you gonna fuck him? Go ahead and fuck him, Yuna." She checks the lock. The kitchen. Gets up and tries to ignore the heat flaring behind her ears.

"We could pretend," Yuna muses, tugging the waistband of Ryujin's shorts around her fingers before she's out of arm's reach. The elastic flips back into her waist with a dull snap.

"Dumb idea. That's a dumb, dumb idea," she reasons, because she knows Yuna has no self control. None, and it's showing; the second her shoulders sag forward and her eyes dart, craving, Ryujin steps back in. "Don't be stupid."

Yuna's lips are tilted, playful. Ryujin wants to smack that look right off her face. Like she fucking deserves any kind of victory just because she found out she can fuck anyone she wants while lacking the self-awareness to somehow be contented with anyone. She's not going to call her a slut - out of a matter of principle - but god, does she fucking want to.

"Gotta get ready, is what you should do," Ryujin mumbles under her breath.

"Fine." Yuna shrugs and pecks an annoying kiss to Ryujin's temple on her way to the shower, waving a hand over her head with a casual, "If you want something, you've only got a half-hour."

Ryujin pushes her hair out of her face and does what she does best: overanalyze and overthink the situation.

Whatever. Yuna won't give it up regardless, not in any way she'd actually be able to enjoy. Her cheeks go a little redder while she pretends to not be considering it.

God, a threesome in total functional harmony however: her working her mouth on Yeji (Ryujin doesn't know why she's thinking about Yeji, but she is), Yeji working her mouth on her boyfriend, her boyfriend working his mouth on her -

That'd be something, she thinks. Like one of those Escher diagrams, but one where everyone cums at the end.

The thought makes Ryujin wet enough to squeeze her thighs together and stand up a little straighter.

Then she hears the showerhead turn on, and she wonders just why, exactly, Yuna is such a spoiled asshole.

Turns out,

The universe just has this habit of providing Ryujin with what she wants right alongside everything she doesn't.

She’s stretched out in her sweats, sat up at the top of her bed again and touching herself beneath the sheet in a pointless attempt to contain the mess. Fucking horny - it's honestly unbelievable - and her left hand's making lecherous, slick noises until it's absolutely gross. Until Ryujin's gasping and panting and sweating from the nape of her neck and the back of her knees.

All because Yuna's the loudest little-fucking-whore of a roommate anyone has ever heard.

She's moaning like she's getting fucking plowed into the next life. And apparently, the cock she's got in her cunt is fucking huge if those little murmuring whimpers are anything to go on. She keeps begging the guy, coy, for a kiss while she's probably folded up like a lawn chair in there, getting railed, and the fact that the boy keeps obliging is as admirable as it is kind of insulting.

"Goddamn," she thinks out loud, because the walls are paper-fucking-thin. The apartments in the area are built in an earthquake-safe way, which in reality, means they can either withstand a magnitude 6.0 and come out without any severe structural damages - or that it's so cheaply constructed the building will go down like a matchbox house before it stands a chance against a tremor of any significance.

They're easier to replace that way she’s told. And Ryujin's apartment is definitely of the latter; she can hear everything.

The skin on skin, their bodies sliding together in the slippery sheets. Her mouth smacking wet around his tongue as he bucks forward and asks her to do a hundred filthy things, asking her where it feels best - that sort of thing, which gets her wound and agitated and frustrated, and fucking horny as fuck. Ryujin's bent-inward and panting when he really gets to work - the creaks and groans, their mingled pants and the constant thudding and swaying of the headboard smacking into the wall.

She doesn't even need to put her ear to the partition like she's sixteen years old all over again, hoping to catch her old brother going at it while her mom was out. Trying to figure out this whole sex thing - what all the fuss was about.

Just the way Ryujin sighs is nothing short of despondent. Slightly pitiful.

And every tight circle she's running over clit feels so fucking good, until she realizes the room goes real quiet for a bit. The stillness - no slapping, no movement, just wet, panted-breaths and muffled speech. She nearly asks aloud what's wrong - but she hears it: Yuna's hushed but totally undeniable,

"Been so long- don't, don't- hold up," she croons in these high, sing-song little huffs. "That - uhn, ah - that's my - that's my good spot, there, keep - yes, harder!"

Ryujin slams her eyes closed, dropping down onto the mattress and wishing she'd slipped her hands into her sweats sooner. Fuck. And as Yuna's back starts banging against the wall - so rhythmic and fucking thorough - Ryujin can feel the heat curling behind the backs of her knees, radiating along her calf and reaching into the smalls of her feet. Fuck. Fuck, she doesn't even get to watch.

Right there. So good, please, so fucking good, is what Ryujin can’t not hear coming right through the drywall.

She’s three knuckles deep in her pussy, all stretched out, and she's practically drooling - "spread me, baby. Hold the, fuck, spread my lips open. See me- unh. Ah - see me? Please, do it-" - the boy groaning about it as he fucks her, and then, Yuna, needling him with a quiet, breathy, "harder, can't you?"

The answer seems to make Yuna squirm and scream.

And Ryujin's nearly rolling - rocking, fucking humping her own fingers because it's starting to ache a little, a cramping in her wrist and arm and jaw that she's trying really hard to ignore, rubbing and fingering and fucking herself closer, the heels of her feet sinking hard against the sheets, throbbing and aching around the flicks of her knuckles, harder, faster - faster -

"Fucking hell-" she seethes and stops moving all at once - because god, Yuna is un-fucking-believable.

The absolute bitch, she's doing it again: squealing and cursing and calling his name into her orgasm and just basking, it sounds like, right in it. Because she always does this, every single fucking time, she acts like it's the best feeling in the fucking world and she fucking loves everything, and that shit just - Ryujin grits her teeth and grimaces and pulls her slick fingers from her body - that just ruins it.

All that build-up and for what?

Fuck, Yuna really has the nerve to go there too. She's talking about sucking her own damn cunt or some bullshit-

Yeah, it's not fucking fair, Ryujin concedes.

Or maybe she's being punished. She could live with that, but god. The unfairness of it all. She tries, for a half a minute, to let her throbbing stop being a goddamn nuisance. But the noises coming from the other room are making her crankier, more angry, more irate - and definitely hornier than she ever really intended, even though she knows Yuna is thoroughly distracted in there.

Ryujin sits up a little straighter. Squares her shoulders, steadies herself and fishes around in her pockets with her uncoordinated, cum-coated hands until she finds her wallet, a credit card, her cell -

And there's an aching, a sore pulse of neglect between her legs; that's all too much. A quick peek down confirms that, yep, she's practically dripped right out of her shorts and even gotten a dark spot in the front of them. How great is that.

Yuna is over there, all, "thank you - ah - can you please do me a favor and fuck my mouth with your big, big, huge, fucking cock-" and this guy, he sounds so patient, telling her how he wants to do exactly that, but he wants to fill her tiny pussy up first, fuck her here, fuck her there, fuck a baby right into her. Wants to get his cum all over her face, smear her mouth and her throat and her cheeks -

Ryujin inhales through her nose and holds, eyes falling closed in something between misery and anguish.

He's telling her, yeah, of course he'll fill up her throat - give her so much it's leaking out of her fucking nose - and Yuna sounds like she's moaning and garbling an objection to that last part - but it doesn't actually fucking matter.

"Geez," is Ryujin's quiet, little gasped-out response. He just fucking pounds her right back into place; her next orgasm. Fuck-

And there it is: the slew of moans that start back up and just keep on keeping on.

Shin Ryujin is going to lose her fucking mind.

Ryujin only lasts a handful more days before she calls again.

It’s another Wednesday night, if only to increase the odds that you’re working. Yeah, she could go with another guy, but another guy might not do everything you did, talking quietly and calmly - so composed while Ryujin was losing some part of her sanity to the thumb she pressed on her clit.

No, it has to be you.

That's what Ryujin makes herself say when the operator apologizes and explains you're busy.

"Will he be working much longer? Please, I, um-"

"If you give me your number," the operator tells her, "I can add him as a preferred associate. You'll get him next time instead of going to the line."

Ryujin pauses, finger held to her chin. Will he know that? There's all this implication isn't there, that maybe he won't. Maybe you're popular - are you? It's a lot like texting someone for the very first time. And if you did - know, she means - would she be acting like a stalker? It would feel weird, probably, but no worse than some people do it already.

Oh god, this is kind of fucked up.

Maybe a little. Maybe.

Ryujin pauses, finger to her chin. Will he know that? There's all this implication, isn't there, or maybe he won't. Maybe you're popular - are you? It's a lot like texting someone you like-like for the very first time. And if you did - know, she means - would she be acting like a stalker? It would feel weird, probably, but no worse than some of things other people are undoubtedly doing with this service, Ryujin decides, and rattles off the digits so fast the operator asks for clarification.

"If your schedule doesn't open," the line says, "call back and leave a message with when."

Ryujin shrugs and says, "yeah, okay."

You make Ryujin sit through forty-five-fucking minutes of on-hold music - this barely audible synthetic noise that signals a connection is still there, truly a genre for no one - all before she just cuts the fucking line and lays down on the couch.

Okay.

Okay, fine.

Whatever.

(You are… going through the motions.

Some girl on the other line is barely holding it together; you can hear her thighs making slick noises. God. She sounds desperate, she's holding the phone all tight and saying your name. She's fucking babbling; it's not attractive, not while you're tilted back as far as your office chair will go and staring up in the ceiling.

You're bored, mostly.

"Please, please, I'm-"

"Going to cum, I know, princess." She asked you to call her that. "Mouth all open? Can't help it? Just need to lick it nice and fast?"

The answer comes all choppy: "I can't, ah, a-ah-nymore, no, I, can't, need-"

"Do you have any idea? How hard I'm fucking stroking my cock right now? Sitting right in my lap. Jerking it right for you," you say, and then she makes an embarrassingly wet noise, gasping through a choked whine, "so I'm ready to give you what you really fucking need."

"Yes," she chokes. "There - um, please, I just-"

"The biggest fucking load," you tell her. She has no idea, really, that you've got one hand on the receiver, the other just pinching the bridge of your nose - neither of which are you jerking the cum out of your cock and balls like a fucking hydrant as you’d described. What she doesn't know won't hurt her, and you keep your face turned to the side as she starts screaming. As it starts running into one noise that lasts forever - so unbearable that, this time, you consider going out to the bathroom to grab a glass of water and a handful of painkillers. "Need it deep. Let me pour it in, yeah?"

"Yes," she gasps again, heard on this distant frequency because, yes, yes, you've plugged your ear with a finger.

"That'll satisfy you. C'mon, now, princess - give it right up," you tell her, but your eyes are a little dull when her moan turns out all-gagging and twitchy and spasming through it, until finally:

"Ugh."

You wait a moment for the gasping and hitching to finish.

"Good girl," is your distant reply, followed by a polite, perfunctory, "call back anytime.")

Ryujin feels like she's in grade eleven again as she stares at her phone. Boys. Drama. Girls. The drama.

The overanalyzing, the wondering, the hesitating. Fuck. She wishes she knew a way to change this, because she doesn't feel particularly mature and is somehow reduced to this girl, this idiot sitting here all embarrassed and staring and moping about a thousand different calamities at once.

She's looking right at the lock screen: the wallpaper of her and Yeji and Chaeryeong out getting coffee on a random Sunday, all bundled up. Winter. Like three, four years ago, maybe.

Ryujin looks like shit, it's funny.

But Yeji -

How she can make the winter pallor look good is beyond Ryujin's understanding. It's unfair. All the things are. Her brain is back and forth and spinning, spinning like the hands on the old clock hung up on the wall in the kitchen. So stuck on what's not quite normal. Stuck on what doesn't fucking matter - who even fucking cares who the fuck she's attracted to?

She feels it between her legs.

Has been for like a month, or longer, without an outlet. Without anything to give her the hint that maybe she can get back to it - the right it.

She doesn't need to call, she tells herself. She's not some weirdo who's sitting on this for days just in the hopes that her boyfriend is having a bad week with work or whatever. It's only Wednesday, technically. Still way early. Just another few days, she reasons, another few hours - what does it matter?

Wednesday. She can feel the word settle inside of her.

Though only once her bottom lip is chewed to hell, does she pick up her phone and decide she will.

(You're in your bedroom this time around, finishing up your own weekday workout - on the bike, fifteen-second sprints - when your phone goes off. A simple dinging. Very unassuming.

The operator comes in with a cool, level, "line two, callback."

Then there's nothing but silence for a few beats.

You towel some of the sweat off your face. It's warm - your skin, flushed. Bouncing your phone in your palm. The same feeling that's been tugging at your throat for the past two weeks starts to flare and swell.

Not quite a hope, not quite expectation: just something close.

"Are they still there?"

The operator confirms. "Shall I put them through?")

Ryujin fumbles in her own rush of bravado, hands pressing against the fronts of her thighs in an unflattering, nervous little gesture as the connection clicks and picks up.

"This is him," comes your voice, a little husky and raspy from all the day-to-day talk, but even and easygoing and maybe - just maybe - something she can hang on to. Ryujin gives an acknowledging "Mmmn," like the phone call isn't causing her major inner-turmoil.

"Right, ah." You sound kind of, dare she say, nervous yourself. You clear your throat into the line and ask, "what brings you here, stranger?"

Ryujin pauses at this; the red in her ears reaches her fucking jaw. Stranger. Jesus christ, okay, okay-

She laughs. Stops immediately at how self-conscious she sounds. Clears her throat and tucks some of her hair back - settles herself into it like her life hangs in the balance. "I'm here to get my rocks off."

"It's not usually my place to say," you begin in earnest, "but if you're anything like me, and this is gonna sound completely off-the-cusp, but those two weeks really seem to build up, don't they?"

God.

She pulls her sock off her ankle. There's eczema on her heel, and it's the kind of thing she can imagine Yeji telling her to not scratch - that she's going to fuck up her skin. It's funny the stupid fucking things she can remember and all the things she forgets. Like just now, with your voice in her ear, a little unsure in a way that says you've got other, much more important things you should be doing. But you're here with her.

With Ryujin.

God. She might hate herself a little.

"Um," is how she finds her bearings. "Actually."

"It's a joke. Not that- I mean." She hears some rustling - assumes it's coming through the ear piece. There's an abrupt slamming on her side of the line and it seems like the worst kind of deja-fucking-vu. Her neighbors. She forgets it's even this late into the evening. That other people don't have to work so hard in their free-time.

"Maybe this isn't a good night," she says, not so much as thinking the words.

"What?" you ask. Then it dawns on you. "No, no. If you're there, I'm here." You clear your throat. "Besides, there's nobody I'd rather hear from than a woman so desperate she's signed onto my frequent flier's club."

She stops chewing the insides of her cheeks long enough to give you a tired, irritated sound. "Whatever."

And you nearly choke trying not to laugh.

"I don't, um-"

"What, do I have a nice voice?" You laugh quietly.

Under normal circumstances, that wry edge, the bit of try-hard-humor would have her rolling her fucking eyes clean out of their sockets. So when instead she opens her mouth and a fatal-fucked-flirty-feminine, stop, comes out, the vowel pulled long like a plea or a request - well, Ryujin's forehead drops against her bedspread in immediate regret.

You seem startled by it too, going quiet for a second.

"I-I'm-"

"Cute," you decide.

Her ears are red-hot and her cheeks have to be pinking and god, she hates this. That she's hearing this so soon, and it's making her brain hazy and soft and stuttering through, um's and yeah, well, um's. A part of her can't believe she's paying for this, and then, at the same time, she can't believe she's not actually putting cash down for more right this second.

Because it feels -

Like maybe -

Her shoulders rise. She wants this to be quick; she hates this feeling of embarrassment creeping its way in and grabbing onto her with both hands, like this weird, pseudo-affection. She's a grown fucking woman and here she is, letting all her guard down for someone she doesn't even fucking know.

You can feel the tension, hear it. Your lips purse. You try for something easy.

"Go on and give me the details, Ryujin."

Before you'd even picked up, she'd already half-undone her shirt, the flaps of the collar hanging loose with her hands gently petting her ribcage - so easily giving and pliant that there's a good portion of her, in spite of the doubt, in spite of what seems completely illogical about all this, that has her realizing maybe she wants this more than she can possibly understand.

God, she feels like a fucking fool.

"It's pretty boring."

"Not to me. I've spent the last few weeks talking to a bunch of assholes who don't appreciate what they got in the first place," you reply. She imagines you're a little playful about it. Wonders, momentarily, how good that smirk looks - if your eyebrows are lifting like you've been teasing her since day one. Fuck.

“Your operator is a total asshole too, by the way."

"Don't say that," is Ryujin's shy reply, practically moaned out. "You sound like someone I'd absolutely fucking hate, jesus, stop that."

"Just because you don't get on with someone, doesn't mean they can't get you off."

"Smooth, or something."

"I'm taking a break, relaxing a little, enjoying an overrated TV show or whatever this is - not really minding my business," you say, but your smile is so audible it's fucking offensive. And she's - she's maybe, definitely into that. Like the fucking embarrassment in this is turning her on. Ryujin puts the tip of her finger in the waist of her shorts, experimentally, gently, this small brush and press to her sensitive lower stomach. And it's true. All she hears is her own breathing in the receiver, a bit labored over the slightest, least indecent touch. It's amazing, how much her body can want even when her head can't seem to catch up.

"What do you like?" she asks. “You’re a person, working bits and all, something’s gotta get you all worked up and flustered, no?”

"Will you believe me if I tell you this is my absolute favorite?"

"Do you always dodge the question?"

"It's just like a courtesy," you clarify, "it's not personal."

"Now I sound like a desperate pervert."

"On the contrary," is your warm, buttery reply, and it is fucking aggravating just how well this works on her. "I think there are much better things people can say about you."

God, that - the thought, the possibility of something about her that has nothing to do with how 'thick' or 'thin' her thighs are, or the silhouette of her ass in safety shorts, or how her voice makes guys want to ask if they can take her home and fuck the answers from her, or any of that; it's kind of liberating, just a tiny bit. That it can be a good thing for some reason. God.

Ryujin rubs herself. "Yeah, well."

She wants it all the same and says nothing, shifting a little until her hips tilt slightly upwards, letting her pull at the drawstring of her shorts, loosening the grip. She's already kind of feeling woozy in all the best ways, soft and feminine in how she slides her hand underneath her shorts. Over panties first, with no clear idea if you can tell and honestly, too distracted to wonder about that, if she should care or not, too caught up with her fingertips over the raised seam in her underwear - where the fabric's wet from her.

A shush comes into the line when Ryujin swallows.

The ache between her legs grows louder.

"You still there, Ryujin?"

"Of course," and then, she finds a little more reassured finality: "fuck, yeah, fuck. Please, I..."

"Ryujin," you say with all the calm and control in the world, "talk to me."

(So - truthfully, honestly, factually - you are a total wreck.

You're sitting there in a heap of bedsheets and a cold sweat when Ryujin finally mutters into the silence, "thanks, for that, I, uh- that felt really good, exactly what I needed," and hangs up before you can ask about her day or comment on the weather or suggest calling back tomorrow.

She is just perfect, the way she lets a small "I..." slip when she's close. Perfect, how she groans her little broken, satisfied sigh of a yes, her last, fleeting exhale just a sweet, high, barely there please, her body tensing with every little shudder and moan and pant. How the pace goes fast and then slow - like she's gotta think it out a second, her own fingers bringing her closer and closer until there's nothing but a flurry of movement and ragged breaths - an enthusiastic little mmph noise - followed by Ryujin's wet and slick little laugh that sounds like relief.

Like you did something to help, like she needed you and wanted you.

There's cum sticking all up your torso and along your wrist, the inside of your thigh - everywhere you could manage, frankly - and, shit, it's not fair, you realize:

She can find you, whenever she needs you.

And you -

You're just sitting here. Nowhere near sure she'll even call again.)

There's a sizable difference between being lonely and being alone, Ryujin thinks, running the cloth under the stream of the shower and then pressing it damp against her throat, wiping at the backs of her knees.

Lonely means that something's missing - it's something she feels when she catches a glance at the handsome arm reached around Chaeryeong's waist, the way she dances so close to someone she just met, or whenever she tells her that she's thinking about, maybe, probably, definitely, absolutely going home with him if her friends don't stop her from leaving. God, her smile is always so cute when he's near. When someone's calling her over for drinks - hips sashaying like she doesn't know the whole bar is staring at the creases where her thighs flare into her ass - because he gave her a look from across the room, and she's swaying from drink to drink.

Like, of course, they're fucking; it's a known, unsaid thing.

She knows it, he knows it. Chaeryeong fucking owns it.

Alone however, is just what it says on the tin.

That's something else Ryujin has yet to learn - that everyone loves differently, cares for different things. Yuna is still single after all, and she can never shake the feeling that it's simply to spite her for some perceived slight or another; Yuna can't live without company, no matter how brief or short or meaningless, so perhaps it's better she never catches on or finds anyone worth keeping around.

And Yeji?

Ryujin sighs, rakes the comb through her wet hair.

The showerhead is running hot between Ryujin's fingers, and the water coming off of her skin turns to steam instantly, filling the bathroom with a permanent cloud, stuck in flux - rising towards the ceiling. She passes her fingers under it, watches the flow, a quiet hm escaping the back of her throat - and she considers the way it feels beating against her throat and chest.

Down the concave curve of her stomach. How it burns red right over her thighs. The pressure slips and sinks low, lower - and when she puts a palm out for a little stability, her left leg can't help but buckle just so, lifting itself out and off to the side. So she stands, toes pointing against the shower floor, face first into her arm against the cool tile.

Ryujin sees where the rivulets of water have gathered above her clavicle - feels them trail down over the tightness in her breasts and between. A couple images pass through her mind at once - thoughts of fingers trailing a line back up the center of her body and a gentle tap against her chin, turning her face to some perfect all-consuming kiss - a hand squeezing at her calf, rubbing her muscles gently - Yeji smiling into the crook of her neck, the grasp on her hip, wrist flexing. Her back bowed and fingers, broad and experienced -

"Don't need you," Ryujin quietly says to nobody, which -

You're doing so well, Ryujin hears back in her imagination, you're so beautiful, you can keep this up, I know you can. I bet it feels good, doesn't it? Just let go and I'll...

Ryujin whimpers out. She can feel that line deep inside her going taut, buckling in her core, the reverberations down to her wrists and fingertips and toes. If she didn't have the wall in front of her, she knows she'd be on her knees - kneeling to the hot water pulsing around the knots of nerves right behind her clit. The pressure hitting her like the crack of a whip.

"Fuck me," she says to no one, gasping in that way you only can when no one is listening.

Yeji's smile is what's gotten her this close so many times, the smell of the ends of her hair tickling Ryujin's nose. Hell, she can't stop thinking about the way her nose crinkles or her dimples flare just when she finds Ryujin's name in her mouth.

It's not fair.

She's so close to cumming and letting whatever happens happen. The slick of her release pouring right out into the drain of the shower, washed away with the excess. So when her whole hand shifts and catches in just the right, delicious, frustrating way, Ryujin inhales so deep through the end of the sentence that, as a result, her knees wobble.

She feels like fucking crying.

It's that sweet little lilt in Yeji's voice, saying things like: "It's alright. I promise you can keep this up a little longer." And "Oh, god, baby." And, at worst, the way her voice shakes with a "come here, honey. Let me-"

Ryujin has to catch herself when her footing slips a little from under her. Then, your voice, coming in distant at first, grows louder, clearer. Into something catastrophic, right against her throat, like it knows the very inside-and-out of her, "go on. Fuck, please, cum all over me, baby - show me a face no one else gets to see."

And for the first time,

Ryujin gets herself off. Alone.

She moans and sighs out. Gasps, "there you go-" and whispers an, "ah, jesus." She manages the most silent, the least decipherable, fuck, as it leaves her mouth like a prayer. Her left knee twitches, body curling into itself, and her hand moves - fingers closing and her eyes clenched shut, a wave, cresting - she just-

Collapses.

Wanting: Yeji, sure - and she came - but the only thing she can really wrap her head around is the truth that she's so, utterly fucked.

"Are you sure there's no one you can bring?" Yeji asks in the middle of slapping the ever-loving shit out of a coffee maker that has, for as far as anyone can remember, never worked.

"Uh," is Ryujin's inconvenienced reaction, the tips of her fingers idly sorting through her credit card statements, which a more-sober, less-horny version of herself is a little out of sorts over. "I'm not sure there's anyone I'd want to bring."

"Uh huh," Yeji replies.

She pauses and rests the bottom edge of the coffee maker on the edge of the kitchen counter, stopping herself mid-smack - leaning away to try and give the stupid thing a once-over.

"Who the hell says it's got to be someone you wanna make babies with? Maybe it's just someone you'd think would look good beside you, smiling at the cameras with. Or."

"Or."

Yeji's lips tilt. "Or someone you wouldn't mind screwing in the bathroom."

Ryujin spins the pen in her fingers and gives Yeji a look that says back off and can you chill out already, in the sort of way it takes years to ferment - the silent understandings, the good-natured naggings, the good-fucking-luck-with-that-buddy's. Yeji knows she's getting on Ryujin's nerves. Knows that has never stopped her before.

"In my defense," Yeji clarifies, "I can count at least a hundred people that would crawl over broken glass to sleep with you and, uh-" She knocks the coffee maker off of its stand and holds it gingerly to her chest like some child, motherly. "-I don't wanna take a bullet for your unintentional chastity, Shin Ryujin."

"First of all, don’t pretend you’re doing me a favor here," she replies. "Second-"

"Can't hurt just asking, right? I could set you up, you know, someone you've never even met - no pre-burnt bridges to maneuver."

There’s a world, and Ryujin imagines it for all of a second, where she stands up and grabs hold of Yeji by her cute little ponytail - if nothing else, just to stop the way it bounces every time she steps - and maybe, she also kisses her on the mouth so hard she stumbles. Or perhaps she could pull that ribbon free of its holdings and unravel it down against Yeji's jaw. Pull a whimper, a tiny little ah that says this was inevitable. Maybe they crash onto her bed. Maybe she gets her fingers sticky with how soaked through the cotton of Yeji's shorts have gotten in those short, heated moments - what a world that would be.

"One of what's-his-name's friends? I’m assuming."

Yeji looks annoyed and proud and beautiful; all at once.

"Yes, and what's-his-name's pillow talk is exceedingly whiny about how my best friend is so incredibly standoffish and abrasive and-"

"Okay. I'll go." Anything to stop the image of Yeji with the comforter pulled up to her tits and hair splayed all over the place; red and flushed. Her lips curling with the curve of the sheets and god -

"Just for an hour?" Ryujin asks.

Yeji finally places the coffee maker back onto its stand.

"I mean, nothing much happens an hour into a birthday party," Yeji reassures. "It'll be fun."

"Uh-huh."

"Trust me."

Ryujin wonders just how far Yeji could go - if she knows that she can snap her fingers together, and Ryujin will be there: ready to do anything.

Ryujin is trying to go to sleep, is how she'll explain it if anyone asks. Though she prays to god no one ever will.

She tries books. And she tries scrolling aimlessly through Instagram. And there's this one guy she kinda-sorta-dated's updates: photos of a vacation to Boracay, which seems nice; his chest is a little more defined, more chiseled than when she was seventeen and kind of fumbling her way around a college boy and his stupid fucking preoccupation with who should be paying for drinks at whatever run down establishment was his pick of the night. Ryujin makes a face at the screen, pursing her lips; there's a girl in the photo - she looks too young for how her ass is falling out the one-piece. To the extent that she makes sure to send an unsolicited meme she's tagged herself in - like "here is my past and here are his balls", and gets a block and a report as a thank you.

It makes her feel good. That's what's most important.

And then, with little other distraction and a decent lack of luck, she picks up the phone.

It rings for a while before the operator comes in and says, "You're at number nine."

"What?"

"The queue. This call has you at number nine."

Ryujin slowly leans up from the pillows and squints into her bedroom.

"Huh."

"Would you still like to be connected, miss?

Ryujin thinks it over for a moment. Of course you're popular, a part of her mind comments, because you've got a voice like gravel-slung honey-gold. She's imagining eight other girls just like her, laying in their bed, panties on their ankles and thumbs covered with spit. All desperate for you. All curled up - one right after the other - with no fucking idea.

"Miss," the operator comes back with.

The line goes quiet - a few beats, but not too uncomfortable a silence. Then she gets a soft little exhale out, saying, "can I leave a callback number?"

"If you like." The operator considers the idea. "I can’t promise whether he’ll call you.”

“No, yeah.” Ryujin curls an arm under her chest and plays a finger against the swell of her breast through her night shirt. Gets lost in her own consideration. “Don't think he would anyway."

A new day is defined by new possibilities, or something or another you read once stitched into a frame; Something you muse over the rim of your coffee, nose-deep in the laptop at the kitchen counter top.

Last night ended a bit unexpectedly - this not considering the couple's awkward fight which took up two-thirds of the evening. Or the girlfriend-slash-fiancée of that guy, which somehow led you to wonder just how old was too old. But as you were logging your final client session of the night a ping came through the employee portal and let you know that someone had left their number with the operator in the hopes you'd call.

You swig back the rest of your coffee, roll your shoulders and shrug. Oh, there are at least a million reasons not to call a number that randomly, offhandedly arrives in the middle of the night and gets patched through a phonesex hot line under the cover of darkness.

The same number could be out there, defacing the wall of a truck stop bathroom, or inked into the skin of a squat prison convict who's got a brow like the horizon. Maybe, it belongs to that married business man that took your personal phone number as his private line and spent all the time bragging how he was going to quit his wife and make a run for it with you - just you - even though you'd rather stab him with a fork than be involved with that kind of psychopathy and are honestly just looking for that extra bump in commissions every time his wife calls to ask the exact same thing.

Your clients call. You talk.

You take the cash.

The point is: there's more fucking deviants out there than there are stars in the sky. You would know; you talk to a new handful every goddamn day.

Yet it doesn't really matter. You're gonna do it. Because you're feeling restless. Because - and it sounds insane - there's at least some probability, no matter how remote, that you will pick up that receiver and punch in a number and the line will connect with the girl who's been on your mind almost constantly for the better half of two months. That you might listen to the dial tone turn into her answering with a genuinely indifferent, "this is Ryujin," or whatever her name actually is -

You're living in a pipe dream. You're probably reaching, actually. And all you know about this woman, is, what? What does it really, factually, truly amount to, the amount you feel you've come to know about her.

You know more about how she prefers to methodically, meticulously begin, then draw out, and finally end a blowjob to someone that ain't you than you do about any detail in her life story, frankly. You're reaching, and you know it.

You pick up the phone and dial.

(It goes straight to voicemail, and get this: that’s her real fucking name.)

Yuna has the audacity to ask, as she slides into the booth, "who do you keep texting?"

Ryujin's eyebrow arches.

The younger girl nods towards where Ryujin's thumbs are practically flying over the keyboard.

"No one." Ryujin puts the phone on her lap and crosses her arms over her chest. Then the words seem to echo through the inside of her skull, so she shakes her head a little, in emphasis. "It's nothing, don't worry about it."

She's right though - and maybe that's the problem. Maybe that's why it's hard to answer.

Chaeryeong washes the shot of whisky down with a swallow of lemon-lime. Her eyes slide open to Ryujin as she wipes at her bottom lip. Then she spikes a finger into Ryujin's ribs.

"Spill."

It's a dangerous order, and she doesn't realize it at first. Chaeryeong's bad ideas have an annoying habit of flinging themselves on Ryujin, like a bomb dropped at low altitude - sudden, quick, and more than enough to shake everything up. Chaeryeong will make Ryujin go out dancing - and then she'll lose her clutch purse. Chaeryeong will remember she started the evening with a scarf - so they need to walk out a whole block or two to find it.

More importantly: Chaeryeong is not a great drunk.

So, of course she spills. She relays her findings, carefully and as deliberately as she can muster.

"Does he have a nice voice?" Chaeryeong asks.

"It's kind of deep?”

Chaeryeong snorts. Apologizes immediately.

"Not... deep. Sultry. I guess. Smooth, easy to hear." Ryujin tells the two across the table.

Yuna whistles low. "Romantic as shit."

“Fuck, I don’t know. In, like a sexy sort of way." Ryujin raises both palms in a vague gesture. She clears her throat at the two pairs of eyes staring back at her as though the words coming out of her mouth belonged to a foreign language. "Uh. Sort of raspy, or something, sometimes, like he's... on the phone a lot, and you know," Ryujin flushes, suddenly caught and wondering where all the confidence went, "yeah."

Yuna's leaning forward, chin in her palm. "I'm having a hard time believing texting is a sort of standard operating procedure."

"Well try a little harder," Ryujin snaps, eyes finding Yuna's and making herself fucking clear.

Chaeryeong has this look about her, she's trying to keep it all in, but then there's her eyes, cinched at the corners and dead-fucking-giveaways. She puts an arm against the table and points at Ryujin with an up-reaching thumb. "This is the cutest shit, like ever, and you two are texting like actual lovers instead of two, apparently rando-stranger fuck buddies, or whatever."

Yuna - for whatever reason - feels at liberty to throw gasoline on the fire. "Does that mean you think he's going to get jealous if you bring some dude along to Lia's birthday?"

Ryujin sucks in a breath; the fact that he'd never - well.

"Ryujin's in love," Yuna adds for dramatic effect, for the sake of being the worst fucking person. She can be so fucking petty. It's a side of her no one ever sees, because she's just so sweet all the time. Like right now, she's doing that smile-smirk thing that gets Chaeryeong giggling against her hand and then coughing into it a second later.

"Jesus christ," Ryujin starts gathering her jacket and purse. "He's- not- this is- God, I'm done." She slips her shoulder under the strap. "Thanks for listening to me sound like a teenager."

"Isn't that just normal for you," Yuna quips back, pulling at her straw until there's only air rushing through the bend of it. "Where are you going?"

"I can't stay here," Ryujin says as if it's obvious, as well as her point, the argument she's trying to make. "Besides, Yeji is gonna want me to get my dress and shit all sorted out."

"Don't fall in love with one of the robot voices at the cross-walk on your way home, or anything!" Yuna laughs out, giving a flippant wave goodbye.

Ryujin lets her eyes roll because sometimes, she hates her friends.

It still throws you for a loop whenever Ryujin pings your phone with a text that says something like:

have you jerked yourself off to exhaustion or is there one more in you for someone like me?

Or,

my roommate is getting pounded through the springs of her mattress, wanna see if you can hear it?

Or,

are you free? I really fucking need to cum. bad.

Each text is something you tuck into yourself. Save and mark and spend all your time in those long-form responses imagining how her face looked when her brain typed out the words for you. You wonder if she's sighing through her fingers or hiding her lips behind a pillow while the heat coils in the pits of her hips.

As time goes by, Ryujin slips a little more. From one text about whatever book or series she was rereading last and another about the sadism of politicians and how people are more likely to agree with what they've heard someone else say than the facts of a given subject, to texts with a few scattered thoughts to strings of sexting that has you cumming into the palm of your hand and through your sheets and in the middle of a dream in which there's no clothes and a pretty fucking filthy proposition.

"How have you been lately," you decide, and consider, briefly, the very strong likelihood this call is gonna send her right through the goddamn roof.

When Ryujin eventually finds herself able to get out: "fine," there's a tell-tale pause, then an even longer pause, that implies she'd definitely rather say anything else. Then she kind of stutters a, "pretty good. Not too bad. All that stuff, I suppose."

And not to say any part of this has felt like routine. Both of you breathing into the end of a telephone and letting your eyes clench tight while you cum all over yourself - imagining everything she told you she wanted you to do to her, how it'd all go: "fucking with my arms grappled behind my back," she'd hum, "head pushed into the bedsheets, you're smothering me, ah- I'd let you cum wherever the fuck you like, but please-" or maybe a bit simpler: "so my thighs are straddling your face?" is about the gist.

A second goes by, another, a third.

"Hang on," you end up having to tell her sometimes, "I need a fucking towel-"

"You really are, huh, jerking off with me- I get you that hot, is what you're telling me? Or is just too much imagining how you'd fuck your way right into my guts through my pretty little pussy? Ah, jesus," the cadence of her voice climbs high before ending up back where it belongs, "Jesus, fuck."

"Can you imagine," is how it'd start, "how good it'd feel? My pussy, or- anywhere, everywhere. I think you'd ruin me for anyone else - you- with how, god-"

You can hear Ryujin shift on the sheets, licking at her bottom lip. Silently cumming. Cumming for you.

"Okay."

"Okay what," Ryujin quietly says back.

The gears turning.

You press your hand into the side of your neck. "Fuck me. Now, in a second. Tell me the last fucking thing in the world you want me to be or do and-"

"Wait."

There's this half-breath. This hmm that almost trips off Ryujin's tongue. Her eyes squinting open to a new thought. You think she's about to be sly. About to surprise you with an offhand fuck yes I'd ride that face like a bus seat; that she might come back with, yes I'll put you right in the middle of the best part of me, god you'll love it, and I promise not to make you cum if you're nice enough not to let your hands wander. But.

It's funny how things are -

"I have a confession," she says, matter-of-factly.

That's not entirely unusual. You've had more of those come through your line in a year than a confessional grate might get in a lifetime. So it doesn't sound like something special to you; Ryujin and you are in this candid don't-ask-don't-tell in regards to payments and the exchange of goods and services, but here you are, still using lines and bits. Practiced.

"In the name of the father, and of the son, and-"

"Funny." Ryujin gets the hint to backtrack. "Uhm, I mean. Remember the roommate I was telling you about?"

You hum a, "maybe."

"Uh," and now the hushed voice from her throat sounds distant, suddenly out of the scope of the receiver, "can I be totally, honestly- just really, extremely honest here, are you- or?"

You stop thinking about the ebbs and flows of her voice, how it dips down then arches up a little. Because now her voice has become something that is nervous, bordering on uneasy. So you stop, take stock and hold on. You weren't expecting a voice of worry or tension, or not at least while she wasn't thrown back into her bed and rubbing furiously at the ache between her legs.

"Yeah, of course," you offer her up.

"This is so embarrassing," she's saying, and some part of you feels ready to sink - you haven't the faintest idea for what, but there is something. Your chest clenches.

You can't help the worry and reply: "Okay, um. I mean- yeah. Me too, I can admit I feel a bit- and you can, y'know, be a little-"

"I'm not straight," she says finally, with a little quiver of her voice right at the tail end.

A blink comes, another - there's nothing coming out of you and you have no idea why that should be at all difficult, so the silence grows long. A new sort of awkward; the kind that you find out isn't just the rush of cum cooling in a pair of sweat-damp underwear. No - this is embarrassment, the kind that taints you.

"What?" You exhale a strained laugh, almost too-bright. "Are you- is this some sort of-?"

"Nope, no, this is crazy, sorry." She laughs. "Sorry."

"You certainly had me fooled." You sit up straighter in your bed, resting elbows on your knees. The moon is filtering through the windowsill and bathing the room in blue - casting light all the wrong ways. Making your own heart beat just a little too fast. "Fuck, um. Can I ask a personal question?"

"Sure." Her voice sounds uncharacteristically soft.

"What are you into?" and you as soon as you ask, you're laughing - because you've heard Ryujin wax lyrical for weeks, pontificate about every manner and way she'd take a cock between her hands, lips, fingers. Every. Single. Place, she wants one in - and now you can't believe this is what you went with: "I mean, like girls?"

"It's probably safe to assume I have some, y'know- degree of- yeah."

You chuckle a bit. The stiffness in your shoulders settling out.

"I've been in love, I realize - boy, with my roommate - for a while."

It's said with a sad laugh - as if this were a little shameful. Some deep, dark secret no one could ever be privy to; some stain on her soul that might wash out only after one final scrubbing with dish detergent and the cruelest bristles. A thing that keeps her up at night -

“Not the roommate, by the way, who we listen to get fucking railed like she’s on-demand pornography every weekend. Just to be clear."

"Good, jesus, that'd be fucking something."

Ryujin sounds more cheerful when her voice comes back through the line, "right?"

You wipe the perspiration of your top lip. You laugh nervously at this girl admitting to being in love over the phone - a stranger, truly, in all ways - to some fucked up audio-fetish sex line personality. And now - the fuck's wrong with you?

"Are you mad?" she asks, and some part of you is wrung. A small string of tension twisting so hard inside your gut, you're losing touch.

"No," you let her know. "No, not at all."

And that is honest. This is honest. There's this itching little scratch all over the insides of your skin that seems intent on driving a fucking wedge. Right at the center of your chest, tearing you apart. It feels as you've lost - not an object, not a material. Not an idea, nor a concept - but a feeling, that for once, was distinctly, overwhelmingly yours, without your wanting, or permission, or comprehension.

Ryujin sighs, this elongated relief coming in. She sinks back against the headboard.

She tells you everything. How Yeji smiles, and it's like the whole fucking room has gone up in lights, just from her and her alone. How there is nothing that she'd rather spend all her days around. She talks and you sit there, silent and listening. She talks about her. Her name and everything Yeji does and everything she wants.

The more you listen, you realize it's all real; she's not confused, or mistaken, or out to play a game or convince herself of something she believes is inherently untrue. She's not frustrated, or longing. She doesn't have this stomach-rolling pit of anxiety digging a cavern at her center because she just can't go through the rest of her life, living a life like everyone else. Not ever.

Because, all you really notice is-

She loves Yeji. The quiet kind. And she's sitting there, legs curled under her ass, crying. Not sad, or frightened, or wounded, just this beautiful sort of awed: it's the kind that only someone who is too inexperienced at crying should have. Where you just-

Look away.

"I'm not taking my phone into the bath with me," is the last thing she says to you, tears flooding out in her last couple words, before you can only offer her a meek: "anytime, Ryujin, I'm here."

(Four, five weeks go by in the blink of an eye. A month where you figure it's best to let her text or call or make it clear she wants your voice.

She never does.)

Lia is taking her sweet time to apply concealer over the cut Ryujin earned herself trying to get a stupid thing off a shelf - that's how low and unreasonable her tolerance for anything mildly inconvenient is.

"That fucking hurts," Ryujin tells her, wincing.

Lia ignores her.

She keeps on dabbing at the spot on her temple with the makeup brush until there isn't any trace of bruising, or where the jagged scar of a cut ends and skin begins, not anymore. At this point, she has gotten better, has developed a kind of surgeon's eye: zeroing in and unblinking, until every inch of damage is looking like Ryujin did when she was brought into this world -

(which is not perfect, but what it ought to look like, all things considered.)

Lia holds her hands in place on either side of Ryujin's head. "Stay."

It takes less than five minutes, and during those, Yuna just offers from around the bathroom door, "Ryujin, sweetheart, you’re looking hot tonight."

There's nothing more Ryujin wants to do than set the girl straight - the girl can't not keep a chirp to herself, for once in her fucking life. Because this flimsy slip of a dress around her middle feels too tight, the air choked out of her lungs if she shifts her weight onto the wrong foot. The hem rides way too fucking high up her thighs. So, if anyone didn't want a good long look at her ass tonight, they better come up with a plan B if she has to so much as approach a staircase.

"Have I ever not," she bites.

Yuna snorts.

And luckily for Ryujin, Lia feels the same way:

"Yuna, would it kill you to find something productive to do with your time?"

Yuna opens her mouth like she has something to say (she usually does) before retreating further away, the edge of her hair disappearing around the doorway. Then Ryujin's grinning - eyes taking in how Lia glowers a bit back, silently judging the stupidity in Ryujin's expression and also, admiring how good the girl looks. "Not bad, though, really."

Lia tells her with an underhanded wave of the brush and a wink: "historically, you do always get laid on my birthday, remember?"

Ryujin jerks a little, and the scar above her eye throbs into Lia's thumb. "Thanks?"

The party is miserable, but it's not Lia's fault. It's not really Yeji's fault either. They tried, that's really all she can say for them - her and her permanent-plus-one whose face Ryujin wants to both claw at and kiss until it’s swollen-

What she really can't wrap her mind around, though, is the guy sitting right fucking beside her. The idiot.

"Really, I'm telling you," her date - who is about 3.5 out of five stars at best and not so much handsome or hot as he is 'okay in a pinch' - grins up at her with the smarmiest of smiles, "if you'd just have taken me up on dinner, I would've spent all our time talking about you. We’d figure out how to enjoy ourselves."

"Likely story."

This fuckwad has the absolute goddamn gall to look wounded when his arm starts circling its way around the space where her dress is suffocating her at the waist, and Ryujin starts to shimmy her way out of hot water - again. God, she thinks, god save me-

"I think," she manages with a stilted grin, "I'm going to make myself useful- drinks, no?"

When he leans forward to grab her hand, it's only so she doesn't leave.

"You're not going to ask for my order?" he presses. The only reason Ryujin hasn't knocked out a couple of his front teeth is because Lia would be the one hearing Yeji whine about cleaning up the fucking mess.

"Just scotch. Neat."

Ryujin's a natural when it comes to smiling fake; it's part of her goddamned job. "Of course," she says, like she's not absolutely loathing him.

"Try the oakier, single-barrel variety, alright," he explains, because what's hotter than a man who's an expert in alcohol and being an insufferable tool? Nothing of course. She hopes he knocks back a few too many and his liver explodes - the painless way out. If god would ever fucking allow it.

She barely manages a half-strangled laugh over the blare of the music before he finally releases her wrist.

The absolute fucking prick.

Here's something Ryujin never thought she'd come to appreciate:

Being alone.

It's just her and the breeze through the open doors of the rooftop garden, which is something every bit as refreshing as it is teeth-chatteringly cold. The wind picks up in gusts and billows, until it starts nipping up the fabric around her knees, like it's any one of the drunk, stumbling guests milling about and looking for a noncommittal lay.

Her left foot slips a step outwards, the uncomfortably tall heel bouncing on the edge of her toe and tapping a tune against the brick. Ryujin slouches on the railing that encapsulates the entire terrace, arms pressed over it, hands folded one-over the other - letting the night sky caress her bare shoulders with its wind-brushed kisses. This, is okay. It's better.

Maybe not ideal, but better.

And all it really took was a few fucking moments where she isn't smiling with pursed, stressed lips; where the pressure in her jaw finally settles out enough for the knot in the back of her teeth to fall loose and for her mouth to actually feel, y'know - good.

Not forced, is what. Not fake, or not real, or whatever-

Ryujin almost fishes her phone from her clutch. Almost. Almost texts to tell you that: this fucking night, like all the others in the past month or two or year, has left her feeling particularly done for, and yeah, no, it isn't helping that she'd take whatever would be the alternative if it meant a face like yours came in handy to lean against, or your shoulder or thigh to use. Like some pillow - that's all.

And you are, like. An option. But not, she sighs out, exactly the right one.

An errant chill shudders through her and down her spine.

"Shin Ryujin."

She'd recognize the tilt of that voice anywhere; even if her ears were pounding and her head filled with static and noise, she'd be able to place Yeji at the end of the world. The truth is easy to see, if only Yeji knew where to look: the corners of Ryujin's eyes screw up tight for a second, an immeasurably long time, in order to not do what they wanted. What it would mean.

She does anyway. "I'd hug you," Ryujin throws behind her with an airy sigh, "but I know where you've been."

Yeji's jaw has set at this point; a twist is still in her lip and she lets out this dry, half-laugh, half-not sound - which is the thing that drives Ryujin a little crazy. Yeji turns her attention from the concrete ground, to Ryujin's profile, her body leaning forward, toes tipping in: "sometimes I wonder if my partner in crime can breathe without saying something incendiary."

"Nope." Ryujin offers no further response or follow-up. Instead, the quiet gush of air makes itself the center of attention and a victim of silence.

"Sorry about-"

"Don't be. Don't give it a second thought." Ryujin stretches, leaning a little over the railing. Her fingers arch before her. Her words sounding the slightest bit cold, "can't win 'em all, right?"

Yeji's eyebrows pull together. "That's not how this was supposed-"

"God, Yeji." Ryujin smiles. Yeji hates that she never knows what that means. "I'm trying, really, I am, but you know - I really, I have tried my best, so can we just lay it to rest?"

Yeji leans over the railing - the fucking moon reflecting in these lustrous pools where her eyes go darker than night - and doesn't say anything for the longest moment. Ryujin chews her tongue, and tries to look as interested in the void of stars and night clouds as possible.

"Fuck's going on with you, lately?"

Ryujin just laughs back.

"Really," and the last word dips in a groan. It's almost childishly tragic how petulantly she insists, "talk to me."

But Ryujin has nothing else to say - no witty, scathing remarks. No deadpan observations or funny asides, not even a morose comment to throw back. There are times and moments and fucking periods of her day where she'd happily chew glass if it meant that Yeji would sit there a second longer, be beside her for a while and smile, just smile at only her, once - for once.

Her only response is the worst kind of lie, this soft: "really nothing."

The moment where it slips and hangs between them, when it lingers the longest -

She could reach out, a hand on her thigh, the small of her back, if she could only reach. And Yeji, she'd listen to her, for once. She'd really, genuinely hear what Ryujin says; like she can see it, plain as day, everything there's in Ryujin's eyes, the thoughts inside her head, written on her goddamn face and across the open night air in neon:

I love you. I'm in love with you, you're too close to me.

The seconds pass. They tick, they stretch and grow thin. Yeji looks at Ryujin expectantly, and Ryujin knows. It is something like being put on the spot and called in. Something like a long, pained whimper caught somewhere in her throat.

She is very much still, unmoving, and feeling nothing at all.

Maybe she can blame the alcohol, the dark, the series of events that saw her hiding away behind a bunch of decorative trees and fighting for breath where the wind blows a little cooler. She can pretend like the stars aren't absent above her, and it doesn't hurt a goddamn bit.

“Yeji, I-” She licks at her lip, ready, willing-

Ryujin grabs at her waist with a hand. Her knuckles white around the black of the railing. And with no further fanfare, she spits it out like venom, with no small measure of shame or guilt or worry for how Yeji will take it - or worse: how she herself would react in the wake of admitting it aloud -

“I love you,” Ryujin says, and it pops out of her mouth as neatly as it had the first thousand times practicing alone in her car.

A blink, and another. The look on Yeji's face is hard and blank, as if she'd understood every syllable, but didn't hear it at all - maybe. Her gaze drops, it trails a path along the long line of Ryujin's pale neck. Of the two ways it could ever go in her head, stuck on loop for as long as she can remember, Ryujin had never considered that Yeji might turn this still and vacant. A sudden feeling, a pull or a grip, starts in the lowest part of Ryujin's guts.

"And not-," she hears her own voice falter, "like-"

Then - it's on the back of Ryujin's head and in her hair, a hand curled at the base of her skull and pulling her head a little downward and her, until their foreheads meet. And before she has a chance to walk it back - to stuff it down where it came from and seal the bottle tight - before she can clench her eyes, shake her head, and spit out anything else like the fact that there was not much that had to change, between them -

Yeji just says plainly: "Yeah, hun. Love you too."

And it's shockingly, the most painful thing - that she just squeezes her hand and pats her back like it's all they could ever be. Without even the wherewithal to reject her properly; to tell her something like "don't ever say that again, god," or "oh shit- Ryujin. Sorry. So, no," or at least to spit back with a scathing laugh: "welcome to the fucking party," like what she always does.

"Yeah." Yeji clears her throat quietly and starts retreating back from the brink - with no apparent aim but to pull away as she draws herself away from the warmth of Ryujin's space, "uh, don't forget to say hello to some of the staffers before they go home, okay?"

Ryujin is left with nothing but the air that follows Yeji's outline; left with her heart sinking into the depths of the night; left trying to make sense of the bitter sting ripping her chest in two.

Left with her own hopelessness - the pining - when Yeji walks away.

To be lonely, to be alone; neither are the same.

And she hates knowing she is so incredibly both.

The worst part is she knows how it looks.

Her pace just on the verge of unsteady, the way her feet come up from the ground: Left foot, the right. The other. Back and back and forth again, faster and then slower and- fuck.

A damsel, severely distressed.

She sits down on the curb. She wants to cry, but even just the way she looks, carrying her heels and struggling with this fucking dress she wishes she'd never bothered with at all - oh, the tabloids would be sure every detail gets pinned under all the wrong lights. A breakdown would only serve to confirm all the right things; it would paint a story for anyone who cares enough to glean from her crestfallen posture and red cheeks that she is yes, a little broken, and that everyone wants to be loved and she's no different - and -

She sucks a breath. This time, when her tears fall, it's a quick, perfunctory action, no show in it.

Her palms rub her face - and she wipes, and wipes, and wipes - smearing at the foundation under her eyes before she takes a long drag of night air. Deep from her core, filling up her lungs until she can't hold anymore. Until it hurts and stings the backs of her ribs - it's enough for a single, fleeting moment. The street is mostly empty; an occasional car will speed by every now and then and it's those few and far between intervals that hurt most, that nearly shatter her: if she can barely do this, alone, how can she possibly be enough for anyone?

Ryujin’s smiling only to hold back her tears, and it fucking stings. She flicks hurriedly past the lock screen of her phone and swipes through the message stream with blurry eyes - there’s a whole host of people that want to know where the fuck she went, if she's safe, why she up and vanished the moment Yeji couldn't keep an eye on her. And well. The girl sighs.

Finds your name in her contacts and puts her thumb right beside it.

It rings exactly three times, and she hates the number. She hates how many things can be associated with that number in those seconds alone.

Four, the pause where you must have had the opportunity, but didn't decide to pick up - just leave it be. Then five - Ryujin is definitely no longer looking forward to any of this.

Six: it stops.

There's this crackle, and through the night -

"Just what brings you here, stranger?"

For an indistinct amount of time, Ryujin drifts in the whirlpool current of that question; it sinks her deeper, into the currents of your voice and the tone and what it's suggesting and demanding from her. All the things your voice is giving her permission to ask of and with and-

Until finally she answers back: "do you ever just, like, wish," a shallow pause for the hitch in her breath, "something, someone was a little more for you- or to- with you-"

The swell of a smile through the receiver; and you can't help your laugh, soft.

"Sometimes," is what you say, "that's just human, don't you think?"

She doesn't understand how something like love or life or desire should be a universal trait.

"Uh, maybe," she shrugs out, and thinks.

"It's pretty normal," you tell her.

Quiet, as if you were right in front of her.

"Look," you start, and you can hear how she sniffs her nose and swipes the pad of her hand right along the side of it, to catch anything stupid and stupid sounding leaking down to her upper lip. "You don't have to. Let's just hang out. Tell me anything."

And for once, she does.

She talks.

(The whole story.

From the first time Ryujin realizes the world is never going to be fair - that she shouldn't have to look at herself like she's unlovable because she's seen her friends be held as though they are - or at Yeji like she's completely unattainable or somehow, unlovable, and that someone as amazing as Yeji should have been loved from the moment she was born.

The rest comes through as fragments: the truth of her career. Yeji.

The balcony, the breeze, the bitter-fucking-disappointment.

And what came of that -

When Ryujin isn't a million and one words per minute, it feels, almost, it feels - she'd swear there was less noise in her own head: this thrumming in her brain has settled out; the walls around her and the echo coming off of them - the booming and pulsing - it's, gone.

Because even though there was an indistinct shape for where she had landed, in the aftermath, and nothing much had changed - all that did. You listen, and that alone makes it so you're both exactly where you’re supposed to be, even if this, tonight - you are unsure, if it will actually fix anything - if anything needs fixing at all.)

#ryujin smut #itzy smut #itzy ryujin smut #kpop smut #male reader #capslocked kinkvember

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xxchumanixx · 5 months

Text

Thought Contagion

Bucky Barnes x reader

Summary: After a one night stand he ghosted you. When forced to talk, the lines slowly start to blur. Warnings/Tags: hurt, angst, fluff in the end, mentions of a one night stand, reader has the ability to communicate via thoughts and move objects Word count: 4.397 Authors note: I just love him. Do I need to say more? It's 4 am, and I'm dead. So this might make no sense at all, but hey I somehow managed to write this delusional on tiredness.

Dr. Raynor's office

The clock on the wall ticked steadily, almost matching your heartbeat.

"Did you dream of him again?" she wanted to know, eyes closely watching you.

"No, I haven't dreamt of him in a long time now... but he contacted me." you gave back, fingers interlocked, fumbling with each other.

"Did he call you? Text?"

"No, he contacted me through my thoughts."

"That he can do?"

"When the will is there, yes."

"There has to be a deep connection between you for him to do that."

"No... not anymore."

"So there was a connection."

"Was. It doesn't exist anymore."

"What happened between you two?"

"We slept with each other. And after he left without me noticing, I never heard of him again."

She nodded to herself, carefully considering what you told her.

"Do you have feelings for him?"

"I've had feelings for him for almost ten years now."

You knew it wasn't right, not like this. When you first saw him, it was at the museum, Steve telling you everything about him. How brave he was, courageous and caring. How he looked after Steve, when no one else was left.

You developed feelings for someone who didn't even exist anymore, at least that was what everyone thought.

Who would have known, that he was still alive, breathing and killing.

"Do you know him this long?" she asked, head tilted.

"No. I met him, after Steve brought him back. I was there, when they brought him to Wakanda and I visited him during his rehabilitation. Then, when Thanos blib'd us, he was gone. And after he returned a few months ago, it just happened. I don't know if it was frustration, after Steve left us, or what else it was, but we lost control for a moment."

"Control over what? Your feelings?"

"He doesn't have any feelings for me."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Why do you think he ghosted me?" you chuckled dryly, brows furrowed as you looked at her like she was an alien.

You had to bite your lip not to snarl at her, send biting words her way. She was only trying to help you, had been for a few months now.

But sometimes, she didn't seem to understand you.

"Maybe because he was scared? Didn't know how to handle his feelings?" she suggested, cocking a brow.

"No, James Barnes doesn't have such feelings - only sadness and anger." you told her, the bitter feeling of guilt stinging on your tongue.

"Was it these feelings, that led to him sleeping with you? His anger, his sadness?"

"A moment of weakness, nothing more."

She wrote something into her notebook, before she tapped her pen on the paper. "What did he want?"

"He wanted me to help him."

You flinched, when suddenly a sharp pain tore through your head.

What the hell?

"Y/N?"

You believed you heard a voice, one that sounded painfully familiar.

"Y/N?" There it was again, and you sighed shakily, feelings starting to mix in a dangerous cocktail. "James?" you answered in a thought, eyes closing, as you tried not to betray your feelings with a quiver of your voice.

It must have taken him a lot to contact you through your thoughts.

You were a telepath, able to communicate via thoughts, as well as moving objects through the air. But it took a lot of willpower, to contact you through your thoughts, especially when it was over such a great distance.

And by someone like James Buchanan Barnes.

"Oh thank god." you heard him mumble, as your belly churned.

After you've spent the night together and he left, you hadn't heard from him. Why would he contact you like that of all ways? Why contact you at all?

"What do you want?" you returned coldly, teeth gritted, as you sat up in bed. You were just about to sleep, already tucked under your covers, when he contacted you.

The anger bubbling up in your stomach made it hard for you to concentrate, but the curiosity was the slightest bit stronger.

"I need your help."

Eyes widening, you fumed. Hands clenched into fists, the books in the bookcase started to rattle, trinkets threatening to tumble over.

Oh, the nerve he had - he had to be fucking kidding you.

"You need my help?" you seethed, not able to contain the angry chuckle that escaped your lips. "You have to be kidding me."

It was silent for a few moments and you started to think he might have cut the connection, when you heard him sigh.

"I-" he started, but was cut off by another voice. "What are you doing?" you heard the voice ask - Sam. "Are you praying or something?"

You could basically hear Bucky's eyes roll in their sockets, as he sighed angrily. "No, I'm not." he retorted, scoffing. "I'm-" he cut himself off this time, most likely rubbing the stubble on his chin. "I'm talking to Y/N."

It was silent for another moment, before you heard Sam again. "How? Where's your phone? Or are you communicating through prayers?"

Rolling your eyes, you shook your head.

"Forgot that she can communicate via thought?" Bucky gave back, sounding fed up. "That's possible?" Sam sounded surprised. "Over this distance? What do you want from her anyways? Thought you guys aren't talking."

Cocking a brow you huffed, and you heard Bucky stutter incoherently, eventually finding his words. "No- I-I mean, yes. We need her help if we want to find them!"

"Find whom?" you wanted to know, scrambling for the laptop that was under your bed, flipping it open, despite your better judgement. "What happened anyways?" Sam questioned, his curiosity getting the best of him.

Since when were they teaming up?

"Did you hear about the group 'Flagsmashers'?" Bucky asked, focusing back on you. "Of course, do you think I live under a rock?" you scoffed in return.

He rolled his eyes, you swear he did.

"Well, they plan something big and we can't find them." he explained, ignoring Sam who was still demanding an answer. "We need satellite pictures or video or whatever. Sharon can't hack into them."

"Sharon?" you retorted, huffing. You hadn't seen her since she had to flee, now knowing why. She must have holed up wherever Sam and Bucky where. "What makes you think I have access to satellites wherever you are?"

He hesitated, as you grew impatient.

"And what exactly makes you think I'd help you?"

He must have been very desperate if he contacted you of all people.

"After all I thought we weren't talking?"

He was frustrated, you could tell. You could feel it seeping into your bones.

"They are killing dozens of innocent people!" he explained, anger and frustration filtering through his voice. "Could you please help us? I wouldn't ask if I had another option."

I wouldn't ask you of all people.

"Already on it." you mumbled, as you were already typing on your laptop, telling yourself you were doing this for the innocent people he mentioned, ignoring your aching heart.

The group he was talking about was all over the news lately, gathering more followers each day. They were a threat, and no matter how much you despised talking to Bucky, you knew you had to help them.

Going through the various pictures, you scanned them for the group. "Found 'em." you announced, zooming in on a picture.

"I'll send Sam the location."

Bucky made a noise like he wanted to protest, say something like 'Why not sent it to me?', but he must have remembered that you weren't talking.

"Thank you." you heard him mutter, before he abruptly cut the connection, leaving you wide awake.

Closing your eyes you tried to hold back the tears. It was pointless crying over him, you did for a while now.

It never changed anything for you.

But, as Bucky was forming a plan with Sam, he could hear it clear as day - the single sob that managed to spill, leaving him wondering if he really heard it, or if he just imagined it.

"Did you help him?" Dr. Raynor asked, brows furrowed. She as well had heard about the group of terrorists, and she had talked to Sam and Bucky not long ago.

"I had to." you retorted, huffing.

"Why? Because he asked you to?"

"Because it was the right thing to do."

"Because of this group they are trying to stop?"

"Yes."

She nodded to herself, biting her cheek.

"How do you feel about John Walker being the new Captain America?"

Your eyes snapped to hers, hands stopping their trembling. "Don't call him that."

"Why not? Doesn't he fit your expectations?"

You chuckled dryly, smirking at her. "My expectations?" you wanted to know, leaning forward with a cocked brow. "Steven Grant Rogers was my best friend. He was my anchor, and when he left, living a life in the past with Peggy Carter, he fulfilled his greatest wish. Do I hate him for leaving me behind? Yes, I do. But I support him and his decision nonetheless. He gave the shield to Sam, who gave it away. Who am I to have expectations, when my biggest hope of someone worthy stepping into these massive footprints has been so utterly disappointed?"

Her forehead creased in thought, tapping the pen on the notebook again. The sound was so familiar already, that you had started to ignore it a long time ago.

"John Walker is said to be a good man. Don't you think he will make a good replacement for Captain America?"

"He can be good all he wants, wear the medals he obtained with pride - but he'll never be like us. The Avengers, people that gave everything for others, never once thinking about ourselves. Did we get any medals when we stopped Thanos? When Tony undid the blib, sacrificing himself? No. My best friend - my sister - died, forcing my dad to forever feel guilty for not dying in her place. Can she be replaced? No. Just as Steve can't be replaced. But Sam was the best option to be the next Cap."

"You're dad?"

"Clint. He took me under his wing almost fifteen years ago. He's the dad I never had."

She nodded, scribbling something down again.

"Will you talk to him again?"

Your brows furrowed, remembering the conversation you had with your dad only this morning.

"James."

Sighing, you leaned back against the cushions again, crossing your arms over your chest.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Why not?" you repeated her words, anger bubbling up yet again, as your eyes widened in disbelieve. "James Buchanan Barnes ghosted me after we had sex, only contacting me to get my help. After that, he ghosted me again. And you're asking why not?"

She heaved a sigh, glancing at her watch only to see that she had another thirty minutes with you.

It wasn't that she didn't like you, but you reminded her of Bucky in your stubborn and deflective ways.

"Maybe you should." she spoke, tilting her head. "Talk to him, demand answers as to why exactly he ghosted you."

Scoffing, you stood, feeling the sudden urge to leave, get the hell out of there.

"Sit." she demanded sharply, the tapping of her pen coming to a halt.

Groaning, you did.

"Why don't you help them in trying to stop this group of terrorists for starters?" she suggested, leaning forwards on her elbows, that were resting on her thighs. "And maybe you can talk to him afterwards."

You laughed at her suggestion, declaring her insane.

But you couldn't deny the aching in your heart at the prospect.

You yearned for his touch, his scent, his voice. The way his fingertips ghosted over your skin, lips brushing over the shell of your ear as he whispered sweet nothings into it, hips connecting with yours over and over again.

Dr. Raynor smirked, like she was able to read your thoughts. She wasn't, though she still seemed to know exactly what you were thinking.

Cheeks reddening, you cleared your throat, deciding that you were in need of another topic.

"How was your weekend?"

____

You hated this.

Why exactly did she manage to convince you to follow them, again?

You were late, seeing as the whole scene was crowded, the Flagsmashers already captured, their leader dead. She was a young girl, barely old enough to drink legally.

You were standing at the rear of the ambulance, watching Sam and Bucky who were stood at the front, backs turned towards you. They didn't know you were there yet, talking to each other.

Your heart was thundering in your chest, and you were scared Bucky could hear it with his super soldier hearing.

You were contemplating if you should turn around and hurry the fuck out of there, but it was too late, when they turned instead, heading towards you.

They hadn't seen you yet, but when Sam looked up, his steps faltered, causing Bucky to look your way as well. He stopped dead in his tracks, jaw slack, before it clenched.

Sam hesitantly closed the distance, whilst Bucky was glued to the spot.

"Hey." he voiced, glancing back at the frozen super soldier. "I'll leave you to talk."

"What if I don't want to?"

"You should."

He patted you on the shoulder, before he left for someone that called out to him.

Your hands trembled, your whole body trembled, as you both stared at each other. Neither of you knew what to say, neither wanting to be the first to speak.

"Should have expected you to turn up here." he muttered, and you scoffed. "Believe me, I'm not here because I wanted to be." you retorted as equally cold, shoving your hands into the pockets of your jacket.

He cocked a brow, mimicking the movement, his arm reflecting the light. "Why are you here then?" he wanted to know, fighting the urge to lean against the ambulance.

He didn't want to come over as relaxed, because he definitely wasn't with you standing in front of him.

Not anymore.

He hadn't expected you to show up, he had hoped you wouldn't.

"I wanted to see if you need more help with the Flagsmashers." you explained, looking past him. "You already helped enough with the location." he returned, unwavering.

Nodding, you bit your lip, looking away.

He was shoving you away, again.

"Well, then I suppose I will go." you spoke, swallowing. "Should have expected not to be welcomed."

You didn't mean to say it out loud, really. It just slipped through somehow.

His brows furrowed, eyes narrowing. "Welcomed?" he asked, taking a step closer as his head tilted. "No one invited you. You didn't need to come."

Huffing, you nodded again.

"Well, and no one invited you." you retorted sharply, looking back up at him. "Yet you came as well, before you left without a word."

His jaw clenched, teeth gritted.

"But hey, lets not talk about it, its not worth mentioning anyways."

You wanted to scratch his ego, your own lying broken in a corner. It worked, as he took another step closer, head tilted. Lowering his voice, he spoke exactly what you were expecting him to.

"Didn't sound not 'worth mentioning' it, considering the way you cried my name out for everyone in the building to hear."

You shivered involuntarily, trying not to let him see, though.

He wasn't wrong, but you wouldn't have him know that.

"Really? Maybe I'm just a good actress."

He scoffed, chuckling dryly.

"Just as good as you're at sneaking out."

He fumed at your words, face hardening. His arm whirred quietly, so hard he must have been clenching his hands into fists.

You stared each other down, as your heart silently begged for you to stop. But you were caught in the moment, caught in your anger and hurt.

When neither of you said anything for a good minute, you shook your head and turned around, starting to walk away.

You should have known he wouldn't talk to you.

"Do you think it was easy?" he shouted after you, causing you to halt in your movement.

"Do you think it was easy? After everything that happened, being turned to dust, returning, only for Steve to leave me behind?"

You turned back around, scoffing. "He didn't leave only you." you reminded him, voice harsh. "He left Sam and I as well. He left us all behind, staying in the past to spend his life with Peggy - the only wish he ever had. He was selfish, yes, but he knew we'd manage."

He shook his head, biting his cheek.

"I failed him."

You couldn't help but laugh, frustration growing thicker. "Why do you think so?"

His eyes were glued to the floor, before he looked back up at you.

"I tried, but I didn't manage." he explained, taking a step closer, partly closing the distance you had created. "I spiraled downwards, losing control. I-" he cut himself off, eyes flitting to the sky above you, as he licked his lips, before he looked back at you.

"I lost the little ounce of control I had left when I let you in." he continued, shaking his head, as he bit down on his cheek, the sting momentarily distracting him from his raging heart. "When we- when we spent that night together, I panicked. I hadn't done something like that since the forties, and I didn't want to drag you down into the hole I was falling into."

You had to swallow, eyes stinging, even though you did your best to ignore it.

"And what about me?" you wanted to know, clearing your throat, as your voice quivered. "What about the hole I was falling into?"

His jaw ticked, and he swallowed.

When he didn't answer, you continued.

"You left me behind, in the moment I was the most vulnerable. I needed you, and you left - as well."

He shook his head, hand brushing through his hair. "You don't need me."

"I shouldn't need you." you corrected him, shaking your head with a frown, as you took a step closer. "When Steve first told me about you, showing me your picture at the museum I knew I was done for. Hell, when you stood in front of me, breathing and not dead, like you were believed to be, I thought I was dreaming. I envied Steve, because he made you sound like the best person on earth."

He scoffed, but didn't interrupt you further, eyes downcast.

"I wanted to get to know you, wanted to see if Steve was right." you continued, fighting a smile, losing. "He was, and when we spent more time together, I started to see what he saw. And then you turned into dust. The whole world tilted, for five years. You were gone, Sam, my dad and my whole family suddenly vanished. And when you returned I was so happy - only for you to leave me again. I know it probably didn't mean anything to you, but for me it did."

You breathed in shakily, stopping your own rambling, heart hammering in your chest, threatening to break through.

"You're wrong." he muttered, swallowing, as he locked eyes with you. "It did mean something to me - it meant the whole world to me. You didn't judge me, no matter what I did. You made me forget. You where there the whole time, accompanying me the whole way. But when Steve-" he choked on his breath, shaking his head with tears glistening in his eyes.

"I lost it. And I couldn't risk bringing you in harms way - my way. I didn't want to hurt you."

Sniffing, you bit on your cheek, almost drawing blood.

"But you did." you whispered, tears making your eyes burn, blurring your sight. "You did, when you pushed me away. You where the only constant I had left, and you pushed me away."

He nodded, sniffing as well. "I know, doll." he spoke, biting his lip. "I know."

Even though you felt a weight lift from your shoulders, it didn't feel as relieving as it should have. A tear fell, but you didn't brush it away.

You fell silent, lost in thought.

Somehow, you just confessed your feelings to him, stripped them bare for him to see. Leaving you even more vulnerable.

Your fingers tapped on your thigh in a nervous habit, wishing you could read Bucky's mind. Even though you were able to communicate via thought, you weren't actually able to read other peoples thoughts.

"Will you forgive me?" he suddenly rasped out, eyes staying a second longer on the ground, before they found yours, hope glistening in them. He sounded so broken, so vulnerable, like you never heard him before.

"Please, Y/N."

You swallowed at the nerves bubbling up, slowly starting to nod. "Yes, Bucky." you breathed out, sniffing. "Yes, I forgive you."

How were you supposed to stay angry at him, after what he just told you? After everything that had happened?

He breathed a sigh of relief, nodding to himself, as his eyes closed for a moment.

A tear slipped past his eyelashes, and he bit his lip. You had only seen him cry once, causing you to inhale shakily at the memory.

He wiped at the salty liquid, before his eyes opened again, his feet taking him closer to you, until he was as close as he was the last time you had seen him in person.

You could smell his familiar cologne, feel the heat his body radiated.

His flesh fingers hesitantly moved, brushing a few stray strands of hair out of your face, softly cupping your cheek. The action made you shiver, goosebumps covering your arms, as you leaned into his warm touch the slightest bit, eyes locked onto his blue ones.

"I'm so sorry, doll." he rasped out, eyes fighting to stay on yours. "I did what I thought was best for you, but I know now, that I was wrong. I'm having nightmares again, but I'm working on it. I'm working on everything, trying to get a bit of the old me back to life - the one Steve had told you all these stories about."

You knew about his nightmares, even though they were different now, thanks to the Dora Milaje who had managed to free him of the Winter Soldier state.

He didn't turn into him anymore, not for the briefest of moments. Something he would forever be grateful for.

"I'm an idiot." he mumbled, eyes leaving yours, his hand leaving your face, falling back at his side with his head downcast. "I never should have left - never should have let this happen. I should have listened to Dr. Raynor."

You cocked a brow at his words, head tilting to somehow meet his gaze. "What do you mean?"

He sighed heavily, swallowing, as his nerves got the best of him. "I mean that I should have talked to you, instead of just leaving you behind." he explained, tongue brushing over his lip, hesitating. "Should have told you how I feel."

You inhaled sharply, hands starting their nervous trembling at your sides again.

"What do you feel?" you managed to breathe out, and his eyes met yours again, the intensity of his gaze stealing your breath.

His lips parted, only for his tongue to wet them again. He searched for the right words, soon giving up and opting for the simpler option instead.

"I love you, Y/N."

Your breathing hitched, heart stumbling, before it doubled its speed.

"You're pure, soft and so lovingly." he continued, hands cupping your face. There the words were. "You never once judged me, not even in my darkest hours. You're the thing that kept me going, made me push through to get rid of the Winter Soldier. I wanted to be better - for you. But I fucked up, so badly. I fell into an old habit, pushing you away so you wouldn't get hurt, but instead I did exactly that: hurting you. And I'm a fucking coward for pushing you away, and not pulling you closer instead, now that I'm actually able to."

Words had left you, only tears managed to spill. He brushed them away with his thumbs, one cold and one warm, yet they were both so soft.

His eyes closed, forehead brushing yours. Your eyes fluttered closed as well, breathing him in.

"Working with Sam on this distracted me enough to forget it for a moment." he spoke quietly, leaving you to wonder how exactly that had happened. "But I was selfish when I contacted you, asking for help. I wanted to hear your voice, even if you would have just shouted at me, telling me to never talk to you again."

You bit your lip, more tears falling.

"I would have never." you told him, eyes squinting, even though they were already closed. "I love you too much."

His body moved abruptly, a sob breaking through his lips. It was one of relief and deep shame.

He nodded, his forehead leaving yours to press kisses to your face. Your cheeks, your forehead, your nose, until he finally met your lips with his own.

You tasted the salty remnants of your combined tears on your lips, but neither of you cared. Hands wrapping around his neck, brushing through his hair, you tugged him closer.

Something wet hit your cheek, but you couldn't tell if it were your tears, or his.

His hands on your cheeks tilted your head back, deepening the kiss. His tongue brushed yours, an action so soft it left you yearning for more.

When his lips left yours, you sighed, eyes slowly opening to meet his blue ones. His lips were kiss swollen, but so were yours.

"He took the shield." Bucky breathed out with shining eyes, fingers dancing through your hair. Nodding, you couldn't help but smile. "I know. Finally."

He chuckled quietly, before his lips connected with yours again.

"Now that this mission is complete, I'm all yours." he promised, forehead meeting yours again. "I won't ever do the mistake of pushing you away again, I promise."

You smiled, feeling the tears return, happy ones this time.

"I'm yours." he repeated, lips meeting your cheek. "I'm yours."

"I know." you returned, eyes fluttering closed.

"And I'm yours."

#marvel #marvel imagine #james barnes #james buchanan barnes #james bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x you #bucky #bucky barnes x reader #oneshot #imagine #winter soldier x reader #winter solider x reader #the winter soldier #winter soldier #bucky barnes

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punkshort · 7 months

Text

somewhere to run | 10. austin

Pairing: sheriff!Joel x f!reader

Chapter Summary: You and Joel travel to Austin to meet with a lawyer.

Chapter Warnings: language, angst, hurt/comfort, flirting, sexual tension, emotional abuse, infidelity, some recapping of DV and SA situations but nothing new, smut (18+ MDNI), unprotected (reader previously mentions she's on bc) piv sex

WC: 6.6K

A/N: I have started a notification blog - @punkshort-notifs if you are interested in following for fic updates (but I will be keeping the tag list for this series until it is over)

Series Masterlist

One Month Later

Life carried on the way it always does. Without permission, regardless of any pain or suffering, it always remained a constant. Whether you were present or not, whether you wanted to acknowledge it or hide from it, it didn't matter, because life always carried on.

The first week was the worst. A week of what you could only describe as depression. A week of being alone. Safe, but terribly alone. Going to work helped distract you, until he came in for lunch like always and it felt like your heart was being torn in two all over again. And you could tell it hurt him, too, but you both seemed willing to withstand the pain over not seeing each other at all. Because even though it hurt, it was a reminder you were alive. A reminder that you could still care enough about somebody else, despite everything.

The second week was when you could no longer smell him in your bed. You woke up one morning, eyes barely even open as you searched around the pillowcase, then the sheets, grabbing and pulling at the fabric, desperate to seek out his scent to no avail.

The third week was when you finally didn't have to fight the urge to call or text him, even though he said you could, you knew it would just make things harder. And he must have agreed because he didn't reach out, either.

The fourth week was when you began to feel like you were finally coming out of your slump. You could go to the grocery store or pharmacy and didn't feel your heart skip a beat, you didn't scan the parking lot for his truck in the hopes of running into him. You didn't stop thinking about him, but it just hurt less. That is, until you ran into Hailey coming back from work one evening.

She was out on the sidewalk, cleaning up some garbage from the picnic tables in front of the pizzeria when you waved and caught her eye. You could immediately tell something was wrong by the pained smile she gave you.

"Hey," she said, the smile not reaching her eyes as she leaned up against her broom.

"What's going on?" you asked her. "Haven't seen you in a while."

"Yeah, I know, sorry. Work's been-" she waved in the direction of the propped open door and shook her head. "But I've been meaning to talk to you."

"Oh?"

"It's about book club," she said, dropping her gaze to the ground. "And I just want to let you know, I voted against it-"

"They don't want me back, do they?" you offered, trying to make it easier for her. She sighed and shook her head.

"It's all so stupid, I'm sorry," she said, looking up at you again. "Nikki's got all those old ladies wrapped around her finger and they're just pissed Joel dumped her for... well, y'know."

"They know we aren't together, right? I mean, I'm married..." you trailed off, not wishing to go into too much detail when you knew eventually when you went to court, all your dirty laundry would be aired.

"Yeah, they do. Still, they blame you, and it's stupid, like I said. They should be mad at Joel, it's not like it's your fault, and I swear I tried explaining that-"

"It's okay," you said, holding up your hand and giving her a sad smile. "I appreciate it, but it's fine. I have a lot coming up, anyway. I won't find that much time to read."

"But we can still hang out! Do you wanna go get drinks this weekend? Or maybe see a movie?" Hailey asked, and you could tell she genuinely felt bad.

"Yeah, either of those sound great," you said. "I'll text you and we can figure something out."

You made a hasty exit and dragged yourself up the stairs to your apartment. Even though you probably wouldn't have continued to go, the rejection still stung.

For a while, the silence was deafening. Without a TV to even distract you, leaving you with endless amounts of time to overthink, you were worried you were going insane. You lucked out recently and found a decent TV at a thrift store, so you at least had something to occupy your time, although you knew it would be short lived. In a couple days, you had an appointment to meet with a law firm in Austin. An appointment Joel had set up and offered to attend with you, and at the time, you were so desperate for anything to do with him, you agreed, but now you were wondering if that was a bad idea. Almost two hours in the car alone with Joel? No, that didn't seem like a good idea at all.

"Whadd'ya mean, you wanna drive separate?" Joel asked as you refilled his coffee. "That doesn't make any sense. Waste of gas."

"Yeah, but I was thinking of staying an extra day. Check out the city," you lied, turning your back to him so he wouldn't be able to see through you.

"Alone?"

You cringed at the word, but nodded. The little dinner bell rang in the window and your eyes jumped up just in time to see Thor put Joel's sandwich on the small shelf. You grabbed the plate and set it down in front of him, his eyes still boring into you, waiting for a better explanation.

"I think it'll just be easier," you said quietly, the words only meant for his ears. When he connected the dots, he leaned back in his chair and nodded.

"Oh," he said, gaze drifting down to his food. "That's a shame. I was lookin' forward to it."

"I'm sorry," you told him, grabbing a rag and pretending to wipe down the counter so your conversation didn't invite gossip and speculation. "So was I. That's the problem."

"And if I promise to behave myself, would you reconsider?" he teased, finally making you smile a little.

"I think you're incapable of behaving yourself, Sheriff," you replied, making him chuckle.

This was what your relationship had been reduced to: quick, flirty exchanges over coffee and turkey clubs. You supposed it was better than nothing.

"C'mon, it's just a couple hours. If you want, you can nap or listen to music," he said, picking up his sandwich and taking a bite.

"Fine," you relented, but only because once you offered taking two cars out loud, you realized how stupid it sounded.

"Pick you up at 7?" he asked around a mouth full of food.

"Sure. Do I need to prepare anything? I've never gotten this far in the process before," you told him, suddenly feeling nervous.

"Nope. Helen already sent over all the reports and once the process gets started, they'll reach out to whatever hospital you went to back in Philly to get your emergency room medical reports," he explained, and you nodded along, feeling fidgety. "I'm sure they'll do some more digging while they're at it. Reach out to his police captain and all that."

"Right," you said, biting your nail.

"One step at a time, alright?" he told you softly, picking up on your nerves. "You already did your part, now let the lawyers do theirs."

"But I'll have to testify," you reminded him, and he slowly nodded.

"Most likely, yes. You don't have to, but it'll help your case if you do."

"And he'll be there?" you asked, wringing the towel between your hands.

"Yeah, he'll be there," Joel said, watching your face fall. "But I'll be there, too. You just look at me when the time comes, don't look at him."

"Okay," you said, taking a deep breath. You knew this would be hard, but you also knew it was necessary. "And this lawyer - they can help me get a divorce?"

"Yeah," he said with a nod, and you breathed a sigh of relief.

"Okay," you said again. You forced yourself to smile even though the anxiety was already creeping up. "I can do this," you told him, trying to sound confident.

"Hell yes, you can do this," he replied. "That's my girl," he added, picking up his sandwich then pausing before taking a bite. He glanced up at you and gave you half a smirk when he noticed the look on your face at the term of endearment. "Sorry, I'll behave."

You had initially dreaded waking up so early, but after the restless night's sleep you ended up having, it turned out it didn't make much of a difference. Your appointment was at 9:30 and it took about two hours to get to Austin, so Joel arriving at 7am gave you a decent cushion in case there was traffic.

Already two cups of coffee down, you poured the rest into a travel thermos and grabbed your purse before jogging lightly down your stairs. You locked your door and turned towards the street to find Joel's truck parked right out front. Glancing around, you noticed it was fairly quiet still, which was a relief. Joel didn't have to take you to see a lawyer. His job was technically done until the trial. He was doing this for you, to give you some support and advice and it would be ideal if you could keep people from gossiping about it for as long as possible.

"Mornin'," he greeted you with a lazy smile, which perked right up when you handed him the thermos. "Oh, you're an angel, baby," he murmured, taking a sip with an appreciative groan. You took a deep breath and forced yourself to focus on your seatbelt. Less than two minutes and he already had you squirming in your seat.

The first hour of the trip actually turned out to be relatively quiet. You sat in a comfortable silence, listening to the radio while Joel hummed along and tapped the steering wheel and if you closed your eyes, you could imagine the scene just a little differently. Instead of Joel taking you to see a lawyer in Austin so you could press charges and divorce your abusive husband, you imagined you were taking a road trip together. Maybe with no destination in mind: just the two of you and the open road, stopping whenever you saw fit to explore and staying at roadside motels with stiff sheets and shag carpets, limbs tangled together as you panted into each other's mouths. No secrets. No drama. You smiled to yourself, the fantasy giving you a pleasant reminder of what you could have if you just stayed strong.

"What're you smilin' for?" he asked, and your eyes opened to look at him.

"Nothing," you said, and he clicked his tongue against his teeth. God, you missed that tongue and what it could do.

"When all this is over, do you think we can take a road trip together?" you asked him, and his eyebrows raised in surprise.

"Yeah, 'course we can," he replied, glancing over at you briefly before looking back at the road. "Where did you wanna go?"

"Doesn't matter," you said, rolling the back of your head against the seat. "Just wanna be with you," you added, softer this time. He looked over at you again, examining your face quickly before focusing back on the road.

"Me too, baby," he said, just as softly.

Joel stopped at a gas station just outside the city to fuel up and stretch your legs. After using the restroom, you wandered up and down the aisles while Joel pumped gas just outside. You were the only one in the store, aside from the sleazy cashier with greasy hair and nicotine stained teeth leering at you every time you crossed his field of vision.

You decided on a couple waters and some sugary pastries and made your way up to the front, forcing a polite smile for the cashier, whose eyes were greedily raking up and down your frame as you approached. You were wearing a modest dress with a cardigan, doing your best to look put together for your appointment, but that didn't stop the cashier's eyes from roaming.

"That all?" he asked as he began to ring you up. You nodded and hummed before glancing out the window, watching as Joel replaced the nozzle on the pump.

"$8.32," he told you, his eyes dropping to your chest as you pulled out a ten dollar bill from your wallet and handed it to him. Your fingertips tapped impatiently on the counter as he slowly counted out your change, clearly trying to prolong the interaction longer than necessary. When it appeared he was ready to hand over the money, you held your hand out, but he pulled your change back a bit and leaned forward.

"You from 'round here?"

"No, just passing through," you said, lifting your hand again, but he clenched your change in his fist.

"What's a pretty girl like you doin' out here all by yourself?" he sneered, his hand dropping below the counter to not so subtly adjust himself in his pants. You made a disgusted face and he smirked.

"She ain't alone," Joel's deep voice rang out from behind you. The cashier's eyes drifted over your shoulder and looked like he was about to make a snide comment when you felt Joel's hand around your waist. His eyes fell to Joel's belt and saw the badge and gun and the smirk he was sporting a moment ago vanished. He quickly handed you back your change and busied himself with organizing the cigarettes while Joel tugged on your waist, urging you to back towards the parking lot.

"And you wanted to drive separate," Joel teased as he led you towards his truck. He opened the passenger door and stepped back so you could get in but you paused and looked up at him. His forehead crinkled as he grinned, his eyes squinting in the sun and all you wanted to do was kiss him and never stop.

"What?" he finally asked when you didn't make a move to get into the car.

"I really want to kiss you right now," you murmured, and you watched the grin slip from his face and his eyes flick down to your mouth.

"We can't," he replied, his voice pained as his gaze continued to drift from your eyes to your lips.

"I know," you sighed. Instead, you stood on your tiptoes to press a chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth, your lips lingering a moment longer than you should have before climbing into his truck. His breathing stuttered, the feeling of your lips on his skin again sending him into a tailspin. He took a deep breath and looked up at you in the cab, putting on your seatbelt.

"Soon," he told you, giving your leg a squeeze before closing the door.

"So you mentioned you know some of these lawyers?" you asked him as he drove through downtown Austin.

"Yeah, I've dealt with this law firm a lot on some cases over the years. They're good people, as far as lawyers go," he joked before making a right hand turn. "I asked to meet with one of the women. Her name's Madeline. She's nice. Been there a real long time. Thought you'd feel more comfortable with that," he said, and you nodded.

"Thank you," you told him for maybe the twentieth time that day. You were convinced if not for Joel, you never would have made it this far. You would have had no idea where to even begin, but he knew the answers to all those questions and helped give you the confidence you so desperately needed.

Your hands began to shake and your stomach felt like it was in knots as the two of you walked up to the front doors of the impressive four-story building. Men and women streamed in and out of the doors, most dressed in suits and pencil skirts and talking on their phones hurriedly. You swallowed the lump in your throat once you got to the front of the building, but Joel held the door open for you with a reassuring smile.

"Don't be nervous, it'll be alright," he murmured as you walked up to the large receptionist desk that housed two women with headsets on, typing furiously into their computers. One looked up and caught your eye, giving you a friendly smile.

"Mornin'," Joel said, telling the young woman your name and appointment time. She glanced at her computer and nodded before looking back up at you both with another smile.

"I'll let her know you're here, you can take a seat. It shouldn't be very long," the woman said, casting Joel one more admiring glance before she turned back to her phone and dialed a number.

Joel led you over to some plush couches and chairs and you nervously picked up an old magazine. You skimmed through it, just looking for something to occupy your hands as you waited. He sat down next to you, then inched closer so he could rest his arm along the back of the couch. It felt like he was wrapping his arms around you without actually touching you, and it gave you a temporary sense of peace.

After a few minutes of listening to the receptionists answer the phones and transfer calls, you finally heard your name and Joel's. You both looked up to find a thin, middle aged woman with short, blonde hair and glasses and a kind smile waiting for you.

"Maddy," Joel said warmly, and the hairs on the back of your neck went up. He wouldn't have asked an ex-girlfriend to represent you, would he?

"Joel, long time no see," she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek before introducing herself to you and shaking your hand.

"That's usually a good thing," he reminded her as the two of you followed her down a long hallway, passing by a few empty conference rooms and closed doors that presumably lead to offices.

"Yes, very true," she agreed with a chuckle before stopping in front of her office. She extended an arm, inviting the two of you to enter first before she followed and closed the door behind her.

"How's Tracy?" Joel asked, glancing at a photo on her desk as you sat down.

"She's great. It's our ten year anniversary this summer. We're planning a cruise," she said, settling into her desk chair and shooting you a smile.

Okay, so probably not an ex.

"Alright, let's not waste any time. I know you drove a long way to get here," Madeline said, clasping her hands together on her desk and giving you another smile. She gave off a positive energy, and you could feel yourself loosening up. "I read over everything Joel sent over so I know the basics, and I am so sorry for everything you've had to endure," she said, her eyes softening. "But can you explain to me why you've never tried to come forward before? Trust me, his lawyer will bring it up."

"Well, I have tried," you began, your fingers tangling together in your lap. "I've gone to the police a handful of times but every time I thought I was making progress, Patrick would do something - call in a favor, I don't know," you said with a shrug. "And my police reports magically disappeared. I've gone to the hospital on several occasions-"

"That's right, I did read that. Which hospital?" she asked, picking up a pen, the tip hovering over a legal pad.

"There were a few different ones," you said, then rattled off the names and approximate dates you visited each hospital.

"Okay. We'll reach out and get copies of those records for the trial," she said, dropping the pen and looking at you to continue.

You went on to tell her about your experience with the police back in Philadelphia and how angry Patrick would get after those visits. You told her about his disappearances for days at a time and how he would come home in a haze, no doubt with alcohol and some type of drug in his veins, how those were the times he hurt you the most.

By the time you got to the part in your story where you packed a bag and left Philadelphia during one of Patrick's benders, you felt a lot more at ease. Your nerves were gone and Madeline's comforting gaze made it so much easier to tell her everything.

"So the next step in the process is discovery. Our team here is going to be digging up dirt back in Philly, and I am sure Patrick's lawyer is already doing the same thing," she said, putting down her pen and looking at you over her glasses. "That being said: is there anything I need to know? I don't like surprises in court. I don't care if you ever smoked weed or pushed him back, I just need to know so I can get ahead of it." You quickly shook your head.

"No, I've never tried drugs and I never hit him back." You glanced over at Joel for the first time and found him staring at you with a look in his eye that made you believe you were thinking about the same thing. After a moment, you turned back to Madeline, about to open your mouth to speak when Joel cut you off.

"There's one more thing," he said, sitting up straighter in his chair. She looked at him curiously, clearly not expecting him to have anything to add. "We, uh," he cleared his throat and glanced over at you. "We had a brief, personal relationship," he said. Madeline sat back in her chair and you could have sworn she was glaring at him. "It's over. It was just once," he continued, and you nodded quickly, trying to help him out.

"Nobody knows, either," you told her, drawing her gaze back onto you. "Patrick had his suspicions, but he also accused me of sleeping with two cooks from work, which is untrue," you clarified, "he's just jealous and angry."

"How can you be sure nobody knows?" she asked, and you paused.

"W-well, nobody..." you trailed off, looking at Joel for help.

"It's a small town, Maddy. If people knew, they'd be talkin'. Trust me," he said, rolling his eyes. "The most anyone knows is I had a little crush on her, but nothin' more."

"Besides. Patrick's cheated on me for years. I'm not an idiot, I could smell the perfume on his jacket and found the condom wrappers in his pants pocket," you told her, but she shook her head.

"This is a little different, hun," she said, leaning forward. "Joel's the town sheriff. He arrested Patrick and broke his nose. It's going to look like he had ulterior motives," she said, lifting up a piece of paper in front of her to double check her notes.

"I didn't break his nose, the table broke his nose. It was self-defense. The guy's got nothin'," Joel scoffed.

"Yeah you're probably right, but he's still going to make your life a living hell in court," Madeline said. "You looking for representation, too?"

"What?!" you exclaimed, turning in your seat to look at Joel. "He's suing you?"

"Yeah, it's no big deal. Happens from time to time, nothin' ever comes from it," he said casually.

"Why didn't you tell me?" you asked, your voice softening.

"Didn't wanna worry you. You gotta focus on this," he said, pointing to Madeline. "The other shit doesn't matter."

You wanted to argue with him but you knew your time was running short, so you let it go.

"Well at least you had the good sense not to take her statement," she said, glancing down at the papers before her. "Let's just hope it doesn't come up, and if it does, I'll be prepared," she said, making a note to herself before giving you her attention again. "I'll do my best to fast track this and set a court date. I'll have my team call his superior officer and we'll run some checks on him, call the hospitals, and start building your case. I'll be in touch soon about any potential witnesses you can bring to the stand that you trust. Anybody who might have witnessed Patrick abusing you, even if he was just yelling or twisting your arm. People you confided in. Anybody you might think can help, start thinking about it now and gathering contact info, okay?"

"Okay," you said firmly. You were starting to feel better, like this was the beginning of the end. And you had the feeling that Madeline was the right person to fight for you. She seemed honest and straight forward, understanding yet tough. This was someone who would give you your freedom back.

"And I can get a divorce?" you asked, and she nodded.

"Yes, I'm going to file the petition this afternoon and he will be served the papers," she explained. "If he contests it, we can cross that bridge when we come to it, but I'm hoping with all the fire we're throwing at him, he won't want to put up a fight."

"Thank you," you breathed, feeling even more at ease now that something was actually happening today. Any amount of progress at this point made you feel good.

You stayed another hour to review an endless amount of paperwork: the contract with the law firm, reviewing your statement for any inaccuracies, initialing and dating next to so many paragraphs on the petition to be filed that your eyes were going blurry by the end.

As you both stood up to follow Madeline out of her office, you stopped short.

"Wait, what about payment? I don't think we discussed legal fees in the contract," you said, frowning as you pulled your copy of the contract out from under your arm.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought Joel already told you," she said, glancing over at Joel, who dropped his gaze to his shoes. "The partners picked your case pro bono. The firm has to do a certain number each year and Joel suggested to a few of the right people that your case should be considered."

Your eyes widened and your jaw dropped.

"Are you kidding me?" you whispered in shock, trying to fight the tears that were beginning to spring up. You looked at Joel but he averted his gaze before awkwardly clearing his throat.

"It's no big deal-" he began, but you cut him off.

"No, it is a big deal," you told him, and he clamped his mouth shut. Madeline's eyes flicked between the two of you for a moment, watching as you tried and failed to come up with the right words to convey your gratitude.

"The firm is happy to represent you, hun," Madeline said, breaking the silence. "We're gonna make sure this guy gets what's coming to him, understand?"

You tore your eyes away from Joel, who was finding it difficult to look anywhere but the floor.

"Thank you. Thank you so much," you told her, and she smiled before extending her arm towards the door.

As you walked towards the lobby, she was reminding you to expect a call in a few days with an update and to have a list of contacts ready for her, but you just nodded along numbly, barely listening.

Joel had already gone above and beyond by finding you a good lawyer and coming with you for support, but to also convince them to handle your legal fees? He didn't have to do any of this, but he did, and he didn't expect anything in return. Nobody had ever expressed so much concern about you before. And as you walked in silence towards the parking garage, you realized there could only be one explanation. There could only be one reason why he would do so much, and the thought had your heart pounding in your chest.

You drove in silence for a while, the atmosphere in the truck tense. He tried putting music on but you couldn't focus on anything other than everything that happened in the past few hours. Then you started to go back even further: cleaning your apartment and finding you furniture after Patrick vandalized it, walking you home during a rain storm, fixing your fucking sink when you had barely spoken two sentences to him. You rolled your head to the side, watching him as he focused on the freeway, his grip tight around the steering wheel.

"Look at me," you said quietly, and you saw a muscle in his jaw twitch. After too long of a pause, he just said one word.

"Can't."

"Why not?"

"I'm drivin'."

"Bullshit," you said, and watched his throat bob as he swallowed nervously. You continued to stare him down, willing him to look at you, needing to see into his eyes to confirm your suspicion.

"Please, Joel," you finally said, your voice small. You could see the conflict in his face. The way his lips formed a hard line and his brows pinched together as he fought the urge, but once again he found he couldn't say no.

Slowly, he pulled his gaze off the road and forced himself to look at you. Your lips parted as you looked right through him and he knew right then and there he was fucked.

"Pull over," you mumbled, and he just nodded. He could feel the heat of your gaze on him as he took the nearest exit and pulled into a parking lot of what appeared to be an abandoned department store.

He didn't need to ask and you didn't bother to explain.

Once he parked, doing his best to choose a secluded spot, you each ripped off your seatbelts. He reached down to pull the lever below his seat and slid it back as far as it would go and in broad daylight, you climbed over the console to straddle his lap. His hands flew to your hips as you gripped the sides of his face, searching his eyes frantically before your mouth crashed down over his with a moan.

Joel was normally a strong man, but something about you always made him so weak. Weak and selfish and desperate and he wouldn't have it any other way. That's why, even though he knew it was a mistake, he kissed you back. Your tongues tangled together and when your hands slid up to his hair, he was done for. You were too warm and tasted too sweet and felt too fucking good, it was a miracle he came to his senses when your hand dropped down between you to land on his belt and he managed to pull away.

"That's not why I did all this," he said, each of you panting for air. "I didn't do it so I could fuck you."

"I know," you assured him, cupping the back of his neck. "I know why you did it."

He gazed up at you and slowly nodded.

"Reckon it's pretty obvious, huh?" he said softly, toying with the hem of your dress.

You didn't say anything in return. Instead, you lowered your mouth hungrily over his and he happily obliged. And when your hand drifted back down to his belt, he didn't stop you. He couldn't deny it any longer. He tried, he really did, but it was hopeless.

He wouldn't say the words out loud, and you were grateful. Because if he had, you weren't sure you would be able to convince yourself this was a one-time thing. Madeline's disapproving glare was seared into the back of your mind, her comments about Joel's own lawsuit still very much a concern, but when you lowered yourself onto him, each of you groaning your need into each other's mouths as you stretched around him, it all became a distant memory.

"Missed you so much," you mumbled against his skin as your mouth dragged down his jaw. You rolled your hips, slowly at first, but picked up the pace when you remembered you were in the middle of a parking lot and didn't have much time. "You feel so good," you continued, feeling his arms tense around you as he tried to hold himself back. "Think about you all the time. Especially in bed - ah!" you cried out when he began bucking up into you.

"Yeah? You touch yourself when you think about me?" he grunted in your ear, and your eyes rolled to the back of your head as you nodded. His hands gripped your waist, guiding your movements up and down while his mouth ghosted over your chest, wishing more than ever he could glide his tongue over your nipples, but he was too aware of where you were. He settled for yanking the sleeve of your dress down, exposing your shoulder so his teeth and facial hair could leave little red marks, hidden from view.

"Can't get enough of you, can't fuckin' stay away," he groaned, watching as you circled your hips, greedily chasing your own pleasure. Your arm shot out to the side, seeking leverage against the now foggy window, your fingers leaving telltale streaks as your hand slowly dragged downwards so when he got into his truck the next morning, he would see the ghost of your hand in the early morning dew.

"Joel," you whined, tossing your head back while you began to bounce, your ass accidentally beeping the horn and making you both laugh. Nothing could harm you here. Not when you had each other. Not when you had the feel of his rough hands over your skin and his soft lips against your mouth.

"You're so beautiful," he murmured, his arms wrapped around you, holding you close. "C'mon, baby. Want you to feel me tomorrow," he said, lifting his hips up to meet yours, bringing you closer and closer to the edge.

You gasped as your body went rigid, a white hot heat ripping through you while your legs began to shake and you whimpered his name over and over. You heard Joel groan and say something, probably a warning he was close, but you couldn't be sure. You nodded and mumbled some encouragement but your mind was still too fuzzy and your ears were practically ringing from the force of your orgasm. But when his teeth sunk into your shoulder, the slight pain snapped you out of it. His arms wrapped tightly around your waist, pulling you down firmly onto his lap until his body stilled and he grunted into your skin.

You rested your cheek on the top of his head while his face stayed buried in your chest, both of you fighting for air as reality slowly began to sink in.

"Guess I didn't behave myself," he finally said with a chuckle. You grinned and lazily raised your head up so you could look at him.

"I think I'll take the blame for this one," you said before lifting off of him with a little gasp and moving your underwear back in place. You were about to swing your leg back over to your seat when he stopped you.

"Just another minute," he said, his hands mindlessly sliding up and down your thighs, and you draped your arms around his neck.

"We shouldn't do this again," you finally said, breaking the spell. He sighed and nodded but his hands continued to glide up and down your legs.

"I know."

You cupped his face and tilted his chin up to look at you. Your thumbs brushed over his cheeks as you stared into his eyes, still seeing everything he didn't have the courage to say. Leaning down, you pressed a tender kiss against his lips, then rested your foreheads together.

"Thank you, Joel."

"You're welcome, baby."

As promised, a few days later, Madeline's secretary reached out for a list of contacts that could be called upon to support your case. You didn't have many people in your corner, but you gave her your cousin's information back in Philadelphia, an old co-worker who you had partially confided in when the abuse started, a few friends who had noticed bruises but you had made up excuses for them at the time, and you reluctantly gave your mother's information, with the note to discuss with you first before contacting her.

You had hoped Madeline wouldn't want to call on your mother to testify. You hadn't spoken to her since you ran away to Texas, and given the way she responded when you told her what Patrick was doing, you weren't confident she would be a good witness. But it was still someone from your past who you confided in, and that was what Madeline was looking for: a trail of evidence, cries for help, anything to prove the most recent incident was not a one off situation.

"Madeline called me today," you told Joel after picking up his empty plate.

"Oh, yeah?" he asked, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

"She reviewed all the contacts I gave to her secretary and she scheduled another appointment for next week."

"Great, what day?" he asked, pulling out his phone.

"Tuesday," you said, replacing his coffee with a glass of ice water. He glanced up at you and quirked an eyebrow. "You drink too much caffeine," you explained, and he grinned.

"Ah, shit. I have a thing at Sarah's school that day. Lemme see if I can reschedule it-"

"No, go to Sarah's school, I wasn't telling you so you would come with me, I was just... letting you know," you said with a shrug.

"You sure?" he questioned, and you nodded.

"I'm sure. I know how to get there now and I feel comfortable with Madeline. I swear, I'll be fine," you told him. He put his phone down on the counter and thought for a moment before leaning forward and lowering his voice.

"This ain't 'bout what happened last time, is it?"

"No!" you said in surprise, and he looked relieved. "Not at all. I'm just trying to... I don't know, take control of my life, I guess?" He nodded but he still looked confused. "What I mean is, I think it's important I do some things for myself. Not that I don't appreciate-"

"I get it," he said with a chuckle as he stood up from his stool. "You just let me know if you change your mind."

"Okay," you replied with a smile, but stopped him when you realized he hadn't touched his water. You held the glass out to him and he stared at it, then looked at you with a sigh before plucking it from your grip and downing the whole thing in one gulp.

"Happy?"

"Very," you said with a grin, and watched him as he walked towards the front door, stopping briefly to chat with Maria before heading back to work.

Joel shoved his hands into the pockets of his dress pants as he walked back to the station, nodding to a few people along the way. He couldn't stop his gaze from traveling up to the window above the pizza place every time he walked by, smiling to himself when he noticed a new plant in your window.

The bullpen sounded quiet as Joel made his way back to his office. He liked quiet days. That was always a good day, in his book. He sat down in his chair with a huff, the little orange light on his desk phone blinking angrily at him, indicating a voicemail. He picked up the phone and punched in his passcode. He was reaching for a pen when the voice on the other end of the phone made him freeze.

"Joel, it's Maddy. Give me a call back when you get this, it's urgent."

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