#So me thinks. This smells like trauma.

[moongothic]

We all know how a lot of Luffy's opponents have been in some ways premonitions of the type of person Luffy could end up as if something went wrong in his life. For example Moria is what Luffy could've become had he truly lost his entire crew at Sabaody if Kuma had not saved them

And we know Crocodile is what Luffy maybe could've become had Luffy given up on his dreams and become jaded after losing to him. But like, when you think about it, that's not the only dark reflection of Luffy in Crocodile, is it

'Cause Crocodile, despite employing people for Baroque Works, did not trust anyone around him and did not considder anyone to be anything else but an employee to him. And we know he had been planning on taking over Alabasta for like 14 years (at the very least), BW being a thing for only the past four (pre-timeskip)

So like. Did Crocodile spend the last 14 years alone

Like yes he had his workers at the Casino and Robin etc, so he was like, around people, he wasn't like Brook who was in Total Isolation. But on an emotional level, has he not spent the last 14 years all by himself, completely detached from anyone, unable to trust or rely on anyone else?

That is sad as fucking shit, holy hell

'Cause then you compare him to like Luffy and like

Our sweet baby boy was so afraid of being alone that Luffy literally went through hell just to gain Ace's approval despite Ace trying to signal to him he wasn't interested befriending him

And through out the whole series Luffy reiterates time and time again how he needs and wants his friends around because he literally can't live without them, both on a literal "he can't cook or navigate or have fun by himself" level but also on that emotional level

And Crocodile just. Spent 14 years of his life, if not longer, alone.

Sweet jesus what happened to this man

And that just makes me further wonder, what the absolute fuck were Crocodile's Rookie Pirate days like?? Like did he have a crew or was he just yolo'ing it by himself???

Like. Mihawk's never been on a crew as far as we know. Kuma was a Revolutionary, not a pirate, but he wasn't like alone still. Doflaming, Hancock, Jinbei and Moria however have/had crews of their own. So what was Crocodile's deal? Did he have a crew before? Was he a captain or was he on someone else's ship? (Although surely the Government wouldn't offer the position of a Shichibukai to a cabin boy or the first mate, right)

And if he did have a crew, the hell happened to them??

Like we know Crocodile got his ass kicked by Whitebeard, I just find it unlikely Whitebeard would've pulled a Kaidou on Crocodile's crew and slaughtered them, that's not a very Whitebeard-y thing do, right?? ...Unless Whitebeard was just different 20+ years ago and was willing to annihilate entire crews. We don't know. Or maybe Crocodile and his entire crew were like Turbo Rotten from the beginning and Whitebeard figured they deserved to get wiped out, much like how we saw Shanks wipe out Kid's crew at Elbaf. Or maybe Whitebeard saw no reason to have mercy on someone affiliated with the World Government.

That all said, if we wanted to assume Crocodile had somekind of trauma that lead to him viewing people not only as disposable but also untrustworthy, then maybe losing people dear to him like that wouldn't lead to that mindset. Like Moria witnessed his beloved crew die and that caused him to want to create a crew he couldn't die, so he wouldn't go through that emotional trauma again.

Which leaves me to wonder. If something caused him to lose his ability to (emotionally) trust people, and if Whitebeard broke his dreams... Maybe Crocodile had a crew. And maybe they abandoned him when he lost to Whitebeard. Figuring they didn't need a weak captain who was probably going to bleed to death anyways. Or maybe the crew tried to take his head (after Whitebeard kicked his ass), after all, he was already a Shichibukai, anybody who took Crocodile's head could maybe attempt to take that title for themselves if the Government allowed it, and if not, at least gain more fame for themselves.

Either of these scenarios would certainly result in you losing your ability to rely on others. And leave you willing to spend the rest of your life alone. Who would have in them to go through that again.

Or maybe he came out of the womb unable to trust people and he was just yolo'ing it by himself like Mihawk right from the begining, who knows

Regardless I'm just

[dreamtydraw]

Entering depressed dreamty wave era of the month, I’ll excuse myself for being moody, I randomly feel like crying on the floor.

[xxlethal-lunaxx]

If anyone relates to this even just a little bit, then I'm so sorry.

[jvzebel-x]

"How do you fight a thing that believes it owns you? How do you fight the past? With gold leaves and salt? With silence? With new earth beneath your feet? With the bodies, the hearts of others? With hearts that are tender and bloody, but have thorns of their own? With the family that chooses you?"

x. "The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina", Zoraida Córdova

[daydreamerdrew]

The Incredible Hulk (1968) #253

[dredshirtroberts]

and now we enter the anxious waiting phase until it's not too early to leave to get to dinner.

[neverendingford]

.

[venomnyx]

HOUSE IN NEBRASKA — Logan "Worst Wolverine" Howlett x Mutant!Reader AO3 version Spotify Playlist

WORD COUNT — 15.4k SUMMARY — Reader gets roped into saving the timeline with ex-best friend Deadpool, coming face-to-face with a variant of Logan that uproots memories she'd long suppressed, only to find that this version of him lost her in his universe, too. TAGS/WARNINGS — she/her pronouns (minimal usage), female anatomy, flashbacks in italics, angst, enemies to lovers, alcoholism, smoking, arguments, canon typical violence, cursing/bad language, Deadpool breaks the fourth wall like twice, canon behaviour worst wolverine, religious trauma, honda odyssey scene self-insert, eventual smut, unprotected sex, multiple orgasms, dirty nasty talk (logan has a filthy mouth), mentions of cocaine literally once. smut is marked after last divider if you want to skip plot but i'll kiss you if you don't!

You’re smoking a cigarette on your porch when the snowfall happens. It would be normal, you think, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s dead in the middle of July. A group of nanas, elbow-deep in the community garden soil, glance up to the sky and begin muttering prayers amongst themselves.

You’ve lived in this safe house for a while now, up in the mid-west of the Appalachian mountains, surrounded by thickets of pine and opposite a bubbling creek. You grew up somewhere near here and the locals welcomed you back with open arms and a plateful of hot food when the humans started the culling— when the X-men fell apart.

It has plenty of benefits. The smell of lavender, for one, and your cat, Kevin, loves chasing the pigeons, even if he’s not the most successful hunter. The locally sourced produce means you can avoid the poisoned food they’re distributing in supermarkets.

But, most importantly, the humans can’t find you out here. You’re lucky the gossip of your… genetics, so to speak, doesn’t leave Sunday morning church.

Things have been different, lately. The trees are shedding down to dust, people are disappearing at an exponential rate, and there was a time when you’d be on the front lines helping them. You’re on the edge of your seat waiting for the call — a learned habit — but it’s never coming. Charles is dead. Logan is dead. The X-men are dead.

The snow is warm when it lands on your skin. It feels like rot, and your solitude suddenly feels lonelier and more daunting than ever.

You reach to take a sip of your steaming coffee when you hear movement. A zipping strobe light crosses your vision and you flinch against the intrusion, but you’re not afraid. You’ve surely survived worse.

Stryker worse.

A comical and confused looking figure pops out from an orange portal, scratching the crown of his head over the red and black mask on his face. You sip your coffee as you observe him nonchalantly.

He notices you and approaches with a dainty point of his finger.

“Um, excuse me, ma’am.”

“Well, well well,” you suck on your cigarette with a frown. “Look what the cat dragged in. Got a new suit, Red?”

“What, aren’t you happy to see lil’ old me?”

“You’re on my property,” you say matter-of-factually. You had a shotgun stowed away inside for emergencies, but frankly, you never had to use it. You were enough of a weapon yourself. Consider it insurance, if the corn-syrup they’re poisoning ever finally makes it way to you.

You glance sidelong at the old ladies in their aprons, clutching one another with stern gazes in your direction. The deal was that you didn’t bring trouble their way — but it looks like trouble found you. You narrow your eyes and silently hope that this doesn’t turn messy, as it so usually does where he’s concerned.

He sighs heavily and continues approaching regardless. You analyse his stature and take notes of the weapons on his holsters and back. You reckon you could take him if it came down to it, but he didn’t seem threatening.

You and Wade used to be friends, but after isolating yourself from grief, you don’t necessarily consider yourselves to have a close relationship. More often than not he brought trouble; hence your defensive response.

“Listen, ants in your pants, I’ve done this about a hundred times,” he huffs and places a hand on his hip, waving the device around in his hand. You take another drag of your cigarette and perk your brows before rising to your feet.

“I’ve had my spleen shattered by the Hulk, about eighty stab wounds…”

He rambles on about his collection of injuries and you tilt your head with amusement. Must be another one of his famous mental breakdowns. This might be entertaining, at the very least.

“…You’ve even killed me a few times in different universes!” He claps his hands together. “And frankly, I was just going to let you die here. You’re not even canon, so you won’t be missed, but you appear to be of use to me. So I need you to come with me. Now. Please.”

What on Earth was he talking about? What on Earth was he ever talking about?

You bark a laugh. “I ain’t going anywhere with you, Red and Black.”

“Will it change your mind if I add a cherry on top?” He asks with a dry laugh before nodding enthusiastically. Manically. “You’re coming. Kevin’s life depends on it.”

“What are you talkin’ about? Are you threatenin’ my cat? That’s a new low, Wade.”

“Is it? Is it really? I am certain that I can go unfathomably lower.”

You roll your eyes, half-way through turning your back on him.

“You see this?” He holds out a gloved hand and catches some snowflakes. He rubs them between his fingers and they spark and fizzle before dusting away. “That’s not snow. That’s time death. Our universe is dying, womp womp. Stay here, sure! By all means, but—”

Your cat launches out of the door behind you, chirping and meowing to himself before promptly dashing through the portal and disappearing into the blurry void on the other side.

“Well. Looks like he made his choice.”

He sighs and lets you process. You take the final swig of your coffee and huff a breath.

“You literally have nothing left to lose. Trust me. I know. I’ve seen all kinds of you and, believe me when I say this, even though I love and cherish this version of you, this—” he points two fingers at you and gestures towards you judgmentally. “— isn’t the best look on you, honey.”

You want to dismiss him. You want to turn him away, to tell him to get lost. Grief swallowed your heroism whole, turning it into a barren wasteland of bitter indifference. You used to be bright, full of light, love, and hope.

Fucking hope. It’s the reason Logan left you to help Charles in the first place. You just wanted to settle down and disappear, to live a normal life. You lost an intrinsic part of your being when he died; you remember feeling it before you heard the news. Fucking hope.

Hope, hope, hope. Nana Rose chants on about it when she clasps your hands with her wrinkly ones, dragging you to church in spite of your atheism.

“And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts,” she chants, basket of flowers on her hip. “Romans 5:5. You’d do well to do your readin’, tulip.”

You didn’t and don’t ever usually believe a word she says, but you can feel her faith. It’s solid as steel, pouring out of her like blotting light through the gaps in the trees. Undying. And you’ll be damned if you let anything happen to her.

A flicker remains. You imagine what Charles would say to you now, how you’d hang onto his every word and he’d bring out the better of you. You truly do have nothing left to lose, except maybe your cat. Over your dead body.

“Come ooon,” he pokes his fingers together. “Fancy being a hero? One last time?”

You take the final drag before stubbing the cigarette out on your railing. “Alright, Red. I’ll bite.”

“Then suit up.”

Your friendship with Deadpool was a rocky one. There was a time you told him you’d be there for him through everything, and you technically owed him one for saving your life that one time even though your ego insists that, to this day, you could’ve taken the fight. That’s what heightened cellular control of your body is for, right? Accelerated healing? Empathetic abilities? Faster reactions, enhanced strength— you get the point.

Though you didn’t realise that returning the favour meant following him through space, time and alternate dimensions, you were a person who stayed true to their word, and you hated being indebted to someone.

So, here you were, waking up in the middle of a barren wasteland that was seconded as a cocktail soup of abandoned universal relics and heroes ripped from their worlds, accompanying your ex-best friend to restore your timeline.

But, one thing about paying someone back, it doesn’t technically count if they lie to you about the terms and conditions of the agreement. Only a few mere moments after you come to, dazed by the impact and the blaring wobbly heat of the sun, you rise to watch as Deadpool takes six blades of Wolverine to the chest.

You’re still a little dizzy when you stagger to your feet, head throbbing, as you’re trying to process if, yes, that’s exactly what you were witnessing.

“Let’s see you grow your fuckin’ head back!” Wolverine growls.

Deadpool holds his hands up in surrender. “Wait, wait, wait! I can fix it! I can fix it!”

The man in yellow hesitates. “Fix what?”

“Whatever it is that you did, whatever made you so bad—” Wade pants, catching his breath. “Those pricks at the TVA, you heard ‘em. They have the power to end my universe, but they also have the power to change yours. We get back there, and we can fix your world! Together. I promise.”

You stumble from around a pile of debris, clutching your side as a rib pops back into place. Wolverine sniffs the air, face blanching as he snaps to look in your direction.

When you first make eye contact with him, it feels as though you’re resurfacing from water after being on the precipice of drowning. Your heart leaps into your throat, adrenaline boils your veins and your lungs burst with relief of breathing.

“Troubles always gonna find you, baby,” Logan murmurs, kissing his way up from the pulse in your throat as he rocks against you. “But so am I.”

You’ve never loved him more, you think, than when he fucks you slow like this. A snowstorm rages outside the cabin, howling full of glass and needles and rattling the window frames. His skin against yours burns a fire within you, warming you to the bone. He sweeps hair away from your face before capturing your mouth in his, swallowing the sounds of your pants, threading his fingers between yours.

You could stay here forever, you think.

Your fingers shake from the whiplash of the memory. You instinctively reach towards him but you catch yourself. This was the husk of him, not your Logan. The realisation feels akin to ripping open a haphazardly sewn wound right down to the fatty yellow flesh, raw and needling and sore.

He’s broader than you remember. Hair a little darker, wrinkles a little deeper. He smells of alcohol and cigars — that much is familiar. That’s him, flesh and adamantium bone, living, breathing. Alive. The physical shell of him prods alive parts of your inner circuitry that you weren’t aware had fallen asleep, like intrinsic nerves untangling within you.

You can sense that he knows you, too, based on his emotional response. His noise is extremely loud, spilling out of the cracks of whatever wall he thought he’d successfully built up. This version of Logan certainly had a lot of secrets.

“You,” he whisper-growls. It’s almost intangible, leaving him like a breath. He pulls his blades promptly from Deadpool’s chest and kicks him backwards.

You’re starting to understand that faith thing that Nana Rose was knocking on about when he strides towards you, large and tall. You certainly weren’t a believer by any means but you’re sure you’d be the picture of unbridled worship for the way you’d fall to your knees for him.

Your empathetic power lurches for him, seeking him out as you used to — like a flower to the sun — but it physically recoils from the aura that it touches. It was all your Logan but not in a familiar way. It’s tainted, dark, and it tastes like copper and screams.

All colour melts from his face and his body shuffles in a way that indicates discomfort; a dry swallow, tense shoulders and flicking eyes that refuse to meet your gaze. He omits feelings of guilt and shame that linger on the tendrils of your empathetic powers where you connect with him.

You try to zone Wade out, squinting as you attempt to navigate through his cobweb of emotions (seriously, this guy’s aura could do with a cleanup) but it’s like wading through black-tar syrup, feelings negated by years of alcohol-abuse and avoidance. Eventually, you feel something that makes your guts twist and your legs shake: a version of romantic attraction and recognition so carnal and raw that you begin to blush, a warmth that creeps its way up from your belly. A breath escapes you like a punch.

“Well. This feels awkward.” Wade glances between you both and places his hands on his hips. “Why do you both look like you’ve seen a ghost? Do I need to call Egon Splegler and tell him to bring his ghost sucky-sucky vacuum? Oh my god—” He slaps his hands to his face and gasps sharply. “Cross-Universal lovers?”

As inappropriately timed and tone-deaf his one-liners could be, you’d never been more appreciative of an icebreaker. You think you could’ve stood there for an hour, frozen in silence, staring at a reanimated corpse, basking in the noise of his emotional frequency like an addict finally getting another hit.

But then the noise stops, swallowed up like a heaving black hole had split and atomised the tension whole with its unforgiving jaws. He closes himself off from you. Connection severed. You reach out and feel a cold nothingness similar to how, on particularly rough nights, you’d try to reach out to him after his passing. You’d clung onto his plaid shirts until the smell and emotional residue wore off of them.

“You with the mouth? To fix things?”

You nod tightly. You don’t think you can find your voice in front of him.

“Let’s just keep moving. And stay out of my head,” Logan grumbles, crossing you with a cold shoulder and mumbling something incoherent under his breath. When he’s made enough distance, you turn to your old friend with a cold glare.

“Ooh, brr. Anybody else feel a chill?”

“Wade.”

He twists towards you comically slow.

“You. Motherfucker.” You begin approaching him. He backs up slowly and holds his hands up.

“I knew if I told you the plan you wouldn’t have gone along with it!”

“Are you insane? You think multiversally grave-robbing my fucking dead ex-boyfriend is going to save our timelines?!” You yell.

“Technically he’s not dead—”

You push him. “He should be! He- he was— he is!”

“Well, this one isn’t!” He pushes back. “And I’m not sorry for finding a loophole in the plan to fry — not just mine, mind you — but both of our timelines! Did you happen to forget that? No multi-dimensional depressed Logan? Alright then! No more Kevin!”

He’s talking about your cat. Anger flares.

“Don’t you dare bring Kevin into this.”

“You forced my hand!” He yells, mouth moving alien-like behind the mask on his face. “Besides, I’m not doing this for me—”

You blink your eyes closed. You might reach the end of your tether if he said her name one more time. You’ve been in his company for approximately an hour, and he’s already drilled a hole into your brain with his incessant yapping about the “love of his life”.

“Wade, you need to move on. She clearly has.”

“I will not move on from the only people I love in this fucked up dimension. This isn’t just for Vanessa.” He shoves a glossy photograph in your face. “This is for you and blind Al and even that shit-head teenager and her pinkie-pie girlfriend! They deserve their timeline!”

“I literally don’t care about any of those people!”

Even yourself?

“Well, I do! I have people I care about! Aren’t you supposed to be a hero? God, all of you X-men are so depressing. Is it the suits they make you wear? Is that it? Can’t breathe in that thing?” He continues poking at you. “Loosen up a little!”

You straighten your posture and the black leather of your suit crackles. You swat his hands away as he continues poking. “Alright! Cut it out!”

“Think of Nana Rose.” He draws a heart with two fingers. “Little old ladies like her deserve a chance, don’t they?”

And even though humans had done nothing but wage war on your kind for simply existing, you still felt obliged to help them. Besides, the thought of other mutants — kid mutants — dying when you hold the chance to save them in the palm of your hand? You were hardly managing as you were now. You’re not sure you’d be able to live with yourself if you kept going like this.

“Alright, alright!” You huff, heart pounding in your chest. You look over at where Wolverine kicks at rocks in the distance. “Fucking hell, Red. Holy fuck.”

You say it again, only this time you scream it into your hands.

“You should’ve warned me.”

“Are we good?”

“Are we go—” You scoff. You kick his ankle, feel the bones shatter and crunch beneath your foot. He lets out a short, high-pitched yelp. “You deserved that.”

“Motherfuckermotherfucker… oh you’re lucky I feel bad about lying to you or I would’ve twisted your milk bags off for that I swear to God.” He sucks in a breath. “I’ll allow it. Just this once.”

“Mhm,” you murmur, walking forward. “That doesn’t sound like an apology.”

He limps after you, floppy ankle dragging a line in the sandy dirt. “I’ll be dead before you ever get one of those out of me! And too bad I can’t fucking die!”

The difference between this Logan and your Logan is stark, minus the uncanny resemblance. Your Logan was soft and gentle, but this version is sharper and blade-edged, and your fingers bleed when you try to touch him.

Staring at him feels like throwing up a mirror and analysing yourself, a picture of what happens to a person when they make all of the wrong choices. You’re embarrassed, almost. This isn’t a version of you that you ever want him to know, but at least you can say you’re trying.

Him, on the other hand…

“Are we going to keep up the awkward silence?” You snip, awkwardly adjusting the restraints on your wrist.

You’ve been in Logan’s company for all of an hour, and yet accompanying one another through literal time purgatory didn’t seem to irk any feelings of obligation from his end. He’d been cold-shouldering and ignoring you the entire time, even though you kept catching him staring.

“I have nothing to say to you,” he spits, wriggling uncomfortably against a very unconscious Deadpool. “You got us into this mess.”

You frown, small. You can feel hatred pouring out from him, leaving a sickly bile taste in the back of your throat. You’ve lived through enough hate for being a mutant in your lifetime, enough that you’d become accustomed to tuning it out of your radio channel, so to speak, but something about it coming from the man you loved makes it a little harder to swallow.

You’re quiet when you next speak. “Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”

He shoots you an indistinguishable look and grunts to himself. Such a Libra.

“So, what’s the story here?” Johnny asks with a sly grin. He turns to you with a glimmer of mischief in his eye. “You two know each other?”

You cringe. “Sort of. Last I remember, he wasn’t this much of a prick.”

“Oh, trouble in paradise, huh?” His grin grows. “That’s a shame. Not often we get girls like you in the void.”

“Seriously?” You say with a side-eye.

He shrugs, all blue-spandex biceps and charming smile. “No harm in trying.”

Your breath hitches as Cassandra approaches, wide eyes and tilted head aiming for you purposefully. Logan swiftly angles his body so that he’s standing in front of you and she halts as a delighted, implicating smile stretches across her face. Your chest constricts, tendrils of yearning coiling tighter. It appeared to be muscle memory: his instinctual, protective flinch. Just like your Logan used to, despite how capable he knew you were.

“Now, I’ve always wanted a Wolverine.” Her finger moves along the crowd. “Knew I’d get one eventually. But I never even dreamed of having you.”

Cassandra zips behind you and her slender fingers delve into the crevices and valleys of your brain, lips intimately close to your neck and ear. Wolverine snarls territoriality, but he’s unable to move. The urge to reach for him is overwhelming.

“Do you know that there are so few universes where you exist?” She whispers, caressing your deepest memories. “I even asked the TVA about you, in exchange for keeping the peace. I was disheartened when I found out one of you died. But you’re here! Now, I don’t believe in fate, but this almost feels like it was meant to be.”

You flinch when she uncovers a particularly fond memory, one you hadn’t been aware was so prominently in the forefront.

In the back of his truck, a cigar between his teeth, hands sliding under your shirt. In another world, he would’ve taken the time to do this properly, but living in a school didn’t exactly grant two consenting adults any privacy.

“Waited long enough for this.”

He kisses up from your bare foot to the sensitive skin of your inner knee, lips scorching against your skin.

“Logan…”

“Easy,” he murmurs, leaning away for a moment to remove his plaid overshirt, leaving himself in that white vest you could eat him alive in. “Still wanna take my time with you.”

You’re desperate, he can tell— can probably smell it, too, but you’re far too humiliated to ask him if he can.

Logan wasn’t your first by any means, but with the way you were near trembling for him truly felt like you’d be losing all of your innocence in the back seat. You’re shy and quiet, everything he isn’t. You’re infatuated with him — have been since he burst out of the lab in his grey hoodie — and have daydreamed about what it would be like to have him. You certainly didn’t let him know that right away, and with whatever shred of composure remained around his relentless flirting and teasing remarks, you tried to play hard to get.

Until you couldn’t. Because you weren’t. He had you, and with every fibre of your being, you wanted him to.

She pulls her hands from your brain with a shlick sound, rubbing her fingers together as if relishing in the produce of your memories. She grabs a rag from her pocket and smirks knowingly.

“You’re thinking of that at a time like this?” She laughs all witch-like. “Worry not; your secret’s safe with me, naughty girl.”

Wade lowers his voice and leans towards Logan. “She was thinking of me.”

“I can read between the lines, darling,” she potters on. “This isn’t about a sexual fantasy. Deep down, you just want to be wanted. To be loved.”

She steps back and extends her arms. “After all, you’ll never amount to anything in your world. It’s such a shame that your Logan left you so abruptly. Did he break your heart?” She giggles. “Why suppress your powers in his name? For a level-five mutant, you certainly don’t act like one. You can do that, here. Freely!”

Your worn thin tether creaks with exhaustion like a dilapidated bridge under pressure. There isn’t a singular fibre of your being that desires to be stuck here, but the small, angry teenage voice in your head would love nothing more than to just let go. You’d been containing your powers for as far as you can remember, and they'd always been as irresistible as the promise of Pandora's box.

But you know how that story ends.

You take a moment’s pause. “I have no interest in livin’ in a garbage dump.”

She tilts her head and neatly clasps her hands behind her back. “Do you forget where you come from? I think we both know who lives in a garbage dump.”

“You motherf—”

You’d just managed to escape Cassandra’s lair with Alioth’s foggy storm fangs nipping at your ankles when you ran across the abandoned diner.

You’re ravenous, wrist aching from how you dig at the freezer-burned ice cream. It’s your least favourite flavour but you’ve been running on fumes for the past day or so, so you’ll take what you can get, though you begin to lose your appetite when you remember Johnny, and how Cassandra had zipped the skin from him like popping a blood-filled water balloon.

Something is rumbling beneath your surface. A distinct, constant buzzing, like two atoms slowly building up radioactive energy. You’d asked for none of this, and would certainly give Wade a talking to when the time called for it, but, for now, you’re trying your hardest to make this as easy a process as possible.

Your male counterpart, however, was doing exactly what men generally do. He was making this fucking unbearable.

Logan sits across from you, brooding, fingers gripping the medicinal bottle as if it’s anywhere near appropriate to be drinking. He throws you a particularly lingering glare when he notices you staring, but refuses to maintain eye contact when you look back at him

You toss the tub and spoon across the table with a sharp clatter, your patience collapsing.

“What? Can’t even look at me?” You snap. His eyes look exhausted when they finally meet yours. Wade, being the characteristic little fucker he is, pulls a delighted, shit-stirring grin as he glances between the two of you as if watching a tennis match.

Logan gasps as he finishes taking a drink. “Not much to look at,” he says, wiping the back of his mouth.

The words twist like a fist in your gut. For a moment, you’re rendered too stunned to respond, like he’d tossed a flash-bang toward you. His casual cruelty digs deeper than you care to admit— but you’ve had far too much therapy, too much psychological training, to know he’s deflecting.

But you wouldn’t doubt for a second that there was a more beautiful version of you somewhere.

“What, you comparin’ me to someone?” You ask. You can tell you’ve struck a nerve by the way he goes for another sip. “That it?”

He grimaces.

“Do I make you feel sick? Am I making you feel sick?”

He stares at you hard, but silently. He takes a long swig of the rubbing alcohol and you cringe as his throat bobs. His silence and feigned indifference light a fire of indignation.

“You know, you’re not the only person who’s suffered. Who’s lost people.”

He laughs like what you’re saying is funny. “Yeah, right, bub, you have got no idea what loss is.”

“Oh, you are such a fucking cunt,” you spit, slamming your hands on the table as you rise to your feet. “You know what, Wade? You’re right. I can’t do this. So fuck you and fuck his timeline and fuck every timeline that had anything to do with it! I’m done.”

A wave of uncontrolled psionic energy born from your anger blasts from you upon your final words, slamming them back into their seats and sending the cutlery, nearby debris and weapons flying. The neighbouring windows smash, shattering explosively and sprinkling outside of the diner.

The simmering stops, replaced by a stifling emptiness.

“I wasn’t finished with that!” Wade cries, crouching down to scoop up what remains of the gelatinous spam.

You pause for a moment, glance at your hands, and then grab your jacket in an aggressive fit.

Wade whines your name, halfway through gagging down a forkful of cold spam off of the floor (one of which resonates with a particularly distinct crunch, but you don’t stay to find out whether or not he just truly ate glass), and he doesn’t attempt to get up and follow you as you storm off.

You take a heaving breath of hot desert air when you leave the diner. The sandy breeze tousles your hair, and with the prickly energy of an incoming nervous breakdown, your legs kick and you’re running.

“Stryker got you, too?” Logan asks, eyebrows flicking up.

You don’t look him in the eye when you nod. You cross your arms and slouch a little, caging your heart in. Stryker — the ex-militant with a fetish for experimenting on mutants — had held you captive for several years. He’d brainwashed you into using your empathetic abilities for nefarious purposes, like seducing other mutants, and sometimes important political and militant figures.

“You like me?” He questions, quieter this time.

“No… no, not like you,” you reply. “I don’t have the fancy bones. I heal fast, but I wouldn’t survive that kinda procedure.”

“Ah.”

“I don’t remember everything. Just bits and pieces. Feelings, mostly. Nightmares,” you explain. He nods understandingly. “I’m always on edge.”

“You always seem so calm,” he observes. “Nothing seems to phase you.”

“I have to be. It took a lot of pain and damage to get this level-headed,” you respond quickly. “If I don’t manage my emotions, all the emotions that I receive, touch— it all comes out. Explosively. It has to come out somehow. I could hurt people.”

“Funny. School therapist ‘n’ you’ve got the most issues,” he teases light-heartedly.

“You got no idea, lumberjack.”

You hated killing.

You’re on your knees, arms and hands and chest soaked crimson, sobbing. They’d come out of nowhere, the raiders, and they were hungry for something you couldn’t quite put your finger on. All you know is that you felt their need, their desperation, their willingness to do anything to get it.

The flash of harrowing horror someone feels before they die isn’t a unique experience. It simply varies in strength — sometimes it’s a feather-like touch that careens over you, a shuddering realisation that they’re taking their last breath, and sometimes it’s like a crack of lightning. Bloodied hands gripping your biceps with fear in a final attempt to survive. They’d rather cling to you than die alone.

You hate killing. Especially this up close.

You don’t cry for them. You don’t even cry for yourself. It’s a small emotional space where they cry vicariously through you.

You were black-out when it happened, you tell yourself, and suddenly regress to the student you used to be, sobbing on your knees in front of Charles as he tries to teach you serenity and control after an outburst had caused you to kill a nest of birds. He’d done it for Magneto, he said— so he could certainly do it for you.

You should have meditated more.

The sound of a car gurgles somewhere behind you, but you haven’t the energy to look or use your powers to seek out who’s approaching and what their intent is. You’re exhausted enough that whatever they wish to do with you — turn you to processed dog kibble, send you back into the jaws of Cassandra’s lair, kill you — whatever. Just let it happen.

A slamming car door and then the crunching of boots on gravel.

“You’re easy to track.” A pause. “You look pathetic. You done throwing your tantrum?”

Logan. Of course, it’s him.

“Leave me alone, prick.”

“As much as I’d like to, you and the Mouth still have to hold up your end of the bargain,” he quips, folding his arms across his broad chest. “Now get up.”

You glare up at him and his arms unfurl as he notices your tear-streaked face. His expression drops, softens, before it quickly ticks back up into an incredulous, irritated look.

“Are you crying?” He asks with a scoff. He pauses before dragging his hand down his face and rubbing his scruffy jaw. “Jesus Christ. Get up. Get in the car.”

“I ain’t fuckin’ around, Logan. Piss. Off.”

He mumbles a string of incoherent curses and turns on his heel. You think, for a moment and a breath of relief, that he’s truly going to give up on you and leave. He could finish this without you. It’s easier this way.

Instead, a thick bicep wraps around your middle and you’re flung over his shoulder with a yelp.

“Quit your squirmin’.”

“Then put me down!” You yell, thrashing in his grasp. He promptly ignores you, unphased by the jabs you strike at his back. You quickly unsheath the small knife from your jacket sleeve, winding up your arm before you drive it into the muscly pocket by his kidneys.

“Ow! Cheap shot, you little fucker!”

Wade sighs and clutches his hands in front of his chest romantically. “Oh, the newlyweds.”

Logan dumps you into the front seat of the car carelessly, grumbling something as he slams the door shut and applies the child locks. Petty motherfucker.

You rub the sore spot on your tailbone where you landed on a seat buckle funny. You want to bite your tongue but you’re flared up.

“We should switch places. I’m a better driver than you are.”

Logan doesn’t bother looking at you as he starts up the ignition. “Just shut up.”

“You can go on ahead and smoke a cat turd in hell, then.”

“So fuckin’ immature. Grow up.”

“Mom and Dad can you please stop fighting!” Deadpool cries out from the backseats.

You just roll your eyes, resigning into your chair and folding your arms.

At some point along the ride, Wade falls asleep, snoring soundly to himself. You’re silent in the front, drumming a beat on your knees, awkwardly thinking of something to say. You have the impulsive need to fill the silence, even if you were trapped in a crappy car with a man who had made it vehemently clear that he irrevocably hated you.

“So, if they can fix your world, what’s the first thing you’ll do?”

Logan rips his eyes towards you. “What did you say?”

“I said when you get back, what’s the first thing—”

“No, no, no— before that.”

You hesitate, wondering if you’d landed yourself in a trap based on the sharpness of his tone and the way that anger crackles off of him like static lightning.

“If… they can fix your world?”

He slams his foot on the brake and you just about catch yourself before your nose goes flying into the dashboard. Wade is thrust out of the front window, smashing through and promptly falling unconscious underneath a tree, neck broken at an awkward angle.

Your eyes widen.

“What do you mean: if?”

“That’s what Wade said—”

“I don’t give a fuck who said what. He promised me he would fix things—”

“Well, I didn’t promise you shit!”

He laughs, low and devoid of humour. “You don’t have a clue if they can fix things, do you?”

Well, no. You’ve been operating on a hunch the entire time and had half come to accept that you might be stuck in the TVA void forever. Who knows how much time has passed elsewhere?

Regardless of the fact you truly had nothing to do with whatever came out of Wade’s mouth, you weren’t about to let Mr. Worst Wolverine shit all over him and his plan to save his friends.

“Is it really that far-fetched? We made an educated wish!”

Something dark flashes across his face. You can feel hate pulsing off of him in dizzying waves, doubling with each passing moment.

“You made… an educated fucking wish?”

“What’s your problem with me, huh? Got a stick up your ass?” You reach for the car door handle, but he snaps up your wrist, holding it high. “You better let go of me right now, old man—”

“Or what, huh? Gonna run away again?” He threatens.

“You geriatric, alcoholic motherfucker. I’ve done nothin’ but try and be civil with you and you treat me like I’m the one who ruined your life! I don’t know what version of me you knew but you need to stop actin’ like I ain’t worthy of being here because of what you did!”

“Listen, I’ll tell you what my problem is with you—” he leans closer, eyes roving over you with a disgusted look on his face. “I mean, you are a ridiculous, emotional, immature crybaby. I have never met a sadder, more attention-seeking, foul-mouthed little bitch in my entire life and that says a lot because I’ve been alive for more than two hundred fuckin’ years.”

“And I’ll tell you, that bald chick was right about one thing: you will never amount to anything. You’ll never save the world. You couldn’t even save a relationship with me. I’d say you should’ve died alone but it’s one of God’s best jokes that in this universe you didn’t seem to fuckin’ die, except that ones on the rest of all of us!”

He breathes heavily when his rant finishes. You’re taken aback, jaw slack, eyes warm with the onset of tears born from shock.

“What, you got nothin’ to say, empath?”

You suck in a deep breath, blinking slowly as you flick the emotional switch off in your head.

“I’m going to hurt you now.”

He snorts. “Oh, are you?”

In a swift manoeuvre, you raise your slap him around the face. You knew better than to punch a metal skull, but you still wanted him to sting. His eyes slit, nostrils flaring in challenge.

“That all you got?”

“Not even close,” you snap back, knuckles whitening from the way you curl your fingers into your palm. “You want to play this game, Logan? Fine— but I’m not gonna sit here and keep on provin’ myself to you. I’ve had enough of your Christ-born-again superiority complex. Did you forget that you’re the worst Wolverine?”

“Oh, yeah? Well, at least I’m honest about who I am. Look at you— you’re a fuckin’ joke, pretending to be some hero in a suit made for a dead team,” he barks back, voice rising with each word. “I don’t need your bullshit “wishes”— you should know, I’ve buried people for less.”

“Yeah, because you’re so perfect, ain’t that right?” You yell, voice cracking from the power of your anger. “The almighty Wolverine— the unkillable bastard who can’t seem to hold onto anythin’ good in his life! You’ve had centuries to get your shit together, and look at you—” You look him up and down with disgust. “—still just a bitter, lonely, broken man, takin’ it out on everyone else and a goddamn bottle.”

His eyes narrow, muscles in his jaw twitching as he appears to fight and keep his temper in check, but there’s an obvious crack forming, the dam of his unbridled rage near overflowing.

“You think you know me, huh?” He murmurs, voice a deadly whisper, the calm before the storm. “You don’t know a goddamn thing about what I’ve been through. You’re nothing but a lost woman playing make-believe and hiding in the shadow of a fuckin’ merc. You’re pathetic.”

Something inside of you breaks. “I’m pathetic? Look at yourself! You’re so goddamn desperate to feel anythin’ that you’ll lash out at everyone around you for some semblance of warmth. There’s a fine line between hate and love, after all! You think you’re so strong because you can heal, because you’ve lived forever? Yeah, right— you’re the weakest, most cowardly man I’ve met in a loong time.”

The blades between his knuckles shoot out with a shink! For a moment, you think that he’s going to attack you. Hell— you even hope that he will, just to diminish some of the unbearable, stifling tension. Instead, the blades retract with a deep breath, and he grabs you forcefully by the collar of your suit, yanking you so close that you can feel the heat of his breath on your face.

His voice is low and rough, each word dripping with venom. “Go on, keep psychoanalysing me. You wanna talk about cowardice? How about leaving people who need you, just because it’s easier to run? Better yet, how about the fact that you abandoned the X-men to hide away in the mountains, huh?”

Your eyes widen with recognition.

“Yeah… Wade’s got a big mouth. Told me everythin’. You’re no hero. Hell, you’re just a selfish, reckless hillbilly who failed at pretending to be human.”

Your heart palpitates in your chest, each word coiling and slicing like blades in your intestines, but you refuse to let him see how much it hurts. Instead, your lips curl into a cold, bitter smile, one that doesn’t quite reach your eyes.

“And you’re just a sad, angry old man who can’t handle the fact that he’s lost everythin’. Go ahead: keep pushing people away! Keep hidin’ behind that anger o’ yours! It’s got you this far, ain’t it?! I’ve treated kids with trauma worth double yours and they were nothin’ but kind and selfless. I won’t let you project your failures onto me. I’m done with this.”

“Yeah, why don’t you walk away!”

The argument reaches a fever pitch, tension sizzling in the air between you. You’re so close, glaring at each other with so much anger, so much resonating heat, that it feels like something’s going to break. And then, suddenly, it does.

Before either of you can think, you close the gap between you, lips crashing against his. It’s not gentle, it’s not soft— the kiss is rough, violent, a clash of lips and fury. His grip on your collar tightens, and for a moment, you’re both frozen, caught in the shock of what’s happening.

But then something more fiery in nature than anger ignites, and he kisses you back just as fiercely, and maybe a little more desperate— like he’s trying to pour out all of his pain and resentment, into this one moment. Your tongues slide against each other and his teeth catch against yours as he groans into your mouth. Your hands thread through his hair, yanking him closer as if trying to hold onto something real and tangible in the chaos of the kiss, reeling from the sudden spinning in your head. It’s angry, raw, filled with all the things you’re not capable of verbalising: grief, love, yearning, reconciliation.

The result of a painful reunion.

The world falls away and all that’s left is the taste of him, the feel of his lips against yours, rough and demanding. You hate him right now— hate him so much that you can’t help but want him. The sheer intensity of it all overwhelms you and makes your fingers shake against the nape of his neck, but you can’t pull away— not now, not when you’ve tasted the wine. You’re too far gone, caught up in the storm of his intoxication, fantasising about ripping that yellow and blue suit off of him and riding him until there’s nothing left for him to regenerate.

And then, just as suddenly as it started, the bubble of the moment bursts with the sound of slow clapping coming from outside the car. You jerk back from Logan, breath coming in ragged gasps. Logan is equally as stunned, still tight-gripping your collar as if he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands.

You both see Wade sitting up, hands together, eyes wide as saucers as he takes in the scene.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Did I just wake up in a telenovela?” His voice is laced with amusement. “I mean, I know you two clearly had some unresolved sexual tension— but this? Oh, this is gold. Please don’t stop on my account, just let me get the camcorder first!”

You’re too stun-locked to respond, lips parting and closing as your brain scrambles to formulate a response as you’re still reeling from what just happened. Logan (for once) seems equally as lost for words, his typical scowl replaced with a look of confusion.

“Shut up, Mouth,” Logan barks, but there’s no real heat behind it. There can’t be, really, not when you’ve both been caught red-handed. He releases your collar at once.

Wade, however, is having none of it. “Oh, no, no, no! You don’t just get to brush this off like it’s nothing! That was a full-on makeout session! I only interrupted because I thought you were about to rip each other’s clothes off.” He sighs wistfully and crosses his legs. “Here I was thinking that you two hated each other— but I guess all that anger was just foreplay, huh?”

Your face burns with a mixture of shame and something else you’re not quite ready to admit. “Wade— cut it out.”

He grins, not deterred in the least. “Oh, but I’m loving this. All that pent-up aggression finally coming to fruition. It’s beautiful, truly.”

Logan shoots him a look that could melt iron, but Wade just simply shrugs, unfazed. “Hey, I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking. Everyone being me.”

“Wade,” you warn through gritted teeth.

“Well, unless you want me to watch (which I am not opposed to, by the way) maybe next time the two of you should get a room,” he tilts his head. “Or, you know, a couples therapist.”

He then turns to address Logan directly.

“And I must’ve missed the AO3 tags because I did not peg you for the enemies-to-lovers type, Mister. Who knew all it took was a bit of hate-kissing to get the sparks flying? Don’t look so ashamed! I’m just jealous I didn’t get to you first.”

He stumbles towards the car and collapses into the back seat. “Next time you wanna bump uglies, just ask for some privacy! You can save me the broken neck!” He gets himself comfortable, man-spreading and laying his hands on both of your shoulders as you stare dead-forwards, unable to look at each other.

“Gosh, you’re both so tense.” He begins massaging. “Look— props to you both for not letting all that angst go to waste. This is a safe space, and there’s no shame in a little hormone-induced—”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Logan interrupts, revving the car back to life and shoving his prodding hands away. “Just be quiet back there.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll keep the commentary to myself. But just so you know— got that bad boy playing on repeat, right here.” He says, tapping the side of his head.

You bury your face in your hands. This was going to be a long car ride.

As the car starts moving again, you muster the bravery to risk a glance at Logan. His expression is hard to read but his energy thrums with uncertainty. The boiling hatred seems to have dialled down to a gentle simmer, mostly redirected towards himself rather than you. There’s something else— something that wasn’t there before. You rip your eyes away quickly, mind racing.

For somebody so in tune with emotions and the literal ability to manipulate them if you so desired, you were horrendous at navigating your own. You don’t know what this kiss meant, or if it even meant anything at all.

If there’s anyone you didn’t expect to come across in the void, it’s X-23— Laura. She’s taller, now, with hair down her back, but she’s still got that stern, mean look on her face that intimidated you the first time you met her.

The weak front door squeaks when you open it a crack. A girl, maybe in her small teen years, blinks up at you.

“Can I help you?” You ask, wiping your flour-dusty hands down on the front of your cooking apron.

“Are you—” she says your name.

You attempt to swing the door shut, but she jams it with her boot. You flick your eyes up, glance around for any signs of threats, and then lower your gaze to her. You wrap your cardigan around your mid-section.

“I don’t go by that name anymore. Who the Hell are you, kid, and what do you want?”

“I’m here about Logan,” she says, matter-of-factly.

Logan. A name followed by your own, both of which you hadn’t heard in years.

“He’s not here, kid. He died years ago.”

“I know,” she answers, unwavering. “I was there when it happened. Your name was the last thing he said.”

You’d let her in for a glass of sugary sweet tea that day, but once stories were exchanged you told her not to come back. She respected your wishes— she said she simply wanted to put a name to the face, to get closure, but you’d felt her desperation. Perhaps she was seeking out respite, or family, but you were in no position to be sharing your space with someone who could put another target on your back.

After introductions were made with the others who had been ripped from their timelines (Elektra, Blade and oh my god a Gambit variant with muscles so huge he could pop your head between his biceps) you excused yourself to sit outside. The buzzing emotional energy made your collar feel a little tight around the neck, your head a little fuzzy with noise, so you decided to reignite the small campfire a few yards away from the safe-house and rest there, instead.

You hadn’t realised you were being followed.

“It’s not safe here.”

“It’s not safe anywhere, Logan.”

He looks defeated, raising and clasping his hands behind his head.

“I gotta leave, baby.”

“If you leave, I ain’t lettin’ you back,” you whisper. “You don’t heal the same anymore, Logan, and you promised me—”

“I know what I promised,” he rebuts, but not angrily. You can already see on his face that he’s made his choice. He’s not coming to you to discuss it. “But I owe it to him. To Charles. He gave me everything.”

“So then what did I give you?” You ask. “Not a home, not my love, not everything?” You slam the tea towel down and turn away from him as the tears form. He’s quiet, perhaps processing everything, but you’re too impatient.

“If you’re just gon’ get up and leave, do it now. I won’t beg you to stay, Jimmy.”

“I love you.”

You don’t say it back.

You wake up with a start, damp clinging to your forehead. You immediately sense another presence and glance over to see Logan watching you with a steady gaze. His expression is soft and almost reverent at first, but his facade hardens with a quick tick of his jaw.

“You talk in your sleep.” The bottle in his hand sloshes as he takes a drink. “Nightmare?”

You sigh frustratedly when you realise it’s him. Of course, it’s him — his energy reeks of whiskey and self-loathing. You prop yourself on your elbows, massaging the sore spots on your temples where sleep fog forms.

“I can’t even get some rest without you botherin’ me? You’re leakin’ self-hatred everywhere.”

“Quit hogging the fire then.”

“Fuck you,” you murmur, but it’s without bite.

A moment passes before he fills the silence again. “What are you even doing out here, alone? Trying to get yourself killed? Pretty stupid.”

“Do you know how hard it is to sleep when nobody shuts up?”

His brows knit. “They’re all dead asleep.”

His hand runs up and down your back.

“Can’t settle?” He asks after you sigh.

“No.” You turn so you’re lying on your back, shoulder touching his, staring up at the ceiling. “Everyone is feeling so loud. It’s like a frequency I can’t turn off.”

He hums. “They’re grieving, I s’pose.”

“Even you and you always said you hated the guy.” You shuffle to lie on your side, facing him. You place a hand on his bare chest. “I can feel it, you know.”

“I didn’t hate Scott. Just found him… obnoxiously irritating.”

“Tough guy.” You giggle and stroke his cheek. “You’re turnin’ soft, old man.”

He pulls you flush against him and presses a kiss to your hairline. You lay in verbal silence for a while, soaking up his presence (god, you were so in love), but you’re interrupted when he abruptly sits up and grabs the white vest he discarded somewhere near the bed.

You lean on your elbows. “Where you goin’?”

“Let’s go for a ride.”

“What?”

“You can’t sleep here. Let’s go somewhere quieter.”

“But Charles said—”

“Screw Charles. You comin’ or what?”

He hadn’t told you he loved you yet, but at that moment you felt it.

And so you do, clinging to his mid-section on his motorcycle, head stuffed into the helmet he affectionately forces you to wear. It’s a warm night in New York, soupy with heat, but the further you get away from the compound with him by your side the more you feel you can breathe.

“’Course, you don’t understand.”

You reach for the small pouch on your hip and retrieve a cigarette. You light it between your lips, taking a seat a few paces away from him, hands still shaking a little with the aftershocks of the night terror.

“Since when did you start smoking?”

You perk a brow. “I’ve always smoked.”

He seems to realise something and simply shakes his head before returning to the vice in his fist.

“Right.”

You stare at him for a long, passing moment, before pulling out your lighter again and offering it towards him. He perks a brow.

“I know you got a cigar in there somewhere,” you say. He pauses, sighs, and then retrieves a thick cigar from one of the pouches on his suit. You lean closer, flick the lighter, and cup your hand to protect it from the breeze, shamelessly glancing at the dancing glow that bathes his face amid the firelight. You feel the urge to kiss him again, and when his eyes flick up to yours, you think for the briefest second that he wants to kiss you, too.

Swallowing, you collapse your lighter and clear your throat. You sit quietly, smoking and drinking in a silence only negated by the distant sound of chittering bugs around you. Once you’re finished with your cigarette, you toss the butt into the fire.

“We’re infiltrating tomorrow morning.”

He laughs dryly. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

Your lips tighten into a thin line. “We won’t make it without you.”

“Sure you will. I’m not him, you know,” Wolverine grumbles, slugging another shot of alcohol.

You scrutinise him from across the log. You wonder if he feels as pathetic as he looks.

“No— you got that right,” you answer. You pry the liquor from his hands but the grip he releases from the neck of the bottle must have been a mercy on his part because you knew he was extraordinarily stronger than you. “He was much braver than you.”

His eyes flicker from the flames to you as you take a long swig.

“Although probably just as stupid.”

A pause. Crackling and popping firewood fills the silence.

“But, he was a hero. And so are you.”

A beat before he spits a dry laugh, “what gave you that idea?”

You give him a once over and offer a half-smile. “That suit, for starters.”

He looks down at himself like he’d forgotten he was wearing it and wipes away a stray speck of blood from the bright material that you’re sure you might be responsible for.

“What, you like it?” He grunts.

You can’t help but smile. “Yellow suits you.”

“This is all I had left to remember you— them by,” he says, tone turning more sombre as he reminisces.

You decide it’s not the time to make another jab, so, instead, you play back and forth with the bottle for a while until the alcohol stops stinging your throat.

Something small shatters inside of you when you watch him muster the strength to look into your eyes, and his look a little glassy.

“Did you love him?”

Woof, that needed a healthy drink of courage to answer. When you hold his gaze, there’s a hollowness to his expression— an unasked question. Was there truly a version of him worth loving?

“Yeah.” You wipe the back of your hand across your mouth to cover the crack in your voice. “Yeah, I did.”

He’d insisted he hadn’t wanted you around yet he’d kissed you and now followed you to where you’d been sleeping. That had to count for something, so you extend your arm and gesture the bottle towards him— an olive branch in the form of shitty Jack Daniels. Your fingers touch when he accepts it and the brief glimmer of eye contact you share sends shivery energy zipping between you.

“I loved him,” you repeat, as if convincing yourself. A repeated balm to soothe the pain of letting him leave.

“He’s an idiot for leaving you.”

You bite back a sob-laugh, imagination caught somewhere between wondering who you’d rather beat up more: him, or yourself.

“Maybe I’m an idiot for not followin’ him.” You sniff deeply to push back the incoming sob-induced mess. “Not that he woulda let me.”

He hums resignedly.

Clearing your throat, you tuck your hands between your thighs. Swiftly moving on. “What was I— she like?”

He takes a long drink and sighs thickly when he comes up for air. He looks down at his hands when he talks as if choosing his words thoughtfully and carefully.

“Strong, smart. Stubborn. Far too fuckin’ stubborn.”

You force a smile over the flinch of pain in your chest. “Guess we got that in common.”

You reach up and twist the dog tag around your neck, feeling for the ring you’d slipped around the chain. You were never married legally but were in all the ways that mattered. Your heart aches for the brief moment of domesticity you shared with him. You expect him to be finished, but he once laughs, a smile cracking on his face.

“She loved kids— had a soft spot for the weird ones.” He squints and rubs at the flesh between his knuckles where the blades typically protrude. “Put me in my place. Stood up for what was right.”

His words strike a chord in your heart, playing the familiar tune of yearning and guilt and grief. A swelling sensation rises from your stomach and you’re not sure if you’re going to scream, cry or throw up.

“Were you—?”

“In love with her? What, like you can’t tell?” He interrupts, face hardening. Another drink. “It doesn’t matter. We argued one night and I refused to follow her back to the school, ‘bout the same time the humans went mutant hunting.”

Logan takes a moment to catch himself.

“When I came back, shit-faced from the bar, I realised I’d gotten my version of you murdered, along with the rest of them. Laid up like a fucking log pile. That’s what loving me got you.”

The gruesome imagery sours the liquor in your stomach. You push the nausea down with a hard swallow.

“I’m sorry.”

“Wh—” He jolts back, face pinched. “I got you killed, and you’re fuckin’ sorry?”

“There’s a world where you didn’t make that choice. You know, I’m not proud of who I am, either,” you answer, softly. “After you left and I lost you… I got bitter, stopped pulling my punches.”

“You never liked hurting people.”

“I didn’t.” You take a deep breath, willing away the warmth that pools behind your eyes. You quickly regain composure with a short cough. “Whatever woman you’re comparing me to, I stopped being her a long time ago. Like you told me— I’m no hero.”

He grunts, looking like he regrets saying that now. Checkmate. You’re not what either of you expected or yearned for in one another, but maybe you’re exactly what you both need.

“You know, your accents thicker.”

He says it as if to draw a line of separation, but you take it as an invitation. Your head swims from the alcohol, and against what probably is your better judgement, you inch closer to him until your knees bump against each other.

“That’s what I get for hidin’ in the mountains. Got adopted by a scary old lady and her church friends. I reckon she rubbed off on me. You’d like her, I think,” you tell him fondly. There’s something wistful about it, imagining a life with him. You grieve a life you never had but somehow, in his company, the melancholy loosens its grip.

“Maybe we got lucky,” you add flatly.

He lifts the bottle with a dry laugh. “You have a very funny idea of what lucky means, bub.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be so sure. Y’see, they didn’t get lucky. They died, ‘n’ we lost each other,” you explain, glancing up at the stars as if either version of you would ever be in heaven, as if it was as loving enough as a mother’s womb to stretch wide enough to allow space for mutants.

God probably hated you just as much as they did down here.

You lower your head onto his shoulder. “But, we’re still here. Maybe there was always space in my universe for you.”

“You’re drunk,” he observes flatly, but he doesn’t move.

“A little.” You get more comfortable against his tense bicep and close your eyes. “Humour me, why don’t you?”

He sighs, but it’s gentle. “Just for a while.”

“Good, because you’re not very good at keeping your feelings quiet. I know you like this.”

“Keep that to yourself.”

You sigh, eyes remaining closed. “We ain’t gonna talk about it, are we?” You ask, in reference to the kiss.

“Nope.”

A high-pitched whine resonates in your ears, vision blurring as if lying underneath a rippling river current. Paradox has just explained the stakes to you — to stop Cassandra, somebody would have to lay down on the wire and make the sacrifice play. This wasn’t a matter of regeneration anymore— it was being ripped apart from the seams, atomised.

It just so happens that your cat, Kevin, has been loving his little journey around the TVA. Cheater.

“You won’t survive it,” is what you say in response to Logan offering himself up for the job. What you really meant was: I don’t think I can survive losing you again.

“I know,” Logan answers. His eyes drip to where you palm at the slow-healing wound on your side, courtesy of the Lady Deadpool variant. You’re winded, running on fumes, and know you’re in no position to start throwing yourself out there as a suicide volunteer. You’d never make the journey, let alone succeed in your venture.

“That’s why it’s gotta be me,” Deadpool interrupts, peeling the mask from his face to address you both. “Neither of you asked for any of this. You were right. I lied. I lied right to both of your faces — just to get you to help me, and you did.”

“You didn’t lie,” Logan replies, throwing you a glance. “You made an educated wish.”

He reaches into his pocket and slaps the bloodied Polaroid of Deadpool’s friends against Wade’s chest. The gesture is a final, silent acknowledgement of why any of you are here in the first place, and everything that’s led to this moment.

“I got nothin’ back in my world,” he explains, the sharp arrow of his words striking a sting straight through your heart. “Let me do this. For you.”

You could see that this meant more to him, that he would only deem himself worthy and die a peaceful death if he could do it knowing he saved at least one variant of you. This is more than just a mission. This is his only chance to redeem himself, and you know you’re in no position to start trying to convince him that you’d have him either way. Fuck redemption.

You’re parallel from one another, standing just outside of touching distance. It was a cruel existence— reaching out and never quite being able to hold on. It’s inevitable, the pull you feel. You’re dictated by his gravity but cursed by the narrative.

Your chest rises and falls with shallow, laboured breaths as you attempt to process what’s happening, what he’s asking you to let him do. The pain in your side ebbs only from the comparative pain of watching another version of the man you love sacrifice himself for you.

His voice is a quiet whisper. “Give me this.”

But I love you. The words are there, hiding behind your clenched teeth, gnawing at the bars like a feral animal caged in the reminder that this isn’t — shouldn’t be — the man that you love.

Something shifts and as you’re running on the delirium of your battery running low, healing resources drained, you decide that you don’t actually care to make the distinction any more.

You’re in no condition to fight; you barely had the energy to argue with him, let alone stop him. But you can’t just let him go.

One wobbly step forward. You poke his chest, mustering whatever energy remains to express your feelings in the only true way you know how. “I…” you stammer, but you suddenly can’t find the words.

His hand reaches up and he splays yours flat against his chest. Faintly, buried deep behind the armoured layer of his suit, you feel the distinct thunk, thunk of his heart. He exhales deeply when your empathetic energy transmission reaches the other side. Your eyes connect, and even through the sharp whites of his mask, you can feel the psionic pulse resonating between you two— strong enough that the wound on your side begins to sew itself together.

“I know,” he whispers.

And you believe that he does.

He nods shortly, releases your hand, and turns on his heel. You collapse against the control centre, eyes needling through the camera footage, desperate to watch the final moments and know that his sacrifice was worth it.

It’s about the same time that Deadpool yanks his mask back on and barrels down the hallway after him.

“Wade!”

You glance back at the party as you creep towards the apartment door to leave. Your consciousness has only recently slipped back into place, having hovered somewhere above your body for the entire time you witnessed your friends atomically ripped apart, only for them to return mere moments later.

You think it might’ve been witnessing Wolverine sweaty and shirtless that was finally the last straw for you. You’re not sure you’ve recovered since.

You thought you were being sneaky about your departure, but a flat hand reaches from out of view, splays and then holds the door closed.

“You sure I can’t convince you to stay?” Logan asks, voice slow and tentative.

“I ain’t runnin’ this time, I promise,” you answer. He rests his arm on the beam above him, making him appear even taller and maybe even more imposing. Your pulse quickens as you look up at him, trying to find the right words, ones that you hope won’t give you away. You nearly squeak. “I um— just—”

He arches a brow, a hint of a micro-smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. He shifts, getting closer by just a fraction. “Yeah?”

Trying to keep your distance is proving to be immensely hard when he’s gotten himself this deliciously close. His energy tastes of confidence, a stark contrast to the self-loathing only a mere few days prior. It’s magnetic. If you make eye contact now, you’re not sure you’ll be able to control yourself.

The atmosphere crackles with tension, like the static energy right before lightning strikes. His gaze is intense when you look at him, and with the way his eyes glance purposefully down at your parted lips—

Jesus. Pull yourself together.

You gently pull away from him and feel the spell of the moment dissolve. “I just… need time.”

Recognition flashes on his face, as well as a tick of disappointment, but he seems to understand.

A beat, then he taps the door before stepping aside. “Alright. Don’t be a stranger.”

Wade bursts around the corner, arms wide and voice booming. Vanessa hangs off of his arm, white teeth gleaming with mischievous joy.

“Whoa, hey there, lovebirds! What’s going on here— a secret rendezvous? Looking for somewhere to sneak off? Should I cue the romantic music or just give you two some privacy?”

You jump in surprise at his sudden entrance, flinching away from Logan as if you’d been caught doing something you shouldn’t. Logan’s expression shifts from whatever tender moment was brewing, spell broken, to a mix of exasperation and resignation, jaw tightening.

“Wade,” he grumbles, voice sharp, but you can acknowledge there’s a level of begrudging affection beneath the steely surface. “Timing, as usual, is impeccable.”

“Um, actually, I was just leavin’,” you answer, tugging on your bag.

“WHAT!” Wade exclaims, face dropping. “We haven’t even gotten to our favourite part yet!”

You tick a brow. “Our favourite part?”

“The cocaine part,” he says, matter-of-factually.

“Wade, that was one time,” you pinch the bridge of your nose. “I’m sorry. Thank you for inviting me. I just can’t miss my flight.”

Dogpool jumps at your ankles, whimpering and chewing on the hem of your jeans. You give her a gentle scratch on her head, deftly avoiding the lick of her impressive tongue. Wade scoops her up, holding her against his shoulder and kissing her affectionately on her wet nose.

“You, ah, need a ride?” Logan offers.

Your heart stutters at his chivalrous attempt. “Oh, um. That’s okay— I called a cab. So.”

That was a lie. You hadn’t— not yet. You just weren’t sure if you were going to make the right decisions if you were alone in his company for an hour. Probably wouldn’t make it to the airport without fighting or crying or making stupid choices.

He rubs his jaw. “Right.”

“I’ll… see you around?”

“I better!” Wade yells, using two fingers to gesture that he’s keeping his eye on you as Vanessa yanks him around the corner gleefully.

A magnetic tether — or red string, whatever you want to call it — seems to strain when you walk away from Logan. You feel the pull in your chest, a fluttering of electricity, but you swallow the urges and ignore the way they scratch like glass on the way down.

You call an Uber, squeezing your bag tightly for a source of comfort as you crowd yourself into the back seat. You spare one last glance at the apartment and think for a brief moment you see a silhouette of someone watching you from the balcony, but they slip away into the light before you can discern it.

You know, though. Of course, you know.

You expected relief when you arrived home, but, instead, the aching, gnawing black hole in your chest seems to grow exponentially. You go through the motions— feed your cat, tend to the garden, eat the food with no appetite, go to Church.

The fixture of Jesus pinned to the cross gives you pause for the first time. You wonder if he was a mutant.

You weren’t sure how much of this “time” thing you were going to need to heal or make a decision on where you and Logan stood after everything, but only after your second night, sleepless and alone, do you start to doubt that this will be an easy process. You communicate like you know what you’re doing, but you haven’t stopped shaking since he kissed you, like a newborn foal traversing ice.

You want to do things right. You’re not trying to replace any missing pieces or live up to any expectations he might have of you. The girl he knew seemed to be a softer, sweeter (less traumatised) version of you, and you worry that you’d be constantly comparing him to a ghost of himself.

The rain lulls you as it patters on the window by your bed, but sleep doesn’t take you.

You hear thunder, you think, and wonder if the chickens are frightened in their coops. However, the distant grumble continues to grow, reverberating through the floorboards of your rickety cabin. As it creeps closer you discern that it’s not a brewing storm— but the growling engine of a motorcycle.

Awash with a deep sense of knowing, you throw yourself out of bed and knot a silk robe around your middle. The sound of the engine dissipates, replaced only by the hammering rain and the rushing pulse in your ears when you tear your door open.

You see him— all leather jacket slick with rainwater and tight jeans, brows pinched against the onslaught of the weather as he dismounts his bike.

Logan.

When your eyes meet, there’s a palpable shift in the air, and the storm, angry as a howling spirit, mirrors the turbulent emotions within you. You don’t speak, you don’t think, you just act.

Barefoot, dressed in your slip of a robe, you race down the short path and meet him halfway.

“Logan? Logan?” You call out. “What are you doin’ here?!”

“Had to see you,” he calls out between strides, voice nonchalant as if what he’s said was obvious.

You’re closing the distance. “That’s a day’s ride, and the weather—”

Instead of letting you finish, he grasps your face, kissing you suddenly and with a reverence so sincere that your knees feel gelatinous and weak. His thumbs brush away the raindrops— tears? —that drip over your crystallised lashes. His touch is both grounding and electrifying; the warmth of him pressed against you is a stark contrast to the chilling downpour.

Your fingers curl against the front of his jacket, clinging with equal fervour as if it’s the only thing keeping you anchored from floating someplace else. The strength of his body crowds over you, arm sliding down to capture you by your waist as you lean into him, syrupy-decadent and entirely reliant on him to keep you upright.

The kiss deepens, his tongue sliding over yours tasting both bittersweet and intoxicating in equal measures, like cigar smoke and peppermint gum. There’s a distinct sharpness of liqour and you wonder if he had a shot (or bottle) of courage before coming here. You breathe deeply against his skin, smelling rainwater, musk and gunpowder; your senses are completely overwhelmed by him and you’re not sure that anything could pull you away.

The red string knots.

When you both eventually take pause, gasping for air as the rain continues to pelt, his eyes lock with yours. He radiates relief, desire, and a raw vulnerability that makes your heart ache.

“You’re freezin’,” he murmurs, peppering kisses against your lips, your cold nose, and pulling one of your hands to his face to peck along your palm. You feel dizzy in his embrace, drunk on his lips.

“You should come inside,” you whisper, “before the neighbours start askin’ questions.”

He quietly nods, kissing your fingers before following you inside and ducking away from the rain.

Once inside, he shakes the rain from his hair with a flick, eyes immediately roaming around the innards of your respectable (tiny) house, the size of him immediately proportionally shrinking the interior. He absorbs your surroundings, chivalrously pretending like he can’t see every curve of you in that wet material.

You lead him towards the heath, lighting a small fire to help dry you both off. You leave, pottering around to gather some towels for your hair, and arrive back to see he’s peeled off the top layer of his clothes, leaving him half-exposed, his back an impressive marvel of rippling muscle. He glances at you over his shoulder.

You’re lost for words, but can’t just stand there ogling him. “Um, I don’t think I have any spare clothes that’ll… fit…”

When he turns to face you, his rain-slick torso shines in the firelight, skin glistening on the taught muscles of his biceps as he accepts a towel from you. Your words lag, entirely distracted by the realisation of one thing when you glance down at his v-line and dark, coiling hair that creeps down into his jeans: you’re absolutely going to have sex with this man.

You might’ve decided that when you watched the way his jeans clung to him when he dismounted his motorcycle, but that’s beside the point.

“That’s alright,” he answers, towel slung over his shoulder, eyes roving shamelessly over the damp, silky robe that clings to your silhouette effortlessly. “Don’t need ‘em.”

Your mouth dries when he steps closer to you, head angled, lips centimetres apart.

“Logan…” you breathe, tone edging toward a warning.

He presses against you, tilting you back. “Tell me you don’t want this, and I’ll stop. I’ll get back on that bike and I’ll leave.”

You creep further away, trying to catch your breath. “I—”

The words don’t manifest, simply because you don’t have it in you to lie— to deny yourself of this.

He cages you in against the wall, shrinking you underneath his frame, eyes narrowed and dark as they search for yours through lowered lashes. “Tell me you don’t feel somethin’, and I’ll walk away. You won’t see me again.”

His bare-chested proximity was overwhelming you. You’re acutely aware of every inch of his skin that touches yours, pebbled nipples hard against his warm flesh, stubbled jaw nuzzling against your neck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. You feel like a teenager again, anxious and hormonal, a ball of puppy fat and unrequited crushes. The space between your thighs positively aches with heat, throbbing like a second heartbeat.

“I can’t… I can’t tell you that I feel something.”

He leans back, lips quirked with a flash of disappointment.

You blink up at him. “Let me show you instead.”

He ticks an eyebrow.

You use your empathetic influence to decrease his heartbeat, relaxing him down to the bone. He sighs, nosing against your shoulder, arms flexing as he holds himself up against you.

“Just with a little influence…” you stroke your way up from the slow pulse in his neck to his jaw, capturing him swiftly. You use your mutation to increase his heart rate this time, hiking it up to an excitable level. His cheeks begin to flush, pupils dilated, lips parted with the anticipation of your kiss. His eyes darken with something intrinsically primal and hungry.

“Does it excite you?” You ask, innocently.

He shakes his head all dog-like as if to regain control, canine showing as his lips curl into a wolfish grin.

“You’re not the only one with… tricks. I can do that, too— in other ways,” he says, tone low and suggestive. He lifts a hand, tracing a knuckle over your exposed collarbone, shifting the soft material of your robe just an inch. Your breath hitches.

“You know I can hear your heartbeat, right?”

You blush. You hadn’t known that.

You challenge his eye contact, feigning self-control and authority. The stare-down has your pulse spiking, arousal ricocheting down your spine and sitting low and syrupy in your belly.

“Your heart’s beating pretty fast, too.”

Oh, Hell. He’s got you melted like butter in a pan.

You rest your head against the wall, breath quickening. “If we do this, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”

“Good,” he growls. “I don’t like to stop.”

The teasing back-and-forth game of teetering towards nearly touching finally gets the better of you. You’re weak, as malleable as soft dough, so you invite him against your mouth with a sigh-wine and a tug on the nape of his neck.

He positively devours you, a hand palming at your breast as you kiss desperately and feverishly. The shoulder of your robe slips and you’re half-exposed, the slip barely holding itself together by the loose knot on your waist. He pulls you impossibly closer, the skin of his chest flush against yours as he reaches and digs fingers into the globe of your ass, hips twitching together.

You fumble between your bodies, yanking on his belt buckle and zipper impatiently. He pulls backwards, a wet string of spit snapping between your lips as you separate, helping you with steadier fingers to remove his jeans. With equal passion, he swiftly tugs on the waist-tie of your robe and discards it somewhere on the floor.

When you’re both bare, nude silhouettes sharp and soft in the firelight, he stumbles you over to the plush rug in the centre of the room. He nods to the couch.

“Legs up.”

You obey without hesitation, taking your seat and spreading decadently for him. He kneels below you of you, hips between your ankles, and gazes at you like a hungry, stalking animal. You feel impossibly sexy and dangerous.

He peppers kisses along the bone of your ankle first, foot hiked up onto his shoulder, only breaking eye contact to flutter his eyes closed. He moves along the inner length of your leg, pausing keenly against the sensitive parts— the thin stretch behind your knee, the soft plush of your thigh. He lowers himself, scruff tickling between your legs, and then licks a molten stroke between your folds, parting you with his tongue and burying his face deeper.

You clench around his skull, mindfulness of your heightened mutant abilities long forgotten. You can’t crush metal between your thighs. Or can you?

He groans into you, varying suckling and kissing you on your clit with long strokes on the blade of his tongue to your hole, lapping up the nectar of your arousal, fingers digging bruisingly into your hips. The sting of his grip and the relentless lave of his tongue entice moans from you, fingers raking into his hair for some semblance of reality grounding in your pleasure-lapsed consciousness.

Jesus. With as filthy as his mouth was, you should’ve known he would be this good at eating pussy.

You come quick, orgasm pulsing on his lips. The burn of overstimulation seizes your muscles, writhing against his onslaught, but he shoves your hips down.

“Not done with you yet,” he murmurs possessively, leaning back to wipe his chin. “On all fours.”

You bite your lower lip, suppressing the humiliation of the intimacy (vulgarity) of it. You turn, belly still clenching with the aftershocks, arching with the anticipation, whining moments later when his mouth reconnects with you. His hands palm at your ass, spreading you wider, tongue slipping dangerously close to the tight ring of muscle.

He slides a finger knuckle-deep, miming fucking you in a rhythmic pulse. His other hand massages you, thumb sliding down until you jerk sensitively against his nudging intrusion.

You feel impossibly full and tingly, clenching around the burn of his thumb and the velvet of his finger, second orgasm surging and bubbling over with your face pressed against the couch cushion, lips agape. You’re slick, drip-dropping onto his cupping palm, every nerve in your body burning raw as his wrist works you through the pulses.

You turn over, relishing in the sight of his scruff glistening with the aftermath of your orgasm, his eyes dark with lust— a hellish man, seraphic on his knees for you. Your insides clench at the sight as he quite literally shatters and redefines what worship means to you.

“Tired already?” He hums, massaging your hips.

You perk a challenging brow. “That was just the warm-up, old man.”

“Alright,” he seethes, sucking on his lower lip as he lifts himself up to your level. “Show me what you got then, baby.”

When you kiss, his mouth slides against yours, drenched with the taste of yourself. His cock steels against your belly when you pull him close, tip pearl-smooth with precum when you reach down and grasp him with a hollowed fist. The feel of him, heavy and warm in your grip, fans to life the flames of your briefly quenched arousal, and you hungrily pull him down onto the couch beside you.

Moisture pools on your tongue as you rub him. You spit on your hand before stroking him from the base to tip, lathering him silky with your drool. You tuck your hair behind your ears, narrowing your cheeks as you slide your mouth up and down his length, fisting the inches that remain.

“Christ.” He twitches in your mouth as you gently massage the warm weight of his sac, lewd sounds emanating from where your lips and tongue meet him. “Just like that. Good fuckin’ girl,” he snarls, gripping your hair in a fist at the crown of your head. Your engine purrs with his encouragement, revving with newfound enthusiasm.

You always gave as good as you got, after all, and you’re certainly not one to back away from a challenge.

His head lolls onto the back of the couch, thighs tense beneath you, cock hot and hard on your tongue. He growls when he comes, pulsing strongly in your mouth as you lap up the produce of his orgasm, salty and molten down your throat.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck—”

“Put those regenerative powers to good use, why don’t you?” You ask, working him through the over-sensitivity with your wrist. His eyes don’t once leave yours, even as they glaze over and flinch from the pleasure burn. There’s a sharp look of challenging determination on his face— a grit of his teeth, the furrow in his brow. He remains hard in your hands and you perk an impressed brow. Not bad for an old man.

There’s a sweet moment of vulnerability when you crawl over him, a brief sobering in the cloud of lust, a clarity of two not-quite strangers and their shared grief and yearning.

You’re not sure where this moment will take you, but the love of somebody scraping together the shards of a shattered heart for a brief time, even as it cuts their hands, holds you with a semblance of human connection so sincere that you’ll carry it with you for a lifetime.

His thighs spread to accommodate you. You hold your fingers against the thick chords in his neck for support as you fumble between your bodies, slotting him against the catch in your cunt before lowering yourself entirely.

You hiss against the intrusion and he steadies you with a hand on your hip.

“Easy. Don’t hurt yourself.”

You laugh-moan, laying your palms against the coils of hair on his sweat-shimmering chest.

“I can take it.”

The fire, intended to help dry you off, creates a heated environment that beads sweat on his temple. The only brain cells that remain coherent bounce around on lust in your skull — so you lean forward, lick the salty droplet clean, and sigh-whine as you begin rocking against him.

You fall into sync quickly, a desperate rhythm of desperate bodies. The delicious ache of him inside you is a masochistic thrill, similar to the irresistible press on a day-old bruise. The squelching shlick between your bodies is an animalistic reminder of your flesh and blood as you chase the pleasure, bouncing with vigour.

“Christ— I can feel you…” his jaw clenches with resolve, fingers digging into the meat of your ass. “…dripping all over me. You wanted this bad, huh?”

“Wanted to ride you in that fuckin’ Honda,” you straighten your posture, leaning away from him to hold your breasts, panting words between bated breaths. “Thought it might shut you up.”

His hand snaps up and grabs you roughly by the chin. “Mm… mouthy, aren’t ya?”

You grin. “You got no idea, lumberjack.”

He pulls your face against him, meeting your mouth halfway in a sloppier, fever-driven kiss that shoots arousal to your core like a shot of his favourite whiskey. Something feral stirs within you: a primal, cellular-deep need to connect with him further. Your empathetic power roils off of you like steam on a hot spring, surging into and merging with him until there’s nothing but one feeling, a black hole of unquenchable desire.

You suddenly feel as though you are him: navel-deep, a throbbing muscle with an aching desire to dive further into the serpent-clutch of your cunt, gliding through tingly, honey-silk velvet, blades hanging onto a tether of self-control as they threaten to slide out of your knuckles in ecstasy.

Well. This was certainly new. Add “voodoo sex doll” to your list of mutations.

You gasp, ripping away from the kiss, your powers recoiling back into you at whip-lash speed, dizzying in its ferocity. His eyes meet yours with darkened curiosity.

“Did you—”

“I felt that,” he grunts, tongue darting out to roll over his lips. “It always like that for you? Feelin’ so fuckin’ full?”

You half-laugh blissfully. “Only the good times.”

“I’ll show you a good time, alright.”

He isn’t gentle when he manhandles you, forcing you into an arch as he repositions and aligns himself behind your thighs, one foot planted firmly on the floor, the other bent to accommodate the new angle. He reinserts himself inside of you with ease, hands palming your hips and ass.

You feel him nudging cervix-deep and you reach out, clawing at the couch to hold your jerking body steady against the relentless slap of his hips. There’s no need to tell him faster or harder when you feel the metal plate of his adamantium hips pressing against your ass, pounding and vulgar with the sound of sweat-damp skin-on-skin.

It’s involuntary, the way you pant and cry out, intoxicated by the relentless drag and pull of his cock. He says something to you but you either don’t hear him or have enough conscious space in your sex-drunk fog to process words and respond. He slides a hand down your spine and pulls on your hair until you’re upright, breath hot when it fans against your neck.

“Where’s that mouth gone?”

You lick the drool from your lip, throwing him a glance over your shoulder. “Fuck you.”

The half-lidded up-and-down look he gives you as satisfaction grows slowly on his lips turns your bones to jelly. “There she is,” he growls back, offering a sharp slap of encouragement on your ass as he drops you back onto your front. You involuntarily grip around him, puffy clit throbbing with the almost-but-not-quite-there anticipatory build. “You gonna come for me? Yeah? I can fuckin’ feel it.”

You slide a hand underneath yourself, reaching for the swollen nub with two fingers. You’re overwhelmed with kinetic energy akin to a fizzy champagne bottle— two more shakes until you’re ready to pop.

You hear a Snikt! behind you, accompanied by a throat-caught groan, and then the distinct ripping shred of blades impaling your couch. You finally come, hard, when you feel him throbbing inside of you, followed by the decadent syrupy flood of his orgasm filling you up. He ruts into you one, two three more final times, milking himself dry, before collapsing over your body in a sweaty heap, sparing you the weight of his metal bones with a forearm propped next to you.

Shared fluids drip to the couch when he eventually pulls out of you, blades retreating into his clenched fists. The fluffy innards of the chair spill out beside you, and, while you were in no financial position to afford another, the sight entices a humoured smile from you.

“Sorry,” he says with a wince, helping you sit up when your unreliable legs shake beneath you.

“That’s alright. It’ll make for an interestin’ story,” you retort, fanning yourself with a hand. You both let out a shared laugh, mostly from the relieved delirium of it all. After a beat, you lean into him, massaging a hand across his belly. “So. We really doin’ this?”

His face softens. “If you’ll have me.”

You cup his face and kiss his cheek. “I’d take any version of you I could get.”

divider credits: @/vysleix and @/cafekitsune tag list: @bearwithegg, @uhlunaro, @sseleniaa, @jxssimae, @autumnsymphony

[giantkillerjack]

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

If you are disabled and you need to lie to get the accommodations you need or to escape ableist social harassment, then it is not just morally acceptable to lie in that scenario, it is morally GOOD.

I say this with no irony or satire whatsoever (unlike the original post, which is very much meant to be sarcastic).

Abled people are always trying to be the "hero" who finds the "fakers," as though "fakers" are actually a concern for disabled people. - When instead I don't know a single disabled person who hasn't been denied the care they need by being called a faker on multiple occasions. That's what we ACTUALLY live in fear of.

(Also, notably, finding the "faker" is not actually about protecting disabled people for these self-appointed "heroes". It's actually about finding an ego-boosting outlet for personal aggression and frustration. They don't care that the government has the funding to care for all of us and yet refuses. They just want to pretend this isn't about them, and are using other disabled people as a moral shield.)

Besides, every person I've met who is actually LYING about their disability has done so not because they are faking being disabled (for all the AWESOME benefits that DEFINITELY exist - ????), but because their ACTUAL disability is not taken seriously by the gatekeepers who can deny them the help they need.

Lying in this scenario protects a disabled person from stigma, injury, pain, death, and/or social neglect. This is a moral good. Lying to protect people from abuse is good, yourself included.

You shouldn't get a wheelchair, walker, cane, shower chair, or any kind of assistive technology mobility aid because then you might become dependent on them. Just like how you also shouldn't get glasses if you have bad eyesight because then you might become dependent on those.

For instance, if you end up stuck using corrective eyewear, you could actually lose your ability to tell what things are even when they are extremely blurry! You need to get used to having migraines from seeing unclearly because if you wear glasses all the time, you are basically giving up!! You don't need to see things coming at you from far away! You just need to get good at dodging, and if you can't, then you have no one to blame but yourself!!

For example, I read a really heart-worming article recently about a girl who was stuck using glasses - just absolutely, tragically trapped in her eyewear from dawn to dusk, even though she was good and never ever complained; and I heard she trained herself to discern the blurry faces of her loved ones with 60% accuracy! - she was even able to walk down the aisle at her wedding WITHOUT forcing the discomfort of seeing a woman in glasses on all her guests!!

Sure, she had to give her vows with a splitting headache, and she couldn't see her husband's expression when he said "I do," but overall, SO inspi-ration-al!!! So up-lifting!!

(She didn't even have to use a seeing eye cane, which would have been the worst-case scenario, obviously, because she worked hard to make sure she looked LESS disabled, not MORE disabled!!! Everyone knows blind people exist solely to be a cautionary tale to sighted people!!)

Also, did you know some people get glasses when they only need them a little bit?? How selfish of them! Sure, there's not a shortage, and an increase in demand would result in overall increased accessibility to glasses--but emotionally it's like taking glasses away from someone who needs them more! After all, if everyone who needed glasses got them, then...... um...... more people would have glasses! Which is probably bad!!!!

I also had a friend who was trapped in glasses who saved up all her money for laser eye surgery, and I don't know why everyone doesn't just do that! Sure, some doctors say some people don't "qualify" and it "won't help" those people, but that's why you can't give up!! You don't want to be one of those people!

After all, what's the worse thing that could happen with an unnecessary laser surgery to the face that comes with crippling debt??? It's worth the risk to gain your FREEDOM back, and I'm so proud of my friend!!

Tragically, she did die later that year while driving Uber and squinting at street signs, but at least now I know my friend is finally free from the shackles of her terrible eyesight. #ripAshley #rippedAshley #justripit 😌😌😌❤😇😇😇

And that's why you shouldn't get used to using a mobility aid!! Because, like glasses, they are inherently embarrassing to be seen with; and - like glasses - it is more noble to silently suffer than to depend on unnatural technologies that force you to rely on them!!! (Besides, everyone else will be SO much more comfortable if you look normal!)

I hope you learned something today. 💖

[bi-writes]

ok but soulmate au with ghost but it's the fucking opposite of rainbows and sunshine. (18+)

you share his trauma. his stress. his anxiety. you do not know who he is, and yet you know the pain of a thousand punches because it's the only feeling he has ever given you. you know the grueling ache of abandonment and the terrible neglect of abuse and the disgusting amalgamation of all your worst nightmares before you even turn 20. everything that he gives you feels aggressive, like it burns, and he only ever gives you reprieve for so long until you just feel it all over again.

it makes you tired. it makes you sick. at first, as a girl, all you wanted to do was comfort him. you wanted to know who he was so you could kiss the cigarette burns that you feel and soak up the blood you know he bleeds.

but as you age, you begin to hate him. you hate him because he does this to you, he hurts you, doesn't he know that he's hurting you? doesn't he know that everything he feels, you feel tenfold, doesn't he know that the terror and the horror of everything he witnesses weighs down your chest, makes you feel like you're drowning over and over and over again?

for a few years into your adulthood, everything is quiet. you feel little except the ache in his back he never tends to, the creak of his knee joints that he refuses to stretch out. you wish you knew him so you could scold him for it, but you curse at a ghost. sometimes you think about doing something to get back at him--you think about carving a FUCK YOU into your arm, about throwing yourself in front of a bus just so he can fucking understand that his entire life is one fucked-up cycle of pain and misery and horror, but you can't bring yourself to do it.

you can't hurt him. you just can't.

and then, the real pain begins. it brings you to your knees, this pain. you scream, you wail, because it feels like you're being carved from the inside-out. your face burns. your chest heaves. you feel like your ribs are breaking, you can't breathe, you claw at the invisible wounds that your soulmate must be wearing, and you beg him to stop, you beg him to let me go--just fucking die already--please, please, please--

those weeks haunt you. the torture he endures, it is branded to you. you wear no scars, and you never lost any blood, but the phantom flesh that you know is gone follows you in your sleep and never shuts up. it talks, it snarls, it eats at your insides. even when he heals, you are never the same. you wake up from nightmares that you know you share with him. you look over your shoulder for the predators you know he has encountered, and you cry yourself to sleep over the loss of something that you can't even decipher because you have no idea who he is or what he buried to feel this way inside.

he's sick. he's twisted. he's a walking corpse, he has no redeemable qualities, he is selfish and mean and cruel, and you hate him, and if it wasn't for the pain that you would feel, the first thing you would do when you saw him is drive something right through his heart to finally stop the undying infection he spreads to everything that he touches.

you know it is him when you finally meet him. you would know him anywhere; you’d know him just by the scars alone who he is because you remember what it felt like when he got them. when you eye the sleeve of tattoos along his left arm--the fucked, shitty, sunburnt art that made it impossible for you to finish your university exams. the faded, grey circles that line the other, ones you recognize being from the burning cigarettes that you would smell when you closed your eyes. and when he removes his mask briefly, you recognize the scar that cuts above his lip and strikes through his eye--that one left you reeling on the bathroom floor particularly loudly. you thought he might be blind if it wasn't for seeing the darkness of both of his eyes.

you start to cry. you start to cry because as soon as he realizes who you are, as soon as you see that flicker of knowing flash across his eyes, all of the hatred and the anger and the poison that plagued you for all this time vanishes. everything you fought so hard to feel, all the misery you wanted to bestow upon him for making your life a living hell, it's gone.

because the universe is cruel, the universe has done what it has done, and it has made this singular person just for you, and against everything you believe, you know that you love him, and you hate yourself for it, and you hate the universe, too.

you have endured. but maybe you endured so he didn't have to. maybe you endured so that he could have this, the feeling that he feels right now, that feeling of sudden relief.

he slides a large hand over his chest, flinching slightly. he blinks, understanding suddenly that he's feeling your joy, your elation. when you shuffle your way over to him, breaching the conversation the men around him are having, you ignore their confused stares as you fling yourself into his chest.

ghost forces you against him, trapping you to him. he practically chokes, tangling a gloved hand into your hair, and you sob into the warm skin of his neck as he hoists you into his arms, into his lap. you don't pay attention to the curious voices around you, you just bury yourself into him and cry. his body is the evidence of all that has happened to him, and you aren't angry anymore because you're relieved.

he's real. he's alive. he's here. he's okay.

when you pull back to look up at him, you blink away the tears that are falling fast down your face. he stares down equally as intensely, drinking in the sight of those big, wet eyes. when he smooths a big hand down your face, he grumbles when he realizes what you are, how you know him.

he never realized this was what he and his soulmate shared. you in your life had never felt pain like he had--he had no idea what he was doing to you. he had no idea what you were surviving at the same time.

he closes his eyes and rests his forehead against yours, and your lips tremble as you cup his cheeks and hold him close.

it feels wrong to feel this kind of comfort, but he does anyways. he thinks, maybe, that perhaps the only reason he survived was because of you.

because there was someone else, far away, that loved him enough to keep him breathing. even when he thought it was over.

[archiveofvirtue]

I absolutely adore the fic you just put out with Rafe! Hit me deep as someone that has been cheated on. You have a talent! <3 Rafe request idea! It just hit me, but I bought a sweater today from the Mens section at a store (better quality). Maybe you could do Reader and Rafe dating. He is falling hard and is super infatuated with her, one day she forgets that certain sweater at his place (which clearly on the label is for men from a mens store) and he is absolutely heartbroken thinking that she is cheating on him. Maybe he snaps, but more so in a super heartbroken, teary eyed and soul crushing way, lots of angst since you are so good at it!!!!

SWEATER WEATHER! ⸻ rafe cameron

notes: tysm for the request!! i loved writing this. may have gone overboard and made it a bit too dramatic but we love us some angst in this household !

content: fem!reader x bf!rafe, angst, rafe with trauma, established relationship, accusations of cheating, comfort

You loved oversized sweaters. Feeling like a cozy hug you could wear. So when you wandered into the mens section one afternoon and spotted the perfect oversized sweater—super soft, way too big, and in a deep gray color—you couldn't resist. It was perfect for cool evenings with Rafe, wrapped up on his couch while you two watched a movie or just talked about anything.

You bought it on impulse, smiling to yourself as you imagined Rafe teasing you about how it was big enough to fit him. You wore it the next time you visited him, but totally forgetting to mention it as you were too caught up with other things.

Rafe was everything you wanted—strong, confident, but sweet in a way you hadn't expected when you first met him. He made you laugh with his rough exterior and soft heart. He made you feel safe, loved.

While Rafe, for his part, was falling deeper and deeper in love with you every day. He'd catch glimpses of you in moments you didn't even realize he was watching—laughing softly to yourself at a text, tucking your hair behind your ear, or wrapping yourself in one of his sweaters. You were everything good in his world, and he'd do anything to keep you close.

So that evening, like so many others, you two stayed up late, talking until you finally kissed him goodnight and headed home, too tired to remember to grab the sweater you'd draped over his chair.

Rafe found it the next morning, and at first, he smiled. It still smelled like you—vanilla and something sweet, something comforting.

Then he saw the label.

Men's store. Size large.

The words hit him like a slap to the face. He knew you loved oversized sweaters, but this... this wasn't just big. It was from a men's section, clearly not something meant for you, at least not at first. His heart started to pound, thoughts spinning out of control. Who had you gotten this from? Who were you spending time with when he wasn't around?

He tried to push the thoughts away, but they clung to him. He could see it in his mind—you smiling at someone else, laughing, falling into someone else's arms, and it tore him apart. The relationship you guys had built, now felt like a lie, like it was all an illusion.

When you came over the next day, something was off. The moment you stepped through the door, you could feel the tension in the air. Rafe was a mess of nerves and heartbreak. He tried to keep it together, but the moment he saw you, something inside him broke. The sweater was still in his hand, crumpled and worn, and without thinking, he tossed it towards you.

"Who is he?" he choked out, his voice raw, filled with anger he could no longer control.

You stared at him, confusion in your eyes. "What? Rafe, what are you talking about?"

"This. It's not yours. It's from a men's store. You left it here... you're seeing someone else, aren't you? Someone gave you this."

For a moment, you couldn't speak. You could only stare at him, confusion turning into realization. He thought you were cheating on him. Your heart sank, seeing how much pain he was in, how deeply he was hurt by something that wasn't even real.

"Rafe," you whispered, reaching out to him, but he pulled back, his face crumbling with heartbreak.

"Don't lie to me, y/n," he said, his voice breaking. "I can't take it if you lie to me."

Tears brimmed in his eyes, and you felt your own chest tighten at the sight of him like this—so vulnerable, so broken by his own fears. You hadn't realized how much you meant to him until now, seeing him overreact like this over a sweater.

"Rafe, it's my sweater," you said gently, voice steady despite the ache in your own heart. "I bought it from the men's section. I liked how big it was, that's all. No one gave it to me. I promise. I would never do that to you."

But Rafe couldn't bring himself to believe you. Not yet. His mind was trapped in the fear of losing you, of being second in your heart to someone else. Like it was with his dad and Sarah. The tears fell then, and he couldn't stop them.

Without hesitation, you stepped closer, wrapping your arms around him despite his resistance. He was stiff at first, but you didn't let go. "I'm not going anywhere," you whispered, voice soft but firm as you rested your head against his chest. "It's just a sweater, Rafe. You're the only one I want."

He stood there, frozen in your embrace, and slowly the truth began to sink in. You weren't lying. The sweater wasn't a sign of betrayal, just a silly, oversized piece of clothing you liked. And he had let his fears nearly destroy what you two had.

Slowly, his body began to relax, his arms came up to wrap around you, and you could feel the weight of his emotions in the way he held you, like he was afraid you might slip away.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice thick with regret, his face buried in your hair. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to—"

You pulled back just enough to look up at him, eyes soft and full of understanding. "It's okay," you said quietly, brushing a tear from his cheek. "We're okay, Rafe."

He nodded, his eyes searching yours for reassurance, for any sign that what you two had wasn't slipping through his fingers.

"We're okay," you repeated, holding him close, letting him feel your warmth, your presence.

And for the first time since he'd found that sweater, Rafe allowed himself to believe you. He needed to trust you, to get over the fear of being abandoned. And deep down he knew that you could be the one to take his pain away.

[moonstruckme]

hello, my love! i cometh to the with a poly!marauders request.

i haven’t fleshed it out in my head, but could you write something revolving around them talking about r while she’s “asleep”? the way it came was in the sh drabble, reader falls asleep on james after the tough convo. i thought of a nice follow-up where the lads talk about ways to support them while they think she’s asleep and she feels so safe and supported and it’s just fluffy and cute.

it doesn’t have to be around sh or anything like that! just something fluffy and cute where they talk about her when they think she’s fallen asleep on one of the lads. it could be about past trauma they want to support her with, a trigger and them discussing how to go about helping, etc. - anything you fancy at all. i could use some soft fluff ❤️

Thanks for requesting lovely <3

poly!maraudes x fem!reader ♡ 796 words

Sirius’ thumb is sweeping a slow back-and-forth over the baby hairs at your temple. You can feel his chest rising and falling beneath your head, hear his heart inside it, smell the heady spice of his cologne, but you’re sleepy enough that those things fuzz together, melt into the gooey softness of dozing. 

James and Remus are tidying in the kitchen. You’ve been distantly aware of their low, continual sounds, but you don’t register the change until Remus’ footsteps near the couch where you and Sirius are lying, the floor creaking beneath his feet. 

“Do either of you—oh.” His voice drops to a hush when Sirius shushes him. “Is she asleep?” 

You have the notion to make some small sound, but your mind is sluggish. When Sirius murmurs, “yeah,” before you can, you decide to let it go. 

Remus makes a soft tsking sound. You feel the couch bend near your feet. “Should we wake her? She might not sleep well tonight if she does now.” 

“I don’t much care when she sleeps.” Sirius’ thumb keeps stroking at your temple, his voice as soft as you’ve ever heard it. You think that you may never get past the oddity of being held by him like this. When you first met Sirius, any tenderness had to be disguised as flirting. In a moment like this he would have woken you with sweet, tickling kisses mushed into your neck, growling about how you were too cute to let sleep before making some joke about how if you want to get me into the bedroom, gorgeous, there are quicker ways. And it was all in good fun, you’d enjoyed it and known the real sentiments that lay beneath all his levity. But over time that showy, over-the-top amorousness has morphed into a more sincere sort of fondness, and you like this version of Sirius even more. “Only that she does sleep,” he finishes. “She hasn’t been getting much of it lately.” 

“No,” Remus hums. “I’ve noticed.” 

There are a few moments of soft, blanketing silence between them. You start to drift off again, but then another pair of footsteps comes. 

Remus must make some silent signal, because James whispers, “She’s sleeping?” 

Two hums. 

“It’s not like her to sleep during the day.” 

“We don’t think she’s been getting much of it during the night, either,” sighs Remus. 

James makes a low cooing sound. The throw piled by your feet finds its way up to your shoulders. 

“James.” Remus’ voice is stern. 

“What?” 

“Don’t touch her face,” says Sirius. 

“Sorry,” James laughs softly. “She just looks so cute.” 

“Well, try to restrain yourself.” 

“Okay, okay.” But a pair of lips touches down ever so softly on your forehead, and you hear Sirius’ amused chuff. “Why do you think it is that she’s not been sleeping?” James asks. 

Remus hums. “M’not sure. I think she may just be a bit overwrought.” 

Your chest aches at the caring in his tone. Sirius’ free arm bands across your shoulders, a protective, solid weight. 

“She’ll be alright,” he murmurs. “She just needs a little extra help at the moment, is all.” 

“Maybe we could bake something tonight,” says James. “She always likes that.” 

Remus’ voice is warm with affection. “That’s sweet, Jamie. Maybe something simple, so she can just relax.” 

“Like decorating cookies?” 

“Do we have the stuff for that?” Sirius wonders. 

James scoffs, and you feel Sirius’ chin bump your head as though a forceful kiss has been pressed upon the top of his. “As if you’d have any idea what’s in our pantry. Cute.” 

A smile tugs at your lips. You shift slightly to hide it, turning your face further into Sirius’ chest. All three boys go quiet. 

Sirius rubs your shoulder gently. “It’s okay, baby,” he murmurs, lips to your hair. “Go back to sleep.” Your boyfriends stay silent as you settle, and for a cautious while after that. 

“She’s so precious,” Remus whispers, almost too softly for anyone to hear. 

James makes a quiet sound of agreement. “I hate when she’s upset.” 

“I don’t think she’s very upset,” Remus muses. “Or if she is, she might not know herself. It’s all just a bit much right now, I think.” 

“She’ll be okay,” Sirius says again. His hand is moving over your shoulder still. You think he might do it for hours if it kept you from waking, he loves you that much. Your heart feels too big for your chest. “We’ll take care of her. Cookies, right?” 

“It’s a start,” Remus agrees. 

“James, I swear to god, if you wake her I will fill your shoes with cow shit.” 

“I won’t,” James swears. “Relax.” He presses his lips to the tip of your nose, and both the other boys sigh.

[evansbby]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧'𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: dark!Steve Rogers x naive!Reader

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: VERY DARK ELEMENTS, noncon, extremely rough smut, daddy kink, captain kink, age gap (Steve is very into the age gap), MAJOR size kink, no seriously Steve is HUGE, misogyny, loss of virginity, mentions of blood (heavy mentions), mean Steve (seriously, he has no soul and is very mean, honestly unhinged), anal play, oral (f receiving), innocence kink, naive reader, 18+ ONLY, NO MINORS. MINORS DNI.

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: Even Captain America deserves a reward after an intense, grueling mission.

𝐀/𝐍: Here we go! 16.3k words. Written very quickly. Not edited so please be forgiving. Also I don't have much knowledge on Shield and all that, so yeah! Final warning to PLEASE read the warnings! Anyways, enjoy!

“The girl’s ready, Captain.”

Steve nods at the SHIELD agent tersely, “She’s in my room?”

“Yes, sir. And all your specifications have been followed.”

“Good. You’re dismissed.”

The agent bows his head before leaving the office, and Steve finds himself pacing. He often paced after gruelling missions, as if trying to get all the leftover adrenaline out. Tonight had been particularly challenging; a local university under threat from HYDRA. Thousands of screaming staff and students, the air painted with gunshots and screams of chaos. But Steve’s team had come to the rescue. Just like they always did.

His team all had different ways of dealing with it, the trauma and evil they saw every day. Clint had his family to go home to, and some middle-of-nowhere farmhouse that Steve would’ve found quaint if he’d given more of a fuck. Tony’s solution was alcohol – copious amounts of it. And maybe that would’ve been Steve’s fate too, stumbling out of a bar at three in the morning having no idea where he was, but of course, he had the serum to thank for avoiding him that. Natasha immersed herself in her friends, Sam partied a lot, Bruce locked himself up in his lab because God knew he was wrestling more demons than anyone else. Except maybe Bucky… But even Bucky had a girl to help him cope.

That left Steve. But Steve had this.

I deserve this. He thinks it to himself as he makes his way out of his office and down the hall toward the elevator. There are SHIELD agents scattered here and there, chattering mindlessly about the successful mission and how, thanks to the Avengers, there were no civilian deaths. But they all hush when they see him, parting like the Red Sea, their heads bowed in respect as he walks past them. The Captain. The hero. Their leader. He’s still in his suit, the shield still on his back and bloodied cuts decorating his face. Nevertheless, he’s the face of the Avengers. Everyone in this building looks up to him.

Everyone on the face of this Earth looks up to him.

And a few minutes later, when he gets off the elevator and to his private floor, walks over to his bedroom door and opens it, he finds a large pair of eyes looking up at him too.

You jump, the fear on your face so evident that Steve can almost smell it. Standing in the corner of his room as if you want to permeate through the wall or maybe disappear altogether. Your arms hug your body in a bid to hide it from whoever you thought was going to enter this room, but you seem to relax once you see that it’s him.

“C-Captain, it’s you! Oh, thank God!” Your shoulders sag in relief, although – much to Steve’s displeasure – you continue to cover your body with your arms, “I-I don’t know what happened, but there’s some bad people here, and they took me while I was being evacuated from the university, a-and they brought me here and they wouldn’t answer my questions and–”

Steve frowns as you drone on and on, talking about a mile a minute – a quality he doesn’t particularly care for in a woman. But his eyes drink you nevertheless. You look young – a college student, no doubt – but he finds he doesn’t mind that. In fact, it makes his cock harden, seeing how wide-eyed and naïve you look, a lot younger than him. A pretty face, and an attractive body too despite the fact that you seemed hell bent on hiding it from him.

“Put your arms down by your side.” He commands you, watching closely as you stop mid-sentence, your voice trailing off. He can tell you’re uncomfortable, confused, and probably tired out from fighting and arguing with his agents. But he knows already what’s going through your mind: that you’ll obey because it’s Captain America, and Captain America was a hero who always meant well. Hesitantly, slowly, your arms fall down to your sides.

Steve had very specific tastes, and his agents knew to follow his instructions to a tee. Which was why you stood before him, your body sheathed in the prettiest, most expensive vintage lingerie. All lacy and intricate, just how Steve liked it – white and silky, hugging your body like a second skin and accentuating your curves, making you look like half angel, half seductress. He’d long ago, in a different lifetime, pored over old pin-up magazines, just like any other boy his age would. He’d likened the white lingerie in the pictures to be what his innocent bride would wear the night he deflowered her. Back in the forties, back when he’d been a different man, a man who actually cared about trivial things like marriage and family. Years of war and fighting had beaten that out of him.

And yet, almost a century later, Steve still has a partiality for white, lacy lingerie.

After every mission (successful or not) SHIELD would bring him a girl in vintage lingerie. Always an unsuspecting girl who had no idea what she was being pulled into. They came in all sorts of varieties; crying, kicking, screaming, paralysed in fear when they realised the reason they were in his bedroom. But Steve deserved it, for every single sacrifice he’d made for his country, for the world – he deserved this one bit of pleasure. Bucky had his girl, Sam had his parties, Tony had his alcohol, Bruce had his lab… And Steve had this.

And it was the least you could do, the least all those girls before you could do, because hadn’t Steve saved you? Saved all of you? This was his payment. You were his reward.

“C-Captain?” He notices how you can’t help but stutter, and he finds it amusing despite the fact that he’s used to having this effect on women – especially immature college girls like you. You gesture down to your body, “Th-This isn’t how I was dressed – they put me in this, those bad guys! N-Now I don’t know where my clothes are, and, and…”

Once more, your voice trails off as Steve walks past you nonchalantly. He heads to the bathroom, making sure to leave the door open so he can keep an eye on you lest you try to escape. Not that you’d get very far – this whole floor was his and every lock required his facial recognition to open. In the past, other girls had tried to escape, and sometimes Steve enjoyed the chase. But tonight, he felt tense. He’d wanted to capture all the HYDRA agents but two of them had escaped. To Steve, that was failure, and failure made him tense. Angry. Frustrated. He needed someone submissive, obedient, quiet…

“C-Captain, I’m gonna be okay, aren’t I?” You ask, voice high-pitched and shaky, and Steve almost smirks. He stands in front of the sink, surveying the scratches on his face. They’d heal overnight, and once more he’d be the perfect face of the Avengers. The face of America. The face of hope, the face of good. If only they knew what went on behind his eyes, the thoughts he thought, the darkness behind the façade.

He washes his hands, observing the blood as it swirls down the drain of the sink.

“Sir… Captain… Is there a way I could call my family? They’ll be worried about me, and those people took my phone so I don’t–”

“Get on the bed.”

“H-Huh?”

“Get on the bed. I won’t repeat myself.”

Steve’s voice is soft, levelled, yet commanding. And he knows you’ll listen. He’s been over this with so many of the other girls brought in for him as a post-mission reward. You still trust him, he can see it in your eyes. You know him as the superhero you see on TV, where he’s all clean-cut and politically correct as he commands the hearts of millions through his motivational speeches and actions. And by the looks of it, you’re so naïve that he knows you haven’t yet figured out what “get on the bed” truly infers to.

And so you do, gingerly settling down on the edge of his king-sized bed, shaking like a little leaf but he can tell that you’re trying to keep a brave face as you look up at him, determined to trust the super-soldier that the whole country trusted. And breaking that trust, breaking that spirit that shone in your innocent eyes, that was the sweet release he needed tonight, or any other night after each mission made him grow more disillusioned. Breaking your trust, breaking your body so all of this was worth it.

Sometimes, Steve wonders when exactly he had changed. He remembers how plucky and optimistic he used to be. A little bit sardonic, a little bit sarcastic, but he really did have a heart of gold – at least that’s what people told him. Even after they’d dug him out from that iceberg, he’d still been that same guy. But that was years ago, and each day he grew more disillusioned with what he preached, what he stood for. He could never settle, never feel like he fully belonged in the world he kept risking his life to save over and over again. Even Bucky, who’d gone through so much, had managed to find fulfilment through finding love.

Steve, on the other hand, doesn’t think love exists.

What does exist is you… Sweet, quivering, innocent little you. The SHIELD agents know his tastes down to a tee, and physically, you’re everything he likes, everything he prefers. It’s nights like these when Steve really feels alive, when he snuffs out the innocence of some unsuspecting girl and reaps his reward for saving countless lives. He deserves this. God knows he deserves this.

“What’re you doing?” You whisper, eyes round as saucers as he reaches out to stroke your hair. He bristles slightly, annoyed by your persistant questions. You should know better – he was your superior after all. But you’d learn by the time the night was over, and so Steve resumes petting you, slipping his hand down to rub your cheek, feel your smooth skin under the rough callouses of his hand.

The same hand that had choked two or three HYDRA bastards to death earlier tonight.

“You will address me as Captain.” He says, dismantling his shield from his back and placing it on the floor against the bed. He follows your gaze, how your mouth drops open in awe despite how scared you are. His cock hardens, knowing you’re impressed by him. By his size, because he’s aware he looks even bigger in person than on the news – enough girls have told him that. And by the shield too, because it reflected his power, his status, everything that he supposedly stood for.

You clear your throat nervously, “S-Sorry, uh, Captain, I just, uh, I was wondering when you’d take me home,” you say the last few words quickly, as if you’re mouth’s dry and you’re rushing to get all your words out. “I n-need to get home, my parents will be worried about me, Captain, and I have homework–”

Steve almost snorts at that. Homework. You were even more innocent than he thought you were, if one of your biggest concerns was whether you’d get your homework done or not. And this naivete amuses him, enamours him, but most importantly, it gets him hard.

“You’ll be taken home tomorrow.” He informs you, his tone clipped and formal, clinical like a doctor informing his patient when they’d be discharged. He liked to keep it like that between him and his “rewards.” Steve didn’t believe in intimacy, and didn’t feel the need to waste kindness on you or any of the previous girls. He faked kindness and heroic optimism all day, it was only at night in the privacy of his quarters that he could shed all that away and allow his darkness to take over.

“T-Tomorrow? Why? Why not tonight? And why am I here, anyways? Everyone else was evacuated together!”

“Enough.” He says sternly, and you shrink back like a chastised child, or an injured puppy. He watches your lower lip as it juts out, and he wonders if you’ve done that on purpose as a way to appease him. He wouldn’t fall for it though, he was wise to women and all their cheap tricks they used to wrap weaker, lesser men around their fingers. Steve would never be one of those men. “You will not speak unless I give you permission.”

Your lower lip quivers, “I don’t understand…”

He sits down next to you, acutely aware of how much bigger he is than you. Leisurely, his eyes drink in your body now that he’s much closer to you. The bra pushes your breasts upwards so they spill out attractively over the creamy white lace of the lingerie, and he watches them rise up and down as you breathe heavily, probably trying to keep yourself from crying. He wishes you would cry – tears have always turned him on. But the night is young, and he knows he’ll see some tears soon, he always does.

“C-Captain, please, please help me! I’m so confused and I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t know how I got into this outfit, I think they drugged me, and I’m scared, and I have homework, and I gotta go now, so pl– OW!”

Steve yanks you forward by your hair, till your face is inches from his, and he can practically smell your fear. Eyes as big as saucers look up at him, shining bright with unshed tears of both fear and pain. He loosens his grip slightly, despite the fact he isn’t holding you too tightly – but the serum gives him inhumane strength, and you’re just a weak little girl after all.

“Once again, I’m telling you not to speak without permission. Do not make me repeat myself one more time.”

You swallow harshly, bowing your head once he lets go of your hair. But your lips are now pressed tightly together, as if you’re hoping he’ll take you home if you shut up and listen. There’s still light in your eyes, you’re beginning to question him inwardly but you still trust him, Steve knows you do. And it’s not long now before he crushes that trust completely.

He sighs at your compliance, stroking your quivering bare arm, thrill shooting straight down to his cock because of how soft and smooth you are. He likes the juxtaposition between the two of you right now: you, so soft and small, so much younger than him, like a doll in your pretty lingerie that he’d picked out. And him, more than double your size, jaded with age that didn’t physically show, bloodied and scratched suit, rough hands, dark thoughts.

“C-Captain, I’m scared,” you whisper, and you really do look like you’re about to wet yourself, and it turns him on so much that he doesn’t even bristle at you speaking out of turn again.

“Good.” He murmurs, continuing to stroke you like you’re his little doll. There’s something about you, something so pure that he can’t really put his finger on. In the past, he’s been detached, unforgiving, often just throwing his “reward” on the bed, holding her head down against the mattress while he fucked the living daylights out of her. He would be detached and cold with you too, but this time he feels a peculiar need to savour you at the same time.

It's when he grabs your hand and places it on his hard crotch that you start crying in earnest, finally realising your fate.

“What’re you– No, please, not that! Please, I don’t know what’s going on, Captain, please–”

You try to snatch your hand back, but he holds it steadily in place. You’d never be a match for his strength, no matter how hard you tried – he had more brute power in his pinkie finger than you did in your whole body. And that turns him on even more.

“You’ll go home tomorrow,” he repeats, not even sure why he’s explaining anything to you, because he usually doesn’t speak to the girls brought for him at all, let alone reassure them. “Tomorrow, you’ll see your family but tonight, your body is mine and I’ll do with it what I please.”

You look like you’ve seen a ghost, but quickly you shake your head, blinking rapidly as if you’ve misheard him. “N-No, Captain, I don’t want to! Y-You can’t make me,” you look at him pleadingly, trying to tug your hand back but he holds it firmly against his covered cock, “You won’t make me, will you, Captain? Th-That’s wrong! An’ you’re a good man so you’d never do that!”

“Take it out.”

A different man would have perhaps consoled you, told you it would all be over soon, or maybe even made up an excuse to manipulate you into sleeping with him. A better man would’ve taken pity on you, given you your clothes back and taken you home. But Steve wasn’t like any of those men. All Steve was right now was impatient, and more than ready for his reward. I deserve it, he thinks once more to himself, before pressing your small hand down on his crotch meaningfully.

“Take my dick out.” He repeats sternly, and when you still don’t comply (probably because you’re frozen in shock and fear) Steve can’t help but quickly undo his fly before pushing your hand down his suit pants, letting out a hiss when he feels your dainty palm and fingers on his rock-hard flesh.

“No, no, no, please no,” you cry softly, rivulets of tears streaking your face, “This is wrong, Captain, please.”

He makes you wrap your hand around his cock, smirking to himself when your fingers don’t even come close to wrapping around all the way. The serum had made him a lot bigger than average, and a lot thicker too. So much so that every time he had sex, no matter how much he stretched the girls out, there would always be blood. He’d grown to become turned on by the sight of it.

“I’ve seen you on TV,” you whisper desperately, and he knows you’re in that state of mind where you’re just so scared that you’ll say anything and everything, “I’ve seen how you are, a-and you’re supposed to be the good guy, Captain. Please, let me go, y-you’re a good man so please–”

“Shut up.” He says simply, making you take his dick out. That quietens you up for a second, and you gape at his huge dick as it slaps up against his abs which are still covered by the suit. He hasn’t had sex or jacked off in about a week now (missions, press conferences, community work and other bullshit had kept him busy) and his dick is almost angry hard, the veins so prominent as he throbs in your hand.

“Stroke it.” He instructs you.

You shake your head, hand limp around his hard cock, “You c-can’t, this is wrong.”

“Drop the coy act,” he orders you, feeling a surge of impatience when he’s tried to be level with you for so long, “I know what you kids watch these days on the internet, and all the vulgar movies on television. Now do what I fucking say, or else.”

You look both taken aback and hurt by his sharper tone, and immediately you’re shaking your head.

“N-No, Sir, please. I don’t watch any of that stuff, I’m not allowed to, okay? A-And this is wrong on so many levels, you’re meant to be a good guy!”

Steve finds his cock hardening even more when he hears how you’re not allowed to watch the vulgarity that’s become so normalised in the media now as compared to back in the day. Were you, perhaps, a girl with morals? Someone who was raised well? He had yet to run in to such a girl in the twenty-first century.

“I’ve seen you on the news,” you try again when he doesn’t speak, “you and the Avengers, you’ve saved c-countless people. You’ve won wars for us. I w-went to see you when you gave a talk at my school last year, the one about good versus evil. You’re an inspiration, Captain, you wouldn’t do this!”

You’re talking a mile a minute, and Steve knows you’re doing it to prolong time till your inevitable fate. He’s tortured enough men to know that goners loved to run their mouths. As for what you’re saying, it has zero effect on him. He didn’t believe in what he said, what he stood for – you could never use that to persuade him to take a higher road.

He starts moving your hand up and down on his dick, hissing again because of how pleasurable your dainty hand feels on his rock-hard length, not to mention how much it turns him on that you’re still trying to pull your hand away, looking anywhere but at his cock, embarrassment mixing with the bone-chilling fear on your face.

“Y-You’re not a good man!” you finally sob out, shaking from head to toe as realisation finally seeps through your head.

Your words bristle Steve for whatever reason. In the past, his “rewards” have often back-talked him, insulted him as if they thought their words would have any impact on him – which they never did. But seeing you, with your bright, optimistic eyes that clearly looked up to him up until this moment, hearing you call him a bad guy… It makes him feel defensive.

“I saved you.” He spits out, “HYDRA attacked your university and I saved you and all your little friends. You’d be dead if it weren’t for me.”

You nod desperately, “I-I know, Captain, that’s why I don’t understand why you’re doing thi–”

“I deserve this.” He says simply, cutting you off. “I risk my life to save unthankful people like you, over and over again. Even a super soldier deserves payment, or at least an incentive to do what I do.”

Your jaw drops open, speechless and horrified. Steve couldn’t care less, and he feels another wave of impatience. Two weeks ago, he’d endured a similarly gruelling mission, and his reward had been waiting for him in his room. She’d been mouthy, of course, as most women of the twenty-first century were, but he’d fucked her and sent her packing within fifteen minutes. So why, on this particular occasion, was he sitting here making idle chit-chat with some dumb-witted college girl who was half his age?

He's always been quick, and you yelp in surprise when he grabs you by the waist, his rough fingers digging into your soft skin. He drags you into his lap, till you’re crying on top of him, your back to his chest. You struggle and flail against him, but it’s to no avail as he presses you down on top of his thigh, spreading your legs and locking them with his own.

“Stop struggling,” he orders you through gritted teeth, although he has to admit that having a weak girl like you fighting against him with all her might while he held you down with just his one arm was quite arousing, “It’ll be easier for you if you just stay still.”

“Please don’t, I-I’m not ready for this, I’ve never done this before, I–”

Steve snorts at that. He knows you’re young, but he also knows that girls in this century are promiscuous, and that’s putting it kindly. How many lies would you tell before you realised they’d all be in vain? He was goddamned Captain America, and he was going to have his way with you tonight no matter what came out of that pretty, pouty mouth of yours.

Grabbing your soft, bare thighs with his hands, he pushes them further apart, all while you cry and quiver in his arms like a wounded animal. Your white, lacy panties hide your pussy from his greedy, impatient gaze, and he wants nothing more than to rip your lingerie apart and ravage you to soothe the ache of his hard cock which is currently pressing against your back.

“Push your panties aside.” He commands, “and don’t even think about arguing with me. One more word of insubordination out of you, and you don’t even want to know what I’ll do.”

You’re sobbing and sobbing as you gingerly do what he says, and he licks his lips when he sees your bare pussy, trussed out for him as he holds your legs apart. He can’t help but press a finger on your bundle of nerves before swiping downwards over your slit. He frowns. You’re not wet. That simply won’t do.

Of course, he’s been in this situation before. Not often, because truthfully, women got wet the second they looked at him, turned on by his size, his power, his authority. But sometimes, like now, when one of his “rewards” was very scared and non-compliant, she wouldn’t be wet. Steve didn’t care, and he’d go in dry if he could except, with the sheer size of his dick, it just wasn’t physically possible. Often, he’d tell the SHIELD agents to prep his rewards before they were sent to his room – stretch their pussies out by whatever means (he didn’t care) so long as they were able to take his girth.

But you… Oh, he reckons he’ll have fun with stretching you out all by himself.

“Touch yourself.” He says into your ear, holding you in place tightly.

“I…I…I don’t know how, I don’t– I don’t do this, I’ve never done this, I–”

There’s something about your frightened demeanour that makes him realise that maybe you’re not lying after all. He raises a brow, “You’ve never touched yourself?”

“N-No, Sir – I mean Captain – I’m not allowed to. My parents are very conservative, Sir, I haven’t even had my first kiss. Please don’t make me do this!”

Steve didn’t think it was possible for his dick to get any harder, but it does. So big and painfully hard, it presses against your back almost indecently as he licks his lips, now infinitely more interested in you. So you were a girl raised right in these godforsaken “modern” times. His mind conjures up different ways in which he could teach you, mould you, ruin you… He doesn’t remember the last time he had a virgin – it was probably back in the forties, back when women were pure and of good heart and good intentions.

Maybe tonight’s reward would be sweeter than any other.

He grabs your hand, pressing it against your petal-soft folds. He takes your pointer finger and slowly, gently, circles it around your clit. You fight against him but it only takes you a few seconds to realise that your efforts are completely futile. Steve does not care for what you want, not in the least. You’re his reward, and he deserves this.

He leaves your finger on your clit, shooting you a deathly look that conveys that you better keep circling it or else. His own eager fingers explore your core, slipping down to probe you, finding that not even one of his fingers fits inside your little fuckhole. In fact, he tries pushing his pinkie finger up inside but to no avail at all. Fuck. You weren’t lying – you were definitely a virgin. Another telltale sign is how it only takes a handful of seconds before your wetness begins to spread, and you whimper softly – probably at all the foreign sensations you’re feeling as Steve continues to probe your hole.

“Feels good, huh?” Steve hears himself say softly, and he doesn’t know why he’s bothering wasting words on you. He never spoke to any of his other rewards – they were only there for his pleasure, and may as well have been inanimate objects to him. Dolls brought in for him to use and then promptly taken away when he was done with them. But you? Fuck, Steve doesn’t know what’s come over him.

“I-It won’t fit, Captain, please stop,” you cry softly when he tries to force his finger into you again. You’re adequately wet now, but your pussy continues to reject his finger, and he knows there’s no way you’ll be able to take his dick if he doesn’t stretch you out with his fingers first.

“I’ll make it fit,” he mutters, throwing you aside on the bed and standing up quickly. He sucks his finger into his mouth, tasting your sweetness and shutting his eyes for a second to savour your taste. And then he shoots you a warning look, “Stay there.”

He smirks when you don’t move an inch – probably paralysed with fear – as he walks over to the dresser next to his bed. Rummaging through his drawers, he sorts past all the sex toys that some agent had probably stocked up inside. Steve didn’t have much use for them, as he considered himself too traditional for toys. But he can’t help but be turned on by the idea of using a large dildo on you, or stuffing your virgin ass with a cute plug. But for right now, he grabs the bottle of lube – it’s half empty because of how often he’s had to use it on his past partners. Since the serum, his dick was way too big to go in naturally, especially when it came to a sweet virgin like you.

Roughly, he pushes you down till your back is pressed against his king-sized mattress. He climbs on top of you, rolling his eyes at the fight left in you, how you flail and fight against him despite his body being more than twice your size. He uses his arm to hold you down, but truthfully, he could’ve done it with just his pinkie finger.

“Stay still,” he commands, pinning your limbs down flat against the bed. You resort to sniffling and crying silently, your wary eyes watching him as he spreads your legs as wide as they’ll go. A sudden feral urge takes over him, and he rips your panties in half, the flimsy material landing gracefully on his sheets. Your bare pussy glistens up at him, now wet with your sweet cream despite how much you continue to cry. He can smell your sexy aroma; the scent of a virgin pussy and it goes straight to his dick.

With an animalistic snarl, he dips his head down between your legs. Using two fingers to spread your creamy petals, he lays his tongue flat against your quivering fuckhole. You scream in shock, body jerking underneath him but he doesn’t care. He grips your thighs, lifting your ass and lower back up off the bed, watching carnally as your wetness drips down to between your ass crack. He spreads your cheeks, smirking when you wail in surprise. He digs his eager tongue between your cheeks, probing your puckered, virgin ass before licking a straight line all the way back up to your pussy, ending with a harsh suck on your clit as he holds your hands at bay.

It’s come out of nowhere, this sudden need to taste you. Back in the forties; Steve had rather enjoyed going down on women. He knew he was skilled at giving head, he’d been told more than enough times. But he can’t remember the last time he’d done it. Never with any of his “rewards,” who were only ever good for fucking on their hands and knees like dogs. But you, you were different.

You wiggle, crying and begging him to let go of you but you may as well be a fly with how weak and inconsequential your pleas are to his ears. Instead, he laps at your baby cunt like he’s starved. Like a starved caveman, he spits down on your clit, wanting to make your pureness as messy as possible. He spreads his saliva all over your core with his fingers, marking you up with his DNA. He encases your now engorged bundle of nerves between his lips once more, giving it another hard suck but this time his teeth graze against it.

“C-Captain, oh-oh my God–Ah!”

It’s when Steve finally forces his one finger inside you that you squirt, drenching his digit as your walls clamp down around it. And God-fucking-dammit, he can’t believe how tight you’re squeezing his one singular finger, how tight and sexy and soft you feel around it. How your slippery walls pulsate around his digit like you’ve never cum before in your life – which would explain how quickly you’ve come undone. Some of your wetness lands on his face, some of it on the sheets beneath you, and that’s when Steve realises he’s given a virgin her first orgasm.

He can’t help but smirk, his finger still lodged inside you, but not even halfway because you’re still so fucking tight.

“Doesn’t seem like you want me to stop after all, sweetheart.” He says, not realising he’s used the pet-name on you until it’s already out of his mouth. He sets the lower half of your body back down on the bed, his finger still inside you.

You sniffle as your whole body shakes with the remnants of your orgasm, “P-Please,” you say faintly, and you can’t even raise your head to look down at him, “Please, can I go home now?”

Steve’s lip curls into a snarl, and he drives his finger inside you with renewed force, curving it upwards even when he feels resistance. You scream bloody murder, and he knows if your orgasm hadn’t sapped all your energy, you’d be flailing your legs again. But for now, he easily holds you down, feeling your soft walls encase his finger which is now up to the hilt inside you. That’s when he grabs the bottle of lube, squirting out a generous amount onto the rest of his fingers.

“N-No, Captain, please, I can’t take another one, I can’t, I can’t!” You plead, fat tears rolling down your cheeks. “Captain – Steve – please listen to me, please, look, I can’t take another finger, pl–”

His palm lands on your clit with a wet smacking sound, and you howl in pain, your pelvis lifting off the bed except he pins you back down with just one hand.

“Don’t fucking use my first name. You will address me as Captain. One more slip up and I won’t do you the favour of stretching you out.” His intense blue eyes meet your tear-filled ones, “And trust me, you want to be stretched out for when I fuck you.”

With gritted teeth and a cock that’s now painfully hard, he gets to work trying to stuff another finger into your pussy. His other hand grabs your hip in a bruising grip, and his fingers stroke your smooth, bouncy ass every so often like he can’t help it. You’re turning him on so fucking much; with your crying, how you’re begging him to stop, how weak and small you are, how fucking tight your pussy is. It makes Steve want to say something just so he can hear you speak in response, despite the fact that he’s never vocal during sex.

“Tell me, why is your pussy so fucking tight?”

“H-Huh?”

“You heard me.”

You sniffle again, shooting him a pleading look that he doesn’t even bother acknowledging. He just looks at you with waiting eyes as he nonchalantly continues to force his second finger inside you. He wants to hear you say naughty things with your innocent little mouth, and talking would get you to fucking relax so he could penetrate you with his digits properly in order to stretch you out in preparation for his dick.

“I-I’ve never done this before…” you scrunch your eyes shut, but a quick slap to your thigh has you opening them again.

“You’ve never fingered yourself?”

“No!”

“Tell me why not.”

You bow your head, “I don’t know… I just… I never did, okay? I’ve never done any of it.”

A wicked thought crosses Steve’s mind, “Oh yeah? You’ve never done anything naughty, huh? You’re a good girl?” His second finger curves up to join the first, and your hips jerk forward as you suck in your breath. It makes him smile, and he slowly begins to pump his two fingers in and out of you, “You’ve never, say, humped your baby cunt against your pillow at night? Or your stuffed animals?”

The way you freeze and how your eyes widen is all the confirmation Steve needs. He chuckles darkly.

“So that’s the type of girl you are. Riding your pillow at night when you think no one’s watching, and you probably touch your body all over, too, don’t you?” Lightning quick, his other hand leaves your hip, grabbing your wrist and bringing your hand up to your chest. Through the material of your bra, he makes you cup your breast like how he would, wanting to watch with dark eyes as you play with your tits, trying to imagine how hot you’d look doing just that all alone in the privacy of whatever girlish bedroom you had.

Steadily, he continues to finger you, pumping his digits in and out of your greedy, wet pussy, and it makes slurping sounds as it swallows his fingers in over and over again. And he observes you carefully, notices your wide eyes, the sweat on your brow, the way your lips are parted as your breathing shallows out. He even sees the slight buck of your hips, and he knows he has you where he wants you, hanging on to his every filthy word despite your mind screaming at you to continue resisting.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Steve mutters lowly, “I know that’s what all innocent little girls like you do when they think they’re alone. You play with your tits and you rub your cunt all over your pillow, till you’ve got it all wet and messy. All while you fantasise about a man like me fucking you, taking care of you, huh? I’m right, aren’t I?”

You’re full on panting now, as if his beguiling words have made you forget all about your resistance, and you rock your hips harder against his thick fingers, little pants and moans sneaking past your pouty lips as he watches you closely.

“And then you act like a good girl, and you lie to me and tell me you’ve never touched yourself. But you and I both know that’s not true. Not when you spend your nights alone in your bedroom riding your little pillow while mommy and daddy sleep in the next room, and then when you’re done, I bet you bring it up to your face, just so you can smell your own wetness, right?”

This time, he gives your ass a swift slap when you don’t reply, and you cry out in pain before squeezing your eyes shut.

“Y-Yes,” you breathe softly, so softly that he barely catches it. But it makes him grin wickedly all the same. He hasn’t had this much fun with a reward since God knows when. He never bothers speaking to the lowlife girls brought to him as post-mission rewards, let alone engaging in dirty talk with them as he was with you, hanging on to your every word because it makes his dick so fucking hard.

“Of course, I’m right,” he mutters, “Captain always knows. I know you’re a little slut in the making just like all the other college girls of this century. You bring your pillow up to your face and you smell your cunt on there, and you lick it too, don’t you? You taste yourself because you’re curious, and you don’t have a man like me to show you how it’s done.”

He slips his fingers out of your cunt, your walls automatically squeezing around them as if they want to keep him inside you. But his digits are dripping wet, and he brings them up to your face. He shoves them past your lips, and you protest but all it does is create vibrations around his fingers as he smears them inside your mouth.

“Taste yourself,” he orders you, “suck on daddy’s fingers, don’t be shy.”

It takes him a few seconds to register that he’s just referred to himself as daddy. He hasn’t done that in a while – not since the forties, at least. Back then, it was quite common for women to call their man daddy, and Steve remembers enjoying it when he used to fuck the show girls during tours. But now? He usually stuck to being called “sir” or “captain” or just nothing at all. Because “daddy” was way too intimate, it suggested that he was going to take care of you. And he wasn’t going to take care of you – he was going to ruin you before you’d be taken away tomorrow.

And yet you look so sweet and cute as you suck on his fingers, too scared to fight back any more although your eyes blaze with objection, and tears stream down your face. He doesn’t think you’ll stop crying at all tonight, but he doesn’t give a fuck about that. Not when your pouty lips look so hot sucking yourself off his fingers.

“That’s right, get ‘em nice and wet,” he murmurs lowly, before deciding he misses the feel of your tight cunt squeezing his fingers – and he still has to stretch you out, too. He removes his digits from your mouth, watching as you gasp to breathe. He trails them down your front, down your chest, down your torso, all the way down to your clit. He gives it another smack, loving how you jerk upwards like you’re so damn sensitive.

He grabs a pillow, putting it underneath your ass so he has your cunt propped up and he can examine it better. Your cream is pouring out of you almost, dripping down to the pillow below you while you cry and pretend you don’t like it. But the signs are all there, he can even see how your pelvis shakes and humps upwards, because you need a man to fill you up no matter how much you protest.

“Tight little baby cunt,” he says softly as he spreads your pussy lips once more. You look so wet and slippery and yet he knows he needs to pour some more lube into your fuckhole, which he does. And then, without giving you much time to react, he shoves three of his fingers inside you, pushing harder and with more force when he’s met with any barrier.

“STOP, NO, PLEASE! STOP, CAPTAIN – TOO MUCH!” You scream so loudly that the walls seem to vibrate around the two of you.

“Shut up and take it,” Steve says, narrowing his eyes up at you before he focuses back on your gorgeous cunt, watching as your leaking hole finally swallows his three digits, “Look at this greedy little virgin pussy, so ready for my big dick to split her in half.”

You shake your head violently, crying and protesting, but it’s when you bat at his head that he sees red. How fucking dare you hit him? Just now, when he was thinking you’d been raised well, but clearly not if you didn’t think it was a problem to hit your superiors.

“You raise your hand at me again, and I’ll hit you back twice as hard.”

His menacing words make you freeze, and you whimper quietly in absolute fear as he continues to play with your pussy. He fingers you in earnest now, three of his digits stretching you out as he scissors you open, amused by the squelching sounds your cunt makes as it swallows his fingers over and over again.

“Apologise to me,” Steve demands, “say you will not raise your hand at your superior ever again.”

You sniffle, “S-Sorry…”

“Sorry, who?” He pinches your ass unforgivingly.

“Sorry, Captain! I won’t raise my hand at my superiors, okay? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” You squeal the last few words, your pitch going higher and higher as your hips begin to meet his thrusts. And bless your innocent fucking face, you look so confused by what’s happening. Your pussy’s jammed tight but he knows it must’ve started feeling good. All greedy little girls like you needed was a little push in the right direction.

Off their own accord, your thighs lock around his hand as you cum for a second time, your walls squeezing and pulsating against his fingers so fucking tightly as you mewl and cry above him. You’re absolutely gushing with wetness now, and the pillow below your ass is stained dark with your juices. For someone who kept claiming she didn’t want this, you sure were receptive to his touch.

Steve snatches his fingers out of you, smirking when you, despite everything, cry in protest at the loss of friction. He bets your pussy feels all gaping and empty now, because he knows how big and thick his fingers are. A normal-sized man would’ve had trouble stretching your virgin cunt out with his dick – Steve had had that same problem with just his fingers.

But he knows he’ll somehow manage to fit his cock inside you if he prepped you well enough. Or else he’d spend the whole night trying to. Often, with the women he’d slept with in the past, he’d be too impatient and couldn’t be bothered to prep them properly. Because of that, he’d only be able to fit half his dick inside them, and he’d grown used to fucking them like that, only because it was physically impossible to go any deeper. He won’t let that be the case tonight.

He climbs up your quivering body, and you look spent already after two orgasms, your eyes fluttering like you’re about to pass out. Steve can’t have that though, and he taps your cheek not so gently, hovering on top of you till you open your eyes and meet his gaze.

“Please, Captain,” you whisper faintly, “E-Enough, please. Can’t take any more.”

Steve ignores you. He’s grown distracted by your lips. How wet and warm and pouty they look, glistening with a mix of your salty tears, your cum and your saliva. Fuck. He never kissed any of his “rewards” before, it was too intimate and Steve didn’t do intimacy. But maybe…

He spits down on your face, his saliva landing on your cheek as you cringe. Fuck intimacy, Steve thinks, using his hand to smear his spit all over your face, till it’s shining with a mixture of both your bodily fluids. So messy yet so pretty…

“N-Never been kissed before!” you blurt out once more all of a sudden, as if you’ve read his mind. Your eyes plead up at him, a tiny bit of hope in your eyes as if you truly believe he’ll show you empathy and spare you, “P-Please, Sir. I’ve never been kissed, a-and I want it to be special…”

How cute. You were worried about him spoiling your first kiss as if he hadn’t just finger-fucked you to two orgasms in the span five minutes. Amused, he brings his thumb up to your mouth, stroking your pouty bottom lip gently.

“You don’t let the boys at your college kiss you?” He asks, again not fully understanding why he’s even bothering to talk to you, but he figures it’s simply because he finds it amusing.

“N-No, Captain.”

“Why not?”

“I’m t-too shy, and they’re not… they’re not interested in me,” you sound so shaky, peering up at him as if you expect him to just get off you now you’ve told him your sob story about wanting to save your first kiss to be something special.

Steve snorts. And just how fucking naïve could you be? You’re fucking delectable, he bets the lowlifes at your college creamed their pants thinking about you. Suddenly, he bristles at the thought of sending you back tomorrow, back to the dumb idiots you went to college with. But he shakes the thought out of his mind to focus solely on you.

“There’s nothing special about kissing,” he tells you, “Love, intimacy, saving yourself for that special someone – none of that’s real. The sooner you realise that, the better.”

He kisses you, cupping your cheeks with his hands so that you don’t move your face aside. At first, he’s rough, unforgiving, pressing his tongue into your mouth because you taste so sweet and he needs to get more. And then he slows down, registers your soft, quivering lips on his, how rigid they are as you don’t kiss him back. He snorts inwardly, not caring in the least. He’d kiss you all he wanted – he doesn’t care if you don’t respond.

Steve sighs into your mouth, so tuned in to your senses that he feels your breath hitch, and a tiny squeak sounds past your lips and straight into his. His thumbs, seemingly moving off their own accord, stroke your cheekbones, and he feels your body instinctively relax underneath his – probably because that’s the first and only gentle gesture you’ve felt from him this whole night.

Slowly, he sucks your bottom lip almost sweetly, as if lulling you into a false sense of security. You’re still too scared or shy to kiss him back, but that doesn’t make the kiss any less enjoyable for him. His tongue plays with yours coaxingly, because he can’t remember the last time he kissed a girl and liked it so much. And then he feels you give a tiny little kitten lick, as if you’re testing the waters as you move your tongue shyly against his. And the feeling goes straight to his dick.

He pulls away slightly to watch your face, amused when he sees your eyes scrunched shut and your lips slightly pursed, as if awaiting another kiss. And that’s what he does, giving you one, two, three quick pecks that have you inhaling deeply, and your eyes open cautiously. But they flutter shut almost immediately when they find him staring back at you.

Steve goes in for another kiss, as if one wasn’t enough because suddenly it’s like he’s parched, and his raging hard on would have to wait a second longer. His dick is as hard as a metal rod, resting against your bare stomach as he makes out with you. One of his hands reach down to cup your breast, and he can feel your nipple, hard as glass, poke against his palm even through the material of the bra. You squeak into his mouth again, as if him touching and playing with your breast is making your body invertedly respond to him.

He can definitely feel you kissing him back now, even though it’s shy and periodic… Your tongue moving slowly against his for a few seconds before you remember you’re not supposed to be enjoying this and you freeze. And then you start again, your tongue timidly stroking against his once more. Then you stop again. Repeat. It makes him smirk against your lips, feeling a rumbling in his chest like he wants to chuckle in amusement.

He pulls away, examining how breathless and cute you look. And you gaze up at him with glassy, wet eyes, those perfect, pouty lips still slightly puckered, as if you’re asking for more. But he continues to just drink in every detail of your face and how you look a mix of scared and curious, afraid and confused.

“W-Was I bad?” you breathe, and your innocent face is begging for reassurance. He knows because little girls like you always want reassurance, are always seeking out the approval of men like him. And a part of him wants to tell you no, no you weren’t bad at all. In fact, he rather enjoyed kissing you. But he keeps his mouth shut, because it wasn’t his job to reassure you. And maybe he wants you to be a bit insecure; you’d work harder in pleasing him if you thought he didn’t like your kiss.

He’s still cupping your breast with one hand, and he suddenly feels a wave of irritation at the lacy material of your bra. Quick as a wink, he tears your bra apart, the two ripped pieces now lying on either side of you. A hungry growl emanates from him, and he feels like an animal, he really just wants to suck on your tits but his dick is growing impatient, and you’d probably pass out from fear and dread if he stretched this out any longer.

He reaches to grab a condom from where he stashes them in his bedside drawer. Protection was a must for him – who knew what kinds of diseases all these modern, promiscuous girls were carrying? And yet, his hand falters before he draws back completely, his mind clouding with thoughts of how sexy your soft pussy would feel around his dick if he fucked you raw. Yes. He had to fuck you raw, feel your tight virgin pussy around him as he ruined it. He deserved as much.

Instead, Steve grabs the lube once more, acutely aware of you watching him with eyes round as saucers as he squirts a generous amount of it on his dick. He looks back at you, lying deathly still underneath him, looking like you’ve seen a ghost. He wonders if your pussy’s still tingling from the two orgasms he’s just given you, and he absentmindedly pumps his dick at the thought. He doesn’t think he’s ever been this turned on before in his life, his dick so hard he feels he’ll blow his load right there and then.

He lines his cock up against your entrance, his hands holding your silky soft thighs apart. A part of him wishes you’d fight back just one more time, just so he could exert his dominance over you once more, just so it would highlight how weak and small you are. But you lay there, quivering in fear, definitely too scared to fight back, or too distracted by his dick he glides it up and down your wet slit in anticipation.

Suddenly, you grab his arm as if to stop him, and Steve narrows his eyes.

“W-Will it hurt?” You ask softly.

“Yes.”

You whimper, your grip on his arm tightening as another tear trickles down your cheek, and you look up at him with desperate eyes.

“Please, Captain, p-please could you… could you make it hurt less? Please?” You beg him so prettily, and he can’t help but focus on how your tears get caught in your lashes, and how you sniffle like a baby. “Please, I’m sc-scared, I– maybe if you were slow–?”

“It’s going to hurt no matter what,” Steve says briskly, feeling impatient beyond belief, and yet a part of him wants to brush and collect your tears. “In fact, if I go in slowly, it’ll hurt more.” He wonders if he should say more, say anything at all to ease your discomfort. But he reasons that that’s not his job – he’s not a lovesick boyfriend who needs to worry about your feelings. This is for him. He deserves this.

You start crying softly once more, your whole body shaking. Steve tries to ignore it, focusing on your cunt instead. His dick is twitching with excitement, the tip an angry red as he brings it up against your fuckhole. He grits his teeth and pushes in, but he can’t. You’re too tight – and he’s way too big. He sighs in frustration.

“Stop being so tense.” He orders you, pouring another decent amount of lube all over his cock as well as your entrance. He’d scissored you open with three of his fingers, but it had been an extremely tight fit. And three of his fingers didn’t compare to the girth and thickness of his dick – not even the tip of it. He frowns down at you, “You need to relax. It’ll hurt less if you relax.”

A panicked look flits over your face as you look down at his dick, and he knows you’re intimidated by his size. But then you take a deep breath, close your eyes and he feels your body get less tense underneath him. He smirks.

He grabs his cock by the base and lines it up against your hole once more. You flinch away from him, your innocent, puppy dog eyes blinking up at him. He doesn’t give a fuck though, and with a lot more determination this time, he grits his teeth and forces his way inside you.

Your scream is earth-shattering. But it’s music to his ears.          

“NO, PLEASE, NO, TAKE IT OUT! TAKE IT OUT! TOO BIG!”

You thrash violently underneath him, limbs flailing before he pins them down. But for a handful of seconds, he can’t even really focus on you. Not when he’s finally basking in the glory of being inside your tight little snatch, and it feels almost euphoric. You feel so sexy around him, so hot and velvety, squeezing the life out of his fat cock. Well, he’s only got a bit more than his tip inside you, but it already feels fucking heavenly.

“Oh fuck,” Steve mutters under his breath, trying to get a grip and not get too lost in the feeling of your gorgeous fucking pussy. He hasn’t even fucked you yet, and yet he feels like his balls are about to blow with how fucking hot it feels being inside you like this.

“It hurts! T-Take it out, Captain! Please!” Your tiny hand grabs his forearm again, lips puckered so sweetly, even the grimace on your face looks beautiful. You’re beautiful when you’re in pain, and he’s addicted to the sight of it. For a split second, he imagines it’s his wedding night, and you’re his beautiful bride – sweet, innocent, beautiful bride and he’s just popped your cherry and now you’re his forever.

The thought makes him shudder, and he quickly pulls out (not that there’s much to pull out, since only his tip had entered you. You were crying and screaming just from being penetrated by only his tip, and this makes Steve smug, despite everything).

You’ve barely caught your breath when he drives his dick back inside you, and this time he really forces it in. Now that he’s got a taste of your warmth, he wants to be completely enveloped in it. His hands grab your hips tightly, forcing his fat cock inside you inch by inch. He doesn’t care if it takes all night, he was going to fully penetrate you if it was the last thing he did.

“Shhh, shut up and take it,” he orders you as you scream and protest. If any other one of his girls had screamed bloody murder the way you were doing right now, he would’ve smacked them unconscious. Not you though, and he doesn’t know why that is. “God fucking dammit, how is your pussy so fucking tight?”

“Y-You’re too big,” you answer, shaking your head over and over again, “th-this… this isn’t normal, Captain, y-you won’t fit! Please stop, something’s gonna break, I-I’m scared, I–”

He wants to break your pussy. He wants to break you.

“Shut up,” he snarls, before a thought occurs to him. Out of nowhere, he kisses you once more. Silencing your protests as his tongue works against yours, and he finds that he was already missing kissing you. God, you felt so good. Your warm, sexy lips against his and your warm, sexy pussy gripping his dick. God, fuck… So this is what great sex was, huh? Maybe he’d been fucking the wrong girls this whole time. Maybe he should’ve sought you out from the beginning – or someone like you. Someone young, innocent, unexperienced, delicate, fragile, a cry-baby. Just the complete opposite of him.

Despite everything, you kiss him back once more. Steve bets it’s because your girlish mind is trying to convince him (and yourself) that you’re a good kisser. He makes a mental note never to give you this reassurance – that way you’d just keep kissing him as if you had something to prove. Or at least that was the hope. Nevertheless, the kissing distracts you enough for him to still inside you (he’d only gotten less than a quarter of his huge dick in) and then he pulls out.

The third time he penetrates you, he does it with more force than ever before. And he bites your lip hard, grunting against you till he can taste your blood. That’s when he finally pushes more than halfway inside you, and he hears something rip from within. And you scream, you scream so fucking loudly and straight into his mouth, but he continues to kiss you, basking in the feeling of being inside you properly now. His dick feels so constricted inside your tight walls, but it’s the best feeling he’s ever felt.

He breaks the kiss to look down into your eyes, and savour your reaction to being impaled by him, to being filled up by only half his length. But your head lolls to the side, your eyes rolling to the back of your head.

You’ve passed out.

“What a fucking baby,” Steve hisses, shallowly thrusting in and out of you. “Can’t even take daddy’s dick inside this tight little snatch of yours without passing out, can you?” Truthfully, he doesn’t even want to pull out, he’s so obsessed with how good your pulsating pussy feels around his dick. But he knows he needs to draw back so he can thrust back in even deeper. He’s only got half his dick inside you now, but he’s determined to get in balls deep before the night is over.

“Wake the fuck up!” he commands, wanting you alert as he defiles you. He slaps your cheek lightly several times, to no avail. He sighs, reaching for the glass of water on his side table. He dips his fingers into the liquid before sprinkling the water over your face. He slaps your cheek again, harder this time, and it turns him on when he hits you, taps into his darkest, most masochistic desires that he keeps under wraps from even himself.

It's only when he pulls out and slams back into you that you suddenly rouse, and it takes you a nanosecond to start screaming again, panicking and flailing underneath him once more. But he’s not having it this time, and quickly plasters his palm over your mouth to silence you.

“Tell me... how does daddy’s dick feel?” He asks you darkly, and he can sense the sadistic smile on his face fuelled by the sheer power he has over you right now. “And I’ll backhand the fuck out of you if you start screaming again, so don’t even try it.”

He removes his hand from your mouth and focuses on pushing more into you, and you pant underneath him, silently sobbing and cringing in pain. And yet you swallow and look up at him bravely.

“I-It hurts!”

“Address me properly.”

“C-Captain, it hurts!”

He narrows his eyes, “No. I asked you how does daddy’s dick feel?”

Your jaw drops open, and it looks like you’ve momentarily forgotten that he’s currently trying to impale you with his huge dick. Your face has the audacity to look mortified, and he wonders how innocent you truly are.

“I can’t… I can’t call you… That’s wrong!” you sputter, looking almost – dare Steve think it – cute. With your wide eyes and indignant gaze and delicious pouty lips in the shape of an o. You seem to blurt out your next words without even thinking: “Y-You’re not my dad!”

Steve barks out a laugh before he can stop himself, but he straightens his face almost immediately, reaching up to grip your chin harshly between his thumb and forefinger. Faced with your horror-struck reaction to calling him daddy, he now wants you to address him as that and nothing else.

“Listen, sweetheart. You may have noticed by now that you don’t get much of a say in what happens to you tonight,” he licks up your jawline before his lips brush against your mouth, and he speaks in a whisper, “Now answer my question. And address me properly. Or else.”

You look mortified, scrunching your eyes shut as you breath rapidly in and out. “It… It hurts…daddy.”

Steve feels like he’ll bust a nut right there and then. He doesn’t think he’s ever been more turned on. You’re so small and shy, so tiny and naïve and scared like a baby, and now you’re calling him daddy in that sexy, shaky voice of yours. Goddamn, what a sexy little slut you were. And he’d take care of you tonight, just like any daddy would. Oh… damn right he’d be your daddy tonight. God fucking dammit, you were such a little slut for calling him that!

With a renewed, carnal type of lust, Steve grabs your legs and hoists them over his shoulders. You yelp as he folds you in half like a goddamned pretzel. And the juxtaposition, the visual of your naked body underneath him still in his bloodied suit from the mission – God, it turns him on so much. He presses another kiss to your lips, guiding you into making out with him, wanting you to get obsessed with the idea of kissing him. And then he pulls away, and looks you right in the eye.

“Now you can scream.”

“Huh?”

He slams into you so fucking hard, he’s sure you see stars. And if you were screaming loudly before, it’s nothing compared to now. His entire floor is sound-proofed, but he’s sure the people above and below can hear you. He’s pushed himself far deeper into you, so deep that he senses something rip inside you again. And you’re crying, your little fists pounding against his chest, and yet Steve grits his teeth and mutters, “take it, just fucking take it,” pushing into you bit by bit, inch by inch, so determined to finally get his cock all the way inside you. Pulling out a bit, then pushing in some more while your tight walls try to push him out but he’s so much fucking stronger than you.

A deep rumble emanates past his lips when he finally – fucking finally – bottoms out inside you, and he leans down to press his forehead over yours so he can savour the moment. You were his, completely, irrevocably, undeniably his. You whimper and cry underneath him but it’s music to his ears, your sweet reaction to him popping your cherry, completely snatching away your virginity and possessing it as his forever. He looks down to where you two meet, sees your pussy stretched out completely around his girthy dick, and it makes him want to spontaneously combust.

“You’re mine.” Steve breathes against your lips, and for the second time tonight, the image of you as his little bride flits through his mind. Yes, you’d make a very fitting bride for him. Small and submissive and innocent. And he’d never taken marriage seriously before now but… well, how could he give you up? When he’d taken your virginity and made you his? How could he possibly send you back to wherever you’d come from? The mere thought fills him with vitriolic rage. No. You were to stay with Steve, and you’d be his bride. His wife. His. “Say it. Say you’re mine.”

You don’t argue this time, or even hesitate. He knows he’s broken you when you look up at him, dazed expression on your face. “I’m – I’m yours, daddy.”

Fuck. And you’d gone and called him daddy again without him even having to prompt you. Yes. That more than sealed your fate. You would be his now. His girl. His wife. He’d keep you locked up in his room forever, the same reward that he’d look forward to coming home to after every mission.

“How does it feel to have your baby pussy split open on my cock, sweetheart?” He presses kisses down the nape of your neck, excitement rippling through him at his impulsive decision to make you his wife. The thrill of finding a bride as cute as you makes him want to kiss you even more, and he nips at your neck before reaching your lips, pecking them once, twice, three times. All while you look up at him with glassy, wet eyes and a pitiful expression mixed with something else.

“Please,” you breathe quietly against his lips, and with sapped energy you manage to grab a fistful of his suit, pulling it to get his attention, “Please, make it hurt less. Please.”

Steve smirks, pulling out of you and preparing to slam back in. But he grows distracted by the sight of his cock, completely coated scarlet with your blood. Your virgin blood. The pillow under your ass is stained with drops of dark crimson too, and he’s never seen anything like it. Fuck. He’d really done a number on you, hadn’t he? And he hadn’t even begun fucking you yet.

I deserve this, he thinks to himself.

He slams into you again, the gasp dying in your mouth when he grabs you by the chin and forces you to look down at where you two meet. Your eyes grow wider, your mouth dropping open as you shake your head in disbelief at the sight of your pussy so stretched out to accommodate his girth.

“What’re those conservative parents of yours gonna think when they find out their good little girl just got her pussy ripped apart by a man twice her age?”

You swallow and shake your head, “I–I…”

“Answer me!”

“They’d be d-d-disappointed!” You cry out, ripping your gaze away from the sight of his dick penetrating your formerly virgin pussy, instead looking up at him instead, your mouth looking so deliciously pouty.

Steve smiles wickedly, “It’s a good thing you’re not their little girl anymore, huh? You’re mine now, so their opinion doesn’t matter.”

“Th-They like you! They’re fans of you… They wouldn’t like this at all! OH MY GOD!” You gasp, and he has to hold you down to keep you from sliding upwards from the power of his thrusts. You cry out once more, “W-Was supposed to – ah! – wait till I was married…”

The mention of marriage has Steve imagining you as his little bride once more. He already owned your body, mind and soul – but the marriage certificate would make sure he owned you under the eyes of the law too. His kept woman you’d be, fluttering around his apartment like a bird in a gilded cage. Or maybe he’d move you into one of the suburban properties he owned, where he could come home to you and relieve all his tension and worries. Yes. It would be perfect. He’d make all the arrangements tomorrow…

For now, he focuses back on fucking you silly. Pulling out all the way, he rams his dick straight back into your cunt, and you let out a sound that’s a mix between a squeak and a moan. He looks down at you curiously.

“You like that? You like daddy’s big dick?” He grabs your hands, squeezing them tightly.

“T-Too big!” Your eyes flutter shut as if you’re about to pass out again. “C-Captain, please slow down! H-Hurts so bad!”

Steve bristles. Hadn’t he explicitly told you to call him daddy? After all, he’d be your daddy now. You wouldn’t be your father’s property after tonight. No, you were Steve’s. He was your daddy, and he’d take care of you because you’d soon become his bride. But he wouldn’t have an insolent, insubordinate wife who couldn’t take instructions well. That wouldn’t do at all.

He grunts, letting go of your hands and wrapping his fingers around your throat instead. You squeal in protest but it lands on deaf ears. His other hand presses down over your mouth once more.

“Shut up!” He snaps, “Stop squealing like a little bitch. It hurts but you’re just going to have to take it. And you better start calling me daddy, or else I’ll drag you back downstairs and fuck you in front of everyone.” He only means it as a threat, but he knows by the way your breath hitches that you’re innocent enough to believe him.

He removes his hand from your lips and taps you roughly on your cheek, “Tell me you understand.”

You nod, receiving a harder tap on your cheek and a menacing look.

“I-I understand, daddy, I – oh – oh my!”

He thrusts into you with such force, he knows you’re seeing stars. And it’s subtle, but Steve catches it. He catches the shift in your expression, this unfamiliar spark in your eye as if you don’t know what’s happening with your body. But Steve knows. Your body is finally starting to respond to his cruel ministrations – just like he knew you would. You were an innocent little baby but you were also a horny little slut who was enjoying getting fucked by a man like him.

“It’s starting to feel good, huh?” Steve whispers against your lips, imagining the different ways he’d take you for the rest of the night. Of course, you’d probably pass out again once he was done with this first round. But after that? Maybe he’d put you on top of him, bounce you up and down on his cock and get in even deeper that way. Or he’d make you suck his cock, or maybe he’d manhandle you till you were on his face, rubbing that sweet, gorgeous little baby cunt on his –

“I-I don’t understand!” You cry, and he feels you wiggle your hips subtly as if you’re trying to do it without him noticing, “Feels…feels…oh, oh god!” With abandon, your head lolls back and you rut your hips up against his dick, meeting his thrusts. Steve chuckles, a satisfied feeling spreading across his chest.

“All that crying and screaming, just for you to enjoy getting fucked by me,” Steve murmurs, brushing your hair off your face so he can gauge your expression better. You look so pitiful, biting your lip and looking up at him with wet eyes, humping up against his dick and your eyes reflecting the confusion you felt. “But don’t worry, all little girls like you love getting fucked by their daddy. It’s only natural, sweetheart.”

“D-Daddy, please,” you pant, and now your hands come up to grip a fistful of his suit, and he knows that you don’t even understand the pleasure you’re slowly starting to feel. And you’re gripping his cock so tight as he rams in and out of you, building up a steady pace now. He knows he’s found your g-spot and he’s pounding against it, but you have no fucking clue and it’s the hottest fucking thing ever.

“Look at you, humping your baby pussy up against daddy’s dick,” Steve shakes his head as if he’s reprimanding you. He spits down on your face, wanting you even messier. His hand leaves your throat as he shoves two of his fingers past your lips, spreading them open and spitting again. His saliva lands on your tongue, “Swallow it, you nasty fucking slut. I knew I’d make you my little slut before the night was through. I said fucking swallow it. That’s right. Good girl.”

“Ah, ah, ah– tingles… I – daddy! P-Please, I don’t know what’s – AH!”

 Your breathless moans and nonsensical garbles are like music to his ears, but nothing compares to the way you clamp down on his cock when you suddenly squirt around it. The way you squeak and clutch him tightly, and he fucks you through your orgasm. Your very first orgasm while getting fucked, and it’s so fucking sexy the way your tight walls flutter around him. God, he could get used to this feeling – buried deep inside your wet, tight snatch every single night from here on out.

“Did daddy make you feel good?” He breathes, hips moving like a jackhammer, his balls slapping against your pussy as he continues to fuck you.

You nod timidly, wiped out from your orgasm to say anything else. He smirks, watching your breasts bounce up and down as he fucks the living daylights out of you and you just lie there beneath him and take it. As if a part of you had understood that this was to be your job from here on out – his little fuckdoll, his little prize after God knows how many listless years of saving the world, saving people who he didn’t give a flying fuck about.

He’d won countless medals of honour, rewarding him for his bravery in serving his country, in saving his people. But you were his true prize, with your tight cunt that was his and his only. And how jealous every other man would be! He knew they already envied his physique, his fame, his authority. Now all those assholes would have another reason to envy him – because his little bride was the most innocent, most vulnerable, most beautiful girl they’d ever lay their eyes on. And it would be his bed in which you’d be, night after night, waiting with spread legs for him to fuck you.

Of course, he’d fuck other women if he so wanted to. Steve didn’t believe in love or monogamy. He believed in ownership, though. And he owned you, every part of you from your cunt to your soul. You wouldn’t even look at another man ever again, or else Steve would have you killed. And the thought of you with another man is what incenses him even more.

With a low growl, he pulls out of you. Your eyes shoot open, your mouth pausing mid-moan to look up at him desperately. Your cunt shamelessly humps the air, and he can’t believe what a little harlot you’ve turned into after your first taste of sex. He looks down at his blood-covered dick, grabbing it by the base. He lays his fat cock on your stomach, painting your smooth skin scarlet with your own virginal blood. The sight turns him on even more, and with another growl, he puts your legs down and flips you over on your stomach.

He grabs your ankle, dragging you to the foot of the bed while you squeak in protest and confusion. He gets off the bed, standing up to his full height as you cower beneath him, looking back at him over your shoulder warily, a trail of blood on the sheets from where he’d dragged you.

“Hands and knees,” he orders, “and don’t fucking make me repeat myself.”

This time, you do obey pretty quickly. Mustering up whatever energy you have left, you shakily get on your hands and knees. He grabs your hips just in time, keeping you upright before your body has a chance to collapse. Your legs are shaking and he knows your body can’t take much more. He doesn’t care, because he owns your body and you’ll take what he gives you.

“Nice ass,” he smirks, squeezing and kneading your ass cheeks liberally before giving your ass a hard smack that has your knees buckling. He hoists you back up by your hips, “Thank me for the compliment, sweetheart.”

“Th-Thank you, daddy.” You answer almost at once, and Steve grins wolfishly. He’s broken you. He bets you’d do just about anything to please him now. He bets you’ve forgotten about your life back home, and all your tiny mind can think about now is your daddy and his big cock.

With a grunt, Steve pistons his fat cock inside you once more. And god, from this angle, with your gorgeous, perky ass right in his fucking face, he feels like he’s going to blow his load any second. You start moaning again, rocking your hips backwards, garbling “please” and “daddy” and other nonsense. Your ass bounces with each thrust, and Steve can’t help but slap it brutally hard, over and over again, wanting you even more bruised and bloody than you already are right now.

“You like it rough, don’t you?” he asks, slapping and pinching your ass while he watches his dick disappear inside your sexy cunt over and over again, “you tried to act all innocent and cute, telling me you had fucking homework to do tonight, fuck!” He lifts your hips up off the bed to get a better angle, till he’s holding your entire lower body up in the air.  It gives him better leverage, since he’s so tall, and he fucks you on his dick like you were nothing more than a fleshlight.

“I – ah, daddy! – I d-do have h-h-homework – OH MY GOD!”

It just gets Steve even harder, hearing you be so innocent despite being held up and fucked like a dog. You’ve got your elbows propped on the mattress to keep you up, your legs flailing helplessly as he holds your hips in the air, ramming you repeatedly with his fat cock till he knows you’re seeing stars.

“Forget about your fucking homework from now on,” he spits out, grabbing your ass lewdly and jiggling it, fascinated by how it bounces so cutely. “There’s no way I’m letting you go back to that college of yours.”

“Wh-What?”

He doesn’t answer, and the room is filled with sounds of skin slapping against skin, the carnal sound of Steve staking his claim on you. With all his other rewards, he’d be done in about fifteen minutes. You, he’d have you all night if he could. Well, he can – he’s built like a fucking tank with stamina for days. You, on the other hand, keep looking like you’re going to pass out and he’s pretty sure he’s done some type of damage to your pussy. He’d have SHIELD’s physician check you tomorrow.

He throws you back down on the bed, not giving you a chance to even catch your breath before he’s on top of you, flipping you on your back and urgently pressing his lips to yours. Much to his smugness, this time you respond as if it’s muscle memory, kissing him back as best as you can. And for a person who’s just learnt how to kiss, you sure were extremely desperate for it. You keep kissing him even when he enters back into you for the third time, fucking you on your back and this time you wrap your arms and legs around him like a goddamned koala bear, your kisses growing more fervent till Steve pulls away and chuckles against your lips.

“You like kissing me?” He finds himself asking you, holding you in place beneath him as he fucks you hard, but his one hand comes up to grip your chin so you don’t look away, “be honest, baby. You like kissing daddy?”

Your eyes widen in fear at the direct question, and he watches the panic on your face. But then your features contort in pleasure as he repeatedly hits that spot deep inside you, and you nod desperately, surging up to kiss him again but he pushes you back down.

“Use your words.”

“Ah, y-yes, I do, okay!? I like it! P-Please!”

You start doing that thing again, humping pathetically up into him as if to meet his thrusts. And he wonders if you realise how easy he’s truly going on you. He reckons he’s using about five percent of his power right now as he rams into you repeatedly. Any more than that and he’s sure he’d shatter your pelvis or cause permanent damage.

“Kiss me, then.” Steve says, not knowing why he sounds so gentle. He probably had something stuck in his throat, but he doesn’t dwell over it because, like a good little girl, you obey him. Your needy lips, your desperate tongue poking against his in a perfect kiss. He groans into your mouth, his thrusts going sloppy as your cunt squeezes around him because you’re so turned on by him kissing you.

“Am I… A-Am I doing this right, daddy?” You breathe, batting those fucking sexy, innocent eyes up at him.

Steve smirks, “You’re fine.”

You’re more than fine, of course – but he doesn’t need you knowing that. He needs you to be as insecure as possible. It made you even hotter, the look of self-doubt that you have on your face right now. He’s violated your body, he’s still violating your body, and yet all you seem to be focusing on is the fact that he thinks your kissing is “fine.” Not good, not great… but fine.

You kiss him once more, even more desperately this time, as if you’re trying to prove something. Steve relishes how easy it is to play with your mind, how naïve you are. How much he’ll enjoy playing with you when he makes you his wife. He continues pistoning his dick inside you as he lets his mind wander.

All the others would be so fucking jealous of him – even Bucky, who had a girl already but Bucky’s girl was nothing compared to you. He’d drag you around the whole building, the whole headquarters, the whole compound, showing you off like a shiny, new toy. That’s what you were – his very own toy.

He’d take you into meetings with him, make you sit on his lap and play with you in front of everyone. And he’d chop the dick off of anyone who looked at you in a way he didn’t like. He’d make you wear pretty dresses, make you look like a cute little housewife, train you to answer his every command. Fuck yeah, you’d be his reward. He deserved you, after all he had sacrificed for his country, for the world.

“D-Daddy, I’m feelin- tingly again!” you moan, your words shaky from how hard he’s fucking into you. Your legs wrap tighter around his waist and in return he clutches you harder, determined to make you squirt again before he had his own release.

“Oh yeah? What does it feel like?”

“D-Daddy – nngh…ah, I–I–”

He swats your clit harshly, making you howl in what he knows is pleasure. His dick hammers in and out of you unforgivingly, and you’re such a fucking slut, humping up against him, crying for your release. And it’s such a far cry from how much you were resisting him at first, he can’t believe what a little slut he’s reduced you to in such little time.

“Stupid girl, can’t even talk anymore, can you?” he mocks, pinching your clit meanly, bullying it as he rubs it fiercely. Till you’re thrashing underneath him, so desperate to cum that you don’t even care that your body is betraying you. “Tell me you’re a stupid little girl!”

“Oh fuck! I’m a – a – a stupid little girl!”

He can see the remnants of your tears stained to your cheeks, and he feels a carnal level of possession within him. With a growl, he lewdly licks the side of your face, claiming his territory, tasting your salty tears. Roughly, he tugs your hair, pulling your head to the side and biting down on your neck. So hard that he draws blood, and then he licks that up too. God, what a little slut you were – a slut disguised as an angel and you were making him act like a motherfucking animal.

And now the side of your neck sported his bite mark, your porcelain perfect skin marred by his branding of you. And this was just the beginning – Steve already knows that he plans to mark you in many different ways. Tomorrow, he’d get one of the agents to bring over a tattoo artist to tattoo his initials somewhere on your body. Maybe right above your baby cunt, just so you would always remember who you belonged to. He smirks, and wonders what your conservative parents would think of that.

“What would your parents think now, sweetheart?” He asks, grabbing one of your legs and hoisting it over his shoulder for a better angle. And you’re so pliable, so easily going along with whatever he’s doing to you like a perfect little doll. “What would they think of their perfect little girl getting fucked by Captain America like it’s her fucking job?”

You panic, as if the mention of your parents is a reminder of how wrong this all is for you – not that Steve gives a fuck. Biting your lip to keep from moaning at all the sensations you’re feeling, you shake your head. Only for him to slap you not so lightly on the cheek.

“Answer me, baby girl.”

“They’d – ah – they’d hate this, they’d be upset, they’d – OH FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!” You scream out all of a sudden, your pussy walls gripping him like a vice, “O-Oh, I’m feelin– I gotta–”

“Hold it.” Steve hisses warningly.

But you don’t. Of course, you don’t. Babies like you couldn’t hold orgasms for shit. And you cum, crying for him and gripping him tightly, and Steve feels like he’s going to lose it with how sexy it feels. It feels like your cunt is trying to swallow him up, crying for his seed as it pulsates around his fat cock that continues to move in and out.

“Bad girl,” Steve chastises, giving you another not-so-gentle slap on the cheek because you look like you’re about to faint again. He jostles you with the forces of his dick, still ramming in and out of you at lightning speed. “You do things without permission a lot at home?”

You have the audacity to, despite everything, look indignant: “N-No, never, I never–”

“Then what made you think you could cum without your daddy’s permission?”

Your lips purse as if you’re about to cry, and you blink up at him so goddamned innocent. Steve’s honestly surprised he’s still going, surprised he hasn’t busted a fucking nut with how goddamned cute and sexy you are.

“I’m…I’m sorry, I couldn’t – ah! – I had to, I–I–”

“Give me another one,” he orders you darkly.

“Wh-What–”

“You heard me. Cum for daddy again. Since you like doing it so much.”

Frantically, you shake your head, “C-Can’t! Too much, daddy, it’s too much– O-O-HHH GOD!”

He reaches down to strum your clit before a dark thought crosses his mind. His fingers slip lower, gathering the wetness of your pussy along the way. Lower, between the cleft of your ass cheeks. He can’t resist giving one of your perky cheeks a hard smack, before going straight for your puckered hole. He circles it with his thumb and your body stiffens in shock and horror.

“N-No, daddy, no please, that’s wrong, that’s–”

Steve shoves his finger in your tight, virgin asshole. He hadn’t been planning on defiling that third hole tonight, but oh well. And it’s even tighter than your pussy, and you clench against his digit like a fucking whore because he knows you like it. You like your daddy’s finger up there. His fucked up little wife-to-be… God, you were so perfect for him.

 With his fat cock, Steve fucks your pussy and at the same time, his huge finger fucks your tiny ass. Pumping in and out of your tiny hole while you cry and yet once more you slowly begin humping up against him. As if the depravity of it all turned you on even more – which he knew it did.

Your hand tugs at his bicep, making him shift his gaze back up to you.

“It’s happening again, daddy, it’s– d-don’t stop, I–”

Steve licks his lips, “Say you’ll marry me.”

Your eyes widen the most they have all night, “Wh-What?!”

“Say it!” He orders, “Say it or else I’ll fucking stop and leave you hanging. Say you’ll marry me, be my wife and do whatever the fuck I tell you to do.”

“N-No, I–”

He stills his hips, only for you to shake your head and grip his arm harder in desperation, humping up against him hopelessly.

“Say it. Say you’re daddy’s little bride. Fucking say it.”

“I-I’m daddy’s little bride, okay? I’ll do it, daddy, I’ll marry you, I – OH FUCK, PLEASE – I’ll do whatever you say, I, just please, I–” You’ve lost it, completely lost it as new tears swell from your eyes and you beg him as if you have no shame at all. And Steve feels all the pride and smugness in the world as he resumes fucking you, knowing he won’t last any longer after this carnal display of submission from you.

“Cum.” He orders you, “right now, sweetheart, do what I say and cum for daddy.”

You squirt so violently around his cock, that your whole body shakes and shudders, you’re so overwhelmed by pleasure. Toes curled and tears streaking your face, you hold him so tightly that he’s surprised by your strength, and you keep moaning his name, you keep moaning “daddy” over and over again as if he got his agents to reprogramme your brain and it’s all you know how to say now.

“That’s right, baby girl,” he mutters lowly, “squeeze that pretty little princess cunt around daddy’s dick. You’re such a good fucking girl.”

“Th-Thank you, daddy,” your meek response, barely audible by how quietly you say it, is not something he expected, and it goes straight to his dick. Not you, not his little bride, thanking him for deflowering you in the most brutal way possible? Fuck, he’d broken you. You’d be licking the palm of his hand by tomorrow; he just knew it.

The thought makes him shudder, his dick twitches and then he unloads inside you. Spurt after spurt unloaded straight into your pussy, and it’s such a satisfying feeling, pumping you full of his seed. Filling you the fuck up, and he’s glad he didn’t use the fucking condom. And there’s so much of his cum, because of the serum of course, so much that it doesn���t even fit inside you. It pours out of you and you watch with wide eyes before letting out a soft cry.

“I’m not… I’m not protected, I don’t take birth control, I–I…” Your voice trails off, too weak to voice any more protestations as Steve continues to empty himself inside you, your words having no effect on him whatsoever.

“Good. You’d be lucky to carry my child.” Steve informs you, his cock already thickening again at the thought of him knocking you up. He’d never had an interest in having children before now, but fucking a whole family into you seems like the hottest fucking thing he could do right now. Captain America: the family man. It made sense for his image.

Your protests fall on deaf ears, and he remains inside you, till he’s finally emptied out and your poor, raw pussy is overflowing with his cum. But he stays on top of you, propped up on his elbows as he watches you underneath him. Your chest rising and falling as you breathe, and you’re so pretty, and he can’t help but lean down to kiss you again. Once, twice, three times. He frowns when you don’t kiss him back, drawing back to take another look at you.

Your eyes have fluttered shut. Your body couldn’t take it. You’ve passed out once more.

Steve smirks, feeling himself hardening up again inside you. He had absolutely no qualms with fucking you back to consciousness again.

***

It’s gone past midnight when Steve hears a knock on his door. He calls for them to come in, and two SHIELD agents appear in his doorway. The same two who always come to take away his rewards after he’s done with them.

The female agent’s jaw twitches at the sight. Steve on the bed, having changed and washed up with a quick shower. And you’re next to him, passed out on the bloodied sheets. Steve reckons you look beautiful, like you’re sleeping.

“Would you like for us to take her away, Captain?” The male agent asks.

“No. She will stay with me. Contact her family and let them know, make them pack a bag for her and make sure it arrives here by tomorrow.”

The male agent nods, but the female – it’s always the damned females, Steve scorns – she hesitates.

“Captain, she looks like she’s in bad shape. Maybe–”

“That will be all.” Steve interrupts, “you can leave now.”

They do, and Steve turns his attentions back to you – his little girl, as you begin to stir.

“Shhh,” he orders, when you open your mouth to speak. Your eyes look bleary, you look confused, wondering whether all this was a dream or not. Steve’s in no mood to indulge you, and yet he presses his thumb past your lips. And fuck, it goes straight to his dick when you readily accept it, sucking his thumb like a baby as you blink up at him.

His beautiful, broken little bride.

“Go back to sleep.” Steve tells you, “Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day for us. You need all the rest you can get.”

Yes, tomorrow. When he’d parade you around his teammates as Captain America’s little bride. It would be perfect. His forever reward.

Tony had his alcohol, Sam had his parties, Bruce had his research and Bucky had some girl. But Steve? Steve had drawn the best cards out of all of them. Because he had you. Your submission, your devotion. You.

He deserved this.

AKFSLA THE END!! Steve's inner monologue was unhinged af. I know! Please, please let me know what you think!!! It would mean the world, please do reblog and leave feedback!!! I have been writing this for around two weeks and would love to know what you think!!! As usual, thanks so much for reading my work and supporting me!!! I love you guys!! SORRY IF IT SUCKED ASDAGNL.

ALSO please forgive me if i got anything wrong about shield or hydra or any of that. like i literally am not an expert asnglagl okaybye!!!

[shadow4-1]

I'm just imagining Ghost telling you that he'll kill anyone you decide to sleep with that isn't him. And, of course, when Soap finds out he's got a bit of a death wish.

Like, you and Simon are just friends with benefits. He drops by your place whenever he gets a leave and that's it. No strings attached. Just something quick to fill the time. At least, that's the way it'd always been.

"If you fuck anyone else m' a kill 'im."

It's hard to take him seriously when he's got you face down on floor with your ass up in the air. You groan and try to push your hips back against him. He grabs you by the scruff of your neck and cranes your head back. You whine at the discomfort but he doesn't stop. He mutters the threat into your ear again before finally letting you go.

You cum harder than you'd like to admit. But when you finally come back down to Earth, you start to wonder. You try to ask him about it but he says nothing. Whatever this is - it's supposed to be no strings attached. You're allowed to see other people. You're allowed to fuck other people.

But you've never known Simon to be anything other than a man of his word. His threat is more than likely serious. You don't know much about his background other than he's military and that he's sustained heavy trauma over the years. So, you find that you don't really want to try him.

It's easy for awhile. Simon always leaves you satiated. But, as weeks turn into months you start to feel your skin crawl. You would've already called up your other friends with benefits by now. Instead, you'd blocked them all that first week he'd left.

You try to ignore your hunger, but it festers into a deep seated need none of your toys can rid you of. You get a call from Simon one night after a fruitless tryst with your vibrator. He sounds to be in better spirits after you whine about how much you miss him. You don't even realize how you sound until the words are already out of your mouth.

"Johnny's gonna drop by t' check in on you, love." Ghost hums contentedly. "Show 'im a good time."

He hangs up.

What does he mean by that? You'd met Johnny numerous times before. You'd flirted and enjoyed yourself in his presence but...he's Simon's best friend. Show him a good time? Does he want you to screw him? But...he said he'd kill anyone you sleep with?

You try to keep your resolve when Johnny drops by later that evening. He's his usual charming self - touchy and too comfortable. You voice to him your unease, but he brushes it off with more shameless flirting over your homemade dinner. After dinner, he practically throws you up onto the kitchen table. You kick and push at his chest with outstretched arms. Whatever this is can't happen.

"No! Johnny, he'll kill you." You squawk, pushing at his jaw, trying to keep his lips off of you.

"He wouldn't dare!" He laughs as he forces off your panties with impatient hands.

He flips you over on your stomach, forces your shirt and bra off. He humps desperately against you, slipping his cock out of his jeans. He smells of sweat and musk - as if he'd run straight to your flat after receiving Simon's call.

"Johnny, please." You try to reason with him. "I don't want you getting hurt."

"Hurt? Simon'd never hurt me, love." He hums, tweaking one of your nipples with one hand while he eases open your folds with the other.

"He loves me just as much as he loves you! Besides-"

Johnny laps a long stripe from your collarbone, up across your neck and chin, before stopping to press a firm kiss directly to your lips. You shy away at first, but it isn't but a moment longer before you melt into him. It's been so long...and Johnny is willing to take the risk.

"If he did try to kill me it'd sure be one hell of a fight." He smirks, pressing himself deep inside of you. You whine, tears pricking in your eyes as he practically splits you open with how thick he really is.

"I think I could take 'im nowadays. Aye know all his secrets!"

[tender-rosiey]

What would happen if gojo has 2 babies? And they both start crying at the same time and poor gojo has to find a solution in this situation 🥲 his younger baby that is only months old starts crying which makes the older sibling that's 2 years older wake up and starts crying 😭

little voice — gojo satoru x f!reader

you’re on a girls’ vacation. it’s okay. it’s cool.

but it isn’t.

throughout his entire life of fighting curses, emotional trauma, technique training, and unending migraines, he has never felt so much stress like he does right now.

his two kids are truly angels: full of kindness, compassion and—as expected of a child of gojo satoru—full of mischief.

they also share the same amount of love he has for you and, of course, even more. so separate two kids who adore their mother and you get chaos.

satoru just found out that the one who keeps the balance in the house is you, and thinking back about it, it should’ve been obvious because everyone in this house listens to you.

for example, one time when you were out on a simple visit to nanami to take some of the sweet bread he has, you had strictly told satoru to put the two kids to sleep at 8:30 exactly.

he thought it’s too early, but then you explained to him that s/n sleeping gave him time and freedom to look after your baby daughter who was, admittedly, a handful that would not sleep unless she was carried.

so satoru obediently listened, or at least he tried to.

a shameful failed trial at that.

in his defense, what was he supposed to do when s/n gave him puppy eyes asked for a mere 10 minutes more, say no? of course not!

so, like the great father he is, he gave him a couple more minutes, and nothing will make satoru regret his decision since to him his son’s smile is worth the world.

…except maybe the chandelier that is now on the floor and his precious baby daughter who just took one the biggest poops he has known of and his son who is panicking about how to clean this mess before you come home.

and come home you did and to all this mess.

swiftly, you picked up your daughter and changed her diaper, even making her giggle and squeal in between.

then you hugged your son and cleaned up the shattered glass together and disposed of the chandelier. lastly, you stood in front of your husband with a big frown after you’ve put the kids to sleep.

satoru could swear that he couldn’t fall more in love with you. hell, he could even twirl you around and kiss you breathless, but he feels like that would just lead him to the couch.

so he works to butter you up first before trying anything, “hey my sweet cute honeypie—“

you simply quirk an eyebrow.

and he falls to his knees, “I am sorry! I just couldn’t resist his puppy eyes! you should’ve seen them; he looked so cute!”

“I saw them a million times before he was even born, ‘toru.”

your husband gasps, “how!?”

“our son is an exact copy of you, sweetie.”

so yeah that was one of too many times, and if it isn’t apparent that you are the mediator then satoru wants to let the world know that even his students listen to you.

like that one time at school when the first years were caught up fighting with each other, the second years were trying to pull them apart, and satoru was too busy cackling at them while holding d/n that no one noticed panda’s little tail being—god knows why—on fire, not even panda himself.

that was until your precious son tugged at your husband’s shirt and pointed at panda, saying a simple sentence (phrase), “papa, panda fire.”

satoru’s eyes zero on panda then they widen, before he gapes, “oh shit, you’re right!”

“bad word!”

“sorry!”

however, despite satoru almost bolting to put out the fire, panda was finally able to smell it and hummed, “something’s being cooked.” then he looked at his tail, “oh it’s me.”

hit the panic button.

“I am being cooked!” he screams and starts running around, “panda meat doesn’t taste good; I promise!”

the rest start running after him with the intention to help, but panda could only translate it into one thing as he screamed, “don’t eat me!!”

“no one is gonna eat you, dumbass!!” maki yelled but to no avail as no one could get to the panicked panda.

your husband is running as well, half taking photos and videos and half ensuring that d/n does not fall from his hands—considering how she keeps giggling, squealing, and wriggling her entire body.

ijichi took matters into his own hands and called the only person he knows will be able to solve this.

“hello?”

“panda is on fire, the kids are running after him, and gojo is just recording!” he wails, eyes frantically following said people then straying to a particularly small person, “also s/n is trying to eat the grass.”

“what?!”

and like lightning, you’re on the field. you lightly scold s/n and tell him to cover his ears.

you turn to the walking fire hazard and scream, “everyone stop! and panda get over here!”

“yes ma’am!”

he stands still in front of you, almost ignoring his ‘fiery’ tail. you effectively put it out and ruffle his fur until he calms down. the others take turns in greeting you and getting their daily dose of motherly hugs.

your son sprints to you and holds onto your leg, refusing to let go.

and they all make way for the star of the show: the all-mighty gojo satoru.

he beams, “wifey, yet again you save the day!”

he easily picks up s/n and pulls the four of you into one big hug. he rubs his cheek against yours, “have I told you how much I love you?”

“I was gone for 3 minutes.”

“I haven’t?!” he gasps, completely ignoring you, “I am a terrible husband!”

he sobs and starts slowly melting to the ground where he believes a ‘disrespectful, good-for-nothing husband who doesn’t tell his wife just how much he loves her’.

anyway, back to the present. the kids have been miraculously put to sleep—a process that satoru does not have the time nor the energy to describe.

when he stops ‘reminiscing ‘, he starts paling at the fact that all of these were mere examples of things going wrong without you, and you were in the freaking area.

now, you’re not 10 steps away, and satoru is feeling very threatened.

he is sprawled out on the couch, eye bags ever so prominent. he sighs and lets his head fall back, grateful for the silence that fills the house, but he hates it at the same time.

satoru was never fond of silence—the type that feels so heavy on the heart—even when he was a teenager. it gives space and time to think about all the things he is desperate to avoid.

he did eventually come to love silence but only the silence that accompanies the times he spends with you, but that’s a story for another time though.

opening his eyes, he looks around and his gaze lands on your recent family photo. his smile is almost instantaneous.

if there’s anything he will rub in suguru’s face when they meet is that he managed to score himself such a lovely wife and an adoring family, a real family. he mentally writes a plus one on the score chart between him and suguru then relaxes.

he would like to scurry to the bed where your scent still lingers, but his fatigue has simply chained him to the couch—he is overreacting you’re only gone for three days.

so, he decides, it’s time to rest and hope for a dream where he gets to hold you and live with his longing until he can feel your lips against his skin again.

the great gojo satoru closes his eyes and welcomes his slumber.

that is until, his little sweetheart decides to breakout into a wail, effectively causing her dad’s eyes to snap open.

he jumps to his feet and sprints to her room, “d/n, what’s wrong, honey?”

he softly cradles her in his—gigantic—arms and starts rocking her slowly. “it’s okay; papa’s here,” he murmurs in hopes of calming down, but his daughter doesn’t register his voice yet.

she can, however, feel his all too familiar chest against her cheek, so she grips at it tightly and continues crying.

satoru’s expression is full of distress, and his heart contracts painfully at how his daughter’s cries. then it’s almost like the entire world is against him right now because he also starts to hear small little sniffles from the door of the room.

your husband looks back to find his son dragging his teddy bear with him in one hand and in another, trying to wipe his tears as much as possible.

your husband quickly shifts d/n into one arm and leads s/n into him with the other. your son nuzzles into his dad’s chest and murmurs, “I want mama.”

almost like she understands the mention of you, she calms down a tiny bit and her hands start reaching for the air—reaching for you.

satoru slides down to the ground and pulls them both into his chest, and he starts rubbing s/n’s shoulder and kisses the top of his head and sighs, “me too, s/n, but, hey, we are strong and capable, so we have to hold on until she comes home, right?”

a little sniffle escapes s/n as he nods before saying a soft, “yeah.”

satoru smiles and ruffles his hair, “that’s my champ.”

s/n lets out a little smile and snuggles into his dad’s embrace.

so satoru shifts his attention to the sniffling baby in his arm, he frowns, “now what are we going to do with you, little missy?”

your son purses his lips for a moment, before placing the teddy bear in his hands into his little sister’s tiny arms. curiosity takes over for a moment, and she starts exploring the new item.

then s/n presses on the teddy bear’s chest and it plays a little voice message from you:

“hey sweetie! mama loves you, so don’t worry about those nightmares! I am always here.”

your daughter’s eyes shine and she hugs the teddy as much as possible and utters a small, “ma!”

satoru blinks owlishly then looks at s/n with smile, “so you had that all along?”

s/n nods slowly and holds into his father tighter, obviously getting tired and getting ready to sleep. satoru would love to say the same about his other angel but—oh she fell asleep.

looks like all it took was a little listen to your voice.

he will probably make you record a thousand voice messages when you come back and make you get him his own special build-a-bear as well cause what the hell? what about your husband?

he shakes the thought away, realizing that he can finally fall asleep, albeit on the floor.

with no blanket.

no pillow.

not even his favorite cushion.

but he wasn’t raised to be ungrateful, so he will take what he can get. he will simply make up for lost sleep when you’re back. it will feel better that way in any case.

taglist: @magenta-cat-drawingss @pompompurin1028 @scul-pted @requiem626k @nameless-shrimp @sonder-paradise @jessbeinme15s-notebook @todorokichills @ginneko @missrown @shrynkk @simplyxsinned @beautiful-is-boring @starlostlaiba @izukus-gf @irethepotato @thekaylahub @dazaisbloodybandages @aeanya @sweetcloudsimp @moon-catto @the-midnightskies@pianopuppygirl @gojosblackqueen @kryscent @kunikida-simp @whoami-72 @mx-0-child @fiona782 @kisakitwister @imjustasimpxd @psychopotatomeme @dreamcastgirl99 @watyousayin @doobiebochana @laylasbunbunny @hojicha-expresso @4sat0ruu @nineooooo @chuuyasboots @alekssashka7 @rieejjyubi02 @satoryaa @nothisispatrick300 @fallencrescentmoon @etheviese @ho34gojo @the-mom-friend-dot-com @the-weeping-author @stray-npc @libbyistired @anon1412 @anakalana @maehemthemisfit @satorustar @b4nka1 @sad-darksoul @ko-fi-heart @pumpkindudeishere @suyaaachin @babyqueen17 @chaosguy352 @murakami-kotone @sukun4ryomen @yumieis @hearts4itoshi @sleepyxxhead @dunixxd @sleepycrybbylaiah @imjustaduckwholikesbread @emilyyyy-08 @spacebaby1 @arabellatreaty @viscade

copyright © tender-rosiey

do not copy or plagiarize or you will be reported

[immoral-stranger]

𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 // 𝐎𝐏𝟖𝟏

Summary: “Do guys from therapy usually hit on you?” – Or, the one where Oscar has to go to group counselling after a turbulent race incident and meets you, the quiet girl at the back of the hall.

Pairing: Oscar Piastri x fem! reader

Word count: 19k

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI ❀ Angst: they meet in therapy, it's all angst, lying, guilt, implied former drug addiction and fraudulent behaviour. Smut: penetrative sex, oral (f! receiving), Oscar is a boob guy, very soft and vanilla, maybe a size kink? Fluff: they cuddle? and the ending is happy-ish? Other: takes place during a fictional 2025 season, an atheistic conversation about religion, smoking cigarettes.

A/N: This might be the gloomiest thing I’ve ever written, but it also has 5k words of pure smut, so yeah, there's that. I’m weirdly proud of it. Please tell me what you think ♡

Abu Dhabi, 2024. Oscar could still smell the smoke sometimes, in nightmares or if he zoned out for too long. The scent clung to his mind—burning tires, scorched metal, and marshals running around in panic. In his dreams, he could hear the crackle of flames, feel the searing heat against his skin, as they carefully dragged him out and placed him in the medical car. He was sure that it was already in some compilation on youtube about the worst crashes of the season. Hell, maybe even in history. 

Verstappen had already claimed his title, but getting the last win of the season would be a dream for anyone. It was a matter of pride, ending the season on a high note. For Oscar, it ended with a crash instead, just as he was about to overtake for the win on the last stint of the race. 

And of course, it had to be with Charles. 

Everyone loved Charles. And everyone hated Oscar for being the reason their favourite driver lost out on a win. Hate was a strong word and he was used to people having varying opinions about him, but there was something about this that he couldn’t shake off. 

The worst part was the screaming—screaming that he had later been told never even happened. He'd made it up in his head. When he was being pulled from the wreckage, he could have sworn he’d heard Charles crying out in pain. He’d replayed it over and over, only to learn that Charles had gotten out first—before the fire even started to spread. Sore from the impact, but otherwise unharmed.

Oscar didn’t realise in the moment that the crash would affect him. It took months for it to catch up to him. It all cumulated into a breakdown during the pre-season testing for 2025, where he had locked himself in a room to drown out Charles’ screaming, getting the attention of his trainer and people on his team that something was wrong. 

He was supposed to be the calm one. This was the opposite of calm. 

He had Murphy’s Law on loop in his head. Everything that can go wrong will. It had never been like that for him before—analysing every possible mistake. It wasn’t even the mistakes he actually made, but the ones that never happened. It made him paralysed to get in the car every single time, but once he actually started driving, all those thoughts went away. 

It was the imaginative screaming that had led him to where he was today—the parking lot outside of St. Anne’s Church before a group therapy and support meeting. It wasn’t a grand building by any means. The stones of the church were worn, weathered with years of storms battering its exterior. It always seemed to rain in this fucking town. 

His therapist, trainer, and team had decided that this was best for him. Mandated meetings once a week until he could feel calm outside of the car and not just while driving it. This wasn’t about talking to some high-paid therapist; he already had one of those. No, this was about learning to cope with normal people, people who had been through real trauma, people who didn’t live their lives in the fast lane.

“You need support,” they’d said, as if these weekly gatherings at a worn-out church with other equally messed-up strangers would patch up whatever was broken inside him. 

He had talked on the phone with the man leading the group, explaining that it would most likely be best for Oscar to show up to his first meeting, take a seat, and just get a feel for how it worked. 

The meeting was held in a hall on the side of the church, an annex built sometime in the seventies while the church itself was centuries old. He was hit with the smell of old wood and damp air as soon as he entered. The group wasn’t small—maybe twenty people scattered around the room, sitting on mismatched chairs. It didn’t feel like one of those alcoholics anonymous meetings he’d seen in movies, which had been his first preconception. 

He found a spot on one of the middle rows, on the edge to not draw attention to him. The personalities he could see around the room were all different. There were the nervous ones, bouncing in their seats—maybe it was anxiety, maybe it was abstinence. The tired ones seemed to be the majority. He fitted into that group himself—tired of life. You also had the desperate ones, sitting in the front, almost leaning forward to better grasp whatever words of wisdom were being said. 

Guilt seemed to be a theme for everyone. 

One after one the facilitator let people go up and speak at a makeshift lectern. Some just gave little updates, giving Oscar the impression that they’d gone to meetings for a long time. Others were speaking up for the first time. One that stood out was a mother, maybe in her fifties, whose daughter had just passed away in a car accident. She cried as she spoke, searching for some way of dealing with the guilt she felt, having let her daughter borrow her car even though she knew it was old and unsafe. 

This was around the time when Oscar thought to himself that he should just take the money he had, find a way out of his contract, emigrate to Iceland, and change his name to Fabio. Never ever have to think about a race car again.

People were going on about their lives, their regrets, their struggles with addictions, or just their attempts to survive whatever the world had thrown at them. But none of it really resonated with him. Oscar didn’t feel like he belonged here. His problems felt different. And he wasn’t sure if that was because they actually were different or because he just couldn’t find the right words to describe them.

At some point, his gaze shifted toward the back of the room, and that was when he noticed you. 

A girl his own age. You were sitting there, apart from everyone else, half-hidden in the shadows near the exit. You looked like you didn’t want to be seen—shoulders hunched, sat far down in your seat. You stared at your hands, fidgeting with skin around your nails. Oscar could spot your chipped black nail polish from across the room. He had a hard time reading your face, mostly obscured by your hair and the collar of your jacket. 

He couldn’t help but wonder why you were here. He wondered it about everyone else too, but you stuck out since you were similar in age—young enough that people didn’t automatically assume that you’d gone through hardship. You looked… different. Troubled, maybe. Definitely out of place. 

Oscar forced himself to look away, trying to focus on the group facilitator, who was droning on about acceptance and healing. He felt restless, a creeping anxiety gnawing at the edges of his thoughts. Why had he even come? This place didn’t feel like it could fix anything. 

By the time the session ended, he hadn’t spoken a word.

As the last of the attendees dispersed, Oscar lingered under the arched entrance, watching the downpour. He pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt, offering him some warmth from the cold rain. A faint glow from distant streetlights illuminated the soaked pavement, creating an eerie atmosphere that somehow felt fitting. 

That’s when he saw you again, as the heavy church doors closed behind him with a slight thud. You were the last one out of the building. Out of the corner of his eye, Oscar saw you light a cigarette. His eyes met yours briefly, but you were quick to look away. 

You exhaled smoke, sitting down on the stone steps leading up to the entrance, letting single raindrops fall onto your leather jacket, while still being mostly covered by the awning. 

For a second, Oscar thought about walking away. He didn’t know you—he didn’t know anyone here—but something kept him rooted to the spot. Maybe it was because he knew he would need to talk to someone here, not easily getting away from the mandated meetings. Maybe it was because you looked so damned lost. 

Either way, he found himself speaking before he could stop himself.

“Uh,” he started awkwardly. “I like your stockings.” 

You blinked, glancing down at your legs. Through the rips in your jeans, a pair of sheer black stockings peeked out, the floral lace pattern barely visible. You didn’t say anything right away, just stared at him with a look that was half-surprised, half-annoyed. Then, you blew out smoke from between your lips. 

“Thanks,” you muttered. 

Oscar shifted uncomfortably, unsure if he should leave or try to salvage the moment. Why had he said that? He wasn’t good at small talk, never had been. He had no idea why he thought this was the time to start improving that skill.

You let out a low chuckle, almost like you were laughing at him. Wordlessly, you asked him if he wanted a cigarette, lifting the carton up in his direction. 

He shook his head. “I don’t smoke.” 

You took another drag, shrugging your shoulders, basically saying suit yourself to him. With your gaze turned back to the ground, the silence stretched on awkwardly, only broken by the sound of raindrops splattering against the asphalt.

“Aren’t white lighters supposed to be bad luck?” he asked suddenly, noticing the bright plastic you were flicking between your fingers. He’d heard that somewhere, an old superstition and coincidence—that a group of famous people who had died at a young age all had white lighters in their possession. It was a stupid thing to say, but it felt better than nothing.

You looked down at the lighter in your hand and then back at Oscar, a humourless smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. “Maybe that’s the fucking point.” 

Oscar didn’t know what to say to that. He wondered if you actually meant it—that bad luck didn’t matter to you, like you almost welcomed it. He wasn’t sure he believed in luck in that sense anyway. To him, life felt more like a balance of choices and chances, not fortune’s favour. But sometimes, maybe when the stars aligned and all that palaver, he believed in luck and he believed in doing the right thing to experience that luck. 

Call it superstition, if you must. 

The both of you continued to stand there in silence. Well, technically, you were still sitting.  Two strangers, clinging to the building that was supposedly about to fix them, all while not really knowing if they even wanted to be fixed. 

After a few long moments, you stood up, stubbing out the cigarette on the wet stone. You stuffed your hands into your pockets, casting him one last glance before heading out into the rain. The water immediately soaked your hair, but you didn’t seem to care. You hopped into a car that had pulled up at the end of the parking lot, an older woman in the driver seat. 

You left him without a word and a strange feeling inside of him—like this situation wasn’t already odd enough. 

_______________________________

You put out your cigarette as you reached the entrance of the church, again. Just another Tuesday in your life. You’d lost count on how long you had been going to these meetings. Two hours every Tuesday and one hour every Sunday. 

It was a bit of a lie, that you didn’t know how long it had been. You just didn’t want to know how long it had been and therefore told yourself to not think about it until you’d all but forgotten about it. 

However, Oscar was a new addition to the meetings, for a month or so. Seeing him, seemingly waiting for you before going inside, was odd? But not uncommon by now. 

You didn’t say anything as you walked up beside him on the church steps, only giving him a slight nod as a way of saying hello. You looked out over the parking lot, glistening wet from the rain that seemed to haunt this small town. You were practically lucky that it wasn’t raining at the moment. 

Something about the parking lot was different today, though. It stood out like a diamond in a drawer of costume jewellery. 

There, parked conspicuously at the curb, was a sleek McLaren. The kind of car that didn't belong in this part of town, especially not parked outside a church where people came to unload their emotional baggage.

As if reading your thoughts, Oscar caught you staring with raised brows. “What nobhead takes their McLaren to counselling?” you muttered under your breath, clearly not expecting him to hear. But he was close enough, and the corner of his mouth twitched up into a smile.

He chuckled, a low, surprised sound. “That would be me.” 

You blinked, not expecting it to be him, let alone be so direct about it. “I’m sorry.” 

“No, you’re not,” Oscar chortled, shaking his head, like he found your frankness refreshing, if not amusing, as though he wasn’t often spoken to like that. 

“Yeah, it’s a dickish thing to do,” you admitted, giving him a half shrug. You couldn’t help but smile a little, though. He had a way of taking the sting out of your sharp words, as if he didn’t mind your snark. 

You’d quite frankly been rude to him at a few of the former meetings, yet he still didn’t mind sitting in silence next to you for two hours every Tuesday. You were both here, after all—both stuck, both dealing with whatever mess had brought you to therapy. 

The last few sessions had been the same—catching each other’s eye as you sat in the back of the room, listening to people’s stories. Neither of you said much during the meetings, but you always seemed to find each other afterward, just outside the church, where the air felt a little less suffocating. You smoked, and Oscar just stood there, pretending not to be bothered by the cold weather. 

It had become something of a routine. You weren’t friends, exactly, but there was a strange sort of understanding between you. Tonight was no different as the meeting started. 

You slipped into your usual spot near the back, watching as Oscar settled in a seat nearby. The room was filled with voices, people exchanging quick pleasantries before it started, just like every week, with people telling their stories. 

You’d gone to meetings for such a long time that you knew the backstories of most people. It had been so long that some regulars had even stopped going, claiming they were fixed. Or at least fixed enough. You guessed that was the real goal—to not completely overcome trauma but to learn how to live with it. Then there were the people who were mandated to be there, by their workplace or by a court order. They were more hesitant than the people who went by their own free will, but their stories were always better when they finally got to talking, more interesting to listen to. 

“Have you ever gone up there?” Oscar whispered at one point, curious. 

“Nope,” you replied without hesitation, not looking at him. “They can force me to be here, but they can’t force me to talk.” 

He looked at you for a moment, head tilted slightly, like he wanted to ask more but thought better of it. You could practically feel the question hanging in the air—who the fuck were they?—but he didn’t press. Instead, he glanced around the room again. 

You liked that he didn’t push. That meant you didn’t have to lie to him. 

There was an unspoken rule in these circles. Speak, or don’t, but never fake it. It couldn’t be about pretending, and for now, silence was as close as either of you seemed willing to come to honesty. 

When the session ended, you found yourselves once again standing on the church steps, the night air brisk and cutting. You fumbled with a cigarette, attempting to light it against the persistent wind. Oscar lingered nearby, hands in his pockets, as he watched your futile attempts, half amused. 

“Not getting picked up today?” he asked. 

You shook your head, giving up on the cigarette and putting the lighter and carton back into the pocket of your jacket. 

Oscar hesitated for a second, unsure whether to say anything. He was starting to feel that familiar awkwardness creep back in, the same feeling he’d had the first time he spoke to you. But before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “I could give you a lift.” 

You shot him a sidelong glance. “I’m not sleeping with you, Oscar,” you said flatly. 

Oscar’s eyes widened, and he spluttered, “W-what? No! That’s not—” He stumbled over his words, horrified.

You raised a brow, watching as he struggled to find his words. He was blushing, his ears practically glowing red under the streetlight. “You offered to drive me home without ulterior motives?” you asked, sceptical. 

“Yes, I was just trying to be nice,” he said firmly, but flustered. “Do guys from therapy usually hit on you?” 

You let out a dry laugh, almost feeling guilty for your wrong assumption about him. “You’d be surprised at how many men find head-cases attractive.” 

He only became more embarrassed, his mind flashing back to the first thing he’d ever said to you—a compliment on your stockings, of all things.

There was a vulnerability to him you hadn’t expected—something behind the stubborn façade and expensive car. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who was used to rejection. Or awkwardness. Or therapy, for that matter. But his loser personality made all of those things very possible. 

“Well… I just wanted to make sure you got home safely,” he said, shifting awkwardly.

You studied him for a moment, weighing his words. Then, with a sigh, you jerked your head toward the McLaren. “Fine. Start the fucking car.” 

Inside the car, the quiet was different, somehow more suffocating than outside on the church steps. Maybe it was the notion of having to actually talk to each other now that hadn’t felt as forced outside of the car. 

 “So, where to?” Oscar asked, his hands gripping the wheel a little tighter than necessary.

You glanced out the window, your fingers tapping idly on the door handle, almost scared to touch the absurdly shiny car. “Do you know the council houses behind the post office?” 

“By that one pub? With the—” 

“The Swan, yes that’s the one,” you interrupted. “My aunt lives right there.”

Oscar nodded, pulling away from the curb and heading in the direction you’d indicated. You kept your gaze fixated out the window as the car began to move. The streets passed by in a blur, the rain-slicked asphalt reflecting the dim glow of the town’s yellow lights.

“Aunt?” he asked after a beat of silence. “Parents not around?” 

You didn’t answer immediately. For a moment, Oscar thought he’d overstepped, thought you were going to turn to a rudeness that he couldn’t joke his way out of.  

Then, quietly, you muttered, “I think I am the one who’s not around.” 

He heard you clearly, but he didn’t press further. He didn’t try to fill the space with meaningless chatter, and for that, you were both grateful. For a moment, it was peaceful, almost as if you were just two people out for a casual drive instead of a pair of strangers bound by a not-so-positive common denominator. 

As the car approached the run-down council houses, you unbuckled your seatbelt but didn’t immediately move to get out. Instead, you turned to him, studying his profile in the low light, something unreadable in your expression. 

“Thanks,” you said after a moment. 

“For the ride?” he asked. 

“For not being a complete dick,” you replied as you pushed open the door and stepped out into the cold. You didn’t look back, but you knew that he was smiling behind you. 

_______________________________

The following week, you were late. Not late enough for it to actually be a problem, but late enough that Oscar felt the awkward tension of deciding whether to wait for you outside like he usually did or go inside. He definitely could have waited, but he was particular about time, so he went in. 

Oscar glanced around the room, sitting somewhere in the middle now that you hadn’t decided seats for the two of you. He noticed the faces that had become a strange sort of fixture in his life over the past months. 

The season had started and it was going fairly well. He had thoughts of disaster almost every weekend, but he didn’t hear Charles’ screaming as often. It was usually worst during qualifying, when the short amount of time made the anxiety build up quicker. But he was stable. Even his therapist had said that. He wasn’t a danger in any way, but he still just wished to get an answer as to why this crash had affected him in the way that it did. 

Your heavy footsteps interrupted his thoughts, your Doc Martens making a thumping sound against the old hardwood flooring. You looked like a drenched, unhappy cat, caught in one of the town’s relentless downpours. For a moment, Oscar smiled; he hadn’t thought he’d ever see you sit anywhere but the back row, yet here you were, sliding into the empty seat next to him with a huff.

You took off your wet leather jacket and threw your bag on the floor, almost curling into your seat on the uncomfortable chair, a paper cup of hot water warming your hands. There was a station outside of the room with tea and coffee and you would grab a cup of tea for yourself before every meeting. Oscar had learnt that by now—also knowing that you brought your own tea bags since they only offered black tea and you drank rooibos. Oscar had lived in England for a long time, but the science behind drinking tea was still something that confused him.

You rubbed your face dry with the sleeves of your oversized sweater, not caring that your mascara smudged around your eyes. Oscar thought about offering his own hoodie, or at least a tissue, but you didn’t seem the type to want help with something so small. Instead, he kept quiet, simply watching as you tried to shake off the rain.

A beat of silence passed between you both. Then, you spoke first.

“You never come to the Sunday meetings.”

You tried to sound casual, but the question was deliberate; it was thought through. He glanced at you, surprised. It wasn’t often that you were the one to initiate a conversation, and when you did, they were short and edged with sarcasm.

“Didn’t even know they had meetings during the weekend,” Oscar replied with a shrug. “I work most Sundays.”

“So do I, but I manage to show up here anyway.”

He noticed the way your eyes held his gaze, challenging but curious. You weren’t shy to look him straight in the eye, unlike himself. The light from the nearby windows cast a muted glow over you, softening the lines of your face, your smudged makeup giving you a look of tiredness that felt familiar to him.

It was like you were waiting, expecting him to talk again, and he felt that familiar twist of unease, a reminder that vulnerability wasn’t something he navigated easily. A hint of a smile crossed Oscar’s face as he looked away, not sure how much to say.

Today’s meeting wasn’t much different from all the others. There was the mother who dealt with guilt after losing her daughter in a car crash. There was Anthony, a local restaurant owner, who was there as part of his probation plan after an assault charge. There was Jenny, a girl in her thirties who was mandated by her therapist to be there as exposure for her agoraphobia. It was definitely ironic that the girl with a social anxiety disorder did more talking than you and Oscar combined.

During a brief five-minute break, Oscar looked over at you again, seemingly lost in your thoughts.

“You think you’ll ever get up there?” he asked, nodding toward the lectern.

Oscar knew he had asked similar questions before, but this one was more to ask if you thought this group counselling thing would ever lead to you opening up—if you saw an end to these countless meetings by actually letting them help you, letting them make you feel better.

“No,” you answered flatly. “Opening up to strangers is weird.”

He smiled at that. “I think this is supposed to have the opposite effect,” he said, crossing his arms. “That it’s easier with strangers because we won’t feel judged in the same way.”

You looked up at him, amusement flickering in your eyes. “Keep talking Oscar, and we won’t be strangers by the end of this.”

He laughed, shaking his head. There was a subtle humour to your banter, like you both enjoyed pushing boundaries without really crossing them. Oscar settled on the idea that he didn’t want you two to be strangers after all.

As the meeting came to a close, people began to shuffle out, some lingering to chat with one another, others heading straight for the door. You, as usual, made your way outside without a word. Oscar followed, as he always did, keeping a respectful distance but close enough that it didn’t feel like a coincidence.

He never knew why he lingered. He wasn’t even sure if you wanted him to. But the silence you shared after group therapy felt easier than the forced vulnerability inside.

Outside, the air was crisp, the rain from earlier having tapered off, leaving the ground damp and slick, the sun breaking through the clouds. You leant against the stone wall of the church, lighting another cigarette with the same white lighter he’d seen you use before.

Oscar frowned slightly, feeling a strange sense of unease creep into his chest as he watched you. He wasn’t entirely sure why he cared, but before he could stop himself, he spoke up. “Can you stop buying white lighters, please?”

You raised your brows, almost mocking him. “Why? Are you superstitious?”

“No,” Oscar replied, shaking his head. “It just feels like a weird thing to jeopardise.”

“What do you know about the 27 club anyway?” you asked, taking another drag. You were mindful enough to turn your head in the opposite direction as you blew out the smoke.

The 27 Club—a bunch of musicians, mostly rockstars, who had died at the age of 27 due to rough lifestyles. Rumour had it that they all used white lighters for their cigarettes and other smokeable substances. Oscar didn’t know anything about their music or the club they were in. He just knew of the rumour.

“Literally nothing except that they died carrying white lighters,” Oscar admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “And that you deserve to live way past the age of 27.”

You blinked, taken aback, and for a moment, the armour you wore around yourself seemed to crack. You stared at him, cigarette halfway to your lips, processing what he’d just said.

“Who knew you could be so sweet?” you teased, trying to be your usual sarcastic self, but there was a warmth in your voice that hadn’t been there before. That tiny hint of warmth made his chest feel strangely tight.

A few moments passed in comfortable silence before you broke it; your voice quieter now. “Why do you keep coming here anyway? You don’t talk much either. So why show up?”

Oscar hesitated, unsure how much to say. He wasn’t a stranger to lying about his job to people, often times just because he couldn’t be arsed to explain or have people ask if he was rich and famous. It wasn’t like that with you, but he still decided to lie—or opt out of telling the entire truth. He wanted you to think he was normal.

“I’m mandated to be here by my workplace,” he began, choosing his words carefully. “I caused a car accident with a colleague of mine, and I kind of need to be able to drive to keep my job.”

You frowned in confusion. “But you drove me home? Are you scared of driving?”

“It’s… different,” he admitted. “Driving long distances for work or just around in this little hellhole.”

You studied him for a long moment, as if weighing his words. Then, in a surprisingly gentle tone, you asked, “Do you like… get flashbacks of the crash and blame yourself all over again?”

Oscar nodded, exhaling softly. “Yeah, I guess it’s like that. I keep replaying it, even though my colleague was fine. It’s like this… loop in my head, where I keep imagining every possible way it could have gone worse. Murphy’s Law, you know? Like, I can’t help but think of every possible mistake I could make.”

“Murphy’s Law is about engineering, though,” you pointed out. “You can’t just apply that to your everyday life. It’ll turn you into an impossible perfectionist, constantly waiting for everything to fall apart.”

Oscar smiled, appreciating the unexpected insight. It reminded him of how little you knew about him, since, y’know, he hadn’t told you the truth—that engineering actually was involved in his everyday life. And yet, somehow, you still seemed to understand. The irony wasn’t lost on him, and he found himself wondering what other surprises you might be hiding.

You stubbed out your cigarette, bending down and reaching into your bag for a piece of chewing gum. He watched as you unwrapped it, slipping it into your mouth, the familiar scent of artificial strawberry filling the air. It was a ritual he’d seen before, almost like you were trying to erase the smell of smoke as quickly as you’d created it. The action was so practiced, and he found himself charmed by the small, sort of endearing quirk.

“You’re not gonna ask me why I keep on showing up here?” you asked, looking wondering up at Oscar, mumbling slightly as you chewed to get the gum soft.

He glanced at you with a faint smile. “You’ll tell me when you feel comfortable enough. I know that.”

A soft, almost approving nod was your only response.

“There’s my ride,” you murmured as a car drove into the parking lot—the same car he’d seen many times before, the same old woman driving. He could now assume it was your aunt. “I guess I’ll see you next week, then.”

Oscar stumbled on his words as he tried to say goodbye to you, caught off guard by how you almost skipped down the church stairs, looking happier than ever. It was a weird juxtaposition, because you obviously weren’t—happier than ever, that is. You actually dared to look back at him, smiling as you walked over the parking lot. The mascara still sat heavy under your eyes as light shone down on you from the clouds breaking above, and in that moment, you looked like the saddest thing under the sun.

After the car had driven away, Oscar stood still with his thoughts outside the church for a second. He had to look into the weekend meetings. Even if he could never attend them himself, he needed to know why they were important enough for you to mention them to him.

With a last glance toward the parking lot, he went back inside, his eyes drifting toward the bulletin board in the hallway. Various flyers covered its surface. The community really tried its hardest, offering support groups for just about anything—newly becoming parents, cancer survival, dealing with grief and death.

Oscar looked at the schedules, most of them being on weekdays. However, anonymous groups for recovering alcoholics and narcotics were on Saturdays, respectively, Sundays.

It didn’t take long for Oscar to understand.

He also understood why you had asked him. You wanted to know if you had another thing in common other than the group meetings. You hadn’t known he was there because of a car crash, so in your mind he might as well have been there for other issues, like drugs or alcohol.

Oscar didn’t know your full story. He didn’t know why you were here, why you kept showing up week after week, or what had led you to seek out meetings. But he did know one thing: you weren’t as unreachable as you pretended to be, and he was willing to wait until you felt ready to show him the parts of yourself you’d kept hidden.

_______________________________

The soft clink of glasses and low murmur of voices filled the pub as you wiped down the counter for what felt like the hundredth time that day, your hands moving out of habit, eyes scanning the sparse crowd. Picking up an afternoon shift instead of the night shift wasn’t something you normally did, just for that reason. It was the same amount of hours, but it felt a lot longer since the customers were fewer. Thankfully, the evening crowd was starting to build up. 

A woman sat at the counter, maybe ten years older than you, her fingers tracing the rim of an empty glass, her gaze flitting between the door and her phone. She had a nervous look and was dressed too nicely for the pub. You knew the type—the first daters—planning nights to the last detail, hoping for it to go well but preparing for disaster.

“Waiting for someone?” you asked, offering to take her glass. 

“Yeah, a first date. I needed some liquid courage in advance,” she replied with a tight smile. 

“Well, you look gorgeous,” you assured, showing her a genuine smile. “If they turn out to be a wanker, just come up and order an angel shot and I’ll help you out of here.”

Her smile widened, a bit more relaxed now, as she thanked you. 

You made a point to watch over her as your shift went on. Her date arrived shortly after. You let yourself relax; at least he wasn’t a no-show, and he didn’t look like the type to catfish someone. In fact, he looked almost as nervous as she did, and you found yourself rooting for them.

Working in a gritty pub had never been your dream, but it was what your CV got you at this point in life. You had tried living in London, making ends meet by working at a cocktail bar, but you had crash-landed back in your hometown, like big time crashing.

Thankfully, the owner of The Swan hadn’t looked too closely into your past, or he at least didn’t care. You knew how to pour a pint, you knew how to clean up, and you knew how to deal with rowdy drunk people. That made you a top employee. 

You moved on autopilot around the familiar bar with its familiar patrons. Some old, who frequented the bar even on weekdays, and some young, who you mostly saw on weekends. 

You had learnt to listen to some and to eavesdrop on others. Like, you knew all about Denny’s divorce and custody battle because he sat by the bar and went on and on about it as he downed London Prides. But you had to eavesdrop to know that the group of girls who came in after work on Fridays had finally staged an intervention for their friend who put up with too much shit from her boyfriend. 

Little things like that made bartending enjoyable. 

Other things—like loud groups of lads your own age—almost always made it less enjoyable. That was why you felt a tiredness fall over you like an anvil in a slapstick comedy when you, even with your back turned to the door, could hear them enter. You let out a resigned sigh, knowing that the evening was about to take a livelier turn, and maybe not for the better. 

However, they weren’t the usual group that gave you and your colleagues trouble. This were customers you’d never seen before. Strange for being such a small town with only The Swan and two other pubs. Sure, the boys were loud as they came to the bar to order from your colleague, but they were patient and not overly rude. 

You froze in surprise. 

You felt your grip slip from the glass you were holding, almost dropping it. While his friends filed up to the bar with an eagerness for drinks, Oscar lingered, his eyes darting around the room before landing on you. The shocked look on his face was almost priceless. He looked as startled as you felt, his eyes widening briefly as they locked onto yours.

He seemed out of place in the gritty atmosphere of the pub—too put-together, too polished. You knew he wasn’t British from his strong accent, and you knew he wasn’t the most outgoing type from his well… personality. He didn’t belong in here, but for some reason his friends had waltzed right in to The Swan, never having done so before. 

You were scared to think about why, but deep down you knew. 

Before your colleague could ask him for his order, you stepped forward. You wiped your hands on a towel and raised an eyebrow. “You lost?” you teased lightly, leaning against the bar.

Oscar’s friends were still gathering their drinks, a couple of them glancing your way with open curiosity. Your colleague doing the same, knowing full well that you would have to explain this to them afterwards. 

Oscar smiled back, a bit shyly. “No, just… here with some friends.” He gestured vaguely behind him, looking mildly uncomfortable.

“So,” you said, folding your arms. “What can I get you?”

Oscar chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Not drinking tonight. Just…moral support, I guess.”

“You know where to find me if you change your mind.” 

For a moment, you both stood there, the noise around you fading into the background.

His friends soon called after him to join them at their table and you had a job to do. As you moved around the bar, greeting regulars, wiping down counters, and handing out drinks, you couldn’t quite shake the feeling that Oscar was still there, his presence lingering even when he was out of view.

Each time you glanced over at their table, you caught him glancing back. The first few times he seemed nervous to be caught, but when he realised how often you looked at him, he really had nothing to be ashamed of if he stared back at you. 

After a while, the place grew livelier, and you lost sight of him in the ebb and flow of customers, the noise picking up as more people filled the seats. The usual rowdiness of a Saturday night began to take hold. 

Eventually, you saw his friends begin to gather their things, settling their tabs, pulling on jackets, and nudging each other as they headed out. You felt yourself get stuck in your steps behind the bar as you watched Oscar stand up from his seat. He exchanged a few words with his friends as they left, but he stayed, earning what you assumed were amused laughs and some crude comments. 

Oscar waited a moment, watching them go, before he turned his gaze toward the bar. You tried to make yourself seem busy, cleaning a counter that wasn’t even dirty. You felt a flicker of nerves as he approached, unsure if you should be the first to talk. He sat down on an empty bar stool next to Denny. He didn’t have to dare to look at you because you already had all of his attention. 

“I don’t think I’ve seen you this long without a cigarette before, y’know,” he said, breaking the silence.  

You rolled your eyes, smirking. “I only smoke when I’m stressed, which is less often than you’d think.”

Oscar’s smile lingered, a warm glint in his eyes that hinted that he understood that the only time he saw you was at the group meetings and that they were the thing that caused you stress to the point where you felt the need to smoke. You wouldn’t even consider yourself a nicotine addict. However, of all things, nicotine wouldn’t be the worst thing to admit that you were addicted to. 

Your conversation was briefly interrupted by your other patrons, like Denny, who flagged you down for another pint. You poured his drink wordlessly, and Oscar waited, his presence somehow calming amidst the usual chaos of the bar.

The couple you’d served earlier—the first-daters—approached to settle their tab.

“That looked successful,” you remarked with a friendly smile, referring to their date.  

“Yeah, honestly green flags all around,” she replied, throwing her date a soft smile as he took out his wallet. “Thanks for the angel shot advice, though.”

You smiled. “Glad you didn’t need to use it.”

The woman chuckled, her eyes twinkling as she looked from you to Oscar, as if piecing something together. She tilted her head toward you. “Do… you need an angel shot yourself?” 

“For this bloke?” you asked in surprise, pointing at Oscar. “Nah, I can handle him myself.” 

The woman nodded, smiling in amusement as she gave Oscar another once-over before heading out with her date, holding hands. Oscar, who had been listening to the entire exchange with a bemused expression, raised an eyebrow.

“What’s an angel shot?” he asked.

“It’s a code we use for people on bad dates,” you explained with a shrug. “If they order one, it means they need help, and I step in. It’s a subtle way for someone to signal they’re uncomfortable without making a scene.”

Oscar’s eyes widened slightly in understanding, and he nodded. “That��s pretty smart.”

“Yeah, it can be useful. When I worked at a cocktail bar in London we had to use it almost every night. This place is a lot calmer.”

You knew it, Oscar knew it too—that rich people drinking Negronis at a rooftop bar in London were more troublesome once they got drunk than what people like Denny did once they were in on their seventh pint of the evening in a small town pub. 

There was a brief lull in the conversation, the uncomfortable kind where you just waited for someone to break the silence. Oscar’s fingers tapped lightly on the bar, and he seemed lost in thought for a moment before, as if summoning courage, he spoke again, his voice a bit hesitant. 

“So… when are you off?” 

“In…” you stopped to check the clock on the wall behind you. “Three minutes.” 

Oscar shifted, clearly nervous. “Do you want to maybe hang out? Get dinner or something?” 

You blinked, taken off guard. He looked so uncomfortable. It was endearing in a way you hadn’t expected. He was as unsure of himself as anyone else was. 

Oscar, meanwhile, felt as though he was the world’s worst at this. It was no wonder he never had casual things like Lando seemed to have every other weekend, one night stand after one night stand. Not that Oscar necessarily wanted that, but to even feel like he had the possibility to ask someone out would’ve been nice. 

“I mean, if you’re up for it,” he added quickly, tripping over his words. “Like, we don’t have to or anything. I just thought—”

You cut him off with an uncharacteristic giggle, the sound breaking through the tension. “Only if I can use your shower. I smell like cheap beer and fryer oil,” you said, lifting your t-shirt with the pub’s swan logo on it to your nose, grimacing at the smell. 

“Oh,” he breathed, his face lighting up in relief. “Absolutely.” 

You tossed the towel onto the counter, giving him a playful smile as you stepped around the bar to join him. “But I’ll let you know,” you said, lowering your voice, “you shouldn’t hang out with someone like me. I’ll defile you.”

“I’m not as innocent as I act,” he said teasingly, but he wasn’t even sure if he believed his own words, let alone did he fool you. 

_______________________________

Oscar sat like a sociopath on the sofa waiting for you to finish showering. He was not sure his posture had even been this good. You’d made your way to his flat after your shift had ended. He’d offered you his shower and clothes while he said he’d fix the rest. However, every film he could think of watching seemed pathetic. Every type of food he could think of ordering seemed disgusting. He hadn’t exactly thought this through when he asked you to hang out. He hadn’t expected it to be so… casual? Or maybe easy? Like you actually wanted to be here, in his flat, spending the evening with him.

He was probably overthinking this—no, he was overthinking this. But how could he not? He tried so hard to not think of the fact that you were wet and naked just a wall away, but he was pretty sure his brain broke in the process. Every detail was suddenly monumental, as though he was a teenager again.

The faint sound of the shower stopped, and he quickly sat up straighter, mentally scolding himself to look less… tense. He wasn’t sure he was pulling it off. He could hear the bathroom door open, and then you were padding down the hall, and he practically whipped his head around to see you. 

You were wearing one of his favourite shirts, the maroon fabric hanging over your frame, the hem brushing the tops of your thighs. Your hair was still damp, small droplets darkening the shirt where they fell. The sweatpants you’d borrowed were too long, so you’d tucked them into your socks—baby pink, fuzzy socks with little red hearts on them. The socks were definitely not Oscar’s. He couldn’t believe that was what you were hiding under your Doc Martens. 

Oscar blinked, trying to reconcile the idea that this—this ridiculously adorable version of you—was the same person who’d honestly scared him during your first conversation. 

“Cute socks,” he chuckled, unable to stop himself. 

“Shut up,” you muttered, hiding a smile, before flopping down on the sofa next to him, already more casual than Oscar could ever be. “What are we watching?” 

He opened his mouth, but no words came out. He was acutely aware of how close you were, your leg brushing against his as you made yourself comfortable. You didn’t hesitate to grab a blanket that was thrown over the back of the sofa, cuddling into it as you wrapped it around yourself. 

“We could watch… uh, anything you want,” Oscar finally managed. 

You rolled your eyes, sinking into the sofa cushions. “If you let me pick, it’s going to be something dumb.”

“I’m okay with dumb.”

Your lips curled into a smile, but you didn’t say anything as you leant forward to grab the remote. Oscar sat there, watching as you navigated through streaming options. You were on the hunt for something specific, he noticed. Right in on Disney+ and quickly you searched for…Brother Bear? 

Oscar’s brow lifted in surprise, but he didn’t question it. In a way, it felt perfectly fitting. He let out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding and settled into the cushions, letting himself ease into the film, into the quiet comfort of the moment.

You both ordered pizza that arrived sometime in the middle of the film. You liked pineapple on pizza, but he guessed he could overlook it. Especially if it meant you were here, sitting beside him, taking a bite with a content look on your face. 

You’d grown soft around the edges, for him. This was domestic, bordering on romantic. The girl he had first met—cigarette and white lighter in hand—would’ve never admitted to liking Disney films and to wearing pink fuzzy socks. 

When the pizza was finished and the movie neared its end, you laid down in the corner of his L-shaped sofa, blanket fully surrounding you. Oscar wanted to scoot over, closer to you, maybe put your feet in his lap, but he hesitated, scared to cross boundaries. He chewed the inside of his cheek, lost in thought, hoping that his nerves would miraculously disappear. 

And then you made a sound—a soft, involuntary awe that escaped your lips during the scene where Koda, the little bear cub, was reunited with his deceased mother through some sort of glowing spirits in the sky. Oscar had to admit that even though he’d seen this film as a kid, the plot was now completely lost on him because of you. 

It was cute. Like, painfully cute, and Oscar felt that weird mix of cute aggression, where something is so adorable you just want to squeeze it. Instead, he let himself simply watch you, taking in the way your eyes glistened and your mouth parted slightly, as if you’d forgotten everything around you, wrapped up in this world of animated magic. He mentally cursed himself when you caught him looking. 

“Why are you staring at me?” you muttered. 

“You look like you’re about to cry,” Oscar teased and smiled boyishly.

“Shut up, I do not,” you shot back, rubbing your eyes with your fingers. You were sharp enough to draw blood, and he was somehow always left unscathed.

He couldn’t help but smile wider, watching as you tried to hide your embarrassment. In a brave moment, he moved closer, daring to take a hold of your wrist so that you couldn’t hide from him. Your eyes were shining and a couple of your eyelashes had clumped together from the moisture. 

“It’s okay to cry to movies,” he said, nudging you gently. “Especially one’s about animated animals.” 

“I am not crying. Not even close,” you insisted, laughing, sinking further into the sofa, pulling the blanket up to your chin. 

You moved to the side and somehow, Oscar felt himself fitting naturally into the space behind you. He felt something shift inside him, a strange warmth settling in his chest. This was soft, quiet, almost painfully domestic. Yet it was real. You were here, cuddled up on his sofa, wrapped in his blanket, wearing his clothes, and laughing at something he’d said. 

Neither of you said another word as you moved to lay together like you’d done it a million times before. He found his arm moving to wrap around you, pulling you in closer until your back was touching his chest. You lifted the blanket to cover him partly too. The movie rolled through its final scenes, and Oscar found himself paying even less attention now that you were literally touching him. 

“You’re gonna stay there?” you whispered as the end credits rolled. 

“Yeah, we’re watching the sequel.”

But neither of you moved to get the remote. 

After a still moment, with a deep breath you moved to lay on your back. You glanced up at him, your gaze holding his for a long moment. Oscar didn’t dare look away, even if his confidence told him to do it. At least it was easier to look you in the eye than to take in the rest of you. 

His heart picked up when you adjusted yourself, the blanket slipping from your shoulders and the maroon fabric of his shirt shifted slightly, revealing the outline of your body beneath. Your breasts moved gently, and he couldn’t help but notice the lack of anything underneath the soft cotton. His throat felt tight, and suddenly, every molecule of air around him seemed saturated with the scent of you.

Then, he realised that the scent of you was actually the scent of his laundry detergent and the soap he kept in his shower mixed with something that was uniquely you. And oh, how Oscar hated being a man. Was he really pathetic enough to pop a boner because you smelled good? 

His body reacted before his brain could process it, betraying him in ways that were anything but subtle—warm and spreading, settling quickly. He shifted uncomfortably, moving his legs in a feeble attempt to hide the evidence of just how much you affected him. 

“Oscar…” Your voice was soft, questioning.

He shook his head, looking anywhere but at you as he managed to respond. “I know, I’m sorry,” he said, mortified. His face burned with embarrassment. He couldn’t believe this was happening—couldn’t believe he was that guy right now.

“You don’t have to apologise,” you whispered, and you still weren’t scared to look him in the eye. Oscar for once wished you were. 

“Yes, I do. It kind of ruins the mood,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. 

Your expression softened and then you shifted to give him a bit of space. In the process, you nearly tipped off the edge of the sofa, and instinctively, Oscar reached out, his hand steadying you by your arm. The warmth of your skin under his touch sent a spark up through his palm, grounding him, but he couldn’t help feeling a pang of guilt if he’d made you uncomfortable.

“Ugh… it’s just…you just smell good, and you’re wearing my shirt, and your skin is the softest thing ever, and I can’t think straight—” he stopped himself abruptly. 

A laugh escaped your lips, soft but warm, and Oscar froze, unsure if he’d actually said all that aloud or if his brain had finally imploded.

“What are you doing?” you asked, tilting your head as you watched Oscar suddenly move away from you, sitting up in an awkward half-way position with the limited space he had behind you. It probably looked like he was about to bolt out of the flat out of sheer embarrassment. 

“What am I doing?” He frowned. “I just—I don’t want you… I mean, you shouldn’t have to, y’know, feel it.”

At that, your smile deepened, and you moved your legs, spreading them just enough to make space for him to settle between them, throwing the blanket off the sofa. 

“Oscar, can you… just calm down for a second?” you said gently, meeting his gaze with a reassuring look. “I’m not appalled by it, y’know? But you’re acting like I should be.”

His heartbeat thundered in his chest as he looked at you, processing your words. You didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. It was in this moment that Oscar also realised the position you were in, with him between your legs, fighting with his arm propped up to not fall flatly over your body. You weren’t scared to brush his sides by shutting your thighs just the slightest. 

“You’re okay with this?” he felt the need to ask. 

“I am.” 

Oscar let his eyes linger for the first time, deciding for once to let the awkwardness melt away. And just like always, your eyes were on him, almost shamelessly scanning his broad shoulders and the way the fabric of his grey sweatpants stretched.

The shirt you’d borrowed had ridden up slightly, revealing your soft stomach and the hem of your underwear—a black cotton thong, the thin material peeking out. What was the frontal version of a whale-tail called? When the elastics sank into the soft parts of your hips and showed on either side above the waistband of your sweatpants. 

Yeah, Oscar’s brain was definitely broken. 

His mind spun, grasping for words, but all he managed was a shaky breath as he leaned in, like he couldn’t believe that he was seeing it, that he was this close. The air brushed against your skin. His mouth was as dry as a desert. You inhaled so sharply that he could hear it and see your stomach rising. He was eye level with your belly button and he decided upon… kissing it. Or right next to it, on the softest part of your stomach, the world narrowing down to just that patch of skin. 

He looked up for reassurance, and you just smiled. A perfectly content smile where light sparkled in your eyes. Oscar’s hands found your waist as he kissed you again, his lips trailing gently across your stomach. Your skin was impossibly soft, practically melting into his hands. 

Oscar’s next step was unplanned—like this entire thing—and maybe a bit silly, but when he was down there, kissing your stomach, he couldn’t help but want to venture higher up. So, like any other unreasonable person with hormones clouding their judgement, he stuck his head under your shirt, starting by kissing your ribs. 

You let out something between a gasp and a giggle as your breathing picked up the higher up Oscar’s mouth wandered. Where your ribs connected in the middle of your chest, right where the skin was the thinnest, was where he started to gently suck and he earned his first moan. You could feel him start to smile as it escaped you. 

When you looked down at him, all you could see was how his head stretched the fabric, and it was simply just humorous. 

“I could just take my shirt off, y’know?” you teased, though you were out of breath.  

”No,” he mumbled, lips brushing against your skin, an audible mwah leaving his mouth as he moved higher, planting a soft kiss in the valley between your breasts. “It’s warm under here.” 

You let out a small laugh, your fingers resting on top of his head, the shirt still acting as a barrier as you felt his hair through it. “Wouldn’t have taken you for such a boob guy.” 

Oscar closed his eyes as he felt your quiet laugher vibrate through your chest against his lips. Your breasts were practically lodged against his cheeks and he was definitely flushed red all over so it was actually convenient for him to be hidden under your shirt. 

“Shut up,” was all he could manage to mutter. 

He couldn’t hide anymore when he felt you pull the shirt up by the hem, first over his head and then swiftly over your own, it landing somewhere on the floor. Oscar was left laying there, chin resting against your sternum, feeling totally exposed as your eyes met his again. He didn’t dare to take in the sight of you shirtless, even though he was literally on top of your breasts. 

And while he probably looked like a flustered mess, you looked totally unfazed. 

“You motorboated me,” you exclaimed, laughter in your voice, “and you haven’t even kissed me on the mouth! Feels a bit backwards, don’t you think?” 

Oscar chuckled, not having the time to think that he should be ashamed because of what you just insinuated. His hand moved to gently cup your cheek as he lifted himself to look at you.

“What I’m hearing is that you want to kiss me.”  

He hated to sound cocky. He promised he really did. But with your jaw slacked and disbelief plastered on your face, he felt like he had said the right thing. You weren’t pushing him away, weren’t closing off the moment like he half-expected.

Instead, you were pulling him in.

If he thought your chest had been soft, your lips were like fucking velvet. It was like he was scared to touch you with how delicate you felt; with how softly you met his own lips. The initial connection was quick before he pulled away an inch or two to gather your reaction. With pure lust in your eyes, you were back to kissing him again before he had the chance to overthink what had just happened. 

The kiss deepened slowly, a tender exploration of new territory, a silent acknowledgement that this—whatever this was—wasn’t just a one-off moment.

Oscar’s heart hammered in his chest as he shifted, his body now hovering over yours. His lips brushed against yours in a series of soft kisses. Then, before he knew it, your tongue was fighting his own. Your arms wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him in closer, and he let himself be totally absorbed by you. 

And oh my god, you were shirtless beneath him. He struggled with where to place his hands, feeling strange holding your face for too long but scared to grip your bare waist with his wandering hands. But when he felt you push up towards him—your nipples rubbing his shirt, the soft flesh of your breast squished against his chest—Oscar felt like he could indulge fully. 

With his forehead pressed against yours, Oscar pulled away and asked, “Do you want this to go further?” 

You nodded first, swallowing your breath, before verbally saying a low and desperate yes too. 

He wasn’t sure if he answered anything coherent or just let out a loud huff when he leant back down to kiss you. As his hands travelled up your body, you could feel goosebumps form under his fingertips. He stoked the underside of your breasts, taking in the way you reacted, before fully cupping them in his palms. 

You tipped your head back between the sofa cushions as his lips moved down your jaw and neck, littering you with open-mouthed kisses. He towered over you, his lower body fitting perfectly with how your legs spread for him. 

Oscar smiled as he grazed his teeth against your nipple, hearing you gasp at how he purposely teased you. And while he hadn’t thought about it like that before, you were definitely right with calling him a boob guy. Because fuck, could he spend his time adoring and fondling your soft tits, malleable in his hands and stimulating on his tongue. The way they perked up and became more sensitive with his touch was about to make him delirious. 

And the sounds you were making—the gentle breathy groans—were better than any sound he’d ever heard before, practically deafening to his ears by how much he was concentrating on it. God, was he glad to have not turned on the sequel because having sex to Phil Collins wasn’t really on any bucket list. Especially not with how overwhelming he found your noises.  

He released your nipple with a smacking sound, gazing at the attacked skin of your chest and neck. It would leave bruises, which made him feel even more like a horny teenager. 

“Can you take your shirt off?” Your voice felt airy and small. 

While your hands had already crept under to rake down his back as you were kissing, Oscar hadn’t exactly thought about the imbalance. He’d do just about anything to make you comfortable, meaning that his t-shirt soon joined yours on the floor. 

He was an athlete, yet he hadn’t personally ever thought he looked like one. He’d never been one of those guys to confidently parade around without a shirt on in summer or post pictures of himself flexing in the gym. He just couldn’t do it.

But your eyes on him, the way you nestled your lower lip between your teeth, and how your hands immediately reached out to touch him… yeah, that was maybe the closest thing he’d felt to confidence in a long time.

“Do you feel okay?”

He wasn’t sure how his own voice would sound when he spoke again—dry and muffled, distracted by a million different things. 

“Mhm,” you sighed out. “You wanna take off the rest of my clothes or should I do it myself?” 

Oscar gulped at your forwardness, but he guessed he already knew that you wanted to take this further. So did he, like insanely. With fumbling fingers, he untied the drawstring on your sweatpants and worked them down your hips, until you laid there in front of him in just your thong and fuzzy socks. 

He had sat up to take off his shirt, but he now nestled down between your legs again. There was no way in hell that he would last long inside of you, so he would need to please you beforehand. A gentleman, after all. 

Oscar felt like he was about to die at the thought of going down on you, his blushing cheeks almost hurting from how warm they were. His hair was messy, his lips were kissed raw, and his pupils had dilated until all you could see in his eyes was darkness. 

“Y’know you don’t have to—” you tried to tell him. 

“What if I really want to?” he questioned, almost rhetorically. You didn’t fight him on it. 

He kissed down your stomach until he came to the hem of your panties, absentmindedly rubbing soft circles on your hips and then down your thighs. There, his thoughts were simply reduced to the need to have you, in whatever way you allowed him. 

You were impatient, while Oscar took his time to enjoy you. He tortuously dragged his lips across your thighs; the faint pattern of your skin looked like thin, pale lines spreading like lightning strikes. Once he dared to touch you over the fabric and feel the wetness that had soaked through, he could hear your breath hitch. 

Slowly, he hooked his fingers in the sides of your thong and dragged them down your legs, leaving them discarded on the floor with the other clothes. Fully naked, except the socks, but those were staying on, Oscar decided. 

“Have I told you that you’re gorgeous yet?” 

You were looking down at him with an expression akin to frustration—mouth slightly open and heavy breaths spilling out, almost scoffing at his cliché words. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride as his own breaths hit your skin, blowing against your exposed heat. He pecked the stretched skin on your inner thigh to soothe you, stopping your writhing.

At a loss for what to do with your hands, they found their way down to his hair, weaving through his soft curls, tugging gently to get his attention. 

“Osc…” you said with a simple breath. 

That was really all Oscar needed—to hear you want him. That stupid little nickname was also something special. He hummed against you, feeling your reassurance as he kissed gently over your clit. And before you were able to complain for more, he latched his lips around it, suckling in a way that made your vision momentarily blank. His movements were tentative at first, unexperienced and lacking confidence. 

“Oh, you’re so good,” you exhaled, praising him. 

And there was something about the way you say it that just drove Oscar mad. It wasn’t that it felt good—it was that he was good. He got off on your reaction. It was as simple as that. It made him determined, building something with precise dramatics. 

You felt his left hand grasp at the skin of your thigh, slowly inching upwards before he carefully sank a finger into you. Your hips twitched and you moan out loud as he played with you. He worked you open before adding another finger, his mouth never leaving your clit in the process. Even when your thighs fought to stay open, caging him between them, he didn’t falter. And every once in a while, when his eyes looked up to meet yours, you only felt yourself falling apart quicker. 

His voice was low, the tone soft, when he mumbled something against your swollen cunt; something about how you tasted good. His free hand gently pressed down on your stomach to make you focus on the sensation—to feel his fingers ripping you apart from the inside out. 

“God, fuckfuckfuck—” You were barely making sense of your own words as you bucked up against his mouth, completely buried over you, nose bumping your clit with his repeated motions. 

Automatically, your hands grasped your breasts, fingers toying with your already sensitive nipples. Moving from your stomach, Oscar’s right hand was placed on your tits too, clasping his fingers over your own as he squeezed. 

When you inevitably fell apart, he didn’t stop—not until you were a complete mess beneath him. Arching, white-hot, and expanding with intensity before his very eyes as he continued to softly lick. The way he was making out with your soaked core and babying your clit with the tip of his tongue would make one believe that this was a man who had never been shy or embarrassed over a single thing in his life. 

And he wasn’t going to stop until you begged him.

With a pleasured and defeated “Oscar, please…” you were letting him know that he had done his job—that he had won you over in more ways than was necessary, that you were spent by him. 

“I know,” he cooed, kissing your stomach. “I know.” 

He moved to lay beside you, gently sliding his fingers out of you before tap, tap, tapping at your puffy clit, keeping his eyes steady at how you reacted. A slight hiss left your mouth before a hoarse laugher slipped out too. Your legs were still trembling from how intense your orgasm had been. 

“You’re a mess,” you chuckled, raising a hand to brush his hair back then wiping his mouth with the back of your hand to clean him. “And a menace.” 

“Well, so are you,” he smiled, kissing you on the mouth, neither of you caring about said mess. 

You took a moment to breathe, and Oscar took a moment to think. While he couldn’t think straight, he could still come to the conclusion that this was such a good feeling—an overwhelmingly good feeling that he hadn’t felt in a long time, maybe never before. 

By now, his cock was painfully hard beneath his sweatpants, definitely having leaked pre-cum through his boxers. If it had been bad before, it was so many times worse now with you heaving next to him, naked and looking at him through your eyelashes. He was practically seeing stars, and you hadn’t even touched him where he ached the most.

It was almost unjustifiable the way he was feeling—someone should just tape a sign to his forehead that said practically a raging virgin and call it a day. He wasn’t one, just to clarify, but you made him feel like one.  

Your hand trailed gently down his chest, your nails painted black like always. Oscar wasn’t sure he was breathing anymore. He wished he could react normally to your touch, but instead it was like his skin raised like a mountain range wherever your hand wandered, his eyes following your movements with a pitiful desperation. 

And when your hand moved below the waistband of his sweatpants, resting gently over his boxers, and therefore his erection too, he wasn’t sure what exactly would happen to his body—something new, a biological error, or a supernatural phenomenon. 

You were so close to him, pulling his trousers down in such a fashion that your legs almost clashed together while it happened. Then he was naked, and you turned quiet. 

Abashedly, he tried to think about what he looked like from your perspective. He wondered if he was too thick or too thin, if he should’ve groomed better, or if his upper body was disproportionate to his legs, or if he smelled bad, if he was just plain weird, or—

“Holy shit,” you whispered. 

“W-what?” Oscar stuttered. 

While Oscar was busy analysing himself, you were gawking. Maybe people on TikTok would call it a ’sleeper-build’, but there was nothing subtle about it. His pale skin looked pretty in a flushed pink tone, easily scratching under your sharp nails. Broad shoulders, toned stomach, thick thighs. Your eyes couldn’t help but look lower and lower. The pure size of him sank in a second later. 

“You’re… big,” you said like a matter of fact. “It’s been a while, so you’ll have to go slow.” 

“W-what?” Oscar stuttered, again. 

His eyes widened to the point where it strained them. Of all the things you could’ve said, that was probably the one he expected the least. He tried to read your face, waiting for more of an explanation. 

With your brows furrowed, all you asked were, “You’re surprised that I haven’t had sex in a while?” 

“No!” he hurried to say, not thinking about other implications his reaction could’ve had. He’d curse himself for eternity if you thought he meant to slut-shame you. “I’m surprised about the other… thing. No one’s ever said that before,” he gesticulated with his hand, unsure what to call the thing that had just happened. 

You glanced up at his face to see that he was now sporting a smirk, letting you know that your words had gone completely to his ego. Motherfucker, was he pretty. 

“I’m not sure I believe that,” you mumbled, kissing him again. Laying side to side next to each other on the sofa, both of your hands had grown eager to touch. It was waists and chests, up bare backs to tangle fingers in hair.  

“I promise you that it’s the first time I hear that,” he mumbled back. 

Your hand sneaked down between your bodies, and any cockiness that Oscar gained from his newfound ’big dick energy’ was washed away in seconds. A whimper. A fucking whimper was ripped from his throat as soon as your fingers were wrapped around him. He couldn’t stop himself. Your movements were slow and languid, spreading the beads of pre-cum around his tip with your thumb. Oscar closed his eyes as he tried to not fall apart instantly. 

“How’s your pull-out game?” you asked between placing kisses on his neck and jaw. He had beautiful freckles and birthmarks all over his skin. 

And, fuck, how Oscar couldn’t think when dirty words left your mouth. 

“I—, Uhh… Not good?” 

He let out a moan mid-sentence. He felt both pathetic and tortured as your delicate fingers kept stroking him up and down. 

“I’m on birth control anyway.” 

“I could go and get a condom,” he fought himself to say. 

“Do you have one?” you questioned, and Oscar’s lack of an answer told you what you already knew. “I thought so.”  

And while Oscar knew that he came across loser-like, he didn’t also need it to be so transparent to you. Even though he sort of liked the dynamic built between you. He had always liked that you were quick-witted and a little mean. 

Oscar exhaled, concealing another moan with a breathy chuckle. “You need to stop making fun of me when I’m naked. It’s going to affect my self-esteem.” 

“Can’t help it, you’re an easy target.” You quickly pecked his lips, a little laugher slipping out. “You’re also a very pretty target.” 

He wasn’t used to being called pretty. His mum called him handsome. His instagram comments called him a polite cat. Pretty was entirely new territory. But he liked it, and impossibly, he blushed even harder. 

“Are we really doing this?” 

He just had to be sure, still in a bit of disbelief. 

“Please,” you said. “Fuck me.” 

Oscar propped himself on his elbow, placing it beside your head, caging you beneath him. He took himself in his hand, giving his cock a few slow stokes. He looked tortured, the tip pink and engorged as it curved up towards his stomach, a thatch of hair connecting to his faint happy trail. 

The head of his cock sat heavy against your entrance as he aligned himself, and you felt yourself desperately clenching around nothing. His free hand rubbed circles on your hip comfortingly. He was hesitant, and maybe that was your fault for asking him to take it slow, but the last thing he wanted was to cause you pain. With an eager nod, you gave him the green light. 

“God, you’re tight,” Oscar murmured, his voice breathless as he pushed forward. 

“No,” you gasped, gripping his bicep for something to hold onto. “You are massive.” 

A low, strained laugh escaped him. “You really wanna argue right now?” 

No, you didn’t. Not when you felt him slide inside you completely. 

“I’m okay,” you whispered, breathing heavily, unable to help the way you tightened around him. “F-fuck, you can move,” you told him, voice muffled against his neck. 

Oscar inhaled sharply, softening to the touch by your reassurance, as he pulled his hips from yours before slowly moving back, tentatively creating a steady rhythm, stretching your around him. 

It was intoxicating, and warm. While he knew that he liked you, he had never imagined it to feel like free falling. You still smelled like a mixture of him and yourself, and your soft skin was touching him in ways and places he couldn’t describe. It was gratifying that you were just as desperate as he was.  

He lifted your leg up by gripping under your knee, thrusting at a deeper angle. The sounds of your bodies crashing together filled the room as your moments only got quicker and needier. 

Looking down at you, he saw your eyes struggling to stay open and your jaw dropping loose with the whimpers and moans you were letting out. Your tits bounced in pace every time he came to the hilt inside you. 

“Holy f-fuck, you feel good,” he stuttered right in your ear. “You feel like you were fucking made for me.” 

He was being lewd and you giggled. God, you giggled—like Oscar didn’t have enough of a hard time keeping it together. You were teasing him, but it was gentle and honeyed, like a beautiful song to his ears. 

He forcefully dug his fingers into the soft fat of your thigh, spilling out between his fingers, doing just about anything to ground himself, but it was impossible. Admittedly, Oscar had never felt this good before in his life. 

His living room was ablaze with your movements—an incoherent mess between two bodies, all skin and bone, at each other’s disposal to use. 

“Fuck…” Oscar moaned, grinding his cock into you. “I’m already so fucking close.” 

“Me too,” you whined out, voice strangled. “Let it all go.” 

Oscar buried his face in your neck to try and hide his desperation, moaning and biting down into the soft skin. He was moving frantically, feeling it all approaching rapidly. 

With a soft cry, Oscar was cumming, stuttering and needy, groaning everything from your name to all the curse words he could think of. He twitched inside of you, coating your walls with his cum. You moved one of your hands to his cheek and you held his face, staring intensely into his eyes, as he rode out his high. 

Damn you and your damn eye contact. 

He continued to slowly thrust, doing whatever he could to get you off while being totally spent. The hand on your hip drifted to your pubic bone before delving between your folds, his pointer and ring finger running steady halos over your clit. Thankfully, you weren’t long after. He wasn’t sure he could take the embarrassment of not making you cum when it had been so easy for him. You arched your back as it hit you, throwing your head back in blind pleasure. 

And then it all slowed. The moans disappeared, and all that was left were heavy breaths in an eerily quiet living room. He felt warm air hit his neck as he laid down and you cuddled up against him. Mindlessly, you ran your fingertips along his skin, soothing the marks your nails had left. He’d gone soft inside you, his release mixed with your own leaking out the sides. 

“I’m gonna slide out, okay?” 

“Mhm, slowly,” you whimpered as he did it, going from feeling full to achingly empty. A single tear ran down your cheek out of exhaustion and pleasure, and Oscar stopped to kiss it away, tasting the saline on his lips. 

“Talk to me,” he whispered. 

You let out a deep breath, your body feeling heavy but sated. “I’m good,” you murmured, your cheek pressed against his chest. “Can feel you dripping down my thighs though.” 

“We should probably clean up.” 

He didn’t move, and neither did you. You were perfectly content with the mess if it meant that you would stay cradled in his arms. He wrapped his arms tighter around you, legs intertwining. His pec was soft against you, and you could hear the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, a soothing backdrop to the quiet intimacy of the moment.

“I was going to let you wait annoyingly long before sleeping with you. I can’t believe I caved in so easily,” you said suddenly, your voice soft but teasing. The words hung in the air for a moment, light and playful, but you could feel the way his chest rumbled as he chuckled.

Oscar raised an eyebrow, his curiosity piqued. “Oh, really?”

You nodded, hiding your face in his chest. “Yeah. Like, painfully long. Months, at least.”

“What changed?” 

You hesitated for a moment, your face still pressed against him. But then you tilted your head slightly, sneaking a glance up at him through heavy lashes. “Can’t help the fact that I’m insanely attracted to you,” you admitted shyly. 

Oscar took in your smile before embarrassment made you hide it into his chest again. You were so… soft, like he couldn’t actually believe it.  

“Glad we’re on the same page,” he exhaled, sinking down further into the sofa cushions. He ran a hand through his hair, trying and failing to contain the pleased grin that spread across his face.

You kissed his chest gently, the steady rise and fall of his breathing lulling you into a sense of peace. For a while, neither of you spoke, the comfortable silence stretching between you. You were glad this hadn’t turned awkward. 

Then, his voice broke the quiet, low and soft. “Are you staying the night?”

You didn’t look up at him, sort of scared to say a right-out yes to his question. 

“If you want me to.”

His arms tightened around you slightly, and you could feel the smile on his lips as he pressed a soft kiss to the crown of your head. “I’d love that.”

_______________________________

Oscar wasn’t sure how long he spent starring at himself in the bathroom mirror afterward. He moved through his routine on autopilot—brushing his teeth, rinsing his mouth—only for his movements to slow as his reflection pulled him back in. His messy hair was still tousled. The love bites on his neck, faint but unmistakable, stood out against his pale skin. His fingertips grazed over the scratches on his shoulders, his cheeks warming as he recalled how they got there. He didn’t think he would ever stop blushing tonight. 

When he finally mustered the courage to step back into his bedroom, he found you there: bare feet on the hardwood floor, wearing only his maroon t-shirt. You stood in front of his dresser, looking intensely at something placed on it. 

The trophies.

You had fucked his brains out so good that he had forgotten about the intricate web of omissions and half-truths he had woven around you. And now, his lies were staring back at him, literally and metaphorically. 

This was about to be awful. 

“So, this is where you keep them?” Your voice was calm, deceptively so, as you turned to face him.

Oscar stood frozen in the doorway. He opened his mouth but no words left it, his body rigid as he grappled with the realisation: you already knew.  

He hadn’t wanted to keep these things out in the open. Unlike some drivers whose homes were practically shrines to their achievements, Oscar preferred subtlety. Most of his trophies were tucked away, gathering dust in storage. But these— mostly medals and pictures from his childhood, tokens of his early racing days—remained on his dresser. 

“I’ve known for a while,” you admitted, as if offering him a way out of the confession he hadn’t yet made. “Since I questioned you driving a McLaren to counselling.”

Oscar blinked, the pieces of the puzzle clicking into place with an awful, grinding clarity. It wasn’t like he had tried to be undercover or specifically careful about concealing his identity. 

“I thought you just worked for McLaren at first,” you continued, gesturing vaguely to the trophies. “But then I googled your name and the brand… My brother used to be a big Hamilton fan, so I made the connection.”

He exhaled slowly, his shoulders slumping slightly as the tension drained out of him. “Why didn’t you say something?” He didn’t mean for his voice to sound defeated, but it did. 

“Figured there was a reason as to why you didn’t tell me,” you shrugged, taking a seat on his bed. “I won’t force you to talk about things you don’t want to. We met in an unconventional way and I fully understand that you don’t want a stranger to know everything about you.” 

“Don’t say that,” Oscar interrupted, his voice sharper than he intended. He stepped further into the room, his hands flexing at his sides. “We’re not strangers, we know each other.” 

You tilted your head, your expression softening as you studied him. His sudden reaction surprised even himself, but he couldn’t let the word “strangers” hang in the air between you. Oscar guessed he was more emotionally involved than he had let himself believe, but that he now couldn’t deny it. He sat down beside you, the bed shifting under his weight, and your eyes searched his for something—an explanation, perhaps

“I know you,” he argued. “I know that you only smoke after counselling since it stresses you out and you think that because you smoke Marlboro Silvers, it won’t affect you as badly. know that immediately after, you chew strawberry gum to get rid of the taste, because you don’t actually like it.” 

He started at you intensely as he kept talking, finally not scared of your eye contact. But he could see that you were crumbling. 

“You only drink rooibos tea because it’s naturally sweeter than black tea. You carry white lighters to appear fearless, but in reality it’s because you’re sad and you don’t care if something bad happens to you.” 

“Oh, and you cry to Disney movies,” he lastly added, “because you are in fact not fearless. You’re scared shitless of the emotions you harbour inside and never tell anyone about. So, yeah, I know you. ” 

You blinked, his words hanging in the air between. “That doesn’t sound like you know me,” you said after a long pause. “That sounds like you’ve observed me.”

“We also quite literally just had sex,” he reminded you, a shy smile tugging at his lips. “And I think we’re alike in that sense—that we don’t casually do that with random people.” 

“Fair point,” you conceded, unable to suppress your own smile. 

And there it was again—the strange, undeniable truth between you. There was truth in what you had shared with each other, always. Even if he had skipped the specifics, his feelings had never been false. 

You exhaled loudly, your back hitting the mattress. It was like a balloon had popped, the tension in the taut latex having exploded into nothing. You were so tired. You always were. 

Oscar knew not to push further. Not right now at least. He fell back on the mattress too, hiking further up to rest his head on his pillow. He lifted the covers to invite you underneath, cuddling you closer as your arms and legs were now slightly cold to the touch. 

He also came back to the realisation that you knew him too. That you knew why he went to the group meetings. That you knew what he did all those weekends he spent working. That the car crash he blamed himself for wasn’t exactly average. 

“Did you see the crash?” he asked quietly after a moment, his voice murmuring between the sheets. 

He felt you shake your head. “No, I haven’t seen a race since Hamilton last won the championship.” 

“Right, because of your brother,” Oscar remembered. “Is he no longer a fan?” 

“I don’t know if he is. Haven’t talked to him in over a year.” 

Oscar nodded slowly, taking in the weight of your words. You hesitated for a moment, your fingers tracing the edge of the covers. “Do you want me to see the crash?” 

“No,” he answered quickly. “Not really.” 

“My first impression of you racing probably shouldn’t be a crash anyway.” 

The corners of his mouth lifted in a small, grateful smile, and he reached for your hand, lacing his fingers with yours. The weight of that topic seemed to drift away, and you found yourself sinking into the comfort of his embrace again, your head resting on his bare chest. He could feel your warmth tucked against his side, your breathing steady like a rhythm. You traced little patterns along his palm and fingers. 

For a moment, it felt easy again. Soporific, even.

He could’ve easily fallen asleep, for once without thinking about nightmares. Oscar also didn’t want this to end, for the night to be over and for him to have to say goodbye to you in the morning. Not that he imagined it to be a dramatic goodbye, you’d see each other soon enough again, but still, he didn’t want to. 

“You should come with me to a race,” he said softly, breaking the peaceful silence, looking at you almost succumbing to slumber. 

“I can’t—” you began and Oscar could immediately sense your hesitation. 

“I’d pay for everything. I just want to have you there,” he added quickly, tilting his head to gaze down at you. It wasn’t about the money. It wasn’t about showing off. He just needed you near him, in whatever way he could. 

Your body tensed up against him. “I can’t leave the country Oscar.” 

The words didn’t make sense at first. He frowned, confused. “I’m sure you can get time off from work,” he said, worrying that was the reason. 

You turned your gaze away, your cheek no longer resting against him, and the absence of your touch sent a quiet ache through him. You couldn’t meet his eyes, and the pause that followed felt agonisingly long. The words felt stuck in your throat, your chest tightening. 

“I mean—,” you paused, swallowing hard. “I’m not allowed to leave the country.” 

The room fell silent, save for your faint whisper. 

“I’m on probation.” 

Oscar’s mind went blank. Probation. That was for criminal offences. You’d done something deserving of a court sentence. Silence stretched between you, and Oscar pulled away slightly, just enough to look at you more closely. His brow furrowed, but he didn’t speak.

“So, I’m sorry for calling us strangers,” you said finally, “but you don’t know the half of what I’ve done.” 

You sat up fully now, a cold weight settling in the bed. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice steady, watching as you untangled yourself from the sheets, kicking the comforter off your legs.

“I’m leaving.” 

“No. You’re not.” 

His voice was firm, almost commanding, as he reached out and grasped your arm before you could move further. His grip wasn’t harsh, but it was resolute. He wasn’t going to let you walk away—not like this.

“You’re going to stay and tell me about this. I feel like you owe me that after what we just did.” 

You froze, whole body going rigid, but Oscar didn’t let go. 

“I need to know if I’m falling for a serial killer or not,” he added with a half-smile, trying to lighten the mood, “because then I’ll seriously need to reconsider my life choices.”

Your heart ached at his attempt to make you laugh, but the knot in your chest didn’t loosen. The humour didn’t land, not fully, and the weight of what you were about to confess pressed down on you like a heavy stone.

 You bit your lip, your voice trembling as you said, “I c-can’t tell you.” 

“Why?” 

Your body trembled beneath his touch and he loosed his grip, thumb rubbing soft circles on your arm. 

“Because you’re a good person,” you whispered. “You’re going to find me repulsive and never want to see me again.” 

Oscar could see it in your eyes—the battle raging within you, the fear that once the words left your lips, he would be gone. But he wasn’t going anywhere. You cared about seeing him again. That alone gave him something to hold on to.

“Unless you’ve actually murdered someone—I don’t think that’s possible.” His voice was soft, almost coaxing.

“I don’t think you get probation for murder. I promise no one got hurt physically.” 

And even in this state, you still kept that sarcastic edge that he’d grown to adore. 

“Okay,” Oscar said softly. “Then tell me.”

You sighed, your hands trembling as you ran your fingers through your hair. Your eyes squeezed shut, as though blocking out his gaze would somehow make it easier to speak.

“When I was 19 I got into a relationship with a guy who was a lot older than me,” you began, your voice uneven. “He had a very… destructive lifestyle that I became a part of. I let him use me.” 

Oscar’s stomach twisted, but he stayed quiet, letting you continue. He could see how much it was costing you to admit this, and the last thing he wanted was to make it harder for you.

You slowly opened your eyes, not to look at him, but to look at the ceiling, blinking to fight tears from running down your cheeks. 

“The reason as to why I haven’t spoken to my brother in such a long time… ” Your voice broke, and you paused, taking a shaky breath. “…is because I committed fraud with his identity. I took out a loan using his name because I was desperate for money.” 

Oscar couldn’t hide his shock, but he didn’t pull away. You were laying it all out, raw and exposed, and he wasn’t going to judge you. He couldn’t. He stayed rooted in place, his hand still on your arm, grounding you.

“When he found out, he turned me in. I confessed to doing it and agreed on accepting help which is the only reason I’m not currently in prison.” 

“And the boyfriend?” Oscar managed to ask.

You laughed bitterly, shaking your head. “He took the money and fled the country. Haven’t seen him since. But I paid my brother back. Every penny.”  

Oscar nodded slowly. “What did you need the money for?” 

Your lips trembled as you looked down at your hands. “Don’t make me say it. I feel like you already know.” 

And he did. He’d known since he realised what those Sunday meetings were for. 

“Are you clean now?” 

“14 months,” you quickly said. “Ever since he turned me in. I have a badge on my keys if you—” 

“I’m proud of you,” Oscar said, cutting you off gently.

Your breath hitched as he said it. It had surprised you. “See?” he whispered. “You didn’t scare me away.” Oscar gathered his courage to hold you in his embrace again, laying you gently down on the mattress, letting your body relax on top of his. 

“Besides,” he added with a wry grin, “I’m in an industry where if you haven’t committed tax fraud, you’re probably the odd one out.”

You blinked in surprise, a startled laugh escaping your lips despite yourself. “What?” 

Oscar chuckled, the tension between you easing ever so slightly. “I know drivers who’ve had people go to prison on their behalf because of embezzlement,” he said, clearly exaggerating, but the humour in his voice was infectious. “You’re practically a saint compared to some of them.” 

“Fucking corrupt rich people,” you muttered. 

“Well,” Oscar said, his hand moving down to hold yours, “the point is… you can’t scare me away.”

He heard you exhale loudly. He even felt it against his shirtless skin. Your arms tightened around him, clutching both yours and his chest. It was adding pressure to stop you from panicking. 

And then you started crying. For real this time. It wasn’t you fighting the tears from falling or shyly getting watery eyes from Brother Bear. You were sobbing. He hadn’t thought he would ever see you cry. 

Oscar’s heart broke a little as he watched you finally let go, your body shaking with the weight of everything you’d been holding in. He immediately pulled you closer into his arms, holding you close, his hand gently stroking your hair as you cried against his chest.

“I’ve got you,” Oscar whispered softly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

You clung to him, your tears soaking into his skin, but he didn’t mind. You were essentially a stranger—even though he hated the word—crying in his arms, and he’d do anything in his power to never see you like this again. He had fallen for your softness, not the jagged edges you put up around yourself in protection. He’d accept you unconditionally if it meant you didn’t see him as something you needed to protect yourself from. 

As your sobs quieted and your breathing got steady, you remained tucked against Oscar’s chest, resting over his heartbeat. You could feel his hand tracing soothing circles on your back. He almost thought you had fallen asleep. 

“Thank you,” you whispered after a long silence, your voice hoarse from crying.

Oscar pressed a kiss to the top of your head. “For what?” 

“For making me stay.” 

_______________________________

A couple of weeks later, on a Tuesday at St. Anne’s Church, you did something you’d never expected yourself to do. You found yourself standing at the lectern in front of the room of strangers that you had spent the past year of your life with. And Oscar, but he had never really been a stranger. 

It felt stupid at first, when you walked up there and said your name, the people in the room saying it back to you like a choir. Some clichés from movies really were true. 

You started off by giving a brief background as to why you went to meetings. It was supposed to be a guilt-free environment, one where you wouldn’t be judged for anything. But opening up about betraying your own brother and getting probation because of it wasn’t guilt-free no matter how you twisted it. 

“Some of you might recognise me from NA meetings as well, but the drugs were never my main issue. I mean, I was— or am an addict, that’s how they want you to say it in NA at least. There is really no denying that, but the real problem was how it made me treat the people around me.” 

You didn’t like how your voice sounded in the echoing room, but it didn’t stop you from trying. You knew that the people listening had their own issues so present that yours wouldn’t bother them.

“I understand that my brother never wants to speak to me again,” you continued, your gaze falling to your hands, a cuticle bleeding from unconsciously picking at it. “I think I almost feel the same way. But then… I’ll go to Sainsbury’s and buy green apples, even though I hate them, but he loves them, and I used to buy them for him.” 

It was true. You’d have vivid flashbacks about apples every time you saw them. You’d get them from the store as if you were moving on autopilot and hate yourself for it when you got home and unpacked the groceries. Your aunt would always question why you bought them but never ate them, and you couldn’t put that into words. 

“I’ll have a mental breakdown over some stupid apples and realise that… we are connected in a way that can never be erased. That’s my fault, my guilt to carry—that I ruined it, that I get to argue with apples instead of arguing with him,” you said with an almost laugher. 

You fixed your gaze on Oscar, whose eyes had never left yours for as long as you spoke. He held a tight smile, like understanding the humour in how trauma tended to materialise. 

The facilitator asked you a question, like he normally did when he saw people trying to find the right words but struggling to get them into actual sentences. He asked you how time had changed the guilt you felt and if your probation still felt fair to you. 

“It’s just so… fucked up that you can convince yourself that you’re evil and unfixable,” you answered, your voice growing steadier. “But it turns out you’re just young. And you’ll make mistakes because of it. I’m paying for those mistakes, but I can’t let them define me.” 

You decided that you were done there. You could say more, and you could’ve said less, but you’d done it now. That was the important part. And even though you’d never admit it, it really did feel better to have said it out loud. 

As you stepped down and walked back to your seat, a small wave of applause followed you. You felt Oscar’s hand slip into yours as you sat down, his fingers squeezing gently, a wordless assurance.

It took a bit longer for Oscar to finally walk up to the front of the room, a month or so. But he did it in the end. You understood that he felt like his problems weren’t like everybody else’s, because no normal person could really understand his job. And feeling guilt over a car crash where no one was hurt wasn’t easily explainable either. 

Oscar’s movements were deliberate, almost stiff, as though he was trying to keep himself together with every step. He stood at the lectern, his hands gripping the edges tightly, and you could see the tension in his knuckles.

He talked about the crash in broad terms, but most of his focus was on Charles, and Oscar’s messed-up idea about how he had hurt Charles. When the facilitator asked him to base his guilt around something real, something factual, you saw the struggle in his expression.

“It’s just… guilt,” he said finally, his voice low. He paused, searching for the right words, but they didn’t come. “I’m not sure I can explain it or give it a likeness. Not everything feels like something else.”

Not everything felt like something else. Issues were allowed to be unique and entangled. It wasn’t about understanding them as much as it was about accepting them. You watched him closely, and you raised your arm to ask him a question, waiting for him to acknowledge you with a silent nod. 

“If Charles felt like he never needed to forgive you because he knew all along that this was an accident and no one was actually hurt—why can’t you forgive yourself?” 

Oscar’s gaze dropped, his shoulders slumping slightly. He stood there for a long moment, the words sinking in. 

He realised then and there that his main issue wasn’t the crash or the possibility of it happening again. It was that he blamed himself for hurting someone else—a hurt that granted hadn’t even happened, Charles was fine—but his mind hadn’t cared about that. He had the lives of others at risk with the turn of a wheel, and the crash had made him mentally unprepared for that risk. He guessed he knew now what to bring up the next time he met up with his therapist.  

After that meeting, Oscar talked for a moment with the facilitator, before he walked out to find you standing by the big doorway into the actual church, looking down the isle to the altar. He stood quietly behind you, placing his arm around your waist. The quiet of the church was profound, almost unsettling. The rows of pews stretched out before you, bathed in a soft glow of candlelight. 

“I don’t think I ever understood religion,” you said, whispering in the stillness. “Or God, for that matter. It’s too quiet. Too much about self-reflection and not enough about the old men in the Bible for me to grasp it.”

Oscar didn’t respond right away, his chin resting lightly on your shoulder as he followed your gaze to the altar.

“I see it as a last ditch effort for when you have no one else to talk to, but all you end up doing is talking to yourself,” he explained. 

“Sounds a lot like self-reflection to me,” you huffed a little. 

Maybe that was the thing people needed most—to get to know themselves. Bad people don’t wonder if they’re bad people. A truly evil person wouldn’t feel guilty for something bad they’ve done. You were both paralysed by guilt, but standing there with Oscar, it felt just a little less heavy.

“Oscar…” you began again, turning to meet his gaze. “Please don’t tell my secrets to anyone else.” 

“We literally had to sign an NDA to join the group, babe.” 

“You know what I mean,” you said, rolling your eyes but unable to suppress a small laugh.

“I promise.” 

When you left the church that evening, it was abnormally sunny. Early summer, colouring the nature around you green. You walked across the parking lot hand in hand, that silent show of affection a normal occurrence between you now. 

“Oh,” he said suddenly, stopping by his car. “I got you something.”

From his pocket, he pulled out a lighter, its surface bright orange. He held it out to you, his expression almost shy. You blinked, caught off guard. You hadn’t expected anything like this, the small, unspoken care behind the gesture. No more conscious bad luck. 

“It’s a myth, y’know?” you said, taking the lighter and looking at him softly. “Most of the 27 club died before Bic started making the white version.” 

Did Oscar feel a little stupid for not thinking to google the superstition before buying you—granted, a very cheap gift—but also something so laced with thoughtfulness? Maybe. Did he also deeply want you to stop being reliant on nicotine to feel calm? Definitely. But that was too late to say right now when you already had the lighter in your hand and he was blushing from how exposed he felt. 

“Well, I think orange suits you better anyway.” 

_______________________________

Oscar had insisted, of course—gently but persistently—until you’d finally agreed to come to a race. Silverstone wasn’t out of the country, which meant it didn’t violate any of your probation rules. A technical loophole, but a loophole nonetheless. Your 18 months were nearly over, but Oscar hadn’t been able to wait.

Now, standing among the sea of spectators in the garage, the weight of his world began to settle. The sheer scale of it all was overwhelming. You couldn’t deny it was exhilarating, but it also made you feel small, like an intruder. It was fucking Silverstone, after all—on a Sunday afternoon just minutes before the lights would go out. 

You glanced down at your phone, trying to distract yourself from the growing tension in your stomach. That’s when a message appeared.

Eli: “Are you at Silverstone?? I swear I just saw you on TV.”

Your breath caught in your throat and your fingers tightened around your phone. Eli. What happened to hello? What happened to how are you? You stared at the message for a long moment. Before you could even process how to respond, another message appeared.

Eli: “Are you with Piastri?? What the hell?” 

A startled laugh escaped your lips, nerves bubbling beneath the surface. You glanced around, as if half-expecting Eli to appear out of thin air. Of course, he wasn’t here. He’d gone once to Silverstone with your father when he was young, but nowadays it was cheaper to try and go to Hungary or another European race. 

So, right now you knew exactly where your brother was—in the living room at your parents’ place because even though he’d moved out a long time ago, he still went home every Sunday to watch F1 because he leached off of their streaming services. 

You took a deep breath and typed back.

You: “Yeah, I’m here with Oscar.”

For a moment, you stared at the screen, your thumb hovering over the send button. Then, with a rush of courage, you pressed it. The three dots indicating Eli was typing appeared, disappeared, and reappeared again.

Eli: “Why didn’t you tell me? You’re at an F1 race with a driver, and I have to find out on TV?” 

He definitely didn’t mean to guilt-trip you—you knew that. It was his way of breaking through the awkwardness. In a way, you supposed it was better to feel guilty about not telling him about Oscar than about the bigger things. The real things.

Before you could reply, you felt a tap on your shoulder. Turning around, you saw Oscar in his race suit, his face flushed from the adrenaline of pre-race preparations. He looked out of breath, but his smile was unmistakable, the sight of you clearly easing some of the tension in his own chest.

“Hey,” he said, leaning down to kiss your cheek. “You good?”

You nodded. “Yeah. My brother just texted me.”

Oscar’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. You bit your lip, holding up your phone so he could see the messages. Oscar leant in, glancing at the screen, a small smile tugging at his lips.

“He recognised you on TV?”

“Apparently,” you said with a soft laugh. “He’s freaking out.”

Oscar’s expression softened, his hand squeezing yours reassuringly. “That has to be good, right? That he’s talking to you?” 

“I hope so,” you whispered. 

Before either of you could say more, someone called Oscar’s name from across the paddock. He sighed, his thumb brushing lightly over your knuckles. “I have to go. National anthem and all that.”

You nodded, your fingers reluctantly slipping from his grasp as he stepped back. “Good luck,” you called after him.

He grinned over his shoulder, his confidence infectious. “Thought you didn’t believe in luck.” 

And while in the past you hadn’t minded your own bad luck and superstitions, you definitely didn’t want to spread that mindset to Oscar. You would start carrying wishbones, four-leaf clovers, and horseshoes if it meant that just a smidge of luck would be transferred to his life. 

As he disappeared into the crowd, the nervous energy around you seemed to intensify. The minutes ticked by, stretching into what felt like hours. Your phone buzzed again, pulling your attention back.

Eli: “I’ve missed you. We should talk whenever you can.”

Your breath caught, and for a moment, the chaos around you seemed to fade. You read the message twice, three times, the words sinking in slowly. For so long, you’d been afraid that you’d lost him for good, that the damage you’d done was irreparable—that you were irreparable. But here he was, reaching out.

You: “I’ve missed you too. I’m back in town tomorrow.” 

You hit send just as the formation lap started. You were not sure for how long you held your breath after that. 

Oscar was good—so good—and as you watched him race, you couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride. He was in his element, completely focused, completely in control. You were glad to not have seen the crash that still haunted him at times, because this proved that it was just a fluke, a temporary stumble rather than a career-defining event. 

As the checkered flag waved, you felt a sense of relief wash over you, knowing he had made it through safely. By the time the race was over, Oscar had finished in fourth place—a strong result considering weak qualifying. Most positions gained by anyone in the race. As the crowd erupted in cheers, you found yourself smiling, the tension in your chest finally easing.

Afterward, you found yourself standing in Oscar’s drivers room, waiting for him to return. Your phone buzzed in your hand, and you glanced down to see another message from your brother.

Eli: “That was an insane race. Piastri is a beast. Proud of you for being there.”

You smiled, feeling lighter than you had in months.

Moments later, Oscar appeared, his hair slightly damp from the helmet, his face flushed. He spotted you immediately, his eyes lighting up as he walked over, his smile wide despite exhaustion. 

“How’d I do?” he asked, his voice breathless. 

“You were amazing,” you grinned, stepping closer to him. “How are you so calm? That was nerve-wracking as hell.” 

“I’ve done this a couple of times before,” he teased. Oscar laughed, pulling you into a hug, his arms wrapping around you tightly. “I’m glad you’re here,” he whispered into your ear. 

You buried your face in his shoulder, holding him close, and felt the last remnants of tension melt away. “Me too.”

Pulling back slightly, he looked down at you, his smile soft. “You haven’t been sarcastic with me all day, y’know? Is there something wrong?” 

You smirked, tilting your head. “I can always start—” 

Before you could finish, he leant down and kissed you, cutting off your words. Smack dab on the mouth, messy and rushed. When he pulled back, his eyes were bright and his grin was infectious. You guessed you didn’t need to resort to sarcasm and snarky comments when you were happy. Simply happy. 

I'd like to thank Strangers by Ethel Cain, Strangers by Sarah Klang, and Stranger by Blanks for all inspiring this fic. Apparently, I really like songs about being strangers.

╰ Join my taglist or check out my masterlist <3

Tags: @alexxavicry