#a peek into my twisted psyche

[readyplayerspum]

Interior Crocodile Aligator. I Drive A Chevrolet Movie The-A-ter.

[swaxe]

probably not 100% accurate topster game chart. please ignore the 3 in the bottom right shame corner

[anonymous-john]

all day my mind has been stewing on the funniest possible outcome of tumblr making a badge called the GOAT (gayest of all time) and you wanna know what I came up with? a fuckin yassified orwellian surveillance state. with some systematic public execution for good measure. isn’t that so silly isn’t that so goofy

[harmonysanreads]

sunday with a singer! darling, one who had escaped from him almost seven years ago, and disappeared off the face of the galaxy. imagine his reaction when he gets word of a famous belobogian band on the radio soon after it’s connections to the IPC were restored, comprised of a woman named serval landau, and a *very* familiar young woman, with an even more familiar voice.

- (…could i be ✨ anon?)

Curtain Call

yandere!sunday x reader

cw(s) : yandere, written before 2.2

wc : 2.6k

You have the power of democracy by your side ✨ anon and I have no choice but to adhere to public demand :] Even though you mentioned a female!reader, the direction of the narrative didn't necessitate that specification, so the reader is gender-neutral! But they have been called ‘babygirl’ once.

“How can the bird that is born for joy

Sit in a cage and sing?”

— William Blake

You've avoided all shades of white and blue since the dawn of this day.

Serval regarded your pertinacity with a voiceless breadth of intrigue, before yielding with little to no resistance. A smidgen of guilt had briefly permeated your consciousness upon the vague shadow of a pout on her face, you recalled her enthusiasm passed through plans of matching outfits on your debutante from days now labeled as the near past. She picked herself up quickly though, her free-spirited ideals would not be compromised by some mere color choice.

It was difficult to not admire her. Lamentably, it is much easier to cradle the preachings of an unrestrained life than to actually act upon them — and by doing so, shouldering the frigid reality that came with such a life. As a child of frozen terrains although, frigidity must be Serval's playground, you eventually conclude. That is hardly the case for you, but you'd rather swallow whole chunks of ice than pin the blame on yourself alone for that apparent incapability.

You aren't at fault for your paranoia in embracing freedom, but you are resolved enough to try breaking away from its clutches. But just as tattoos sink deep beneath skin, that anxiety stubbornly clings to your psyche and the memories of the past nurture and allow it to fester. Which is why, you must avoid any shades of white and blue, at least until the dawn of tomorrow graces Belobog. Be it a superstition with no rational ground or scientific explanation, you decide to believe firmly in your gut.

The walls of the makeshift back-room muffle the chorus of the crowd outside, but it is enough to comfort you that your long held wish did come true. The single light bulb hanging beyond the door of the room serves as the sole source of luminescence, although it is barely helpful, the light bounces off from your back and reflects a scarcely tangible silhouette in the mirror of the dressing table. Glitters of dust floating around are illuminated by that light, abandoned furniture peek beneath their veils from your peripheral — they exclaim what this room's previous purpose had been.

Neither the modest setting nor the small trinkets spread across the dressing table come close to what you had a taste of ; glimmering surfaces, brands of beauty products worth a man's life savings and silks of no contender would mock this shack, if they could. But your heart soaks in solace whenever that irritatingly bright light flickers and mellowed cheers of the crowd permeate the room's thin walls, not because you lack taste in life, but because you recognize the futility of vanity.

“You did amazing there, babygirl!”

Your vision stutters at the impact of firm touch, you feel arms rest atop your decolletage, a shadow cloaks your reflection in the mirror. The cool touch of metal upon your left shoulder and a distinct streak of blue masquerading among blond locks of hair draw out a breath of relief from your lungs. But a faint twist engulfs your gut the very next second, you recall asking for a moment of quietude vividly.

“I don't think my performance was as great as you say, Serval. And whatever I achieved, it wouldn't have been possible without you guys.” your fingers twiddle with your sleeves, your eyes find interest in an abandoned nail polish.

You peek up in time to meet the rockstar's stare through the mirror, with some wrestling with the light, her disapproval shines through to your eyes.

“Nonsense, you were the star of today's show. Give yourself some credit, would ya?” your cheek soaks in the pinch before your brain can decode her words, you muffle a whine in protest.

“Okay, okay! I'm sorry.” your hand quickly soothes over the tempered skin when her fingers retreat, that's the extent of ‘retaliation’ you offer Serval, having accustomed yourself to her spontaneity in the interim of your stay under her care.

“I saw you look... pretty unnerved after the performance, so I came to check.” you scratch your cheek, eyes darting upwards to find her face shielded by your hair. You cannot pinpoint why, but for a second it seemed like she struggled to find footing with her phrasing of words. You've never heard her falter, at least in speech, but the waves of conversation swallow that momentary observation just as quickly.

Instead of being candid, you take a different turn, “You know, I wasn't lying about being grateful to you all. To perform on a stage without any rules was a long held dream of mine,” you feel gooseflesh bloom across your arms as tip-toeing touch descends to your sides, something within tempts you to curl in on yourself but you force your breath to finish. “If it hadn't been for your help, I would never succeed in fulfilling it.”

Serval hums in understanding, the timbres of it traverses from your skull and extends to your nerves. Her arms rest snuggly around your waist and you swallow dryly. Serval always wrapped her arms around your shoulders whenever she felt the need to and the fact that it made your head nearly spiral with questions didn't require to be stated. Only now do you reckon the slumbering atmosphere, without the jeer and cheer of the audience, you felt Belobog's cold biting into the tips of your fingers. You told everyone to not disturb you — your mind echoes without clarification.

“Is it because of that husband of yours?”

Your shoulders tense and for a litany of reasons, most obscure enough to be dismissed as misnomers produced by your instincts, none but one potent enough to be addressed. “Well yes… I told you about a man, but I don't remember specifying that it was a ‘husband’ responsible for my situation.”

Your words materialize as half confused and half laden with caution, you'd told Serval a few things about your predicament — nothing groundbreakingly detailed, just enough to earn a portion of her empathy. It kills you to follow tactics that enticed you to your doom, but what is life, if not a series of trial and error? It's best to apply the teachings of a manipulator than to continue being manipulated for eternity. But of course, you'll admit, such carefully taken steps still don't lessen the likelihood of meeting a dead-end to zero. How unfortunate.

It's Serval's turn to tense, but it's so quick you're left questioning whether it really happened. “Ah, but there was a ring on your right ring finger when you first came here! And the ‘man’ in your stories didn't seem to be different persons. So, I took a guess…”

An awkward chuckle leaves the rockstar's lips and you blink. She's right, you were still wearing your wedding ring when you came here ; an amateur mistake, you should've left it at some abstruse corner of the Dewlight Pavilion. You glance up at your reflections on the mirror, Serval was now mimicking your previous antics, a painted nail against her cheek albeit, the opposing light veiled her expression from recognition. One of her arms was still around your waist, loosely this time.

“I didn't say anything offending, did I?” the mechanic mutters tentatively. You take a deep breath and exhale, vacillating between the multitude of scenarios conjured by your lingering paranoia. But if it's Serval, you give it more thought, there was no tangible reason as to why she of all people would bring this up with malicious intent — or at least, none that you could come up with. She was likely merely concerned for your well-being, a big sister's instincts perhaps.

“Not at all,” the three words are uttered with more difficulty than needed but the effort is proved worth it when she relaxes and returns to embrace you with gusto.

This time you can feel her touch vividly across the bare skin of your midriff, a reminder of your present dress up automatically causes blood to rush to your face. The matching crop-top with Serval was hardly the most revealing thing someone had worn in this universe, but it was the boldest you'd been with your attire. You think you saw her gaze tilting at the sight but the only way to affirm it would make things further awkward. As you melt upon recalling that you'd sung your lungs out with this on in front of a crowd, the rockstar chimes in again.

“Ah right, I almost forgot why I actually came here. I have a gift for you!” you blink out of your stupor to hear shuffles, a bottle of hairspray is knocked to the ground due to her movements. The object clamors down and rolls a few feet away but Serval pays it no attention, you quirk a brow at her sudden briskness. “Close your eyes.” she lulls sweetly, you obey despite your state of disorientation.

You feel the faint brushes of her fingers first, then a noticeable weight around your neck, fastened a little too tightly. After she beckons you to open your eyes, you scrutinize the object through your reflection on the mirror and recognize it to be… a choker. It's heavier than what you recall chokers to be, its body is painted in baby blue and when you turn your head the light bounces off its surface to reveal golden outlinings. Three small wings curl around the white tassel hanging from the middle, you find the wings to be unnervingly soft when your fingers brush across them.

The choker looked expensive, despite its somewhat gaudy appearance and it didn't seem like something aligning with Serval's tastes. But most importantly, there's blue and white in it — the two colors you'd been stubbornly avoiding. Your mind spirals, you clearly remember telling Serval that you didn't want to see those two colors today — or, did you? Perhaps it was your mind weaving its own narratives in the flurry of adrenaline? A chill rears its grotesque head, a panic you can't quite push down despite your mind adapting to give her the benefit of the doubt, your breaths lapse unevenly.

“For being such a darling member of Mechanical Fever, a token of our friendship. I didn't know how else to thank you, so I got this instead.” Serval's voice yanks you from the edge of a panic attack, you force yourself to breathe deeply. You turn around when you notice the absence of her shadow, finding her retreating into the shadow of the half ajar door.

You remain seated on the juncture between light and shadow, returning to face the mirror after the rockstar settles on a stool. “I should be the one saying that and… you didn't have to give me this, but I appreciate the gesture nonetheless.” your thumb and index fingers twiddle with the pure white tassel.

Her words seem to make you forget about your earlier paranoia, nostalgia cascades down your soul as you recall the fond memories inherent to Belobog. Destiny's game is truly difficult to comprehend, to think you'd find an actual home so far from your supposed one.

You add without waiting for her reply, “When I first came here, I was so scared and paranoid. I couldn't sleep the first night and I wanted nothing more than to flee the next morning. I really mean it when I say I couldn't make it without your and the others' help.”

Your palm cradles the beat of your existence, the thin fabric of the crop top does little to muffle your heart's clamorous prance.

“Thank you, thank you so much for everything.” your pour as much gratitude from the river coursing through the recesses of your soul in those words. Your chest constricts as you sigh, you remember all the faces that are now known as familiar and random instances buried deep in your memories. Perhaps it's the naturally cold weather of this planet that plays a part, but you furrow your brows as inexplicable sorrow engulfs your heart.

“I, too, hope that you've had a wonderful experience on this planet.”

A much younger you used to judge the victims of stories for choosing to freeze than to flee in the face of candid danger, vowing to not follow in their footsteps should you meet such a predicament one day. Your heart would shatter to incorrigible bits if it hadn't been so viciously twisted, you realize how futile promises are at the thin line separating life and death.

Your body flinches from its hunched position to meet watchful golden eyes, shielded by the door's shadow. You blink a multitude of times, as if that'd make his poised presence disappear, as if that'd affirm that you were simply in the grips of anxiety and Serval would return to reprimand you back to reality.

The warmth drains from your body when he's still there, sitting in front of you with a mocking serenity — you've never hated the vice grip he maintains on his composure more than this moment. Why, how, when and what conjoins his name to frame a myriad of questions, each being answered by none other than you the very next second. Your ears twitch when you catch voices at the end of the hallway, the actual Serval and others must be retreating. You might be a deer inches away from the tiger's jaw, but you'll not go down without a fight, at least.

“If you're planning to scream, I'd advise against that.” Sunday calmly states, your breath catches in your throat. “The choker on your neck has a shock mechanism and it can be activated in various ways. Namely, any time you raise your voice above the coded decibels and the voltage will increase the louder you scream.”

Your hand flies upwards towards the cursed choker and you wrestle a breath in disbelief, you were made a fool of and quite exquisitely. You realize you should've listened to your gut instincts when you still had the choice. Sunday raises a gloved palm when you restlessly tug at the thing, “Don’t bother, it can only be taken off with a password.”

A password only he knows, you conclude. It was not news to you that his sanity is loose from the hinges of his soul, but never would you have expected him to go this far. You glare at your husband, though it looks more like a gazelle's helpless stare as it struggles in the jaws of a predator. The voices from the hallway disappear entirely, you'd told them not to look for you so they'll not return, you feel your eyes moisten as you realize you're stuck alone with Sunday.

“Why—” you choke.

“I understand that you must have a lot of questions,” his words are half resignation and half cheap empathy. “But it is not your turn to speak, for there are more pressing matters at hand.”

Sunday stands up, brows scrunching at the dust floating around the room. “The matter of your possible unfaithfulness is one thing,” his hand grips the handle of the door and you flinch. “But performing in front of so many people without any consideration of how far it'll spread, or choice of attire,” your body erupts in shudders upon feeling his pointed stare, the expanse of your exposure finally registering.

“Truly unbefitting of my spouse.”

But it's not his judging gaze that has your nerves frayed, it's the hints of genuine disappointment that borders on anger leaking through his words that makes you feel parched, makes you want the earth split in half and take you from this situation. Your experience with Sunday has taught you that he has the patience of a saint, but none of those memories reassure you that it's boundless. You realize that you've never actually seen his face contorted in ire, no matter how defiant you'd been. Aeons, you wish it stayed that way forever.

As the shadow of the closing door engulfs your form and leaves the rest to interpretation, the last thing you see are his darkened golden eyes — you're certain that, that was the instance the last spirited part of you died.

rest in peace i guess

[hopesworlld]

౨ৎ oh ! dear diary, i met a boy !

౨�� 𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 — step!bro anakin x fem!reader

౨ৎ 𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆 — your stepbrother anakin finds your diary full of all your dirty little secrets

౨ৎ 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 — 6k

౨ৎ 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 — swearing, stepcest, smut ( masturbation f and m, oral sex f and m, vibrator, degradation, praise, use of the term slut/little slut, unprotected sex, p in v, fingering, overstimulation ) i think that’s all !

౨ৎ 𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝘀 ! — someone call the psych ward immediately !

part two part three masterlist

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anakin groaned in annoyance as he stormed up the steps at his mothers command asking him to fetch his stepsister for some reason or another. he barged into your bedroom not bothering to knock, he always liked seeing you jump, sometimes you were on your bed, phone dropping from your hands as your lips parted in surprise. other times you were perched at your vanity catching his eye in the mirror with horrified delight. but his favourite would always be when he entered your room to find you clad in nothing but a pair of white panties. your face had been painted crimson, eyes clutching your breasts but he could still see your rosy nipples peeking beneath your manicured nails, pert from the cold winter air.

but this time, much to his disappointment he found the room empty, your fairlights glittered along the ceiling and the pink lamp beside your bed cast light on the little book had seen you clutching to your chest every so often, it was hot pink and dotted with stickers of various celebrities that he despised. you had always been protective of it, even your father had once gained a slap to the hand when he tried to touch your book. so anakin knew he had no choice, he slowly entered the room further, noting the sound of rushing water from the bathroom. perfect.

he crossed your room in a matter of seconds and scooped up the book, flicking through a couple pages, the first few he saw held nothing of interest and he skimmed through. there were no dates but he could tell they were from before your father and shmi had bought the house and blended your family, he read a few sentences of you complaining about school, and friend drama and almost called it a bust. his innocent priss of a stepsister was the same in her diary as she was every day. that was until he skipped ahead and found his name appearing. with new found interest he settled down on your bed.

/ anakin came back from college today and he actually looked happy to see me, or he smiled when he got out of the car which is a first. i wish he would smile more, he looks so pretty when he smiles.

anakin scoffed at this, rolling his eyes, this had only been a few weeks ago and he had been laughing at a text just moments before, but of course you would think he was happy to see you. you always greeted him the same, glossy lips twisted in a saccharine smile as you bounced on the balls of your feet, begging for an ounce of attention from him. it was ridiculous, but he had to know more.

/ anakin is fixing up dad’s old car in the driveway so that he can use it, i’ve never been so happy for my father’s hoarding tendencies in my life. i was sat at my window for two hours today watching him. he was wearing that black wife beater, the one that makes his arms look even bigger than usual, so muscly and strong. i wonder what it would feel like for him to pick me up, and feel his muscles against my back, they look so good when they’re tensed. he was so sweaty too, i wanted to run out there and lick it from his skin, how disgusting but wow, i wish i took a picture of him like that. soaked in sweat and oil.

anakin’s jaw was agape, his sweet innocent stepsister wasn’t such an angel as he once thought. his dick twitched beneath his sweatpants at the thought of you perched on your window seat with a perfect view of him working rubbing your thighs together, desperate for his touch, his taste. it was taboo, disgusting, your parents were married and here you were writing dirty little fantasies. he loved it. addicted to the words you had spilled across the page in pretty gel pens.

/ dad asked me why i was so distracted today at dinner, how could i not be? anakin came down in just shorts and i swear i could see everything, he’s bigger than i imagined, i probably wouldn’t even be able to fit my hand around it, but ellen said boys like that. i wonder what it looks like, i’ve only ever seen them in porn. anakin didn’t even notice anything was off with me, didn’t notice me staring. i wish he would.

“fuck,” anakin hissed, his dick was now almost fully hard and throbbing. who knew you were such a slut, fantasising about his cock at the dinner table. if he had known… god he wanted to fucking ruin you. show you how to take his dick, watch as you choked and cried around it as he forced it past your swollen lips. he wanted to paint you in his cum and not stop until you were a shaking writhing mess. he knew you were hot, had thought it the second he saw you, your hair in braids clad in ivory like some kind of fallen angel but had pushed it away, you were his stepsister for fuck sake, but now…

/ he walked in on me changing today, i was only in my underwear and he laughed, but i caught him staring at my boobs, i made sure not to cover them properly and it worked. i got so wet, i don’t think i’ve ever come so hard before. i wanted him to do something, walk over to me and rip my hands away, push me on the bed and fuck me till i saw stars, but instead i just had to use my vibrator. sometimes i wish he could hear me moaning through the wall, maybe he can.

“little fucking slut,” anakin said to himself as he glanced across the page, hand cupping his rock hard cock through his trousers, your words were depraved, desperate. maybe he should walk into the bathroom right now and take you like you were so desperate for, you would have no trouble spreading your legs for him, would probably beg for it, do anything he asked. his perfect little fuck toy. he couldn’t help himself anymore, spitting on his hand and slipping it down his trousers tugging at his cock as he continued to read.

/ i bought a dildo today from ann summers but i’m scared, my fingers are so small compared to it, the woman said it was about average but wow. no matter how much prep i do it hurts. i bet anakin would feel better, the silicon is so hard and cold. i wore one of his t-shirts it smells like him, that helped a little but it’s not the same, i’ve heard his stories when he talks to his friends about the girls he’s fucked. he knows what he’s doing, i wonder how he would take me, on my back nice and slow, or pound into me from behind while i screamed. maybe he would call me angel like he does sometimes, i wish. now my arm just hurts so i’m here alone in my bed playing with my clit wishing it was him.

anakin jerked against his hand at the last sentence, he had never cum this quickly before, but your words had him loosing his shit, he couldn’t even imagine what else you thought if this was only what you choose to write down, what other dirty secrets lurked beneath that pretty facade of pink and glitter. the next page held a collection of polaroids you had taken of him, some from the window as he worked on his car, skin sheened in sweat and oil, shirtless as he drank a bottle of water. another of him laying on the sofa arm resting behind his head a can of beer in hand, and the last was him glaring at the camera. he remembered this one, he had demanded you rip it up, but here it was immortalized with pink and purple hearts surrounding it. but the next page was from today.

/ anakin came home from playing baseball with his friends about an hour ago, he was gross, sweaty and loud after hours with his friends. he slid past me in the kitchen his hands on my hips for just a second i wish he would have bent me over the counter and fucked me there and then. i would have let him, dad was in the living room but i don’t care, god, he’s ruined me. all i can think about is him, his cock, his hands, his lips. i need him. i’m gonna go shower, i was meant to help shmi with dinner but i couldn’t, not when i was soaking through my panties while stood next to her fantasising about her son.

“oh fuck,” anakin hissed as he came into his fist, cum coating his boxers and knuckles. you were insane, and maybe so was he for getting so worked up but he knew he couldn’t hold back now, he had seen those words and there was no going back. a bit shakily he stood from the bed wiping his hands on his sweatpants and grabbing the sparkly pen from your desk and decided to leave a little note of his own in your dirty little diary.

/ who knew you were such a dirty little slut, angel girl

and with that he left your bedroom, cum drying on his boxers, he could only hope you found his note sooner rather than later.

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after your shower you felt a lot better, you had turned the water considerably cooler than usual and taken some deep breaths you had learned from yoga, pushing anakin far from your mind, you let the ritual of getting redressed soothe your mind, slipping into a soft matching set of white shorts and a crop top, leaving your hair loose and applying your skin care. you almost felt like yourself, untainted by the dirty thoughts that seemed perpetually in your mind.

you wished it would stop, you hated yourself for it, your father was finally happy after years of thinking he would never find love again after your mother had passed. if he knew what you were thinking he would be disgusted, he would probably send you off to your aunt to protect anakin and shmi from your sick mind, the thought made your stomach hurt. you wanted to stop you really did, but then you would see him and all those dirty thoughts would slip back in, he was haunting you.

you headed downstairs, an airpod pressed in one ear hoping some music would soothe your guilty mind, finding shmi in the kitchen. the woman smiled in relief when she saw you.

“there you are, i sent ani up to get you half an hour ago,” she said a little flustered and instantly your heart dropped, you didn’t know why she was upset but she had needed you. you hated upsetting people, ‘always a people pleaser’ your mother had used to scold you fondly.

“i’m so sorry, anakin never told me,” you said truthfully and the woman sighed before laughing begrudgingly.

“my son has many talents, listening has never been one of them,” she said with a fond smile before turning back to the stove, “i’m making your dad that soup he loves so much but this recipe seems wrong, think you could help me out?” she requested holding out a sheet of paper to you and you took it immediately, nodding happily.

“of course,” you beamed, “well firstly it’s chicken stock not vegetable stock,” you informed her, “and secondly use heavy cream instead of milk, he likes the taste more. but other than that it seems perfect”

“really?” she asks you, face a little tight.

“yep, we always make it a little different depending on what we have but you have got this down to a t now i would say, and dads gonna love it,” you said and shmi finally smiled again, you hated when she frowned, it made her seem much older, an echo of the struggling woman she had once been and she didn’t deserve that, she never did.

“want to stay and help me make it?” she asked and you accepted. the pair of you worked in tandem, and soon you had a delicious pot of soup bubbling on the stove ready to be served along with homemade grilled cheese.

“okay, i’m gonna go grab your dad from the den do you mind getting, ani,” shmi asked and you agreed despite yourself, bounding out of the kitchen and up the stairs to anakin’s room, knocking once, then twice and then three times before you finally got a response.

“come in,” he called out, so you swung the door open, expecting a scowl or a blank stare but instead he was smirking widely at you, as though he knew something you didn’t and it made your skin crawl. “oh, hey, angel,” he greeted. fuck.

“dinners ready,” you told him, proud that you managed to keep your voice steady and his face dropped a little bit before his smile suddenly widened again.

“and you came to get me?” he asked teasingly, your stomach tightened, twisting into a ball and sending a jolt of heat straight to your core. he was going to kill you.

“your mum asked me to,” you say shortly, spinning around and walking away, taking a deep breath as you did so. stupid, stupid, stupid…

“angel,” anakin said again, and that name was going to send you into overdrive, a flush growing on your cheeks. “not gonna wait for me? that’s not very nice,” he complained and you shook your head.

“are you high?” you asked him as you reached the landing but anakin grabbed your wrist stopping you from heading down the steps.

“what makes you say that?” he asked you, drawing closer to you so that your faces were only inches apart, you could feel his hot breath fanning on your cheeks, see deep into his eyes, so pretty and blue beneath the crystalline lights above.

“your acting strange,” you pointed out with a frown, anakin was never nice to you, he was cordial sometimes, blunt others and sometimes he was simply rude, but never this. never teasing and friendly and chasing you down through the halls of your home to chat. it was as unnerving as it was utterly addictive.

“i just learned something new today, something that’s changed my perspective a little bit,” he crooned, hand coming up and resting on the wall beside your head, you blinked at him. what the fuck?

“what did you learn?” you asked him curiously and anakin grinned, a beautiful blinding thing that took your breath away.

“you’ll see,” was all he said before withdrawing from you and heading down the steps leaving you flabbergasted where you stood, heart racing and core throbbing. “come on, angel, don’t wanna be late for dinner,” he called up to you and you followed soundlessly, wondering if you had accidentally fallen into a different dimension while in the shower.

dinner was normal, or as normal is it could be with anakin acting so out of character, he was chatting like he hadn’t seen anyone in years, some kind of newfound zest for life that even had his mother seemed confused about but accepted with open arms. it was nice to see anakin talking, usually, he would mutter a few words before disappearing back to his room.

“yea, i was thinking of working at the garage next term to get a little extra cash, you know where you’re going to colleague next year, angel?” anakin asked, you looked over at him a little wide-eyed at the nickname in front of your parents, but glancing at them you saw that they both seemed… pleased.

“um, i have a few options actually, still not sure,” you murmured, still lost in what was happening, but it was making your head spin.

“she’s been looking at your school a bit,” your dad cut in, “it’s got a great program for what she wants to study,”

“oh really? maybe i could set something up for you, or maybe just give you a show around of the school next term, let you see what it’s really about,” anakin suggested with a smile and shmi beamed.

“oh that's a lovely idea, ani dear,” she exclaimed, “what do you think, sweetheart?” she asked her eyes darting to you and you pulled your lips into a smile.

“yea that sounds great,” you agreed, glancing back at anakin who sent you a wink. you almost groaned, rubbing your thighs together, you thought anakin being mean to you was enough to send you spiraling, spilling dirty fantasies into your book but him being nice was going to send you into a whirl of delusions that were going to be detrimental to your mental health if it continued.

once dinner was finished you rushed to your room, ready to spill your guts into your diary, you grabbed it from your bedside table and flicked to the next open page, your heart dropping to your stomach when you saw the words scrawled on the page.

\ who knew you were such a dirty little slut, angel girl

“oh my god,” you whispered to yourself, tossing the book down onto the bed, horror-struck. you knew that handwriting, had seen it many times before and now here it was taunting you in a book full of your sick twisted fantasies that all featured him. you felt nauseous, bile rising in your throat, is this why he was so happy, some sort of twisted revenge? had he taken pictures of it? did he plan on showing your dad? “this can’t be happening,” you whispered to yourself.

“i see you found my note,” a cocky voice echoed from behind you, you span around, lips trembling and anakin’s brows furrowed slightly.

“please don’t tell my dad, i’m so sorry anakin. i know it’s wrong and disgusting but please he will never forgive me if i ruin this for him, he loves your mum so much and i…” the world were tumbling from your lips so quickly you could hardly process them, not even noting as anakin shut the door behind him and crossed the room so that he was stood before you, “i’m sorry,” you practically wailed, “you were never supposed to see that, it was just somewhere to put down my thoughts,” tears were streaming down your cheeks now, “please don’t hate me,”

“you gonna be quiet now?” anakin asked you once you finally stopped rambling and you nodded through sniffles, vision blurred by your tears. “good,” he whispered, reaching up and cupping your cheek, “i’m not gonna tell your dad, angel,” he said soothingly, “not when i know how much fun we can have now,” anakin said with a smile.

“what… what are you saying?” you asked him. this couldn’t be real, this couldn’t be happening right now. no way.

“i’m saying, that i wanna see just how dirty you can be, angel,” he cooed, “i wanna know the darkest parts of that fucked up little mind of yours,” your breathing hitched, raising your hands to wipe the tears from your ruddy cheeks and staring at him in disbelief.

“anakin…” you whispered, “this is wrong,”

“oh i know that, baby, but it didn’t stop you from burying your fingers into your cunt and imagining it was me. from laying in bed only a room away from me and moaning my name while you tried to use a dildo on yourself wishing it was me,” he hummed, “and what was it that you wrote earlier? that you were picturing me bending you over with your dad in the next room, that you couldn’t be with my mother in the kitchen because you were dripping down your thighs thinking about me,”

“oh fuck,” you moaned, hearing him depict your fantasies, the things you had said were driving you wild, something stirring within you, it set your veins alight with molten flames, spreading through your body and stirring your aching cunt, you could feel your arousal flooding your panties, sticky and wet, you didn’t know what to do, what to think but you needed him, more than you had ever needed anything in your life.

“that’s it, angel, i wanna hear every pretty sound you can make fall from your pretty lips,” anakin prompted, one hand falling to your hips and pulling you in so that your flush was pressed against him another moan falling from your lips when you felt his half hard cock press against your stomach. “what is it you want, tell me, what dirty secret are we sharing tonight?” he asked you.

“kiss me, just kiss me please,” you begged, and anakin obliged crashing his lips to yours, it was messy, all teeth and tongue and spit. immediately he was diving in, tongue prying through your lips and plunging into your mouth, he tasted of smoke, mint and sugar and instantly you were addicted. your hands rose to his shoulders, tugging him closer you wanted to feel every part of him. your hands tugged at his t-shirt wanting to taste his skin, to see him everywhere.

“so eager, baby,” he muttered against your lips before reaching behind him, tugging his t-shirt over his head revealing the planes of his chest and his toned stomach to your awaiting eyes, you had seen him shirtless many times before, but now you could touch him. “take what you want,” he grinned and you did just that, fingers dipping into every crevice, you explored him as though one would a fine piece of art you wanted to memorise the feeling of his skin, the taste, you hardly thought twice before leaning down and kissing the middle of his chest, running your tongue along the unblemished skin, moaning at the taste of salt and skin. “god,” the boy murmured, reaching down and grasping your hair, yanking your head back harshly, “take my sweatpants off,” he commanded and you were not one to disobey, not now, not when you had him.

you wrapped your hands around the waist band and tugged, gasping when his dick sprung free, unrestrained by any boxers beneath, he was already hard, really hard, his cock flushed a deep red, the tip weeping milky precum and gods were you right, he was big, long and thick, far bigger than the dildo you had purchased. you salivated at the sight.

“can i…” you whispered, slowly trailing off, a wave of embarrassment washing over you.

“tell me what you want, angel, this is your dirty little dream, i’m just helping make it come true,” anakin said and you nodded, taking a deep breath.

“wanna taste you, ani, can i?” you asked him gently, batting your lashes at him and the boy hissed through his teeth, jaw clenching in a way that made your entire body sing.

“fuck me, go ahead, pretty girl, show me what that mouth is actually good for,” his words were disgusting, a sick way of calling your words worthless and it made you go fucking feral, you sank to your knees, eyeing his cock a little unsurely before carefully wrapping a hand around his thick length, anakin groaned, watching you, eyes alight with interest.

“look at that you were right,” he told you, “your hand can’t even fit around it,” he said, and you shuddered, ingjerking your hand slightly, letting itit glide along the velvety skin of his cock, admiring it, and the sound he made was worth it, so much so that you leaned in, licking a stripe along the side of his cock, stopping once you reached the tip and suckling it gently. a.nakin’s hands fell to your hair gripping it, but not forcing you, he was letting you explore first, you bobbed you head, sinking deeper on his cock, the sensation was strange but not unpleasant. so you took him deeper, the salty taste of him drawing you in further, you pulled back, sucking in a deep breath before taking him deeper until it hit the back of your throat. you were hardly halfway down his cock, so you tried again this time more forcefully, choking when his cockhead rammed into the back of your throat.

“easy, baby,” anakin cooed, pulling you off of his cock, you looked up at him with glossy eyes, spit spilling down your chin.

“you’re so big,” you whined at him accusingly making the boy laugh, stroking your cheek with his thumb.

“poor little slut, so desperate for cock but has no clue what she’s doing,” he patronised, thumb trailing down and hooking in your mouth, parting your lips for him, you let your mouth fall open. “gotta take it slow, you aren’t gonna take it all the first time, okay? probably not for a few times, gotta train that throat of yours to take cock, huh?” he asked and you nodded at him, unable to speak with his thumb in you mouth. “try again, huh,” he prompted and you nodded eagerly, this time letting anakin guide your mouth to his awaiting cock, you followed his instructions going slower this time, starting at just the tip suckling it, savoring the taste of his salty cum in your mouth but eventually anakin began to push you further with a groan. you swallowed around him, trying to remember to breathe with the heavy weight on your tongue, your mouth felt stretched, lips stinging, and jaw aching but you couldn’t stop. you needed this, needed him to cum, to know he was enjoying this as much as you were.

“good girl, that’s it,” anakin praised you and you preened, moaning around his cock and making the boy chuckle, “oh you like that, huh, pretty girl? wanna be my good girl?” you couldn’t move, couldn’t speak so instead you locked your eyes with his and this time it was anakin’s turn to moan. “you look so fucking sexy like this, should have known you made for it,” you bobbed your head faster in agreement, it felt wrong to agree, to accept that you were just some sort of object that was made to take dick and love it, but you couldn't argue. not now when you had tasted his cock and you knew you would never be the same again, this was it for you, a springboard into a world that would drive you insane.

“you keep going i’m gonna cum, you ready for that, angel?” he asked you, but you didn’t respond, only forcing him deeper, spluttering slightly but you didn’t pull back, instead taking a settling breath through your nose, spit was dripping down your chin, tears streaming but you couldn’t stop, continuing to choke on his cock, only pulling away when you absolutely had too and it was barley for a few seconds before you were on him again. it was only about a minute before anakin’s hips began to twitch, his cock heavier in your mouth.

��“i’m gonna cum, fuck, baby pull back a little you don’t wanna choke,” he prompted and you did as you were told. lips suctioned around his tip, using your hand to jerk off the rest of his cock and with that, he was cumming down your throat in thick hot spurts. it was disorientating and everything you had ever dreamed of. you swallowed as much as you could of the salty liquid, but some escaped the corners of your mouth, dripping down your chin and onto your plush carpet, you kept suckling until anakin pulled you away, his lips parted and cheeks flushed.

“that was…” he trailed off voice hoarse, “you did such a good job, angel,” he cooed, reaching out and helping you stand up, your knees ached and you felt a little shaky but you couldn't ignore the heat in your core and the sopping wetness between your legs.

“i liked it,” you said bashfully, voice scratchy.

“of course you did,” anakin mocked lightly but there was no malice behind his words, instead he reached down and grabbed his shirt using it to mop your cheeks and mouth, “come on i wanna try something,” he said, grabbing you hand and leading you over to your bed, “lay down, pretty girl,”

“what are you doing?” you asked him softly and he grinned.

“just lay down, okay, i’m gonna do the work for a bit,” he said, so you followed instruction and laid down on the bed, looking up at him with such innocent trust that it made his heart stutter slightly, “i’m gonna take your top off okay?” he said, climbing onto the bed with you and hovering over you, his legs stradling either side of your hips, he looked so big like this, tall and strong, body on show as he looked down at you.

“okay,” you agreed, letting anakin tug the crop top from your body leaving your chest bare to him.

“been waiting a while to see these again,” he murmured, finger pinching your nipple lightly, you gasped, jolting upwards at the sensation and anakin laughed, “sensitive girl,” he teased, pinching your other nipple, using his body to keep you pinned to the bed. “what was it you said in that dirty little book when i saw your tits for the first time?” he asked you, “hm, let’s have a look shall we?” he said grabbing the book from where it lay only a few inches away from you. your cheeks lit up in shame, shaking your head.

“ani, no,” you pleaded with him but the boy shot you a harsh stare.

“what was that, baby?” he questioned, tone stern, “i thought you wanted this? want me to leave you to deal with this alone like you always do, seeing my cock should do you a good couple months, and you even got to taste it,”

“don’t leave” you begged, “i’m just embarrassed,” you whimper, this brought the smile back to anakin’s face.

“you don’t need to be embarrassed, pretty girl, without this little thing you would probably still be downstairs watching tv with your dad trying not to think about me, isn’t that right?” he asked, leaning in to plant a soft kiss on your swollen lips.

“yes,” you said quietly, “just don’t be mean, i really… i needed you. i need you,”

“oh, baby, but you like it when i’m a little mean don’t you?” he snickered, “but back to what i was saying, where is it?” he asked flicking through the pages of the book before he found what he was looking for, “ah, here it is. you wanted me to push you onto this bed and fuck you till you saw stars,” you whimper at this, “and look how proud you were that you caught me staring at your tits,” he grinned, “pretty things aren’t they,” he leaned down, capturing your right nipple between his teeth, nibbling slightly before sucking it into his mouth. the sensation was too much, you gasped, trying to jerk against him but anakin was too strong, he bit down on your nipple, a warning before soothing it with his tongue, moving and doing the same to the other one until you were a panting mess.

“good girl,” he praised, “now this wasn’t what i wanted to do actually, just had to get a taste,” he told you with a wink and you blinked at him stunned. “where do you keep your vibrator, angel?” anakin questioned you.

“um, my bedside draw,” you murmured and anakin nodded, leaning over and opening up and pulling out your pretty pink vibrator.

“cute,” he said, “now, baby, i want to see you use this, okay? wanna know what you look like when you are playing with yourself and thinking about me,” he crooned.

“ani, i’m… fuck okay,” you said reaching out and taking the vibrator from him, anakin climbed off of you and you immediately missed the weight of him atop of you but ignored it was you yanked your shorts and panties down, revealing your throbbing pussy to anakin, the boy groaning in apprecation.

“holy shit, you’re fucking soaked, angel,” he crooned, “look at your clit, all puffy and red. all from sucking my cock?” anakin asked and you nodded, cheeks crimson. “you are a dream, pretty girl,” your clit pulsed at his words and quickly you pressed your vibrator to it before switching it on. your body writhed at the contact, you had been desperate for this for what felt like hours, every inch of your being aching for relief as you trailed the toy down, soaking it in your wetness before bringing it back to your clit, moaning at the feeling.

“fuck, anakin, feels so good” you cried out, tilting your head to look at him and seeing him gazing at your pussy in awe.

“i bet it does, angel, you were so sore, so desperate for this,” he said, reaching out and trailing a finger along your dripping slit, your hips jerked, heart pounding, “gonna come that quick, fuck, do it, baby,” he prompted. you pressed the toy harder to your clit gasping and crying out, the sight of anakin before you, the months of waiting, wanting, it all built up and before you could even react the coil in your stomach snapped and you came with a sharp moan, the vibrator still pressed to your cunt as you twitched through the aftershocks of your orgasm. then you felt it, something wet and warm trailing through your fold, you looked down to see anakin now lying between your legs, his tongue buried in your cunt.

“ani” you sobbed, switching the vibrator off and tossing it to the side, anakin taking this as his chance to wrap is lips around your clit and suck. you all but screamed, still strumming with pleasure and overwhelmed by the feeling of his mouth on you, it was hypnotic.

“did i tell you to stop?” he asked pulling back and grabbing the vibrator and flicking it on, pressing to to your abused clit, you gasped, looking down at him with wide eyes, “you are gonna hold this while i eat you out okay, you move it and i’ll stop,” he commanded.

“but, ani, it’s so sensitive,” you told him and anakin simply scoffed.

“you can take it, sluts like you can come as many times as you need to, bet you are still aching for relief,” he said pressing it down harder and you screeched, “take it,” and you did, grabbing the toy from his hand and holding it there as he burried his tongue back inside of you, licking into your sopping walls.

“oh my god, oh my god, anakin please,” you begged one hand slipping down to his hair, tugging on the dark strands with a sob. the vibrator on your clit was brutal, stirring up another orgasm in quick sucession to the last but anakin didn’t stop, he continued to lick and suck while you trembled, slick pouring from your slit as you jerked violently, cumming twice before anakin finally let up.

“you taste fucking divine, angel,” anakin said, his face glossy with your cum, you couldn’t move, couldn’t think as he switched the vibrator off and tossed it to the ground. “fuck me, i’ve never seen such a pretty girl before,” he crooned, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand before crawling up your body and pressing a dirty kiss to your lips. he tasted of salt and your release and it made your body ache once more.

“ani, ani, please,” you begged against his mouth, you werent sure exactly what you were begging for but you needed it, needed him.

“sh, angel, its okay,” he said gently, running his hands down your hips sothingly, “tell me what you need” he prompted and you wailed, he looked stunned, “hey, come on talk to me, too much?” he questioned but you shook your head violently.

“need to feel you,” you said through heaving breaths, clumsily reaching out and grasping his cock that pulsed in your hand, he spluttered out a moan, rocking his hips into you, head of his cock catching your clit with such delicious pleasure that you swore you almost saw stars. “inside,” you demanded, words failing you in that moment of utter want.

“need to prep you first,” he said, gently removing your hands from his cock before sliding his fingers through your throbbing heat finding your slit with ease and slowly sinking one finger in.

“more,” you begged almost instantly, hands clinging to his shoulders and anakin complied, sinking another finger inside of you, pumping into your wet heat as you babbled and cried.

“never imagined i would have you like this, so desperate for me,” anakin panted, “wanna know a secret, i’ve wanted this for so long, have pictured taking you so many times,” he whispered, “i came reading your diary, seeing how much you wanted me,”

“anakin,” you said, hands coming to his cheeks cupping them so that he would face you, you could see the raw desire that danced behind his pretty blue eyes, “i’m ready, please,” and he complied, slowly lining his cockhead with your swollen hole slowly inching in. the burn was intense, a tearing feeling consuming your cunt even as you leaked more slick onto his sodden cock. you gasped, more tears streaming down your cheeks as anakin slowly inched deeper.

“you can do it, baby, doing so well for me,” he praised as he sunk deeper, inch by inch before burying himself at the hilt and staying there, “look at that, angel, you did it,”

“oh, oh fuck,” it was nothing like your dildo that was all solid plastic and cold feel, instead it was warm and hard and sending your body into overdrive, it took a few moments to adjust to the feel of it, the intrusive weight uncomfortable but not unwelcomed, and it was all worth it to see anakins face. his eyes screwed up in pleasure, bottom lip pinched between his teeth as he tried to stay still for you. “move, you can move, please,”

“you sure, baby,” anakin gasped, voice tight.

“yes, please,” you agreed, he started slow at first, gentle shalow thrusts that allowed you to get used to the feeling of it, but soon he began to speed up, sinking deeper inside of you with each thrust until you could feel the tip pressing against your cervix, the pleasure was indescribable, you never knew it could feel like this, so all consuming. “yes, yes, harder,” you pleaded with him.

“you sure,” he gasped out.

“yes, i’m okay,” you nodded, and anakin listened, suddenly there was nothing between you but the heat of your skin and the slick of your bodies, a mix of sweat, cum and spit. it was disgusting, a sick merging of your bodies, anakin’s face was burried in your neck, sucking crimson marks onto your sensitive skin while you clawed at his back, manicured nails cutting into his golden skin.

“shit, you feel fucking amazing,” anakin said against your skin, grinding deeper, “such a good little pussy for me, taking me so well,” he told you, “you need to come on my cock again, wanna feel you cleanch around me, okay?” he said and you nodded frantically.

“please, ani,”

“that’s it, good girl,” he cooed, thumb coming between you to circle your clit, you could feel your orgasm building as he jerked into you, his thrusts getting sloppy and you knew he was close, could tatse it on your tongue, you needed it, needed him. “i own this pussy now,” he hissed, “gonna make every single one of your dirty fantasies come true and then we can try some of mine,” anakin told you, thumb speeding up and pleasure exploded behind your eyelids, everything went white and you were gone. when you came too anakin was hovering over you still cock in hand jerking himself off frantically.

“ani,” you whispered, hand coming up shakily and grasping his cock jerking it lightly and anakin came in thick hot spurts all over your chest and face while you took it happily. he collapsed down beside you, pulling you in so your face was pressed against his chest, leg cocking over his hips. “wow,” was all you managed to say.

“better get ready baby, this was only the beginning,” anakin smirked, pressing a kiss to your sweaty forhead and you couldn’t wait to see what else he had in store for you, and you thanked the stars that you had made that little diary.

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part 2???

[all-mirth-no-matter]

Time After Time | Chapter Eighteen

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Reader, Tommy Shelby x Original Female Character

Summary: Tommy has an important question for Grace, Ada and Freddie get married, and someone else comes back from the dead

Warning: language

ao3 link | catch up on tumblr here

Chapter 18: Trouble

Will it come to pass, or will I pass the test? You know what they say, yeah the wicked get no rest. You can have my heart, any place, any time.  Got so much to lose. Got so much to prove. God, don’t make me lose my mind.  — Trouble, Cage The Elephant

“Do you like races?” 

The way Tommy asked the question made your heart clench. 

You sat in the back room of the pub, peeking through a small crack in the doorway as you tried to remind yourself, It’s not real. You were trying to unsuccessfully distract yourself with the inventory as you stayed out of the way. 

But your eye caught the way Grace’s head tilted as she offered him her shy smile.

“Is it Cheltenham?” she asked sweetly. He hummed out a yes. “And you want to take me?” 

The way she emphasized the last word made you want to roll your eyes. 

You heard him clear his throat. “You’ll fit in. Prim, posh, like the rest of the rich girls who come in for these races.” 

You couldn’t help but look down at your own outfit, so dingy next to her deep red sweater and bright blonde hair, not a soft curl out of place. Get it together, you chastised yourself, completely over the self-loathing streak you’d been in lately. 

But the way Grace’s cheeks pinkened slightly at the compliment felt like twist of the knife already plunged into your psyche. 

This had been Tommy’s plan, you tried to remind yourself. The night before, after he’d come over from his altercation with Billy Kimber in the pub, he’d explained how he’d persuade the new barmaid to accompany them. 

You’d almost laughed at the way you had to remind him that he couldn’t just force someone to prostitute themselves out just because he said so. You had to remind yourself that in this period, with Tommy’s influence, he probably could. But you’d been successful in steering him away from that method. 

And while his proposal still felt very daunting, he’d decided to go the more flattering route. Still, you didn’t like the idea of leading her on. Not just because of your own feelings, but because you didn’t like putting someone in potential danger. Even if Kimber had good intentions (which you severely doubted, even though you’d never met the man), it wasn’t fun being blindsided that way. 

But Tommy had convinced you to ease her into it. Not to tell her something until there was something to tell. Again, you weren’t happy with it — but you’d come to learn how far Tommy was willing to bend on matters like these. 

You heard coins dropping on the counter, Tommy’s voice pulling back to their exchange. 

“Here, for the dress. Make it red.” 

“I’ll need more than that.”

Tommy huffed out an amused breath before you heard another coin be placed on the table. “That’s three pounds.”

“And how much did you pay for the suit you’ll be wearing?” 

“Oh, I don’t pay for suits.” You heard the clinking of glass as he collected the bottle of whiskey and glasses he’d asked for when he originally entered. Then he continued, “My suits are on the house, or the house burns down.”

“So you want me to go lookin’ like a flower girl?”

“What I want makes no difference. It’s not me you’re dressing up for.”

The sound of the snug window doors closed, and you felt yourself exhale, knowing the conversation between the pair had come to an end for now. A few seconds later, you heard the pub doors open and close, then the distinct sound of the snug doors close. 

Tommy had a meeting — some men who’d reached out wanting to discuss some potential business. 

After a few minutes, now back on the inventory, you got up and opened the door to the main room to check on something. You stopped when you noticed Grace leaning against the wall of the snug, her ear pressed against the window. She didn’t notice you, her concentration focused on overhearing whatever conversation was going on in the other room. 

You were deciding whether you should stop her, or continue to observe to see what she was up to, when the sound of singing began to grow louder from inside the snug. The singing caused her to push away from the wall, but not before her eyes finally met yours. Her mouth dropped in surprise before snapping shut as she tried to busy herself, but you didn’t miss the slight panic behind her eyes of being caught. She grabbed a crate of bottles and hustled into the side room behind the bar.

“All right, boys,” Tommy boomed as he opened the doors and gestured for them to exit, “when I know who knows what about what, I’ll let you know.” 

One of the men pushed the second man still singing out the pub door, and you caught the last bit of his song. 

“—I long to see the boys of the old IRA!”

Tommy shook his head as he set the bottle on the counter. 

“Pretty bold of them to sing that with the new Inspector running around,” you commented as you moved behind the counter, grabbing the paperwork you’d originally come out for. 

He huffed out a chuckle, bringing the cigarette to his mouth. “They’re only rebels because they like the songs.” 

You rose your brow, “Will they be back?” 

“Nah,” he shook his head, blowing out smoke. “They’ll go back to the Black Swan in Sparkbrook. I have to go, but tonight,” he pointed at you as he walked backwards toward the door. 

You nodded, a slight flush across your cheek at the bluntness of his comment. Only a few men sat in the far corners of the booth, but still, it wasn’t like Tommy was trying to be discreet. 

It’d been two nights in a row now that Tommy had closed out the day in your apartment. Nothing scandalous had happened either time— he hadn’t even kissed you since you’d gone to the races. Not that you were necessarily opposed to things moving a bit further — but knowing your luck the minute the two of you did, the world would swallow up into itself to stop you. 

The sound of Grace clearing her throat as she reemerged from the side room caused you to turn around. 

“That wasn’t what it looked like,” she began, and you were surprised at her gumption to address her obvious snooping. 

Your brow creased, “Really? You’re going to pretend like you weren't eavesdropping?” 

“I was just— they were my countrymen,” she stumbled, her eyes looking down to her hands. “I got curious. I know I shouldn’t—”

“No,” you emphasized. 

You could see her throat bobble. “I’ve never seen them before. I haven’t seen many Irishmen in this pub, really. It was a Republic song they were singing, wasn’t it?” 

“I think so,” you answered, still skeptic but curious. “Tommy said they don’t normally drink here.” 

“Oh,” she said, chancing a look back at you. “Did Mr. Shelby say where they do?” 

“Tommy wasn’t exactly whispering just now, I assume you heard him say where,” you answered. Her eyes dropped quickly, her cheeks pink as she met your eyes again. Unsure what her angle here was, your curiosity piqued. “Are you interested?” 

“I have no sympathies for them,” she said sharply, almost out of instinct. Her facial expressions shifted from disgusted to shameful, and then back to a forced neutral, as she must have realized her own tone too late. 

But in the quick moment, there was pain behind her eyes that you couldn’t help but notice. You didn’t completely understand, but you knew enough to know that what was going on with the division of Ireland at the moment was delicate. Especially with the reputation the Inspector had brought with him. And based on the history you knew, it was only going to get worse.

“I didn’t mean to imply—“

“The keg is empty, I’m going to refill it,” she said instead, avoiding your gaze as she went into the inventory room. 

“Grace.”

She stepped back into the doorway, her eyes still downcast. You waited for them to meet your eyes again before you continued. 

“Just… be careful.”

Ada had disappeared. You nor Polly had heard from her since Freddie came back and proposed to her at the train station, ignoring Tommy’s request for them to flee the city. 

So when a knock on your door startled you early in the morning, you were surprised to see the girl, who flew into your flat with a handful of white fabric. 

“YN, you’ve got to help me.” 

She threw everything in her hands to the bed as you asked if everything was okay. 

Turning around, her grin answered that question for you. “I’m getting married this morning. You have to help me get ready. Please.” 

Without another thought, you jump to start helping her. Her dress was beautiful white and ivory layered fabric that resembled very much what you imagined the women’s fashion was going to become. It was loose around her stomach, her baby bump finally prominent. 

“Where are you gonna go after the ceremony?” you asked, helping her tie the back of her dress. 

She sighed, “Nowhere.” 

“But I thought Tommy—”

“Freddie won’t have it. He’s insistent we stay here for now at least,” she said, her previous bubbly mood falling.

“Well since you’re staying, are you sure you don’t Polly to be here now? I mean, it’s not every day you get married.” 

She shook her head. “She’ll just try to stop me.” 

“And you didn’t think I would?” you asked, half joking. 

“I did.” Her answer surprised you. “I’m not an idiot, Y/N. I know that you and Tommy have been seein’ more of each other.” 

“It’s all still pretty platonic,” you countered, fiddling with a piece of her jewelry. When she creased her brow at your use of phrase. You offered her a shrug. “We’ve kissed, but I just can’t tell what he wants. I don’t even know if it’s a good idea, I just… I can’t help myself.” 

She gave you an empathetic smile, sitting with you on the bed as she took the jewelry out of your hand and replaced it with her own. “I may hate my brother right now, but I do love him. And I know him. I see glimpses of the boy he was before the war when he’s with you. Polly sees it too — we have a bet going on how long it’ll take before the two of you will make it official.” 

Your mouth gaped at that, shaking your head. “I’m choosing to ignore that comment.”

She chuckled. “Don’t worry, we wouldn’t dare say anything to Tommy. He’s nearly as stubborn as I am.” 

“Fine. But why then did you come here if you thought I was going to try and stop you?” 

She paused, biting her lip before fastening her shoes. “Because you didn’t tell Tommy about Freddie. He was genuinely surprised when I told him. Honestly, I’d assumed you’d told him already—”

“I wouldn’t.”

“I know.” She offered you a smile before tilting her head. “And, I know you don’t normally like to talk about the deep things — at least, not with me — but… can I ask you, why?”

Ada hadn’t pried much into your life. It’d been one of the things you’d been more grateful for in your friendship. 

Honestly, previously you had assumed she hadn’t pried because of her immaturity. She was very much a carefree, live-in-the-moment kind of girl, keeping most emotions and conversations at the surface level. 

But the look on her face made you wonder if you hadn’t been giving the girl credit. Maybe she was all those things sometimes, but she really did surprise you on how sympathetic and slightly intuitive she could be when she wanted to. And maybe she’d always been aware of your aversions to personal prying this whole time. 

You took her hand and offered her a sincere smile. “I moved around a lot growing up. I found it difficult to make friends, even through adulthood. When I first got here, you welcomed me in when I had no one. You helped me make the most of this life I found myself in and helped me miss my old life a little less. You welcomed me into your family and you were always there to remind me of a cheerier world. I’ll always be grateful to you.” 

Ada pulled you into a hug. “I knew I made the right decision.”

You wiped away the small tear that’d rolled down your cheek as she pulled away, busing yourself with the final piece of the ensemble.

You stood up and began tying on her veil. It was so delicate and ornate, adorned with flowers around edge that matched the free spirit you’d always seen in your friend. 

You stood her up and smoothed out her veil, then turned her to face you, your eyes scanning for any final touches. When you were done, you took a step back and covered your mouth, your smile bursting. Her own smile widened at your reaction, turning to appraise herself in your mirror. 

“Oh Ada,” your heart was bursting, “you’re beautiful.” 

She blushed, her grin wide and excitement infectious. Despite the circumstances of her fiance, you really were happy for Ada. As the first person who’d accepted you in this new world, you felt very protective and loyal to Ada. 

It’d been why you kept her secret about Freddie from the rest of her family, and why you’d promised to wait and tell Polly until that afternoon, after you knew the ceremony was official. 

While anxious, the matriarch had taken the news better than you expected. Though you guessed she was anticipating them getting married, what she hadn’t was Tommy’s deal with the Inspector to get Freddie out of the city. 

Apparently, Polly’s attempt at ‘dealing with it peacefully’ hadn’t worked out the way she expected. Ada turned up at the Garrison flushed and out of breath, looking for either her brother or husband. 

“They’re gonna kill each other,” she’d nearly cried when you grabbed her arm, stabilizing her as she bent forward. 

“Ada, you need to calm down,” you tried to push the cup of water back into her hands. She breathed sharply as she rubbed her stomach. “This isn’t good for the baby.” 

“I don’t care,” she said through a haggard breath. “I have to find them. I have to try—“ 

You followed her outside and kept up with her until Freddie emerged from the stairway of a canal bridge. She threw herself into him, and you urged him to take her home and make her rest. You watched from the side of the road as they crossed it. 

“He’s going to ruin her life,” you heard Tommy’s deep voice behind you. 

“You can’t keep doing that to her,” you said without turning around. You felt him move beside you, both of you still looking in the couple’s direction until they turned down an alleyway. “The stress isn’t good for the baby. She nearly passed out in the pub just now worried you two were going to kill each other—“ 

“I should have.” 

“But you didn’t.”

He took a deep breath, “He loves her.” 

Your eyes shifted over to finally look at him, his eyes still staring at the empty alleyway. 

That was the first time he’d ever acknowledged their feelings for each other. You were convinced he thought Freddie was using Ada — hell, since they got back, you were tempted to start thinking that way too. It wasn’t a secret how dedicated he was to the communist party, and you knew most of the strikes around here were either spearheaded by Freddie himself, or encouraged by him. There were times you began to question what he loved more: Ada or his cause. 

But time and time again, Ada assured you that their love was real and strong enough to combat even Tommy’s fire. 

And now, it seemed, something had finally assured Tommy that Freddie wasn’t just in it for her last name. 

“What convinced you?” 

“When we were kids, Ada used to chase us around, shouting at us to slow down, to wait for her, to include her in our little games.” Tommy’s throat bobbled as you watched the reel move behind his eyes, lost in his childhood memories. “Freddie would always slow down. I never realized… or maybe I did.” 

He blinked, breaking the trance he’d been in as he reached into his jacket and pulled out a cigarette. He ran it between his lips and lit it. 

Blowing the smoke away, his eyes hardened. 

”He asked about the guns,” he said, his voice low despite the relatively secluded spot. “You haven’t told Ada—“ 

“No,” you said firmly, not letting him finish his question. 

He hummed approvingly. Another moment passed before he spoke again. “You never asked me why.” 

Your brow creased as you tried to decipher what he meant. 

“Freddie and me.” He blew out a puff of smoke. “I’ve seen you watch us, when we’ve been in the same rooms. You heard what he said in the pub the day Danny blew in. And I know Ada has told you how close we used to be. But you’ve never asked me why Freddie and I fell out.”

“You never offered,” you countered, meeting his eyes again. You crossed your arms, not sure what he was playing at with bringing this up now. When he brought the cigarette to his lips again, it was obvious he wanted you to continue. “I guess I just assumed you both returned from the war with different outlooks on the world. He doesn’t accept the powers-that-be and wants to change them.” 

He hummed, blowing out his smoke. “And me?” 

“Did you ever feel that way?” you found yourself asking, head tilted as you considered him. You hadn’t thought about it before, but it would have made sense. Freddie’s passions weren’t new, they were deep and rooted, and it would make sense for him to have been a member of the communist party either during the war or before. You were realizing now that there was a chance Tommy could have been entertaining the idea as well before he left. 

The way Tommy’s lips tightened into a hard line and he lifted his chin told you enough. But surprisingly, he offered you a short answer. “Once. Before.” 

“And now?” He didn’t answer that one. You took a deep breath as you continued. “Maybe you still don’t agree with the powers-that-be, but I don’t think it matters to you anymore. Freddie wants to change the world; you want to use it.” 

“I won’t let ‘em put us back in the mud,” he said, his voice calloused as he stared forward. He swallowed, “I need a drink.” 

Instead of walking toward the Garrison, where you knew Grace was closing up for the night, Tommy turned right, toward your apartment. 

You felt your breath let out, not realizing you’d been tensed up since Ada had blown into the Garrison. 

Catching up with Tommy, you decided to lighten the mood a little. “I’m gonna need to restock if you keep drinking all my whiskey,” you teased.  

He let out a humored breath. “Well, next time you’re at the Garrison, just grab a bottle on me.” 

You rolled your eyes, “Yeah Harry would love that.” 

“Not up to Harry anymore what happens to the inventory.” 

Tommy let out a puff of smoke as you turned back to face him before letting him into your flat. 

“What do you mean?” 

“I bought it.” 

“What?—“ your brow creased as his words sunk in. “You bought the Garrison? Can you even do that?”

“I made Harry a very fair offer,” Tommy said plainly as he made himself comfortable in your flat. It was beginning to feel less strange to have company. “He’ll stay on for as long as he wants and still manage the place.”

You felt a pang of sadness for the former owner. Harry loved that place, and always had such pride for it and its patrons. 

“But why?” You asked, starting to take your shoes off. Despite you traveling in time, there were still some little rituals that you just couldn’t shake. And taking your shoes off when you got home was one of them. 

Tommy began to pour two glasses. “Arthur needs some direction.”

“A distraction, you mean.”

He rose his brow, but nodded. “Regardless. He needs to keep his head out of the bloody bottle and on the business. Besides, weren’t you the one who said we needed to find a way to pass the influx of money coming in from the shop?”

It’s true, you had raised that question to Tommy recently after the Monaghan Boy win. Not that you knew much more about money laundering than you’d learned from watching Breaking Bad. But it’d apparently been enough to pique Tommy’s interest and take you seriously. 

Tommy was right though. What you’d been anticipating was finally coming to a head — Tommy was, for all intents and purposes, the head of the Shelby family and the Peaky Blinders. Arthur, who had been feeling the effects of his slow descent for the past couple months, was drowning his sorrows almost daily and picking a fight whenever he got the chance. You’d even begun watering down his drinks by the time he’d get to through half a bottle on nights when you were working in the pub and he was working his way to being sloshed. 

“You’ll have to help him,” Tommy spoke up after you didn’t comment. 

You breathed out a disbelieving laugh, “Like Arthur would ever listen to me.”

“You’ll have to make him,” he took a step toward you and offered you your drink. When you met his eyes, he smirked, “Like you did me.” 

You rose your brow. “You want me to nearly push him in the Cut and play a get-to-know-you drinking game with him?”

His smirk turned into a small smile, “Maybe not exactly like you did with me. But you’ll talk to him. You’ll reason with him. He’ll come to accept it.” 

“You’ve been promising he’d come to accept me for months now,” you countered. 

“And he has, you just haven’t noticed.” 

You shook your head, still not convinced and beginning to worry about how you’d get along with Arthur now that you’d be essentially working for him. 

“You two and can discuss the Garrison’s future at the next family meetin’.”

You rolled your eyes, half laughing at the comment. “The only reason Arthur invited me to the last one was to accuse me of influencing you. There’s no way he’d be cool with me coming to more—“

“He won’t have a choice.”

Your brow furrowed, “What does that mean?”

Tommy pulled your hand into his, causing you to stop pacing and stepped into you. The act surprised you, meeting his eyes again. They were soft, a small crease in the corners as he looked between your own, then to your lips. 

“You’re mine, ‘member?” his deep voice vibrated against you as he reached up and ran his thumb across your cheek, then down to your chin. You got deja vu from that first night outside of your apartment building as he reminded you of the words you’d said to him Christmas Eve in his bed. “Well I’m yours. We’re in this together, ya?”

Your heart pounded at his words. Whatever hesitations or insecurities you’d been feeling were gone as Tommy held you against him, his eyes waiting for your response. 

“Yeah,” you said easily, welcoming his lips to meet yours. 

His kiss was soft, a gentle tug that showed no signs of being rushed, but savored. You hummed contently into it as you felt his lips smile against yours. 

What was it about this man that made your brain go fuzzy and speech cease? Every time he brought his lips to yours, you felt like everything made sense. Like you weren’t standing in a room surrounded by puzzle pieces — but that the final piece was falling into place, even just for a moment. You laced your fingers through his hair, desperate to hold on to this feeling for as long as you could. Even if it was just a taste. 

He pulled away slightly, his forehead rest against yours as you caught your breath. “Whatever we face, whether it’s Arthur or Ada—“

“Or Kimber or Campbell,” you added with a slight mocking mirth. 

He breathed out a soft laugh and rolled his eyes. “Or whatever else might come our way — I know we can face it. Together.”

You lifted on your toes slightly to meet his lips again when a hard knock at your door caused you to jump. 

You and Tommy looked to each other confused — no one aside from Tommy or Ada ever came to your apartment. A second knock prompted Tommy to take the lead in opening the door as you grabbed for your bag with Polly’s gun inside. 

“Danny?” Tommy greeted opening the door wider for the formally dead man to come into your apartment. 

Danny Owens gave you a shy smile and wave before offering Tommy a salute. “Danny Whizz-Bang reporting, sir.”

You dropped your bag, pointing at the man and looking between him and Tommy. “You’re supposed to be dead.” 

Tommy nodded, “at ease. What are you doing here, Danny?”

“Charlie said to try here if you weren’t at your place,” he said before taking a seat. Tommy offered him the bottle of whiskey and he poured himself a drink. 

“So no one is gonna explain the very alive friend of yours sitting at my kitchen table?” you asked, still unsure what was going on. 

Tommy took a deep breath before running his hand through his hair. “It was a trick to fool the Italians. Danny’s been living in London, keeping an ear out. Apparently, there’s news he couldn’t wait on.”

“I was in a pub,” Danny began, gripping the edge of his hat in his hands. “It’s called the Mother Redcap, an Irish pub. I was talking to some old bloke about Birmingham. He said there’s been trouble. An IRA man shot. He said a lot, but the only bit I heard was that their high command think it’s the Peaky Blinders who shot him. I came up on the next boat to warn you.”

“I heard about that guy,” you said softly. “It was outside of the Black Swan. Was it one of the men you met with the other day?”

Tommy nodded.

You thought about the way Grace had eavesdropped on the men, and how she’d been so interested on where they were from. Your brain ticked that there was a connection there, but you brushed it aside on the grounds that you were just searching for something to be horribly wrong with her. While you believed she still had some kind of secret, you didn’t think she’d go as far as shooting someone. 

You looked down at your own hands, a vision of blood covering them from your own dirty deeds, and knowing that anything was possible. 

“Is it true?” Danny asked, pulling your attention back to the men in front of you. 

“No,” Tommy answered, taking a deep breath. “But lies travel faster than the truth.” He thought for a moment before gesturing toward Danny. “Get a message to them. Tell them to send someone to parley. Tell them there’s been a misunderstanding and we don’t want any trouble.”

Danny swallowed the rest of his drink before rising. He saluted Tommy again, then gave you a slight bow. “I will do my duty, sir. Ma’am.”

He left before you could ask anything more. “Tommy, what the hell—“

“Just another thing to add to the list,” he said, shaking his head as he grabbed his own glass and threw it back. “Right now, our focus is on Kimber. And tomorrow is Cheltenham. We’ve gotta be ready.”

>> next chapter: coming soon << chapter masterlist

[party-hearses]

i am a nightmare, you are a miracle // 3

do i get callous, or do i stay tender

series masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

pairing: joel x ofc!reader, ex!tommy x ofc!reader (NO USE OF Y/N)

rating: explicit, MDNI 18+

word count: 8k

chapter summary: the boundaries of your new relationship with joel are explored.

chapter warnings/tags: no outbreak AU, soft!joel, age gap, alcohol, language, characters eating food, alfred hitchcock, allusions to verbal/mental abuse (not joel), dry humping (i guess?). let me know if I’m forgetting anything!

a/n: this feels very ‘slice of life’, but it’s important to me, dammit! I love each and every one of you (yes, you!) who read, comment, and reblog. this fic is my baby, and every interaction means the world to me. @nostalxgic beta’d for me, because she’s the best human in the world and I love her to pieces.

comments and reblogs are appreciated! support your creators!

There was, Joel knows, a depth to the things you had shared with him. He just doesn’t know how to piece them together.

You had led him, a proverbial blindfold over his eyes, to the darkest recesses of your psyche. Allowed him to graze those things with his fingers. Not to grasp, never to grasp, but to ghost the ridges of his rough digits against the truths they contained. Visceral and unrefined, flexing without giving, beneath his prodding touch. A reluctant invitation.

He had wanted to claw his way in. He had wanted to rip you apart, to gorge himself on your suffering. To lick your velvet bones and make his home inside your ribcage. Half heaven, half hell.

Instead, he finds himself turning your words over in his head again and again, whiskey a thick smoke on his tongue. The television is still on in the background, the light flickering across the angles of the room, casting everything in jagged shadow.

Frustration curls tight in the pit of his stomach. Understanding feels just out of reach — as if the words you had spoken had been in secret tongues. If only he could decode it.

It will take time, he knows, to learn your language. To speak the complexities, to articulate the syntax. To appreciate the nuances from the inside, wrap his tongue around the letters. It will be an exercise in patience, he is sure, but one that he will commit himself to. He hungers to be fluent in reading and speaking you, to savor the delicate flavors of your dialect.

You, the unknowable creature asleep just down the hallway. That his hands had been on; that had made his cock twitch and ache; that had looked at him with those wet, pleading eyes, desperate to be known.

He rolls the wrist that holds his whiskey glass in a circular motion, eyeing the contents intently.

Asking you to stay in his home was a calculated risk. It had been when he’d first done it, and it remains to be the longer you stay. Tommy’s involvement — even in the capacity of ‘ex boyfriend’ — makes things complicated, and Joel knows that those things will border on volatile once he finds out where you are.

Not if, but when.

And truly, Joel doesn’t know what he’ll do when that happens. He hasn’t thought that far ahead, his vision too clouded with you, you, you.

He had known, since the first time you stood in his kitchen, a case of Shiner in your small hands, that the hot knife of devotion he felt when your eyes met his would eventually destroy him. Inevitability twisting its hands into his gut, whispering in his ear to prepare for his own eventual decimation. Lamb, meet slaughter, it said.

He’d let Tommy beat the shit out of him, he thinks, if it keeps you in his proximity.

The acute awareness of it had caught him off guard. Mutual, useless damage — two unfillable voids recognizing one another from across the room. A collision of fire and the ocean floor.

You, in a little black tank top and jean shorts, the tender flesh of your thigh peeking out just below the hem. Shoulders bare, warmed from the afternoon sunlight, skin aglow. It took strength he didn’t know he possessed to not sink his teeth into you right then and there. Lick up the slender column of your neck. Feast.

Tommy, grinning and oblivious as all fuck to the cosmic shift taking place two feet away from him.

Joel wanting to slug the smugness off his younger brother’s face. He knows Tommy — knows him always as a collector of people, of experiences. Not handling things — beautiful, fragile things — with the care they ought to be handled with. Leapfrogging from one thing to the next, nothing but ruin in his wake.

And oh, how Joel wanted to ruin you — but not in the way he knew Tommy would.

Your words to him tonight make his skin itch with that same recognition. That same inevitability. Asking you to stay meant there was no going back — that you would either let him swallow you whole, or he’d die trying to.

Throwing his head back to drain the glass, he savors the burn of the liquor sliding down his throat before flipping the television off and rising from the couch. Retracing his footsteps past your room, a dull throb settles again between his thighs at the thought of your body pressed against his.

It wouldn’t be difficult, he thinks, to open your door and take. He knows you because he knows himself, and what little restraint he has left is stretched thin.

But he will be patient, because it is you. Because he knows how this ends. Because he wants you to want it, too. To need it like he does. To reveal yourself to him in your own time, fragment by fragment. To recognize the inevitability.

And so he closes the door to his bedroom, himself on the wrong side of it, knowing that that is what a better man would do. And like a better man should, he falls asleep to images of your supple skin rippling beneath him, your mouth open and wanting.

You are unknowable, but you have never been a stranger.

You’re still in your dress when you wake up the next morning.

The hem is bunched up around your waist, your panties on display for the four walls of the empty bedroom. The slippery material clings to you, flesh slick with sweat, in a significantly less flattering way than it did last night.

Everything about you is less flattering than it was last night — the shimmer and sugar of it all worn off in the sweltering light of midmorning.

With a groan, you roll onto your back, the hard edges of your phone cutting into the flesh of your hip beneath you. You can’t bring yourself to look at it, to relive the previous twelve hours of…well, everything. Hands and drinks and tongues and flesh and desire and Joel’s voice.

Something else shifts into focus from behind the hazy veil — Joel carrying you to bed. Half-asleep and just on the other side of drunk, drippingly saturnine and pathetic. The recollection of it makes your chest pinch; the most recent admission into the museum of your naiveté.

You scrub your hand across your eyes, thick black flakes of mascara crumbling off your lashes and landing on your cheeks, chalky streaks of it painted across your knuckles. A strange laugh bubbles up in your throat — you can’t even imagine how wrecked you look.

Sharp hesitancy crests your lungs, tempts you to curl up further into the blazing bedsheets, to avoid. To shrink back into yourself. You raise a hand to your still-swollen lips, delicately pressing your fingertips into their fullness, the memory of Peter’s mouth slotted over yours replaying behind your eyelids.

You wish you had been drunk enough to forget that part of the night — but only that part.

Ava’s fingers interlocked with your own, the holographic sheen of her love wrapping around you, the way all of your pain had spilled out into her waiting hands on the dancefloor. Her magic had dug its tendrils into the soft muscle of your heart, her dreamy voice in your ear an incantation: I have the best feeling about you staying with Joel.

It was those things that you never wanted to forget.

And Joel — Joel. The way he had angled his body towards you, had been so attuned to your words. The consideration in his face as he absorbed them all, brows knitted in concentration. The restless twitch of his fingers.

Him sliding his hands beneath your body, pulling you close to his chest.

Everything had poured out of you so naturally, without any of the apprehension or anxiety you’d come to call companion. The sutures you had sewn years and years ago had been neatly, delicately, untied by Joel’s nimble fingers, in a way that you don’t even think he understood. And it took almost nothing.

Like something magic.

Fire crawls across your already heated skin, not so much a realization but a possibility.

It’s the only reason you get up, and peel your dress off of your sticky body, and let the cold water of the shower chill you. Your lungs open up, the buzzing of your nerves quieting under the stream.

Joel hears the quiet patter of your bare feet on the hardwood before he sees you. The beating of his heart matches the measured pace of your steps, both quickening as the distance between you closes.

He glances sideways, pulse hammering when you finally enter his line of vision. The wet ropes of your hair cling to your neck, dripping down the fabric of your threadbare t-shirt. There’s something so cozy about it, a significant intimacy that comes with knowing you’re just out of the shower.

It’s vulnerable in a way that he’s all too cognizant of.

“Hey.”

Your voice is sweet, if not apprehensive. Testing the waters. You gently pop a hip into the lip of the kitchen counter, next to the full, still-steaming coffee pot. Joel is situated at the stove, pan of something resembling food in front of him, his own mug clutched in his left hand.

“How ya feelin’, champ?” There’s a crooked smile on his face, one that disappears behind the curve of his mug as he brings it to his mouth.

You laugh, a gentle sigh of a laugh — a laugh that invigorates his blood more than the coffee does.

“I’m actually okay. Y’know, considering.” You tip your head to the side, watching as he stirs whatever it is in the pan. A grin tugs at the corners of your mouth, seeing him cook. It’s endearing, being allowed a peek into his life.

The way his cheeks round out tell you that he’s still got the same small smile painted on his face, despite the way it’s hidden.

“Mind if I have some?” You gesture with a flick of your chin to his coffee, clocking the way his face immediately falls, eyes narrowing in your direction.

“Y’already know the answer t’that.”

Gaze darting back to the stove, he’s quick to set his coffee to the side, muttering a curse under his breath as he lowers the flame burning under the pan. You twist your body to grab a mug from the cupboard and fill it with the blazing hot liquid, crossing the kitchen to settle at the table.

The subsequent silence is companionable, and you let the coffee rouse the parts of your brain that haven’t quite caught up with you, yet. You watch the strong muscles of Joel’s back, rippling and pulling under his shirt, as he extends his arm to pull a plate down from a different cupboard.

It’s mesmerizing, the agile way he moves, so it catches you off guard when he slides the plate and a fork in front of you, steam rolling off the scrambled eggs and slices of toast.

You hadn’t even noticed him using the toaster.

“Oh,” you squeak, blinking away the surprise you know is written all over your face. “You shouldn’t h-”

“Wanted to.” It’s kind, but matter-of-fact. A stern statement to dissuade you from arguing back.

As he lowers himself into the chair across from you, tossing his own full plate onto the table, you can’t help but remember his hands on your jaw the last time the two of you had been here together.

Together.

He immediately digs into his food, shoveling it into his mouth and slurping his coffee. You drop your gaze to the plate in front of you, picking up the fork and gingerly shuffling the contents of it around.

Something close to guilt needles at your stomach, and all too suddenly the words are hot on your tongue.

“I lied to you last night.”

Joel doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look up at you — just keeps chewing and swallowing.

“Yeah?” Another bite, more chewing, swallowing again.

“I…I kissed someone. At the club.”

The confession hangs between you, though he remains as taciturn as you’ve ever seen him. It’s only when he draws his mug up to his mouth that he even meets your eyes, subtle amusement dancing in the liquid amber of them.

It’s candy Pop Rocks compared to what would have been Tommy’s dynamite.

Joel hasn’t stilled at all, continuing to drink his coffee and scoop his eggs on top of his toast.

“You…asked if I met anyone. And I lied to you.”

Toast halfway to his mouth, the small pile of eggs perched atop it dangerously close to slipping off, he pauses. His brows pull together in a question that you can’t quite read. An epiphany that you’re not privy to.

Lowering his arm, your eyes follow the eggs as they fall to his plate with a muted plop.

“Y’don’t owe me anythin’, Peach.”

Liar.

“But I-”

He shakes his head, and whatever it was that you wanted to say dies in your throat. “Y’had a reason to not tell me. And that reason belongs to you and you alone.”

You scrunch your brows together, an unfamiliar feeling building in your chest. He watches as it happens, his own chest pulling tight at the recognition of your uncertainty, of the doubt in your eyes. He’s quick to lean over the table, over the momentarily forgotten plates of food, to soothe your skin with a knowing drag of his thumb. The fork in your hand falls, clattering against the ceramic.

“Hey. Soften up, darlin’. Just don’t want you to think y’have t’tell me anythin’ y’don’t want to.” His voice is low, eyes intently searching yours. “Doesn’t mean I don’t understand why you’re tellin’ me.”

There’s something so tender about the way he tells you this, the way he touches you, that you’re sure you’ll spontaneously combust. Nothing has ever belonged to you — and only you — before. Not even your thoughts have ever been your own, the space reserved and velvet-roped for the ghosts of your shortcomings.

And you know that though Joel doesn’t quite grasp the gravity of what he’s saying, the words are bubblegum and champagne to you. Exactly, perfectly right.

“You’re good. It’s okay.” He gently brushes a still-damp tangle of your hair back over your ear, and you wonder if he can feel how hard your heart is pounding. “Y’don’t always have to be so…hard on yourself.”

You’re good.

“Say it, Peach.”

Like he can read your mind. Like he can reach directly inside you, all those ties he’d undone, to extract the most vulnerable parts. Soften them. Shield them. Nurture them.

As though he can taste the desperation surging off your skin.

“I’m good.” Your own voice is so small, you hardly recognize it. The words taste bitter, grapefruit with the sugar dusted off. Unearned.

“You’re good, sweetheart,” he repeats, the rough tips of his fingers sliding along your jaw as he pulls his hand back, dropping it to retrieve his abandoned toast. “Now please eat. It’ll help.”

Hesitantly picking up your fork again, you mirror him — biting and chewing thoughtfully, humming as the toast settles in your stomach. Sipping your coffee. It’s almost easy.

Joel makes it easy.

Every now and again he flicks his eyes up to watch you, to make sure you’re actually eating, silently pleased as the amount on your plate slowly diminishes. He finishes before you do, shoving his plate forward and tipping back in his chair, fingers wrapping around his mug comfortably.

Moving the last bits of egg around the perimeter of your plate, you take the opening as Joel’s shoulders relax against the slatted wood.

“I, um, didn’t think you’d be…like this.”

It catches him off guard, a warm laugh betraying his usual stoicism. The levity of it curls around your limbs, climbs the length of your spine. “Oh yeah? ‘N what’d you think I’d be like?”

Avoidant. Brooding. Grumpy.

“Much less…pleasant?” You crinkle your nose at the word, not satisfied with it. “Or, like, you’re kind of…nice?”

This time he laughs out loud, angling his head back and opening his mouth wide. The sound of it lights you up from the inside, sparkly and hot.

“I mean…oh my god, that’s so stupid. I just mean…like, I think being here…will be good for me.”

You’re babbling now, skirting around the fact that you think being around him will be good for you. But something deep in your stomach tells you that he already knows. That he’s always known.

Dropping his head to his chest, you think you see a light sprinkle of pink break out across his tanned cheeks and nose. He clears his throat, mouth obscured by his coffee mug.

“I’m nice t’you, sweetheart.”

The remainder of the day is spent zeroed in on your work laptop, still at the kitchen table, legs stretched across the chair Joel had occupied that morning.

He had slipped out after breakfast to run errands — a few work related, a few personal — asking if you’d wanted to come. The invitation had made your heart swell, the feeling of being wanted stirring in your veins. It was hard to resist, the promise of more time with him so incredibly alluring, but you’d declined, work hanging over your head like a raincloud.

“It’s Saturday, Peach,” he’d murmured, eyeing you as you’d flipped open the slender screen of the device.

“Good thing I don’t have any plans, then,” you’d replied, clicking the trackpad to open your multiple files — budgets and spreadsheets and invoices stacking one on top of the other — thoughts turning to how much you’d rather be climbing into Joel’s truck beside him.

But he’d backed off, dropping a quick squeeze to your shoulder before leaving.

It’s not until he’d been gone for some time that it strikes you how different the interaction was with Joel than it ever had been with Tommy — no exasperation, no stomping out of the house, no argument. And you can’t compare them, you know, because he’s not Tommy, and he’s not your boyfriend —but it’s stable, sustainable. A quiet admission of knowing what you need. Of some kind of trust passing between the two of you.

A disruptive ringing snaps you back to reality, your fingers still resting on the keyboard of the laptop. The screen has gone black, an indication of the amount of time passed.

With a slight shake of your head, your eyes track to the smaller screen, your sister’s name and picture lit up. Uneasiness rolls through you, as it always does when she calls.

“Hey, Kit.” You drop your head back onto the curved wood of the chair, exhaling shallowly through your nose.

“Have you been avoiding me?”

You can hear the shrieking of children in the background, the clatter of pots and pans and running water.

“Are you doing the dishes?” It’s in your best interest to sidestep the question, her giving you the perfect opportunity to do so.

“I didn’t think you’d actually answer.”

The fingers of your other hand find the bridge of your nose, squeezing gently.

“I’ve been…busy. Work has been a lot.”

Liar sits just below your diaphragm, pendulous and dark.

“And how has living with Joel been?”

You should have known that she’d cut straight to the point. Like she always does.

“It’s fine, Kit. It’s been going really well, actually.” You can’t help but snap, the tranquil feeling of Joel’s confidence in you waning into annoyance at being treated like a child by your sister.

Beyond that, a significant part of you is determined to protect the strange, placid thing between you and Joel, whatever it is. Whatever it isn’t.

Kit sighs, but it’s soft. “I’m just calling to say hey. We haven’t talked in so long.”

“You’re calling to check up on me.”

“Is there something so wrong with that? I’m your sister.”

“Not my mother.”

You regret the words as soon as they pass your lips. You can feel her hurt seeping through the phone, from thousands of miles away. It cuts to your core.

“Kit, I didn’t-”

“You’re right. I’m not your mom. But you could at least be fucking kind to me, because I am all you’ve got.”

Your breath catches in your throat. Kit rarely — if ever — curses, and it hits you like a punch in the stomach.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, tears immediately swimming in your line of vision. “You just, remind me of her so much sometimes, and…and I…”

“Have a lot of unresolved bullshit with her.”

“Yeah.”

She’s never said the words aloud before; it’s a subject the two of you had always avoided into adulthood. The crevasse between you, wide and gaping. Hearing her say it, acknowledge it, feels like sucking fresh air into your lungs after holding your breath underwater for too long.

“Daniel! Stop hitting your sister!” She suddenly calls out, and the moment crashes down at your feet.

“Look, um, I’m working. Let’s talk later this week, okay?” You sniffle, salty tears threatening to spill over. “Love you.”

You click to end the call before she can protest.

Rubbing your hands down your face, you wish you hadn’t even answered. Talking about her is never easy, but talking about her with Kit is something you’d danced around for years.

The phone begins to vibrate again, and you almost swipe to ignore it, assuming it’s Kit angrily calling back. But it’s Joel’s name splashed across the screen, and your heart thrums with familiarity. With relief.

“Hey, darlin’.” He says when you answer, the warm timbre of his voice washing everything else out of your head — Tommy and Kit and work included. “I’m thinkin’ about orderin’ pizza, that sound okay t’you?”

“Please, that sounds great.” And it does. Easy. Low maintenance. Comfortable. Exactly what you need. “But only if we can have beers, too.”

He chuckles, the sound low in his throat. “Read my mind, Peach.”

“You’re in the same exact place you were when I left,” Joel exclaims as he walks through the door, a rack of beer on his hip.

“Money never sleeps,” you reply, closing the laptop with finality and stifling a yawn.

“Maybe not, but you need to.”

“Mmm, pizza and beer first,” you hum, pushing yourself up from the table and joining him at the counter, his hands already tearing at the cardboard.

“Anythin’ excitin’ happen while I was out?” He holds a bottle out to you, fingers grazing yours as you take it. A thrill shoots down your spine, settling between your legs.

You lean back against the sink, drawing in a deep breath before tipping the beer back into your mouth. “Nothing I’d love to revisit at this moment.”

The only thing you’d love in this moment is to bask in Joel’s magic — let it wash over you, head to toe. Erase the terrible things you’d said to Kit. Be good again.

He quirks a brow at you, but doesn’t press. Instead, he holds his phone out in front of him, a pizza app pulled up. You shake your head, pushing it away.

“I will eat literally whatever you order.”

Shrugging, he drops his gaze to the screen, thumb flicking up to scroll through the menu slowly. “Hope y’actually mean that. Might try to order a gross pizza just to call y’on your bluff.”

45 minutes later, you’re both on the couch, beer and pizza in hand, an old movie playing in the background. One of your favorites — a sprawling mansion on the English coast, a haunted marriage, the shadow of a mysterious ex-wife, Rebecca. One of Hitchcock’s best, in your opinion.

Joel is happy to oblige, love a good black ‘n white slipping out of his otherwise full mouth.

As much as you love the film, you’re preoccupied with the way the evening sun casts the room in a golden glow, and how it seems to accentuate Joel’s innate softness. A softness you feel privileged to see, to have lavished on you. You want to drown in it — let his kindness corrupt you, let him untangle you.

Selfish fizzes at your fingertips, creeps up the span of your arms.

You shift your focus to the ropey muscles and tendons of Joel’s neck, gaze climbing up his strong jaw, covered in a smattering of salt and pepper scruff, to the long line of his aquiline nose. He balances his half-empty beer bottle on his knee, fingers wrapped around the neck of it.

And if you’re being perfectly honest with yourself, you don’t want to think about anything else. You don’t want to consider what it all means, yet. You want to just exist, here, with him. Watching the way he watches the movie, the way he gulps his beer down.

Hidden from the rest of the world.

Tucking your legs up underneath your body, you let your head loll on the cushion of the couch. You’d hide forever, if you could.

You stretch your arms above you, a sleepy, dopey grin splayed across your mouth — secure glowing fluorescent at the apex of your thighs. The movem ent draws his attention, as though he’d heard your pulse cry his name.

“Tired?” His voice thick, eyes tracing the soft shape of your arms as they reach skyward.

“Mhm. But I wanna finish the movie.”

A coy, sideways smile pulls at the corners of his mouth, and he leans forward to place his pizza plate on the coffee table.

“C’mere, sweetheart,” he drawls lowly, sloping back to slide his hand across your shoulders and wrap his fingers gently around your bicep to tug you closer. Turning, you meet him with wide eyes, glittering in the dark, your heart a trembling magic eight ball — are you sure this is okay?

And without words, he lets you know that it is. Lets you know that he wants you to.

Guided by his large open palm, you carefully curl into his side, dropping your head to his lap. You pull your legs up to your chest, both hands nestling narrowly under his thigh. His hand hovers over the soft curve of your hip, a barely-there touch that makes you ache.

You draw in a deliberate breath, holding it deep until he finally lets his hand drop to the exposed flesh between the band of your shorts and raised hem of your t-shirt.

A million sparks of light burst over your skin, fireworks exploding across the creamy silk of it. Your eyes flutter closed, hyper-aware of every tense of his fingers. The movie continues to play, but the whole world has fluctuated to both start and end in the exact place that he touches you.

As though there is no before this moment in time, only after.

Inevitable.

His hand slides up the length of your body, over the notches of your ribs, and higher still so that his fingers skim the delicate line of your neck. You can feel him relax further into the cushions of the couch, broad body molding to its shape, and you wonder if he’s concentrating on you as hard as you are on him.

In an answer to your unspoken question, he begins to tenderly stroke the spread of your hair, fanned down your shoulders and pooled in his lap.

“Y’know,” he mumbles, eyes still cast to the television, “we had breakfast and dinner together today.”

“We did,” you agree, a slight simper at your lips.

“‘N the world didn’t end, did it, Peach?” He angles his chin down to look at you at the same time you tilt your head to look up at him. He hasn’t stopped caressing the silky locks of your hair, and when you meet his eyes, he grasps a fistful of it gently. The pleasurepain of it makes your blood hot.

“No,” you whisper, “it didn’t.”

He leans closer by just a fraction, and you can’t help but be entranced by the shape of his mouth as his plush lips form the words that cross them.

“Want it to be like that everyday.”

He’s looking at you like there’s a peephole into your soul — a pinpoint view of the feral thing inside of you, on display for him. He’s looking at you like it excites him.

“Me too, Joel,” you breathe, the possibility a white static between you.

Not a single thing outside of the two of you exists in this moment. He prefers it that way, having you all to himself.

“Like you bein’ here, sweetheart.” There’s not a trace of hesitancy in his voice, but he says it like it’s a secret. “Like you workin’ at my kitchen table, and havin’ pizza and beer, and watchin’ old movies with you. Like wakin’ up knowin’ you’re here.”

He moves to trace the outline of your bottom lip with his thumb, and you’re suddenly looking up at him through half-lidded eyes, breathing stilted.

Closing the distance between you, he noses along the soft cut of your jaw, burying his face in your hair. He wants to drink down the way you gasp when he does; the sound burned into his brain, knowing it will come back to him when he’s stroking himself off later.

The elastic compulsion of his need so prominent, so inescapable, that the next words out of his mouth surprise even him.

“Go to sleep, Peach.” His mouth is on your ear, goosebumps rising in the wake of his breath over your skin. “‘M not goin’ anywhere.”

Taking one last deep breath of you in, he pulls back, resuming running his hand up and down the hills and valleys of your body.

The most that he’ll allow himself.

“I said some fucked up things to Kit today. She called while you were gone.”

The words fall out of your mouth, buried shame and anger spilling out with them. A confession.

Joel hums, hand still roaming, almost absentmindedly. It’s reassuring, a reminder of his words — you’re good.

“Siblings are…hard,” he suggests, emphasizing his point with a quick press of his fingers into your hip. “They get your best ‘n your worst, and don’t have a choice. It’s…safe to put the hard things on ‘em.”

“And bein’ the older one is…is…” he continues, pausing to clear his throat, voice tinged with something you can’t name, “a lot of responsibility. ‘N y’always wanna do right by them, y’know? Protect ‘em. But sometimes y’can’t. Hafta let ‘em figure it out on their own. Fuck up on their own.”

The silence that hangs in the air is charged with unsaid words. Unasked questions. Realities and consequences that neither of you are ready to explore the depths of. Guilt.

“Do you think I’m fucking up?”

“No, sweetheart. But I can’t say the same for other people.”

He squeezes your side again, letting his fingers linger just a touch longer than he had before. Dizziness snakes up your vertebrae, cloudy and disorienting. Desire. Want.

It’s a torrid kind of want, one that burrows under your skin and makes itself known. You think Joel can feel it, too, the way his touch roves over you — can feel it burn ing hot at the intersection of your skin and his.

But your brain pulls your body back, settles it to a low simmer. Reminds you to think instead of act.

And eventually, you fall asleep doing exactly that.

When you wake up later, sleep-drunk and unsure of the time, a too-bright infomercial in place of the movie, Joel is still there, just like he’d promised, head dropped to the flat of the couch, softly snoring. Chest steadily rising and falling, fingers curled into your flesh, firmly clasped just below your ribcage.

You don’t move an inch, afraid to wake him, and fall back asleep to the sound of his breathing.

A week passes. Then two weeks. And before you know it, summer winds into autumn, and the two of you slip into an easy routine — somewhat delicate, somewhat hesitant, but comfortable. And you feel silly, now, considering how naturally effortless it is. As though it could have always been this way.

And truly, that’s the hardest part to navigate. Drawing the line between what is, and what you want it to be.

Neither of you has brought up that night, at least to one another. But after you’ve gone to bed each night, you replay it in your mind, the feeling of his hands on you the image at the forefront of it; his name a whimper on your lips as your own fingers crawl beneath your panties.

Each night, wishing they were his.

It’s far too easy to overthink, second guess, dissect the way Joel’s fingers brush yours as you hand him his coffee, or the way his lips quirk up while he watches you struggle to assemble a bookshelf.

“Peach, please let me help. Promise it’ll be so much faster.”

Your indignant scowl, arms twisted over your chest in defiance. His soft laugh, deft hands picking up where yours had left off, piecing the cheap wood together without a hitch. Sitting back on his haunches, massive fingers tugging at your forearms to untangle them. The sticky warmth in his eyes when you let him.

“See? Coulda just asked me.”

Ensuring a soft landing, in every sense of the word.

The routine you’ve created is grounding, satisfying. Something to focus on aside from your intensely confusing feelings about Joel, something that pushes everything else to the back of your mind. Something to lose yourself in.

It’s not much — no caviar and lingerie and nightcaps, but it’s yours. An ardent, fulfilling thing that makes you feel steady on your feet. That makes the sharp, prodding fingers of your thoughts dissolve into a gleaming mist. Even the edges of the words in your head, the angry curvatures of your mother’s voice, bleed into nothing in the safety net of him.

The magic of it lies in its simplicity: taking turns cooking, laundry on Sundays, greetings with warm smiles even when you have to work late or spend entire evenings parked in front of your laptop. Some evenings he’ll go to the local dive with friends, some nights you’ll bury yourself in a book in your bed. The divine act of surviving.

The foundation of something, being constructed slowly from the ground up. Methodically. Each brick a meaningful gesture, word, moment.

You, being rebuilt from the ground up, at the skilled hands of Joel Miller.

A way back to yourself.

And it’s not like you don’t catch him watching you while you work, or let him drag your legs over his lap while your laptop perches precariously on your thighs on the couch. His hands are on you in some way or another more often than not, and you like it. You want it.

If only it were that easy.

If only it could be so uncomplicated — some semblance of normal.

But it’s not. And you know it never will be. So you take what you can get — reveling in the hours spent watching movies together, the errands run together, the shared jokes and spilled chinese takeout. Your own brand of normal.

And he tells you, often, how much he prefers this kind of normal — the one with you in it.

“You ‘n me, Peach, remember?”

The line a continuous, hazy blur — what is, and what you want it to be.

“Hi babe! It’s been ages since I’ve seen you, so we should go out tonight? Thoughts? No, wait — don’t think about it, we should just driiiink about it! Love you!”

Ava’s chocolate-box trill fills the cabin of your car. Rain drizzles lazily down the windows as you click to replay the voicemail, the familiarity of her elongated words and upward inflection making your heart ache. It’s not the first time she’s invited you out since what you’ve come to refer to as the incident, but it’s the first time you’ve felt genuine remorse at turning her down.

But you will do so without hesitating, the grocery bags in the trunk of your car being the only thing on your agenda for the dreary Friday evening.

Typing out a quick text to Ava (sorry babe! raincheck!), your thumb lingers over the thread just below hers. Clicking it open again, the words on the screen send a languid fire rolling through your veins.

You: I’m cooking tonight

Joel Miller: whatever you want, peach

Whatever you want.

The possibility licks hot at every inch of you.

The kitchen has become your favorite place in the house. The heart of it, the life of it. You’ve memorized every nook and cranny, each knot and split of the woodwork. The contents of all drawers and cabinets, the haphazard organization of it all.

You move around the room fluidly, exuding a sense of belonging that’s not lost on Joel. Body propped against the doorframe, he watches as you pour and stir and salt — as comfortable, as confident, as he’s ever seen you.

A bittersweet conception stirs in him, the edges of it coming into soft-focus. Before it can fully form on the screen of his mind, grow roots in the cavern of his heart, he clears his throat to get your attention.

“Peach.”

“Hmm?” You twist just enough to catch his gaze, clocking the expectant look in his eyes. Immediately laying the spoon in your hand on the counter, you face your entire body to his, matching the open expression.

“Close your eyes.”

You obey without question, squeezing them shut and unfolding your hands in front of you like a prayer. There’s the sound of his feet and a quick hiss as Joel opens and closes the refrigerator, placing something cold and dewy in your open palms. Your fingers automatically close around the curves of it.

A wine bottle.

Dragging your bottom lip with your teeth, the corners of your mouth quirk up. Your lashes flutter open, gaze sweeping over the intricate label — a golden goddess, surrounded by ribbons of different shades of pink and blue, dotted with tiny golden star details. The shiny, beveled type spells out Prophecy just below the image.

“This is my favorite.” There’s awe in your voice. Reverence. It shines in your irises as you look up at Joel, who is posted up against the counter, arms crossed over his broad chest.

“Was on sale.”

He breaks into a smirk, cheeks flushing as your sweet laugh fills the space between the two of you.

“Either way,” you respond, humor bleeding into the edges of your voice, eyes rolling fondly, “mind opening it up while I finish everything else?”

Raising his hand to retrieve the bottle, he’s quick to wrap his fingers around the arches of yours. He tugs once, firmly, pulling both you and the bottle close to his chest.

It rattles the air in your lungs, the tiniest oh fanning the base of his throat. He dips his head to meet your gaze, breath punching warm across the bridge of your nose and cheekbones. It’s dizzying, the closeness.

“How’d you know?”

You’re asking about the wine. There’s two inches of space separating you, and you’re asking about the wine.

He leans down further, the slope of his nose pulling across your cheek to graze the shell of your ear. His breathing is deep, measured, in control.

“You brought’t over for dinner once. Said the same thing — was your favorite. I just remembered, that’s all.” He says it casually, as if discussing the weather. As if knowing your favorite wine is the most natural thing in the world to him. “Wanted to get you somethin’ special.”

Whatever you want, Peach.

Your fingers draw swirls against the bottle, the heat from his leeching overtop of them. His grip tightens, words ringing in your ears. You can smell his shampoo, his cologne, him. The spicy warmth of it is mesmerizing — it infiltrates your senses, knocks you off balance.

The rest of the world feels a million miles away.

“Shit!” you hiss suddenly, wrenching your hands away and spinning to remove the saucepan from the flame. “I don’t want it to scorch.”

Joel hums amusedly, hands scrambling so the bottle doesn’t slip and shatter. You then hear him begin to drag open and slam closed multiple drawers, the clang and clatter of various utensils nearly drowning out the swearing under his breath.

“Where’s the damn—”

“Here.” Using your hand not balancing the saucepan, you stretch to retrieve the corkscrew buried in the drawer closest to you, watching through your lashes as he meets your extended grasp to take it.

His gaze lingers on you a split second, corners of his mouth downturned, brows drawn low. Analyzing. Memorizing. It doesn’t last long, him turning on his heel to retreat to the kitchen table.

Something about the way he does it pulls at you, a tangle that you can’t quite find the end of. It’s kindling to the fire smoldering low in your belly, the one you’re desperate to keep at bay — the one that roars back to life as Joel carefully pours your favorite wine into two plastic solo cups.

You can’t help but watch, the repetitive glug glug glug of the liquid into the cup matching the beat of the nearly-boiling blood in your veins. A sheepish smile overtakes his stoic facade, his eyes meeting yours across the room.

“Don’t have any wine glasses.” He nods to the plastic cups, a gentle laugh at the very edge of his words.

“Wouldn’t want one anyway,” you reply, mirroring the way his cheeks round out in a grin.

You’re just spooning the pasta and sauce onto plates when he materializes at your elbow, making a grab for both dishes.

“Uh! I don’t think so!” You click your tongue against your teeth teasingly, blocking his body with yours. “You go sit. I’ll bring them over.”

“You cooked,” he protests, smooth palm grazing your ribs in another attempt to bypass you.

“So you can clean, if you’re worried about it.” Flashing another brilliant sideways grin at him, you pick up a plate in each hand and nudge him backwards with your hip.

“Yes ma’am.” It’s a capitulation, a willingness to step back and let you lead him.

The notion strikes hot against you, nestles in the aching space between your thighs. It scales your stomach, gains speed in the span of your arms, makes your fingers tremble as you set the plates on the table.

“Cheers,” you mumble, scrabbling to pick up the flimsy cup, tipping it just so in his direction before taking a sizable gulp.

As he parallels your action in bringing the wine to his mouth, you wonder if there will ever be a time when he doesn’t trigger the roiling heat in your veins.

Then again, you think, maybe you want him to stoke that in you — always.

Fingers delicate around the body of your just-refilled red solo, you make your way from the kitchen to the couch, where Joel is slouched back, legs parted. It’s impossible not to drag your eyes across the muscled heft of his thighs, to not linger on the way his jeans stretch to accommodate him. His heavy hands rest on the bulk of them, fingers spread languidly.

While you watch him, he’s watching you. You can tell by the way his digits flex and relax, callused pads pulling patterned lines over denim. Keeping his composure, despite the way the wine ignites him. Despite the way you ignite him.

The lights in the room are low, the comforting drum of fat raindrops on the glass panes of the window constant. Your limbs feel loose, a combination of Joel and the wine. There’s a record on low in the background, but you don’t know who. You’d settled on the cushions while he’d taken the shiny disc out of the dust jacket gently, dropped the needle softly, with the most care you’d ever seen, and let the smooth rhythm of it fill the room.

“You gonna cook like that more often?” It’s casual, airy. As if the walls of the room aren’t closing in on the two of you, pushing you nearer and nearer to him.

Inescapable.

You giggle — you fucking giggle — stepping over him to curl back into your place on the couch.

“If you’ll let me.”

He scoffs, turning his body to face you. “Let you?”

You smile dreamily, looking up at him through your lashes. He’s close enough that you can climb over him, bracket his thighs with yours, take his hands and drag them up the length of your body.

There’s no voice in the back of your head telling you not to, for once. No whispers admonishing you, reminding you that you’re wicked and worthless and unlovable.

So when he repeats himself, asking “let you?” in a thick voice, you do.

Your body moves before your brain has time to react — you throw one leg over his lap, hands grasping for purchase on the back of the couch for balance, situating your thighs on the outside of his. It’s a snug fit, one that opens your hips wide, the stinging stretch of it pushing you forward. You relax your core over his, the zipper of his jeans biting into the ice-cream flesh of your inner thigh.

And when your brain finally does catch up, all you can feel are his big palms cupped around the backs of your thighs, kneading the exposed flesh there. His fingertips barely graze beneath the hems of your sleep shorts, and you’re all too-aware of how close they are to your center.

There’s a satisfied hum on his lips, a knowing growl in his throat. A silent admission of how long he’s waited for you. A confession of a different kind of hunger, a kind with legs and buoyancy.

His eyes burn into yours — no traces of hesitancy, surprise, guilt woven into the golden gleam of them.

Twin masks slipping at the same time. Resolve stretched to snapping, satisfaction within tasting distance as you grind down into him — just once, desperation sliding down your spine.

“You can have whatever you want, Peach.” His voice is low, a wanton whisper that punches somewhere near your throat.

Those words again.

Whatever you want.

You’re looking down at him, his irises shining with earnestness, and you can’t help but raise your hand from the couch to card through his thick waves. But he catches your wrist before you can, bringing it down to the heat of his mouth to press his lips to your open palm without breaking his searing gaze.

You moan. At least, you think you do, though it’s a quiet, broken thing. A whine. A plea.

His thumb swipes back and forth over your wrist, your hand small in his grip. You watch through hooded eyes as he lowers it to the crotch of his jeans, your breath catching in the cavern of your chest as you feel him for the first time.

It’s somewhat surreal — the thickness of his hard cock in your palm, separated only by the material of his pants. Every fantasy you’ve harbored about him unwrapped at the tips of your fingers, his hand pressing yours into him, unforgiving and firm.

His other hand swallows the curve of your thigh, chases up your side to grasp at your hip, dragging your cunt over him. He drops his head back, repeating the action, the ropes of muscle in his neck pulled taut as he bites back a groan.

Your head is swimming — Joel’s heady scent and bruising touch combined with the wine makes everything feel soft-focus and shimmery, like a dream. You cant your hips again, focusing on the way his jaw ticks when you do, lost in watching the way his body responds to yours.

The reality of it sits heavy between the place his skin meets yours — breaths mingling as a cry of finally, finally, finally. It consumes you both in such a way that neither of you hear a key turning in the lock, the door slamming open, or heavy boots in the entryway.

It’s not until he speaks that both you and Joel snap your heads in his direction, chests heaving, hands climbing. Caught.

“Guess it’s true, huh? Y’really are enjoyin’ my sloppy seconds.”

[atmymercy]

hi I want to submit a question for the tea tarot monthly special (for October in advance) 🐅

"Does my future spouse have me on their mind? If yes, what are their thoughts/feelings/intentions about/for/towards me?"

{ excuse for the slashes but the prepositions do make a difference… at least that’s what I think }

much love! 🍁

in honor of november...

are you on your future spouse's mind? and if so, what are their thoughts/feelings/intentions towards you?

it's time to peer into your future spouse's psyche! let's see what they are feeling about you! what kind of thoughts are they entertaining about you? do they feel like you are their moon? let's peek together and see what kinds of thoughts or symbolism they feel about you! is it poetic? it it romantic? is it super random? lol who knows! but i don't see why we can't find out a bit about what they see when they look at the night sky and stargaze about you in their sweet inner thoughts! aww!

regular reading with 5 card pull - $5 

in-depth reading with 5 card pull - $7 

♡ message me for details/questions & to book this reading! ♡

congrats crystaldivinee! your question is the november monthly special! woot! i love your question for this time of year because sometimes it's nice just to sink into that deeper inner world, especially with scorpio season coming up! but but but! with a fun twist! because we are going to sink into the deep world of your future spouse! nothing like getting a fun ego boost from your #1 fan! lol too cute of a question!

i also love can't wait to see the cute ways your future spouse just loves you and thinks of you! the goddess of love feels connected but like in a dark sense in this question because we are delving into the psyches! a bit of a persephone reuniting with hades vibe for sure, which is so appropriate for this time of year! and i'm loving it! eee! these should be some fun readings! i'm already loving the read on this question! lol

thank you so much again! also please feel free to enter again! no rules are stopping you from winning again! lol

love & light!

-tea

[jekyll-doodles]

For your emoji ask 🎨Palette- for your wakey wakey au lords + 049?

🎨 PALETTE - can they draw? what do they like to draw?

[ Sometimes – not all the time – I’ll peek in. Just to see how things are going, just to check in with their progress. This time. in particular, my observations involved a simple “draw something” exercise. I think it was a part of a psych evaluation. Each was individually tasked with simply drawing something, each provided with a pencil and paper to do so.]

[ SCP-049, now more himself, was first. Lambert was hesitant to hold the pencil, as if he would snap it in half by mere touch. However, after giving it some thought, he sketched out a few images of herbs and flowers. Crosshatched them too in the process. They reminded me of the diagrams in his old book, though lacking the labeling and columns of information that accompanied those. The researcher seemed unsurprised by this result.]

[ Nigredo questioned them, “what, exactly?” But was left with an open answer. So, perhaps somewhat spitefully, he drew “whatever he wanted” and attempted to draw the researcher administering the test. It was decent – for a man who occasionally doodled in the margins of his journals. Although, I don't think the researcher found it as funny as I do. Nigredo was pleased with himself though, especially after the researcher caught themself from uttering “that’s not what I meant” in retort.]

[ Rubedo, too, paused to consider what his subject should be. Then delved into a quick, light sketching, before lining it proper. Two smiling figures, a mother and daughter. The first holding the latter close. It was soft, the lines curved and weighted. It seemed to bring him peace. Afterwards, he was, of course, questioned about it. At least now, it didn’t hurt so much to talk about.]

[ Citrinitas drew a horse. The man drew a horse – a side view and a front facing head – from memory. I'm not sure where he even learned to do that. He remarked it had been one of his older horses he’d kept, and probably the only thing he could depict well. Still. What the hell. Even the researcher was somewhat impressed by it.]

[ Albedo was last. When asked to draw something, they thought for a moment before writing the letters “S C P'' on their page in an elegant font. Ah, an example of their calligraphy practice. Followed by little illuminations: the logo incorporated, swirls and twisting shapes. Simple, clean, yet quite lovely – oooh, little figures too! Other anomalies, I think, that they’ve either seen or heard about : something reptilian, a half-cat, a smiling blob, a little girl, and a ghost– …Uh oh.]

[nerves-nebula]

If you want a peek into my twisted psyche, I have 2 tags for funny things. The first one was #meme, but then I found things that were funny but didn’t really fit the definition of a meme and instead of just shrugging and using meme as my funny things tag, I invented a SEPARATE tag, #funny, on such occasions that I might find something funny that isn’t a meme. I often use both of these at the same time. There was no reason to do this beyond my own little neurotic choir of angels telling me it’s weird to tag non memes as #meme.

I sometimes think about all these little systems I have set in place, and I worry that there would be no way to figure them out again if I like, got amnesia or something.

[faggotsnufffilm]

Georgie Cooper is bigender and bisexual ...

Just a peek into my twisted psyche

[pxxppet]

Prodrome (Part 2)

Teeth AU Chapter 2

Having to repost this one since tumblr made it inaccessible!

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

Jameson can hear them fussing. Jackie carried him back home, and Jameson could hear him apologise endlessly, hear him cry. Jameson could hear Henrik being called and he could hear him rush into the house only 30 minutes later, having dropped his shift.

"Jameson," Henrik calls. Jameson tries to turn to him, but it's like there is a great wall erected and his brain can no longer command his limbs to move. He's stuck in the exact position Jackie laid him down in. "JJ?" Henrik's voice is a question, shaking.

"Schneep? What… what's wrong with him? He just froze up. I can move him, but he won't move or do anything on his own." Jackie is trembling, unable to fix it and hating that fact. "Is it like- like a shutdown?"

Henrik, for all his iciness, seems frozen. He licks his lips. Jameson's last check up showed everything going well physically, so this seems to be mental. Waxy, stiff, unresponsive. Catatonia? But Jameson wasn't psychotic or showing symptoms. Jameson is about 20-24, and he's certainly been in enough stress…

Henrik lets out a sigh. "Jackie, it… might be something called a 'catatonic episode'. Obviously he needs psych exams to tell, but nothing physical has been out of the ordinary. We just have to wait to see what he does."

"I want you to fix it."

"Jackie, I… can't."

"You're Jack's doctor." Jackie is crying. "You're his doctor and you're supposed to fix us, you need to fix him!"

"Jackie," Henrik takes his arm and wipes at his face. "It's not a physical thing. It is mental, mental illness."

"Not fair, no, we stopped him hurting, I saved him!"

"Jackie, long-term stress has certain effects on-"

Jameson listens to their conversation fade as they step in the hallway. He can't get his thoughts straight, but he can feel them as a sensation. Frozen and numbed, Jameson senses the mix of rage and terror and guilt twisting in his stomach.

About 15 minutes later - a total of 50 minutes - Jameson lets out a heavy shuddering sigh. His arms slowly release, the wall torn down, and he can move them. Jackie, tucked in a ball in the corner, is up like a shot at the sight of movement. "Jamie?! Jamie can you move now, can you hear me?!"

"Calm," Jameson signs.

"Wha'?"

"Calm, calm big. Hate. Hate hate hate hate." He repeats the sign like a stim. He's so exhausted, he can't process anything that's happened today. His face relaxes from its scrunch, and he sits up. "…Juice," he demands.

"Juice? Um. Yeah bud, I can get you juice." Jackie takes only one step to the door. Looks back. He can't let himself leave. "Hey Schneep!" Jackie calls loudly

"Did he wake up, is everything okay?!"

"Yeah, uh. Can you get him juice?"

"Juice?" Henrik shouts. "Why can't you get the juice?"

Jackie looks back at Jameson, laying against the headboard with eyes closed. Pale and weak and sick little Jameson. "Schneep, please?"

Henrik grumbles loudly, but does it. He comes into the room and sets a cold glass of orange juice on the nightstand, sitting on the bed. "How do you feel, my patient?"

Jameson peeks open an eye. "Tired." He's just laying there then, with a sudden tensing of muscles, his eyes fill with anger. "Get out," he signs violently. "Hate this, hate you." He shoves Henrik away. Friends. His friends. Let himself feel- feel safe here, when they had his brother, his big brother, buried in the woods like a dog. "Get out!"

Jackie and Henrik share a look. "Okay, we can go. Just be safe, maybe sleep a little." Henrik smiles tightly, and they leave, shutting the door. Jackie sits on the floor right outside, head in his hands.

Jameson feels hot, ugly tears on his face. He pictures Anti wiping them away. He realises he has no memory of him doing so. He's sobbing, face buried against his fists in anger and betrayal and grief and hurt, hurt, hurt. They killed him. They killed his master. But they've been so kind, so nice and attentive and-! Oh god, Anti. Soft blankets and soft shining lights. A gravelly chuckle against him. Fingers through his hair and loving black eyes. Grinning pointed teeth. Teeth in his neck. File on his teeth. fingers yank his hair. Insectoid eyes on a face covered in his blood, Jameson's blood.

He weeps for all that Anti is and isn't; all that he was and was not. Is it like a slave? Chase's words echo inside him. A chain is around his neck. Anti tugging him out of his box by his hair and hitting because he didn't want to kill someone. Constant bruises that Anti would force him to cover so he couldn't see what he'd done.

It never stops, it never ends. Unfair unfair, my brother I called you my brother. You were all I had, how could you leave me? I'll kill them for this- They saved and healed me. They took you from me. They've been so kind.

Jameson cries and griefs until he's so tired he sleeps as soon as he slumps to the pillow. Outside the door, Jackie sits guard all night, to convince himself Jameson feels safe.

--

Marvin is laughing. It feels like they haven't laughed in so long. Jace is pressed against them, kissing their neck, drunk and consumed in the back of a shitty bar. Marvin purrs in their throat. "Taste of beer wasn't enough for you, beetle?"

"Mmmh, I just need something with more flavour, flower," he teases, slurring, mouth pressed under their jaw. Marvin laughs, whiskey on their breath. They sigh and press onto him until the two's weight is all that keep each other up. Marvin is moving their lips to press onto his when there's a shout.

"Ma-" cut off by music. Marvin peeks up.

"Marvin! Marvin, hey!"

They unclasp from Jace and look up. They see red - literally. Jackie a few feet back, avoiding people and wide-eyed. Marvin growls and pats Jace's shoulder, letting go completely. Jace smiles and rubs his face, knowing some chaos is going to follow. They stomp over to Jackie and cover his ears to the music, nearly dragging him outside by his head.

"What?" They hiss, emphasising the T.

"I'm bringing you home! You're being impulsive and I know it's because you're upse-"

"JACKIE." They scream it so loud a smoker near the door startles. Jackie freezes, eyebrows shooting up. "I need space! I'm sorry I've been a dick but I need to be away right now! I need a damn break, I need to forget about Jack for a while or I'm going to keep being a dick!"

"You can't just forget about all this, Jameson is really sick and things keep happening and- and I- He told me to get out of his room!" Jackie is shaking. So fucking weak. "I showed him Anti's grave and he made me leave and he was crying- He froze up for almost an hour and Schneep said something is wrong with his brain!"

"Jackie, I'm not coming home." Marvin has softened their voice in the face of Jackie's distress and sensory overload. "I need time, I can't be okay if I'm around that boy. I'm fine, just-"

"Well I'm not!" Jackie slaps his own skull and Marvin jumps. "I'm not okay Marvin! I'm fucking up over and over and I'm useless and stupid and- I can't fix it! I can't save anyone because none of you want me!"

Marvin's heart pangs and they stare with wide pupils. "Jackie, who said that to you? What? Of course we do!"

"I couldn't fix Jack and he could die any time, I can't fix how angry you are, I couldn't fix Anti and make him feel better and he wouldn't stop hurting us because I failed! I'm- I'm a failure, I killed him and still failed." Jackie sinks to the sidewalk and covers his head, panting. "I've never saved any of you…"

Marvin's jaw is hanging open, one hand out towards Jackie, helpless. They're always so helpless. "Jackie… This isn't about me leaving, is it? It's… all of it. Too much, but you won't leave. Like I did." Marvin kneels and, like they always do, put pressure on Jackie by hugging him close. "When… When we found that boy so sick and looking almost dead, in a cage, in the same outfit as Anti and just… suffering. Jackie I think that fucked us both up a little bit."

Jackie shivers under them. "He looked dead. He looked like all of us but dead."

"I know," Marvin whispers, small.

"I th.. I thought it was too late, and Anti had killed him before we even knew about him."

"I did too. He was so pale but all red and blue-lipped. And I just see… Jack, sick and comatose and dead."

Jackie nods, hugging them back in a vice grip.

"Uh, ye boys okay?" A bouncer has walked over, having seen their distress. "Need me to call someone?"

'No, we're okay," Marvin ignores the sting of 'boys.' "Just some family troubles."

"Ahh," the man rubs his chin. "I can get ye each a lite beer, on the house. Only tonight, don't come back beggin' for another."

"Jacksie? Feel okay enough for a drink?"

"Um, sure- But can it be out here?"

Marvin brings their drinks out, kisses Jace goodbye. They bring the cooled cans over to the bench Jackie found to get off the concrete. The two clink cans, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder through this and everything to come, and they forgive each other wordlessly as the morning hours break.

[solaeclipse75]

Just a peek into my dark and twisted psyche

This pic is literally what unmedicated adhd feels like if someone ever asks you why you haven’t completed a simple task in 7 months just send them this

[doomanddead]

Fiends & Fuzz: A Peek into Druid Stone's Undead Poets Society

Here at Doom and Dead we shine a light on the doom, drone, and psych acts you’ve never heard of. Every month we choose a new release that deserves more attention than it’s gotten. This month’s pick is from the Virginia band Druid Stone. 

Take stoner doom and acid rock. Now mash them together and throw them against the wall in your parents’ basement. Unspool a VHS tape of your favorite black and white horror movie and toss that on for good measure. Light the whole thing on fire. Poke through that ashes with a broken guitar pickup and that’s where you’ll find Druid Stone, the passion project of Demeter Capsalis. Druid Stone’s new LP, Undead Poets Society, embodies a love of homemade music in its purest form, complete with shitty mics and devil-may-care swagger. The songs on Undead Poets Society approach prickly topics like suicide and self-destructive behavior with a wink and a nod. Nothing is off limits. Every track oozes with the rock-and-roll attitude of a misfit unapologetically living out loud. So slip this one under your tongue and join me for a meeting of the Undead Poets Society. 

Bride of Satan comes barreling out of the gate ready to get high and kick ass. It’s a wild psychedelic jam with a 3-foot thick layer of scuzz on top — a fitting ode to a monstrous relationship. 

Little Wing (Neil Young cover) is a trippy take on a mellow folk classic. It’s a song that finds beauty in every season, now made cheekier and darker. The album notes say “inspiration by LSD and satan,” and that’s exactly what what Druid Stone brings to this cover.

The Wood of Self-Murderers Waltz is a morose little ditty that feels like it’s informed by the previous track. There may be a folksy twist to the melody, but this creation is 100% Druid Stone right down to its gushing mutant heart. The song’s lyrics are from the perspective of someone who already committed suicide, a doleful tale cautioning any who continue down this path. Things take a sharp turn and our surroundings become more ominous. The band’s signature doomed psychedelia takes over. There’s cacophony over the airwaves. Audio clips from Dawn of the Dead carve out space between ecstatic riffs.

With growling lows and a wailing guitar, The 13th Floor is one of the heaviest hitters on the LP. This track is as self-destructive and disillusioned as they come — a manic rock golem sutured up with searing psychedelic licks and incubated in a vat of fuzz. Capsalis’ brassy attitude shines through the chaos, reminding us “baby, we can jump if we get bored.” Halfway through, things grind down to a lumbrous doom metal crawl.  The track tunnels down lower and slower until the riff hits bedrock and the spell gradually unravels. 

Killing a Vampire (for A.C.F.) is melodic and melancholy with a blush of anger that would make Alanis proud. Not fooled by a vampire with a “suave facade,” Capsalis vows to kill him over and over from one life to the next. It’s the perfect anthem for your next breakup or that boss that whose bullshit you see right through. 

The centerpiece of the LP is Undead Poets Society. The bass line grabs control from the very beginning, kicking in your door and strapping a rocket under your ass. Druid Stone rides the riff across the sky all the way to the fucking moon. It’s an LSD-fueled tumble through the cosmos with a catchy hook you’ll be humming all day. There might not be any escape for the undead, but with riffs like these, just leave my ass here in hell.

The album closes on (Lately I feel like) I’m Begging, Shelob. It’s a melancholy tune portending an ominous fate and pleading for the sweet relief of sedation. The acid trip rolls on with doomy licks and visions of destruction. Wild effects wander the landscape as apocalyptic riffs rain down. The last vestiges of the song linger and I find myself clinging on, not ready for things to end. 

Undead Poets Society is a revolving door of homespun movie monsters, each laid bare and framed in fuzz. Every wart and hump (heh heh) is on display in all its unabashed glory. Druid Stone’s black sense of humor is a magical elixir that permeates the senses and gives everything new life. Many of the songs on this LP feel like tongue-in-cheek warnings from creatures who could not save themselves. I recommend this to ill-fated ghouls, unabashed kooks, and all those who go bump in the night. 

[goofybearclown]

Had a dream It was the there were zombies but we were chill about it and cleaned them out like a chore.

Also it turned into a cartoon about furries who are friends playing an mmo?

Just a peek into my dark and twisted psyche :/

[rasticore]

This is just normal toad to me. A peek into my twisted psyche.

Extremely rare "Evil Toad" figurine from a 1986 collection of "Mysterious Occult Super Mario Bros." figurines from Japan. While not authorized by Nintendo, these were sold legally under Japanese parody laws.

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