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productsreview-guide · 2 years ago
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Dark Age Defense
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Dark Age Defense is a digital survival guide that teaches people to thrive in unfavorable conditions such as power outages, extreme weather conditions, etc. The world is becoming more unpredictable by the second. There are wars breaking out, a global pandemic, climate change, and more! You need all the help that you can in order to continue functioning.
Hurricanes, flooding, earthquakes, and so on are just some of the strange things that happen every month. Events like tornados, earthquakes, and power grid failure can be devastating for those who live in the country, but a natural disaster can pose severe problems even if you’re a tourist. Even though extreme weather conditions can occur anywhere in the world at any moment, are you well-prepared to deal with one?
Nobody expects to be caught in a potentially dangerous and dire situation like a natural disaster. Having a well-designed survival plan and knowing what to do in a catastrophic event can do wonders for you and your loved ones. This is where the Dark Age Defense program comes into play.
Dark Age Defense by Paul Grabowski is an extensive tutorial to help you build your own DIY Infinity Coil generator to help keep your lights on in an emergency. It gives you the tools you need to deal with any power-related disaster. According to the official website, thanks to the guide’s tips and tricks, you’ll be able to gain self-confidence and feel more at ease in any global catastrophe that includes outages and blackouts.
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Interested in seeing how Paul handles power failure situations?
To better understand The Dark Age Defense survival guide, check out the review below:
What is the Dark Age Defense?
The Dark Age Defense is a comprehensive guide to surviving and prospering in the face of an impending power catastrophe. Suppose you’re interested in building your own “Infinity Coil” generator. In that case, Paul claims that he has devised an easy-to-follow system that teaches you how to build one using readily available tools and with limited expenditure. In the event of a “Blackout Day,” this generator will allow you and your family to both survive and thrive. Based on Nikola Tesla’s methodology, “the Tesla Coil,” this orb-like structure can extract energy from thin air by utilizing the earth’s magnetic fields.
When the “Blackout Day” comes, Dark Age Defense tells you what you and your family need to do to be ready. The program has detailed instructions on how to make Infinity Coils, which connect to the light rays to allow them to draw in power. All additional guides are available individually or as part of a digital guide package. With Dark Age Defense, you will avoid all of the consequences associated with the total collapse of the electrical grid.
What does Dark Age Defense offer?
The Dark Age Defense is a new digital survival book that aims to arm readers with the knowledge necessary to overcome any power catastrophe. According to Paul, this survival guide will provide you and your family with a complete “compass” so that you can navigate even the darkest of days. This comprehensive survival guide ensures that you’ll be ten steps ahead of any potential dangers no matter what happens.
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Here is what you will find inside the program:
The legal “Felony” system increases the efficiency of the infinity coil by 261% more than any other power source.
How to use the complete legal “Felony” system to revive a dead car.
The first thing you should do in the first 30 minutes is when the electricity goes out.
Detailed instructions on creating an incredible “Force Field” around your home.
How to build a suitable-sized “Infinity Coil” for powering your house and ensuring your family’s safety.
Using the “Pencil Squared” method, how you can make seven infinity coils in a short time?
Learn about the “Cosmo generator” that takes electricity from the air.
How to build an infinity coil generator with a Fisher Toy, ideal for individuals on a tight budget.
How does the infinity coil show that God exists by utilizing scriptural origins?
And much more.
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whatsupspaceman · 11 months ago
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we could have mobile games like cool math duck life and papas pizzeria and bloonz tower defense and old masterpieces like original angry birds and jet pack joyride and small online games like webkinz home before dark and polar bear plunge and flash games like holeio and snake and we could have barbie dress up and horse riding and we could have them all without thousands of shitty 2 minute ads and microtransactions and unskippable popups and imbedded app store links and we could have new games new incredible story based adventures, puzzles, well designed mini platformers, we have an entire universe of unexplored medium right here in the palm of your hand! we could have REAL games! real wonderful games not misleading not clickbait we could have everything in the whole wide world and we could have them them on the phone! WE COULD HAVE THEM ON THE PHONE !!!!!!!!!!! DOES IT NOT MAKE YOU SICK???? DOES IT NOT SHATTER YOUR HEART !!!!
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lilithofpenandbook · 3 months ago
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Seriously how can M*r*uders stans like random Slytherins (who tf are Evan Rosier, Pandora (is that Luna's mum and why tf is she Evan Rosier's twin in half of these), and I don't even want to discuss Regulus) and make them Actually Misunderstood Good People Who Were Forced Down That Path when at least one of them *coughreguluscough* was obsessed with Voldemort
And then turn around and make Snape an awful person?
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thedrotter · 5 months ago
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filler doodles about how i comedically whitewashed myself as a child (despite also being the darkest i had and still have ever been in my entire life) because i cannot wrap my head around it
#filler art#my art#i was also short haired at the time so its odd i drew myself as having very long hair but is it any more weird than me whitwashing myself no#i remember i also imagined myself to grow up as a white girl like#HUH??? like i was so convinced i was going to look like all the white main character girls on television ... i had to look like one#all of this was probably because of the lack of representation in tv i could find at the time tbh#BECAUSE THIS WASNT AN ISSUE OF MY DAY TO DAY LIFE NOOOOOO#in here being... moreno?!?! . brown?!?!! EVEN IF LIGHT IS MILES MORE COMMON THAN BEING WHITE#AND ITS SO MUCH MROE SILLIER BECAUSE I WAS MCUH MORE DARK THAN I CURRENTLY AM BACK THEN#as of now im more so lightskinned . nowhere near white but im not very dark either because i dont see rhe sun often ww so im pale#BACK THEN I GOT BURNT ON THE SUN AS A HOBBY im serious i sat on the hot rock floor with burning sun climate bevause it was nice#NOT EVEN THE CURLS COULD BE SAVED I HAD TO PORTRAY MYSELF AS STRAIGHT HAIRED FOR WHATEVER REASON#like on my defense i did straighten my hair out a lot as a young child but THAT LASTED LIKE 2 DAYS EVERY TIME#so 90% i was curls so its funny#ALSO WHY DID WE CALL THE CREAM COLOR “THE SKIN COLOR” WHAT#like. it wasnt just me . whole elementary school knew if you asked for rhe skin color you talkin about thay#any tone of brown simply did not work I DONT KNOW WHY WE WERE ALL LIKE THIS???#thankfully at the age of 10 i realized i infact had melanin but .. i coudlnt accept i had black hair still💀💀#so my skin and hqir color were always the same in portrayals ITS SO FUNNY IM SORRY#I FIDN THIS INSANELY FUNNY IM SO SORRY#dont feel too concerned i wasnt ashamed of my skin color or anything but i had the warped idea i would look white soon#not if you keep cooking youself in the sun you wont /j#i dont know what to say about how i draw myself now a days i dont draw myself as myself but i know i aint white now its okay 🩷 (/hj)
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ayyponine · 4 months ago
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not to be a milennial but harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban really is that bitch....
#mom wanted to rewatch the movies so we've been going thru them <3#talk about a movie thats just like. grief. i turn into the jamie lee curtis halloween trauma supercut#SORRY..... the visuals are peak like that IS the hp vibe to ME and i am BLOWN AWAY this movie was made in 2004 it feels ahead of its time#the first two are so whimsical and magical enrapturing and this movie is like. a well worn cardigan. this feels 2011 cozycore to me#sorry but the introduction of lupin becoming a comforting trusted guardian type of figure AND the dementors representing hollow depression#this 13 yr old whos been kept in the dark on so many things being extra vulnerable prey to them bc of the severe trauma#but getting lessons on how to withstand that creeping dread.. through happy memories... still bonding w lupin increasngly ouagh...#the grief between them both over james and lily. also btw ofc defense against the dark arts being fighting yr fears through laughter. aaaaaa#and then sirius. black. im. i know we meme on the twelve years of it! in azkaban! but as a bitch whos now closer to those characters in age#and can appreciate and understand them obv more than i could when i was. a tween. that just hits like ok shit. VALID#so valid and real to see the child of your friends you knew at that age but who DIED and then see the friend who betrayed them#to see like the best of BOTH of them mirrored and living on in him and be like yknow what???? you WILL be protected frm that same fate#hoooo the briefest moment where harry might hope things will turn out okay. w sirius' name being cleared and peter having to explain himself#and sirius being like hey i get it if you want to stay w your family that is fine but. if you wanna move in w me...#(harry relaying this to hermione later as well. dreaming of a place fr just the two of them somewhere in the countryside#somewhere..... sirius might see the sky..... bc he thinks he would like that after all those years locked up do not even touch me rn.......)#only fr everything to turn to shit two friends fighting w deadly force. the chance to set this right slipping off into the night.#a million dementors descending relentlessly until utter exhaustion and certain death. some strange salvation? fight for a second chance?#but then still havign to say goodbye when they only just GOT this. and everything still being so. god. and lupin having to leave as well.#the thought of sirius also WANTING that guardian type connection but being forced to live in 1. a cave barely living more freely than before#2. then being confined to the stuffy somber abusive home he ran away from as a teen w that portrait still up there and everything.. bitch...#oh man the way i KNOW when we get to ootp (my favourite) its gonna leave me blasted into a million little pieces#the way i know shit like the knowing wink the entirety of the wall tapestry room scene and of course nice one james is gonna DESTROY me..#dont even talk to me abt that dark turn at the end of gof and how everything after gets soooo. god. w everything just getting destroyed and.#i cant even think abt it i cant even talk about it. wah#i dont care btw that they aged those guys up undermining how insanely young these people died. perfect casting fr the remaining marauders ok
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dungeons-and-dragon-age · 8 months ago
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forever mad about how dirty they did aveline from act 2 onward
#thinking way too much abt it rn cus i just finished her quest today#she is important to liam and i enjoy their relationship a lot & also her character in general in the earlier acts#but MAN i hate what they did to her in acts 2 and 3#laya plays dragon age#feels like there is such a disconnect from her attitude between acts 1 and 2?#or well. maybe not disconnect exactly but even so there is an important shift there and we never even get to see it OR question it#she could have been such a good contribution to the story and the themes by putting her at a crossroads of#do i keep following what i know and become another cog in the system or do i challenge them and break out of it#cus like. in act 1 she is not above going against laws when her own morals (or even just biases) go against them#but is generally still in favor of ''regular'' law and order (which does get challenged by characters sometimes which is nice!)#(sort of) blind loyalty is already a fault of hers and now her loyalty is understandably mostly towards her guards#but then her companion quest is not in fact about herself but about frickin. courting the guy she likes???????#full on i thought this was a silly quest for levity in an act that has a lot of dark moments#but no it is Her Important Quest TM and not only does she not get with him if you dont do the quest#but her entire attitude and happiness going forward depends on it????? what the hell#also fun fact first time playing act 2 i thought that there was a lot going over my head and like#and some of it did yeah but i also just Assumed that bc the way aveline acted/ the guards actions were presented through her#didnt line up with what actually happened#(& her being so defensive and dismissive didnt line up with the impression i got of her before that)#sorry for the rant im just once again mad about cool characters being screwed over by the writing
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shotmrmiller · 5 months ago
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single dad simon not knowing how to be a dad. not his thing. doesn't get it. hand him a gun and he can take it apart and put it back together in his sleep. but a diaper? formula? baby food??? knows next to nothing.
so you see him, miserable old man with sunken dark eyes, hunched shoulders and a screaming baby at his doorstep with groceries in his hand and decide to help. (besides, you're also suffering with a lack of proper sleep)
he's not a good dad but he's a protective one. he's at your throat in an instant, baby in arm almost behind his back, ready to sink his teeth into your jugular. you squeak out that you're a part time babysitter. you can help. you've got the most experience with babies her age.
you keep your eyes on him, tired eyes now sharp as flint. it's scary how quickly he'd moved. footsteps barely a whisper. his breath chills your skin.
threatens you with your life if so much as a hair on her head is hurt. he must be really tired if he's willing to accept help being this defensive.
you take the chunky babe and bounce her as he opens the door to his flat. you don't dislike kids but you're not their biggest fan either. babysitting is just a means to an end. easy money that goes toward your tuition.
simon, you come to learn, doesn't care. he thinks you're the missing parent. he doesn't ask you if you can help watch over the child. simply knocks on your door and hands her to you with the diaper bag. mutters that he'll be back and with food.
he helps himself to your couch when you tell him that the baby is asleep. takes off his shoes and is snoring in seconds. simon also doesn't help the rumors going around the building. "a terrible parent, you are. how could you abandon your baby and husband? he's been struggling for months!"
simon leaves you sputtering when he tells them to stop talking about his missus like that or he'll kill them in their sleep. burp the baby, pet, or she'll keep us up all night.
at least he pays well :/
(if you go out for a friends night, which he will drop you off so stop talking about uber, he's telling you to go say goodbye to our baby who happens to be asleep in her crib and if you're wearing a short little number he's gonna watch you bend over to kiss her fat little cheek before he takes you to the bathroom to eat it from the back and is sending you to his car with trembling legs and a slap to your arse. don't look so tasty next time idk)
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dolicekiss · 4 months ago
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Apple Of Their Eye
part two here
PAIRING: Dark! Aegon Targaryen X sister!reader X Dark!Aemond Targaryen
CONTENT WARNING: smut (18+, mdni) incestuous relationship, dark!targaryen brothers, innocent virgin!reader, dubcon, alcohol consumption, unprotected sex, handjob, riding, breeding, threesome, kissing, possessive behaviour, nipple play, throat fucking, drunk reader, praise, pretty much the targaryen brothers giving their sister sex lessons and claiming her as theirs.
SYNOPSIS: Being close to both your Targaryen brothers had its own perks. Drinking wine together, going horse riding and reading books. It was all a dream but when Aegon heard the talk of your betrothal, he decided it was finally time to taint you. What you didn’t expect was Aemond walking in on you indulging in your older brother’s sickly pleasures.
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Giggles erupted from your lips when your sweet brother, Aegon made a weird face to encourage sweet giggles out of you. His favorite sound in the world, as he liked to address it. Your bond with both your brothers was something never seen before among house Targaryen. Fiercely loyal to each other, defensive and protective. You were the perfect trio of destruction — well, with a honeyed touch of peace.
That was your vital role.
To calm down the blood of the dragons.
You had grown so attached to one another that both your brothers denied the responsibilities of the throne, wishing to spend time with you.
You had to convince Aegon to sit upon the throne and he agreed in one go when his little sister asked for it. How could he not? You were looking up at him with such hopeful, glimmering eyes, those long lashes of yours coating the apple of your cheeks.
He often wondered if his bridled desires would break out of control one moon and find way to you?
Aemond entered the room, hand resting atop his sword as he analyzed the room, which was in shambles. You and Aegon again had enjoyed a pillow fight — pieces of feathers and cotton everywhere in the room. Pale sheets on the floor and wine spilled everywhere.
He was the youngest, yet he felt as though he was the oldest amongst you three. You and Aegon behaved like little children, even when you were younglings. Aegon and you would disturb the council members and pull hilarious pranks on them meanwhile Aemond paid them no mind.
“You two.” His voice put a hold to your giggles, your attention diverting to your brother. Your silky strands — similar to Aemond’s — were a mess. They reached your hips, only at such a young age and Aemond couldn't keep his one eye off the loose strap of your dress over your creamy shoulder.
Aegon smirked to himself, knowing well him and his brother shared their feelings about you.
You smiled at Aemond, a big grin of excitement adorning your soft, delicate features. “Aemond! Come here, have wine with us.”
He shook his head. “I have duties to tend to, sister. You carry on.”
Your lips formed a frown. “But Aemond, I miss you. You rarely ever spend time with Aegon and I. Do we bore you now, do you seek fun in planning war and those boring councils?”
Aegon nodded in agreement and Aemond shook his head, walking closer and taking a seat on the bed with you. Aegon had his head on your lap, staring at you with love sick eyes of a puppy. Your flushed state and rosette cheeks were a vision for Aemond — his callous hands aching to touch you.
“Aemond how can you neglect our beautiful sister here?” Aegon taunted, reaching out to wrap a finger around a strand of your silver hair and curl it. You smiled at him, cheeks round and Aemond swallowed. “I am not neglecting her, I am merely occupied with tending to my duties since no one else will.”
He diverted his one eye to Aegon and the older brother groaned, tugging on the single strand of your hair. You whimpered at the pain, lips puckering into a pout. “Aegon, stop it.”
“You shouldn't trust Aegon so much, sweet sister. He is all but a twat,” Aemond’s words made you turn to him and he looked away from you, not wanting his gaze to linger somewhere below where he was allowed. His own reluctance at being around you proved that he too struggled with the same demons his older brother did.
Aegon sat up now, eyes boring into Aemond’s. “And why shouldn't she? I pay her more mind, more attention than you ever would.”
“I trust him, brother. You should too, he's our king and he cares for me.” You softly spoke.
Your soft soothing voice was like the sun against their cold words. Aemond pondered late at night how their monstrous house got blessed with such a sweet little thing? Repentance was not something that came to house Targaryen — so why were they bestowed with you?
Your kindness, to the maids — the highborn ladies and even the members of the small council made you quite the perfect candidate for queen, especially when the realm loved and adored you. The sweet daughter of Viserys Targaryen, left behind to bring prosperity and love.
“Yeah, she trusts me.” Aegon said, scooting behind you. His chin nestled over the small cup of your shoulder, staring straight ahead with mischief in his gaze. “Don't you, sweet sister?”
You nodded, coyly.
He was almost taunting Aemond, being able to stay this close to you while he was busy with preparing for war. It was not fair, definitely to Aemond it was not. He inhaled a sharp breath as Aegon buried his face in the crook of your neck, accidentally pressing a kiss to your exposed skin. Your body shuddered and you quickly pulled away from him, staring at him in confusion.
Aemond felt a lump form in his throat.
Fuck, you were so innocent. Oblivious to the sick desires of both your brothers.
“Be careful, sister.” Aemond said to you, gesturing towards the other Targaryen brother. “You're too innocent for your own good.”
Then he got up, parting from your chambers, hoping that the next time he enters, he finds you all alone and not with that foolish brother of his. He did not harbor resentment towards Aegon necessarily, but ever since they were children, they fought. For a dragon, for toys and for your attention. It had been a constant battle of who'd bring you the prettiest flower first, who would be first to dance with you at feasts, who's horse you'd sit on and ride.
For everyone else it was draining but you relished the attention you got from your brothers. Enjoying each and every bit of the fight going on for you — only you didn't knew it went beyond the walls of brotherly love and they were horrifyingly obsessed with you.
Aemond had turned down every marriage alliance, not interested in securing the future of the realm if it came at the expense of being far from you. A woman would only act as a wall between the two of you and Aemond did not want any walls. He would gladly crush them, with or without the help of Vhagar.
You prepared another cup of wine to drink but Aegon was called to the council — arranged by the dowager Queen. Crestfallen, you let your brother go as he fixed his attire and departed from your chambers, after leaving a sweet kiss on your forehead.
As soon as Aegon entered the council room, he's greeted with everyone there. Each member and with a scowl on his face, he takes his seat. Evidently upset by having to leave his sister, even though he could go back to her at anytime.
“Your Grace.” Everyone greeted him, standing up and heads low. Aegon gestured them to sit and they obliged, following into their comfortable seats.
Alicent looked at the council members, knowing that the discussion they had come to would eventually upset the King. Everyone was hesitant and Aegon noticed that. He raised a brow, confused. “Are we here to stare at one another? If we are, do excuse me. I have pressing matters to attend to.”
Everyone knew pressing matters meant giving his undivided attention to his little sister.
“In order to secure house frey and gain access and control to the passage in riverrun, we think it would be best to form a marriage alliance with them.” Alicent’s words didn't actually hit Aegon how they were supposed to, as he grinned. “We cannot offer a dragon, we can offer a dragon.”
Assuming the marriage alliance was for Aemond, his younger brother not his little sister. “Great, it is about time Aemond finds himself a pretty bird too.”
He was cheerful. If Aemond was married, he would have your attention all to himself and he became overjoyed with that, a little too fast. Alicent swallowed, exchanging glances with the master of coin and the maester. Her hesitance was in existence because she did not know how maturely her son would handle to the news of sending his only sister away from him.
“Your Grace, the marriage alliance is for your sister, the Princess. House frey has suitors available and the Princess gets to choose with whom she wishes to ma—”
Aegon’s palms slammed down against the wooden table, rising up from the table. His gaze searing and his lips quivering from the sheer courage of Tyland Lannister’s, to marry his sister off without even inquiring him about it. The fact that they even thought of doing that filled him with a rage so overwhelming, he felt like burning the whole small council to the ground.
“That is my sister you're speaking of.” He reminded them. “I will have your fucking tongue for even suggesting to get her married off in the first place.”
The whole council flinched at the King’s outburst. Alicent had expected it to be a tantrum but this was more than a childish tantrum. The room was elevated with tension as Aegon panted, his body quivering from the rage coursing through his veins.
Alicent took a deep breath. “It is for the best, my King. You need to win this war and the Freys are demanding a dragon which we cannot provide.”
“So you give them my sister, like some fucking piece of coin?” He snapped, turning to her. “She is the princess of house Targaryen, my sister. I will not have you subject her to the same fate as all the other women.”
Aegon dismissed the council, walking out of there. Alicent sighed, holding onto tethered pieces of hope that maybe talking to Aemond about it would be better, since Aegon did consider him his closest blood and best sword. Little did she know she would be riling up another dragon and awakening it.
The next few hours were unbearable for Aegon. He had visited your chambers but you were nowhere to be found and when he asked your maids, he was told you'd gone out to collect flowers for the vase in your room. Countless times both your brothers had told you to either tell them or command the servants to bring you flowers — still you did what you felt.
Upon your return, you found your chambers not deserted. Aegon was there, situated on your bed. Hair a mess, tunic unbuttoned revealing his pale chest. Your brother was disheveled and you couldn't recall the time you two spent together being the cause of this.
So what had happened?
Worried and upset, you dropped the basket filled with flowers by the side of your door and walked over to him. Your purple dress, a match to your purple eyes, flowing behind like the waves of the sea. You sat next to your brother, small hands reaching out to cup his face in them.
“Brother, is everything alright? You seem upset.” You inquired and when Aegon raised his head, you saw just how devasted he appeared.
Devasted and drunk.
Your eyes noticed the cup in his hand, as well as the pitcher on the floor. Something happened at the small council, that much you figured out. But what had happened, now that was for Aegon to tell you.
Though your brother only stared at you, bringing the cup to your lips. “Drink, for me.”
You were in no mood for wine but you still obliged him, parting your lips and consuming the wine. The crimson tainting your lips red as you swallowed it, gulp after gulp. Even for you that was a lot and when you were finished, Aegon refilled the empty cup.
“Drink more.” It was a command.
You frowned. “Did I do something wrong, brother? Is this your way of reprimanding me?”
He stared at you, eyes droopy and full of glimmering lust for you — unbeknownst to you. “I want us to be drunk together, like old times. Please.”
You heard the plea in his voice and nodded, softening at the disheveled state your brother was in. You parted your lips to take sips as Aegon held the cup for you. He pushed it, more and more until the wine had overwhelmed you and drops spilled over your dress, trailing down your chin.
The red had absorbed into the purple but you finished your glass, staring at Aegon after the glass had been tore from your lips.
Aegon moved further into your soft bed, veiled by pellucid pale curtain and you followed, laying next to him. His head found comfort on your chest, a frown so evidently ceasing his features. Confusion had clouded your senses — hoping that your brother might tell you the cause of his distress.
But all he did was lay silently on your chest, feeling the soft plush of your breasts against his cheek.
Aegon swallowed the urge to press his mouth over your pebbles and suck them, burying his face deeper into your breasts. He was a mess and he knew that his mother would go against him, to secure more power and alliances with the other lords.
He could not let it happen.
He mouthed lazily at the chiffon, attempting to take a nipple of yours into his mouth. The purple fabric absorbed the saturation of his saliva, as your brother crossed all the limits between the two of you.
As if there were any to begin with.
“A-Aegon, what are you doing?” You whispered in a breathy gasp when he sucked on your peaked nipple through the cotton, his other hand moving to provide your other breast with attention.
Your back arched slightly and your breath quickened as your brother’s hands moved down to the laces which held your dress together. As drunk as you were, you still knew this was wrong yet had no control whatsoever of the situation. Once your laces were loosened enough, Aegon tugged at the sleeve of your dress and unveiled your breast.
“Brother, this is inappropriate. You're under the influence of wine, we should not—”
Aegon looked up at you with the softest look on his face, akin to a puppy. He switched his attention to the unattended breast of yours which he had uncovered, suckling on the nipple, fingers rolling the soaked one in between them. Your soft lips were parted and made the prettiest little sounds of pleasure foreign to you.
“I'm your brother, sister. If I don't deserve to have you like this when who does? Those fucking house frey suitors?” He snapped, voice fallen to a few octaves. Your breath hitched in your throat at his words, not being able to understand what he was insinuating with his words.
Your brows scrunched and your crinkles formed on your nose. “H-House frey, Aegon?”
He chose silence.
Aegon moved to lean up against the bed, his unbuttoned tunic revealing his bare chest beneath his small clothes. You watched him, your silver hair a mess — cascading beautifully down your shoulders and narrow back. Aegon patted his lap, a silent order for you to sit on it but you could only blink innocently.
Having no regards of such matters.
“Crawl to me, sister.”
You nodded, as puzzled as you were, slithering to settle yourself over your brother's lap. Both hands on his chest as your thighs sat over each side of his waist, looking down at him. This was all new to you but you were not complaining.
His hand extended to grasp your chin, pulling your face closer to him. He could see everything, all the subtle features which made you all the more beautiful. The mole neath your left eye, the way your pupils enlarged whenever you locked eyes with him, how your pretty lips quivered. “Today I will teach you how to make your brothers the happiest. You wish to learn, don't you sister?”
You eagerly nodded.
Aegon grinned. “Kiss me, my little dove.”
You obliged, pressing a kiss to his cheek and Aegon released a chuckle. In complete awe of the naivety you possessed. “Here, sister. This will make me and Aemond the happiest.”
You were hesitant with it but still leaned your head, pressing a subtle, feather light kiss to Aegon’s lips. His hunger was far from satiated as he stared at you with a hooded gaze, his blood heating up at the feel of your lips against his. He was over the moon with only a peck, he could only imagine the power of a proper liplock.
“Did I do good? Was that okay, brother?”
Aegon shook his head. “No, little dove. You have to do more, kiss more of my lips. Try to suck on them, yeah?”
You puffed out your cheeks, irritated at your own incompetence at making your brother happy. Still, you kissed him once more but this time like a baby bird trying to eat it's food with untrained beaks, you tried to suck on Aegon’s lips. Closing them around his upper lip, your saliva glossing his lips. Aegon’s cock stirred awake in his breeches at how inexperienced you truly were. An innocent girl getting ruined by her brother.
You closed your eyes, focusing at the task at hand. Aegon reached for your nape, locking it in place as he finally kissed you back. Soft kiss of yours evolved into something harsher, something more passionate and you whimpered, your endeavor to retreat declined by your brother. Your small hands nestled over his chest — trying to push him but it only strengthened the kiss, Aegon trying to drown in the sweet nectar.
“Open your mouth, little dove.” Your endeavor to speak was mistaken as consent by your brother, his tongue running over the edge of your perfect teeth — making way to your tongue. He wrapped around the wet muscle and began to suck on it, the saliva dripping from your mouth and slipping into his. Light headed you had become due to the vigorous kiss and how your brother dominated your mouth with his tongue.
Aegon soon broke the kiss and allowed you a few moments of air, staring at how swollen your lips had become. He had tasted you and it only fuelled his desire more for you. To claim you and never let anyone else's sight fall upon you. Heart fluttering at being the first man ever to put his cock inside you.
“This is what good sisters do for their brothers.” He said to you, his hands rested on your thighs and thumbs swiping across the pale skin. “You're such a good girl, my Princess. You'd do anything for your King, won't you?”
You nodded your head impatiently, doe eyes looking into your brother's purple ones. Chest falling and rising, sharp intakes of breath breaking through the silence. Aegon smiled and that was the biggest achievement for you, ever. He lifted one hand from your thigh, taking your small hand into his. Aegon loved how your petite hand disappeared into his — a perfect size you were for him.
He wondered in that very moment how you'd look taking Aemond’s cock into your small mouth, considering he was bigger than the both of you. Taller, toned from the constant training of wielding a sword. The thought of both of them taking you at once riled him up like nothing else.
Aegon brought your hand to his crotch, laying it over it. Your coy eyes widened. “B-Brother.”
“Unlace my trousers, sister.” Albeit it was an order, his tone was soft. You had never seen such a dark look in your sweet brother's eyes, violets always glimmering with excitement and happiness.
You were hesitant at first, reluctance dripping from the way your shivering fingers pulled at the soft laces which tightened his trousers. Aegon watched with a curious gaze, knowing very well he was about to defile his little sister and ruin the innocence she so wholeheartedly showcased. It almost made him sad but this was necessary, to wed you to him. Or even Aemond.
He couldn't care less who you married as long as it was one of them.
With bated breath, you loosened his trousers and then looked at him for further instructions.
“Pull out my cock, sister. You should feel something hard, that is my cock.” Your silver lashes fluttered, fingers getting to work. The second you felt something hard, skin but rigid — you grasped it to free it. Aegon hissed upon your cold touch and you retreated, feeling bad.
He was quick to reach for you. “No, no. Do not worry, for I am fine. You shall continue.”
So you did, given the reassurance, your gaze focusing on the unclothed cock of your sweet brother. Aegon reached for your hand and wrapped it around his own cock with your neath it. “I need you to move your hand, sister. Pursue my actions, this will truly please me.”
Aegon began to move his hand in slow, sensual strokes and you followed. The more you touched him, the more he lost his composure. Little sounds falling from his parted lips and his hand fell to the side over his thigh — letting you take the lead. You picked up your pace, hand undulating over his throbbing length.
Palm stained with his precum, you used it to slick his twitching cock and then moved your fingers up. A shuddered gasp of fulfillment slipping from Aegon’s mouth upon that accident. You smiled, in victory and pressed the pad of your thumb deeper into his little hole. Watching as more of the pale liquid spurted out.
The more you stared at it, the prettier you found it — shade darker than the rest of him and cock head the same pink as his agape lips. Varicose veins, a deeper hue of purple than the ones of your irises embedded in neath the flesh.
Eyes sparkling at the thought of touching Aemond in the same way, getting to see such an intimate part of him. You wished he was here, to be able to do this for him would be a great blessing.
Your mouth watered the more you gazed at your brother's glistening cock head. Without paying much mind to it, you leaned lower and closed your lips around it. Aegon’s eyes immediately snapped open when he felt the warmth your mouth provided and stared down at you.
“Oh, Gods.” He groaned, almost a whine. “Who taught you this, my sister? Have you engaged in such acts before?”
You quickly backed away, shaking your head with a guilt ridden face. “No, Aegon. I am so very sorry if this was something I was not supposed to do. I promise I have never done this before, I promise. I swea—”
“Hey,” Aegon whispered, caressing your face with his large hand. “I believe you. You see I do not wish for you to get involved like this with someone else. It is only right if you do it with me, and Aemond.”
You nodded your head understandingly. “I would love for you to continue, my little dove but right now I need something more. Could you give it to me, my sweet girl?”
“Yes, brother. Anything my King wants.” You smiled, lips shimmering with his residual and Aegon’s cock twitched.
He pulled you on his lap once more, hands on your waist. Then the pair dropped lower to your bare thighs and Aegon bunched up your dress, revealing your unclothed, bare pink cunt. You were never too fond of wearing small clothes under your dresses — summer of Westeros unbearable for a delicate thing like you.
He licked his lips deliciously.
“Just as you touched me, I have the full right to touch you too. You understand?” You nodded like an obedient student, stomach churning in anticipation for your brother's next move.
Aegon pulled you closer rather harshly by your thighs and your shoulders went slumped, feeling his head brush against your pearl. Your eyes widening at the electrifying contact. “I need to do this in order to make my cock fit inside you, so be a good girl and let me, okay?”
“Yes, brother.” You whispered, stomach fluttering in anticipation.
Aegon’s fingers moved to your cunt, running in the center of your soaked folds. He found it amusing how you had no idea of the pleasures taken between a man and a woman yet your body had reacted like this, cunt drenched and wet. He knew your maidenhead was still intact, after all he rarely ever let you be in the presence of someone else.
If Aegon was occupied, it would be Aemond who would linger around you like a new born shadow.
They knew how innocent you were, how fucking naive and monsters lurked in the red keep. You needed their protection more than the people of the realm. Careless they were about the iron throne, Aegon wished to fuck you on it before properly ascending it.
“Oh.” Your eyes slightly rolled back at the way your brother caressed your folds, pinching your pink pearl. “You've got such a beautiful cunt, my sister. I am sure you will put it to good use to make your brothers happy, won't you, little dove?”
Eager you were to please them.
They had brought you everything, anything your heart had ever desired. Allowed you to ride their dragons with them, brought you the most beautiful gifts from the north and drowned you in lannister gold. Both brothers even went as far as getting you jewelry from Dorne since Aemond caught you complimenting a dornish necklace.
Aemon’s thumb prodded at your bud, swirling it around, watching how your face contorted in pleasure. Lids fluttering shut and head thrown back, fingernails digging into your brother's chest. You were a fucking sight, all disheveled. With his other hand, he entered a finger into you and your pleasure-clad face evolved into one of pain.
“Ow,” you complained at the sting of being stretched out. “Aegon, that hurts.”
“I know, my Princess but you mustn't rush. I will bring you pleasure soon, it is a promise.”
You believed him, waiting out the sting as Aegon fully sunk his finger into you. Driving it in and out of you, all the while rubbing your swollen attention seeking bud. Your expressions were the prettiest, the most breathtaking and he questioned himself why did he not do this earlier?
Just what was stopping him back?
He was the fucking King, goddamnit. He could have you whenever he wanted and you would give yourself up to him, everytime. Just like right now how you were serving yourself up to him on a silver platter like those animals during feasts.
“Brother, oh my god. This feels weird, I feel weird.” You whimpered, hips moving on their own accord over your brother's fingers and Aegon licked his lips, furthermore sinking his canines into his lower lip.
Aegon added another without warning and you whined out, a loud one which made him reach over and press his palm over your lips, sealing them shut. “As much as I absolutely adore your sounds, we should not let anyone find out.”
You nodded, and Aegon removed his hand, letting you breathe. You decided to keep it blow but everytime Aegon would move his finger inside you and you would feel it run at your gummy unclaimed walls, little whimpers would escape you. Feeling his fingers curve up and rotate, hitting into a spongy spot of which’s existence you too were unaware of, you cried out.
Aegon smiled.
That was enough preparing.
Aegon pulled out and you gasped when he brought his lips to his mouth, sucking on your sweet arousal.
He wanted to take you on your back but that was how he took his whores. He would never let them sit on top of his thighs and look at him like this — all dolled up yet disheveled. You were his sister, the apple of his fucking eye and Aegon was not going to take you like some whores.
They existed to keep his sick desires for you at bay, but he knew after this, he would not be needing them anymore.
“This is going to hurt, sister but worry not, I assure you I am right here. It shall feel better soon, just like with my fingers.” His comforting words and soft tone helped with your trepidation — allowing your brother to raise your hips and align his cock with your drenched hole.
Aegon allowed you to sink down on him and when his head breached your entrance, a sting worse than before spread like a virus, consuming your whole being. Your eyes welled up with tears and your lips quivered, a brusque tremor awakening in your petite hands. He was quick to come to your rescue, holding both your hands and leading the pair to his nape, making you latch onto him for support.
“Here, hold me. As tight as you can, my little dove and carefully slide down. Be careful and gentle, alright? No rush here.” He continuously comforted, guiding you and you nodded, inhaling a deep and brief breath.
Then you sunk more, his girth expanding your hole. Little movement and reassuring words from your brother helped you take the entirety of his cock and when your ass finally met his thighs, Aegon groaned. You felt his cock twitch inside you and your hold around his nape tightened. The pain was throbbing and hot — consuming your whole being but the fact you were so full with your brother's cock, contempt, you let out a drunk giggle.
Short on breath but still, you smiled at Aegon.
While you two descended deeper into forbidden pleasures, Aemond had gotten free time to come see you.
After intense sword training and back and forth of sharing strategies of the war with Ser Criston Cole, Aemond had found his feet switching route — bringing you to the hallway where your chambers were located. As he walked, with each step, he felt extreme excitement build up in his stomach. Finally having enough time to spare you a visit and get drunk, bask in your presence.
He hoped that Aegon would not be there as he wanted you all to himself, especially for tonight.
Upon opening the door to your chambers, the view before him left him astonished and there were rarely many things that left Aemond Targaryen astonished. He was quick to close the doors, not wishing for anyone to come across the Princess’ bed chambers and witness such sin.
His hands formed into fists — how you sat on top of Aegon, hips oscillating in a sensual manner. Too sensual for someone as innocent as you and he knew Aegon had managed to ruin and defile the only pure thing about house Targaryen. Yet fucking again. You two were so indulged and far gone in your pleasures that Aemond’s presence was barely noticed.
But then Aegon caught his brother's tall figure by the door.
“Oh brother, welcome.” He called out, although it was more of a moan and you turned to look at Aemond.
Your cunt tightened at Aegon when gaze laid over your brother, the one you missed the most since he barely had time to spare. Aegon let out a hoarse chuckle, shaking his head at his brother. “You will not fucking believe it but our sister's cunt became more tight upon seeing you.”
Aemond’s teeth gritted. “Mittys, that is our sister.” (Fool)
“Do not pretend as if you have not wished to do this more than I have.” He voiced it out, hand pressing into your waist. You whimpered as Aegon made you move on his cock and by now the pain had subsided, pleasure coming in to take control. You began to roll your hips over his thighs, eyes locked with Aemond.
You needed him too, your eyes screamed for him to come closer and as if you had telepathically communicated, Aemond sauntered towards the bed.
You whined when Aegon pushed his hips up, breaching furthermore of your cunt. “Aemond.”
Aegon was inside you but you were moaning for Aemond and the older brother did not even find it upsetting. Rather his cock hardened even more — if possible, hearing you whine and ache for your younger brother with such need. He did not mind sharing you with Aemond, as long as he could have his fill of you too.
“A-Aegon said I could make you both happier like this. I want to, I love you. You're my brothers.” You expressed your profound love for them, nodding your head as Aemond slipped of his leather gloves. He tossed them aside and reached for your hair, taking a strand and curling it around his finger. His nose catching a whiff of the perfumes and oils you were basking in, yet the natural scent of roses was enough to drive him fucking crazy.
He leaned forward, pressing a chaste kiss to your bare shoulder. Eye following the stretch mark trailing down to your breasts and the stretched flesh made him realize that you had grown. You were not a little girl anymore but you were still their little sister. Your rosy nipples were peaked — demanding attention and Aemond hissed.
His own cock bulging against his leather slacks and Aegon saw it.
Aegon moved inside you, thrusting up and you lost composure. Lips breaking apart to let out the most feminine sounds, silver strands glued on a perspired forehead as Aemond watched you bounce on his brother's cock with vigor. Your fingernails had dug into Aegon’s nape and tears sat beautifully like pearls in your waterline.
It was evident that you were sensitive, nothing like the common whores.
“Does she not look fucking beautiful, bouncing on her big brother's cock like that?”
Aemond wanted to punch Aegon but he was not wrong. You did look celestial, out of this world with how you bounced up and down on his cock, trying to desperately please him.
Aegon rolled his eyes at Aemond. “Are you only going to just watch? I have taught her things, with her hand and mouth. Be a dear and show him, sister.”
Like a trained puppy, you were quick to oblige, hands extended to work gracefully over Aemond’s leather slacks. You undid them, pulling at the leather and he watched how eager and desperate you were. Hands moving with a significant tremor.
“Aemond,” he raised his eye from your hands to your face. “may I please have you in my mouth?”
If the offer had crawled to him on its fucking fours with the most precious doe eyes, who was he to deny? He, too was a man at the end and had perpetually craved you the same as Aegon. Only he was subtle with his desires.
“Yes, my sweet sister.” Aemond whispered, staring at you. His consent made you flourish like the moonlight, bright and glowing right in his face.
Aegon decided it would be better to switch positions and he pulled out, bringing you on all your fours and giving space to Aemond against the bed headboard. He shifted, sprawled out before you, leather slacks and small clothes long gone. In the process, Aegon had stripped himself bare too but the brothers wanted you to not remove the dress.
Just how easily they had access to you despite the dress, it enticed them.
With Aemond’s cock in your hand, you came to a conclusion that his was the prettiest. It was longer than Aegon’s but had almost the same girth. Protruding veins embedded inside the pale skin, his balls hot and throbbing with an ache. You looked up at him and smiled and all Aemond could do was return it and fucking melt.
“Aemond, remove your eye patch. I want to see you whole.” You voiced out your desires and he reached for the eye patch, sliding it off and tossing it aside. The sapphire sparkled like crazy in his eye and you had always found it to be the most coolest and breathtaking thing about Aemond.
Having less of a part than the others did not make him less human too.
Though he appeared more like a god. The fire from the fireplace casting a soft golden glow over both brothers, leaving them heated with pent up desires.
Aegon had already pummeled his cock back into you, not after witnessing the blood staining his length. Testament of your chasity staining him fully and his wanton for you only grew more. You pressed a little kiss to Aemond’s tip — watching him with your deer like purple eyes and he hissed, hand moving to interview with your silver strands.
Eventually you wrapped your lips around his head, slowly taking him deeper and deeper into your mouth while using your hand to stroke the rest which failed to fit. All while Aegon drove himself deeper inside your sweet, innocent cunt, drawing pathetic little whines out of you.
Aemond groaned, fingers tightening around your roots when the vibrations from your moans sent waves of electricity straight into his loins. You choked when he breached your throat, sputtering around him. Drool and cum glistening around your mouth. Your younger brother sighed pleasure, primary focus of his one eye.
“Messy little girl,” he taunted, the fluids dripping from your chin.
Aegon nestled his cock over and over into your sweet spot, urging you to reach your peak and unravel. “L-Look at her. So fucking obedient and pliant. I want to watch her stomach swell up with my babe. That way mother won't try to marry her off to someone else, some fucking riverrun lord.”
Aemond’s attention snapped to his brother's words, and Aegon only nodded. Letting him know that they were close to losing their sister but not anymore. The sweet dove was tainted, used and claimed. Even if their mother tried to marry her off, she was already tainted by her brothers and no lord would want her. That pleased both Aemond and Aegon.
“Gods, what a blessing you are.” Aemond praised you, highly, palm pressing deeper on your head, encouraging you to take him deeper and you did. His head sliding into the confines of your tight, wet throat. “Perfect little girl, a cocksleeve.”
With each thrust from Aegon, your body moved forward against Aemond’s. A sweaty mess of pleasure and bodied you three were but that did not matter. Aegon felt his peak near, tethering onto it and soon he finished inside you after delivering harsh, potent stutters of hips into you. Your cunt tightened, sucking him in, like a vice.
“Oh fuck,” he groaned. “Like that, little dove, take me in, all of me. Milk me fucking dry, let me breed you so you carry my silver haired children.”
Aemond didn't mind his brother having you first and defiling you, since he pretty sure had your throat first. You were theirs and that's all that mattered. Gagging sounds reverberated in the room along with strong sounds of skin slapping against skin. Your peak danced around too, and when Aemond fucked his cock harshly into your throat, you squeezed around Aegon’s cock and came all over. Tears splurging out, making a mess on your face.
Your whole body twitching from the intense climax. Thighs shaking and sensitivity heightened. Followed by your release, Aemond pursued. Release spurts of white into your mouth, spending fully inside you. Yet he did not unhand you, holding your head in place to fuck his hot load into your mouth.
Once he was done, he pulled out and grasped your chin, peeking inside. “Swallow it whole, Princess.”
And you did. Gulping down the remnants of his spend.
Your head, tired from being in one position, laid right on Aemond’s bare thigh. Aegon was still inside you and when he pulled out, he saw your gaping hole spurt out his white residual. Parts that failed to reach your womb but it did not matter. He would breed you over and over again until you were to end up with his child.
Or Aemond’s.
As long as it was a silver haired babe.
“A-Are you happy now?” You asked, a question for both of your brothers and Aemond nodded his head, running his slim fingers in your hair.
Aegon crawled upto you, laying next to Aemond. A subtle smile playing at his lips, eyes hooded and body weary from all the hard work. “Very happy, little dove. We could not have asked for a better sister.”
Your pale flushed skin reddened as Aemond moved you, bringing you closer to his chest and wrapping his arms around you. Aegon admired the two of you, pleased with the fucked up dynamics of his family. This was a pleasure he could not have found or ever would find in the bed of a whore. You were the apple of their eye and they could not let you go, even if it meant restoring to such methods.
Your hands cupped your younger brother's face, leaning in to press a kiss to his lips.
Aemond had expected it to be a gentle peck but it grew needy and hasty, exactly how Aegon had taught you. Your lips suckling on his like a babe, trying to pry his mouth open and meet your tongue with his. You seemed addicted, desperate to kiss your younger brother the same way you had kissed your older. The kiss grew heated as Aemond opened his lips, finally taking control and dominating your mouth.
You whimpered, and Aemond could taste the residual of his orgasm. It did not phase him as he continued relishing in the sweet kiss, feeling your cunt beginning to rut against his already hardening cock.
When you broke the kiss, Aemond admired you before shifting his attention to Aegon who had a nasty grin on his face. “You're responsible for this.”
“Proudly. Only had to teach her once and look at how she's already sucking on your lips like it's a fucking cock.” He cheered, reaching over to pinch your cheeks. You giggled and hugged your younger brother, resting your head in the crook of his neck.
The three of you did not leave your chambers that night while the whole of red keep searched endlessly for the sword, the King and the maiden.
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gracieheartspedro · 21 days ago
Text
For Cryin’ Out Loud
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pairing: post-outbreak! joel miller x afab! reader
how to help the palestinians and what it means to write for the last of us characters
word count: 7.9k
description: living with joel is complicated, especially when you can’t sleep due to nightmares. when you find yourself in his bed, you can’t help yourself. but joel sure can. give him a day to mull it over.
warnings: pretty slow burn, kinda forced proximity, kinda angsty, unspecified age gap (don’t like it, don’t read it), joel gives you tons of nicknames (darlin’, kiddo, etc.), discussions of nightmares and possible mental illnesses, some fluff, reader isn’t really described, joel is kinda a gaslighter, he’s also a bit pervy, unprotected p in v (wrap it y’all), oral (f! receiving), dirty talk, joel like worships you!!!!!, joel licks his fingers clean, giving genitalia pronouns, joel’s a big boy. think that’s it. lemme know what I missed!
author’s note: I really enjoyed writing this. the idea is pretty simple but I love domestic jackson!joel. I promise i’ll try to switch it up soon and write something that isn’t jackson!era lol. support your fav fics by reblogging and commenting!! thanks love ya <3
For some reason, you always find yourself standing at the threshold of the front door when you cannot sleep. 
The air was especially brisk tonight. You wrapped yourself in a gray chunky sweater you found in the lost and found in Jackson’s thrift store, hoping to regain some warmth. Your bed may have been comfortable, but it was the place where nightmares usually plagued you. 
It was too late to be awake, and you knew that if you were caught, you would hear it from Joel. He always reprimanded you. Every time he caught you up late, it was like your father woke up and found your hand in the cookie jar. 
The dynamic between you two had changed since arriving in Jackson, and you almost resented him for it. When it was just you, him, and Ellie, you were managing a family unit. Joel was always the protective father, you being the mom or the voice of reason, and Ellie being chaos. 
When Ellie and Joel’s relationship shifted, he took on a fatherly role for you. It bothered you. A lot. 
In a moment of contemplation, you hear footsteps coming down the steps behind you. 
He’s wearing flannel pajama pants and no shirt, his hairy tummy something you did not see often. 
“What are you doing awake?” He questions, his voice groggy with a twinge of annoyance. 
You do not feel like explaining yourself, but you knew you wouldn’t be able to get out of this situation without a justification. 
You huff, leaning your back against the door frame so you can get a full look at the broad man. “Can’t sleep. Thought staring into the darkness would help.”
He grunts, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “How’s that workin’ for you, sweetheart?”
You could not close your eyes without the haunting dreams that seemed lively and so real. Every night, you had the same recurring ones. You were being chased, hunted, or murdered. Or all of the above. You would wake in a cold sweat, not wanting to shut your eyelids ever again. 
“Hm,” You say, staring back outside for a brief moment, “‘Was better when you weren’t looking over my shoulder.”
He chuckles, “Get back to bed.”
“I can’t, Joel.”
“You can and will. You’re no good when you’re tired.”
“If I close my eyes, Joel, I will just have the same goddamn nightmares I have every night. And I will end up doing what I’m doing now, which is trying to get some fresh air to forget them.”
“You’re not gonna forget ‘em with some fresh air. You just need to… get over them.”
The breeze picks up as soon as he says it, almost like the world knew the tension would have to be broken with some frigid air. You retort with, “And how do you get over yours?”
"I just accept them," he says, a hint of defensiveness in his tone. "I don't have time to dwell on them. There's always more important things to worry about."
"I'm more tired in the morning when I just endure them." You explain, trying not to cry about it. But you are so sick of them. The same thing every night.
“I get it. One day they will subside, I’m sure of it. But for now, you gotta-”
You just want him to shut up. At the same time, your mind is trying to remember the last time you did not have a nightmare. The memory makes your stomach churn. “You remember that one time we were forced to share that sleeping bag? Back in Pittsburgh?”
“Yeah,” His tone was wary, “What about it?”
"That was the first night I didn't have it." You explain, your voice a bit shaking at the insinuation. You don’t want to face the fact that Joel, the man that you have known for going on 10 years, kept your nightmares at bay. The same man who continuously rejected you and told you that he was old enough to be your dad. The same man that told you no, I don’t like you like that. I never will. That Joel. 
“And? Why are you bringing this up now?”
"Because every night I go to my bed and I'm forced to face them alone. When you were there... they didn't even bother holding my mind hostage.”
He took another step closer, closing some of the distance between you two. He towers over you and you can’t help but stare up at him in awe. Joel has always been a complicated part of your life. You consider him your sexual awakening, honestly, but he will never ever know that. Over the years, he’s only gotten more handsome. 
But now, he has a curious expression written all over his face.
"Are you saying you want to share a bed with me?" he asks, his voice gruff and low.
You suck in a deep breath, not wanting to answer. You knew that was stepping over a boundary for Joel. He liked his space. He didn’t like you impeding on that space, especially. Your bedroom was the furthest away from his for a reason.
"I don't know." You manage to say.
Joel's gaze darkened, his expression was completely unreadable. You wish you could read his mind, but you should be grateful you can not. 
Because in Joel’s mind, he’s trying to formulate a way to convince you to stay away from him altogether. The wall he has built over the last decade was intentional. He did not want to hurt you any further. He already knew you had feelings for him, but he was an old man. He did not want to drag you into his mess, all the baggage he carried. He looked after you, he shared a home with you, and that’s it. Strictly platonic. 
He shifted on his feet a little, unable to tear his eyes away from you. You shook like a little leaf.
"You don't know?" he repeated, his voice a low rumble.
You nod, "I don't know if I want that."
You do want that. But you want more, too. You knew you would be playing with fire. You would just be disappointed. 
Joel’s temptations are buried deep but they still fester every now and again. Some days he would catch a glance at you getting dressed in the crack of your door and have to take a cold shower. As soon as he felt those emotions bubble in his chest, he would try to distract himself. Maybe he would take a longer patrol. Maybe he would go to the Tipsy Bison and try to find a woman to take home. That one never really worked. 
“Well, what do you want then? Because standin’ at the door and letting all the cold air in ain’t gonna work for me or you.”
You look down at your picked-over fingernails and contemplate your next sentence. You don't want to be heartbroken in the morning when you wake up and he's there sleeping peacefully next to you and you're not... his.
"I want to sleep with you."
Joel was not expecting such a blunt response from you, but he appreciated you not beating around the bush about it. He gestures for you to step out of the doorway so he can shut the door, which you do. 
He looked down at you, his eyes raking over your face, taking in the exhaustion and uncertainty. 
"You sure?" he asked, his voice a gruff whisper.
You just nod as he locks the front door. You couldn’t believe you were doing this. 
Joel couldn’t believe it either. Maybe it was the tiredness or the instincts he felt to protect you, but he was not mad at the idea of sharing his bed with you. 
You signal for him to go upstairs, “You lead the way.”
-
Joel’s room was always off-limits to you. So when you step into his small little world, you take it all in. 
The artwork around the room was mainly nature landscapes. He had a big dresser right at the room's entrance with picture frames of Sarah, Ellie, and other family members. You were even included in one photo—a picture of you and him on some horses from last year. 
A shirt littered one side of the bed, so you took that as it was probably his side. Unfortunately for you, it was the right side. You felt a pang of guilt realizing you would probably end up restlessly lying in Joel’s bed if you were stuck on the left. 
Before he can pull back the blanket for himself, you stop him. 
“Uh, can I sleep on that side?”
He completely halts in his motions, turning his head towards you with a blank expression. “My side? Why?”
You lick your lips, already regretting this whole thing. 
“Because I have had this superstition since I was a kid that I could only sleep on the right side of the bed."
Joel wants to laugh, but he doesn’t. He can tell you are at war in your head about the question, your expression practically anticipating his rejection. 
"Superstitions, huh?" he said, a hint of a smirk playing on his lips."You and your weird beliefs."
You watch as he crosses to the other side of the bed and lifts the blanket. Is he actually letting you have his side? Maybe he doesn’t hate you. 
“You could also call it a compulsion, but superstitions seem more fun and less like a mental illness.”
He laughs this time, his deep chuckle making you feel a bit more relaxed about the situation. You did not feel like a burden as much. You walk to the right side and pull back his navy blue sheets and blanket. The spot looks warm and inviting so when you crawl in next to Joel, you start to realize that you’re back in the same situation you were in years ago in that sleeping bag. He was so close and warm and you wanted nothing more but for him to hold you and keep you comfortable.
But then another thing came to mind before you could imagine his arms around you. 
You usually sleep on your right side or back, but now you don't know what to do because you didn't know how Joel slept.
"Do you sleep on your side or back?"
Joel studies you as you fidget beside him, your uncertainty causing him to smirk slightly. It was almost endearing, seeing you be completely out of control of your surroundings. He remembers back when you were traveling with him you had an obsessive need to straighten up everything before you fell asleep. You had to roll yourself up in your sleeping bag the same way every night. 
"Usually on my back," he said finally. "But I can sleep on my side, too."
You swallow, trying to picture yourself sleeping. For some reason you felt the urge to have control of the situation, dictating exactly how he has to sleep, too. "Can I... I'll sleep on my side if you can sleep on your back? Is that okay?"
Joel had to suppress a smirk at your request. You knew he was trying to hold back a snarky remark. Instead, he surprises you.
"Sure, you can sleep on your side," he agreed, shifting his body weight onto his back, "’n I'll sleep on my back. No big deal."
You turn to face him, tucking the pillow further under your head. You can tell his eyes are heavy from exhaustion. You know it's time to shut up, to go to sleep, but you feel the need to say something else to him. Sometimes your brain concocts questions and statements and you know you shouldn’t say them, but your mouth betrays you.  
"When was the last time you had a girl in your bed?"
Why the fuck would you ask that? You think to yourself. It fell out of your mouth like drool.
Joel's eyes widened at your blunt question, surprise and a hint of embarrassment coloring his expression. You knew he was probably just expecting you to lay here next to him, maybe roll around a bit, then sleep. But instead, it’s an interrogation.
He took a deep breath, his mind rattling around as he tried to think of a response. He didn't want to admit what his genuine answer was to you, but he too could not help himself.
"Why do you want to know that?" he asks, his voice steely.
You hate that he even responded because now you needed to defend yourself.
"I uh, don't know. I don't know why it matters."
Joel chuckled softly, noting that you probably just had a case of word vomit. You always told him you were infamous for putting your foot in your mouth, especially in awkward situations.
"Curiosity got the better of you, huh?" he asks, rubbing his face with his hands. “You just can’t help yourself, sweetheart.”
He shifted slightly, rolling onto his side to face you, his gaze studying your expression.
You smirk, grateful that he's letting it slide. When he turns onto his side and he's at eye level with you, your face drops a bit. He is ruining the vision in your head. He’s throwing a wrench in your plans.
"You're supposed to be on your back, sir."
Joel couldn't help but chuckle softly at your comment. He knew he was supposed to be on his back, but the new angle allowed him to see you better in the faint moonlight.
"Don't worry," he said, a hint of humor in his voice. "I'll turn back over in a minute. Just... enjoying the view for a bit."
You roll your eyes, lifting your hands from under the covers and lightly hitting his arm. You knew he was just fucking with you now. 
"Okay, for that, I want to know the answer to my stupid question."
Joel let out a low laugh, the sound rumbling deep in his chest. He shook his head, amused by your persistence. You start to think about it and you have never really seen him bring anyone home. Maybe it had been a very long time and he was embarrassed. 
"Alright, alright," he said, a hint of resignation in his voice. "Last time I had a girl in my bed..."
He paused for a moment, his eyes dropping to the covers, his mind racing to find the right words.
"Go on..."
Joel took another deep breath, his voice dropping even lower as he spoke.
"It's been a long time, kiddo," he admitted, his voice pierced with a bit of shame. "Almost ten years, if I'm being honest."
Your eyes widen in surprise. "No way... You've never just... got it on with someone in bed?"
Joel's face flushed with embarrassment at your blunt question, a mix of shock and slight irritation flashing across his eyes.
"Jesus, you really don't hold back, do ya?" he muttered. He shifts a bit, trying to get comfortable in a different way. He hadn't expected the conversation to turn so personal, so quickly and he did not want to face you anymore. He was mortified. 
You mentally slap yourself in the face.
"I'm sorry, I am just tired and delusional. Uh, you don't have to answer that."
Joel could practically feel the humiliation radiating off you and he too felt the exact same way. You knew how to add to an already awkward situation.
"No, no, it's fine," he reassured you, his voice a bit gentler now. "I get it. You're tired, and your filter has taken a backseat."
"Yeah, exactly..."
He shifted on the bed, turning onto his back again, his gaze shifting to the ceiling, avoiding your curious stare.
You could not help but stare at his side profile. A prominent straight nose. His downturned lips are surrounded by some fine lines that show his age. He was a beautiful man now, but you can’t help but imagine him back in his 20s. He had to have been a hit with the ladies back then.
Joel could feel your gaze on him, studying his face. And while you were not scrutinizing him, he felt like a commodity in a museum or something.  He forced himself to keep his gaze on the ceiling, refusing to meet your eyes.
"So… ten years and no sex?”
You could seriously, not help yourself.
"Correct.” He grumbles, still not meeting your stare.
"Damn, Joel." You mutter, adjusting a bit to sit up a little more on your pillow. "I seriously thought you were sleeping around the whole time we have been in Jackson.”
He finally turns your way, a bit of offense on his face. “Why would you think that?”
You shrug, not wanting to insult him. But that’s how you formulated your grudge towards him. It was easy to just chalk everything up to problems with random women you have seen around town. 
“You just give off the energy…”
“What?”
You huff, laying back on the pillow. “I don’t know, Joel! I feel like when I’m around you all the ladies think you’re handsome. They stare.”
“They are staring because you’re always following me around and we aren’t married or… together. They think we are odd.” 
You had never heard such things around Jackson, but it does sort of make sense. Everyone was probably just confused because you two lived together but were not a couple. You can admit it is bizarre, but it just did not feel like an option any other way, in your mind. So Tommy gave you two a bigger house and you set up separate rooms. 
But in actuality, Joel secretly told Tommy that he did not want you too far from him. So when Tommy couldn’t give you any other houses nearby, Joel just told him that you two would be roommates.
“Well fuck ‘em.” You mutter, trying not to sound too offended by the thought of people gossiping about you two.
Joel just nods. You settle by tucking your arm under your pillow. You yawn, the exhaustion now taking over your body. You watch Joel grab a pair of reading glasses from the side table and a book. You decide not to bother him, especially because he probably wanted to just read himself to sleep instead of being interrogated by you any further.
You close your eyes and eventually fall asleep. The deeper you get, Joel notices how your breathing pattern changes. When he’s finally ready to get some shut-eye as well, he watches as your body crawls closer to him. Your arm swings over his stomach and rests on his forearm. He is so shocked he does not move a muscle. 
You adjust some more, not knowing what you are doing. Your leg creeps up and tucks right between his. You snuggle your face right into his chest. The only movement Joel decides to make is slinging his arm over your shoulders to pull you in tighter. 
It’s the first time in years that you two slept soundly, with no interruptions. No nightmares, no sudden intrusions, nothing. Silence and snores fill the room and that’s it.
-
When you wake up, it’s slow and gradual. Your brain hardly computes that you’re laying on top of Joel’s shirtless frame, until your hand runs across his warm tummy. 
You crook your neck up, looking at the handsome man you are spreading across. 
His lips are slightly ajar, letting out hardly-there snores. They are so pretty and pink and you cannot help but touch them with feather-like fingertips. You would feel so guilty waking him up-
His eyes slowly open taking notice of your actions even though you tried not to stir him. Your eyes fly open in shock, but he does not seem very annoyed. He smiles. 
“Mornin’ darlin’,” He says in a deep sleep-laced voice. You smile back at him, loving that he decided to call you the nickname you always got giddy over. You press your fingers into his chest before replying.
“I didn’t have a nightmare.”
His hand comes up from your shoulders and tucks some hair behind your ear as he stares down at you, “That’s good kiddo. I’m glad you slept well.”
The intimacy is almost too much. The way this is how it would be if you woke up to Joel every morning. It sends your brain into overdrive and you force yourself to ruin it a bit.
“Woulda slept even better if you didn’t talk so much in your sleep.”
Joel froze for a moment, his cheeks immediately flushing pink with embarrassment. He sits up a bit more, adjusting to the brighter lighting in his room. He knew he had a problem with talking in his sleep. Ellie used to talk about it all the time. He dreaded hearing what he was saying while curled up next to you.
"Uh... what did I say?" he asked, trying to maintain his composure.
"Something about it felt so good to be pressed up against someone, I don't know..." 
You could not help yourself and started to laugh. You knew you were going to get a rise out of him. 
Joel's face flushed an even deeper shade of pink as you started to laugh, clearly amused by your joke. He could feel his heart racing in his chest, his mind racing as he tried to come up with an excuse. He was just dreaming, it was not about you. 
"W-what?" he spluttered out instead of making an excuse. "I didn't... I didn't say anything like that."
You have a shit-eating grin on your face and you press your hands on his chest to prop yourself up. You enjoyed watching him squirm.
Joel's eyes flickered down to your hands on his chest. He sickly thought they felt so right placed there. He imagined what you would look like fully mounting him. 
He tried to keep his expression neutral, but you could see through his stone-cold exterior.
"You're messing with me, aren't you?" he grumbled, a hint of suspicion in his voice.
"Fully fuckin' with you." You giggle, hoping he is not really that mad at you. 
“You’re a brat.”
You move your foot slightly, running it up his leg. It sends shockwaves up his body, having you so close and moving around so seamlessly. 
"No, you said something about how beautiful, alluring, and incredible I am. Said I was the girl of your dreams…"
"Yeah, right," he said, a hint of playful sarcasm in his voice. "You expect me to believe that?"
"So, you don't believe me?"
"No, I don't believe you," he says, his voice stern but playful. "I think you're a dirty little liar, trying to play me for a fool."
"A dirty little liar, huh? Well, it's good to know that you don't think I'm beautiful, alluring, and incredible." You giggle at his acknowledgment, knowing he caught you red-handed.
"Oh, I never said that," he smirked, a hint of teasing in his voice. "You are all of those things, darlin’. But you're also a dirty little liar who likes to play games."
"So you think I'm beautiful?" You crack, the biggest smile painted on your face. You don’t even care that he’s calling you a liar because it does not matter. Joel thinks you are beautiful. 
“‘Course I do.”
You push yourself up onto your butt, sitting crisscross next to him. He secretly wishes you were still curled up on top of him. 
“You always this nice in the morning?” You ponder, your fingertips starting to toy with the hair on his stomach. He tries not to pay mind to it, letting you have full access to touch him. 
But it’s driving him insane. The way you look freshly woken up, completely enamored with the idea of him calling you beautiful. You have some puffiness under your eyes and your lips are more swollen than usual.
“I am always nice to you.”
You let out a scoff, “No, you’re not.”
He notices the shift in your tone and starts to get defensive, “Now you’re just lyin’.” 
Joel always loved to gaslight you in these situations. You knew better than to let him get away with it, especially now. “No there was that one time you told me you did not like me and that you would never like me. How you are old enough to be my dad-”
“Because I am!”
And there’s the wall. The only constant in you two’s relationship. He was so good at throwing it up when feelings were being expressed. When vulnerability was presented, Joel could not help but reject it. 
“And the world’s fuckin’ ended, Joel! Big deal!” You almost yell, moving your hands from him. 
Why does he already miss your hands?
He huffs, crossing his arms over his soft chest. “We have had this conversation for the last 10 years.’M not sure why we keep rehashing it.”
“And every time you turn me down it’s another fuckin’ stab in the heart.”
“You know why we can’t,” He practically growls. You can not stand to even look at him anymore with your bitterness and irritation taking over. 
“Whatever, Joel.” 
As soon as you say it, you’re already leaving his room and heading to your own. When you slam the door, you hope you have made your point. You want to scream and punch a hole in the wall, but instead you just furiously stomp around the room and grab your clothes. You had patrol at noon, so you needed to get to the mess hall before breakfast was over. You try not to cry as you strip down and get dressed.
Joel sits in bed, reeling. He hates that it has become a conversation every six months. He hated that rejecting you always sent you into a spiral of hating him for extended periods. It’s not that he did not want you, it was simply just not in the cards. He was too old to be in love. He was too old to play house with you. He just could not submit to the idea of leading you on, especially because you had so much more life to live. 
He finally works up the courage to get out of bed and put on some clothes. He opts for putting on his typical jeans and thick flannel. It was getting colder and he knew by the end of the winter, you would end up with half his flannels anyway, so he had to enjoy them while he had them. 
You storm downstairs, going to the back door for your boots when you spot him in the kitchen. 
“You got pat-”
“Yes.” You respond quickly, shoving your foot into your shoes. He stands behind you with a mug full of tea, watching your every move. 
“Who are you-”
“Jesse.”
He was asking his usual questions, which you were not in the mood to answer. 
“Hey, can you-”
You snap your head back at him, giving him the glare you gave him as a warning usually. By now, he takes it as a hint and backs off. But not this time. 
“Can I what?”
He rolls his eyes, “Can you fuckin’ not be a brat about this?”
You wish your glare came with knives. If that were the case, Joel Miller would be dead on his kitchen floor. 
You are so thrown off by the question that you just watch him get angrier when you do not respond. 
“Are you serious, right now?” You press, keeping your voice from cracking. 
He brings the mug up to his mouth, taking an obnoxious sip. When he pulls the mug away, you notice how steaming it is. “You always pull this shit-”
“No, you do! You do this shit to me every fuckin’ time, Joel. You sweet talk me, make me feel comfortable, have me lapping everything up in the palm of your hands, and then you snatch it away. Then have the audacity to get mad at me!”
You are yelling now and it is throwing him off. Joel knows better than to interrupt you like you do to him. You were the kind of person who would calm down if you felt heard. 
The way he knew you down to your core made this all so painful. Because if he was not so stubborn and true to his convictions, he would have fucked you the moment you touched his lips this morning. 
“I ain’t tryin’ to make this harder than-” “Too fuckin’ late.”
You think back to the moment last night when you knew you were going to hurt your own feelings by sleeping with him. You knew better, yet here you are, still blaming him for your stupidity.
He stands there, still holding his mug, staring you down like a wounded doe who got pierced with an arrow. He feels guilty like he misled you. Before he can say anything, you are lacing up your boots and leaving out the front door without another word. 
-
All day long, Joel wanders around the house trying to get rid of the pit in his stomach. Nothing works. A shower. Reading a book. Cutting wood. As soon as he tried to use laundry as a distraction, he reached into his hamper and found one of your t-shirts. He held it close and smelled it, trying to wrap his head around how he got here. 
You spend all day, silently fuming on horseback with Jesse. When he tries to get you to open up, you ice him out and tell him to focus on the trail in front of him. 
You get back by sundown, the sun setting making it a lot chiller than you expected. You decide to take the long way home, wanting to avoid being home for as long as possible. You were not ready to face Joel, let alone share a space with him. But unfortunately, during your patrol, you fell into some mud and needed a shower. The more time it spent on your clothes and body, the grosser you felt. 
You open the front door, announcing that you are home. It was a habit you and Joel developed after you both pulled guns on each other during late-night arrivals. 
You hear Joel mumble something from the living room, but you do not stop to listen and continue on your way upstairs to the bathroom. 
You strip down as soon as the door is closed, tossing your muddy clothing into a hamper in the corner. You would get them washed and hung as soon as you shower off. 
You hear Joel’s footsteps creaking around the upstairs hallway as you scrub your body with homemade soap and warm water. 
When you start to dry yourself off, you hear Joel grunting something in the hallway. You wrap yourself in a towel and peek your head out the door. He’s on his hands and knees wiping something off the hardwood. “What’s goin’ on?”
He looks up at you, your body only covered in a bleach-stained blue towel. It makes his head spin. He can’t even be mad that you tracked in mud. 
He swallows, gripping the cloth he’s using tighter. “You got mud everywhere.”
You step out, not even really thinking about the fact that you are not properly dressed in front of Joel. You were still mad at him, anyway. Who cares what he thinks?
“Sorry, I could’ve cleaned it up.”
He returns to wiping the wood, “It’s fine, I got it, kiddo.”
You accept his response and move on to your room, but the draft you leave behind drifts to Joel’s nostrils. Your soap smells like lavender and it always sends his mind racing when you are fresh from a shower. He clears his throat, trying to get through the emotions filling his chest. 
But it’s been like this all day. You’re all around him even when you’re not physically here. How can he get away from you? Why is he trying to run in the first place?
He’s on his knees in your hallway, cleaning up your mess, sniffing the air you leave behind because he’s fucking in love with you and he cannot help himself anymore. 
Joel starts to think about how peaceful he felt having you next to him last night and how he would love to feel that way every night. For once he’s not thinking about what everyone else would think. For once he’s thinking selfishly and caving into every desire he has ever pondered about you. How would you feel under him? How would your lips feel pressed against his pulse point? 
His body was on fire, thinking about you. 
You are fiddling with some clothes in your dresser after you flick on the overhead light. You do not hear him come into your room behind you. 
You are so wrapped up in your own thoughts that when he clears his throat to announce he’s in your room, you scream. Loud. 
“For cryin’ out loud, woman!” 
You grip your towel tighter when you turn and see him standing at your mercy. 
“Joel, what the fuck?” You yell, gesturing to the fact that you are practically naked. He does not care, of course, and his ears are ringing from your piercing scream. He gathers himself as you shift back, trying to create some distance from him.
He is trying not to gawk at the fact that your grip on the towel against your chest is only pushing up your cleavage. He’s biting back everything. “Can we talk?”
“Talk about what? The fact you crept into my room when I was trying to change? Are we past boundaries now?” 
You are pissed, trying not to rattle off another million things to discuss with him. He’s only really talking about one thing. 
He scoffs at your last statement. “Boundaries were already out the window when you crawled into bed with me last night.”
Silence fills the room as you completely stop breathing. The anger you originally felt dissipates. 
“Joel-“
“I ain’t doin’ this back and forth anymore,” He starts shifting in his spot, unsure if he really should be doing this. “I can’t live how I've been livin’. Somethin’s gotta give.”
You furrow your eyebrows, confused. 
“You are the one who won’t give, Joel.”
As soon as you say it, he practically drags himself over to you. Completely destitute. You have never seen him look so desperate before. You can tell that he’s been at war with himself ever since you left this morning. His eyes never lied.
His hand creeps up your bare arm, leaving goosebumps in his wake. 
But then you remember his words from this morning. You start feeling like this is just a moment of weakness for him and that he will regret it later. You had to stop it before it was too late. You did not want to deal with the consequences. 
“Joel, you said we can’t-”
“Fuck what I said,” He cuts you off, “Do you want this?”
You stare into those brown eyes, searching for a sign of hesitance. You cannot believe Joel is being this vulnerable with you. 
But, you do want him. God, you have wanted him so badly for so long. You have searched for him in every man you have ever been with since knowing him. 
Your mouth opens but nothing comes out. He takes note of your parted lips, every word failing you at that moment.
“Darlin’-”
“Yes,” You finally manage. “Yes, I do want this.”
It’s all he needs. He closes the gap between you two by wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you into his space. His lips crash onto yours, not wasting another breath of air waiting to indulge in his sickest fantasies. 
You are all Joel ever dreamed about. He knew that once he caved and physically gave in, his world would be shot and everything would revolve around you. For years it had been a teetering object on a cliff, one nudge would have him falling. He always managed. But now, he was falling head first. 
His lips move so perfectly with your own. Your hand released your towel and found the tufts of his curls at the base of his head. You did not care that the article pooled around your feet, leaving you completely bare in front of Joel. You have wanted this all along. To be uncovered, to be stripped down to the rawest form. He broke the kiss briefly just to scan your naked body, his forehead pressed against your own. 
“Fuck, you are so beautiful.”
Your heart stutters as his hand traces your stomach down to your hips, all the way down to your ass. He stops there, grabbing a handful. 
“I need you,” You choke out before pressing your lips to his over and over again. “Right now.”
He mumbles “jump” into your mouth and you do so, his hands working quickly to hike you up onto his waist. He carries you to your bed, wasting no time dropping you onto your back. 
He cannot get enough of your soft, swollen lips. Every time he pulls away slightly, he dives in again even more aggressively than the last time. 
You are so hypnotized by the way he feels on top of you. In the light, he seems so much broader than he was last night. He’s still fully clothed, to your dismay. You start to tug at his shirt, motioning him to remove the articles that are in your way. 
He throws off his shirt before he stands up at the edge of the bed and pushes down his jeans. 
“Joel… I-“
He just shuts you up with another passionate kiss. It’s all tongue and teeth like he’s trying to melt into your mouth. Your hands trail up his back, gripping onto his shoulders, holding him down so he is pressing against your nude body. 
“God, I have wanted this for so long,” He sputters, trying not to sound too desperate. “Been wanting this.”
That’s when his hand reaches down between your thighs and gathers the wetness your slit has to offer. His fingers dance across it, starting from the top all the way to your spongy entrance. 
“Please, Joel.”
He loves the lust-laced tone you speak with when you say his name. It almost makes him cum there and then. 
You watch as he makes his way down your body, peppering kisses from your shoulder to your hip. When he parts your legs, you feel quite exposed. The adrenaline of being so spread for him manifests into a moan. 
“You are divine, baby.”
The use of that adjective is so-not-Joel that it makes you giggle. He notes your reaction and decides to sink down into you. When his mouth gets close to your core, it’s no longer a laughing matter. 
He uses his fingers again, using them to spread open your pussy lips. He cannot keep his eyes away from how dripping you are. “This all for me?”
“Y-yes, Joel.”
“God, I was a fuckin’ fool for so long. Could’ve had her earlier and I never fuckin’ caved. Such an idiot.”
Him giving your cunt pronouns was enough to have you throwing your head back and shuttering. His touch was magnetic like he knew exactly what buttons to push as he rubbed his fingers and palm over your core. 
“Yeah, you’ve been missin’ out. Every night…” You swallow before looking down at the man that is enamored with your pussy, “E-every night I would lay in this bed, fuckin’ myself just thinkin’ about you.”
He growls at the statement, before teasingly kissing your clit. “Every night, hm, kiddo?”
“God, yes.”
Your eyes squeeze shut as he leans forward more and dives in. His nose is pressed firmly against the top of your pussy, nudging forward every time his tongue enters your hole. When that motion became consistent, you began to note the rumblings in the pit of your stomach. A familiar build-up that you managed to get when you were playing with yourself. 
His fingers move in tandem with his lips and tongue. While his middle and pointer finger slide in and out of you, his lips wrap around your clit. It’s overwhelming and all-consuming. 
You do not know where to center yourself, so your hands grip the bed sheets you were completely soaking as Joel pulls the first orgasm out of you. 
“That’s it, baby, she’s cryin’ for me, hm?”
You hardly make a noise, the orgasm is so earth-shattering that you just writhe on the mattress. 
“Oh my god…” You groan, finally able to catch your breath. When Joel removes his fingers from you, you watch as he slowly brings them up to his lips.
When he inserts them in his mouth, you gawk at him, unsure how to react. He watches your expression and chuckles darkly.
“Mm, never seen a man enjoy the taste of ya?”
You shake your head. “Never expected to hear those words leave your mouth, either.”
“Wait ‘til you hear what else I got to say.”
He stands up beside the bed, grabs your hips, and brings them to the edge. He is tossing you around with ease, bringing your lower body flush with his. He yanks down his briefs, revealing himself to you. You instantly take notice of how well-endowed he is. You never thought you would ever be close to his cock, let alone have it lining up at your entrance. 
“Joel…“ You stop him with your small voice, but still welcoming him in with your legs opened wide, “I don’t know if it will fit.”
He grins, “It will, baby. Just relax for me, okay?”
You watch him slide his member along your center, the feeling so blissfully overstimulating. You whine a bit, raising your hips to his. 
But Joel continues his torture, enjoying the way you’re squirming under him. The way your eyebrows are knitted together, your eyes shut as you grind up into him. It’s the prettiest sight. 
“Ready?”
Your eyes fly open as you watch him ease his way into your core, the sound of squelching filling the room. You don’t think you have ever been this wet for someone. 
“Oh my fuckin’ god, Joel…”
He smiles as he inches in, “Squeezin’ my cock so good, darlin’.”
When he’s fully sheathed inside, he tests the waters by drawing out slowly. You roll your hips in a circle, trying to feel out every inch of him. He fits, but you know once he starts to move faster, the stretch will become overwhelming. 
He’s trying to focus and not blow his load immediately. You look so beautiful below him, your tits slowly shifting back and forth every time he draws back and forth. He reaches out, wanting to feel the flesh between his fingers. God, he craved every inch of you, he realizes. 
You open your legs as far as you can, letting him hit you at a different angle. The movement allows him to slip in a bit more seamlessly, so when he speeds up his thrusts, you don’t feel like you will completely split in half. 
He brings your leg up to hips, and feeling your soft delicate skin against him makes him lose all sense. His hips snap faster the more you moan out for him. 
“Fuckin’ Christ, girl. I can’t believe I was missin’ out on this cunt,” He babbles, “Need this cunt every day from now on. Gonna have you all to myself every night.”
You are too fucked out of your mind to read into those implications.
“‘M all yours, Joel.”
He smiles, slowing down a bit. “Keep talkin’ like that and ‘ll finish a lot sooner than you.”
You sit up a bit, your eyes flickering over his entire body. He notices you checking out his nude frame, which makes him feel a bit more bold. He leans down, capturing your lips in a hungry kiss. You love the way his tongue slips into your mouth so effortlessly. When he opens his mouth, his facial hair tickles your nose a bit which makes you smile. When his hips pick back up to a quicker pace, it sends you gasping into his mouth.
“Please, Joel,” You whine, that familiar build starts up but this time it’s like a freight train. Moving so quickly down every nerve ending in your body. “I’m gonna cum.”
“‘M with you, darlin’. Soak this dick. I’m right behind ya.”
His dirty talk causes the crash. Your body practically lifts off the mattress. You cry out so loud you are sure a neighbor could hear you. You try to gain your bearings, but you are panting like you just ran a mile. 
Joel fucks you through it, but the restriction your pussy is putting on his cock sends him over the edge. His hips stutter into yours, his seed emptying into your spent hole. He just keeps repeating your name as his thrusts slow down.
He has never had such a visceral orgasm in his life. His knees are weak and can hardly keep up his weight. He practically falls on top of you, which does not offend you at all. His warm sweaty body on top of you is almost reassuring. 
“You okay, kiddo?” He finally mutters as his hot breath fans the nape of your neck. You just nod, bringing your hand up to his salt and pepper hair. You tug lightly, smiling to yourself. 
“I’m more than okay.”
He finally sits up, his cock spilling out of you as he adjusts his position. Your hole drips a mixture of cum onto your newly clean sheets, but you could care less. It’s just another thing to hand wash tonight.
Joel stumbles to the middle of the room, picking up your bath towel. He uses it to wipe himself up before coming over to you. Your legs are still slightly apart so he decides to clean you up a bit. He’s gentle, knowing that you are probably still sensitive.
Once he finishes up, he crawls next to you as you continue to recover. Your bones felt like jello so standing up to adjust yourself was not an option.
So instead of facing him, you stare up at your ceiling fan as his eyes lock onto every detail of your profile. It brings him back to one night you two shared under the stars a couple of years ago. It was his turn to keep watch so you curled up in your sleeping bag by the fire. He admired you from across the flames, the orange hues lit up every angle of your face. It was at that moment that Joel realized that he could not picture his life without you. You had weaseled your way into every facet of his life and he used to resent the impact you had on him. You were younger, more patient but still stubborn like him. You made him laugh, like genuinely laugh, for the first time since the infection. While you may have been a bit impulsive with your emotions, he envied the way you could say exactly what you were thinking. 
Joel did not want to love you, but it was impossible not to. 
You finally look over at him, noticing the softness in his gaze.
“Are you okay?” You pose, scrunching your nose. 
He gives you a toothless smile, his eyes crinkling a bit. “I just can’t wait to sleep next to you for the rest of my life.”
tags of people I love and who may wanna read (no pressure I just love u) (some of u did ask tho) : @ashleyfilm @hockeyhughes @pedrospookie @guiltyasdave @amanitacowboy @myownwholewildworld
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writerfromthestars · 1 month ago
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DPXDC PROMPT : ALFRED IS IMMORTAL
Alright. Don't get me wrong, I love au's where John Constantine is like "soul tax evader supreme", but hear me out.
Alfred.
Alfred, Alfred Pennyworth. Who just doesn't die. The guy's immortal. The reason for this is that Alfred is awesome, so anytime he dies, whether it be from old age or a bullet or a world-wide catastrophe, he looks Death straight in the eyes and tells them that he will die when the day comes that no one needs him anymore, and not a second before, and then he just kinda pops back to life. Because let's face it, the batfam would fall to pieces without him.
So, Alfred Pennyworth has basically just been cheating death for centuries, by this point.
Needless to say, Death is none too pleased. Finally, Death goes to Phantom, the new king, who is much more reasonable than Pariah Dark was and who agrees to actually help.
Clockwork helps Danny set up a portal and he zaps into existence in the middle of a Wayne movie night. The bats are all prepared to fight this mysterious weirdo, but Danny ignores them and turns to Alfred, who he then begins lecturing about ghostly tax evasion and how defying death isn't a good thing, so he needs to file paperwork through the proper channels to stay as an immortal almost-God.
Alfred is chill, he plays cards with Clockwork once when he dies, so he knew this was coming, but the batfamily thinks that this mysterious entity is going to kill Alfred, so they're all panicking, trying to think of ways to avoid this horrible future. Alfred calmly listens to Danny, then he interjects.
"Sir, are you aware of the fact that there is a revenant on earth? One who is most certainly under threat of more paperwork than I, seeing as he has been using the Lazarus Pits to revive himself for millennia. I, however, have only been alive for a few hundred years, so I should think that he is a bigger priority. "
Danny glances over at Jason, doubtful. "He doesn't look several millennia old, Mr. Pennyworth."
"Certainly not, seeing as Master Jason is not. Besides, his Undeath License was filed. I have a copy of it if you need to see it, your Majesty?" Alfred answers, demure as always.
"If it wouldn't be too much trouble, sir."
Alfred leaves and returns, moments later with a light green glowing piece of paper. he hands it over to Danny, who examines it.
"Seems legitimate. I assume you filed it during one of your many encounters with Death?"
"Indeed. I have it on good authority, however, that the other revenant, a man by the name of Ra's Al Ghul, has not renewed his License in at least the last half millennia, most likely longer."
Danny sighs. "Where can I find him."
"Nanda Parbat. The signature is impossible to miss."
"Alright, Mr. Pennyworth. I will return once he is dealt with, be it by filing his paperwork or returning him to the Infinite Realms."
"Very well. I will be ready." Alfred answers.
Danny opens a portal to the area around Nanda Parbat and then another, which plops him down right in front of the Demon's Head himself, in a strategy meeting with his daughter and several commanders.
They all raise their weapons, but he just basically grabs Ra's by the ear and tugs him through a Lazarus Green portal, lecturing him about tax evasion and paperwork and bureaucracy the whole time. The League is thrown into uproar, and Ra's is set down in a room with all his overdue paperwork from the past few thousand years. He feels a little bit like crying; if he had known immortality meant this much paperwork, he would've just died, honestly.
Meanwhile, in Wayne Manor, everyone is crying, because they think Alfred is going to die, Jason is confused about the whole revenant Undeath Certificate thing, Bruce is trying to make contingency plans, Tim is contacting the Justice League, and Alfred is planning out his defense and going through every ghostly law loophole he can think of because if he leaves these emotionally constipated crime-fighting vigilantes, he knows that the house that Martha so loved will go up in flames within a month.
Eventually, Danny comes to get Alfred for his ghostly court trial/hearing or whatever, and Alfred says goodbye to Bruce and everyone, goes to the Infinite Realms. Clockwork is on his side, and Alfred ends up winning the court case, on the condition that now that the has an Undeath License, he actually renew it every twenty years, like he's supposed to.
A week later, Alfred returns, crashes his own funeral, and explains that no, he will not be dying anytime soon.
Two weeks after Alfred's return, Constantine shows up at the manor basically begging to learn how the hell he managed to avoid death, and not only that, win a damn court case against them.
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nereidprinc3ss · 4 months ago
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just like heaven
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in which flirty!reader finally confesses her feelings to a pining spencer reid after a night out. she's slightly buzzed. it's complicated.
fluff (some angst) warnings/tags: fem!reader, reader drinks alcohol, dirty jokes, so much flirting and banter, some arguing kinda, but spencer is such a gentleman, everyone gets flustered at least once, they really wanna kiss, happy ending a/n: gif :D I hope u like this! not bandages reader but like same vibes. like an AU for my AU
“Emily!”
You drawl the ee sound long, the same way you reach across the table and wiggle your fingers at her half-empty glass. Thin dark brows dart up beneath that glossy sweep of reddish-black hair. 
“Oh, wow. That’s unsettling. What?”
It’s been at least an hour since you had a drink of your own, but enough alcohol is still flowing through your veins so as to render her offensive comment inoffensive. You love Emily. You love the Tequila Sunrise sweating onto the sticky table in front of her which she’s not going to finish. 
“I think she wants your drink,” JJ assists, cheek balanced tipsily on a propped up fist. 
“Uh…”
Emily’s doe-sweet eyes flash uncertainly behind you. 
“I’m basically sober,” you insist, laying your head on your outstretched arm and letting your hair cascade as you bat your lashes, offering her your sweetest smile. “Please, Em?”
It does not go according to plan. She scoffs. 
“Are you flirting with me right now?”
“... Would that work?”
“Oh my god, just… cool it with the fuck-me eyes,” she laughs. “You can have the drink.”
You sit up, turning just barely over your shoulder to address Spencer. 
“See? Emily buys me drinks. Basically.”
She slides the drink toward you, with a subtle roll of her eyes that you choose to interpret as affectionate under the dim canned lighting. As you sit back, content and free drink in hand, her eyes slide to Reid in the seat next to you, brows arching. 
“Are you sure you can handle her all on your own?”
“Handle me?” You frown deeply as Emily gathers her purse and slides out of the booth, followed shortly thereafter by JJ. “I don’t need handling.”
“Then why do you have a handler?” JJ teases.
You slump against the worn vinyl, stirring what is mostly orange juice. 
“He most definitely is not my handler. He’s my science project.”
“I got it,” Spencer assures your friends, with his trademark flattened smile. You can’t help but watch him with a grin of your own, flipping the straw in the drink and nibbling on the end until it’s stained sparkly pink. Goodbyes are issued, and soon it’s just the two of you. Perhaps it’s a tipsy delusion, but you think he seems to relax slightly when you’re alone. His eyes are easy on you. “You know, you’re not actually decreasing the amount of germ transmission by using the other end of the straw.”
“Mm… pretty sure alcohol kills germs, Doctor.”
At that, you giggle. 
Doctor. 
Soon you’re covering your face and having a full-fledged laugh attack. 
“What?” Spencer asks. From between your fingers you can see that he’s smiling guardedly, brows furrowed in a way that reminds you he’s often worried about being the butt of a joke and not knowing it. “What’s funny?”
“Nothing,” you assure him quickly, gathering yourself. “I just… can’t believe you’re a doctor.”
“Why not? What’s so unbelievable about that?”
“You’re so young.”
And handsome. 
“I’m not that young. I’m older than you,” he defends. Only by a handful of years, but you know he’s defensive about his age after a lifetime of being told he looks young for—well, everything. 
“You’re… 32?”
That’s not right—you know as soon as you say it.
“Thirty three.” He very politely captures a hand—your hand—that had at some point ended up a little too close to his eye. You’re not sure what you planned to do once it got there—you don’t recall moving it at all. 
“Sorry.” You take your hand back, choosing to instead fiddle with a button on his coat ponderously. “33 is a good age.”
“Yeah?” Spencer laughs, angling his head as if to regard you from a new angle. It warms you all over. Burns in some places, like a shot of liquor down your throat. Makes you just as dizzy, too. “You have a lot of experience being thirty three?”
“No, I just…” your cheeks heat and you wrestle with a timid smile, averting your gaze and dropping your hand for fear his grin this close up might actually kill you. “I like 33 year old you.”
“So… you didn’t like me when I was thirty two?”
“Stop,” you beg, a self-effacing laugh into the cup of your palm. “I can’t banter. I’m not at peak performance.”
The truth of it hits you, and you sigh, folding your arms on the table and resting your cloudy head. Only then, from this new perspective, do you allow yourself to fully admire Spencer Reid. He is smiling at you, and your heart does skip a beat like you’ve got some school girl crush. These days he wears his hair falling over his face, messy on purpose, and always smells so nice. You wonder when he started caring about that stuff. You want to see what products are in his shower, and learn why he chose that cologne, or how he decides to pair his socks. He probably has some sort of algorithm. 
“Spencer,” you begin, the serious quality of your voice diminished by the smush of your cheek against your arm. Still, he tries to respect your tone, zipping the smile and answering with a playfully twitching brow. 
“Hm?”
You want to push the hair out of his face. Why is he looking down at you like that? Like he likes you?
“You’re a very good handler.”
His eyes narrow as he considers this, but the glimmer in them could still spark a forest fire. You’re probably grinning like an idiot. 
“Oh, I couldn’t handle you. You know this.”
You hum thoughtfully. 
“I bet you could. Wanna try?”
Spencer shakes his head, huffing a laugh through his nose. To his credit, your bold-face innuendos don’t always send him into a tailspin these days. 
Just sometimes. 
“You need a ride home, don’t you?”
You sit back up, stretching your arms out. 
“You don’t have to. I could get a cab.”
“I know,” he assures you, still a hint of amusement playing at the corners of his lips. Why. Is. He. Looking. At. You. Like. That?
“Will you let me drive?”
“I would. But, you know, my affairs aren’t in order.”
You roll your eyes as he gets out of the booth and offers you a hand. 
“I’m not that drunk.”
Spencer just wiggles his fingers. 
“If you can recite the alphabet in reverse you can drive my car.”
You roll your eyes again. Obviously he’s fucking with you, because 1. He’d never let you drive even the slightest bit inebriated, and 2. He knows you can’t say your ABC’s backward when you’re dead sober. 
The truth is you’re more buzzed than anything. You could get up and walk fine without any assistance, but he’s offering you his hand, so you take it. After you’re standing, you wonder how many excuses could you possibly dream up to get it back in yours. Should you pretend to fall?
No. Not quite worth your self respect. 
“You know…” you muse, reveling in the brief brush of him against your back as he holds open the door for you, “it’s a good thing you didn’t become, like… a medical doctor.”
Now walking side by side on the street, he glances over at you, a poorly veiled smile on his perfect face. Like a trap door brushed over with a few leaves. He wants you to see it.
“Why’s that?”
A breeze ruffles your hair. The brisk cold and the walk seem to be making things crisper already. You shrug, bunching your sleeves in your hands against the increasingly frigid night. The skirt and tights you’d chosen were perfect for a stuffy dive bar. Not so much for an early DC spring. 
“Nobody wants a hot doctor.”
He looks down at the sidewalk, hands pocketed, but the curve of his lips doesn’t lessen.  
“Hm. You’re drunker than I thought.”
“What? No! I’m—barely!” Again he laughs at you, and again you flush, looking down and counting the cracks in the pavement as you journey slowly under the bath of yellow street lights. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you called me hot.” He sounds almost delighted as he grins sheepishly around the final word. 
You snort. You’ve said worse things, more graphic things within the past few hours alone—but you suppose they’ve all been more like dirty jokes than compliments. 
“Yeah. You think you aren’t?”
Sandy locks fall side to side as he carefully measures a response. His cologne is warm—sort of smoky. It’s very nice. He doesn’t seem like he’d wear cologne. Have you already thought about his cologne tonight? Once was probably enough. 
“I just think sober you wouldn’t have said that.”
“But don’t you prefer it when I’m aggressively flirting with you? I mean, I know I do it sober too, but it's not as good, right?”
A silent stretch begins and shortly ends, and you don’t mind it. Right now, everything is a winding path through the woods. You’re willing to follow any fork off the trail if it means spending more time with him. 
“I guess I wasn’t aware that was what you were doing.”
“Oh, bullshit,” you laugh, and it echoes through the canyon of a nearby alley, “I’m not subtle, Reid.”
“I don’t know! You—for all I know that’s just how you are! I mean, what did Emily call them earlier, your—your fuck-me eyes?”
Like he does when he’s flustered, he gets shrill and stuttery. It’s nice to be reminded that he’s still a complete dork on the inside—and the outside, too, as pink stains his cheeks like watercolor. You smirk at him in your periphery, watching him against the darkened city backdrop. 
“You noticed those, huh?”
“No,” he denies forcefully, but his brow is pinched like he doesn’t quite believe himself, “I mean, yes, I notice when you look at other people like that, but that’s not what I would call them—I wouldn’t call them anything, I’d just call them your eyes, you know? Not that you always look like you’re soliciting… the implication isn’t there, it’s just—I notice when you flirt with other people! With Emily, and Derek, like, not even half an hour ago. You’re lucky Hotch wasn’t there. You’d probably have given him a heart attack.”
“I’m more concerned with yours, to be honest.”
“My heart is fine,” he laughs. “Worry about my dignity.”
“Hm. I was going for both. Guess I’d better try harder.”
You don’t notice you’ve come to a stop until you’re face to face in front of his vintage Volvo. Spencer is standing closer than usual, hands perpetually stuck in that nice wool coat. He’s all windswept and pretty, smiling crookedly and eyes sparkly with humor. A strand of hair sticks to your lip gloss, and you brush it away, tucking it behind your ear and squinting up at him against the chilly breeze. The flush is either from the nip in the air or your brazen flirting. 
“Or, you could go easy on me. I’m frail. Like a… sickly Victorian child.”
Again his brow knits and he smiles like he knows what he’s said is ridiculous. But his tone is gentler now. Softer. Invites you to fall in deeper and see what you might find. 
“And ruin all my fun? Toughen up, Reid.”
For a long moment, you don’t get a response—only his eyes, soft and thoughtful on you, before you’re distracted by the sweet bow of his lips. If he notices you’re staring, it doesn’t seem to bother him. 
But something evidently does, as when he next speaks, it’s troubled. Curiosity straining against a rope that says maybe it’s better if I don’t ask. 
“Do… do you actually flirt with me? When you’re sober, I mean.”
He expects to be ridiculed. In his most vulnerable moments, he’s still bracing for rejection—turning his cheek slightly so he’s ready for the stinging blow. It opens a fissure in your chest. You frown, and speak gently. 
“Yeah, Spence. More than anyone else. You really don’t notice?”
Sometimes his face is so expressive, in the pull of his brow and tightening of his eyes and the way he wets his lips. But he probably doesn’t know that. And he can’t seem to meet your eyes, instead choosing to study the leather of your heeled boots. Sounds of late-night traffic, of tires on wet asphalt buffer the pauses between sentences. 
“I notice… when you talk to Derek and Emily and JJ and Penelope the exact same way you talk to me. I didn’t think…”
Another gap in conversation, filled with the chatter of some group pouring out of a bar somewhere. You realize he’ll need some gentle prompting to bridge it. 
“You didn’t think what?”
When his eyes flash back up to meet yours, you have a feeling like he’s shutting the pipes off. 
“It’s—uh—” he clears his throat— “it’s not important, we can—we’ll talk about it a different time. We should—”
“Wait.”
He’d been turning away but snaps right back to look at you as if on command, wearing a brand new face that tells you he’d like to wipe the past minute or so completely away. 
“Yeah?”
“Spencer. I wanna know what you were going to say.”
“I told you. It’s nothing.”
“You didn’t tell me. You mumbled evasively and walked away. We were in the middle of something and I want to know what you were going to say. Please?”
“Well, you’re drunk,” he finally sighs, and it’s a bit sharp. Stinging. 
“I am not drunk,” you defend, and it feels true, with a bitter cold lashing at your cheek and blood heightened from the walk. “You know I’m not too drunk to have a coherent conversation. Why are you being weird?”
“Because I asked you to drop it! We can’t have this conversation right now, all right? I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
Your stomach flips, and your breath comes a little heavier. Spencer is clearly frustrated with you. Maybe being on the wrong end of this mild vexation, and so suddenly, should make you feel guilty, or some kind of bad—but all you feel is a sort of buzz in the tips of your fingers and the thrum of your heart, something deeper than excitement pooling in your veins at having inspired this sort of passion. It means he feels something. Something for you. 
“I’m sorry,” he tries halfheartedly, unable or more likely unwilling to stay angry at you for very long, “you didn’t—”
“What conversation?”
It’s jarring how quickly this has spun on its head. The very air you’re breathing seems to have changed. The metropolitan soundscape is a rife undercurrent of tension and louder from all the words unsaid. 
Finally he swallows. 
“There’s no conversation. I’m—it was a poor choice of wording. I just meant we should get you home.”
Before he can make it to the driver’s side door, you’re calling out. 
“You think I don’t like you. And I just flirt with you ‘cause I flirt with everyone.”
Spencer stops, and turns to face you once more, sighing and head dropped to one side like you’re doing something incredibly inconsiderate. He’s never looked at you like that before, but you don’t let it shake you. 
“That’s what this is about, right?”
He says your name, but you don’t let him get further than that. 
“No, I think there is a conversation here, and saying I’m not sober enough to have it isn’t fair and you should have said something before and I think you should just say it now.”
You’re pushing his buttons with a heavy hand, though your own voice shakes. He’s feeling it too—you’ve never been so short with each other. His voice is raised. 
“What am I supposed to say?” 
It boils over. 
“That you��like me!”
It rings. 
Then it’s silent. 
His face is mostly blank. A little sorrowful around his eyes. 
It’s cold, jumping into the deep end like this. 
“We can’t talk about this right now,” he finally says, glancing to the side as if to suggest a situation the size of the whole city. 
“Spencer, I—”
“It’s impossible to have a meaningful discussion until your judgement isn’t impaired, otherwise it’s—”
“I am telling you that I flirt with you because I really like you.”
“I—”
It appears you’ve truly thrown him for a loop.  For a moment his jaw works at nothing, a soliloquy of words go unspoken, and then he’s stuttering and fumbling for the right thing to say, looking everywhere but at you. 
“I can’t—that’s—regardless of whether or not it’s even true—”
“It is true.”
“Could you—stop?” He pleads. “You can’t tell me that. I mean, the power imbalance when you’ve been drinking and I haven’t—it’s—I mean, it's coercive. Because I brought it up, I asked an inappropriate question—or at least started to ask it, and you—not that it was your fault, I’m the responsible party in this instance, but if tomorrow you realize you never wanted to tell me—so I have to take that with a grain of salt. I’m just—I have to pretend I didn’t hear that, alright? And you can’t say it again.”
He’s ridiculous. You shift your weight onto one foot casually. 
“That’s not very nice. I just confessed to having a huge crush on you and you’re gonna leave me hanging?”
There is an undeniable sort of pleasure in the bright of his eyes, and you phrased it that way on purpose, just to see him preen and glow—also to see if you could make him trip all over himself some more. Right now, despite the liminal space your relationship may or may not be occupying, you’re teasing him like you always do. Like he’s a friend, because he is. Before anything else. 
He tries to glower, barely. 
“Were you listening to me at all?”
“It was hard with all the stammering. I thought you might pass out.”
“I might,” he grumbles, and the admission pleases you greatly. Your lips tug as you admire him for a moment—watch his defenses go down and his features ease into something more inviting. 
God, maybe you really had been too hard on him. Maybe he really didn’t expect that you would like him back. 
You’re struck with the need to reassure. 
A dampened clack emits from your shoe where the heel hits the ground as you step down off the curb. 
“You know… I do like you. A lot. I mean it. And I’m glad I told you, because... you like me too, right?”
He raises his brows, like don’t do anything stupid, as you approach unhurriedly. It’s good to see that you haven’t broken his spirit completely. 
Less than a foot away, you stop. Close enough to be in his space. Too far for him to have the grounds to step back. 
His eyes are careful on you, analytical as always, constantly predicting an infinite number of outcomes to any given scenario. That’s how he keeps his footing in the world. But he’s never very good at predicting you. And it helps that his razor sharp intellect is dulled, some, with affection. Attraction. 
It shows in his eyes. He’ll let you push boundaries he knows he shouldn’t. More so if you keep speaking to him this softly. Almost whispering.
“Tell me you like me, Spencer.”
Because he hasn’t yet. All the heavy lifting has been done for him, and that just won’t do. 
First, he opens his mouth, and you watch the internal debate, a million things he could say, spinning round in his eyes like pinwheels. Rules, and buts, and caveats.
In the end, he just clears his throat. Speaks in the same secretive tone. Low enough to be intimate.
“I like you.”
Such a simple thing has never made you feel so airy before in your life. You steal another glance at his lips.
“So it’s really not that complicated. We could probably just kiss.”
He tinges pink.
“We definitely can’t.”
“You also said we couldn’t talk about it, and yet…”
“Talking is different. As far as I’m concerned, nothing you say to me tonight is binding. Whatever just transpired happened completely off the record. We can… talk about it tomorrow, but right now, you and I are friends.”
You shrug.
“Friends can kiss.”
“No, they can’t,” he says definitively, though not without a healthy dose of sardonic self-awareness and a dark smile. His hand finds your waist, and it’s glancing, if anything a light push, but you’re delighted nonetheless. Almost as pleased as if he really had kissed you. “It’s cold. I’m ready to leave.”
You’ve pushed him enough for one night. And it is cold. So you shuffle around the car with quick steps to the passenger side door, hooking your fingers under the biting metal handle and waiting for him to unlock the vehicle. 
You’re shivering as your thighs press against leather upholstery, only the thinnest layer of synthetic material protecting your legs. Spencer is already starting the car, but the engine is too cold to bother turning the heat on yet. 
“I think it’s colder in here than outside. Look at my hand.” You hold it up for him, and it is discolored, waxy, as he mindlessly takes it between his own much warmer ones. “I thought alcohol was supposed to keep you warm. Didn’t that chef on the Titanic survive hours in the ocean because he was hammered?”
“That’s a myth. Not the chef—he did survive, but it was a complete anomaly. Alcohol causes vasodilation in the dermis layer of the skin, so you feel warmer, but it draws blood flow away from your internal organs and significantly raises your likelihood of developing hypothermia.”
Does he notice how he’s holding your hand? Carefully pressing his thumbs to the center of your palm and pushing up through your love and life lines, cupping the fingers, before sandwiching them between his own and generating friction the way a child furiously rolls a play-doh worm?
“I guess I’m really not that drunk, then.”
He’s not expecting it, and maybe he doesn’t know what to make of your exceptionally gentle tone at first. It was a mistake, you think, as he relinquishes his hold on your hand, and you curl it to retain the memory of his warmth. But then he tucks hair behind your ear, like he’s done once or twice before, and smiles in a way you don’t quite understand. 
“I know.”
You won’t push him. You won’t ask for anything else, and you won’t demand an explanation. Spencer is special. It can all wait, because you have something good with him already. Something important. Something like holding hands. 
It comes as a surprise when he leans across the console, and you lean in a trance to meet him, and another surprise when he gently redirects, pressing his lips to your cheek, close enough to match the corners of your mouths and nothing more. 
You’d let him do it a hundred times over, but he draws back after a fraction of a lingering second, and finds your hand to stroke the back of it, forgotten in your lap. 
“You said no kissing,” you murmur, as if in a dream. If you had the wherewithal to be embarrassed maybe you wouldn’t be ogling so much. 
“Compromise.”
If anything, you should be the cheek-kisser. But there will be time to feel slighted about that later. Time to amend. For now, you look ahead robotically. 
“Is there a rule against friendly hand-holding?”
“Probably,” he says.
But he lets you hold his hand in your lap the whole drive to your apartment, anyway. 
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totally-here · 3 months ago
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3 times Phantom's Guardian was Mentioned + 1 Time He Showed Up
One
Phantom’s introduction to Young Justice wasn’t as dramatic as Empress’ or Slobo’s, or even Arrowette’s first introduction to the cave. No, it wasn’t during the Olympics, or on a battlefield, and he didn’t come in injured and looking for help. 
Impulse just brought Phantom in one day and insisted that he should join because he’s their age, interested in justice, and now that Greta’s human again they need another ghost member. So Phantom stayed, popping in and out for missions but never really sticking around all that long. 
Today is one of the days that Phantom’s with them on a mission, that being looking around a lab of the Brain’s that had an energy surge recently, despite it being presumably abandoned. 
Kon got paired up with Phantom to check the rest out first, since they both have better hearing than Anita and Tim, who were both still in the main room working on checking the computers for previous activity. 
The room is dark except for the light green ball glowing slightly above Phantom’s hand. He waves it around enough for it to reflect off of glass, then throws it up to the ceiling. The light expands enough to illuminate the room. 
Phantom mumbles about not knowing he could do that. Kon ignores him and moves closer to inspect the glass tubes to the side of several monitors set up. 
“Looks like cloning equipment,” Phantom says, casually. He drags a finger through the dust gathering on one of the monitors. “Don’t think they’ve been activated recently, though, so that’s good.”
“What? You got a problem with clones or something?” It’s a quick and defensive answer, and Phantom puts his hands up in surrender. 
“Not in concept.” He shrugs and joins Kon near the tubes. “But not a lot of people ask before making clones.”
“So I don’t need to sic Superman on you?” Obviously Kon could chew Phantom out himself, but few can do a “not mad, just disappointed” face better than Clark. 
Phantom scrunches his face. “Why would you need to?” 
Kon stops pretending to inspect the tube and stares at Phantom. “You do know I’m a clone, right?” The blank look on Phantom’s face tells him that no, he did not. “Well I am. Clone of Superman, though we’re pretty much brothers now.”
“Cool,” Phantom says, not a bit less friendly. He hesitates for a second before continuing, “Could I maybe ask you how you got there? Me and my clone have landed on cousins, but that was also, like, given to us by her evil dad. So.”
Phantom trails off. Huh, that makes three members of the team that have been cloned. Not a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened three times. 
“You’re making sure she feels accepted, right?” 
“Yeah! Well, whenever she’s around. She,” Phantom waves his hand around, looking for the right word, “She’s a wanderer. Exploring the world and stuff. But Richard has a room for her at home, and I remind her of that whenever she does stop by.” 
“Well, first of all, don’t push it so hard,” Kon says. Phantom nods enthusiastically. “And second, who’s Richard?”
Kon doesn’t know a lot of Richards, and he doesn’t think that Phantom ever mentioned one before. Or even if he remembers his living life. 
“Oh, he’s my, uh, guardian? I guess that’s the best term. The guy I’m living with who forces me to go to school sometimes.” Phantom looks away and back to the tubes. 
Before Kon can ask for more details, Robin and Empress come in with a report of dead computers and wanting to know where they’re at with the cloning room.
They’re unimpressed with their lack of progress.
Two
Wally doesn’t really need to come by the Hamilton Lodge that often, not when that’s Young Justice’s territory and he doesn’t want to get involved in all of That.
But Red Tornado said that the team has a file on a planet that’s very quickly becoming a league problem, and he figured it might be a good time to try to check in with Bart, anyway. Make sure he hasn’t run any cars off cliffs again and all that. 
So he stops by Manchester to ask Bart about the file, then they both head East to actually find it. 
When they arrive at the hotel minutes later, Wally’s surprised to actually find it… clean? There’s no visible trash or overturned furniture or anything else he’d expect from an abandoned hotel filled with teenagers. Well, maybe not filled, lately. He doesn’t think anyone’s living here currently, with Greta at Elias’ for the school year and Slobo gone. 
Still, the room smells slightly of artificial pine scent, and Bart perks up before disappearing and reappearing rapidly, holding a teammate up by his armpits. Said teammate just accepts this, his legs folding into a wispy tail, and head rolling against his shoulders. 
“This is Phantom!” Bart holds him up higher. Phantom waves. Wally’s only heard of him through Max’s updates, the same way he would hear about Preston or Carol, but with more wariness about the supposed ghost. 
Actually looking at the pale face and glowing green eyes contrasting against the darker than dark jumpsuit, Wally’s a little more ready to accept his claim at being undead. 
“He stress cleans,” Bart explains, moving to carry Phantom under his arm. Wally bites down the urge to tell him to put him down, but only because Phantom doesn’t resist the hold, only moving to get into a more comfortable position. His hands are touching the floor. “So what happened?” 
Bart directs the question downwards, and Phantom heaves a very dramatic sigh. Definitely a teenager. It does raise the question of who exactly this kid’s mentor is. Hopefully he does have one. Maybe he’s the Spectre’s kid?
Phantom phases through the arm holding him only to lay on top of Bart’s hair. “I accidentally called Richard dad. And then fled.” 
Bart nods sagely. “Classic. One time I accidentally called Max dad, so I had to start a fire to distract him.”
Phantom sighs again, almost dreamily. “Genius.” 
Wally doesn’t have time to unpack all of that. Well he does, but he’s not going to, because there’s really only one Richard that comes to mind that might have the heart to take in a dead kid, even if he doesn’t go by his full name.
But surely Dick would have told him, or any other Titan, if he had adopted a kid. Right?
But there’s still a little shadow of doubt. Maybe Dick wanted it to be a secret, or it was really new or had a rocky start. Phantom doesn’t seem to hold himself like a Bat, but it’s not a guarantee Dick would have trained him. 
“The lodge looks nice,” Wally offers out loud, which Phantom shrugs at and wraps his tail around Bart’s head to keep secure. “Anyway, Impulse. The file on Myrg?” 
“Oh yeah!” Again, Bart disappears then reappears a few seconds later with a paper file. They really need to start digitizing more of these things. “That’s the planet where we played baseball so that they wouldn’t destroy Earth!” 
“You what.” 
The prospect of Dick following in his dad’s footsteps is forgotten in the face of what the hell Young Justice got up to on Myrg. 
Three
Tim may be in a…Predicament. 
It’s not his fault. Really. He knew what he was doing. He couldn’t let a civilian fall for the trap. But they were already so close, so he just, kinda, pushed himself into the rope instead. 
So there Robin is, tied upside down in a warehouse, with the Joker below next to an overly complicated control panel. The clown’s rambling about bombs hidden all over the city that Tim knows Batman is already tracking down with Batgirl. 
Tim’s not really paying attention to the rant because of that, more focused on wiggling enough to get the spare mini-birdarang out of his glove to cut the rope without notifying the Joker. 
“Yikes, bad time?” Asks Phantom’s voice beside him. Based on the source and accounting for the slight echo, he’s floating with his head near Tim’s, likely upside down. “Want some help?” 
Tim gets the birdarang out and starts sawing at the thick rope. They should be fine anyway, but stalling the Joker for extra time would be helpful. “Can you possess the Joker? Just hold him still.”
“The correct term is overshadow, but sure.” The voice disappears, and a few seconds later the Joker freezes. 
His body jerks forward, then backward, and a laugh chokes out of his throat. His hand claws over his mouth at the noise and he hunches over. All movement halts before he rights himself, shaking out his hands and rolling his shoulders. Phantom looks up at Tim and his eyes are glowing. 
Tim cuts through the rope, kicking and using the momentum to right himself and land on his feet. He brushes past Phantom in Joker’s body to handle the control panel. He turns off the radio broadcast and dismantles the bomb strapped to the panel.
Threat handled, he turns to Phantom and holds up some handcuffs. “Let me arrest you?”
Phantom obliges, turning the Joker’s body around and putting his hands behind his back. Tim lets him walk by himself out of the warehouse and moves the handcuffs around a lamppost. The Joker’s body jerks again, then slumps forward, just as Phantom reappears next to him, scowling down at the unconscious body. 
“That felt really slimy. Zero out of ten, would not do again,” Phantom grouches. 
“Why’re you in Gotham?” Tim asks. It’s not like Phantom makes a habit of visiting. The last time he came into the city, he complained about feeling the dead under the streets. Fortunately, that let Tim uncover a few tunnels that Talons travel through. Phantom, however, was unnerved by the Talons and left quickly. 
“Oh, Solomon Grundy’s back in our sewers. Richard said I should probably tell one of you Gotham heroes, since you keep track of those guys.” He shakes out his hands like they were cramped in the Joker. 
They hadn’t seen Grundy in a while. Tim assumed he was currently in a less violent personality. “What’s he doing?” 
Phantom shrugs. “Just chilling. Mostly underground. I tried to talk to him but he only grunted back at me. He also tried to pick me up, dunno what that was about.”
“Maybe because you’re both dead?” Tim guessed. That would be a surface level connection. Ivy and Woodrue have had more luck working with Grundy than anyone, and Phantom definitely doesn’t have the connection to the Green that’d help with that. 
Police lights turn around the corner, and Tim shoots a grapple to get to the roof above them. Phantom follows, but disappears as soon as they’re on the roof. Going back home, probably. 
Cass drops down from the roof she was listening on. “Richard?”
“Not the same one.”
They both stick around long enough to watch the Joker get put into the cop car. 
Plus one
A spaceship landed in the forests of New York, and Cassie’s team was the first to respond to it. Technically not respond, but check it out, since there wasn’t any alert or anything. 
Still, Wonder Girl has Empress, Robin, and Superboy on the other side of the ship, watching what looks like the back door, while she, Impulse, and Phantom watch the other door and main window. She has binoculars, but the windows are so tinted she can’t quite make anything out. 
No aliens have come out yet, and she hesitates to have anyone go in, in case whoever inside does turn hostile. 
Impulse has offered to run through a total of five times already, and it’s a testament to his restraint that he hasn’t, and a testament to Cassie’s that she hasn’t yelled at him yet. Phantom at least isn’t being annoying, but he’s not necessarily helpful, either. He’s not even watching the spaceship anymore. Now he’s trying to make a flower crown out of dandelions. 
“Door’s opening on our side,” Robin says from the comms. “But no one’s coming out.” 
“Alright, good enough to try to get in,” Cassie decides. She turns to Phantom, who’s closing off the circle of flowers. Beside him, Impulse has since pulled out a gameboy. “Phantom, go in invisibly through the open door and report back. Try to see what their plans are.” 
“Oh, sure. One second.” Phantom finishes the crown and tries to put it on Bart’s head. It doesn’t quite fit over his mane of hair, but Phantom shrugs and leaves it sitting there anyway before going invisible. 
“Maybe I should shave my head again,” Bart says as his game character dies. 
He gets a resounding no in response. 
Half an hour later they have a very annoyed Green Lantern lecturing them about league jurisdiction and knowing when to call someone else. 
Apparently, the alien ship was just stopping to complete some maintenance, and did not appreciate any spying on them, and especially did not appreciate who did it. Green Lantern was more than happy to explain that Wonder Girl’s team is not really a part of the Justice League and he can help with their maintenance. They denied his help and left to find a place with less people in it. 
“-and you!” Green Lantern rounds on Phantom next, but Cassie knows none of them are really listening. Sure, they messed up by freaking out the visiting aliens, and yeah maybe they should have contacted the league about it, but they’ve dealt with stuff worse than this! It’s not Cassie’s fault she thought that this would have stuck to the formula. 
“Who even are you?” Green Lantern runs a hand through his black hair, stupid green gauntlets shining in the sunlight. “Do I need to call your mentor?” He frowns. “Or do they know you mess up alien technology by just being around it?” 
Phantom scoffs and rolls his eyes. “How was I supposed to know their tech would go all fuzzy when I came in?” 
“You wouldn’t have to know if you just stayed out of the spaceship!” 
“Hey!” Cassie cuts in. “Technically that was my call. It’s not all on Phantom.”
“I still could've been more careful,” Phantom says to her, ignoring Green Lantern as they argue about blame. 
“Cut it out for a second, okay?” Green Lantern puts a hand between them and they stop to glare at him. He pulls the hand back. “Look, can I just talk to one of your adults about this?” 
Robin glares. “We don’t need an adult. We have this under control.”
“Only because I’m here now.” 
“I’ll call my mentor,” Phantom says. Kon opens his mouth, most likely to offer to call Superman instead in hopes of a lighter sentence, but Bart covers his mouth, smiling like he knows something Cassie doesn’t. Tim and Anita share a look, and don’t intervene as Phantom pulls out a phone from his chest. 
It rings once before it’s picked up. Cassie can’t hear the other side of the conversation, but Kon’s eyebrows scrunch in confusion. “Hey, do you think you can pick me up? Green Lantern wants to talk to you.” Phantom looks Green Lantern up and down then says, “No, this one doesn’t have a cape.”
Phantom says goodbye after rattling off their coordinates, hangs up, and stares at Green Lantern in silence for a few seconds. 
And then a swirling mass of black seeps into the space next to Phantom. The end of a cane steps out of it, followed by a leg, then the rest of the immaculately dressed man holding the handle of the cane that’s shaped like a bird’s head. 
“Phantom,” The man says. His voice drips with condescension in only a way a british accent can, yet Phantom smiles up at him. The shadowy portal behind him disappears. “What, exactly, happened?”
“That’s the fucking Shade,” Anita hisses to Robin, who shrugs noncommittedly at her. Green Lantern seems to recognise him too, taking a step back and clenching his hand that holds his ring. 
“Well, the team and I were staking out this spaceship–super cool, by the way–and I went inside to check it out, but my presence messed with their tech–which was an accident–and they freaked out, so I freaked out, and then we kinda got into a little fight until Green Lantern came to mediate.”
“Hm. Is that right?” The Shade asks Green Lantern, who nods slowly, still anticipating an attack. “It seems like the problem’s fixed, then.”
“Well, yes, but–”
“And it does seem about time for these kids to get home, doesn't it?” The Shade pulls out an actual pocket watch, chain and all, from his suit pocket and takes his time in checking it. “I’ll see them home.” 
Shadows grow from behind the team, swirling until they become a giant, gaping maw that swallows them up and spits them out in a different forest, or maybe just a different part of the same forest. 
Either way, Cassie has to take a moment to make sure she doesn’t throw up from the sudden vertigo the shadow portal caused. 
The Shade looks at Phantom, and raises an eyebrow. “You can’t expect me to always bail you out.” 
Phantom shrugs, looking guilty. “I know. Thanks, Richard.”
Oh, so that’s who Richard is. Annoyingly, neither Tim or Bart look surprised by this revelation.
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nezuscribe · 4 months ago
Text
𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞
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pairing: gojo satoru x fem!reader
summary: six years ago, when they placed that sorting hat on your head, nobody expected for it to assign the muggleborn to the slytherin house, but it did. six years later, you find yourself as alone as the day you walked through those doors. little did you expect the prince of slytherin, the pureblood maniac himself, gojo satoru, to be the one to coincidentally fill your empty hours.
warnings: gojo is a pureblooded slytherin, slight angst, slight messy makeout
word count: 12.6k
note: part two is out now! comments and reblogs are always appreciated! thank you to @jadeisthirsting for beta reading as always!
part two
slytherin!gojo masterlist + jjk masterlist
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When you were little, all the strange and peculiar things that happened to you, such as Ms. Bromsely, the awful maths teacher's desk going up in flames, or Patricia Gallaghers rings disintegrating after she teased your dress, were chalked up to chance or just something else.
Your mother was too busy covering extra shifts down at the pub to worry about it, so she rarely made an occurrence to the meetings your headmaster had scheduled, resulting in very awkward meetings with just you as you were explained how peculiar it was that you always seemed to be in the middle of all these weird occurrences.
So when that brown spotted owl almost crashed into your bedroom window at the ripe age of eleven, explaining that you were chosen to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, you suspected that one of your classmates was playing a cruel joke on you, but alas, it turned out to be very real. 
You were whisked away soon enough, stumbling your way in some sort of haze through Diagon Alley, and then in a blink of your eyes, you found yourself waving goodbye to your mother from that red train, on your way to a life you may have only imagined when you were younger, dreaming of a place far away from where you were.
And you loved it.
The feasts, the history-soken steps that you walked on every day to get to class, the little town that was within walking distance that you could go to every weekend. 
While most of the students here had been introduced to this early on in their lives, you hadn’t. Your mother was just as shocked and as bewildered as you were all those years ago, and given your special circumstances, sometimes you wondered if you were yet to see the thick of it, wondering if some things were hidden from you given your upbringing, given your blood.
But you blinked out of your stupor, being brought down from your daydream to the sound of quills scratching, the smell of faint smoke burning in the background, and the quiet sounds of different animals in their cages. All of these tall-tell signs of the transfiguration classroom. 
After years of spending time in this classroom, it slowly became one that you’d look forward to, and despite most Slytherins having an aptitude for potions or defense against the dark arts, transfiguration was where you shined the best.
The light that carded through the high arching windows illuminated the desks, and you were glad seeing how the back of the classrooms was usually the most poorly lit place. Unfortunately, they’re the only places you found yourself sitting throughout the years, which is just another reason why this specific classroom in itself brought you a slight sense of comfort. 
“...cross-species and inter-species transfiguration is one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult, sort of transfiguration to achieve. Even the most accomplished witches and wizards find themselves struggling with it,” you watched as Professor McGonagall walked around the front of the classroom, her graying hair pulled into a tight bun behind her head, her emerald robes swaying behind her like green waves, “The only way we were able to replicate this form of magic is through ancient runes.” 
Her eyes raked over all the students of the class, to make sure that everybody was understanding the weight of her words. As seventh years it was expected that you all would be ready to face the challenges of such a high-level class. But especially with Professor McGonagall, seeing just how difficult her classes usually were. 
“Of course, this was all covered during your fourth years, so I hope that some of you,” she gave a knowing look over her glasses, “Remember your lessons.” 
You momentarily caught her eyes.
You squirmed in your seat, knowing that her displeased look was directed to the Gryffindor’s sitting next to you. The boy to your left had his mouth open in a large yawn, promptly shutting it when McGonagall looked at him, and the girl to your right was busily finicking with a piece of parchment, trying to figure out how to enchant it so that it could turn into a swan to send to her boyfriend who was sitting across the class. 
You loved Hogwarts. Most of the time. 
The reason why you usually found yourself at the back of class, sitting with people you barely knew, and the reason why you were yet to experience most of the core memories other witches and wizards your age experienced was because you weren’t welcomed the way other would be by their assorted houses. 
Nearly six years ago, when Professor McGonagall placed that sorting hat on your head, you didn’t know what to expect. 
You had heard from some of the people that you sat near on the train that Gryffindor was best. Of course, the boy who said it came from a family of Gryffindors, but his friends seemed to agree with him. Ravenclaw was only for the smart people, which you hoped you might be sorted into and Huffelpuffs were known for their loyalty, which, judging by your mother's statement about how you dared to leave home, you didn’t have much of. 
But the Slytherin house seemed…forbidden. 
At least for you, anyways. 
“And what about that girl we saw?” One of the boys pointed outside the carriage window into the little hall outside, pointing to a much older girl wearing green robes, walking with some other friends who wore adorning colors, “What house is she in?” 
The other boy, who seemed to have the most knowledge out of anyone, scoffed, shaking his head. 
“Not for you, sorry,” he leaned in closer as if he were telling a secret. You tried to listen in, not making it obvious seeing how you weren’t any of their friends and how this was the only cart available with space, “That’s the Slytherin house.” 
“Why’s it not for me?” The other boy argued, his face pulled into a scowl.
“Well, Slytherins are many things. Ambitious, cunning,” the other boy said but shook his head disapprovingly, “But above all else, they’re all purebloods. Some are half-bloods, but even that’s rare. You’re coming from a muggle family. My father works at the ministry, and he says that some of the people in his department who were Slytherin still despise muggle-borns and muggles even long after they’ve left.”
So you had a basic understanding of what to expect. Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, or Gryffindor.
But when the hat cried out “Slytherin!” you almost jumped in your seat, looking behind you at the professor, your face of hesitancy surely mirroring hers. 
And you soon found out that the boy on the train (who was sorted into Gryffindor, big shock), was right. Word spread quickly that a muggle-born was sorted into Slytherin, the first in centuries, and that it surely must’ve been a mistake. 
But the sorting hat doesn’t go back on its word, and what was said was done. So six and a bit years later you found yourself as the pariah of your own house and were forced to fade into the background to avoid any further trouble. 
“...and this is the one project in which I’m having you work with partners, picked by me, of course. The research that is needed to go into this is too much to be done alone.” Professor McGonagall continued, and you perked up in your seat a little bit, your brows furrowing at her words. 
You felt a part of your heart race at the thought. Normally when professors assigned partners, it either left you with a fellow Slyhterin who hated your existence and forced you to do the project on your own, or somebody from another house who didn’t know you and forced you to do the project on your own. 
Your tongue felt heavy as she began reading off the paired names on her list, your hands becoming clammy. 
“Miss Finnegan and Mister Belton. Miss O’Shea and Miss Adan,” The girl next to you, who you quickly pieced together was Leila O’Shea groaned, her face depleted as she realized she wasn’t going to be paired with her boyfriend, and you watched as she sulkily went to the other girl's desk. 
You listened in anticipation as she went down the list, your heart beating loudly and comically in your chest the closer it seemed that she was getting to the end. 
“Mister Reeve and Mister Thompson,” she paused momentarily as she watched the two boys clap each other on the back, her lips threatening to quirk up into a smile, just waiting to read what foolishness they were going to write, “Miss Ward and Mister Green,” you felt like you might be getting off the hook, that maybe she took pity on you but it all came crashing down when she looked at you, a knowing look in her eyes far worse than pity as she read your name along with perhaps the singular person you would’ve paid all your money to not be paired with, 
“…will be with Mister Gojo,” you heard some of your housemates laugh out loud, some of them pushing at the boy and ruffling his hair as if he were the one that was going to face the brute of everything. He sat near the front, and you could see a flash of his white hair as he begrudgingly began to pack his things up, having no choice but to sit next to you seeing how the seats next to him were filled up. 
You watched as she rolled the piece of parchment back up as if she hadn’t just sentenced your public execution, and she raised a singular thin brow at the faces that were looking back at her, “Well? Get a move on. This essay is due in a month.”
You tried to take in a deep breath, your eyes trained on the blank piece of parchment in front of you as if you couldn’t hear his footsteps getting closer and closer to you, as if you didn’t just feel his robes brush up against your legs as he sunk into his seat.
This can’t possibly be happening.
Anybody would’ve been better than him. Even Marley Petterson and her constant poking and teasing about how your clothes were held together by scraps, and how you must’ve lived with mud people before you came to Hogwarts would’ve been better than him. Being forced to be a partner with the Prince of Slytherin was torture, and you wonder if after all these years Professor McGonagall was just now starting to show her distaste towards you. 
That day on the train was the first time you heard his name. 
“You see that boy? The one with the white hair?” The boy discreetly pointed out the window to one of the kids standing outside your cart. All the other boys hurriedly nodded, each craning their necks to get a better look at him, “He’s a Gojo. He comes from a line of Slytherins, each one worse than the one before. They’re purebloods, obviously. You wouldn’t find a speck of anything else in them. They’re rich too, filthy rich. They could buy this school if they wanted to.” All the other boys guffawed, but he seemed serious as if this stranger's family was nothing to be taken lightly. 
“When it comes to Slytherins, there are four families to be wary of. There’s the Gaunts and the Malfoys. There’s the noble house of Black, but lastly…them. House Gojo is one that every other wizarding family steers away from.”
After the day you were sorted you also quickly realized why most wizarding families stayed away from them. His word seemed to be law, and all the other Slytherins, especially those in his inner circle, held him to it. 
You peeked from the corner of your eye, watching as he unpacked all his supplies, his face contorted in obvious anger and disgust, and you thickly swallowed. You had done a good job in staying away from him these past couple of months, fortunate enough to only be called a mudblood and an offense to their ancient house a couple of times by him and his posse. 
His left-hand ring finger almost caught your eye in the sun, the gold ring with his house emblem shining brightly, a clear reminder of your difference with him, and you tried to hide your old school bag, riddled with holes and stains, something you just couldn’t replace. 
When he was done unpacked, he sat there for a couple of seconds, the silence between the two of you thick and heavy. You felt like you could choke on it, your fingers twitching to do something, to leave.
“...this is insulating…” he was talking to himself, shaking his head in disbelief as you sat awkwardly, not knowing what to do.
Gojo Satoru wasn’t one for many words. You had observed him from afar, long enough to see that aside from the occasional words he’d exchange with his closest friends or the few times he’d mutter traitor under his breath when the two of you locked eyes, he was a more brooding type of person. 
When he was angry, he hid it well. His cheeks might’ve flushed a bit, his nose flaring, but he never made an outburst. Which is why, at this moment, you could tell that he wasn’t in a particularly elated mood. 
“I…” you started, your mouth going dry at the way his eyes snapped to you, cold and cruel, “I can do the essay. I’ll get it done in time…if you want.” 
Most times your partners would just tell you to do the work, expecting (and knowing), you’d just say yes and go along with your day. But here, you couldn’t afford to let your guard down, rather having your pride be bitten at rather than your overall self. 
You heard him snort, his nose wrinkling in disgust as he rolled his eyes. 
“What? And have you do everything wrong?” His voice was hushed and clipped as if talking to you a second longer than needed would ruin him and everything he and his family stand for. 
He unrolled his piece of parchment, opening up his book as he kept his head down. 
“Well, I’m fairly decent with transfiguration,” you spoke up, trying for a smile that quickly fell when you felt his eyes burn into yours. For most of your time at Hogwarts, the only times you’ve ever really spoken to Gojo was when he was hurling insults at you, his words spurred on by his group of friends behind him. 
Gojo Satoru knew his worth. He knew that his family name would last through centuries and that the gold his family owned could buy out the entire ministry if they wanted to. Those around him treated him as such; as if his word was law. It also didn’t help that he was incredibly charming, growing into his looks over the years. 
You watched as he grew taller, his lanky figure now filled out with muscles that you could sometimes see through the baggy uniform. His eyes were always a topic of conversation, the infamous Gojo blue. His arctic white hair grew a little longer, sometimes falling in his face when he wasn’t aware. He was gorgeous, and you couldn’t even lie to yourself that he wasn’t.
Aside from his looks, he was also freakishly smart. If he hadn’t been sorted into Slytherin you were sure that Ravenclaw would’ve been fitting for him as well. He was always top of the class with O’s on every exam. 
Above all else, he knew his difference from everybody else. Even his closest (pureblooded) friends weren't even near his level. Even before he could walk, he’s been told of this. Not only that but he’s been told of the vileness of muggleborns. How their nature threatens the very fabric of wizarding society, and how muggles who have somehow been blessed with magical abilities are below humans, that they don’t deserve the rights every other witch and wizard has. 
Which means that you, the sole muggle-born in Slytherin, stood against everything Gojo Satoru believed. You were an abnormality, inhuman, somebody that he should resent for even existing.
“Well, we could always divide the work…?” You offered, your feet anxiously bouncing on the ground as you waited for his response. One of the blessings of sitting so far away from everyone else is that sure, they looked over to see how this was going, but at least they couldn’t listen in as you embarrassed yourself even further. 
His eyes darted over to your paper, blinking once, deep in thought. 
He sighed deeply through his nose, swallowing thickly as he gave you a singular, curt nod. 
“Hm,” he hummed, not even sparing you a glance as he began going to work, his pen scratching against the paper as his eyes began reading over the page, “But I’ll read what you write,” he said quickly, “I refuse to have my rank tank just because you mudbloods can’t do your work properly.” 
Mudblood  
After six years of it, you know you should’ve gotten used to it, but the stinging in your chest would argue otherwise. 
Your shoulders sank, eyes falling to the ground as your fingers fidgeted. You murmured something inaudible as you opened your book to the page McGonagall instructed you to. 
The days moved on and everything continued as it always did. 
The essay you had to write with Gojo was a slight hindrance in your usual schedule, but the two of you worked in silence in class and never interacted outside of it. Sometimes when his elbow would accidentally bump into yours as the two of you were busy writing he’d make a sort of noise in the back of his throat, his hand snatching back quickly as if you had somehow burnt him, but that was the most of your interactions. 
Sometimes when you were in the common rooms, late at night, you could hear him talking with his friends, talking about how heinous and ridiculous it was that McGonagall paired the two of you together, but you tried to ignore it.
That following week you found yourself back in the transfiguration classroom, working away quietly as you tried to understand the scriptures on the pages you had to read. You found yourself lucky that this subject was the one you might have some sort of talent in, seeing that this sort of ancient magic was just as difficult as McGonagall made it out to be. 
You heard some mumbling next to you, your eyes discreetly looking over at your partner, only to find his head in his hands as his brows furrowed in both annoyance and confusion. 
“...what does this…?” You heard him say to himself, watching as he flipped the page back and forth as if he was missing something. 
You looked back at your work, the talking around the room drowning out whatever it was that Gojo was saying to himself. 
Or at least you tried to drown out the noise, if not for the fact that your partner made some sort of sudden movement that managed to knock his ink bottle down, spilling ink all over the table. You moved your work to the side, watching as some of the ink soaked into your robes.
“Fuck,” he snapped, moving suddenly from his chair so that the ink would drip onto his clothes, “damn it,” he looked around almost helplessly, his hands clenching in anger after seeing all his hard work soaked up in black. 
“Wait,” you suddenly say, your arm outstretching over his body, watching as his head snaps over to you, “Stop moving for a second.”
He didn’t have much time to bite back at how dare you order him around because you had already begun to pull out your wand, flicking it on a quick movement as you murmured “tergeo,” watching as the ink slowly yet surely began clumping up in the middle of the table, going back with snake-like movements into its bottle. 
There was a beat of silence. 
Gojo sat still in his seat, his lips pursing as he finally let out a deep breath. He pinched the bridge of his nose, rubbing at his eyes. 
“Thanks,” he said, but it seemed like he had to bite the word out, choking on it as if thanking you was taking too much of his mental willpower to do. 
You nodded briefly, still watching him as he settled back into his seat. 
“Uh,” you scratched at the back of your neck, knowing that you’d probably regret asking this in a matter of seconds, but somehow not able to stop yourself as you continue talking, “I don’t mean to be rude, or intrude, but is everything alright?”
You hold your breath as you watch Gojo sigh, his eyes shutting briefly. You braced yourself to be snapped at, to be victim to yet another reminder of how much you’ve tarnished the Slytherin name, but he just shakes his head. 
“No,” he seethes, but when he peeks over at you he licks his lips, gnawing on the inside of his cheek as he grabs his papers, moving it over to the middle of you two as he motions to it, “Everything is not alright. Something’s wrong with the book…and I have no idea what. I’ve read this page at least twenty times and it makes no bloody sense to me,” 
You try to hide your surprise. 
That’s probably the most he’s ever spoken to you without any mention of your muggle heritage. 
You move in a little closer to look at what he’s pointing to. You try not to heat up under his stare, squinting your eyes as you try to make sense of what it was he was writing, trying to hide your reactions when you realize that he was doing most of it wrong. 
The point of this essay was to learn about the origins of cross-species transfiguration, and eventually an animagus transformation and how it even came to be. 
You had to reference at least five other books and scrolls to piece together the correct herbs and spells needed to even begin the process. McGonagall honestly probably told everybody to reference the textbook because there was nothing in it. This essay was a testament to how many people went out of their way to learn about the true nature of transfiguration. 
What Gojo had written was something you were sure almost everybody else was writing as well, a mistake you almost made. His research was simple and black and white, and he was getting everything wrong because he was missing at least ten different very important points. 
“So,” you swallowed nervously, chewing on your already chapped lips, “You have the main ideas down,” which was a lie, “But there are just some things-” Before you could even finish your sentence the bell tower chimed once, twice, and then a final time, telling everybody that their class was over. 
All around you people began hurriedly packing up, surely excited for lunch, the chatter of conversations growing in volume, and you didn’t have to look at Professor McGonagall to know that she was irked by her student's sudden enthusiasm to leave. 
Gojo sat motionless, still looking over at you, waiting impatiently for you to finish. 
“I…” you scratched at your hands, “I can’t go over everything right now, but tomorrow I’ll bring in the other-” He raised his hand, packing up his bag as he cut you off. 
“No, not tomorrow, I’m already behind,” you watched as he shoved his papers into his leather bag, “Just explain it now.” 
You wanted to laugh, not knowing how long it might take to explain your twisted thinking process to him and you doubted he wanted to stay in this classroom with you for a minute longer. 
“Well, there’s quite a bit of things,” you searched for the right word, “Missing. I have to study for the potions exam right now, but I’m going to be in the library tonight anyway. I could show you then…?” 
You stood at your chair, your eyes looking up into his, wavering. 
What did you just do? Surely he’d laugh now in your face, roll his eyes at how absurd it was that you could even suggest such a thing, just as he usually does.
Instead, he looks at you, then at his paper, and then at yours, which is at least three pages long at this point. He’d never admit it out loud, but you were understanding this assignment better than him and nobody in his group seemed to understand it as well as you were. 
“Fine,” he runs a hand through his hair, the white sticking out between his fingers like snow perched on grass.
Your brows furrow, your lips pursing together in sudden confusion. 
“What, okay,” you fiddle with your fingers, tugging on them in that anxious way you always do, watching him tighten the straps on his bag, “But wait, what time…” You try to call out but he has already left, his robes swaying behind him as you stand alone at your seat.
You slowly begin to pack up, your thoughts running at what you have just done.
The potions exam went well enough, but you couldn’t stress out about it too much right now. 
After dinner (which you ate earlier than most, too anxious to be late), you made your way to the library, found a table near the back, somewhere that didn’t get a lot of foot traffic, and set up your workstation for the time being. 
Amongst many of the amenities Hogwarts had, the library was one of them you loved dearly. 
It wasn’t usually too busy, but it filled up quickly the night before some exams. But you didn’t mind it, you liked being surrounded by people. In the Slytherin common rooms, you usually had to wait until everybody had filtered out or had gone to bed before you could make your way down, not wanting to face their icy looks or the way they’d talk behind their hands when you were near, so you opted to be in the library above anything else. 
The muted sounds of pages turning, of people talking in hushed whispers, and the books that would sometimes rearrange themselves were calming. You liked the candles that were lit carefully around the large room, illuminating it deep into the night. 
You made sure that the work you had already written was set out, your quill resting straightly adjacent to it, your ink pot above it. Your pile of books sat neatly to the left. You wanted to seem as organized and as composed as you could, this might be your one chance to show the prince of Slytherin that you weren’t the slob he must imagine you as. 
The clock on the wall ticks, and you note that it’s nearly ten minutes till five. You chew on your lips, cracking your fingers as you keep your eyes trained on the door, waiting for the familiar mop of white hair to appear. 
After the first ten minutes, you begin fidgeting again, moving your papers centimeters above where they were as if they could appear any straighter. You weren’t wearing the usual house robes, and you hoped that your decision didn’t cause him to walk in, scan the area, and leave because he didn’t see what he expected to see. 
But you pushed those worries aside, just doing your best to watch the people who filed in and out of the large double doors. 
After the clock struck six, you began to stop looking at the doors, instead choosing to just get some work done while you were here, and opened up one of the books. Of course, he probably just lied just because he wanted to. There might be some of his friends standing outside, snickering as they watched you wait stupidly. 
You felt your cheeks heat up in embarrassment, feeling like an idiot.
For the next half hour, you busied yourself with reading about the start of the animagus process, about the mandrake leaf, and the strenuous process of keeping it on your tongue for an entire month. 
Around you, you could hear the scrapping of chairs on the floor, and how most of the people were beginning to leave seeing that it was getting pretty late. The library closes promptly at eight, and although it was an hour till that happened, most people left till then. 
Your eyes flitted to the door, not seeing anybody, and deflated. 
Stupid, you repeated in your head. 
So you began shutting the books strewn out in front of you, packing them all up in your bag as you rubbed at your tired eyes. Madam Pince also made a deal if you left any ink splotches on the table, so you cast a quick tergeo charm to clean up any spots you might’ve missed. 
“You’re leaving?” 
You looked up from the table, eyes squinting to see his tall figure standing in front of you, his face flushed red, sweat dotting on his brow bone as a bit of his hair stuck to his face. Gojo was panting, his chest heaving up and down as if he had just run across the entire castle, and his brows were creasing in the middle, looking down at you as you seized your packing. 
You note his green quidditch robes and muddy boots. 
“I, um,” you looked at the nearly empty table in front of you, and you shook your head, giving him a small smile, “No, no, I just got here.” 
He looked at your bag, as if not believing you, but not caring too much as he hummed in the back of throat, rounding the table, and plopped himself down in the seat in front of you. 
Wordlessly, Gojo began taking out his supplies, and you figured you might as well, setting everything back up to where you initially had it.  You watched as he slyly looked around the two of you, his shoulder becoming less tense when he realized it truly was just the two of you left in the library. 
“Practice took up too much time,” he mindlessly explains, a clear explanation for why he looked so different from the put-together self he usually is. He pushed some of his hair out of his face, his breathing still a little erratic. 
You nod, swallowing thickly as you pretend to understand the ins and outs of quidditch. 
You were aware that amongst one of the many things Gojo could do, on his long lists of talents (which if there was a list would consist of his ability to speak five languages or his incredible ability to calm any creature down), was that he was an amazing seeker. 
While you weren’t very familiar with how quidditch worked, despite trying to best to follow along with others' conversations as you listened in, you could understand that his forte on a broomstick wasn’t talked about just because he was Gojo Satoru. 
He was fast on his broomstick, and thought it could be chalked up to the fact that every year he came to practice with the newest model, he could whize past anybody. He was nimble as well. With how large his hands were, larger than the other house seekers, he was able to secure a win for almost every single match ever since he got recruited. Last year he was named captain of the Slytherin quidditch team, so you were able to piece together that he got held up with the recent tryouts.
“That’s um,” you scratch at your arm awkwardly, “That’s alright…okay so I’ll try to be as quick as I can, but there’s a lot that McGonagall wants us to do,” you start slowly, letting his get situated as you push forward the first book that helped you out, “Oh, that textbook doesn’t help…right now,” you quickly said as you saw him pull out the assigned reading, saw how he looked at you for a second, his face scrunching up in an unreadable emotion. 
“This one is good, though,” you motion to the one in front of you. 
Gojo’s movements are slow as he takes it, eyes scanning over the title until he looks back at you. 
He doesn’t do much talking, you decide. 
“This book covers cross-species transfiguration, but it briefly mentions inter-species transfiguration. But the author referenced this one,” you pull out the other hefty textbook, sliding it over to him, “And this covers all things related to inter-species transfiguration and then goes into animagus transfigurations.” 
You pause, biting your cheek to stop you from rambling on. Transfiguration was something that you could talk about forever and ever, and you’d never really talked about out loud to anybody else up until now. 
“McGonagall said that the essay was on inter-species, she never mentioned animagus transfiguration,” Gojo said suddenly, pushing the two textbooks back, letting out a heavy sigh as if this was all a waste of his time.
You nod slowly, picking at some of the skin around your nails.
“R-right, and you’re right,” you quickly sputter, nodding, “But because cross-species and inter-species transfiguration are so close together, I doubt that this was what she wanted our month-long essay to be about. Which is why,” you pull out some old essays you had done earlier in the year, “I referenced back to these animagus essay’s we had done. I mean, she wouldn’t introduce us to the topic and then drop it for no particular reason, right? I suspect she wanted us to piece the two and two together.”
Gojo gently took the papers from your outstretched hand, his eyes raking over your words, and then back to the textbooks. He seemed to read it intently as if things were slowly starting to click for him. 
“Which is why the textbook she gave us isn’t really helpful, because it resembles more of an herbology textbook rather than transfiguration. So I think that this textbook, if anything, should be referenced at the end of the essay, seeing how it mentions the mandrake leaf and the properties of the chrysalis of a Death’s-head Hawk Moth. It’s all instructions on how to become an animagus without saying it.”
His eyes, a different shade of blue in the candlelight, watched your every moment. He listened carefully as you eventually did end up rambling, watching the way your face, on its own accord, twisted into a proud smile at your clever handiwork. 
You abruptly stop to catch a breath and glance up at him apologetically. 
“I’m sorry, I went too fast,” you shake your head, rubbing your temple in your hands, tired from staring at textbooks for as long as you’ve had. 
“No…it made sense,” Gojo murmurs suddenly, his lips pulled into a thin line as he quickly looks away from you, back down to his work which was now surely long after your in-depth analysis, twisting and turning that gold ring on his finger, the one he always wore, the symbol of his family crest as he looked through the books you had offered him. 
You stay silent, not knowing what to do, resting back in your seat, picking your nails. 
“Well, that’s all of it,” you rub your hands against your pants, your dry eyes blinking a couple of times, yearning for sleep.
“You could’ve said this during class,” he said, still reading, his attention preoccupied, as if this was a hindrance to him. 
You wet your lips, trying not to clench your hand in anger, frustration, and years of pent-up emotions, as you slowly nod, pulling the leather strap of your bag over your shoulders as you begin to stand up. 
“Right, sorry,” you apologize quietly, taken aback when he suddenly looks up at you, as if startled but you didn’t feel like spending any more in the presence of someone who despised you anyways, “goodnight,” you bid farewell, not noticing how he had opened his mouth to say something, scurrying out of the library as you make your way back to the common rooms before he could.
The next day at transfigurations, the two of you didn’t speak to one another at the beginning of class, like normal. 
You took out your books like normal, as did he, and began writing silently, like normal. Everything was going normally until he suddenly paused, his hand wavering above his essay as he set his quill down, turning his head over to you.
“Can I see what you’ve written?” 
You stop writing, eyes darting to the side as if you had misheard him.
Gojo points to the papers you’ve been working on as if you didn’t understand his first command. 
Wordlessly, you pass it over to him. 
He reads it over a couple of times, flipping through your endless pages, muttering some words to himself now and then. You would wager that compared to other people you had made far more progress in terms of how much you’d compiled, so you weren’t necessarily worried about the time restraint on this essay. 
You couldn’t say the same for him, however. 
You’ve never seen him look so intense, his brows furrowed and his lips pursed in clear concentration. He almost seemed frustrated, and it was a strange thing to see from somebody so usually put together. 
“Our work together is too divided, it looks like we haven’t been working with each other,” Gojo says as if that wasn’t purely what was the issue. 
You didn’t say anything, wanting to see what idea he’d propose.
“I need to finish the rest of these texts,” he jutted his chin to the textbooks you had given him last night, “We can work on the essay after classes are over, in the common room.” 
A part of you wanted to laugh at him as if he had just joked. 
But Gojo Satoru was not a joking sort of person. You rarely saw him smiling, even when with his friends, and it was even rarer for him to say something of any comedic value. Which could only mean that he was being serious and that he truly was proposing to work in the common rooms with…you.
A little snort escapes your lips, looking at him as if he were crazy. He looked at you as if you were the crazy one.
“I don’t go to the common rooms after class, it’s too busy,” you explained slowly to him, wondering if he was daft and even after all this time didn’t take the time to understand your situation. 
He blinked, eyes narrowing. 
“...and?” 
Your head tilted to the side, confused. 
“Well…there’s people there,” you explain even further. 
He scoffs, rolling his eyes as if you were stupid. 
“Ironically, that is the point of a common room.” Gojo looks back to his essay, picking up his quill as if he were done with this conversation, but you pushed.
“Right,” you say more curtly, nose flaring, “For you, it might be. But people don’t want me there.” You say, a truth that you had to stomach, something that you grew used to after too many unsavory encounters with other Slytherins when you tried to come down to the common rooms during social hours. 
“So during the hours of two to eight, you don’t go to the common room?” He didn’t even look up, his voice sarcastic, not believing such an insane thing.
“No.” You reply as if it was obvious as if he should at least know that this is why you rarely ever make an occurrence unless it’s early in the morning or late at night. 
That finally gets him to stop and look at you, confusion woven into his expression. 
“What?” He set his pen down again, and you noted that his eyes seemed a different shade of blue when he was confused, a little bit lighter than usual, he seemed like he was the only one not in on some sort of joke, “So from two to eight you just stay in your room?” 
You shake your head, playing with your fingers. 
“I’m not always in my room,” ignominy clear in your tone, “Most days I either go outside and do my homework or go to the library.” 
You hate the attention this brings to you from him. You’ve never had such a long conversation with somebody in your own house, let alone Gojo. You hated the way he looked at you as if you were either lying your arse off or even worse…pity?
But you almost shook your head at that thought. The great Gojo Satoru pitying you? 
“What if it’s raining?” He asked, pushing you to see if you were telling him the truth. 
“Then I go to the library,” you said as if it was obvious, mainly because to you it was. This was the usual schedule that you’ve become used to over the years, something you’ve just forced yourself to become used to despite wanting everything in your soul to go to the common rooms like everybody else, to laugh at their stories, to talk about your lives, like you were supposed to. 
“What if the libraries closed?” 
You squirm under his heavy gaze, wondering how the topic of transfiguration got turned around to him interrogating you. 
“Um, well, right now, because of the weather, I’d probably just go up to the astronomy tower if the library was closed. They don’t have lessons during the day. Or I’d probably just find a broom closet and do my work in there.” 
His head tilts just a bit, his lips quirking up into a disbelieving smile as if he just caught you in your lie. 
“In the dark?” Gojo presses, and you can hear the people around you already beginning to pack up their supplies, the class nearing its end. Had you spent this much time talking that you wasted nearly half an hour?
“I’d cast a lumos spell,” you argue, packing up your things as you break eye contact with him. You take your paper back, making sure the ink has dried before putting it in your bag. 
“I’ll be in the library,” you say finally, making sure that was the end of it, “See you there.”
In some strange way, meeting up with Gojo in the library became part of your routine. 
Every night at seven, after his quidditch practice would end, he’d run all across the entirety of campus to work on your transfigurations essay together. 
The two of you still didn’t talk much, but it was different nonetheless. 
“I’m tired,” Gojo suddenly announced, the candlelight flickering on and off from his face. 
You could visibly see the dark circles that were under his eyes, how he slouched (which was uncommon for him, seeing how he usually sat as straight as a ruler wherever he was), and how he couldn’t go four minutes without letting out an exhausted sigh. 
“You should take a break,” you muttered, not paying attention, head still stuck in your book as you continued to read the rest of the paragraph you were reading. 
Gojo snorted, rolling his eyes at the prospect. 
“I can’t take a break,” he dragged his hands across his face, “I need to finish this essay, the quidditch games in two days, and Snapes up my arse about that potion exam.” 
Your eyes flickered up to his, startled at how much he had spoken, but then tried to mask your surprise by looking back down to your book.
“Potions wasn’t too bad,” you offer, “And I can finish the last bits you have,” you look back up, putting your hand out, a silent ask for him to give you whatever it was that he had written so far. 
He clicked his tongue against his teeth, silently passing over his stack of parchment, and you scanned through it quietly, shrugging as you nodded once more. 
To be honest, the two of you were far ahead of the other students in your class. He had eventually concluded on his own that you’d be wasting more time not working together, so you guessed that he just had to suck up a bit and bite back on his pride and work with a muggle-born.
His rush to finish the essay was spurred on by the plethora of other things he needed to do, a drawback of being the prime and perfect Slytherin prince everybody made him out to be. 
“You don’t have much left,” you deduce, “I can just write about the Scalivier trials,” the trial in which a man refused to register with the ministry that he was an animagus, “I’ll have it done by Saturday, I’m nearly done with my bit.”
You slide his essay back to him, but stop when you see the perplexed look on his face. 
“Saturday’s the quidditch game?”. 
Your eyes dart to the side, squinting a bit as you try for a laugh. 
“…and?” 
He scratches at his temple, tilting his head to the side. After these past couple of days working with you, he’d be wrong to say that he became more and more increasingly perplexed with you. Six years he spent watching from afar, muttering words to his friends about the absurdity of your existence, but now that he was able to see you from up close, a part of him has to agree that you’re an enigma he’s never been able to crack. 
You don’t say much during class, you don’t talk to many people, and if he was being honest, in that sense, you mirrored him. You were reserved, but the times he picked and prodded at you, you seemed to open up. You don’t have any friends from what he could tell, often eating at the end of the table during the meals. He watched sometimes to see you during the common rooms during the times in which you said you never came, a part of him thinking he’d be able to catch you. 
Gojo Satoru would never admit it, but in a way, he had become interested in you.
“Well,” Gojo didn’t like to be the one confused, hating being perceived as if he didn’t know everything, which is something he prided himself on most of the time, “After the game, there’s the usual…party,” he bit out, hating the word, because it was so unruly from the usual balls and galas he was forced attend, too many people sweaty and jumping, “In the common room.” 
You blink owlishly at him, fidgeting with your quill, twisting and turning it around in your hand. 
“Right…so I’ll be here.” 
Now it was his turn to blink slowly. 
Was this really that hard to understand?
“Coming to the library after a quidditch game seems a bit anticlimactic, don’t you think?” He leaned back in his chair, playing with the green and silver tie around his neck. You wondered how he could bear to wear it even after classes were over, that even his most posh friend ditched their formal wear the moment they got back to their dormitories. 
“Thankfully I don’t go to quidditch games, so for me, it’s just climatic,” you said, smiling at your little joke, covering your mouth as you yawned, tired and longing for your bed. 
He sat up in his chair suddenly, looking even more shocked than before. This was the most emotion you’ve ever seen him emmett before and you didn’t know what to do with it. 
“What? Why not?” He seemed so startled that you almost wanted to laugh. It was strange seeing somebody you had regarded as stoic look like he did now. 
You shrug, rubbing your fingers across your eyes as you let out another yawn, resting your chin on your palm. 
“I went once, during my first year, but everybody seemed rather annoyed that I was there, and they crowded in front of me so I couldn’t see anything,” you recall back on the memory, one that you could remember vividly, “and I don’t know,” you’re suddenly very thirsty, your cheeks heating up the more he stared at you, laughing uncomfortably, “I don’t really understand…quidditch, so it works out in the end. And I also get to have some time to myself in the common room to do my homework, you know, unlike usual.” 
Gojo didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds, and you tried to pretend that you had read something interesting to not embarrass yourself any further with your mindless babbling. Sure, he might be willing to work with you now, but that didn’t mean that Gojo Satoru was up for a friendly conversation with you.
You looked at him briefly, feeling your stomach churn a bit to see that he hadn’t stopped looking at you.
“Everything alright?” You asked. 
He nodded, biting on the inside of his cheek as he picked up his quill, a wordless agreement that the conversation was over.
Transfiguration the next day went by oddly silent. 
Gojo didn’t talk to himself now and then, he didn’t sigh his exasperated sigh, and he didn’t peek up every once in a while to check how much you’d written since the last time he had looked over. 
You didn’t pay it much attention, keeping your head down, your eyes to yourself. Silence was better than being reminded of your muggle heritage, which even then, Gojo had yet to remind you these past weeks.
Briefly, you looked up from what you were doing to see if Professor McGonagall was walking around or sitting at her desk, but in doing so you felt Gojo shuffle a little in his seat as if he had felt your sudden movement. 
“Tonight…” he started and you quickly nodded, waving off any of his worries. Of course, you chided yourself, he’s anxious about the quidditch match, nothing else.
“Yes, yes, I know, you have quidditch tomorrow. I’ll finish up what I have left and then start reading about the Scalivier trials tonight,” you finished for him, tracing some of the wood grains of the table with your finger. 
He shakes his head. 
“Not that - and I’ll finish up the trials by Sunday,” he’s avoiding eye contact, and if you didn’t know any better it seemed like he was trying to find his words, as if they had slipped from his tongue and were dangling in the air for him to grab, “Tonight…tonight, don’t go to the library.” 
You purse your lips, trying to smile to see if that was his goal, maybe he was trying to be funny.
“Would you like to meet in one of the broom closets then?”
You felt even more lost after it seemed like he was debating taking up your offer, but his eyes shone a bright shade of aquamarine, and his cheeks twinged a slight shade of pink. 
Strange. 
“No,” he chewed on his lip, as if he were anxious, a preposterous thing to even think, “No, come down to the common rooms around eight.” 
The cursed clock tower chimed, three loud rings, and it cut the two of you off once again. 
“Look, I told you-” you go to say but he cuts you off.
“I know, just come down.” He was being so cryptic, and he looked so on edge that it was starting to freak you out. He was already beginning to pack up, his eyes snapping to his group of friends that were nearing the two of you, and he quickly looked back down at you, his head dipping down urgently. 
“Eight. Be there.” 
—-
You couldn’t say you weren’t at least a little apprehensive. 
You were so nervous that you just stayed up in your room, not even coming downstairs for dinner as you waited for the clock on the wall to read eight. 
Why were you so nervous? You first asked yourself, but then asked the more logical question, what did Gojo want with you?
The minutes on the clock seemed to take hours to pass, and the hours seemed to take days. It was such a slow process, and you knew it would be going faster if you were doing something more productive with your time until it was necessary, but you couldn’t. 
The other girls in your dorms could come in and out, sometimes exchanging glances with their friends when they saw that you hadn’t moved from your spot, but they didn’t ask any questions, opting to just leave you be. 
You were picked at your fingers, cracking your knuckles, and finally, finally, the small hand pointed to the eight on that ancient clock. 
Funnily enough, even though you had been mentally waiting for this to happen, you waited for a couple of seconds, trying to calm yourself down, nodding to yourself that this wasn’t anything big and that you were just overreacting. 
Slowly, you rose from your spot on your bed, a little dent in the mattress from just how long you’d been sitting there. You turn the handle of the door, taking in yet another deep as you take a tentative step outside the safe sanctity of your room. 
The common rooms are usually more busy on Friday nights, and that might’ve been a blessing in disguise as you’re able to slip past most people, keeping your eyes peeled for a flash of white hair. 
You scan the couch area, the sitting area, and the large window that looks into the black lake, but you don’t see him. It’s only until you look near the entrance to the common room, the large oak double doors, do you see him. 
It seems like he’s scanning the area as well, blue eyes looking everywhere until they fall onto yours, and you’re able to sneak past some people watching as he cocks his head in the motion of the doors, and before you could do anything else, he leaves, and you take it as your sig to follow him.
You’re glad that nobody’s looking your way as you push the two doors open, looking to your right to see him waiting for you. 
You go to open your mouth to speak but he beats you to it. 
“Follow me, and be quick,” he’s already walking and you have to nearly jog to get to him, walking at a much faster pace seeing how his legs were abnormally long, “Put these on over your clothes.” 
Gojo throws you a pile of ratty-looking uniforms, but the more you open up the folded mess you come to realize that they’re old quidditch uniforms. In fact, when you’re finally able to get a good look at him you realize he’s wearing adoring green robes. 
You don’t say anything, multitasking as you walk and shrug over the (huge, it was practically dragging on the floor) robes, buttoning them up as quickly as you could without tripping over your feet, the quidditch uniform, or over the stones. 
He looks at you briefly, and he’s glad that you’re too busy trying to figure out how the robes are supposed to fit over you to notice the way his lips quirked up slightly at the look of you at the moment. 
“Put this on too,” he says once you're finally done, handing you another huge helmet, and you take it silently, pulling it over your head. 
The helmet is way too big for you, as it nearly hangs over your eyes, and you can barely see anything with it on, and you pause, a smile making its way onto your face as you push it up only for it to fall again.
You stop walking for a second, and when Gojo looks back he sees the helmet masking most of your face up until your nose, the only thing he can see is your large grin, the sleeves of the uniform enveloping your hands, reaching to your knees, and for the first time, he hears the softest sound, 
You’re giggling as you try to figure out how to tighten the straps on the helmet, not able to see where Gojo is because you have your head tilted down, struggling with the buckle until his boots come into your field of vision. 
All of a sudden you feel a hand tip your helmet upwards, and your smile falters when you now see his face, the way his eyes are swirling with different hues of blues, something you notice that happened when he was battling multiple emotions at once. You can tell that there’s a small, barely noticeable smile on his face, surely from how insane you look right now. 
You’ve never seen him look so at ease. His shoulders seem more relaxed, his jaw not clenched. It helped that he looked like he was smiling for once. 
But there’s no time to think as you feel the brush of him on your skin, his slender and swift fingers working fast and expertly at tightening the strap under your chin. He looks focused, his white brows scrunched up the way he always does when he’s trying to figure out a transfiguration rune. You feel your breath lodge in your throat. When he’s satisfied with how it was resting on your face his hands drop to his side, and his eyes slightly widen, as if he just realized what he had just done. 
He cleared his throat, looking around the hall to make sure that nobody was around, and he turned his back as he began his brisk pace out to wherever it was that he was taking you.
You walked, corrected, ran with him for a little more until he brought you to one of the openings of the castle, the one that led directly to the quidditch fields. 
“Where,” you were a little out of breath, noticing how the sun was nearly about to set, and also knowing that you sure as hell didn’t have a pass to be out this late, “Where’re we going?” 
“To the field,” he said, which was the answer you were most dreading. 
“Right, I can see that,” you feel hot under all these layers, despite the fact that it was late October and the weather was biting at best, “Why are we going out to the fields.” The breeze that was hitting your cheeks was stinging, so you were at least glad in that aspect that the quidditch robe offered you some sort of warmth. 
“Ravenclaws practicing right now,” Gojo said, turning around to look at you for a fleeting second, “I need to see what Nanami’s strategy is, and you need to learn quidditch.” 
You almost trip. 
And you need to learn quidditch.
His words were ringing in your head, possibly even louder than the blood rushing to your ears. He had to be lying, or have some sort of cruel prank planned out. He must be waiting for his friends to run out from behind one of the stands so that they could tie you to a tree. Not that he’s ever done that, but also not the first time it’d be happening at the hands of other Slytherins. 
Because sure, while you might’ve offended him in saying you didn’t understand how quidditch worked, that wouldn’t mean that he, Gojo Satoru, the Prince of Slytherin, hater of all muggle-borns alike, would be taking time out of his life to fix this wrong.
You should’ve just run the other way, ditched the scratchy uniform somewhere, and ran back to your dormitory, somewhere where you’d at least be safe from experiencing any sort of humiliation. 
But the closer that the two of you neared the stands, the more you felt confused. Because nowhere could you see any other Slytherins, and he was right, the Ravenclaw team was practicing right now, if the flashes of blue and white from above you meant anything. 
Which could only mean that…? 
Gojo finally stops at the stairs that lead you up the stands, his hand on the wooden railing. 
“We’re going…up?” 
He snorts, nodding as he ushers you to move. 
“Obviously,” his voice now seems more amplified with his small and cramped winding staircase, “I’m not going to be observing them from the ground.” 
You’re the one that’s ahead, so you try to go even faster so that he won’t be held up behind you, but everything is moving too fast. Did he give you these robes so that you’d seem like another player? So that you wouldn’t be marked up if you were seen out of your dormitory so late at night?
When you finally got to the opening, you were able to hear the yells that the Ravenclaw players were enhancing with one another. You hold the tarp that acted as the door above your head, heading over to one of the seats in the far back, feeling Gojo right on your tail. 
It had been years since you were here since you looked out into the fields. The stands were high, and the winds were stronger up here. Gojo sat where you were, to your right, and you waited silently to see what he was going to do. 
Nanami was the Ravenclaw seeker as well as the captain. You could see the flash of blonde hair as he flew by, the other team members either watching him or practicing with their respective posts. 
Gojo rested his elbow on his thighs, leaning in as he observed intently. 
Eventually, after a minute or two, he sat back up, leaning in closer to you. You could feel his hair ticking your temple, his nose inches away from your cheek as he began to talk. 
“In quidditch, you have seven players on each side. One seeker, one keeper, three chasers, and two beaters.” 
You nod, following along. 
“You see number seven?” He points to the guy flying around near the three tall hoops, and you nod again, “He’s a keeper. He makes sure that the other team doesn’t get any balls into the hoops.” Gojo is leaning even closer to you now, and you can feel half of his body pressing up against yours. You feel like you're heating up, and not because of the excessive quidditch uniform you’re wearing. 
“The beaters, number four and two,” he then points to the boy and the girl flying around, holding wooden bats, “try to protect their team from the bludgers; which is this black ball that sort of follows around team members, trying to knock them off their brooms. Those bats ward off the bludgers.” 
You make a mental note of everything he’s saying, trying not to be distracted by the fact that you’re being given a quidditch lesson from Gojo Satoru. 
“The chasers, which are the rest of them, aside from Nanami, throw around the quaffle to each other. Every time they get it through the other team's hoop, they score ten points…do you follow?” Gojo pauses, looking at you and you push your helmet up so that you can see him, giving him a confident nod. 
“All that’s left is the seeker-” 
“Which is you, right?” You cut him off, rubbing at your nose which was now freezing at this point. 
Gojo pauses, eyes flickering to you as he raises a brow. 
“I may not know quidditch but I’m not daft,” you tell him.
For a second there, you swear you could see the start of a smile play on his lips.
“Yeah,” he says, almost softly, “I’m the seeker.” You’re too busy looking ahead to notice that he’s busy looking at you, so you continue to talk. 
“...plus, Kento was telling me about it a while ago. He said you were really good.”
This time, his brow raised even further. 
“You know him?” 
You shrug, your eyes following the quick and hurried movements of all the players, too focused on their practice to notice the change in Gojo’s voice, or overall, the change in his entire demeanor. You must’ve missed how he slightly tensed up, or the way his eyes narrowed. 
“We had potions with Ravenclaw last year, remember?” You turn slightly to look over at Gojo before you go back to watching, “He helped me with some of my brews, but we talked about other stuff!” You had to raise your voice, the wind was getting stronger, “And Quidditch came up!”
Gojo’s nose flared momentarily before he swallowed thickly, his jaw ticking as he tried to focus back on the practice as well. 
“A-anyways,” he cleared his throat, not remembering that last time he choked on his words, “The seeker catches the snitch. I can’t see where it is now, but once the snitch is caught, the game is over.” He tried to push some of the hair out of his face, getting annoyed at how it kept getting stuck in his eyes. 
“I need to get something, I’ll be back,” Gojo murmured in your ear, pushing himself off of the seat as he walked in front of you disappearing down the stairs within seconds. 
You glanced at where he left but found yourself looking back to the players, your face breaking into another excited smile when you began to piece together what Gojo had just told you, finally able to understand quidditch after all these years.
The sun had set and the stars were peeking out through the sky, and you watched the players as they furiously rode around, each one tense and stressed for the match that would be happening tomorrow. 
You tried to hide yourself in the background as much as you could, now feeling a little more out in the open with Gojo gone.
The minutes ticked by and yet Gojo didn’t come back. Now and then you found yourself looking at the stairs, eyes darting back and forth from those on their broomsticks to where you had first entered from. 
Slowly yet surely, you found yourself in that position the first night you saw him at that library. 
When the Ravenclaw players slowly began dissenting from the air, running off the fields as they went in from shelter from the old, you felt a part of your stomach twist. 
This was all part of his plan, you concluded, shivering to yourself as you tried not to feel let down, or even worse, like an idiot for thinking anything had changed, that you had maybe actually begun to have a friend after seven years.
You feel your eyes water, either from the wind or from everything, and you make your way for the stairs, your lips trembling as you suddenly start to feel claustrophobic under all the clothes you're wearing, your fingers slipping and sliding as you try to take that wretched helmet off of your head.
You feel like if you go any faster you’re going to trip and tumble down the stairs, and it doesn't help that you’re already too distracted with trying to take the helmet off. You sniffle, your eyes blurry as you feel your heart beat rapidly in your chest. 
Stupid, stupid, stupid. 
You couldn’t even tell if you were thinking that in your head or saying it out loud as you neared the end of the never-ending stairs, unbuttoning the buttons of the scratchy uniform as you bundled everything up in your hands, wiping at your wet cheeks with your palm.
Amongst all the things people have done to you over the years, this wasn’t the worst. You’ve had your room ransacked, your trunk thrown into the river, your shoes stolen on multiple occasions. You’ve been called a mudblood more times than you’ve been called your own name, and none of these things were actually done by Gojo. 
Perhaps you thought that deep down, maybe he could change. That maybe after all that time spent in the library, talking to you, controlling some of his laughs at your awful jokes, he saw that maybe muggle-borns weren’t as bad as he thought they were. 
And yet tonight you suffered your first prank, if that’s what this could even be called, at his hands. It didn’t hurt because of its nature, but because a naive part of you actually thought that he could’ve been your friend. 
But none of that mattered now, not that you-
“Where are you going?” 
You stop in your tracks, your head whipping around to the voice. 
It was now fully dark outside, the moon and the spare candles that were lit around the castle and the stands were the only sources of light. You could see his figure standing a couple feet away from you, his white hair like a beacon in the night. 
He takes a couple tentative steps closer to you, close enough so that you can see the furrow of his brows and the small pout on his lips. Damn it, you wanted to curse, you could hate him more if he didn’t look so pretty. 
“Back to the castle,” you snap, wiping at the corners of your eyes, throwing down the old uniform and the oversized helmet on the ground near his feet. You sniffle, looking to the side so that you won’t have to see his face.
“What?” He steps closer to you and you take a step back, your head still turned, eyes trained on the dewy grass, “Why?” You try not to think too much about the two sets of brooms in his hands, or how for some strange reason, he actually sounded dejected that you were leaving.
Letting out a shaky breath you laugh curtly, crossing your arms over your chest as you look up to the sky, counting the stars, wondering if that could calm you down. 
You hear the grass crunch under his feet, the warmth of his body as he comes in close to you. 
Why does he care? 
“I brought you a broom,” he holds it to you so you can see the outline of it, “Here,” he bends down to pick up the helmet you had thrown to the ground, “At least put this on,” he’s already securing it on your head, not noticing the way your lips were trembling, his fingers brushing up against your chin once again but you don’t him faster it, smacking his hand to the side as you rip the helmet off your head, throwing it with more force on the ground. 
“S-stop,” you murmur harshly, wiping at your cheeks, “Stop, stop whatever it is you’re doing-” 
“I’m not doing anything,” he snarls, his eyes a dark shade of navy blue, “So stop crying, I don’t know what it is you think I did.”
He’s angry now, good, it’ll be easier to yell at him if he’s just as amped up as you are. 
But when you finally look at him and get to see his face, it’s not the kind of anger you’re feeling. His eyes are narrowed, his eyebrows pulling together down the middle the way they do when he’s confused, the way you often see him looking like when he’s frustrated at your cursed transfigurations essay. He’s not angry at you because of you, he’s angry because he doesn't understand where your frustrations are coming from. 
He’s at least a head taller than you, looking down as his chest heaves slightly, waiting for you to say something, anything, so that he could explain himself for whatever it is he’s done wrong. His cheeks are a little pink, either from the cold or…something else, and his hair is messy, no longer kept the way it usually is. 
Gojo looks different.
And you don’t know who it was that moved in closer, whose rational mind slowly turned irrational as you two took another step towards the middle, but all you do know is that the two of you didn’t care as you roughly grabbed him by his robes, tugging him in as you slammed your lips to his. 
It happened in an instant, your lips moving against his soft one, your hands gripping onto that fabric for dear life. And for a second, you begin to pull away, your eyes opening in shock, but there’s no use, because Gojo slams his lips down onto yours as he pulls you into his chest. 
It’s rushed and messy, your teeth clash against one another, your hands going up from his chest as they intertwine around his neck, your fingers tugging on his long white strands and you hear him groan into your mouth. 
He moves fast, biting at your lips, one hand sprawled on the expanse of your back, the other one behind your neck, almost cradling the back of your head, tilting your head upwards to meet him. His tongue prods at your lips, and somehow, mindlessly, you part them a little more, moaning quietly at the way his tongue explores your mouth. 
Gojo leads you a little back, so that you’re up against one of the wooden pillars of the quidditch stands, offering you more stability, a good thing, seeing how you feel like you're becoming lightheaded, soon about to faint. 
“Fuck,” he whispers, heavy on your lips as he dips down again to kiss down your chin tilting your head up to expose the column of your neck, “Fuck,” he says once more, diving down as he sucks and bites at your skin, his movements growing faster and more erratic once he hears the soft and sweet mewls that escape your swollen lips. 
“G-gojo,” you whine, feeling hot as his hands travel across your chest, cupping your tits through your thin sweater as he continues to kiss down your neck, tugging some of the material down so that he could leave even more marks across your collarbone, “G-god, oh my god,” 
His pants tighten at your voice, his pupils dilate at the way you're pawing at him, pulling at him, needing him. 
“Satoru,” he says against your skin, “Not Gojo. Not you.” 
He’s delirious, he kisses you like you’re the air he’s been missing his entire life, and holds you to him as if you’re the only furnace in a land barren with snow. He needs you. 
Your fingers are lost in his hair, pulling and tugging, hearing the way his breathing stutters when you do so. 
One of your hands drops down to his chest, feeling at the skin that’s exposed from where his uniform was pulling up, and when your cold fingers make contact with the skin resting taunt on his stomach you swear you could hear him almost whine, his head momentarily dropping into the crook of your neck as he urges you to continue, holding your wrist tightly, pushing it up further. 
Your eyes find his, your breathing coming out in short spurts, and he seems so far gone, so transfixed with how you look under him, that the two of you fail to hear the footsteps that come near where the two of you were.
“Who’s there?” 
A voice calls out, and you see somebody behind him standing with a lantern. 
You push Gojo off of you, but he stays put, looking over his shoulder, shielding your body with his. 
“Oh, fuck off Taylor,” Gojo calls out, anger and irritation laced into his voice.
The boy's eyes widen when he realizes how it is, the blue and white Ravenclaw robes dashing away into the distance, the lantern long gone in a matter of seconds, but it’s no use. 
When Gojo looks down at you, you’ve been given too much time to come back to your senses. 
You push him away from you, and this time he moves.
You take a deep breath, not looking at him as you wipe at your spit-soaked lips, blinking rapidly as you try to make sense of what happened. 
He didn't say anything, but you could hear the quiet pants that escaped his lips, trying to catch some air. 
You open your mouth to say something but close it promptly, shaking your head in disbelief. 
You don’t think twice as you make your way back to the castle.
---
(part two)
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taglist (CLOSED): @satorusemepls, @mokonasenpaiposts, @kao-ri, @rinxgojo, @notsochillnerd, @astral-hydromancy, @holylonelyponyeatingmacaron, @tedbunny333, @13-09-01, @mynameislove1, @hyunsuks-beanie
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lady-djarin · 4 months ago
Text
on my radar
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joel miller x f!reader (one shot)
warnings/tags: edited very little so sorry! dual pov, jackson era dark!joel, SMUT (oral fem receiving, p in v), stalker behavior from mr miller, age gap (50s/20s), joel is kind of a creep but reader is kinda into it, murder off screen, cannon typical violence, men harassing women (a guy is gross with reader/unwanted touching etc) NO R*PE, possessive talk and nicknames (mine, love, my girl, good girl etc), reader can be lifted by mr big man joel but otherwise no really specific details about readers body other than the usual fem. 18+ minors be gone!,
word count: 5.8k
* 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆ 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
YOU
You almost dropped it twice, your gloved fingers slipped around the smooth metal of the gun as you fumbled to pull the trigger. The clicker was quickly stumbling toward you even on its one and a half limbs. You and your patrol partner got separated when a small swarm of the dead caught you both off guard in a densely wooded area . As you were trapped in a corner of a hunting shed by the crawling thing, you felt your heart rate begin to rise and the feeling of dread set in that this might be your last moment.
You saw the blood hit your gloves before you even heard the blade hack into its head. Then the body hit the floor.
You looked up to find your patrol partner standing there with a machete clutched in his hand. He was looming over you with a look very close to anger creasing his brows and his chest heaving in exhaustion. He grabbed the gun out of your hand and grabbed your arm to pull you away from the writhing body. He hacked the large blade into the neck to fully decapitate the head then stabbed into the ear to finally kill it.
“Do you even know how to use this thing?” His voice had an edge to it, like he was mad, or scared as he held up the gun in your face.
You looked at him with tears brimming your lash line, the cold was seeming to freeze them before they tried to fall down your cheek. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Have you ever been on patrol?” His eyes narrowed as they scanned your face, then your body.
“No.” Your mouth was so dry.
“Who sent you on patrol!? What the hell…,” he grumbled as he turned away. “I asked you a question.” He shot another nasty glare your way when you didn’t answer.
His statement kind of shocked you, not a lot of people are blunt like that.
“Uhm, I asked Tommy, I wanted to help.”
“Fucking Tommy, sticking me with a kid.”
“Hey I might be new to this but I'm not a kid,” you chased after him and that didn't help your defense.
“Jesus…,” he was grumbling again and marching away, toward where you hid the horses. The two of you set out on patrol a couple hours before, your first time outside the gates in Jackson. You had heard rumors about Joel, people said he was ‘rough around the edges but good people’. You had seen him around the community and wondered if he was someone you could get along with. He seemed like he was an outsider, kind of like you. When you learned you were partnered with him you figured it was going to be difficult, but this was a little much.
You were on your way through the state trying to get to where your dad lived in Sundance when you ran into some trouble near their camp and they took you in until you recovered. They stitched you up after they found a nasty gash on your ribs when you were discovered fighting off a pack of stalkers. After arriving at the Jackson community, you learned that Sundance was completely overrun. The sparse community there hunkered down in their homes after the outbreak but with the large swarms that came through the area, pretty much everyone fled and went their own ways. You could barely stand the thought that your dad was caught in the middle but he was strong, he could find his way out.
He had to.
So you remained in Jackson, becoming a part of the community, and everyone in the community had to help out somehow. You felt indebted to Tommy and the community for helping you and making you feel at home here after your recovery. That's why you wanted to go on patrol, you felt like you could help. Joel clearly didn't agree.
That last fucking thing he wanted to do was teach some rookie how to handle themselves on patrol. He was pissed and you could see it in the tense bunching of his shoulders as he rode on in front of you. You felt kind of bad for having Joel take care of you back there but he didn't have to be such an ass about it.
“Hey,” you rode up next to him. “Look I know I'm not who you wanted to be on patrol with but just give me a chance ok? I'm just trying to do a job here.”
He barely looked your way, he just kind of grunted before urging his horse over the final path into Jackson.
Alright then.
You didn't see those broad hunching shoulders for a couple days after, though he clearly had been talking about you. Tommy took you off patrol so Joel obviously made his concerns clear to his brother. When you did see him it was from across a room or passing in the street, but even in brief passes it felt like a tension was always present. His brows would bunch in the middle as he scanned you. It always felt like a judgment maybe, or some kind of disgust the way he would observe you. You quite honestly thought he hated you.
JOEL
You looked cute when you were mad, actually to Joel you always looked cute. Your cheeks were pink with the morning cold, your breath steamed in the air as you huffed through your nose. You were mad because he was ignoring you, and he was ignoring you because he was scared shitless when he came into that hunting hide and found you cornered by one of the dead. It scared the living shit out of him to think about how you were almost torn apart.
He doesn't remember the exact day that he started to care a little too much about you, it was a slow thing. It took over his life, watching you as you became integrated into the fabric of the town. The people of Jackson welcomed you and you welcomed them right back. People loved you and you got along with pretty much everyone. He started to notice you when he saw you and Ellie chatting about something girl related in the mess hall. He noticed how you seemed to genuinely invested in your conversation with Ellie, hanging on to her every word. Next thing he knows he's thinking about you every waking hour, and you haunt most of his dreams. It feels like you are a presence in his chest that he can't carve out and he has tried.
Joel had tried to occupy himself by relieving the tension himself, trying to dissolve the desire he had for you. It didn't work, of course, but he couldn't help himself.
He refused to actually make any kind of relationship with you, he felt like it would look inappropriate. He was a grumpy gray haired man and you were young and bright, he felt like he would be too rough for you anyway. He was a broken man, his hands were dirty with death and guilt and blood. He could see the innocence in your eyes, the way you smiled with your whole heart when talking to people, especially someone he cares for.
Maybe those were the moments he truly started to have real feelings for you, seeing the way you cared for Ellie. Everytime he would see you it made his heart skip a beat, it almost confused him at first, like his heart was waking up from a decades long nap. His chest hurt with how intensely he was starting to ache without you near, it only ever stopped when he saw you or felt you close or smelled your shampoo as you walked by. It was the same as everyone else as there was a lady in Jackson who made everyone soap but still when it lingered after you it smelled like heaven to Joel.
All that to say, Joel still felt like it was wrong to pursue you. You were and always will be the one that got away.
He needed to stay away.
YOU
It had been a couple weeks or so, maybe longer since you saw those grumpy brown eyes. You had started to miss him, as painful as it was to admit. Even though he was barely a colleague, definitely not a friend, you were missing the way… he was mean to you? No, that can’t be right. Why would you miss a man that is anything but nice around you?
Tommy had found you another job working at the local watering hole/dining hall, as the patrol thing clearly wasn’t going to work. He was walking you around the hall, introducing you to the people you would be working with when you heard a familiar voice.
“Hey Tommy, you here?”
“Yea Joel, in here.”
Shit.
“Oh hey Joel…” You wanted to keel over and die.
”H-hey.” He seemed… odd.
They chatted about something security related and you were introduced to the hall supervisor. As you talked on one end of the room, Joel and Tommy were on the other and it felt like neither of you could look away from the other. Your eyes kept finding each other, each time it felt longer and longer, like the world was falling away. It felt much different than the last time you spoke, like he might not actually hate you. It was an odd feeling, having his eyes on you, he was almost predatory.
Even as he looked over what felt like every couple seconds, he still had this pinched, angry look on his face.
But it was hard to look away. Joel was mesmerizing but you knew deep down he could never be interested the way you would want him to be. He was a grumpy older man that wanted nothing to do with the new young girl in town.
You didn’t see him for a while after that.
JOEL
Joel Miller was by no means a good man. A good man wouldn’t be watching you like this, following an unsuspecting woman around town. A good man wouldn’t watch you as you walked around the Jackson streets, minding your business, talking to your new found friends.
Ever since seeing you again at the dining hall he couldn’t rid his mind of you, as hard as he tried. He knew he would ruin you if you let him, if he even got one taste he would be addicted. Not like he wasn’t now, leering at you talking to patrons at your job. He felt dirty in a way, like he wasn’t allowed to look, not allowed to have the urge to bash in the head of any man who looks at you wrong. Like the guy you were helping now, Mike, every time you turned away to get him what he asked for, he could see his slimy gaze caressing your curves.
He felt like he was going crazy, not being able to be near you like he truly wants. He wasn’t sleeping well, barely eating enough to keep him upright and almost missed patrol on more than one occasion. His mind was playing tricks on him, he would find you in dreams, wake up to find you cooking breakfast in his kitchen or walking hand in hand down the streets of Jackson. The cruel reality that he would never have that always hit him hard in the morning when the sunlight came streaming over his bedspread.
He often found himself turning over, searching for you.
Sometimes they were nightmares, visions of you being attacked by the dead or one of Jackson’s very own.
That’s why he was here, making sure you were safe from the dangers of this world. It was his job.
He was there until you got off work, gathering your belongings and heading out the door when Mike popped around the corner. Joel was immediately on high alert, watching the man’s every move as he advanced on an unsuspecting you. He stalked after the two of you, staying just out of sight. His blood boiled when he saw Mike call after you.
She’s mine, he thought.
He stayed across the street, just in case things went sideways. In case he put his hands on what didn’t belong to him.
“Hey! Saw ya leaving work, how was your night?” Ok, nice enough but Joel knew he was clearly waiting for you to leave work.
“It was ok, just tired and ready to go home.” You were being polite but clearly trying to convey that you were going home, alone. That’s my girl.
“I’d like to talk to ya though, ya know i’ve seen ya ‘round and think you’re real cute. Come on, please? One chance?” He’s persistent, that's for sure. Walking the line there, Mike.
“That’s sweet but I’m not really looking for anyone right now, I just got here a few months ago…” You kept walking and you kept your eye contact away from him, smart girl.
“If you give me a chance I’ll show ya I’m worth it. I promise baby.” You were not his baby.
“I’m not your baby, Mike. Please, I just want to go home.” You turned towards him now with determination in your tired eyes.
Mike clearly wasn’t hearing you, or just not caring because as you tried to turn away he grabbed your arm and pinned your back against a wall.
He’s dead.
YOU
I’m dead. This stupid asshole is going to kill me. Your mind was racing as you looked for ways out. Mike’s front was almost completely pushed against yours now as he trapped you against the brick wall. You could now smell the alcohol on his breath now that he was on top of you. You tried to break free, maybe he was drunk enough where you could shake him off. You could tell that wasn’t the case when he groaned in delight.
“Mhmm, keep doing that baby. I like feeling ya move that pretty body.” You wanted to puke, his greasy beard and sour breath was assaulting your space. You froze your body in an attempt to get him off you but he leaned in, trying to capture your lips. You whipped your head to the side and squeezed your eyes shut trying to block out whatever he might do next. Only, when you expected his lips or something on you, there was nothing. His entire weight was gone and you almost slumped to the floor in relief. When you opened your eyes, there was nothing, no one in sight, not even a sound. Mike was nowhere to be seen, nor was anyone else. If you weren’t so relieved that the creep was gone, you’d be freaked out. It felt like one of those eerie horror movies you watched before the word turned into one itself.
You weren’t really sure what else to do other than go home. You walked the quiet streets towards your small house and barricaded your door that night, just to be safe.
…..
“Have you heard?! I can’t believe it!” Angela’s voice shook you out of your tired daze. No matter how you tried to occupy your mind or sleep last night you couldn’t shake what Mike did to you. “It was Mike! That’s who it was that was found behind the dinner hall.”
Mike? Did you hear her right?
“Wait, Mike, like creepy Mike?”
“Yes!” Angela never learned how to not raise her voice.
Mike was dead. He was dead behind where you worked after he assaulted you. That seemed… convenient. Did that make you a bad person?
“They are calling everyone to the town hall for an announcement.” This was the only time they have done this in the short time you’ve been here.
Everyone walked over and filled the hall wall to wall. Tommy, Maria and a few other members in charge of running Jackson stood on the stage of the building that looked to once be a school auditorium, including Joel. Your eyes caught him up there as soon as you walked in, recognizing his brown curls anywhere. Tommy walked up to the top of the stage and everyone immediately quieted down, they clearly respected him.
“Hey ya’ll… Uh, unfortunately it's not good news that calls us together today.” He was clearly nervous. “One of our own is gone, Mike Walton. Now I know in this world losing someone happens more often than we would expect but this one is different. It happened in our walls and we think, committed by one of our own.”
Murder. He was killed. Fuck.
The crowd was starting to murmur and quietly panic. You felt responsible somehow, like you being the last one to see him, you think, meant… something. You had to tell them what happened last night, if only to make sure they know now instead of finding out some other way. So they know you're not hiding anything.
You stayed after the crowd cleared, listened to Tommy assure everyone that they are safe and he is putting security measures in place. You went up to the stage and caught Maria’s attention, you felt comfortable with her and maybe she would be more understanding. She really helped you assimilate when you recovered and felt kind of like a sister in a way.
“Hey sweetie, how ya doing?”
“I need… I need to tell you something.”
She took you to a more private area and you told her what happened the night before. She listened dutifully as you recounted your story and it really made it strangely better to talk about it. It was by no means easy to forget but knowing someone was listening helped. After you finished and she gave you a reassuring hug, she brought you back to Tommy… and Joel.
“Ok hon, I will need to tell Tommy about this, I’ll only include the necessary things.” You nodded knowing you could trust both of them with the news. “Joel, would you be able to walk her home? I don’t want to take any chances here.” Maria did say to you privately that she was going to treat this as if you were in danger in some way, in case this turned out to be about you.
He only nodded in your direction, extending his arm, signaling you to lead the way. You walked the streets, the silent tall man trailing behind you. You stopped so abruptly that Joel backed up in surprise.
“I don’t need you walking behind me like a bodyguard.”
“Where should I walk?” His voice dripped with something dark.
“W-well…I don’t know, next to me like a normal person?”
All he does is silently walk up to you and nod forward urging you on. You kept walking, feeling Joel’s arm brush up against yours and the tension was building before either of you said anything. You arrived at your building in silence and he walked you up the steps, more than you were expecting from the distant man. You paused as you opened the door and realized something, if Maria is right and someone is after you, they could be in your house.
“Y’ok?” His voice was low and rough.
“Uh… actually, no. Joel, would you be able to come in… and uh, check it out? Just to make sure, I don’t know…someone’s not— not in there?”
You swore his eyes softened at your nervous request, maybe he felt bad. He followed you inside and had you wait by the door as he surveyed the rest of the house. He came back within only a few minutes and you were relieved it was quiet in the house.
“You’re all good here darlin’,” he stood by the kitchen counter almost like he was avoiding leaving.
But you didn’t want him to leave.
JOEL
He knew no one would be in your house, there was no one after you. Except him. He saw Mike put his hands and other parts on you and something flipped in his brain. He went feral and had been looking for an opportunity to take this guy out. He was a menace to the community but Tommy said there was no legitimate reason. Usually he wanted a blatant offense to take action or even exile someone. Mike was sneaky, that was the problem, he was good at hiding his deplorable behavior towards women behind being friendly with most of the male Jackson population.
Joel was so sick of it, and he likes to pretend that’s why he was there that night, not that he couldn’t keep his eyes off you. For weeks now he had been everywhere you were, coincidence of course. He needed to make sure that you were safe, that someone would be there for you. Even if he couldn’t have you, he needed to watch over you. You had completely consumed his life, every waking and sleeping hour he had his mind on you.
The worst of it he thinks was a few weeks into his obsession, he found himself across the street from your house, crouched in the bushes like a maniac. He watched your silhouette as you turned about the room, picking things up, gathering our belongings and just generally going about your home life. It was so magical to him to see you living your life unencumbered by the burden of how cruel people can be. He had to make sure no one took that from you.
He was pulled from his thoughts by your sweet voice. “Joel? You ok?”
“Y-ya sorry, what did you say?”
“I asked if you wanted a drink.”
“Oh, uh- sure sweetheart.”
He watched you go over to a cabinet and pull out a dwindling bottle of something dark that made his mouth water. You had good taste.
That's my girl.
You slid over the glass with a small amount of whiskey and you each sipped it slowly.
“Thanks for walking me home, I really appreciate it.”
“No problem darlin’, but I'm sure you’re safe. No one’s gonna hurt ya.”
“Sure doesn’t feel that way.”
YOU
“I promise you, no one will ever…ever hurt you again.” The way Joel said it, it was like he had murder in his eyes. He was so intense that you believed him, like he would protect you. You felt a thrill pass down your spine from his gruff voice. He was always a rugged man with his height, his broad shoulders and intimidating dark eyes but now, he looked downright deadly.
For a minute you worried that Joel could be responsible— no he would never. Even if he did, could you really be upset at him making this community safer? Did that make you a bad person?
He was looking at you like prey he wanted to devour. It made your pulse race, it made your core throb. The tension had been growing since the walk back and it was evident to both of you. Joel circled the kitchen counter to come right in front of you. Both your glasses forgotten, he caged you in with his hands on the counter bracketing your hips. Without a word he brought a hand up to cup your cheek, his calloused skin caressed your skin much lighter than you were expecting. The only sound in the house was your heavy breathing as he stared down at you. You couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something off about Joel. Not necessarily bad but just something sharp and scary, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care as he slowly leaned down to hover his lips over yours, asking for more.
Even if Joel was a bad man, fuck it.
You leaned up slightly to meet his lips and all self control went out the window. His hands were all over you in a second, hips pressed into yours as he slipped his tongue into your mouth. Your head spun as he licked into you and nipped at your bottom lip causing a whimper to escape your lungs. It all became very frantic as he lifted you up onto the counter and bit and kissed his way down your neck. You knew there would be evidence of it the next morning and it kind of excited you to know you’d have Joel’s marks on you. His greedy hands were groping and squeezing every inch of you and you couldn’t get enough. With your own shaky hands you tried to unbutton his shirt but Joel stopped you.
“R’ya sure baby girl?” You swore you felt slick dripping down your inner thighs. “Jus’ gotta tell me and I’ll stop, ’k?”
All you could do was nod.
“I need words.”
“Y-yes,” you practically moaned.
“Good girl.” Fuck, his voice. Your hips rolled forward on the counter, trying to gain any friction. Your clit was pulsing with need and both of you were getting impatient. “Thank god, otherwise I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.” He mumbled it almost to himself.
You gasped as he pulled off the counter and led you up the stairs in silence. Any other person would think he was angry but you knew, he was anything but. He led you to your bedroom and it briefly dawned on you that he was leading you there, he knew where your bedroom was. There was always something intense about Joel, you knew that from the start, it's one of the reasons you were drawn to him. But due to recent events you were starting to question just how depraved he might be. You hated to assume anything but you somehow knew deep down that he was the one who… saved you from Mike. That’s what it was, he saved you from being killed, or worse.
Once in your bedroom Joel turned and pushed you against the wall, attaching his lips to your neck.
He hummed deep in his throat, almost a moan. “Mhmm, darlin’ you are so sweet. Y’smell so good.” He was mumbling into your throat, half kissing, half biting. You were each pulling clothes off the other, desperate to feel skin. When Joel had you completely bare for him, you tried to cover yourself, mostly out of habit.
“You… you are perfect baby.” His eyes dark with desire as he pulled your hands up his mouth and kissed your knuckles. “Don’t cover up, I wanna see ya.” He pulled your hands away as he backed you up to the bed and gently pushed you back onto the soft quilt. You stared up at him, taking in his form, he was still in his jeans but bare from the waist up. You admired his graying hair that led below his belt, mouth watering at the bulge underneath. Before you could reach for his belt, he looped his strong arms under your knees and pulled your butt toward the end of the bed. With cracking knees he knelt in front of the bed and his face became level with your dripping core. His eyes were locked on you, his lips almost matching the way you drooled between your legs.
“Joel—,” you were unable to form words, the breath perpetually caught in your throat.
“Shhh, I know hon, I gotcha,” his voice was lower than you ever heard it, something dangerous simmering below the surface.
“Joel, wait—,” he moved up your body at your request. “I just… I’m confused,” you were shaking and out of breath but you needed to ask him. “I thought you didn’t like me… it’s just every time we would see each other you seemed to avoid me at all costs and now…”
“The only reason I was acting like that was because I liked you… too much.” His eyes hovered directly over yours, deep pools of obsidian overtaken with the desire. “I thought I was protecting you, from myself. But I… I,” he almost seemed nervous in a way, but there was still the underlying grumble of anger in his chest.
“What?”
“I see now that I have to protect you from everyone else.” He said it with such a darkness settled over his face, and it took you a minute to register what he was admitting.
He killed Mike. Holy shit.
Your whole body froze and you felt your eyes widen and breath pick up. But you also had this deep feeling in your gut, was that arousal? Were you attracted to this? That dropping feeling in your stomach told you that you were. Jesus, did that make you a bad person? Fuck it.
You grasped your fingers through his hair, pulling him down to you as you attached your lips to his.
JOEL
You were a vision, puffy lips wet from kissing, eyes blown wide as your chest heaved. “You protected me?”
Oh, fuck me.
“Of course baby girl,” he needed you to know this was all for you. He was yours and you were his. “No one will take you from me.”
He worked his way down your body, kissing and nipping his way to your center again. He spread your legs and stared into your dripping folds as he got onto his knees again. You whimpered and moaned his name and he relished the sounds, he loved hearing and seeing you react to his touch. He wanted nothing more than to hear you scream his name.
“I wanna feel ya’ cum on my tongue darlin’,” he loved the way your pussy drooled for him. Joel felt like a man starved, like he was finally seeing water after a year in the desert. He licked a broad stripe up your folds then sealing his lips around your clit and sucking. You screamed and he felt your thighs wrap around his head only spurring him on further. He pulled your legs in front of him and pushed to the mattress, opening you up further for his enjoyment. When he worked two fingers into you, he knew you were close based on your shaking and whimpering.
“I-I’m so close baby,” you sounded so cute, so desperate. “I need— please Joel.”
He wanted you to fall apart, speeding up his movements he knew it wouldn’t be long now. He curled his fingers while lapping at your clit, he felt your walls flutter and tighten around his fingers.
“Cum for me angel.”
You broke. Joel’s fingers were covered in your juices and you screamed his name as you came. He kept up his movements to prolong your pleasure, he reveled in the way your legs shook with overstimulation.
“Oh… my god,” you sighed as Joel crawled his way back up to your face, slotting himself between your legs.
YOU
He entered you slowly. You could feel every vein and edge of him and you were thankful he readied you with his fingers because Joel was not a small man. He started slow, presumably for your benefit, but soon his pace picked up and the crown of his dick was hitting a spot inside of you that made you see stars.
“Fuck— You feel so good,” he puncuate each word with with his hips, each time driving you up the bed. You grabbed onto his shoulders, trying to gain leverage but you were unable to do anything except take his brutal pace. He was past holding himself back now, you swore you felt him in places you never thought possible. You recognized somewhere in the back of your mind that letting the man who… murdered someone for you fuck you into your mattress might be a bad move. Too bad he was too good at it for you to care. You felt the coil of your orgasm tightening in your lower stomach as Joel leaned back, looming over you like a dark angel.
“I want you to touch yourself,” he pulled one of your hands towards your clit. “Cum for me baby.”
You pressed and circled your fingertips into the bundle of nerves, your pleasure just seconds from cresting. Joel must have felt it because he gripped your hips and pulled you into his lap, picking up his pace and punching into your g-spot.
“Oh fuck!— I’m gonna cum baby…plea—,” you couldn’t even get the rest of the word out as your orgasm crashed into you. You think you might have blacked out as your vision went blank for a moment and you think you heard yourself screaming. Joel kept up his pace and rode you through it all.
“Mmm that’s it, that’s my good girl…,” his voice was low and gravely in your ear when he leaned over, pushing almost all his weight on top of you while he chased his high.
“P-please Joel, cum inside m-me,” his harsh movements made it hard to talk, hard to breathe. You didn’t care though, you were desperate to feel him finish inside you.
“Inside you baby? Ngh, tha—that’s my good gi—,” he didn’t finish his sentence either as he almost collapsed on top of you. You wrapped your legs around his hips and held him there as he filled you up. He grunted and groaned in your ear as he came down, he pulled out slowly making sure you were comfortable and kissed his way down your neck and chest. “Stay here baby.” You laid there unable to move and watched his naked form as he found your bathroom with ease and came back with a warm washcloth. As he cleaned you, you recalled his words, ‘my good girl’. His.
“Joel?” He didn’t respond with words, only hummed at you to continue while he cleaned your inner thighs. “Did you mean it? I’m…,” you were hesitant to speak it, what if you were wrong? What if it was something he said in the heat of the moment. You felt the bed dip and he settled beside you, towel discarded.
“Use your words honey, what’s on your mind?” He moved a bit of hair out of your face and waited patiently for you to continue.
“I’m yours? Not just tonight.” You met his gaze with timid eyes.
“Yes, of course. Y’have been since I first saw you.” He kissed you deep, lips prying yours apart. “I protected you, remember? I wasn’t gonna let anyone hurt you, especially not him.”
He looked at you with nothing but truth in his eyes. He really did kill Mike, holy shit. He did it for you. In this world maybe you could rest easier knowing you had someone to protect you like that. Joel may be a scary man, but you had nothing to fear for yourself with him around. You slept that night more soundly than you had in ten years. wrapped in the strong arms of a man who chased your nightmares away.
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remember-the-fanfics · 10 months ago
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Gen-Z!Overlord!Reader
• Died at 18, been in hell for a few years.
• Came in after Alastor disappeared, just before Vaggie showed up.
• You were never one to follow what everyone else did. Killing, drugs, theft, or porn.
• Kept to yourself for a few months, getting use to being dead and in hell.
• Accidentally became an Overlord after you killed one in self defense.
"In my defense, she was like super creepy and an asshole. A big one."
• The souls were free but you kept your new territory nice so they didn't leave.
• You made jobs and kept the housing in better shape, only made deals to help souls.
• Gave them a job, house, and protection. You give them a limit of a few years of the deal and if they don't mind it, they can renew it.
"Well I don't want to force them to do something, its rude."
• In return, they keep your territory nice, clean, and less violent than most. Work the jobs you made and protect your little town.
• There's been occasions were you trade souls to other overlords, either the soul did something against them or just an asshole.
• The time on the contract would restart
• To every other overlord, you are a child with a knife and to much power.
• You demolished another overlord because they thought you were weak and tried to destroy you territory.
"You ass eatting bitch-"
• You let others fight for new open territory because you're fine with what you have.
• Panicked when you got invited to an Overlord meeting.
• Apparently you had enough power to be one, then you realized you actually were one.
• It was awkward to meet the most of the overlords. Not knowing who you were to begin with.
"This is for overlords only."
"Oh, I'm (Y/n). I got invited."
• Chatted with Rosie before and after it.
• Camilla likes how you run your territory but you seem so young.
• Did apologized afterwards, introducing you to her daughters, apparently you were around the same age.
• Zestial wanted to know how you took over you territory, interested on how you did it.
• You've only meet Velvette because you need some clothes. She recognized you as the up and coming overlord.
• Throwing the clothes you had in your hands away, saying you need to be in the best lastest trend of clothes.
• You were now stuck having a fashion show as she decided what look good on you.
• While not enjoying all the clothes she had you try on, you kept being nice having conversation when she wasn't yelling at everyone else.
• Velvette learned that you were around the same age so she decided that you were acquainted enough to have her number.
• Apparently it wasn't optional for you.
• You brought back way to much clothes for one person, atleast now you have style.
• Chaotic neutral energy
• Charlie meet you after she heard that you improved a part of hell, wasn't expecting someone so young looking.
"Dying just after I turned 18 just means I look young forever."
• Laughing at your own dark humor.
"Ha...ha.
• Charlie did not find it as funny.
• Told you about the hotel idea and you were right on board.
• Thought it was a good way to stick it to the man and help people.
• Vaggie was surprised when Charlie brought back a child.
• More surprised that you're the Overlord that Charlie wanted to meet with.
• Definitely said Vaggie's name wrong for the first time reading it.
• Meeting Angel Dust after he decided to crash at the hotel.
• Not knowing what he was known for but definitely heard his name from someone.
"You're a kind of actor?"
"Of the sorts."
• After you heard what he was famous for.
"Well, he'll do him and I'll do me but never do each other."
• There was an awkward silence of confusion from everyone.
• Having to explain every reference you make.
• Vaggie made jar for everytime you make a dark joke.
• Charlie has asked you why you were in hell. You shrugged, never living a truly bad life but probably just too chaotic for heaven to handle.
• You leave every few days to check back in your little town to make sure everything was running smoothly.
• You know when something happens, feeling the souls you own in a panic.
• Having to let everyone remember why you were in charge a couple of times.
• Either with your words or actions.
• Luckily Rosie just adores your mannerisms and how you don't completely turn away from her with what or who she eats.
"You could say the food was to die for!"
• She finds your dark humor funny.
• So she keeps an eye out for you, sending letters to you every few days.
• You vist her every other week to just chat, she tells you about easy territories that you could get. You say you would rather show up some punks than have more responsibility with more souls.
• Offers food everytime, you say no thanks everytime.
• Rosie would tell you all the tea about the other overlords or her own town.
• Yay! You have an allie with an another overlord by being friends.
• Also with offering truly worse souls sometimes. On a rare occasion.
• Rosie knowing when you offer a soul to her, she would take her time with it. Enjoying every bite.
• Anyway- Sinners would come up to asking for deal when they are completely down on their luck.
• But whats following a couple of rules for free house and job.
• You give them enough warning before you would shake hands then saying you would know if they even thought of fucking your shit up.
• Putting an add for Charlie's hotel in your territory.
• Charlie almost hugged you to death after seeing it.
• When Alastor showed up, the two of you would have a intense staring contest.
• He wasn't expecting another overlord here, oh wait, you're new.
• Alastor not actually taking the hotel serious, pissed you off but he was more powerful.
• Charlie having to keep you and Vaggie from trying to fight him.
"I didn't know there was a new overlord! Charmed to meet you. Whose territory was up for grab?"
"She was a bitch-."
"I know who exactly you speak of, that's good. She never had any manners."
• Watching him summon Husk and Niffty and was shocked.
• Tried it and summoned one of your workers.
• Excited that it worked! Apologetic for interrupting their day.
"Ah ha! It worked! Oh shit it worked! Sorry!"
• You and Niffty vibe on a similar level. Charmingly violent.
• Vaggie has to make sure either of you give the other one a bad idea to do.
• Husk question your age when you went to the bar. Making you do the math.
"Well I died at 18, it's been a few years so old enough."
• Gave you a hard drink which you spit out after tasting.
• You decide hard alcohol wasn't for you.
• Knowing how technology was when you died making you the most technical advance Sinners in the hotel.
-
That's enough for now, just a thought I had when working.
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onmyyan · 6 months ago
Text
Ain't no sunshine
A/N: neglected reader x yandere batfam part one if y'all like this I'll continue it feedback always welcome 🤗 part 2
Your mother always spoke so fondly of your father, this certain warmth fell over her whenever you asked about him, as if he was the great love of her life, but even at your young age, you could also sense the heavy air of sadness around her whenever you brought him up.
As a child, your curiosity about the man seemed to be never-ending, it didn't help that your mom talked about him, about how you'd meet him someday. She inadvertently set you up, instilling you with this unfortunate expectation of him being just as excited to meet you as you were him.
Having the city's most famous bachelor as a father felt like some weird dirty secret. Seeing him on TV with his adopted kids- how happy they looked filled you with such a profound sense of longing, a feeling you were far too young to understand. TV was the only reason you could even put a face to a name, he was constantly in the news. Your childlike curiosity and fondness for the man soured with each view of him wrapped around some model or cutting some stupid ribbon where the crowd around him applauds every time he so much as shifts.
Your mother never badmouthed him despite the way he so clearly abandoned her, she had this fantasy where he'd come walking in the door declaring his undying love, over the years you learned to simply smile and nod, you knew it was a delusion.
She never allowed herself to move on, it was something you'd forever hold against the man. He'd ruined your mom in a way she was incapable of recovering from and that alone had Bruce on your bad side long before the unfortunate day you were dropped in his life.
The woman loved and raised you as best she could but a single mother forced to support herself through her pregnancy, could only do so much. In truth, you'd been forced to grow up long before you were dumped at Wayne's doorstep. Your sweet mother had been caught in the criminal underbelly of Gotham, something that seemed to happen to many good people in this town, she turned to unsavory means to provide for you and it caught up with her quickly.
She worked double shifts so most days you had to walk home alone, thankfully the local scumbags of your neighborhood had a soft spot for the woman and in turn, you. Despite how dangerous and crime-riddled your neighborhood was, you never felt afraid walking home, not until the day the firetrucks went screaming past you, something about them had your stomach sinking, your little feet pumping faster towards your home, you smelled the smoke before you saw it, and you'll never forget the sight, how dark it made the already grey Gotham skies, how horribly loud the sirens were, the way your neighbor picked you up, shielding your eyes as he pushes you into his chest. You can still remember the heat from the flames as they consumed your small home. You stood unmoving, unblinking as the roaring fire destroyed everything you'd ever known.
To make matters worse, Jim Gordon, the chief of police happened to be the cop on call, and because of that he inevitably noticed something in your eyes, something in your face so strikingly familiar, that despite this being your first meeting, he could feel in his gut he knew you. It bothers him so much that he follows his hunch and does a blood test the second they get you to the station, his theory is confirmed when your DNA comes back matching the Playboy of Gotham City
Jim tries to comfort you but he knows you'll never be the same after losing your mother. He takes you straight to Bruce's door hoping your Father could help soothe the unimaginable hurt you were going through.
Bruce had no idea how to deal with you. In his defense, you happened to come into his life broken, needing guidance and parental love, at the worst possible time, the same day you're plopped at his feet is the same there's a massive breakout at Arkham, the casualties are already in the fifties, not to mention how high that number would jump the longer he left his more worrisome foes out.
In this mess of emotional turmoil, the last thing Bruce needed was a kid plopped in his lap, but it's what he gets. He was seconds from suiting up when Jim dropped you off.
With some half-assed excuse, you don't even really register, Bruce ushers you inside by the wrist only to drop you off with Alfred, he bolts to the batmobile in an effort to not waste any more of his time, knowing he could be saving lives.
He swore to himself once he fixed this problem, he'd give you his full attention, after all, he knew exactly what you were feeling right now, all the confusion and guilt, the anger and despair, he knew he was the one to comfort you, who'd be able to give you the support you needed.
The thing is, problems in Gotham are never truly quite fixed, are they?
Alfred doesn't know anything about your situation other than that you were Bruce's daughter, he can tell you're traumatized by the glossy look in your big eyes, how you limply held his hand as he showed you to the kitchen, he treats you kindly, speaking softly and getting you settled in your too big room in your too big bed, it felt so bare, so empty, it made that hollow feeling in your chest deeper.
This is the first of many nights you cry yourself to sleep.
The next day Bruce officially introduces himself, sitting across from you at a large table, the distance feeling three miles long. You numbly eat, taking small bites, not truly hungry, but you didn't want to hurt the nice Butler's feelings after hearing he made every elegant dish before you. You're still quiet and don't look happy to be here but you respond when Bruce asks you questions, wanting to be cooperative, because, despite the hellish situation, you need a parent right now.
He can only offer you this brief moment of connection before he's called away, Batman's job was never truly over after all. He gives you a stiff pat on your shoulder before leaving, it's the most he's touched you since you've come here.
At that moment, swallowing how uncomfortable you were in your new situation, you stop him with a gentle tug to his arm, eyes teary and wet, your young mind needed the comfort of a trusted adult, needed someone to look at you with a warm smile and tell you it was all going to be okay, but you can't ask for it... The words dry and shrivel on your tongue, so instead you simply stare at him, eyes full of a mix of emotions, silently pleading for him to stay, to hold you, anything, other than walk away.
But he doesn't, what he does is give you that perfect T.V. smile, the one you grew up seeing him give at charity galas and somehow it felt warmer through the screen, he removes your hand gently, "I'm sorry (Y/n), I really have to go, if you need anything at all Alfred can help you out okay? I'll be home soon." The smile he sends you doesn't reach his eyes as he rushes to exit, this is the first time your father breaks your heart.
The second time he breaks it is when he introduces you to some of the rest of his family. Dick Grayson needed no introduction as his adoption into the Wayne family had been heavily televised, his face was the one you were most familiar with, despite this, it was still odd to meet someone you'd grown up watching on your old little television with envy in your (e/c) eyes, the feeling of otherness was only amplified as you walked into the manor's dining room on what looked like a sweet familial lunch, the dark-haired man opens his mouth to greet you but is cut off by Bruce's stern voice, "(Y/n),
The third time Bruce breaks your heart is when Damian arrives, he shows up a good year after you, by now your were closest to Alfred, you'd made a habit of texting Dick and Barbara updates on Bruce and the homes state, considering they didn't live at the manner like Tim, and only ever rarely received texts back from Barbara.
The moment you meet your younger brother you can sense the difference between the two of you instantly. He looks like Bruce, standing tall despite being shorter than you, he turned his nose up at you as Bruce introduces him. Dick is there too, which makes things worse because of the visible effort he's putting into Damian.
You do your best to try to befriend him at first, offering to show him around the large manner to which he scoffs. Like you've offended him with your question.
"As if I need a nobody like you to show me around my home." He never hid his feelings of disdain, often and frequently letting you know just how inferior to him he thought you were, granted at this point Damian thinks this about most people, but it still felt like a knife twisted in your gut each time he ruthlessly rejects you.
It doesn't help that Bruce seems so eager to spend time with him, how they're always together when you had to fight him to spare you five minutes, they bonded so fast, it made your insecurities bubble over each time they scurry off together in a rush, you once grew brave enough to ask them if you can join but the second the request leaves your lips, Bruce is shutting it down.
"I'm sorry, I have business at the office I need Damian for, next time." Bruce says as they leave, his smile just as empty as his promise, the smug look Damian gives you feels like gravel and dirt being smeared into your carved open flesh.
You try to talk to Dick whenever he comes around, one afternoon, the rain is so heavy in Gotham you decide to stay home, a small voice inside you cruelly reminds you it was also a cheap ploy for some kind of attention from Bruce, by the afternoon you figure the school has alerted him of your absence, deciding to face whatever consequences awaited you, you go downstairs, subconsciously keeping your footfall light, a nervous habit you picked up after Damian said you shook the whole house when you walked.
You overhear him talking with Dick in the kitchen when you tiptoe down the stairs, you were quiet, so quiet they don't hear you, "How's the case going?" There was always this audible warmth in Bruce's tone whenever he spoke to Dick, "Fine, I got a lead I'm pretty confident with, gonna-" He stops talking as you step on a creaky floorboard. "My department is pretty confident that is." You round the steps with a small smile, but only Dick returns it.
"Hello, how've you been?" you'd ask earnestly, "Good thanks!" he'd say, but that would be it, the friendly man was never mean to you per se, he just had this terrible habit of forgetting you. You kept to yourself a lot, seeing you so rarely it felt hard not to forget when he had so much going on, not only in Bludhaven but Bruce had been calling him to Gotham more and more to help deal with Damian, he had his hands full, not to mention the sudden rise of crime in Gotham.
Barbara likes you, she really does, but being Oracle took up every moment of her free time, she was a focused woman and people in this town always needed her help. She had a room in the manner dedicated to her vigilante work, the villains were getting bolder and more frequent in their attacks and Bruce needed her help constantly. And it wasn't just him calling on her skills, everyone was constantly asking her for things because they knew she could get them, that's just how she was, everyone but you.
Whenever she was in the manner working, you were always the one to tell her dinner was done or remind her to drink water, and bring her coffee when she hadn't left her office all day, you were reaching out in a way that didn't overwhelm her, like you could see she was stressed, but she was like a horse with blinders on.
Tim meets you while he's still neck deep in his search for revenge against captain boomerang, which unfortunately means he's short-tempered and stuck in a permanent work mode, he's cross with his close family, so it's no surprise he's even quicker to anger with you, you're intentions are as pure as can be, you see him awake late into the night, his bedroom door open, and say genuinely, "It's so late Tim, maybe you should try to get some sleep-"
"Maybe you shouldn't stick your nose where it doesn't belong?" He snaps back without so much as looking away from his screen, he was already on edge, defensive as Bruce had been nagging him all day not to overwork himself, he says this with pure venom, so much irritation and malice it makes your bottom lip wobble, he doesn't see the way you flinch at his anger, the way you sink into yourself.
It seemed like each time you tried to reach out to them, to bridge the obvious gap between you, it just made things worse. His comment hit you like a bus, only furthering the nasty idea that had been gnawing at you since you'd arrived, you didn't belong here.
You didn't belong with them.
When you meet Jason, it's about a year and a half into your stay, you were in the same uncomfy position in terms of your closeness with the Family, or rather lack thereof, and the day you meet, things are bright for the first time since you've moved in. You're in the kitchen making yourself lunch when he stealthily climbs in through the window, this scares the shit out of you, having never met him before, you brandish your peanut butter-covered butter knife towards him, "Woah! Easy there, I used to live here I swear." Jason says clearly amused by your fierce stance, he smiles at you with a warmth you'd grown unfamiliar with, "Shit- sorry I thought you were a burglar or something." You say laughing off your nervousness, dropping the knife in the sink as he leans against the counter.
"And if I was..you planned on buttering me to death?" He teases, you feel yourself snort before you can stop it, "Maybe, consider yourself lucky we never have to find out." This makes Jason chuckle under his breath, it still felt extremely weird for him to be back here, just recently becoming cordial with Bruce, but he enjoyed your company. nonetheless.
"You're (Y/n) right? Bruce's newest kid?" He notices the way your smile falls, how you turn to finish making your lunch, the mere mention of his name seems to deflate your once bright aura. "That's me." You seem to say this with a heaviness that doesn't belong on someone so young, "Who are you?" He scoffs lightly at your question, before leaning over, swiping half of your sandwich with a playful grin, "Wow, they didn't tell you about me? Figures, whatever, I'm Jason." He shakes your hand, and for the first time in years you feel good like you weren't on the edge of fucking something up, but then Jason's watch beeps and he leaves. He gently ruffles your hair, "Good to meet you kid, see you around yeah?"
Jason was like the sunshine breaking through the clouds of your new life, but eventually, his own life gets busier and busier, his monthly visits turn into a short call every once, and not long after, even that stops, he's busy ripping Gotham criminals to pieces, consumed by his rage. He just assumes you're fine, that everything is okay, after all, you never complained about it.
You know something is going on with them, their hushed conversations and seemingly never-ending parade of bruises and mysterious cuts start to add up, the way they disappeared at night, but it's only on your fifteenth birthday that you finally figure out what they'd been hiding. Bruce and Damian suddenly rushed away from your birthday dinner, you turn on the news as Alfred boxes up the mostly untouched food, watching you blow out your candles with a sad smile., Bruce and Damian's portions go cold and untouched.
Batman and Robin arrive on the scene just a few minutes after your father and your younger brother dash away. it's only then do you really notice how similar the dynamic duo looks to your two family members.
This is the final straw, when you realize what they've been hiding under your nose this whole time is.. infuriating to say the least, all of a sudden the isolation and otherness makes sense, of course they excluded you, you weren't a member of their little club. This night is the last you spend yearning for them, the bitter, festering anger that had been building over the years only intensifies as you stew in your rage.
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