#adultery mention cw

[kiigan]

«Oh, how thoughtful!»

ㅤSnickering, Itachi played along and let it pass for his guard taking the care to ensure the cupcake was not poisoned, rather than it being obviously the fact that Leigh was powerless in face of such tasty treats. Not that he could/would blame him. The prince tended to eat like a bird and to never have much of an appetite, due to the nature of his chronic illness and then the strong meds on top that often left him feeling nauseated, but sweets and candy were the one thing he'd always make an exception for. Now the problem was, where to start when everything looked so tempting? Following Leigh's example, he opted to grab a cupcake as well.

ㅤNo sooner than he'd placed a small bite on it, though, so used to mind his manners even when not being monitored, the bottle was offered and that made Itachi blink in confusion for a moment. What about the glass, he almost asked, before realization kicked in. There was no glass, of course, which made sense in the situation. It also meant he would have to drink straight from the bottle, which... was not something he was used to, at all. Placing the cupcake down for the time being, he took the bottle with both hands and then brought the opening to his lips, managing to take a very awkward sip, but hey. Then another and a third one, before handing the bottle back. The flavor was fruity and quite intense, causing him to grimace a little, but it was far from awful. And it left an explosion of warmth on his tongue and then down his throat, going to pool up in his belly.

ㅤ«I lack the vocabulary to properly compliment it,» he said, a gentle laugh falling from his lips and clearly still dealing with the aftermath of the strong wine, «but it is indeed worthy of my father.» A polite way to say intense, fiery, and with a great potential to provoke a headache. Laughter that grew in volume a bit more, upon hearing such outrageous gossip. The duke and the countess, was it? Somehow, it did not surprise Itachi. At this point, he'd seen the man dangling from his arm at least seven different women that were not his own. How someone could be so shameless was beyond him. Soon to be disregarded, anyway, the moment Leigh mentioned that specific literary series.

ㅤ«I did not know you enjoy those books!» Maybe even a bit too much enthusiasm on his part, because it was so rare for Itachi to find someone with similar interests. For all their power and status, most ministers were ridiculously uncultured. «I've yet to reach the third book, however. Not much free time to read.» Before he could gush any further, though, something else caught the prince's attention. Something he'd missed before, basically because his eyesight was terrible without glasses, but that he could notice now that he was sitting so close to Leigh: the dark bags under his knight's eyes. «Are you feeling all right? You look quite tired.»

Leigh was waiting until he noticed the prince had come with a plate full of sweets which brought a playful chuckle to his lips as he only smiled at the smaller male once he took a seat. With no hesitation, he grabbed one of the cupcakes before taking a large bite into it. It was well known about the prince’s sweet tooth, but Leigh had one of his own that could rival his. Closing his eyes as he allowed the sweetness to kick in and his taste buds dancing with joy, he let out a satisfied moan before nodding his head. The bodyguard was enjoying the cupcake without saying anything about it not being real food, honestly at this point he did not even care. Everyone was human, even royal families such as the one he served. “It’s good, no poison, so I did my job. It’s safe for you to eat.” The male was smirking now that his teeth were blue from the frosting, which was fine with him as it only caused him to smile even wider. 

“But I saw a couple heading to the garden when I came out here, maybe say you were with them for the alibi.” Without any more time, he popped one the cork with ease to the wine and held it out for the prince to take a drink straight from the bottle. It was something that might have been against royal etiquette, but they needed to make sure this was a secret which meant no glasses or else it could easily be tracked. The male already had a plan on how to get rid of the diner plate so nothing could be traced back to them. Looking up at the night sky, he closed his eyes, allowing the cool night breeze to blow while they were both enjoying the moonlight. After a couple more moments, he helped himself to some more desserts on the dish while keeping an eye out on the prince.

Leigh knew he was a lightweight, but he was going to let him enjoy himself at least. “How’s the wine from your father’s own personal collection?” The taller male tilted his head as he was going to wait until the realization of how much trouble they would be in if they were caught. Now the bottle would have to be empty between the two of them and Itachi could not reject the alcohol as the king was very protective of his own collection which was for special occasions.

Leigh thought if they were entertaining the guests who were a duke and countess both married to different people, this would be a good excuse. The couple would be forced to have to go along with the lie as it gave them an alibi as well if someone went looking for either noblemen. “I think it was the duke and his secret lover, the countess that went towards the garden. Similar scene in that series, Court of Cloaks, in the third book.”

[histxries]

Lotte Visser - Headcanons

- Lotte tried to follow in her father's footsteps when she was a teenager and steal-she stole a pair of shoes from a shop. Her father made her go back, return the shoes, and pay the owner her wages from helping the tavern owner where her mother worked. He explained that he stole from those who did not miss it; the man Lotte took from would. He wanted better for her.

- Lotte tried to make her marriage work. She dutifully kept her husband company, ran the home, and laid with him. In a moment of rage, he slapped her for not ensuring his trousers were folded the way he'd always folded them. After that, she stopped trying.

-One of the house maids said that Lotte's husband was married before her, but his wife left in the night after a horrid fight. To save face, he quickly found another wife and told everyone he kicked his former wife out for cheating.

-Lotte does not enjoy much of anything at all, but when she feels the rare spark, it is for music and casual sex. Lotte has never felt love for anyone other than her parents.

[ssahotchnerr]

speculation - aaron hotchner x reader

aaron confides in you his suspicions haley is cheating on him.

cw: bau!reader, takes place in s3 timeline - before the divorce, angst, mentions of adultery and unfaithfulness, aaron's sad but not really showing it (naturally), light foreshadowing that someday aaron and reader get together <3 wc; 1.2k

aaron's hands gripped the steering wheel and his stare was pointed forward, the atmosphere heavy in the car. grey clouds had been rolling in all morning, and now the rain was just beginning to fall, a light sprinkle pattering on the windshield.

the two of you had just frequented a crime scene, departing after a rather tense situation - one of the investigators had nearly disrupted the crime scene in a lazy wake, and aaron had thoroughly allowed him to know his mistake.

while aaron was always stern, it was... different this time.

"hotch?"

at his name, you managed to pull him from of his thoughts - you could tell by the way his jaw moved, his grip on the wheel ever so lightly loosening.

aaron didn't respond though; figuring he wasn't too keen on sharing whatever was on his mind, you put your focus out the window, watching the rain begin to slowly collect on the road.

"haley's cheating."

your head turned towards him in an instant, a sickening dread beginning to pool in your stomach at the blunt confession. "what?"

"haley's cheating on me." he fought against the brokenness that dared to ache in his voice, remaining solid and firm in his words. he released a breath, as if saying it out loud made it real; the final confirmation he needed himself. "i may just be paranoid, creating something out of nothing. but things have been... strange."

"oh." your shoulders slumped, the back of your head hitting your headrest.

"strange enough it's been noticeable."

"what's been going on?"

"weird phone calls." he bit his lip as he gazed off to the side, as if he were recalling an instance internally, his hold tightening once again. "she's been more distant. uninterested. sometimes, when she comes home, she won't look me in the eye."

ouch. "i'm sorry."

it was rather surprising, in an odd way. to the naked eye, aaron was someone who was well put together; phenomenal at his job, a clear key-in for potential director of the bureau someday. from an outsider perspective, one could infer he lived a perfect life, and therefore had the perfect family to go along with it.

if he wasn't confiding in you, that's what you would've thought.

aaron didn't talk about his personal life - that's one thing you quickly learned upon your addition to the team, a month or two ago. you could recall what penelope had for breakfast, what books spencer had read in a day, what color underwear morgan had currently on.

anything about aaron, nothing.

whether it was because he was your boss, or because he wasn't an openly expressive person, you always went back to the guilty thought - has anyone at least ever asked?

while you all went out for drinks after a long day, aaron never usually attended. but he had a family at home, of course he would go home to them - that's where his priorities laid.

the constant secrecy surrounding him was the reason you've been so intrigued by him since day one - spending so much time with someone you knew nothing about.

and if you learned anything now, he wasn't going home to the home you had previously thought. it was barely a home, he was more so a guest. you were slowly beginning to understand more why he rarely smiled.

aaron hotchner was just as human as anyone else.

even now, he wasn’t showing much emotion. it was evident he was extremely hurt, and had all the emotions one could imagine. but would he distinctly let that on, letting his vulnerability show - no.

aaron opened his mouth to respond, slight hesitation before he spoke. he began to deflect, "but i could just-"

"no. listen to your intuition." you interrupted softly, grounded. "like you said, if you're taking notice, something's going on."

he nodded in agreement, the motion of his head strained. he did force out a chuckle, a terribly sad laugh. "part of me doesn't blame her-"

"don't say that. she's your wife."

"exactly." aaron sighed out, eyeing the wedding ring on his left hand. "there's something i could've done to prevent this. to keep her interested. to solidify i'm still here for her despite the long hours and schedule. instead i'm the husband and father who's never home. and it's difficult to be the husband i want with the possible betrayal."

"she's your wife." you repeated, solemnly. "so she should know you. you're the husband and father who stops at nothing to catch the criminals who walk amongst us. you're this job, and asking for understanding on that isn't wrong. regardless of what you say you're doing wrong, or have done wrong, it doesn't give haley the excuse to... do this."

you didn't want to say cheat. not for his sake - the depth of the word felt harsh and prominent in your chest.

"i appreciate you saying that." his eyes met yours briefly, the tone of his voice genuine. "but i messed up. i guess what they say about getting needs met elsewhere is true."

you quieted.

aaron also added after a moment, in an exasperated near-whisper. "and besides... i don't think she's known me in a while."

silence filled the car once more, and you let out an exhale. you felt for him, and his marriage. you couldn't imagine what it felt like, or how he felt: the person who you thought was your forever slipping through your fingers - like trying to catch smoke. it was there, you just couldn't grasp it.

you hoped you weren't overstepping boundaries with your next question. "does she know..."

"that i know?" aaron asked, and you nodded. he kept his stare forward, chewing on his bottom lip for a moment. "i believe so, yeah."

you waited for him to speak again, while he was confiding in you, you didn't want to pry - none of really this was your business. you at least hoped it was clear you were offering support within the silence.

and you must've, because he continued. "i feel sick to my stomach it could be happening in my house. in my bed. with our son in the next room over." he shook his head angrily with the last sentence, in disbelief as he clicked the windshield wipers on, the rain falling more heavily now. "i lie awake at night when we're gone, just thinking what's going on at the moment."

"i wouldn't do that." you offered quietly, although you knew that advice was nearly impossible to follow. "you will make yourself sick."

aaron vaguely shook his head again, defeated. "i don't know what else to do."

you weren't sure what to say, or exactly why he was telling you all this. again, you didn't know him well. and not only, in a way, he terrified you, in more ways than one. the only way you could describe it - when he looked at you, he really looked at you. you were terrified of what he could make you realize about yourself.

"so, what are you going to do?"

"i don't know."

[ellecdc]

it's not Christmas 'til somebody cries

Christmas Eve and the following morning with The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black family at 12 Grimmauld Place [honestly I'd been listening to this song and had a few scenes come to mind and I just thought it would be funny to see this in one of the families we all love to hate] -> 2.5k words

starring: Black Sister!reader, Sirius, & Regulus featuring: Grand-Père Pollux Black, Walburga & Orion Black, Uncle Alphard, Aunt Druella and Uncle Cygnus, Bellatrix & Rudolphus Lestrange, Andromeda & Ted Tonks, Narcissa & Lucius Malfoy, Nymphadora, Draco, & Matteo based off the song: It's Not Christmas Till Somebody Cries by Carly Rae Jepsen

CW: DRINKING, mentions of 'biological clocks', casual misogyny, parents guilting their children, [correctly] accusing your cousin of adultery, implied/suspected homophobia, talks about 'youth these days', modern AU, toxic/ridiculous Black family but reader and her brother's still do their best to deal with them.

Regulus rounded the corner to see you and Sirius waiting where the three of you had agreed to meet, seeing as none of you were willing to walk into your childhood home without back up.

He watched as you nodded your head towards Regulus, alerting Sirius to his arrival causing your older brother to deflate significantly in relief. 

“That is a filthy and disgusting habit.” Regulus spat, referring to Sirius’ cigarette which Regulus plucked straight from his brother’s mouth before taking a deep drag of it himself. 

Sirius scoffed and opened his mouth for what was no doubt going to be some clever quip or devastating blow at Regulus’ expense, but was saved the breath when you shoved something into Regulus’ chest.

“This is for you, Reg.” You offered in a bored tone.

“Thank you?” He replied as a question, stomping out Sirius’ pilfered smoke and taking the - seemingly full - flask from your grasp. 

“Didn’t feel like bringing your lovely husband with you?” Sirius taunted as he elbowed his younger brother in the side, earning him a derisive scoff. 

“Please. If I hadn’t already learned from Uncle Alphard, I’ve certainly learned from Andy.”

You and Sirius both offered sympathetic hums.

“Poor Ted.” You lamented.

“Tonks does it to himself at this point.” Sirius responded more flippantly. “Why does the bloke still come when he’s given nothing but shite?” 

“It’s important to offer a united front for the children.” You and Regulus chorused robotically. 

“Christ.” Sirius muttered as he pulled out a flask that matched the one you’d handed Regulus moments ago and took a swig from it. 

“Did you get the two of us matching flasks?” Regulus asked before turning to watch as you uncapped another identical flask and took your own swig. 

“I got the three of us matching flasks.” You answered breathlessly as you wiped your lips with the back of your hand. “You’ll want to keep that close, Reggie.”

“We’re playing a drinking game.” Sirius concluded as he flashed his eyebrows at him. “Happy Christmas.”

“Don’t speak so soon, Siri.” You chided quietly as you took the stairs up to the door of 12 Grimmauld Place. “You know it’s not Christmas ‘til somebody cries.”

And the three of you dared to step over the threshold as you entered your own personal nightmares before Christmas. 

“Well, look who finally decided to grace us with their presence.” Your mother drawled theatrically, alerting the rest of the already full house to your arrival. 

“Hello, mother.” You offered firmly, shooting her a look, albeit a softer one than Sirius currently adorned, both of you clearly trying to tell your mother to sod off in your own distinct ways. 

“We wondered if the three of you had perhaps gotten lost.” Your father added in way of a greeting as he all but breezed past the cluster of you in the entrance towards the study you knew he stashed his good liquor in. 

“One could only hope, father.” Sirius drawled, earning him an elbow in the side from you. 

“Sirius! Was that you, my boy?” Alphard called as he came to save the bunch of you from your parents. “And the twins, my loves; how are the lot of you?”

“We’re well, uncle Alphard. Thank you.” You replied easily, causing Sirius to scoff and narrow his eyes at you from the embrace he was currently sharing. 

“Speak for yourself, little sister. I’ve never been worse.” 

“Is that so?” Alphard laughed as he moved to give you and Regulus hugs of your own. “Why’s that? Are you finding yourselves a touch too sober?” The end of his question falling softer as he pulled a flask out from his breastpocket and shook it at you all invitingly.

The three of you smirked and pulled out your own in perfect timing, hearing Bellatrix screeching at one of the kitchen staff over something no doubt completely asinine and insignificant. 

“Bottoms up, children.” Alphard sing-songed before taking his own sip and floating further into the house. 

“The children were starting to think their aunt and uncles weren’t going to bother showing.” Lucius Malfoy drawled, smirking at the three of you predatorily as you all moved to the dining room to take your seats. 

“I’m sure little Draco was very upset that his mother’s disgraced cousins were 15 minutes late to Christmas eve dinner, Malfoy.” Sirius drawled sarcastically. “Maybe you should buy him another pony to make it up to him.”

“Sirius!” Your mother hissed at him.

“He started it!” 

“Real mature, brother.” Regulus muttered as he reached for one of the many bottles of wine lining the table and poured himself a very generous glass.

“The staff will be out to serve the wine, Regulus.” Walburga scolded.

“I’m more than capable of pouring my own wine, mother.” He responded, reaching over Sirius to pour you a glass as well as you held it out for him, causing your mother to screech your name too.

“Regulus is more than capable of pouring me a glass of wine, mother.” You repeated.

“No good, ungrateful children.” She hissed under her breath, standing from the head of the table with a dramatic flourish before storming into the kitchen where you could all hear her screeching at the staff about leaving her guests waiting unattended. 

“Does the staff crying count?” Regulus whispered under his breath; you and Sirius both offered him a nonchalant shrug of your shoulders before sneakily taking a swig from your flask, sharing a wink with Alphard from across the table who had, apparently, done the same. 

“What is the problem now, Andromeda?” Druella sighed as though her fully-grown middle child was unbearably troublesome.

“Mother, we've been married for years and I’ve reminded you again and again that Ted is vegan.” She hissed in response. Ted, for his part, looked very apologetic as he grimaced at the beautifully plated meal in front of him; the server hovering behind him with an expression nothing short of horror painting her features.

“So what is the issue?” Cygnus gruffed then, looking between the server, Ted, and Ted’s plate bemusedly. “You can still eat fish, yes?” 

“No.” Andromeda started, pinching the bridge of her nose as Ted shook his head and smiled appeasingly at the table. 

“It’s really alright.” He tried, reaching under the table to offer his wife an affectionate squeeze of her knee as he smiled gratefully at the server. “It looks wonderful, thank you.”

“That’s the problem with young folks these days.” Pollux offered rather unhelpfully. “Always making the rest of us cater to their needs.” 

“Grand-père,” Regulus started bemusedly, shooting you and Sirius a look, “that’s- we’re literally having a meal catered to us. The point of hiring a catering service is to be…catered to.”

Cygnus pished at his nephew as he picked up his own glass of wine that had since been poured on his behalf. “And the lot of you expect us to keep track of all these little things; such nonsense.” 

“I bet it wasn’t difficult to keep track of Lucy’s purple shampoo stocked in the guest bathroom for the one evening he’s going to be here.” Sirius muttered into his glass, causing you to snort a laugh that you quickly hid under a cough. 

“Something to say, Sirius?” Lucius asked darkly.

“I’ve truly never had a single thing to say to you ever, Malfoy.” Sirius responded simply.

“Enough unpleasantness.” Walburga called before Lucius could volley any insults Sirius’ way, clinking a fork against her glass to draw everyone’s attention to her. 

“Does she not know she’s the source of most of it?” Regulus whispered to you and Sirius, causing your mother to screech his name. 

“As I was saying,” Walburga continued, standing tall and proud and clearly reciting a script she’d no doubt fussed over for weeks that she meant almost zero percent of, “I’m very glad to have my home once again filled with all of those who mean the most to me.” 

“S’exactly what she said to me when I tried running away at 16.” Sirius whispered to Regulus quietly. 

“The holidays are a time of family, joy, and gratitude.”

“Not the words I’d use to describe tonight, but alright.” You added, earning you a smirk from your older brother as Regulus shook his head fondly at you. 

“And I am the luckiest woman on earth to get to spend it all with you.” Walburga concluded elegantly, earning her roaring applause from her father, her siblings, her husband, and two of her nieces and their husbands whilst the rest of you offered her a few short claps before picking up your forks and knives. 

“Matteo!” Bellatrix screeched in a tone not unlike your own mother dearest, craning her neck behind the other chairs to level her son with a glare. “Do not shove peas up your cousin’s nose!” 

“I wasn’t, mum!” Matteo assured her with a cheeky smile that was missing several teeth. With that, Draco shot a baby carrot from his left nostril as Nymphadora sneered at the two of them like she’d never seen anything more disgusting than the likes of her younger cousins. You’re quite sure you remember Andromeda sneering at Sirius and Regulus in a similar manner growing up. 

“Was a kids table really necessary?” Narcissa asked then as she turned her sights away from her son and back towards the ‘grown-up table’. “The three of them could have joined us here, no?”

“Hardly seems fair to poor Dora.” You agreed. “She’s nearly twice the age of the boys.”

“Yes well, if my children would grace me with grandchildren of my own, we wouldn’t need to argue about children’s tables, now would we?” Walburga huffed.

“Mother, you hardly like us as it is, why would you want more?” Sirius asked with a tired sigh. 

“It is not a mother’s job to like you, Sirius, it is to raise you. Did I not do that?” 

“Didn’t Creature do that?” Regulus asked you and Sirius.

“Mr. Beecher was a tutor.” Your mother corrected sternly. 

“Is that what you call Mr. Dobb’s, Cissa?” Sirius taunted his cousin from across the table, causing her to scowl at him and Walburga to hiss some vague threat at her eldest son.

“At least Narcissa graced her parents with a grandchild, boy.” Druella spat at her nephew before pointing a sickly sweet smile at her youngest daughter. 

“You might want to get to it, Y/N.” Lucius drawled, and Regulus watched as you landed a steely gaze on your cousin-in-law from across the table. “Your biological clock is ticking, you know.” 

“She may not know how to do it right, Lucius.” Rodolphus added, speaking about you as though you were no longer there. “A proper lady ought to be wed and with child at this point, no?”

“Oh please, Lestrange. As though you’re any better; we all know the child you’re raising is actually Riddle’s.” You spat, setting off a bomb at the immaculately decorated Christmas table. 

“How dare you!” Bellatrix screeched, standing from her seat as though readying to launch herself at you whilst Cygnus berated you for daring to speak of such unpleasantness in front of the children.

“I’m not sure if you remember, Uncle Cygnus, but the children have their own table; that’s sort of how this whole conversation started, yeah?” Regulus added, causing your uncle’s ire to be directed to him. 

“All I wanted was to spend one lovely evening with my dear family!” Your mother wailed as Rodolphus and Bellatrix continued spitting at each other in French, Narcissa cried over what had now become a terrible meal whilst Lucius consoled her, and the older generation argued over whose children were to blame for all of this. 

You shared a wry look with your brothers and Andromeda before Uncle Alphard toasted the four of you and Tonks - both of whom pulled out flasks of their own - as you all took swigs at the merriment that could only be found at 12 Grimmauld Place during the most wonderful time of the year. 

You and your brothers - the only adults save Alphard who dared to show up without significant others or children of your own - were forced to share a room. Fortunately for you, it was your childhood bedroom, which meant you got your old bed. Unfortunately for Regulus and Sirius, this meant that the two of them were forced to share a queen sized mattress on the floor.

It hadn’t been so bad, though, Regulus had to admit. That is until the sound of the bedroom door being flung open - nearly slamming into the brothers’ mattress - and two nine years olds screaming “Happy Christmas!”’s and “Santa came!”’s in their aunt and uncles’ faces startled you all awake. 

“Draco, you weigh a tonne.” You groaned as you tried to shove your towhead blond nephew off of your frame to no avail. “What are your parents feeding you?” 

“Broccoli.” Draco sneered as though it were a dirty word. 

“S’probably good then.” Sirius grumbled, trying to hide his face under the blankets though Matteo didn’t seem particularly inclined to allow his uncle such a luxury. “Sounds as though you deserve a mouthful of broccoli; right now, preferably.” 

That earned him “that’s rude!” being shrieked in a pitch that dogs in Wales probably heard. 

“Oi. Uncle Sirius?” Matteo asked; his bony little elbow digging painfully into Sirius’ side as Regulus shoved his nephew’s bony little knees from his side.

“What?” Sirius nearly sobbed. 

“Is Santa real? We tried to ask Dora but she wouldn’t tell us.” He asked then, causing Draco to nearly shake your entire bed frame from the force of his enthusiastic nodding.

“Yeah! Is Santa a lie?” 

Sirius finally pulled the blankets away from his face; his long hair terribly mussed from having been accosted by somehow sticky little hands (even though breakfast had yet to be served) and his subsequent sheltering under the covers, lines from the pillow case still etched into his cheek and sleep still crusting his eyes as he shared a downright devious look with his brother and sister.

“Sirius…” You started warningly.

“Don’t you dare.” Regulus added as sternly as he could muster. But Regulus could tell by the maniacal smile taking over his older brother's lips that it was too late.

“Well,” Sirius started, “you know what we always say…”

You let out a moan that sounded an awful lot like “oh dear god” as you covered your head with your pillow to shield yourself from the subsequent fall out. 

“...it’s not Christmas ‘til somebody cries.”

[merakiui]

[1] 𝔴𝔯𝔞𝔱𝔥.

yandere!twst x (female) reader cw: yandere, unhealthy behaviors/relationship, brief nsfw, non-con, restraints, mentions of murder and adultery, religious imagery, choking, violence masterlist // prologue // one (you are here) // two

You wake to fingers in your throat. Not on your throat, as one might assume in association with asphyxiation, but in your throat.

Fingers with pointed nails that burrow into your esophagus, scrabbling for a handhold as if whatever’s inside is trying to climb out through the only passage it knows.

It begins with a simmering itch, hardly noticeable, but then it’s insistently scratching, choking you from within. With a dying wheeze, you jerk up out of bed like a corpse reanimated. You can only claw desperately at your neck, helpless like a dove with clipped wings. Bent over the mattress and shuddering with every dry heave, you force your own fingers into your mouth in a futile attempt to pull whatever’s inside free from its fleshy confines.

In a shocking struggle, you manage to brush something coarse just before you remove your fingers, now slick with saliva. Much like the rain falling in a steady curtain outside the little window, the hellish sensations from within persist just as incessantly. You scrape at the back of your throat, your eyes wide with manic terror. Miraculously, you manage to grab hold of it—the wicked offender!

In one rough tug, the lodged object comes spilling out of your mouth in dark tendrils. It’s magical like a trick from a hat.

You pull lengths and lengths of soil-clumped human hair from your throat, choking all the while. It forms a sizable lump on the bed.

What is this madness? you think in a blind panic. Before you can even register the wetness on your cheeks, you’ve already coughed up enough hair to fashion into an elaborate coiffure.

And just when you think you might lose yourself in this never-ending torment, a brilliant flash illuminates the dark. Someone places a hand on your shoulder, and it ends all at once. The hair vanishes in a blink. With it, the creature attempting to crawl out of you is banished to a forgotten sliver of shadow. 

Hasty in your movements, you perform a perfunctory pat-down. Nothing is amiss. It’s as if the previous ephialtes and its accompanying fright never occurred.

Surely an omen birthed by foul temperaments, you reason, turning to face the person.

The person.

Reacting on instinct, you feel around for your dagger and, seizing it, drive it towards the trespasser. They catch your fist in both hands. Their palms are unnaturally soft.

“You need not be afraid.”

Now faced with their pure countenance, so full of white light, you discern traces of humanity in their figure. Four pairs of grey eyes blink back at you. The rest of their face is obscured in dazzling luminosity. Wings unfurl from behind, stretching wide enough to encapsulate you in a feathery embrace.

“Do my eyes deceive me? It cannot be, yet it is! Right before me—an angel!”

The divine being hums in acknowledgment. 

Overcome with a fierce shame, you lower your blade and scramble off of the bed to bow before them. “Forgive my barbarity, angel. I acted on an impulse driven by baseless fear. I implore clemency.”

“Lift your head so that I may look upon you and know of your honesty.”

You do as instructed. Your heart pounds ruthlessly inside your ribs, fueled with newfound anxiety. “I thought you to be an intruder,” you confess. “Of this I am earnest, but I shan’t resist should you seek to punish me.”

“My child, you are a lamb full of faults. Even so, you are deserving of forgiveness. That is why I have come.”

The angel lowers to sit on the edge of the straw mattress. They gesture to the space beside them.

“You’ve…come for me? Surely you jest. I have been condemned to isolation for a crime I am wrongly accused. I am an innocent prisoner, angel. You must know this.”

They extend a wing in sympathy. Soft feathers kiss your cheek, drying tears you hadn’t realized were there.

“Be at rest. You need not scramble.”

“Am I saved? Will you free me from these vile stone walls? Truly?”

Before you can beg for revenge against Father Flamme, you clamp your mouth shut and remind yourself to uphold a pious disposition. The angel’s wing shudders and withdraws to fold against their back. You watch a loose feather float to the floor. It’s rendered ash before it can come into contact with the grime.

“Indeed, child. Come.” They offer their hand next. “There’s no need to bow in reverence. I am aware of the veracity of your faith. Rather, I shall deliver a message on behalf of Him.”

“Him…” You flounder with wide eyes. “Oh! Oh, can it be true? Has He recognized my efforts? Have my prayers been answered? Am I saved—forgiven?”

The angel nods. You almost cry from the relief. All of your doubts… They are meaningless in the presence of God’s heavenly messengers.

“Take my hand, child, and I shall free you from that which entraps.”

Your hand twitches towards them, but then it halts.

Wordless, the angel gazes at you.

“Aah, so that is the net you intend to cast.”

You rise from your position on the floor and, slipping your rosary off, you drape it around the angel’s neck. Before they can question your behavior, you shove them onto the bed. They fall in a startled flurry of feathers. Guided by suspicion, you move to sit atop them. They lie flat on their back, watching you carefully. It’s in that single second that you see something new flash in those unassuming greys. Something malevolent. You grab hold of your dagger and yank at the rosary to bring them closer. The iron blade is poised at their chest.

It is a threat and a warning—a sincerity. You will not hesitate to spill unholy blood.

Such a shameless mask of blasphemy! 

“My child—”

Your knuckles ache from the tight enclosure your fist forms around the beaded chain. Again, you drag them towards you when they resist.

“You dress yourself in flesh and feather so that I may be blinded by purity, but beneath such flimsy pageantry is the odious effluvium of the Devil!”

“My dear child, I come peacefully.”

“How dissonant a nightingale sings when its mouth is filled with treacherous filth. Foul beast, your tripe is of no value to me.”

Their eyes darken, and suddenly they’re looking through you rather than at you. The dreamy lilt falls away, and with it comes a churlish snarl. 

“And what of you, Sister?”

“There is no angel in this world who would spare me a glance.” The tip of your dagger pokes through the faux angel’s robes, almost piercing silvery skin. “No angel, no matter how authentic, would dare embrace these sinful, blood-bespattered hands of mine.”

The creature remains silent, studying you with all four of its beady eyes.

“You cannot fool me, demon. Reveal yourself! I shall look upon your monstrous countenance when I drive this blade deep into your heart, and it will bring me impeccable satisfaction to have triumphed over your temptation!”

Gradually, the light dims enough so you may espy a mouth twitching into an impish grin. And then a cloud of thick smoke envelops you. It stinks of rot and death, of dank cellars, of mildew and monstrosity. You stumble away in an effort to escape its clutches, swatting through the haze before it can choke you with its filth.

In the midst of the shroud, a pair of pointed teeth wink back at you. Blood leaks into the creature’s irises, and every soft, saintly feature twists into something rough and hard. A sickly pallor spreads over his body, coated in sticky obsidian that drips like drool from a cursed mutt’s mouth. You squint through the fog, searching for the monster.

“So you’ve come to test my faith, have you?” you demand, clutching the handle of your dagger with unfaltering tenacity. “You’ll find your attempt is in vain, for I shall never accept anything from a demon!”

“Oh, I’ve come for more than that, Sister.”

Clawed hands part the smoke. It disperses in seconds, allowing you the opportunity to observe the fiend in his flesh. Twisted horns sprout from a head of crimson hair, curling into a crooked crown. A leathery, spade-tipped tail flicks to and fro. The creature’s clothes are queenly in design, albeit torn with time, stained black with execrable blot. A dark band encircles his throat, and when he tilts his head stringy tissue snaps in place to prevent his decapitated head from rolling.

You inhale sharply and catch a new scent on your nostrils. This devil, with his inky Medici collar, each pointed tip a dagger itself, smells distinctly of dead flowers.

Large, black wings shred through mottled skin, unfurling in a grand, demonic display. A mysterious liquid drips from the thorns lining his wings, landing in scalding plip-plops on the floor. He stands on blackened hooves, not nearly as tall and intimidating as you once imagined, but he’s still a grotesque effigy all the same. 

Gingerly, the demon plucks the rosary from his neck and casts it at your feet. Just before the wounds are healed, you make note that the holy object has left his skin singed.

“You intend to kill me?” he taunts, laughing. “With such a feeble blade? Hah! Why, that would hardly leave a blemish. Human tools are no match for me.”

Ink drools from the exquisite tattoo on his face, and he gathers some on his thumb to paint his lips in the ghastly smear. 

“I should expect nothing less from a wrathful Sister such as yourself. You’d sooner drive a blade through me than allow yourself to bask in the forgiveness of an angel, an imitation though it may be.”

To make such a brazen mockery of a divine being… Rotten devils do not possess a glimmer of shame!

“You talk freely, but your every promise has a heavy price. There is no forgiveness to be had from a foul creature like you.” You swipe your rosary from the floor and fasten it around your neck. “Begone, or I shall pray you away.”

“I should like to see that valiant effort. Alas, you’ll find it rather wasteful.” He strides your way, his hooves clicking an ominous rhythm against the stone. “I’ve come to collect you, my wrathful Sister. There is no negotiation to be had, nor a debate of what and who is right or wrong. This is a fate as final as death.”

“You talk of nothing but rubbish!” You stumble away, brandishing your blade with halfhearted courage. “You… You cannot take me.”

“And yet I already have,” he answers simply, smiling wickedly. His tail traces a path from your stomach to your breast, lingering just above your heart. “Did you not wonder who might dwell in your shadow? Who accompanied you in your madness at a time when you were most vindictive?”

Utter tripe! It cannot be true. He intends to lead me astray. 

He’s quick on his hooves, sidling up to you from behind. His hands settle upon your shoulders, inky claws drumming calm rhythms. “I’ve watched over you, Sister. Longer than you could ever suspect. I know of your transgressions—every incident of wrath, each inscribed in permanence on your very soul. Which, as you might already know, is quite the potent delicacy for those of the same station as myself. So while I may don angelic trickery, you play a deception that has since become wholly unsuitable for your oh-so-virtuous character.”

“I’ve no inkling what you’re referring to. Not the slightest inkling!” you protest, shaking yourself free of his grasp. 

He chuckles and steps forward. His tail brushes your jaw, leaving a slick trail of sludge in its wake. In a furious shiver, you scrub at it, but it sullies your hands.

“It was you! You’re the fiend who has cursed me so. That trick—the hair. Your malevolence knows no bounds.”

His eyes crinkle in amusement. “I am the very sin you deny. The very sin you run from even though you once embraced me so tenderly.”

“You’re wrong… You’re wrong! I would never lower myself to your devious standards.”

“But you have, and you continue to flee, seeking shelter under a roof that cannot provide the solace you’re after. Not anymore.” He indicates the room—your prison cell—with a sweep of his tail. Moonflowers and roses curl around the bed, blooming beneath silver light. You can’t estimate when they may have appeared, but just as the light falls upon the demon you know it must have been his doing. “The flock you have vested so much trust in have abandoned you, left you for dead at the edge of the pasture, and just beyond beautiful safety is a world of wolves waiting to feast.”

Peace, you remind yourself, steeling your frazzled nerves. He provokes me intentionally. A weak heart is susceptible to minacious influences. I mustn’t succumb.

“Father Flamme would never do such a thing. This is merely a test of my abilities as a lady of the church.”

Alas, those words do not sound right in your mouth because Father Flamme has done such a thing, even though you’d rather not confront his lustful betrayal. 

The demon’s nose twitches, and his red eyes shimmer with irritation. “You wear on my patience, Sister. Denial and delusion are shrouds befitting fools, and you are no fool.”

“You are aware I would never content myself with the likes of you. Rather, it is you who is the fool for assuming I would accept you so blindly. My faith is sturdy as stone. You will never sway me.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“It is a fact.”

“Sister, you should know your confidence is pitiful and misplaced.” The demon lowers to sit proudly at the edge of the bed. He folds one leg over the other, and you watch the drip-drop of ink slip from his hoof. It puddles on the floor, burning through the grass now sprouting up through stone. “If not myself, the truth of tragedy will reveal all.”

Rigidly on your guard, you frown. “And that might be?”

“There is a beautiful woman lying slain and scattered amongst the hogs. A brutality of which your village has seldom seen. Might you know something?”

You hold his fiery stare with an unshakable determination. “I do. Everyone adores her.”

“Not everyone,” he corrects, his tail flicking from side to side, as if he’s entertained with this dissection of the obvious. “Not a certain Sister, perchance?”

“I’ve no association with her.”

“How skillfully you dance on the tip of a needle.”

“That is the truth. I’ve no association with a woman like her.”

“Not anymore, for she’s good and gone. The living can never visit the dead just as the dead can never return to the living.” The demon brings his fingertips together to illustrate his next point. “In the moments between life and death, those worlds nearly touch.”

“As they might on All Hallows’ Eve. An erroneous argument.”

“Ah, but this instance is far more tangible than that.” He waves his hand in the air and from nothing comes something—a fistful of darkened hair torn right from a scalp. He holds it up to the light and hums, turning it over just as slop drips from the clump. “Well, Sister, what say you?”

You click your tongue. “Surely you’ve plucked your humor right from the filthy recesses of the hog pen.”

“Then you must have been there before me, otherwise our penchant for such morbid mischief would not align so celestially.”

He tosses the dark cluster at your feet. You nudge it hesitantly, as if it may spring up at any moment. 

“What is it you want?”

His tail flicks in your direction.

“You cannot have me.”

“Your approval is not a requirement. If I must, I shall take you by force.”

“You are nothing but a foul, empty dream. Come morning, I will be rid of your presence.”

His clawed hands curl into tight fists, and he inhales a long breath. “But not my influence. Never my influence.”

With a swish of your habit skirt, you turn your back on him. “Your voice wears on my ears. Begone with you and take your tricks whence you came.”

“Deceitful Sister, you cannot rid yourself of me so easily.” A shadow slithers over to you. From the floor, he rises to meet you. “You’ve exhausted my patience, and thus I shall resolve to scrape the truth from the corners of your very heart!”

You jerk away from him, but a vine snaps forward to wrap around your ankle. You’re pulled onto the grassy stone floor by accompanying vines, each one lined with thorns. They pinch at your clothes, threatening to tear fine fabrics and render them rags. 

“Then I must say farewell to our cordial conversation now that you’ve shown your true colors, impatient devil.”

He smiles down at you, fanged teeth shimmering in the light, and his red eyes look small and beady like an insect’s. “I shall tear you apart just as you desire. Perhaps I should use your method if I wish for effective results? Then the hogs will know the taste of human twice more.”

You bark out a bitter laugh. Any attempt of struggle is met with resistance from the plants. They’re curled around you like botanical shackles, tightening their coils every time you squirm. A thorny rose rests upon your breast, beautiful beneath the moon and dangerous in the dark. You know better than to give in to its scarlet temptations.

“You want me to confess to my crime when it is quite clear it never could have escaped your omniscient eyes! If you’ve known all along, your plot has been ineffective from the start. So I’ll say it now and spare myself the vexation: I put that woman there—in a grave amongst the hogs—and I’d do it again should she somehow return for vengeance. I’d do it a hundred times over if I must! However much it will take to prune her blight from the flowers in my world!”

For a beat and then a few breaths, no words are exchanged. The both of you watch the other closely. You school your scowl into something serene and soften your once thunderous intonation.

“I am not afraid to admit my terrible transgression here. You should know I feel no such remorse for that wicked woman and her lies. That witch.”

The demon towers over you, a curious lilt to his stern voice. “Do you expect to remain free now that you’ve met me?”

“I can’t be certain of that, but I do know I will fight you until my last breath.”

“Ah, is that so?” His tail curls around the handle of the dagger and he dangles it above your face, just out of reach. You grit your teeth and struggle against the vines, but they hold firm in their entrapment of your limbs. “There’s still one detail you’ve forsaken. You’re not yet absolved of your rage. Rather, it’s still festering within your heart.”

“Open your mouth wider and perhaps I’ll be willing to hear your nonsense.”

The demon grits his teeth. “I’d rather not cast pearls at ungrateful swine.”

“How your warped perception honors me so!” You tilt your head in mockery. “If you must know, foul beast, the sins of a hollow-hearted husband are unforgivable. It is only because he is my father that he knows the blessing of another day. Know that I’d sooner cut him down with just the same amount of rage if these familial ties were not so entangling.”

The vine that had once snaked around your throat falls still, its pressure lessened only by way of the demon’s piqued curiosity.

“It burned a hole through me every waking moment I remained shackled to this forbidden truth. Is marriage not an oath—to be forever fond even in sickness? And yet he would rather leave my mother to rot in her chamber than keep to the promise seared onto his heart! So I thought there was no demise more fitting than the execution to which I condemned the witch he adored so ardently. My mother has always sought to provide for me. It is only fair that I return her goodwill and guard her heart when she is unable to.”

He looks at you differently now, as if learning this forbidden knowledge has somehow excited him. Perhaps, rather than that, it is the feeling of having been proven correct that incites a delicious thrill from deep within.

“It is as I assumed,” he says after a beat of silence. “Your loyalty is certainly meritorious. There is nothing sweeter than wrath-fueled obsession mired in the candied glaze of a woman’s choler.”

“I am guilty and irredeemable, but I am no fool. You tread lightly, demon. Is there something on my person that requires prudence, perchance?”

His lip curls in a soundless snarl. The vines slither away from the beaded chain wrapped around your neck. Bearing the Holy Cross, it’s been carved from the finest rosewood and blessed by Father Flamme himself. If there’s anything that can shield you from a devil’s sinful tyranny, it’s your rosary.

But then a thorn-studded vine reclaims possession of your neck, curling roughly in threat. You choke on your surprise.

How can it be?! Impossible!

Steadily, still minding the religious hindrance, his vines explore the clothed expanse of your restrained body. Your rosary has minimal effect. When he reaches to touch you, he pulls away with smoldering flesh. And then, turning to look you in the eyes, he laughs. It’s loud and victorious, shot through with a cold, crazed strain.

“I see!” he exclaims, lifting his hand to the moonlight to inspect the damage. The wound closes up slowly, skin stitching together with gooey strands of blot. You wrinkle your nose in disgust. “You’re not so invincible now. I may not be able to lay a finger on you myself, but my precious flora certainly can. Whether it withers, shrivels, or burns away, it matters not.”

You struggle around a retort. Peace. Be at peace. I mustn’t let my anger control my actions. If I’m unable to fight with my body, then I shall battle with verbosity.

“Oh, I imagine this is quite disheartening for you. To have placed so much faith in this pitiable pendant… There, there.” Petals brush your cheek in faux comfort, catching invisible tears.

The moonlight spills across his face and you see him for what he really is: a contemptible creature of impiety.

A shiver bolts up your spine. You are helpless beneath the beast, but you refuse to act so and give him the satisfaction.

“What do you aim to achieve with your trickery?” you ask, contorting your expression into a sneer. “My faith is much too sturdy to crumble at your influence.”

“Ah, but even the sturdiest of foundations can be eroded with time, Sister.”

“Then I suggest you return at a date in which such a feat is sensibly plausible.” Glaring up at him, mummified in thick vines, you add, “I’ll have long departed the earth by then, so perhaps you’ll find the answer to that assumption in the mouths of worms.”

“Enough!” he snaps, seething so much blot spews from fangs bared. “I’ll hear no more of your impertinence!”

Just then, the vine around your throat constricts. Thorns burrow into your flesh. A choking noise gurgles from the depths of your esophagus, and you thrash wildly on the floor, eyes bulging and mouth opening in a silent scream. The tendrils curled around your knees part them in impatience, and perhaps if he was of a pious temperament he might have fallen to his. More vines slide beneath your habit skirt, prodding relentlessly like weeds in a flowering garden.

Again, you find yourself questioning your god. If He is so benevolent—if He is meant to embrace, love, and protect all as they tell you in the church—why is it that you are prepped for slaughter, shut away in a slice of shadow where salvation can never hope to reach? 

Leering at you, the demon seems pleased with his gruesome handiwork. A demented smile sharpens on a countenance most cacodemonic. 

“How tranquil and still the world is when insolence and disobedience are extinguished. You cannot fight against me. Although it’s risible you think you can, foolish Sister.”

As if slicing through skin, the thorns tear at your pantalettes, inching dangerously close to a sacred space—a space you vowed to keep virginal with an oath of chastity. This gives way to a fresh form of terror—one that is reminiscent of lechery, wearing the face of Father Flamme.

The breath that would have stuck in your windpipe is snuffed by the demon’s thorny stems and vines, all stabbing at you and drawing blood. It stains porcelain moonflowers in cutthroat claret until they resemble the prettiest of roses.

“K-Kill me,” you cough out, “and then you—you shall—you’ll never—never—know an h-hour of serenity.”

“Oh, I shall do more than that.”

This, you know, is a promise that can only foretell the worst.

Death is fair in mortal acumen, but wrath is not. And the foulest sort of death is the kind that chews through you after you have been hollowed by hellish hands.

When there is nothing left for wrath to chew through, how can you expect to remain whole?

Bracing yourself, you recite prayer after prayer in your head. Your vision dims and with it comes the release of all manner of feelings: regrets and triumphs, moments of misfortune, the inconsolable, mulish notion of survival.

You meet the tyrant’s crimson stare and refuse to shed tears for him, readying yourself for defilement as one might a beheading. The act itself shall be swift and painful, but it’s the time in the aftermath that shall stretch onwards and leave you searching for safety in your own body. Perhaps it will take the arbitrary forever to find that peace.

There is a lapse in action that stuns parasitic invasion just before it can spread petals previously untouched.

From the very bottom of the tower, a faint shout resounds. Louder, then, as if echoing a certain authority. You strain to place a name to the familiar tone, but your heart recognizes it well enough. The demon ceases his assault at once, his pointed ears pricking as he listens. And then the vines slither away and he retreats into the shadows of a now-bare room, lit only by the rays of the rising sun. Air rushes into your lungs. You take in gulps of it, ever-grateful to have survived.

You lift yourself up from the frigid floor next. Your heart thumps in time with the distant toll of church bells. Shakily, you clutch your rosary and stagger towards the tiny window. As you watch the sun cut across the horizon, every stroke of light banishing last night’s evils, you wrap your arms around yourself and mumble your appreciation in relieved repetition.

All that is left of your encounter with the demon is your dagger stuck into a crack in the stone, its elongated shadow warped against the wall.

You point at nothing when you whirl to face your nonexistent foe.

“Begone with you, demon dross, and never return! Your perfidy is naught but worthless under the divine shadow of the Lord!”

It is Father Flamme you heard. Surely! Yet even as you await his appearance it becomes impossible to fathom. 

There are no visitations granted for a seven-day sentence.

[minniesmutt]

♱ ━━━━━━ 𝔇𝔢𝔰𝔦𝔯𝔢

♱ ━━━ 2023 HALLOWEEN SPECIAL

♱ ━━━ PAIRING: OT8 X READER ♱ ━━━ GENRE: FANTASY AU, VAMPIRE!SKZ, PRINCESS! READER, SMUT, ANGST, FLUFF ♱ ━━━ GENERAL CW: BITING, BLOOD, HARD DOM!SKZ, FREE USE (maybe), BONDAGE, PET NAMES, MENTIONS OF MISTREATMENT TOWARDS WOMEN (NOT FROM SKZ), CORRUPTION KINK ♱ ━━━SYNOPSIS: Far from the innocent princess of the king people thought she was. Ever loyal to her father, keeping the secrets of his adultery and anything else he did within the walls of the castle a secret. Essentially ruling the Kingdom already since he couldn’t keep it together. Until history and debt comes back to haunt him, offering yourself to save the bastard— maybe it was more of an escape for yourself? To give up control and act on desire alone

♱ ━━━ PROLOGUE

♱ ━━━ ONE

♱ ━━━ TWO

♱ ━━━ THREE

♱ ━━━ THREE . FIVE

♱ ━━━ FOUR

♱ ━━━ FIVE

♱ ━━━ SIX

♱ ━━━ SEVEN

♱ ━━━ EIGHT

♱ ━━━ NINE

♱ ━━━ TEN

♱ ━━━ ELEVEN

♱ ━━━ EPILOGUE

[sinistcrhood]

ㅤㅤㅤA part of her felt awful.

ㅤㅤㅤShe wasn't exactly a homewrecker, but did consider herself close enough to one at that point. Sometimes the guilt of sleeping with a man that wasn't truly hers kept her up at night. Only for it to quickly be forgotten once she saw any notification with his name pop up on her phone. Asking her how she was or inviting her out for yet another tryst together.

ㅤㅤㅤMuch like tonight.

ㅤㅤㅤBefore he'd welcomed her inside, she was doubting why she still came around. Telling herself it had nothing to do with how she truly felt about him and instead was purely based around good sex. Yet, she knew better than to actually believe that lie she tried to convince herself was true. He made her feel far too many complicated emotions for him to be a simple reoccurring fuck of hers. He was different from the rest and unfortunately, Scarlett knew it. Understood why his wife had tried locking him down so quickly. However, Scarlett figured she couldn't be all that sad about it. Even so, he still welcomed her into his hotel room. Into his arms, and into his bed.

ㅤㅤㅤStepping inside, Scarlett rid herself of her light jacket. Walking over to sit herself down on the foot of the bed. Lifting and folding one of her legs over the other as she turned to smile at Alejandro.

ㅤㅤㅤGod, she hated how easily he made her stomach turn with pleasant feelings. He didn't even have to try that hard to make her feel stupid and lovesick like some poor puppy.

ㅤㅤㅤDoing her best to play it off and act like the chilled out vixen she usually was, Scarlett tossed her hair over her shoulder with a lascivious grin. "Missing me already, handsome?"

Alejandro smiled at her as soon as he opened the door of the hotel room. As soon as he heard the knock, he knew it could only be her. Because she was the only one who knew about him having booked a room in this seedy hotel under a fake name and also the room number. He had to do all this because he had a wife whom he couldn't leave. Besides seeing her outside of his marriage was thrilling for him. He actually enjoyed being with her this way. The secrecy of what they were doing and the way they often found themselves in bed together was fun to him. In truth part of him had started to care for her. Maybe he had even started to fall in love with her. Whatever the case maybe he knew he enjoyed his time with her more than his wife.

Alejandro was addicted to her at this point. The male couldn't imagine himself with anyone other than her. She was everything he could have hoped for and more. Even now he was taking her beauty in before he invited her inside. "Come in. It's good to see you again. " He responded to her before biting his lower lip.

[pparacxosm]

something borrowed

(dearly beloved part 2: electric boogaloo ! ; tashi duncan x fem!childhood best friend!reader x patrick zweig ((x art donaldson?? a little?)); nonlinear narrative; playing fast and loose with tenses; where do i start; patrick and reader are their own trigger warning; tw pregnancy and childbirth; major major tw for talk of abortion; tw depression and antidepressant talk; cw breeding kink centric smut; more artashi wedding scenes; baby lily !! ; art donaldson #dadding out; grammy donaldson mentioned ! ; tw vomit again i’m so sorry lol; cw more menstrual talk; tw adultery but i mean come on; baby names; lasagna; we all have annie’s reblog to thank ((blame)) for this)

‘ JESUS: Judas—

JUDAS: You forgave Peter and bullshit Thomas—you knocked Paul of Tarsus off a horse—you raised Lazarus from the fuckin’ dead—but me? Me? Your “heart”? . . . What about me??!! What about me, Jesus?! Huh?! You just, you just—I made a mistake! And if that was wrong, then you should have told me! And if a broken heart wasn't sufficient reason to hang, THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME THAT, TOO!

JESUS: Don't you think . . . that if I knew that it would have changed your mind . . . that I would have?

Pause. ’

Stephen Adly Guirgis, ‘The Last Days of Judas Iscariot’

“Is it one of those ugly ones?”

You’re not special; you, too, hate hospitals. Not the least because your parents ralphed up all that cash for med school and you tanked like a castiron anchor. But there’s so much else to feel guilty for. You feel guilty for being alive while people are dying. You feel guilty for wanting to die while people are being born. You feel guilty, and nauseated, by this sickly visceral fume of birth and babyflesh, and the fact that you’re so upset.

You’d marked it on your calendar, is the thing.

March seventh, Doomsday, the purge, the end times.

Tashi Duncan’s Caesarean section.

Timely and clinical, fittingly so. You’d bought a little beanie for the occasion. The beanie is soft and grey and pink. It has a cartoon flower embroidered on the side of it.

But then this is the spawn of Art and Tashi Donaldson. The baby is inherently desperate, and eager, in that order.

It’s February twentyeighth.

It’s probably for the best, you think, while you and Art are on either side of the hospital bed, and he’s grasping Tashi’s hand more tightly than she is holding his, even though she is the one whose innards are being shat out. You don’t believe she could take another scar.

You grimace as she crowns. Art is sobbing and sniffing. He looks at Tashi like he’s getting to watch God populate the world with greenery. It makes your mouth tug sharply to one side, and you close your eyes, briefly, escaping the bright white light.

You watch the papery sheets go redder and redder with every gush from the cavity of her torso.

The baby is not rosy pink so much as she is carmine. Before this, as an idea, she’s existed mostly in black and white. Aminocentesis results on a MacBook screen. The sonogram on their coffee table. The concrete wall of your abject jealousy. The living colour of her, it shocks you more than her glass-shattering screech.

Art holds the baby first, of course, since Tashi is somewhat incapacitated. You soothingly caress her damp hairline.

“What was that like?” you whisper, wincing down at her.

Tashi sheds a few tears and manages a smile that’s part relief and all agony. “Remember…” she croaks, “Remember when Tre fuckin’… like, roundhouse kicked you up the crotch?”

You blink, quirking your brows. Then you snort in surprise, grinning. “Oh my God, yeah,” you giggle. “When Yas and Matteo got that trampoline.”

Tashi nods weakly, her desiccated mouth twitching at the memory, her eyes shivering gently closed.

The baby is tiny against Art’s body, cradled so carefully in his arms. He’s counting all her toes and fingers.

“Hey there,” he murmurs to her, like they’re the only two people on this earth Tashi made. Then he sinks down onto the stool by Tashi’s head, and holds this tiny, beautiful thing out toward her. “Say hi to momma,” he says, his voice soft as gauze.

Tashi reaches out. Her hands are trembling but all of her is trembling; both you and Art tried to get her on the epidural, but fuck if she’s not stubborn. She crooks the tip of her index finger into the fleecy receiving blanket, pulling it down just a little so she can see the baby’s entire pink face.

The baby opens just one bleary eye, only halfway, but it’s enough for her to see you, for you to feel yourself being seen.

Tashi sobs and Art sobs and you wonder, momentarily, if her obstetrician can reach up the cavity of your body, too, and tug out your heart.

So, of course you hate hospitals, and of course you feel guilty. For many reasons. Chief among them being how, the very moment your dear, gutted friend conks out, you’ve stolen to the hall to ring her ex. And he’s asking you, hopeful, if her fucking newborn is one of those ugly ones.

You sigh into the receiver, shaking your head all solemn. You’re sure any passersby think you’re delivering horrific news. “She’s beautiful,” you confess sadly.

“Fuck!” Patrick says forcefully, like he’s just stubbed his toe.

You can hear the hum of the highway on his end of the line, and he’s definitely a bad enough driver that he shouldn’t be calling you right now, because you don’t want to be back here at his bedside when he’s in a fullbody cast after a nearfatal accident—and you would come to visit, actually, if he were in the hospital; maybe that’d just be the guilt again—but this is pretty urgent.

You frown, tucking your hand under your armpit and managing a smile at a passing couple cautiously rolling their precious trolley to the NICU. “They named her Lily.”

Patrick scoffs. “Those fucking assholes.”

“Right?”

You appreciate his company in your deplorable sorrow. There’s a special corner in the firescape for the two of you, but at least it’ll be the two of you.

“That’s a beautiful name for a baby girl,” he says, practically insulted.

You sigh again. “I know,” you pout.

They’d planned the wedding, as they did all other things, a bona fide team. A well oiled unit. Art and Tashi. A&T. Handing off tasks with practiced efficiency, like another one of her hyperintensive drills, wherein he would sooner keel over heaving than drop the ball. The wedding planner was effectively ornamental once they really got into it.

And they really got into it.

Tashi was one of those little girls who stuffed a stream of toilet paper in her ponytail and pictured the vinyl flooring of her home’s warmly lit passage as a ceremonial aisle on the Amalfi Coast at sunset. Here comes the bride, aluminium foil wedding band, ramshackle wildflower bouquet picked from the backyard, et cetera.

Most times, she’d have you play groom.

But you don’t internalise that too much. Because she had you play a lot of things. And sometimes she’d have their senile Mastiff Mutt, Franklin, play groom, too. Really, the most important part was her having you at all.

And, apparently, as a little boy, Art used to page obsessively back and forth through the decrepit scrapbook of his grandparents’ Peoria union, the pictures frayed and hued dandelion. So it’s great that they found each other, and so many dreams were coming true, and everything was fine. Everything was better.

You’d been happy she was happy, really, you had. You hate big endeavours in your name. If she’d married you, you’d have made her elope to Puerto Rico.

And now she was all sprawled three-ring binders, pen behind each ear, Game Face On. And Art was there, talking place settings in full sincerity, so yeah. It’s fine. Better, even.

She let him intercalate all the mawkish, ubercorny bullshit—the Fleetwood Mac, the garter toss, the pictures of his grandmother at the centrepiece of every table. Because they were a team and it was his wedding as much as hers. And you’d told her, too. You’d told her that she’s going to have a mawkish, ubercorny bullshit wedding to a mawkish, ubercorny bullshit guy. But she’d waved you off with a dismissively sentimental smile. I just want to marry him, she’d told you, which had felt like a million and one serrated spurns all over.

A getaway car, really? you’d deadpanned. Then, leaning closer to her phonescreen, eyes narrowing at their shared twodozenpage Pinterest board, incredulous and disgusted, Are the cans really necessary?

Apparently so.

You were standing at the foreshore, toes all grainy, shoes in hand, pistachiorose and Patrick Zweig on your tongue, your ass still seadamp. Art and Tashi pulled up in front of you, cans rattling, like a justmarried Lyft order.

When you climbed into the backseat, they were in the middle of sharing in dulcet laughter over something or the other. Something that did not concern you. Which was fine, and better, and the flower arrangements were spectacular. And, anyway, you’re busy trying not to get sand on this vintage carpet.

“Shouldn’t you two be honeymooning?”

Art looked back at you, his arm outstretched, wrist resting on the bend of the wheel. He gave you this smile you couldn’t discern, which most of his smiles were, and are. He blew a raspberry from his rubicund mouth and tsked.

“What, without you?” he scoffed, wry but playful, and you realised that, though he teased, and wanted you to know as much, his goodnature was sincere.

And your fingers twitched to wrap his seatbelt—because he was wearing the seatbelt—around his rosy throat five or six or seven times and tug hard.

Tashi threw her head back and laughed into the humidity of the night, of their wedding night.

Tashi squirmed in the leather passengerseat of the ivorycoloured 1960 Ford Thunderbird convertible.

You were leaning over in between them from the back, straddling the armrest. And she watched Art turn his head and kiss you. His hand looked huge on the messy, delicate bone of your jaw. It felt cool and clammy, you remember. Tashi sucked in a breath. You two broke apart after a moment, laughing, your palm coming down on his forearm like he’d just made a joke.

“That,” you said, making a puerile face as he absently brushed a thumb over your cheek, “Was too far.”

Your eyes were still shining with tears.

Art nodded, grinning, slipping his hand from your face and running it through his sweaty shoresand hair. “Anything for you, baby, but maybe not that.”

Tashi was flushed and florid and tamping her thighs tighter together and she wanted you both to put your hands on her.

Her arm slunk across the centre console to press her palm into his chest. And she ran her nails along the tender skin of your inner arm. And Art looked back at you like he was asking for permission, which was the first time in a long time he’d done that. And probably the last time since. And you don’t know why you nodded, but you did.

He gave you another strange, cursory kiss on the corner of your mouth, then leaned across the centre console and nipped at Tashi’s earlobe. The whetted burst of pain sent a visible shiver through her bones. She bit her lip and sighed.

“Mrs Donaldson,” he’d murmured, all husky and low. His white buttonup was all sweatrumpled and unfurled. He looked handsome and disheveled like a fallen angel or those illustrations on the covers of erotic paperbacks.

You swallowed, overwhelmed by it all.

You pressed the seam of your lips to the skin where her neck met her shoulder and her lithe fingers encircled your wrist and guided it between her legs.

You and Art are friends—good friends, by now—but sometimes you feel more like business partners. Cofounders of Keeping Tashi Duncan Happy and Okay Inc.

So, when he cannot stomach all the vomit—so, so much fucking vomit—for all his earnest, anguished, tearful trying, he calls you. Because he and his hairtrigger loins can’t help her right now.

And you don’t tease, or berate, or say it should’ve been you.

And he doesn’t protest, or control freak, or remind you it wasn’t you, it was him.

He dips out to stock up on crackers and barley sugar sweets, and you stay with Tashi and stand sentry on emesis duty.

You hadn’t known that any one thing was capable of maiming her this way. Tashi Duncan, your impenetrable infanta. Fast to get up, faster, still, to dry her tears. But this baby is wringing her bone dry. She’s feeble, swollen, and practically debilitated.

You feel her spine shift as she shakes and heaves into the toilet. You hate her like this. At mercy to her bones.

You can’t help the archaic scorn. None of this, none of any of it, would’ve happened, had it been you. But it wasn’t.

You cradle Tashi’s feverish head in the bend of your knee. You thread your knuckles through her sweaty curls. You rub your fingers into her collar, tracing her bones where they have been swallowed by her plummy sallow skin. In college, you used to give each other lymphatic drainage massages.

You’re on Virginia Key Beach with T and her brothers, at the edge of the ocean. You’re, like, fourteen. Tevin’s mouth is a comically fluorescent shade of blue as he topes down a Slurpee. Tre hops over waves. Tre keeps saying the sharks will get you, they’ll smell it, blood in the water, blood in the water and Tevin keeps holding the Slurpee so high that the ultramarine of it obstructs the sun. And Tashi is yelling I’m not even on my fucking period! even though she is red and wet between her thighs, and give it to me, Tev, it’s mine, you took mine! as she reaches and reaches and reaches, unable to grasp what she wants.

There are some women unmoved by such trivialities as their own blood. Eightinch stilettos, eight months in. People will assume Tashi Duncan, pulchritude and powerhouse, to be one of these women.

But you’ll know better.

She’s so good at the tennis, ultimately, because she listens to her blood. She lets it move her. Lets it give her power. She is a mesmerising glass carafe of red.

But when it spills, it pours. When she breaks, she shatters.

Art Donaldson’s child writhes inside her, swills her blood. And you watch.

Patrick takes you home from the hospital. You were planning on sinking into the void of your couch while forking miserably into a whole tray of lasagna by yourself, but you feel bad. You feel guilty and lonely. So you invite him in.

You thunk your stoneware roaster on the granite of your peninsular countertop. He’s sat on a barstool and you’re standing across from him, and he wastes no time tucking in. You nudge at the broiled cheese with your fork.

You’re crying, which he doesn’t mind, but it’s a little distracting while he’s trying to eat, is all. He peers up at you, circumspect, as he chews.

You roll your eyes at him. “Please don’t make me cry alone,” you tell him.

He chews, swallows, licks some pasta from his gums. He rests the fork against the edge of the tray and dusts his hands off.

“I don’t cry,” he says, shrugging like it’s out of his hands. The corner of his mouth quirks up as you fix him with a sullen glare.

“I’ve seen you cry,” you say pointedly, dropping your own silverware.

He shrugs again. “Yeah,” he says, “One time. That was the only time I’ve ever cried. Ever.”

He has this way of saying things like he absolutely means them. This hamfisted sincerity, serrated deadpan. And, when you’re emotional like this, all husked and raw, it’s unfortunately an extremely effective way to make you laugh. His eyes gleam with victory as you duck your head and giggle wetly.

“You feel special?” he smirks.

You roll your eyes again, tears still trickling pools into the tender shadowed skin beneath your eyes. “I feel especially depressed,” you reply thickly.

He flits his eyes back and forth between the both of yours a few times. You’re reminded of the abject tedious torture of sitting through one of Art’s tennis games. “Are you really? Or are you just moping?” he asks you.

You reach into your pocket and pull out your little Effexor prescription vial, rattling it twice, and tossing it his way. It’s a sloppy underhand, but he catches it easily.

“Huh,” he muses, turning it between his fingertips. “That’s why you look so different? I thought you were just putting on sympathy weight.”

Your lips wobble, and your eyes burn and blur again, your throat swelling shut like fucking anaphylactic excoriation, and you catch your face with your hands and cry.

“Don’t be mean right now,” you blubber.

Patrick blinks, sobering with a smart, the humour seeping off his face and replacing itself with an almost comically disturbed frown.

“Okay, okay,” he says, his voice light with a culpable urgency reserved for a triggered, irate straitjacket patient. He reaches over the lasagna, the savoury brume warming his forearms, and he takes your wrists and peels your fingers from your eyes. “Hey, I’m sorry.”

You hiccup breathlessly. Your tears slithering down your cheeks in rills.

“I’m sorry,” says Patrick. He presses his thumbs into your pulsepoints, like he can quash your distress through your radial arteries. “You look hot, okay? Really, you do.”

For his part, he seems genuinely contrite, and utterly concerned, and he probably means it. He is rarely insincere, even when his tongue is in his cheek. But your sulky inner voice says he’s bargaining. How about I quit being an ass and you stop with the ugly crying and I can finish this pasta and hotfoot it out of here? But this is your house. And your pasta. And you think you should get to mourn his exgirlfriend’s womb, if you so choose.

You sob harder, shoulders quavering. His brows raise in quiet alarm when you wrest your arms from his fingers.

You snuffle and swallow. “Please stop,” you moan sadly.

Somewhere between the cake cutting—which walked that revolting, quintessentially Art and Tashi line between sweet and sexy; she daubed some frosting on his nose, he licked it off her finger—and your purloining of a slice or two for your and Patrick’s beachside bitchsesh, the speakers are thumping with ‘I Wanna Be Your Lover’.

Everyone is wasted.

You don’t even mean to, but one of Art’s cousins, who is clearly eking out his fraternity days that have long since started mouldering, keeps ordering you shots from the open bar. And you keep downing them, one after the other. He’s wearing a practically lurid red polo that really errs on the ‘optional’ side of Black Tie Optional, but he has a really charming smile, the light glistering off the white of his teeth as you dance.

And—fuck it—he’s hot. And he’s looking at you like he wants to kiss you in the middle of this dance floor, grinding against you like you’re teenagers at a CYO dance.

The lights are scintillating technicolour and the music is so loud you can feel it in your rib cage and it doesn’t take long for the room to start spinning like the world’s trippiest ferris wheel.

Cody—or Connor, maybe—goes to the bathroom to piss, and you track down the newlyweds on the other side of the room. Tashi’s beautiful eyes, already aglow, light up even more when she sees you.

“Hi, baby!” She kind of has to yell over the music. God, it’s been a while since you’ve seen her let loose like this. Either of them, really. They’re having a great fucking time. The Happy Couple. It makes you feel sick. “You good?”

“I’m fucked up,” you smile blearily, because all of a sudden the room’s spinning has increased in velocity.

You fight the urge to grab for her hand for some fleeting sense of stability. Because, if you do, you’ll tackle her to the ground and kiss her until someone hauls you off.

And her husband’s right there.

“Me too,” says said husband. He is flushed in the face, grinning elatedly, his eyes drunkenly disfocused, Tashi’s glossy, nudepink lip-print on his cheek.

Tashi, as ever, seems appreciably more put-together than Art looks and you feel. All silken and nitid. Art’s holding her with the desperate adoration of someone who knows, in the far far end of his bevvied mind, what you’re thinking right now. You narrow your eyes at him. Then,

“Do you wanna dance?” you ask on a whim.

“Sure,” Art shrugs, a sloppy smile curving on his lips. And by now Tashi’s turned to exchange polite smalltalk with some or other extended family member, so he impishly adds, “Let me ask the missus.”

He and Tashi have a short conversation that you can’t quite hear, and then she’s pulling you in by the wrist to whisper in your ear,

“Don’t let him drink anymore, okay?”

She pecks a kiss onto your cheek before you have time to question this rule, but you know her well enough to know she’s also surreptitiously telling you to slow down. You spitefully nab another shot on your and Art’s way to the dance floor.

Art’s a good dancer. You would certainly not have pegged him as one, if asked. But when he’s twisting and moving his feet and putting his hands on your waist in a halfway facetious impression of a slow dance, you realise it’s true.

“Congratulations, by the way,” you shout when you get close enough to his ear. “Happy for you.”

He winces at your volume, raising his fingers to his ear and laughing and looking at you and shaking his head. “No you’re not.”

Patrick watches you sob for a few more moments before smacking his hand against the counter.

“Let’s make one,” he says, declaratively.

You snivel and sweep some tears away, looking up at him. “What?”

“Let’s make one,” he repeats, more urgently now, “If we make one right now, it’ll show up before the end of the year, and we can still weaponise it. Come on.”

He’s sliding off the stool and reaching across the counter to grab your hand and tow you out of the kitchen.

“Patrick,” you whine in demurral, stumbling after him.

But he pulls you along even harder, making a decisive path toward the hallway. “Come on!” he insists, “I’m serious.”

“You’re broke.”

Which is true. He’s been snipped off from the trust fund, which you’d thought was purely the stuff of Murdochian nightmares. But he whipped out his Chase Mobile app and showed you the negative balance to prove it. He’d rather bum it out than suit up and schmooze. So he’s not spoiled for funds right now, nor is he spoiled for wins, and you aren’t equipped with great confidence in a potential future as his baby mama.

“They’re pissed, they’re not cruel,” he tells you, effectively shoving you into your room and kicking off his shoes. “I’ll be back on the payroll with a kid on the docket, I promise. My mom would love it, actually. My sister just had a hysterectomy, this’ll be like a family miracle. You’ll have the child support of a Kardashian.”

He grabs your head and kisses you sloppily—he tastes like tomatoes—clumsily walking you back into the bed.

You think he’s too old to be fingering you the way he is. Rubbing your clit all clumsy, like a faulty button on an old remote. You’re a little sticky, but not enough for what he plans to do here. He sighs and leans back.

“This isn’t working,” he says, all pensive, sitting back on his heels. It’s a little difficult, though, to take him seriously, when his cock is on the front end of halfmast and still rising.

When Tashi first started seeing him, you remember her barrelling into your room all stiff and saucereyed and clamorous. As though a particularly warhankering pigeon had just been elected president, or an alien society had been discovered in the thick of the Amazon. But no. She held your shoulders and shook them wildly and yelled, I’m telling you, it’s fucking huge!

She made a point to you that she’d never be caught dead gushing about his dick to his face. She said it was important to humble him.

So you want to maintain that tradition.

And, anyway, it’s a big dick, not the cure to cancer. You don’t even know what he needs it all for. It’s probably all he has left. You can’t imagine it even gets him very far.

People have frontiers. Parameters. Limits. To their patience, to their bodies. Patrick used to kill the sprinting drills, back in school. He likes going end to end, reaching those limits. But once you start pissing someone off and/or ramming into their cervix, everything else is probably a nonstarter.

You sit up, drawing your knees to your chest. “Uh, yeah. It isn’t.”

“Well, is there something I can do? Should I act like her? Will that get you going?” He asks, but he doesn’t wait for your answer. He huffs and crosses his arms and imitates Tashi’s angry moue.

And his dick is still hard, harder now, so you splutter into laughter. You laugh really, really hard. Then he guides your legs back open and swipes his fingers between them again.

And he grins and says, “Bingo.”

You got really into Pilates for about a month or two mid last year. You’re starting to think you should have kept at it. Your knees are hooked over his shoulders, the undersides of your thighs pressed to his chest. Your hips ache, but it feels, regrettably, really fucking great otherwise.

It’s eminently uncomfortable, sure. For your part, it hasn’t really occurred to you to let a man fuck you raw. Your lingering childishness still recoils a bit at the very idea. And it feels strange, that gauche drag of skin on skin. You’d need to be really wet for this to be working, and that hilarious necessity makes you wetter in response, and then he’s slipping in and out and fucking you raw and he doesn’t even seem to be trying too hard.

He’s a little relieved. You’re letting this happen and taking it like a champ and your pussy’s deep enough to give him room to work.

So he does. Because he knows how. He knows how to work things from here.

He’s had more sex than you’ve attended pilates classes.

The thought of you, splayed and tensile across a reformer, gets him pretty hot. Very hot, actually, and he can tell because the surface of his skin is bloomed pink, and your fingers blench away from his shoulders like he’s caught aflame.

He knows by now how tremendously warm he runs in these moments. He usually asks about a girl’s AC before things get going.

Should he say that aloud, or will it piss you off?

You probably see your appending to the convoluted list of unfortunate holes to sheathe the great penis of Patrick Zweig as a little beneath you.

This is his chance to remind you that Tashi Duncan doesn’t go back on her word for just any heavy pair of balls.

He angles your hips to get deeper, experimenting with ways to evoke a reaction. He’s working you like you’re paying him.

You’re trying really hard not to say anything too nice about his dick. But he’s plunging hard and fast into you, rolling his hips with all the dexterity of fucking Magic Mike, and—well—you wouldn’t be able to, even if you wanted.

The words you’re saying are not in the dictionary. You’re sweating, panting, tugging a little mercilessly at his hair. Patrick bends your legs and hoists your pelvis. He can’t keep a trainer right now, but some adrenalinefueled strength is allowing him to support your body like it’s nothing. He wasn’t bluffing about you looking hot. He’s groping you all over with the ferocious depravity of a necrophile.

There’s some real blasphemous perversion slipping off his tongue. Ersatz porno shit that should be giving you early onset morning sickness, but he’s going all Daniel Day Lewis with it, and you’re kind of buying it.

Fucking come-slut… fuckin’— fuck… gonna breed you… gonna put a baby in you.

You’re audibly wet. The air around you grows practically mephitic. You’re losing your fucking mind. If this shit falls flat, and he can’t get you pregnant tonight, and you dump and block him and never want to speak to him again, he at least hopes you remember this for a long time.

And—you know what—fuck it if that wasn’t memorable enough, he thinks, feeling his cock twitch as he slooshes molten litres into you. Because he’s pulling out, flipping you over, and hiking up your hips. Maybe this’ll be.

He fucks you, he comes in you. A lot. He needs a second to replenish.

You steal to the kitchen. Your inner thighs are chafed and viscid. You cover the lasagna dish and cache it away, and take a second to scoff at some vapidly controversial Twitter thread. You yelp when you feel his arms around you again, lifting you off the tile and carrying you back to the bedroom.

Patrick’s never really thought too hard about his come. It’s an ancillary deluge. A mess to clean most often. Maybe he’s considered meliorating his diet when someone’s gleaned a taste and gagged.

But right now it’s serving a purpose. And he is, among other things, relieved for that, too. He’s not gonna sit around and mourn this while it happens and ask you if you’d really have his child. He’d rather look you in your beautiful, milky pussy than a gift horse in the mouth.

He refuses to waste a drop of himself. He makes sure to coat your insides with it.

He lies sheathed inside you for many minutes after he comes, gripping your hips harshly to him, groaning like this were the real orgasm.

Afterwards, he holds your knees to his chest and lifts your ass and presses his palm to your cunt as if sealing an entrance, making sure nothing escapes. He’s trying to give his guys a fighting chance.

You were, at first—as in, after two or three rounds—a little amused by this stupid, elaborate routine. Something out of an old maid’s pastel mommy blog. You were amused, and frankly weirded out, by what seemed like a laughable lack of dignity on his part.

Now—now you’re feeling aroused by it. Because being aroused disrupts the dumb ritual and kind of annoys him.

When he is holding your knees up and your cunt twitches, he rolls his eyes.

“You already got off,” he chuckles, shaking his head. He sounds a bit spent, too. He’s usually flaked out by now, in his actual customary postcome routine. “Just stay still for a second.”

The fact that he doesn’t want you to come makes you almost desperately want to. He holds his palm over your cunt but he offers no friction.

The simple touch is enough, though. You can find your own internal rhythm.

Your head falls back against the pillow.

“Oh fuck.”

And maybe you’re being particularly loud and lewd in this moment, while he’s trying to be serious, and get something done. Because you’re still doing this longcon in calling his bluff. You don’t think he knows what he wants.

You don’t want to believe that you two are really so bitter as to start a life out of spleen.

You still don’t know if he knows whether or not he actually likes you.

“What the fuck?” he laughs, “I said don’t.” He squeezes your cunt like he wants to tear flesh from bone, trying to render you still again.

But it only makes you moan louder.

“Oh, fuck, that’s so good,” you mewl indecently, smirking a bit, because you’re joking, but you also sort of mean it, “It feels so good having your come inside me, I can already feel your little fuckass kid crawling around in there. He’ll grow up loving bagels, I just know it.”

These taunts are supposed to disgust him or hurt his feelings or simply turn him off, and Patrick does sort of look like wants to throttle you. Because he’s tired and a little grumpy and he knows you’re not letting him stay the night. But a part of him has always found you funny. So he just ends up getting hard again. Your crude, glib moaning brings him to such a pitch of want that he yanks you into his lap and fucks you roughly, gripping your jaw.

And you grin as he brings your head close. You feel it’s some kind of victory.

Even though you’re just prolonging this dumb, bitter, unfulfilling farce. Making sure there’s more of him inside you.

You two should not be parents.

By the eighth or ninth round, he starts getting conversational.

“I was one of those babies that never shut up,” he tells you, fucking up into you in cowgirl. He grunts and makes a thoughtful face. “Colic? Is that what it’s called? Yeah, I think I was a colicky baby.”

You make a face down at him. “I thought you said you’ve never cried,” you pant, rocking your hips back and forth.

He rolls his eyes again.

“Yeah, obviously I was lying. I cry all the fucking time.”

You consider this, your hips stilling, your palms resting against his hairy hotplate chest.

“Over what?” you ask, “Tashi?”

He blinks, scowling a bit, like he thinks you’re making fun. Then his grips your hips and starts to move you on his dick again. He doesn’t answer. Your pussy feels warm and raw.

Geez, how long have you two been at this?

He asks, absently, about baby names.

“I thought every girl had, like, a whole fucking list of them,” he says, pushing his semen back into your used cunt with his long fingers.

You don’t entertain that presumptuous conversation, but you don’t underestimate his commitment, either.

He’s back the next day, and the next, like clocking into a shift. He brings supplies. Sliced pineapple, fresh honey, ground cinnamon, cough syrup, two boxes of ClearBlue.

“I read acupuncture helps too,” he says.

“Absolutely not,” you say, but you let him feed you baby aspirin while you ride him in reverse on your couch watching Selling Sunset.

He feigns disinterest, but keeps tilting to look past your shoulder whenever the arguments start riling up.

“Ugh, Nicole’s a bitch,” he mutters.

Then he grunts and comes inside you, grasping your hips to sink you down and hold you still.

Her name, for the better or worse part of the first and second trimesters, was actually Stella.

Art’s grandma used to love that Philip Sidney poem, and Pam’s favourite film is Streetcar. It’s just that Tashi got sick of the name, and all other things, at a stage. So it didn’t stick.

They were oscillating between Lily and Rooney towards the end, and only made the final call when they saw her.

But, for a while there, she was Stella.

Stella’s craving peanuts, Stella’s the size of a rutabaga, Stella’s a kicker. And, boy, was she.

She’d ram her foetal feet into Tashi’s ribs over and over like she was on a treadmill. Which Tashi was starting to think of as karmic consequence for all the times she’d have Art doing cardio until he fainted.

You crouch down between her knees, resting your head against the amorphous motion of her distended stomach.

“Hey hey, Stella girl,” you whisper, “You wanna stop giving your mom a hard time?”

Tashi chokes out a wounded laugh from above you.

“That’s how Art talks to her.”

“Ugh, don’t ruin it,” you frown, moving to stand up.

But she sticks her leg out to halt you, grabbing your hand and tugging you back down, shifting her hips and spreading her thighs further apart.

You never could resist her sweet face when it was all crumpled up in asking. Because she got all soft and wet, like a flower caught in a gale.

She looks even softer now, over the horizon of her bloated body.

You gently tug her cotton shorts down and put your mouth on her and Stella stills.

“One more,” you say anxiously, eyebrows knitted in concern as Patrick sighs and unboxes a another pregnancy test—the fifth one—and you quaff down another glass of water to get your bladder teeming, because no way.

No way, right?

You’ve been taking him raw at all angles, and swigging shots of cough syrup, and weaning off the antidepressants, but no way.

“I don’t know what you thought was gonna happen,” he calls from beyond the bathroom door as you’re pissing on stick number six.

It’s just that you don’t feel anything.

You think you should be feeling more.

You think of Tashi, writhing and groaning like a bullet victim, miserably clutching her turgid body. You think of newborn Lily, her cottonsoft, tiny eye peeling open and seeing you. Deep steeped coffee, gleaming in the sterile light. Tashi’s eye. Tashi’s hair. Tashi’s baby. That tender absorption, that vivid creation.

If this kid is taking nothing from you, it’s gonna come out all Patrick. And—just—you don’t have the bandwidth to contend with such a prospect right now.

He drives you to the clinic every time. Every single time. One night, you rouse sharply from a morbid dream punctuated by the squall of wailing children. You call him. It’s 2 AM. He answers, and comes over, and drives you to the clinic, and tries not to nod off as you’re filling out the medical paperwork for the dozenth time. He also tries not to express any overt reaction to you changing your mind again.

Is it a kindness, to tease a man with the brutal decimation of his unborn progeny? No, of course not. His mum’s already preemptively enrolled the thing into a fancy German daycare.

But you hate that he’s given you an ultimatum and put it inside you. That’s the worst place, in relation to you, for an ultimatum to be.

If you tell Tashi, either he’s in, or you’re out. And those aren’t really odds you’re keen on rolling.

There are all sorts of ways to be a shitty friend. You opt for evasive gambits via claims of hectic work schedules and immovable errands. Any retching you do is that of guilt. You’re loathe to lie to her, to house this wretched zygote, to stay away. But she used to be able to tell when you’d changed your shampoo. She’d sniff him on you, in you, in a second. She’d just know. And she shouldn’t. She can’t. And if you could just unearth this presentient betrayal and toss it in a petri dish, she doesn’t have to.

You don’t know what matters more.

He drives you to the clinic. Teary teenaged girls, redcapped pickets out front. The receptionist knows you two by name by now.

Patrick slumps beside you. He’s still slogging through the first chapter of Last Child in the Woods. He’s pretty sure he’s never sat and read an actual, physical book to completion before in his life. But he’s too easily abstracted for Audible. So he’s working on it.

You’re groaning frustratedly and thunking the clipboard repeatedly against your skull. He absently slips a hand over your forehead, shielding the next few collisions before you huff and drop the board and turn to face him. He looks at you askance.

“You can change your mind,” he shrugs. Again, he generously omits.

You scoff at him, incredulous and a little irked. “I’m not gonna change my mind,” you grumble.

He shrugs again. “Okay.”

He knows what it’s like to have a mother in sackcloth and ashes. To be less of a son than a sentient thing of regret with little arms and legs. To not know what to do with that, or yourself. He wouldn’t do that to a kid.

You watch him thumb through Richard Louv for a few more moments.

Then, “You’re probably sick of me, aren’t you?”

He smiles a bit before schooling it stoic, slowly lowering the book and fixing you with this wry but incongruously tender look. “Of course I am,” he tells you.

“Get mad at me, then.”

He smiles again.

He knows what that’s like, too. Dad mad at mom. Stilted five course dinner. Dad telling him and Saskia what a goddamn headache mom is on the drive to school. Of course he’s sick of you, he’s always sick of you. But he likes you. And his head feels fine.

He turns back to the book, shrugging.

“Can’t,” he says simply.

You feel for baby Lily. She’ll never be able to get away with anything.

It’s Art who sniffs it on you, in you.

Tashi’s asleep upstairs when, after a fortnight and a bit, you rally up the guts to come over. Art opens the door and looks surprised for mere moments, and there is perhaps a flicker of concern, but then he smiles. And there’s only very mild ire there. The rest is fatigue and goodnature.

“Hello, stranger,” he smirks, turning to filch a set of keys from the marble catchall in the foyer. He is wheeling Lily out in the thirteenhundred dollar stroller he had lost six nights of sleep picking out. “You coming?”

So now you’re on a walk.

Lily lays on her soft belly in the stroller. The walls around her are a breathable mesh, and she fights to hoist her head and gawp at passing trees. This is, apparently, the only way she’ll do tummy time.

“And the only time she gets any sleep,” Art adds, jutting a finger over his shoulder in the general direction of their home down the street.

Lily’s wearing a ruffly lavender romper. Her skin is a healthy shade of linen and her hair is dark. Her fists have tiny moony fingernails that—when you comment how, Her nails are long. Like, sharp—Art explains how he keeps trying to cut them with a pair of tiny silver scissors. But they make Tashi nervous, their sharpness and its proximity to Lily’s fleshy hands.

“She said she wants her to get a grip on the world,” Art chuckles.

You snort, and you have to skip a bit to keep up with his brisk strides. “Oh, that’s definitely what she said,” you confirm.

Lily tosses and turns a bit in the strollerbed. She gurgles an impressive spit bubble, by Art’s standards. Most things she does are probably impressive to him, quite frankly. He tells you how, the other morning, she had thrown up breakfast onto his shoulder with such verve and accuracy that they’re already talking tennis lessons.

“Oh God,” you grimace. Not at the story, but at the memory of his nauseous pallor in the throes of Tashi’s own gravid sickness. “How’s that been for you?”

Art flashes a selfdeprecating simper. “I’m managing.”

When she casts her little coral taglet security blanket curbside, Lily scrunches up her face, grasping, gearing up for the Big Scream. Art sighs and says, “No, please?” as he stops to pick it up and give it back to her, and his arm, when he sticks it in, blooms with little ruddy strings as she claws at him.

He looks more than a little surprised she isn’t crying.

Apparently, in that meantime, you had jutted your fingers into the cot and offered her a pinky as a peace offering. Versailles-style, like you’ll be punished later.

But he seems content with how she’s chewing you and figures you guys can stop here, for a bit, beneath these treemottled springtime sunbeams. In the garden of the home in front of which you’re standing, huge orange bougainvillea loll their petaltongues in the breeze.

“I just…” Art flounders for his words, then scoffs a not unkind, but vaguely embittered, sort of laugh, shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Why him?”

You groan. “Don’t ask.”

“How is he?”

“He’s—” you waver, then shake your head, before finishing, “Ugh.”

“Patrick’s ‘ugh’? Patrick? Wow. Should we call all the outlets? I mean, that’s never happened before. Patrick. Ugh. You’re blowing my mind.”

You snort, and Lily laughs, and Art informs you that that is a very hard reaction to glean. And he rubs his temples, because all the wails sort of tremor at that same migrainous pitch. No matter if they’re amused or rabidly apoplectic. But you can enjoy it, the laughter.

“Can you just tell her for me?” you frown helplessly up at him.

That flicker in his tired eyes that wants to agree is purely paternal, but he sighs and shakes his head. “You know I can’t.”

He’s genuinely sympathetic.

“She’ll forgive you,” he tells you. You roll your eyes and hang your head, kicking piteously at the wheel of the stroller. He intercepts your foot with his, lightly shoving it away before bending to search for your gaze. “Hey,” he says, “She really will.”

You huff. “She’s never had to.”

You instinctively press your fingers into your womb, through your shirt. You feel the strange sensation of something starting to swell beneath the flesh.

“You’ll be a good mom,” says Art. “If that’s what you decide to do.”

It’s a small relief, for you, to feel your face screw into its shut-the-fuck-up-Art expression. It’s something you know how to feel, a well trodden path. Maybe, once they drop you like a bad habit, he’ll still send you those furtive pictures he likes to take of Tashi sleeping. And you and Patrick can dualmasturbate to them, pretending your swollen belly isn’t in the way.

What you like about them, all three of them, is that they have all always loved you so simply. Tashi is severe, and Patrick is flippant, and Art is occasionally insincere. But they each care about you, to varying degrees, in their own ways. And they do so without reservation, even when you’ve been an ass.

You think that’s how you’re supposed to love your child.

You should probably figure out how he does it in the next five to ten seconds.

You ask, “What makes you say that?”

And his eyes flick down to where Lily is still gumming your knuckle like a dog with a bone, then back up to you, and he gives you one of those smiles. Your face screws. Shut the fuck up Art. Then, he tells you, “You love harder than you give yourself credit for.”

Lily gags around your pinky.

[loveanddeepspice]

𝕋𝕖𝕞𝕡𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝔾𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕖

✞ synopsis:  you've come back to the small town you grew up in for a visit. though your relationship with the catholic church and faith in general have been strained since you were younger, you find yourself drawn back to the church... or more specifically... the new priest... you aren't ready to share your secret sin with him... but you may not be able to help yourself.

✞ pairing: sylus x curvy fem!reader

✞ rating:  18+ (minors do not engage)

✞ cw:  religion (catholicism), priest, lapsed faith, adultery, priest kink, suicidal mention, dead parent, sex, masturbation, drugs (marijuana), mentions of other drug use, drinking (more will be added when/if they arise)

✞ disclaimer: this fiction explores a romantic relationship between a lapsed Catholic and an unconventional priest. it is not designed to be inflammatory or critical. catholic authors were asked to participate in the process. we hope you enjoy it, but we know that these topics can be sensitive, so please skip this fiction if it will in any way offend you.

✞ chapter:  9 / 9

✞ co-authors:  redbriony, confuseddoughnut (they do not have tumblr)

✞ ao3 link:  here

✞ chapter synopsis: ’twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.

✞ index: chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 | chapter 5| chapter 6 | chapter 7 | chapter 8 | chapter 9 | This is the last chapter! Please see the end for A/N.

Oddly enough, the initial thought that entered his mind when Y/N's father landed a punch on his face Friday morning was, ‘I deserved that.’

He didn't have difficulty dodging the floor, though, which was a blessing. Rubbing his jaw, he figured he probably wasn't hit as hard as the older man wanted. Stupid idiot, not a real fucking priest, fucking around with his sweet daughter, leading her on. “A real fucking piece of shit.”

As the accusations were hurled at him, his initial thought was, what could the man possibly be thinking?

Father Sylus might have had the same thoughts if the tables were turned, but he wouldn't have expressed them so boldly. Perhaps he understood the situation, and that's why he didn't try to justify himself. He could see where the man was coming from.

Now, standing in the middle of the church office, Y/N's father refusing to look at him or meet his eyes—that struck an awful chord. He kept his eyes downcast as Y/N's father continued his tirade. The words stung, each one a sharp barb, but deep down, he knew there was truth to them. He had allowed himself to grow too close to Y/N, to let his feelings for her blossom into something forbidden and dangerous. He knew that's what anyone would see.

"I trusted you," her father spat, his voice trembling with barely contained rage. "I trusted you to guide my daughter, not to take advantage of her. "

Father Sylus opened his mouth to speak. He was hoping to clarify some things, just for the record, and wanted to jump out the window when the words were: "I know this looks bad."

"You got that right." Y/N's dad finally looked at him; his irritation reflected the hell Father Sylus felt.

"Listen to me," Father Sylus made an effort to keep his tone calm. "This is bigger than you, or I, or..."

"Cut the shit, Father." This was Talia who spoke, glaring harshly and leaning against the wall, her finger pointed. The word 'Father' had never been used in a worse way. It was a slap that coiled around his neck, tightened till the muscle there contracted, and struggled against the tension.

"Think of the reputation the Catholic Church already has, going around accusing priests and nuns and bishops of all these -" She hissed, stopping herself. And before she began again, Father Sylus knew what the next words were.

What had to be done to protect the members. Not a fear of anything spiritual. It was the church's reputation as a whole, even if this had nothing to do with what she was speaking about. Even he knew that it wouldn't matter. Father Sylus merely chose not to see the faults, the perverse, or the corrupt except to acknowledge the horror that it was. This never stopped him from helping the people who most needed it.

He had just had dinner with most of them the other day, he had sat across the table with them after seeing a glimpse of life, not having the darkness or the lingering pain that lurked in the depths. Y/N had done that to him, making him believe that one person could do that much for another. Wasn't that what God wanted, too? to heal the blind, the broken, and the battered.

Still...

"What do you intend to do? Go to the local press? The national news channels?" Father Sylus continued, shaking his head slightly, trying not to let the anger get a hold of him. It came from hurt, loss, and a feeling that something was so close to crumbling and couldn't be put back together.

"She's the adult, but I should have never been so blind." Y/N's dad sounded upset and broken, really. It made the whole thing ten times harder.

"I'm calling the bishop, " Talia said, grimacing and picking at her fingers. The way she was unable to still herself was an annoyance. It was the sight of a restless mind struggling for rationale while the chest was heaving for solutions. She obviously did not think before the statement was released and in the air. She did not ponder such moments of stress, as she was like her.

"You can't." Father Sylus shot a look over to her.

"Why not?!" Y/N's dad spat, bristling as he stepped closer to the two. He did not look like he cared for the answer, but the words fell nonetheless.

And Father Sylus didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to put his feelings out there in the open without having them pulled apart, not having them twisted in front of his face.

"It doesn't matter. We all just need to be realistic about this." It fell with the delicacy of a pin dropped on a rug. It could be felt and heard but would not break anything.

It was difficult not to recoil from the words, not to flinch as they were released, a blade striking the target as the man across from him spoke again. "I expected more from you."

Father Sylus swallowed down the guilt, straightening. He had to remind himself it wasn't just about him. There was someone who cared for him dearly, someone he cared deeply for. And he would die before feeling regret eat him from the inside out, as it certainly was trying to do now.

It didn't stop there, however; Talia shoved off the wall and stared wide-eyed. "Why didn't you stop this sooner?"

He sighed, feeling irritated at the insinuation. "Why do you think?"

That stopped Talia short. It was blunt and not entirely his intention. But Talia was his friend. If he could call her that, he trusted that she knew what he meant.

Father Sylus knew they were all human, with their own desires and temptations. Every day, he prayed for strength to resist them, but when he eventually gave in, he did not push away those thoughts. Instead, he had acted upon them.

You learn something from your mistakes. Only this wasn't a mistake. In seminary, Father Sylus was taught to trust himself, that his heart and his mind and God would lead him the right way. He didn't understand back then why the other priests seemed so set in their views, so careful to examine every word and question the meaning behind it. But he was beginning to now, more than ever. A clarity had washed over him like the first rays of light entering a dim cave; it had struck him with vigor.

Talia knew. He saw it in her eyes, how she took a slow breath and glanced at the floor, clutching her skirt in her hands. She wasn't often silent, and it didn't take long for the silence to get to him, nor the stress from both Y/N's dad, and the situation itself.

"It still isn't right." She whispered, and he thought it was supposed to sound harsh, but instead, she only sounded defeated. Her words had lost their bite.

Father Sylus closed his eyes, tilting his head up to the ceiling for a moment, praying that the words would fall straight from his tongue without failure, without a hesitant breath, or pause for composure. His heartbeat grew a little steadier, and his nerves were soothed.

And looking at Y/N's dad then, a soft, disheartened smile graced his face. "I apologize. I know it isn't right; I do. Sometimes you fall in love, though."

A flinch, the man’s eyebrows pulling together, frowning and staring him down. A shadow covering the kind look that was once in his eye. Those pupils widened, taking him in. "What did you just say?"

The heart cannot be controlled, cannot be measured or weighed, and can't even be seen by human eyes unless you cut the chest open and expose it to the cruel outside world. Father Sylus didn't find it so cruel anymore, though.

That was a thought for later. Another time. One day. He had faith in that. For now, though, it was like the ground had begun to crumble, and the cracks were traveling so swiftly, further and further apart, spreading and reaching toward those who stood above.

"You heard me." And his heart shouldn't pound like this, his palms shouldn't sweat, and his stomach shouldn't feel like there was an eel thrashing around. "I don't know what the future holds, or how this will unfold, or how God will punish me for this transgression."

Some color had drained from Y/N's dad, and Talia went beside him, gently touching his shoulder and giving him a stern look—one Father Sylus hadn't yet seen from her. He noted that he probably should have thought about that or how different things were about to be.

"Father," Talia let go of the man, taking a step towards him, leaning in with a shake of her head, hissing. "This is blasphemy."

Father Sylus merely shrugged, figuring she probably never had an excuse to use the word until now, which was why she used it.

"I'm not throwing myself a pity party or turning this entire thing around to act like I'm some selfless martyr, Talia."

Y/N's dad shuffled from foot to foot, "This can't be happening."

The crack in his voice pulled on Father Sylus' heartstrings, making him feel the desperation in his skin, how uncomfortable and conflicted he felt, how ugly and dark the entire situation was, and how deep into the spiral they had all found themselves. But then his mind went to Y/N, thinking about what she was doing and if she was okay, and as much as it killed him, there was hope.

"It shouldn't, but it is." Father Sylus took a steadying breath.

There was a slight shift in the room, and maybe they hadn't expected his response or didn't expect it to be so direct, or maybe they hadn't been told the priest had such a strong opinion on this stuff. Father Sylus wasn't sure, but he knew it was out in the open now, and it couldn't be undone. Maybe it couldn't be fixed either , but he certainly wasn't letting this slip through his fingers.

Y/N's dad was now leaning against the wall, with his arms crossed over his chest, avoiding the gazes of both the priest and Talia. The man could only shake his head and squeeze his eyes shut.

"I'm having a hard time thinking this is real, " he croaked, making Father Sylus only more sympathetic. He understood how frustrating and unsettling the situation was, especially for someone like Y/N's dad, someone who had suffered a loss.

"I am the one who is responsible, and -"

"Nothing is ever cut and dry with her, though. I should have known." Y/N's dad interrupted, making his way towards the office door. "I'm buying her a ticket back home."

Father Sylus swallowed past the lump in his throat, "She's not going to like that."

"Does it look like I care?"

Father Sylus walked forward quickly, going over to stop him from leaving the room, although the effort was pathetic. The others' feet stopped right at the threshold. "You shouldn't. You might never see her again." He wasn’t sure why he said those words exactly, for he himself knew they weren’t true.

Y/N's father stiffened, "Is that a threat, Father?"

Father Sylus held up his hands, realizing how his words had sounded. "No, no, of course not. I just meant... Y/N is an adult, like you said. She makes her own choices.”

"Never again?" Talia echoed a bit too late. Didn't it just seem cruel to leave a puzzle in the middle of the game unfinished? The outcome was inevitable, but the journey, how the road was set, and where it would lead next were so mysterious and overwhelming at the same time.

"I'm trying to make this easy." Y/N's dad narrowed his eyes, shoulders tensing.

"Go ahead, send her back home, push her away, be left wondering why all the time." Father Sylus challenged. It was for more selfish reasons than he wanted to admit to at the moment .

"Don't play that card, not now."

That was the best advice, and Father Sylus took a step back, trying to find peace, "Look, it won't change anything. This town is small and people will talk regardless."

If there wasn't anything more to discuss, if the secrets would be allowed to settle and people would stop breathing them into the air, the wounds might be given enough time to heal. Yes, occasionally getting better with a friendly nudge was much more manageable. But they were all human, after all, weren't they?

"I'm calling the bishop," Talia repeated her earlier statement, but Father Sylus didn't show that it affected him.

"Do what you want."

Talia gaped, at a loss for words, stunned even. This seemed unfair; he had taken more than a second to think about this, something he had acknowledged long before that evening with Y/N came. Sure, some aspects were shocking and made his pulse speed up, and yeah, now that the secret was out, it should have been a relief to confess to Y/N's father about his feelings.

But his own feelings weren't what was important here, and that hurt, maybe more than some would believe it could. He could accept it, though, for her. So that a bit of happiness could seep into her skin and settle in her heart.

Even if that meant giving up one of the things he treasured most. It was disappointing to say the least. Not nearly enough of a punishment. What would happen to him? To Y/N? Now, that would have to be a part of the unknown, his penance that no one else could take. Only he and the Lord could decide upon that. And maybe He already had; maybe this was the judgment, the sins out in the open.

God would decide.

Y/N's father stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind him with a resounding thud. Father Sylus flinched at the sound, closing his eyes briefly as he tried to gather his composure. Talia remained, her eyes wide and disbelieving as she stared at him.

You were used to panic. When living alone in your apartment, stress had a tendency to bottle up and fester into something you couldn't quite comprehend.

Sometimes, it would end with a bottle shattered and your body tired and sore, but this felt different. Your father confronting you had felt different. Especially when the emotions in his eyes were not directed at you; instead, they were pained. And when he pressed his lips together and cast his gaze elsewhere, the dull, throbbing pain settled in your chest, refusing to subside.

God, you really were a horrible daughter. Wretched. Narcissistic. The worst. A sinner, a demon, a fool, and an idiot who never thought. At this point, maybe they were a fair assessment, and the words you assumed your father had thought would surely follow you for the rest of your miserable life.

Standing in your room now, you couldn't stop thinking about Father Sylus. You remembered the feeling of his arms, that warm touch, and the depth of his crimson eyes.

And in the silence of your room that night, your suitcase packed and ready to go with the earliest flight your father could book back out west - you did something you hadn't done seriously in a very long time.

When you were younger, you often kneeled in front of the windowsill after your mother passed. Closing your eyes or keeping them open didn't make a difference. Lacing your fingers together and resting your chin on the backs of your hands - you used to pray. For good health, for the pain to fade, just for those stormy emotions in your head to settle.

Who knows, maybe your mom was listening. Kneeling next to you in spirit and pleading for you not to forget her, pleading for you to accept and love yourself. At the time, those moments were meant for her memory. But after getting older and finding a new curiosity about the world, they were soon forgotten, too.

And maybe you were trying to help yourself then. With nothing else to really lose, you resigned yourself to praying for a different outcome, pleading for a change that was in the hands of another.

It was so hard, kneeling there, like the strength to keep your composure was slipping from you. Each breath constricted, and with each time your eyes watered and the tears slipped past, you told yourself to keep strong. Asking someone else for an answer wasn't the best idea; maybe you were hoping for the impossible.

"Hey," you began quietly, biting back the tremble. "I'm- really not one for this. Stuff. And I hope that you're hearing me because..."

You fought to take deep, steady breaths and force the words beyond your clenched teeth. The thoughts were just as difficult to manage, and you had to shut your eyes tightly to calm the trembling within.

"If you could help, I'd appreciate that. Sorry, I don't deserve it, but that's selfish. Um, my-" and you gripped your hands tighter together.

"Can I ask for something, please?" Struggling past the lump in your throat, you swallowed hard. "I know, it's selfish. Prayers aren't really something that should be turned into a list of wishes..."

You knew. God had more important things to be doing than waiting for a scum like you to apologize and plead for help. He would guide the ones who listened, studied His word, did good deeds, and praised Him. You were none of those things; you had fallen off that path long ago.

"So, I'm not really sure if I should, but please, just help me," You cracked. Holding your hand over your mouth and trying to gasp in oxygen, you could hardly control the shuddering; it only made your heart pump faster, and the pain grew tenfold.

"He- Father Sylus - just keep him safe. That's all. I lov - he deserves it. You can't forsake him. If it wasn't for him - I just want him to be okay. I don't deserve anything; I just - I'll ask for this, even if I don't deserve to have that happen."

Father Sylus would listen, and the thought of that broke you. You just, needed someone to listen. Father Sylus deserved the best. God would surely grant him that. And you...

"God, I have never needed help as badly as I do now."

And still, a dark part of you couldn't allow yourself to think that He'd listen. He would pick others because it was the right thing to do—or the punishment. How awful would it be to answer for your deeds, the wrongs, or the filthy stuff that happened over the past few weeks? Maybe this was karma kicking in.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, you opened your eyes, looking out the window at the night sky above. It was illuminated with stars that glittered so greatly that anyone could see the wonders. Did anyone stop to appreciate it, or did everyone just gloss over it without a care or a glance? Was that what it was like to look at your mistakes and not learn, apologize, or regret them?

It was not the future that hurt the worst, no. Nor was the loss, change, or distance. It wasn't even the uncertainty that clawed up your spine and clung to your clothes like dirty water. That seemed the least of your worries because the lack of time and the chance of missed opportunity made the pain bloom somewhere deeper.

The church was quiet as you walked in, the early morning light peeking through the windows. The familiar sensation of wooden floors beneath your shoes, a comfort, a normality, and a sense of guilt. Because you shouldn't have been there, but a coward you were, and the thought of avoiding one last goodbye wouldn't leave you alone.

Because deep down, a sick part of you wished the plane would crash. You weren't even on it yet, either. But the thought of not having to deal with the other options, choices, and consequences, and the pain of letting him go, had made your decision so much easier.

Oh, and like a magnet being attracted to its pole, you saw Father Sylus, looking out his office window.

He looked peaceful, holding the rosary and slowly running the beads between his fingers. He was humming something. All that could be heard was the slight hum, off-tune, but you recognized it.

Do not be afraid; I am with you.

When the humming stopped, you were surprised to realize you had walked to him without making a sound.

"You shouldn't be here." Father Sylus informed you, not bothering to look over his shoulder. Did he already know it was you? The words were not said to send you away. Instead, they held no weight behind them, and if that weren't enough of a giveaway, the soft smile as he turned was enough to confirm it for you.

"Don't worry, I'm leaving." It sounded so different out loud, and his shoulders didn't slouch; in fact, they stiffened. At the sight, your mouth watered, and your tongue started to feel heavy.

"I'm sorry, Sylus." You murmured, reaching forward to brush your hand on his arm; how he jolted made you retract your fingers.

His deep, red gaze finally fell upon you, and the color drained from his face. A shaky exhale fell past his lips as his eyebrows furrowed in concern.

"What are you apologizing for? You've done nothing wrong, Y/N."

That couldn't be farther from the truth. But for the first time, you wanted to avoid correcting him. "So you're okay, right?"

There was a pinch to the tenderness; if you looked any closer, you could see him struggle with the answer.

"That's always a little tricky to figure out, isn't it ?"

And his smile was so endearing, and you couldn't stop thinking about the act that had taken place in this very office not long ago. Soaking in his presence and finding comfort in his touch, cherishing his scent. That urge to cry was back, and you stumbled forward, crashing into his side and burying your face into his chest.

"It hurts." You whined, a trembling hand gripping the material of his sweater. You'd always hated yourself for needing others, being weak, and not being able to fix things on your own.

"I know," Father Sylus smoothed your hair back." I didn't want this for you; you were just supposed to be happy."

You pulled back abruptly, eyes wide and a gasp catching in your throat. He grimaced, taking a hand and tapping a finger to his temple. "Everything moves and nothing is concrete, yes?"

"Please say you aren't feeling guilty." As soon as the words left your mouth you chastised yourself.

Father Sylus and his guilt, trying to swallow down the emotions when he should have just let himself have what he wanted.

"I know what it's like to have everything taken from you," you said, "to fall in love for the wrong reasons—with the wrong person."

The reminder shocked him, and his fingers ghosted against the skin beneath your collarbone, sending warm tingles up your neck, almost enough for you to lean against his hand.

"Stop."

And he sounded hurt, that frown appearing again, and when his eyebrows furrowed, well, something about it never failed to have your heart hammering in your chest.

"It shouldn't have happened - everything." Your nails dug into your palms painfully. "If it hadn't been for me - then maybe you could-"

"Stop." His deep voice was a growl, and his hand traveled up to grip your chin, tilting your head so that you were forced to look into his eyes—so sharp, so beautiful. "Don't talk like that. I won't accept that."

Despite the intense gaze, his fingers caressed your cheek so lightly, making your lips quirk up at the affection, relaxing instantly. Then his thumb rubbed gentle circles, and the soft gaze the two of you shared had your face heating up under his attention.

"It was me. I knew what I was doing," he smiled a little sheepishly. "I'll take the blame, the repercussions."

His tender gesture had you biting your bottom lip and closing your eyes to blink away the tears. Why did he have to care? Why did he have to try so hard? What had you done to deserve such admiration and devotion?

"What'll happen to you?" You wondered aloud, because as long as you didn't watch him break, as long as you didn't see the destruction firsthand, it might not hurt as much.

"I'll leave, most likely."

"Where are you going?"

Father Sylus just smiled, leaning in and pressing his lips softly to yours. He kissed you sweetly for a moment, and you pressed into the familiar gesture with everything you had.

His fingers curled into your waist, clutching onto the material of your shirt in a way that had your pulse quickening, and a shaky breath falling from your mouth. When he pulled back, it was too soon. And when he gave you a smile that had your knees buckling, he said something that would stay ingrained in your memory.

"God is everywhere, and therefore so am I."

And while those words did a pretty good job, the promise in his tone, along with that intense stare, had your hands fisting in his sweater, your body becoming jittery, the nerves sending pinpricks under your skin. The intensity is almost too much for you to process.

"I don't know anything about love," you whispered, "or why God makes us do stupid shit.”

"Because He wants to see us fall so that we may rise back up again."

"Then I'm happy, to have fallen for you."

He raised an eyebrow at your statement, and even though you were trembling, both from nervousness and fear, you felt a surprising warmth erupt in the pit of your stomach. A content and comfortable glow settled all around you as the words began to spill from your mouth.

"I myself go because of you, and your...your kind heart, and - oh, and your hair and - and - I love you."

With a huff, Father Sylus pressed another kiss lips , silencing you. Your breathing became somewhat labored. And instead of letting your emotions overwhelm you any more than you could handle, you laughed nervously as you pulled back to get a look at his face.

"California is great this time of year." You added.

"Yeah?" he asked, sounding content but not surprised. In fact, it seemed more as if he'd known what you were about to ask before the words had even left your mouth. You weren't sure if that was comforting or worrying.

But, Goddamnit, it was the best and most incredible possibility you'd ever been given the chance to express. And if this was real, and if it was heaven or hell, or wherever was next, it would matter so much more, so you knew you needed to be selfish just once more.

"I don't have anybody," You told him. “In California.”

And then Father Sylus shook his head and pressed his lips together, and panic erupted in your chest before anything had been spoken. It was this pit in the pit of your gut, churning, the fear mounting, telling you not to get your hopes up because if you were to get it up again, that would mean ripping yourself apart and rearranging everything inside.

"You have plenty of people in your life, Y/N." Father Sylus informed you. "And me, well, I don't have a home, really. Besides, not everyone likes the beach."

You could have cried. After so much stress, worry, and sorrow, you wanted to sink back into his arms and let him hold you forever. "Maybe I'm sick, Father. Maybe I'm broken beyond repair, and no one can fix that but you ."

With a sad smile, Father Sylus' thumb brushed over the tears on your cheek, and you loved how warm he was.

"No, you're not. You are coming home; that's the biggest victory you could have achieved. And just..." He cleared his throat, the emotion seeping in.

What did I do?" You asked.

"You sought to heal your crushed spirit." To calm the quivering, Father Sylus gripped your chin again to make you meet his eyes. "You did that. Not me. Not God. You did that."

"I need you." you urged, pulling on his collar.

"I know," he murmured. His dark and hooded eyes flickered down to you briefly. Those soft lips and mouth open, and that deep voice caught your name on his tongue.

"Say it." you pleaded. "You've given me the confidence, so please-" Your fingers tightened around his , begging him to stop stabbing your heart a little further until it finally broke. "Tell me you love me."

"I love you," he assured. His hand cupped the side of your face, long fingers sliding over the skin, tugging the ear and moving strands of hair. And then he glanced up, the light overhead piercing his orbs, and you thought you saw some tears cling to the ends of his eyelashes.

In those little touches, it was in that moment, and the kindness showed through how his thumb caressed the soft spot behind your ear. And the heat that radiated off of him, giving you every impression of being comforted. Or perhaps it was how your heart pounded erratically, sending sparks behind your eyelids. But either way, it was at that moment you realized something.

This was a test. That’s all it had been.

"I love you," Father Sylus muttered once more. Lips parted open just a bit too long until all that could be heard was the wind howling against the window as winter gradually left its mark.

It took a second, before you were forced to take a deep, slow breath, the shaking of your nerves refusing to leave. "I have to go." When Father Sylus looked at you with those beautiful crimson orbs, you smiled sadly. "I’ll miss my flight."

And he nodded, and you pressed a gentle kiss to his mouth, the sudden reality washing over, taking the ease and settling the ache back into the chest where it had started.

"I heard California is nice this time of year." Father Sylus said.

"Yes," you agreed, chuckling slightly. "The waves are nice. Perfect for when you're excommunicated for sleeping with a parishioner."

"Sounds pretty spectacular."

And it did, and the thought of having him beside you through the change flushed out the pressure of anxiety and sadness . "And the view over San Francisco Bay is spectacular."

You weren't sure what made you say it, or why a sudden burst of confidence swelled. All you knew was, suddenly, with Father Sylus, there were no secrets.

Father Sylus tilted his head, regarding you curiously. He brushed a strand of hair from your face before meeting your eyes, crimson locking with your gaze. "What kind of view are we talking about?"

"Nothing like you've seen before, Sylus." He had to understand , it was an easy realization, really, "Out west, the sunrise is just..."

No lies. No secrets. For all you knew, it could be one of the last times you saw him. Did that still have the same effect, knowing neither of you was being forced away?

"Do I have a chance?" He asked, and you didn't have to think hard about the question to understand its intent.

He trusted you, but would it be enough? Would he be enough?

Would it be enough to see you smile each morning when you caught his attention, his lips quirking up into that beautiful half grin? Holding onto you when you slept, fingers woven in your hair, or feeling your body shifting against his side. Seeing you get ready for work in the bathroom, hearing the song you hummed to yourself. The kind words he would give after seeing you dance without music. Watching you grow happy each time he kissed your skin and marked you and sent shivers up and down your spine. And would those rare moments of passion that allowed you to feel his emotions, bursting from his fingertips and flowing through his mouth and radiating off of his heart, be enough for him to overcome the differences?

Was he willing to ignore the ways in which the two of you were so intrinsically flawed and simply fall in love with the parts that still bore so much trust and content, maybe even peace?

Would seeing your smile every day be enough?

You smiled and rested your head on his shoulder, the silence filling the room with a melancholy aura until you finally spoke.

"You always have a chance."

When you pulled away, there was nothing but an unsettling quietness—just the humming of the clock, the steady breaths, and the wind outside.

It wasn't exactly like you were perfect, or doing anything right. If anything, you were the one who had it the easiest because once you had opened the door, he just had to walk through it. And while it hurt to look upon the uncertainty, the truth was that you were hopeful. A piece of you had slipped through the cracks, and come back, crawling forth to reach the surface.

It wasn't blind or naïve, the hope that held you or had held you this entire time. But it was there, and so were you.

An imperfect man who had made mistakes and wasn't much different than yourself. Once upon a time, you had known, to accept the flaws, the hurt, and the people inside of them. That's all that God wanted from people at the end of the day, right?

A person. A soul. An existence.

That's all anyone could ever be.

Somehow, by the grace of God, you would allow yourself to bask in this feeling of worth, redemption, and mercy, regardless of the fact that a darker part of you would say you didn't deserve to be saved.

But love, even if it doesn't last, will have no other purpose other than what it is. And that's enough.

With one last glimpse, your hands fell into your pockets, and you took a deep, shuddering breath. Your resolve was not broken; it was accepted and resolved, and you glanced up with a confident step to the door, a prayer in your head.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The End

Tag list: @celestialforce, @readerxyourbabe, @babyx91 A/N:

If listening to author song picks gives you brain zaps, I suggest listening to these if you're a loser like me who stays to watch the credits of a movie: You knew this one was coming, right? Headphones encouraged. SYMBOLISM, my friends. The song mentioned in the chapter, but not specifically mentioned except for one line from it.

I am so incredibly grateful to have had the friends that helped me write a good majority of this. Words cannot express how *sigh* blessed I feel to have had help so my dumb brain could write properly, or word things differently, or remember how Catholicism worked. This probably wasn't the AU anyone wanted, or expected. But here we are, and this has BLOWN UP in ways I didn't expect. It even inspired ART from somebody. I can't believe it. It honestly warms my heart so much at how much attention this has gotten. I myself struggle with a lot of confidence/religious guilt/relationship issues that our MC in this story faces, so I am so happy it's touched others. I wanted this to be a lot longer, but I have ideas for more horrible fics and more horrible AU's, so I need the headspace for that. I am also working on original stuff. And all good things must come to an end. I apologize if this is a cliffhanger for a lot of people, but considering this was written from a 'reader' perspective, I didn't want to twist it too much in a certain direction. So, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to those who have read, will continue to read, and interact with me about this fic. LDS has become such an important game to me and the depth of Sylus as a character makes me want to pull my hair out and also punch him in the face (affectionately). If you enjoy my work, please let me know. Your support means the world. <3

My kofi page if you want to further support me. Never required but always appreciated!

[gothic-thoughts]

Shut Up and Listen

(took WAY too long to realize out of all my Jojo content, ion have Jotaro 🙄)

Part4! Jotaro Kujo x Black Fem Reader Smut

MDNI, DomesticAU, Babysitter!Reader, Boss!Jotaro

CW: ForbiddenAU, Jojo cheating?? afab parts mentioned, quiet quickie, unprotected cream🥧, tame words(nun vulgar)

Word Count: 1719 (give or take)

(A/n): sorry his first fic is a smut, I hate doing that tbh 😓

Jotaro took a deep breath as he walked to the front door ready to face the possibility of seeing his ex-wife's angry face. He reluctantly opens the door to see his daughter's sitter sitting on the couch with a glass of wine in hand and smiles. He sighed, releasing the breath he held back as his heart began pounding in his chest. 

Since his wife filed for divorce, the only peace he could get after work was whenever (Y/n) was here, whether it be to watch over his 5-year-old daughter or just to check on him. Either way, Jojo's heart pounded against his ribcage just from being around her but it only added to his wife's suspicion of his adultery. 

"Hey, Mr. Kujo." She whispers, "How was work?"

"(Y/n), please, you come over way too much to be so formal."

"Last time I called you 'Jojo' in front of your wife, she looked like she gonna tear my head off."

He scoffs, waving off the thought of her, “Yeah, I bet.”

(Y/n) chuckles softly as he takes off his shoes at the door and tiptoes across the living room's squeaky floorboards before gently sitting next to her much shorter stature.

"Wine after work?" He smiles, taking the other glass from the table. "You know me so well."

"You always complain about needing a drink so I brought."

"You probably need it more than I do, dealing with that one. How was she?"

She groans. "Tantrum."

"About?"

"He just hates resting for some reason. You know how kids are. Though, her mother coming over probably gave him a boost of energy

Jojo almost chokes on his wine, "Her mother? She was here you said? Why?"

"She said she came to see Jolyne for a bit but I feel like she was looking for you."

"Good grief, of course she was. Where is she now?"

"Her inn."

"Good. I don't think I can deal with another fight after a long day. I'm gonna snap." He sits up, "Anyway, did she say anything to you?"

“What do you mean?”

“Anything?”

"What, no not really. I mean, it doesn't matter, she was just..."

Jojo puts his drink on the coffee table. "What did she say to you?"

“Jotaro, I’m fine.”

“That’s not what I asked you.”

“She just...reminded me...of my job.”

He furrowed his eyebrows to figure out why his wife would feel the need to remind (Y/n) of her, but he quickly realized that was just it; his ex-wife was telling her to stay in her place. His eyebrows part and irritation instantly washes over his features as his beloved babysitter puts her glass down. “Listen, Jojo–”

"Don’t.”

“I only come over to watch your daughter. I don't know why I tried to go above and beyond by checking on you--”

“Because you’re amazing--”

“Because now your wife hates me. Like I’m pretty sure she fucking told the neighbors cuz they’re starting to look at me like I'm the worst person on Earth whenever I take Jolyne out."

The sudden sternness in the tone makes the man’s lips part before he bites the inside of his cheek in thought. They both look to the ceiling, listening for the sluggish pitter-patter of Jolyne’s footsteps making their way to the staircase—but it remains silent. Jojo sighs with relief and slides closer to her while she averts her gaze to the wine on the table. He rests a hand on her thigh. 

“Sorry, it’s just--” 

"No." He whispers, guiding her chin to face him, "I'm sorry for putting you through this. You deserve so much better than this.”

“What, no. It’s not you; your ex-wife’s just making life hard.”

He pauses, “Yeah, you’re right. But frankly, I could give a damn what she’s doing, I’m not letting you go—not if it’s not what you want.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Honestly, the highlight of my day is coming home to you and my daughter. I’m not letting that go for anything.”

“You...you serious?”

“You know I’m not one to joke about what I want. Or do I need to show you more recent proof?”

She nods then gasps as her boss quickly links his lips with hers. (Y/n)'s hands slide up his broad chest to yearningly grab his broad shoulders and rest the other on the back of his neck. They cup each other's faces and grasp at each other's shirts, groaning into each other's mouths for more.

Neither minded the amount of saliva due to their fervor as he picked her up and sat her on his lap. He holds her body so close that her breasts squish against him but pushes on his chest, breaking their forbidden kiss. Their lust-filled eyes open while they pant heavily on each other's reddened lips. Jojo's hand rests on her face, thumb swiping back and forth along her plush cheek.

"Sorry.” He whispers, “Didn’t know how much longer I could go without doing that.”

“What if someone sees?”

“Curtains are closed. Don't worry about it." He secures his hands under her thighs, "Let's go."

“Go where- oh!”

He carried her up the main steps, but instead of going to his room, he brought her to the guest room, a little farther away from his daughter's bedroom. He kicks the door shut before locking it, then sets her on her feet and continues to make out, sliding his long, white jacket down his arms and to the floor behind him. Their shirts were the next to go, being dropped at their sides before he pulled her hips closer, pressing his huge bulge into her pelvis.

“We do have to make this quick, though.” (Y/n) whispers breathlessly, "She told me she’d come back when you got off.”

“Shit, alright.” He picks her up again and walks to the available bed, where he mounts her, “Quick, got it.”

"Is this moving too fast? I mean..."

“We can stop now if you want.”

(Y/n) shakes her head, hands sliding down his side to his belts where she quickly unbuckles them. He looks down at her fingers and then back at her face with a small smirk. Before she knew it, his pants and boxers were down by his thighs while her leggings lay discarded on the hardwood floor. He tugs her underwear to the side and guides himself in with a breathless sigh from the tightness, head tilting back.

“Oh my...g-god.”

“Heh, sorry. Too quick?”

"Jus’ a little...big. Fuck Jojo."

He presses open-mouth kisses to her neck, "Not hurting you, am I?" He whispers.

“No...god, fuck no. Feels so fuckin’ good.

“I’m not even that deep yet.”

“I might go insane if you do. Just... jus’--”

“Oh yeah?”

The pads of Jotaro’s fingers dig into her hips as he pulls her closer to try to meet his base, but chuckles at the remaining inches between them.

(Y/n) grips his shoulders and curses under her breath, insides gripping him tightly, trying to stay sane while he stretched her wide. (Y/n) gasps out before biting her lip to keep her moans quiet when Jojo finally moves his hips at a slow yet deep rhythm. 

He tried to keep it together but soft moans still came out while he gripped the sheets under her as his movements gradually became harder. (Y/n) shivers and groans at the change, arching her back slightly as euphoria ran up her spine. Once she moaned his name softly, he lost more of his composure and leaned down for another sloppy kiss in an attempt to keep himself from moaning.

"Jojo, don’t f’cking stop, please; oh my god.”

"I know we're farther from the front," He whispers against her lips, "But you gotta keep it down, ngh~"

She nods. "But you're going so deep...so-o deep. You feel so good."

"I know.... fuck, I know. Goddamn, you’re so fuckin’ tight."

He lifts her legs to his broad shoulders, hips slamming against her ass over and over and creating the sound of heavy, wet slapping that fills the room. (Y/n)’s legs trembled so much from the deep strokes that she cried out only for him to cover her mouth and press his plump lips to her ear to shush her.

“Fuck, (Y/n).” Jotaro mutters, thrusts becoming harder, “You’re gonna wake my daughter if you keep that up.”

“But, ah, gonna cum. So close, Jojo, I’m so close~”

"Come on, cum for me then; that’s why I put you in this fuckin’ position. Cum.”

 He quickened his movements and gently pressed his lips to hers again, moaning into her mouth while his girth throbbed and pulsed with every swift drag through her wet, squeezing walls. She kisses back, scratching his large shoulders, as her orgasm rushes through her nerves. (Y/n) holds the back of his neck as he guides her through her climax, making her moan and gasp in his ear.

"I-I think--"

"What, you gonna--"

"I think I love you."

His face doesn’t change but his hips speed up on their own, "D-do you mean it, (Y/n)?"

She nods.

"I-I do too.... a l-lot more than I should."

"Hah~ Goin' t-too...fast."

"Seeing you every day before work is enough to fuel me for the day."

"You’re m-making it hard t-to--mmh god!"

"Fuck, you don't know how badly I've wanted this shit."

"J’taro--"

"Kissing you, touching you, making you cum for me—fuuck, it’s too much."

Her back arches off the bed, and he slides his arm between the bed and her lower back, continuously pulling her into every heavy, breathtaking thrust.  

"Ah~ Jojo! F-fuck, fuuck~!”

“Me too. Don’t worry, I’ll–”

“No, don’t stop. Please d’nt fuckin stop~”

“Then...you want me to..."

"Y-yeah, just please." She scratches up his shirt, "Don't stop~"

Jojo's hips stutter and his eyes shut as his thighs continue to smack against the back of hers. He groans loudly, burrowing his face in her neck when he meets the edge and spills his load inside her. He gasps and clutches at the sheets, while she plants soft kisses to his chest. They pant loudly together as his hips stutter to a stop, their bodies shivering together to calm down as huffs of breath in each other’s faces start to rile them up again.

Before they could get another word out, the front door could be heard opening from up the hall.

[createserenity]

The Painted Veil - Complete

Chapter 14 of 14 is now posted and the fic is complete. I've had such an amazing time writing this fic so huge thanks to @mirjam-writes first being such a great collaboration partner for this bang and to @do-it-with-style-events for organising the Silver Screen Bang. Also thank you to @masoney for betaing and supporting me through writing this.

Rating: E

CW: Mentions of serious illness and vomiting but nothing graphic. Brief adultery.

Summary: Crowley lives a life of leisure in 1920s London and when they meet at a party, Aziraphale is instantly smitten with him, whilst Crowley thinks Aziraphale is kind, but dull. When circumstances force them into an ill-advised marriage Crowley finds himself undertaking the journey of a lifetime, first to Shanghai and then beyond into the heart of China, where he faces challenges he never expected and is forced to confront not only outside dangers, but also his beliefs about himself, Aziraphale and what their marriage could be.

Sometimes the greatest journey is the distance between two people.

Excerpt:

"I love you,” Crowley repeated more softly, pushing himself upright from where he was sprawled against Aziraphale's shoulder and plucking nervously at the blanket beneath his fingers. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. And I'm sorry it took me so long to love you like you deserved. I should have loved you from the beginning really. I would have done if I'd known you then.”

@goodomensafterdark

[starlinehoney]

cw!! fem!reader, age gap, nsfw content, car sex, adultery, mention of biting ?? idk. pls lmk if I missed anything.

NSFW under the cut

⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂ ⠂⠄⠄⠂☆

Art feels pathetic.

He knows this is wrong. So, so wrong. He considered himself a man of honor, someone who would never disrespect the sanctity of his own marriage. But here he was, with a wife and a child waiting in the hotel room, fucking some starlet in her car.

It’s a tight squeeze— the car, that is. A beetle isn’t exactly the most spacious car, not ideal for anything that requires space.

Luckily, you don’t need much. He’s about as close as he can get without breaking anyone’s bones. He has you in the backseat, leaned up against the drivers side door. His hips are relentless, and he has your mouth covered tight. He already felt guilty for this, he didn’t wanna hear you talk about how good he’s fucking you. He shouldn’t be fucking you at all.

Maybe it was your fault, he tries to reason, tries to find some way to make it ok. You came to him as a fan with your tits spilling out of your top in some mini skirt the size of a fucking belt. What was he supposed to do when you came batting your eyelashes up at him in the hotel lobby?

And god, you feel good. He loves Tashi, but he’s sure he’s never felt anything as good as being inside of you. You’re so reactive. So pliant. Like you’d let him take a bite out of you if he asked. You’d let him devour you in your entirety without a thought. He watches in awe as your eyes roll back with a muffled groan and your velvety walls spasm around him.

It’s at this moment that it sinks in. He’s pushing forty, fucking some twenty-something year old in her car. He can’t remember if he’s wearing a condom, and in that moment he can’t quite find it in himself to care. He feels like Patrick.

As he cums all he can do is mutter quick, whined apologies into your shoulder. A chant, a prayer. It’s an apology to everybody and no one in particular. He wasn’t used to being the one in control, so maybe it was muscle memory. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was regret.

He can’t tell, and he doesn’t wanna find out. He pulls out and blinks a few times as he watches your slick, puffy cunt leak with white. He sighs a soft curse and pulls out his wallet. His hands you forty bucks for a plan b and kisses your forehead softly. He’d feel like a monster if he didn’t give you something. He mutters one more apologetic something before getting out of the car and walking back to the hotel by himself, guilty and dewy with sweat, smelling like sex.

He has a feeling he’ll be sleeping in Lily’s bed for a while longer.

[sugarbbgrl]

She (Price x OC)

I officially have an idea for a fic I'd been wanting to write for a while now, I really hope it goes the way I want it to. It's inspired by 'She' by Harry Styles. I've been listening to it on repeat, trying to figure out a way to format it into a story. Feedback is greatly encouraged and appreciated <33

John is in a broken marriage. Candace is his younger daughter's homeroom teacher.

wc: 1414

cw: mentions of infidelity (wife), angst, heartbreak, children (LMAO), mentions of divorce

John couldn’t exactly pinpoint when things changed. He’d always been a loving father and husband. He and his wife have been together for ten years, meeting through a friend and almost immediately hit it off. They share two lovely daughters together and a beautiful home. He may have been physically absent sometimes, work having been the culprit, but he never missed a daily call with his family. But there’s been a heavy shift in his marriage, he could feel it almost immediately walking into their home.

While John’s kids are more than elated, sharing tight hugs and a few shed tears, John’s wife is distant, nothing more than a tight lipped smile sent his way. He knows it can take a toll on people when their partner isn’t around, but they’d made a promise to each other: for better or for worse.

She barely said a word to him, her back turned to him when they slept, barely even touching him or even looking at him. It’s never been this tense around each other, but now you could cut the tension with a butter knife. She didn’t say goodbye to him once she left for her own job, leaving the task of taking his teenage daughters to school himself, which he didn’t mind, but just leaving like she did wasn’t adding up.

Then it did. He could smell another man’s cologne and her lipstick smeared every so lightly around her lips. His heart shattered, tears welling up in his eyes. He couldn’t even fathom the woman he’s been so in love with committing the sinful act of adultery. Every question swarmed in his mind, the ‘why’s’ and ‘how’s’ coming together in one big jumbled mess. But his wife couldn’t care less, just sneering at John and heading to their shared bedroom, making sure to lock the door behind her.

John slept on the couch that night, getting little to no sleep. He was restless all night, silent sobbing and tossing around on a couch not fit for a man of his stature. Those questions and the sight of his wife in the state she was in plaguing his mind all night. How could she do this to me? He thought to himself. I’ve given her everything and more.

It happened again the next morning; she left without a word. John sniffled and made himself some coffee, hoping the bitter beverage would liven him up some for the sake of his children. He would fake a smile while being home with them, not wanting to worry them more than they must be. He quietly washed himself and changed, barely even taking a peek around the room that was once filled with so much love.

Everything was completely different.

John had been home for a few weeks now, still keeping his bed on the couch, sleep coming only slightly easier. He hadn’t even wanted to discuss what he’d bared witness to. He’d seen more signs since the first night. Missing pieces of clothing, small marks he knew for a fact he didn’t give his wife, and even more avoidance on her part. He knew the conversation would come soon, he just didn’t know how to approach the conversation.

But then one day everything changed. He’d woken up to take his kids to school, the usual routine since he’d been home. He’d take his time getting ready, waiting on his girls to finish getting ready before heading out. It never occurred to him that he hadn’t met their teachers, so he took it upon himself to do so that day, making sure to look his best for the rare occasion.

His oldest daughter’s teacher was an elderly woman, smelling of chanel and lilac. She had a warm smile and wide framed glasses perched on her nose. She spoke in a light tone and welcomed John in a warm, grandmotherly hug. He made sure to explain his work situation and why he’d been absent to meetings, but avoided the brutal details. She understood and sent him off with her contact information.

But then he saw her. His younger daughter’s teacher was drastically different from the previous. About ten years John’s junior, she was radiant. Her hair was midway down her back, bright red with striking hazel eyes, seemingly staring into his soul and learning all of his darkest secrets. She wore a long sundress, the wind picking up the bottom lightly to show a pair of flats on her feet. She smelled warm, like vanilla and jasmine and lips painted a light pink. She was radiant, like sunshine on a cloudy day.

“Oh, you must be Mr. Price!” Her smile was wide when she laid eyes on him, greeting him. “Jenny talks so highly of you! I’m Candace White, her homeroom.”

John looked down at her extended hand, small and delicate like a flower in the meadow. His heart raced as his hand connected with her, his rough palms almost swallowing her soft ones. He was speechless, he hadn’t felt this attracted to someone since he’d first met his wife. His wife. The thought of her soured his tongue and dried his throat, he hadn’t even thought of her all day, deciding all together it'd be better not to think of her under another man.

“Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. White.” John returned the smile, dropping her hand lightly and stuffing his own back into his jean pocket. 

“Miss, I’m not married.” Candace chuckled and clasped her hand together at her front, correcting John’s misuse of the honorific.

“Ah, yes, my apologies Miss Candace.” John brought his hand up to nervously rub the back of his hand on his neck, emphasizing her correction. When did my palms start sweating? He thought to himself, failing to realize his skin had gone so clammy. I hope she hadn’t felt them when she shook my hand.

The sound of the morning bell rang through the school, indicating the start of the school day. Teachers and students alike swarmed to the front doors, doing their best to not be late.

“Well, it was lovely to finally meet you, Mr Price. I’d best get going.” She smiled once more and went to turn away, beginning her journey to the school.

“Wait,” John called out, his hand flying up to grasp her forearm. Her skin was warm, small specs of freckles dotted along her pale skin. “Can I get your number?” John asked, his hand firm against her arm.

Candace’s cheeks warmed, red spreading to her face and a nervous smile toyed at her lips. “Mr. Price-”

“I meant, can I have your contact information in regards to my daughter?” Now it was his turn for his face to flush, not realizing how forward his question was without context.

“Oh, of course.” She beamed, pulling out her phone. “Just give me your number and I’ll shoot you a quick text with my work phone number and email.”

John gave her his number, watching her intently, studying her movements as she typed away at her phone. He watched the way her eyebrows furrowed in slight concentration and the way her teeth pulled at her plump, painted lips.

“There we go.” Candace smiled at John after looking up from her phone, a light ‘ding’ sounding from John’s phone. “Don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns regarding Jenny! Bye, now!” She turned to walk away with a small wave, making her way up the stairs. 

John stared at the new message in his phone for a beat, admiring the new contact he has yet to officially add to his list. He knew it was going to be strictly professional, parent-teacher conversations, but the man couldn’t help but let his mind wander. Sweet good morning texts and dates set, his imagination leading himself into the deep end.

He needed to have that conversation with his wife, he wanted a divorce. He couldn’t stand being left out of dry, waiting around for her to finally change her mind. His interaction with another woman has opened his eyes wide, he didn’t deserve this kind of treatment from the woman he loved for ten years. He’d been the best father and husband he knew how to be, she betrayed his and their children’s trust. 

He wanted out, he didn’t care to be second any longer. She gets to have her cake and eat it too, just like John deserves as well. He gets to finally have fun.

[bambiiboop]

Bedside Manner (Medic!AFAB!Reader x TLOU2! Tommy Miller )

Spoiler Free Summary: you’ve been secretly in love with Tommy Miller for years. When he gets injured, you - the town medic - take care of him. One thing leads to another…

CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR TLOU2

Spoiler Friendly Summary: After losing the closest thing to a best friend you had, the man you’ve secretly pined after for six years is brought to your door gravely wounded. Given time and proximity, you finally act on your feelings.

Pairings: Tommy Miller x Reader , past one sided Joel Miller x Reader

CWs: major character death, spoilers, unprotected PIV, unsafe sex, oral sex (m!receiving), implied thoughts of adultery, Tommy has a dirty mouth, praise kink, big girthy unspecified age gap, mutual pining, cowgirl lmao.

Before the outbreak, there was a rule, a code that all doctors, medics and nurses followed. Do no harm, always help where you can, and don’t get involved with your patients. Simple enough.

That code still mostly applies these days, though you’re pretty sure it’s a much more loose moral code, thanks to your FEDRA sponsored medical education. Wham bam thank you military dictatorship, you’ll take your education and run, thanks very much.

You’ve always had a thing for him. Ever since he joined the community almost seven years ago, just a few months after you, when you were younger and freshly establishing yourself as one of the town medics.

Of course, you’d been too young, too shy, too focused on your job and earning your place in the community, and even if you’d felt a spark between you? It had never gone anywhere. You’d contented yourself to just admiring him from afar, pushing down the pangs of envy when he had married Maria.

Nobody had ever seemed to notice that your gaze always lingered on him. Nobody, except Joel. The arrival of Tommy’s older brother had been a welcome distraction, for a while. Joel had a fair few old injuries for you to keep an eye on, and more than a few mental scars you weren’t equipped to do anything about.

The older man had been your friend; hell, if you hadn’t fallen - albeit rather pathetically and unrequitedly - in love with his brother years ago, you could have grown to love him, perhaps. He had been company. Someone to talk to about the state of the world. To rag on the early days of FEDRA with.

And hell, when you’d both been drunk and lonely, he’d been someone to fall into bed with without any fear of complications. Rough, hasty fucks with no strings, just a line of trust between two jaded people. Never mind the age difference. You weren’t afraid of him, and hell, he knew what he was doing. The one time he had tried to be slow and gentle with you, pressing his lips to your throat, nuzzling into your soft skin, you had let slip your secret, moaning his brother’s name as you came apart around him.

Joel had never given you shit for it. Never been mad about it. Never even mentioned it, but he’d never been soft with you again.

You’d cared about him, in your own way, and now he was gone. Joel was gone, and Tommy…

Ellie and Dina had brought him directly to you, accompanied by two of the patrolmen from the wall. At first, you had been frozen in shock before directing them to get him on the table, for Ellie to fetch your field kit.

Shot in the kneecap. A bullet to the skull, passing through and exiting via his eye. Fuck, he was lucky to be alive. You’d set the younger women up in the guest room and told them you’d call for them if needed, and stayed vigilant all night, waiting.

He had woken just before dawn, and hadn’t left since. Three months had passed, and while the wound to his head was healing well, he still walked with a limp.

“Maria still won’t see him,” Ellie had told you, “I heard them yelling at each other.”

He’d said as much to you, when you had asked about whether they were coming off that break any time soon.

“Doubt we ever will, hon. No matter, really. It was a ticking clock, for a while, anyway.”

He’d moved into your guest room, brought a cardboard box of his belongings over. You hadn’t argued, simply said you could oversee his rehabilitation better this way.

And that had been that. Somehow, you’d lost the person akin to your best friend, and ended up with his brother - the man you had loved for years - living in your guest room. It didn’t seem like a fair trade, even if you were glad for his presence.

Your boots crunched on the snow as you walked up the path to the house, let yourself in and took off your coat, setting your field kit satchel down.

“Tommy? You here?” You call out automatically for your… roommate? Friend? Patient? Who the fuck knows. All of the above.

“Yeah. Upstairs.”

You make your way up the stairs, taking them two at a time, trying not to think about how long it must have taken him to get up here on his own, when he still has to use a cane to get around.

He’s in the guest room that’s become his room, one hand on the wall to brace himself as he looks out the window. You know it’s probably the wrong fucking time to admire the view, but you can’t help but do it anyway, take in all six feet of him, how broad he is, how well put together, even in his mid fifties and missing an eye.

He has his dark curls tied back in a messy bun, has trimmed his facial hair since you saw him this morning. He cants his head to look at you as you come in.

“Are you okay?” You get out, a tiny bit breathless from how fast you took the stairs.

“Aside from moving like a fuckin’ old man? Sure.”

Tommy used to be an optimist, fiercely so, but the loss of his brother and his subsequent injuries have made him bitter and jaded. You understand completely. Put up with his moods because you understand his grief. Understand what it means to be in pain. And because you know better than to pick and choose which parts of someone to love.

“You’re getting better. You won’t need the cane at all, soon.” You encourage; at the moment he only really needs it for the stairs, for longer walks.

“Whatever you say, doc.” His remaining dark eye rolls slightly as he returns to looking out the window. You turn to leave, to give him space, before you start taking his bad mood personally, but he sighs and reaches out a hand to catch your wrist. “I’m sorry. That was rude of me.”

“You’re allowed to be rude to me. Better you take it out on me than anyone else.” You shrug, then promptly shut your mouth. You don’t need to start making things awkward, not when you’re pretty sure he thinks you got over him years ago.

His eye narrows as he looks at you.

“Well, fuck. Joel wasn’t kidding, huh?” He exhales. Sounds, suddenly, very tired.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Your blood turns to ice as you get the words out.

“My brother… well. I loved my brother, but he wasn’t a good man. You know that. He never talked about you to anyone else, would have broken anyone’s jaw who tried, but he may have… shared some… details… with me. On occasion.”

“I’m pretty sure the entire town knew me and Joel fucked on occasion.” You say. The words taste oddly bitter coming out. You’re not ashamed of what happened between you, but talking about your past with Joel with Tommy just feels… whatever. It’s not like he sees you like that.

“It bothered him, you know.”

“What did?”

“Joel’s older by five years.” Tommy doesn’t even notice that he’s using present tense as he speaks; “he did everything first. And he was always there gettin’ me outta trouble. He was always first. I think it bothered him, that he wasn’t your first choice.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” You repeat, finally, because the idea that Joel may have told Tommy how you felt…

“We’d had a few drinks, and he told me. He told me you’d never gotten over that spark we had. Told me how he was fuckin’ you one night and it was me that you called out for. And y’know what? I haven’t been jealous of my brother in a long goddamn time, but in that moment… fuck. I wanted to knock him out.” His gaze darkens as he watches you, watches your cheeks heat at the implication.

“I ~” you can’t deny it. Are too fucking embarrassed to deny it. And somehow… grateful. Grateful that Joel had spared you the mortification of ever confessing.

“Been thinking about that a lot, recently.” His hand comes up to cup your jaw, thumb stroking your cheek. “Thinkin’ about you screaming my name when another man’s fuckin’ you. How much I wish I’d gotten a chance to see for myself, all those years ago. Imagine my surprise, finding out you still wanted it…”

“Want.” The word slips out of your mouth to correct him before you can stop it, before you can think of how it’s a bad idea, of how he’s technically under your care and that you shouldn’t -

“Want? Still? It wasn’t… it wasn’t Joel? I thought you were just takin’ care of me cause I’m his brother…”

“No. No; it’s not like that. I loved Joel, but I wasn’t in love with him. He was my best friend, as weird as that sounds… it… no. It’s you. It’s always been you. I never wanted you to know, I didn’t want to make things weird, and you’re married, and -“

“Was married,” Tommy corrects you softly, “not anymore. Now it’s just you and me, in this big old house, and I’m startin’ to think I’d really, really, really like to hear how my name sounds from your mouth when I’m fuckin’ you.”

There’s a sort of edge to him now that wasn’t there when you first met him… and you find that you like it.

“I… you’re still hurt.” You say lamely, distracted, so distracted, by his thumb rubbing circles on your cheek.

A wicked smirk crosses his face.

“So I can’t fuck you into the bed just yet. You said yourself I’ll get better. Ain’t nothing stopping you from riding my cock, is there, honey?”

You’re beyond glad that he didn’t say these words six years ago, because the you of the past would have melted into a puddle under those words. As it is, your knees are a little weak as you nod, try to be a little clinical about it, try not to let how eager you are show.

“You need a distraction, right? If we’re careful… I don’t see why we couldn’t-“

His mouth is on yours before you can finish the sentence. The kiss is needy, demanding, years of hidden desire released in a single touch. You’re careful, still, in how you touch him as you wrap your arms around his shoulders to pull yourself closer, lips parting to allow his tongue entrance.

You’ve thought about kissing him dozens of times. Hundreds. Never, though, had you imagined it would be like this. That his mouth would be so soft. Taking in the pine soap iodine scent of him. Your hands find the thin strip of leather tying his hair back; tugging it free, you run your fingers through his dark curls, humming quietly at how soft his hair is.

Idly, your fingers play with the buttons of his dark blue shirt; when he doesn’t stop you, releases your waist so he can get the shirt off, you make short work of the buttons and tug it off, leaving him just in his jeans.

“Go on and undress for me, honey.” The pet name falls from his lips as he softly nuzzles his mouth into your collarbone, nips at sensitive skin, teasing.

Shaking ever so slightly, you step back, unbutton your shirt, let the fabric fall as you make a start on your pants, shimmy out of them. Your bra and panties join the pile, leaving you bare to his gaze. He steps closer to you again, backs you up towards the bed as he slips a hand between your thighs.

Your teeth sink into your bottom lip as he drags his index and middle finger through your slick, slow, deliberate, humming low in his throat at how wet he finds you.

“Fuck…” he almost hisses it as he readjusts his jeans with his free hand, eye dropping closed for just a moment as he slides his fingers inside you, just to the first knuckle, but it’s enough to make you mewl for him.

“Gotta get you ready for me, hon, don’t want you to hurt yourself. Fuck, such a pretty pussy, gonna feel so good round my cock…” Tommy’s rambling, and he knows it, but he’s letting years of repressed desire come to the surface, years of being faithful and not looking twice at you, even when he’s wanted to.

Your hands reach for his belt, get it undone and work on getting his jeans down. Almost lazily, he steps out of them, pulls his fingers out of you and draws them to your lips. With eyes half closed, your lips part and you suck his fingers clean.

“That’s it… good girl.” He moves then, settles himself on the bed, wraps his hand around his cock and strokes lazily as he watches you. Fuck, his cock… you’d been too distracted by his fingers to notice until now. He’s so big, thick and curved and perfect, bigger than you’d ever imagined.

“C’mon over here, honey, ain’t gonna bite.” Tommy’s voice is soft, low, encouraging as you crawl onto the bed, careful to not put any weight on his bad leg as you straddle him, feel the hot weight of his cock pressed against your stomach as you lean down to kiss him.

You know it’s probably wrong. That, given you’re the medic in charge of his care, you absolutely should not be doing this, but you can’t bring yourself to care, not when his rough, callused hands settle on your hips, thumbs drawing little circles on your skin.

“Soon as I can manage it,” he tells you, “‘m gonna get y’to sit on my face.”

You shiver with delight at that particular idea, kiss him again, a slow lazy kiss, before you start to slowly kiss your way down his chest, wanting to kiss every single freckle on his body as you eventually settle between his thighs, tucking your hair behind your ears.

“Honey, you don’t have to-“

“I want to.” You tell him, smug at the flash of wicked lust that flickers across his face at your words. “Trust me. I want to. Let me take care of you?”

He groans low in his chest, leans back, props himself up against the mountain of pillows on the bed, and watches you. Slowly, deliberately, you wrap your hand around his cock and stroke him, paying attention to the tip, already leaking precum under your touch.

Leaning in, maintaining your eye contact, you lick the head of his cock, humming softly at the salty taste of him, taking him further into your mouth until your nose is pressed into the soft curls at the base of him.

“Fuck, that’s it, such a pretty mouth, shit~” he draws the last word out in a drawling groan, fingers twisting into your hair and holding you in place as he bucks his hips up into your mouth lazily. You take him in eagerly, flattening your tongue on the underside of his length, licking and sucking at him greedily, rubbing your thighs together to try and get some sort of friction.

“Get up here and sit on my cock before you make me cum with that mouth.” His Texas drawl is so much more pronounced as he demands this of you; pulling away from his cock with a lewd, wet sound, you kiss your way back up his chest until you’re straddling him again, his big rough hands back on your hips.

“What, you don’t wanna cum down my throat?” You tease, humming softly as you drag your soaked cunt along the length of him, feeling yourself tighten around nothing at the sheer anticipation of being filled by him.

“Some other time, hon, c’mon, don’t tease this old man, now.” He rocks his hips ever so slightly, and you shift, notching the thick head of his cock at your dripping entrance, sink down onto him.

“Not that old,” you manage to retort, exhaling sharply as your hips meet his, flush against him, his cock stretching you open deliciously. Maybe it’s not how you’d originally envisioned this; you’re both six years older than you’d hoped, you’re jaded and your joints are fucked, he’s lost an eye and will likely walk with a limp for the rest of his life, but none of that matters right now, not when he’s finally, finally inside of you, looking up at you like he’s seeing you for the first time. Really seeing you.

“Fuck, where have you been all this time?” He groans as you start to move, resting your hands on his shoulders to brace yourself.

“Right in front of you,” you reply, mewling softly when his hands move to cup your tits, thumbs brushing over your nipples, teasing. “Not my fault you weren’t looking.”

In answer, he bucks his hips up, pressing as deep into you as he can in this position, with his leg still aching.

“Fuck…” the drawn out curse is half a groan of pleasure as you tighten around him, a hiss of pain.

“Careful,” you chastise him, pressing a kiss to the tip of his nose, “you gotta be careful.”

He smirks, lets go of your tits to trail his hands down your sides, to grip onto your hips.

“Then ride me, baby, stop fuckin’ around. Ain’t gonna break, and if I die now with a pretty girl wrapped round my cock? Worse ways to go.” He smirks at you and you laugh, the sound fading to a moan as he takes advantage of your distraction to press a thumb to your swollen clit and rub at it, making you tense up above him, thighs tightening against his.

“That’s it, honey, fuck, like that, fuckin’ love this pussy, can’t believe I waited this long…” Tommy Miller is a lot of things, has done a lot of things, but he tries to be an honourable man. So much as he might be running his mouth now, saying these deliciously filthy things to you, you both know full well that he’d never have touched you if he was still with Maria.

You try not to think about that, focus instead on the feeling of him inside you, grinding his hips roughly into yours as you ride his cock. For a while, the only sounds in the room are soft exhales, the lewd sound of skin and skin meeting, your little needy mewls and the occasional low moan from Tommy.

“Soon as I’m not completely fucked up…” he props himself up as best as he can so your chests are pressed together, “I’m gonna make you scream for me.”

“You mean it gets better than this?” You tease, though it comes out far less teasing and taunting than you planned, given how breathless you are, how you tighten around him at the words.

“You have no idea,” Tommy rests his head on your shoulder as you ride him, able to move faster with his arms around you. “C’mon, honey, need y’to cum for me, know you want to…”

His lips brush your throat as he says it, nose gently nuzzling below your earlobe. It’s such an intimate gesture, it shatters your self control. He grinds up into you as you move to meet him, whimpering as you tighten around him, urged on by the hand he slips between you to rub your clit once more.

“Thaaaaat’s it, honey, let go, be a good girl for me, fuuuuck…” he’s amazed he’s managed to last this long, honestly, at his age, with how long it’s been since he actually enjoyed fucking someone this much; but he’s determined to see it through, to fuck you through your peak and over the other side of it, leaving you sweat damp and clinging to him, whimpering and gasping.

“Oh, fuck, fuck, Tommy, I ~” you can’t get the words out, choke on them, mewl his name as he roughly grips handfuls of your ass, holding you in place as he rocks up into you, chasing his own release now, uncaring about his injuries.

Your moans are muffled by the heated kiss he devours your lips in, muting his own curses and growls as he pulls you down onto him, unthinking, uncaring as he spills into you, feels your cunt tighten painfully around him again, pulling him in deeper.

“Fuck, baby, so fuckin’ greedy for my cum, look at you. Feel so fuckin’ good, look at the mess we’ve made…” he rests his forehead against yours, panting as he tries to catch his breath, riding the last waves of his own release.

You hum, grind down onto him as you feel his release start to drip out of you around his slowly softening cock.

“So,” you say, managing a smirk, still dazed from the fact that he’s touching you, holding you, kissing you. “Did that satisfy your curiosity?”

He pulls out of you with a frankly obscene grunt, lays you down next to him, wraps his arms around you, good eye sparkling with amusement and lust.

“Perhaps. Or maybe we’ll need to try again. Just to see whether you scream louder when I’m fucking you.”

Your cheeks heat as you lean in to steal an open mouthed kiss.

“We’ll need to wait til you’re better.”

Tommy fixes you with a filthy smirk that promises all that and more.

“Good thing I have a fucking amazing doctor, then, huh?”

You can’t help it. You laugh, for the first time in a long time, eager to see what the future will bring.

[dreamwatch]

Written for @corrodedcoffinfest

Prompt: Lust | Word Count: 1313 | Rating: M | CW: Adultery/Infidelity | POV: Steve | Pairing: Steddie, Steve/OFC | Tags: Angst, Steve, Eddie, Gareth, Steve is married, original female character (background), original child characters (background), unhappy marriage, messy as fuck, melancholy

Till death do us part. The words had been full of hope, full of a future, full of a life to be had together. They made plans, knew where they were going to live, where they were going to work, how many kids they would have. All before he said ‘I do’.

Steve’s never regretted saying two words so much.

He gets up, makes breakfast for her and the kids, then heads into work. On the weekend he mows the lawn and cleans the gutters. Takes his son to little league, drives his daughter to ballet. Some nights they get to eat as a family, some nights they don’t. He thinks of the Wheeler’s sometimes, how Karen was home for the kids, meals cooked, everything in order, a real family. Some nights he works, some nights she does. The kids stay with friends or baby sitters. When they get a little older they’ll be fine on their own. He was.

She doesn’t need him. The kids would be fine without him, they don’t realise he’s there half the time. He thought it would be more fun. Telling Nancy that he wanted six little nuggets had seemed so cute and romantic but here he is with his dream and it’s just…not his dream anymore. He loves his kids, would die for them, but it’s not what he was expecting. It’s harder. There’s more sacrifice. Less of him left at the end of the week. It’s selfish, sure, but he’s thirty five and he and his wife barely say good morning to one another. It’s so fucking cold.

So on the weekends he sees Eddie.

Eddie left Hawkins as soon as he was able to and went travelling, which at the time had sounded good for him. Hawkins had left him hollowed out, a shell of the boy they knew. A couple of years later they found out he’d only got as far as a couch in Cincinnati. Jeff tracked him down, cleaned him up and brought him home. He’s worked at the plant ever since, Gareth right alongside him. 

Steve’s wife wanted to move to Indy after they got married. That was the first time he said no to her.

She’s great with Robin, thinks the sun shines out of her ass, or did once she found out she was a lesbian. But her family were friends with the Cunningham’s and she was in Eddie’s class in school, so he is very much not welcome in their home. Steve learned the hard way not to mention Eddie’s name; lose the battle but win the war. So they fuck at Eddie’s. Which is probably for the best.

The summer sun sears his skin, a beer sweats in his hand as he flips burgers on the grill, and all the dad’s stand around talking about their cars and their boats and all the gals drink wine coolers while watching the kids in the pool. He hears a huge splash; Gareth’s kids cannonballing, splashing the soccer moms. They’re re older than his children, look so like their dad it’s scary with their mops of dirty blond curls. His wife is lovely, always there when you need something. Always kind to Eddie, too. Jeff moved away a couple of years ago, but he comes back to check on Eddie. Matty too. But Gareth stayed, and Steve knows he stayed for Eddie.

“Hey,” Gareth says, nudging him in the ribs. “How’s it going?”

Steve flips a burger, popping and sizzling on the grill. “It’s going. How’s the family?”

Gareth eyes him carefully before taking a pull on the beer. “You know, so-so. Been better, been worse.” Takes another drink of his beer and moves in to look at the grill a little more closely, closer to Steve. “You were missed last week.”

Steve sighs, eyes darting around looking for his wife, making sure she’s out of earshot.

“I couldn’t get away,” he says under his breath.

“Yeah well, if you can’t keep your promise to the family then you need to rethink this arrangement because —”

“Jesus Christ, alright. I know, okay?” He drops a couple of cooked burgers onto a plate, adds a couple of raw ones, an eye on his wife the whole time. 

“Is he alright?” he whispers.

Gareth knocks back the last of beer before reaching into the cooler and grabbing another.

“Go see for yourself. We’ll stay late tonight. You won’t be missed.”

He never is.

The sun is low in the sky when he pulls up outside the double wide Eddie shares with Wayne. Wayne’s retired now, spends his weekends fishing or sitting on Jim Hopper’s porch knocking back PBRs like they’re going out of fashion, so Steve knows he won’t be home. He fishes out his key, a quick look over his shoulder, before letting himself in. They’ve been doing this for years and yet it’s never made it back to his wife or parents. Or maybe it has and they’re living in blissful ignorance. He could live with that.

He hears music coming from Eddie’s room, not the metal of his youth that drove them all so mad, but something softer, sadder. Steve kicks off his shoes and pads to the bedroom. He shucks off his shorts and t-shirt and climbs onto the bed next to Eddie, sweat slicked chest against his pale back. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, planting a soft kiss on Eddie’s shoulder.

“Yeah.” 

Steve hates that tone, the defeat in his voice. He pulls Eddie round making him turn so they’re lying face to face. His hand finds Eddie’s cheek, cradles it softly, his thumbs stroking the stubble on his jaw, the corner of his mouth. He forgets how beautiful Eddie is sometimes. It takes his breath away, hits him at moments he’s not expecting. Age looks good on him. He’s filled out from years of hard work in the factory, though it’s worn him down in other places. The Munson Bad Back is what Wayne calls it.

“How was your party?”

“It wasn’t a party.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Alright, then how was your barbecue?”

Steve leans in, meaning to catch Eddie’s lips between his own but Eddie pulls away.

“It was boring, and I couldn’t wait to get away, and Gareth is a fucking saint. I owe that guy so much beer.”

Eddie nods, his eyes never leaving Steve’s. They do this, sometimes, lie here for hours, whispering I love you’s until Steve has to collect the kids from whatever social event they’ve been invited to. Get them home, get them fed, all the time with the scent of Eddie still on his skin. He should feel ashamed. But he loves him too much for that. 

“What do you want?” Steve asks him, wrapping a brown ringlet around his finger. It brings a smile to Eddie’s face. “There he is.” Steve beams back. 

Eddie closes his eyes. “Just you.”

Steve nods softly and pulls him in for a kiss, his tongue nudging at Eddie’s lips. Eddie never denies him. His wife has never kissed him like this, with desire, with need. He wonders sometimes if she’s seeing someone else, too. He wouldn’t mind. It would make him feel better. Maybe he’d be able to give more to Eddie; he deserves the world. Eddie’s lonely, Steve knows that. Knows there’s never been a Mrs Munson the way there is a Mrs Harrington. Knows there never will be. 

They don’t talk about the future, they never have, there’s nothing to gain from it. The maybe-somedays don’t help anyone, least of all Eddie. Steve loves him, adores him, and he knows Eddie loves him back, feels it deep in his bones. 

They’ve had fifteen years together, in a way. Just not the way they wanted. But they both hope for more, hope for forever.

Till death do they part.

I struggled with this so much, so I went searching for song inspo on Spotify and Undisclosed Desires by Muse grabbed me. I didn't intend for this to go this way, and it's much sadder than I had meant it to be.

@the-unforgivenn At least I didn't hurt Gareth!

[mabelstone]

Competition

matt stone x f!reader

genre: enemies to lovers, mature

summary: part two of Provocateur

word count: 4.9k

cw: more drinking, brief violence, mentions of blood, mentions of adultery, unprotected sex, hate sex... teeny bit of slapping

You were four shots deep at this point on top of the two martinis you smashed down and you were feeling it. For the past hour, Matt had you in hysterics, throwing your head back, ugly laughing from deep in your chest.

"More shots!" He exclaimed, flagging down your bartender friend whose patience was thinning with you both.

"Christ, are you trying to kill me?" You scrunched up your face, not sure you could handle any more. The room was already spinning and it was hardly 9pm.

"Gotta eliminate the competition," he joked, sliding another shot of tequila your way.

"Funny," you rolled your eyes, cheersing your glass with him before throwing it back. You cringed at the taste, fighting back a gag as the liquid burned every inch of your oesophagus. "No more, seriously, or I'll need my stomach pumped."

He agreed, dragging you to the dance floor with him. "No, no way," you protested, realising how strong he was by the way he effortlessly pulled you along with him.

"Loosen up, would you," he scoffed at you, pulling your body flush against him. You rested your head against his shoulder, mainly because you were struggling to hold yourself up. He likely noticed, one of his arms snaking around your waist, the other taking your hand in his. You groaned, knowing where this was going.

"I don't know how to slow dance," you mumbled against him, craning your head up to look at his face. You were in heels and he was still towering over you. You brought your free arm up over his shoulder - for stability, of course - realising just how broad he was. He was so delicious, and the alcohol was only making your burning hunger for him far more unbearable.

"It's easy, just sway with me," he looked down at you, gapped toothed grin on full display. For a minute there, you swore you would make a good match. You weren't repulsed by him in that moment.

You followed his lead, juxtaposing his steps, his grip on your hand insurmountably more gentle than when he shook your hand yesterday.

"There! You got it," he praised, spinning you around by your hand. You erupted in a fit of giggles, hands coming up to his chest to brace yourself when he pulled you back in. You stayed there for a moment, feeling his heart beat against your palms, laying your head against your hands as he propped his chin atop your head, wrapping his arms around your shoulders as you continued to sway.

You didn't know what came over you, but when you looked up to him, your heart swelled in your chest. Taking his face into your hands, you pressed your lips to his. His lips were soft and warm and seemed to fit perfectly against yours like a puzzle piece. You took him by surprise, but he soon reciprocated, moving his lips against yours carefully, quick hands finding your hips as he deepened the kiss.

Once somewhat satiated, you pulled away, your eyes meeting his, pupils blown. "That was a moment of weakness, that promotion is mine," you joked with a soft smile.

For once, he didn't have a smartass remark to add. Instead, his thumb grazed your cheek tenderly. It made you feel strange, pulling away from him.

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom," you excused yourself, ignoring the glare the bartender gave you.

And you did, elbows to the basin as you rested your head in your hands. Why did I do that? Well, you knew why. You were intoxicated and he was giving you the perfect amount of attention. What's worse, you really liked it. You could've stayed in that moment forever, and God forbid you weren't in a private place, or else who knows how far you would've gone. You looked up at yourself, angry that you had that giddy feeling coursing through your veins. Angry that you were left confused - even angrier that you were considering him a viable option.

No way, you had a rule against dating coworkers - especially if they were the reason you mightn't advance in your career.

You took a deep breath and left the bathroom, finding an indifferent Matthew receiving an ungodly tongue lashing from the bar tender. With furrowed brows, you approached the two; Matt with a stone cold expression, seemingly unphased; the bartenders' veins bulging from his forehead and neck.

"And you-" the bartender turned to you, an accusing finger pointed in your direction. You cocked your head slightly, brows knitted together even tighter now in confusion. "Thought he was a prick, huh? Tell me why you're mouth fucking him in my bar then."

"You need to calm down," you spoke, raising your hands out before you in defence.

"Don't fucking tell me what to do," he growled, smashing a glass on the bar table. You gasped softly, taking a step back. He was definitely doing lines behind the bar. He had the tendency to lash out like this when he was high, one of the countless reasons your time together was exclusively in the bedroom.

To your surprise, Matt didn't flinch whatsoever, only stepping back to slightly push you behind him... guarding you?

"Don't speak to her like that," Matt's tone was stern and unwavering, cool almost. His jaw jutted, seemingly his signature move when he was aggravated. The bartender clenched his fist, a single drop of blood running down his hand. Everyone else in the bar was silent, watching on intently. You felt a million eyes burning holes through you, your heart thudding against your chest.

"Let's just go," you pleaded quietly, tugging on his arm. You could tell Matt wasn't finished, but nonetheless, he nodded, shooting the bartender one last glare before wrapping his arm around your waist, pushing you ahead of him before starting to walk out.

You jumped again at the loud smash of glass, this time a few shards ricocheting off the ground, nipping at the backs of your ankles. Before your inebriated brain could process what just unfolded, Matt was storming toward the bar, letting himself in through the little hatch door. You hand flew to your mouth, muffling yet another gasp as you watched his fist collide with the bartenders' face. You couldn't watch, but judging by the gasps from others in the bar and more sounds of glass shattering, they were undoubtedly piling into one another.

You stepped outside, the quiet nightlife an easing contrast to the shit show that just erupted inside.

You were conflicted; do you wait for him? Do you catch the next cab and leave as fast as you could? Was he even going to come out? You felt sick, though in the freezing cold, your palms were sweating profusely and you felt hot. Your spiralling thoughts were cut short when lo and behold, Matt stumbled out, busted lip, nose gushing with blood and bruised, bloody knuckles.

"Holy shit, are you okay?" You fretted, taking his hands in your own, inspecting the cuts on his knuckles.

"You should see your boyfriend," he snickered, releasing one of your hands to wipe his nose with the back of his.

As awful as it was, it really did something for you to see him like this. It sparked a fire in you that you were choosing to ignore, staring a bit too long.

"You... okay?"

"Hm? Yeah, yeah," you giggled nervously, releasing his hand now. "I think we've had a big enough night, I think you should get home and clean up."

He chuckled, nodding along with you. You both walked in silence for a bit, the sound of your heels clicking along the cobblestone path drowned out by the soft passing of cars, the music from the bar slowly fading out of earshot.

"I'm really sorry about that, Matt," you frowned, running a hand over his bicep. Touch wasn't your strong suit, but in the moment it seemed fitting, and he smiled to himself.

"Don't worry, kid, shit happens," he shrugged, hailing a cab from the curb. "Seriously, fuck that guy though."

You both laughed as you climbed into the cab, a soft pink hue tinting your cheeks when he opened your door for you. You gave the driver your address, the buzz of the alcohol still clouding your senses as you watched Matt look out the window. You couldn't suppress the smile that crept onto your face; the way you always ended up around this man. You couldn't escape him. He must've felt your gaze, turning to you, a grin of his own forming.

You leant forward, pressing your lips to his once again. You were diligent and gentle in doing so, not wanting to hurt his busted lip any further. One of his hands crept to the back of your head, slipping his fingers into your hair, while the other found your thigh, gently circling his thumb into the soft skin. You shuddered lightly under his touch, wanting, craving more of him to the last fibre of your being.

The cab pulled up outside your apartment, the driver clearing his throat, causing you both to pull away. You ran your thumb over his bottom lip, wiping away the faintest drop of crimson.

"Bye," you practically whispered, Matt reciprocating. You thanked the driver and headed up to your room, head absolutely reeling.

***

Monday at work, you were nervous to see Matt. Truthfully, you couldn't get him off your mind. That smile that made you queasy, the affectionate gestures that just made you confused. When you went home that night you felt lonely, cursing yourself for not inviting him up. At the same time, though, you were grateful you didn't. You knew it was probably just drunken stupidity overloading your senses and you would regret it.

Your heart thrummed in your ears as you approached your desk. There he was, fingers rapidly typing at his computer, a large cup of coffee being neglected on his desk. You urged the smile off your face as you sat beside him, trying to be quiet to not disturb him.

"Morning," you spoke soft, logging into your own computer. He only hummed in response, not even looking to you. Your heart sank a little, an immediate wave of anxiety dousing your every nerve ending. "Everything okay?"

"Mhm, just trying to get my work done," he sighed flatly, your face burning a dark red. "You should do the same."

You laughed softly, yet there was no humour in your tone. What a fucking asshole, you thought to yourself, swallowing the lump in your throat before doing as he suggested.

As the day went on, you didn't exchange any dialogue, nor did he even look at you for more than a few seconds. Why were you upset? It clearly meant nothing to him. You preferred it this way, anyway. Now you had purpose again to destroy his chances of getting your promotion. You packed up early after receiving a tip of Madame's whereabouts tonight, praying she would actually be there.

"Where are you going?" He finally spoke, turning to face you now. Good God he looked so edible today. A big cut over his slightly puffy bottom lip, those big, beautiful eyes that looked extra tired, slight bruising under the left.

"Home," you returned his flat tone from earlier, turning away and heading for the elevator. You heard the faintest scoff from his direction, using every muscle in your body to not turn around and scream in his face. Instead you got in the elevator and pressed 'ground level'. The doors started to slide closed when you saw him approaching. You mouthed, sorry, with your finger jamming the close doors button, a faux pout on your lips as the doors shut in his face.

You climbed into your car, a residual frustration hanging over you like a dark cloud that wouldn't go away. How dare he?

***

You arrived at the hotel Madame was supposedly staying at, and now was the time she'd be checking in. In an attempt to be inconspicuous, you wore one of your usual coats with your hair clipped up Pam Anderson style, large rimmed sunglasses shielding your eyes. You nearly leapt with joy when you saw her talking to the clerk, a bell boy carrying a ridiculous amount of bags for her 2 night stay. You took a seat on one of the red velvet seats in the lobby, cringing at the feeling, but staying put. You watched intently, your glasses hiding the fact as you kept your distance.

You watched her for roughly twenty minutes, a bit disappointed when nothing was happening. She did the usual; checked in, ordered some people around. Then she headed out for a cigarette, and you trailing far enough behind that she wouldn't notice, but close enough to see something that made your jaw drop.

Madame had planted herself in the lap of a man who was not her husband, obscenely making out with him to the point you felt a bit perverted watching. You were quite well hidden, but judging by the display before you, they probably didn't give two shits who saw. Once he started running his hands up her dress, you quickly snapped a photo and headed back inside. You'd seen more than enough.

The heavy cloud was lifted, excitement bubbling inside of you as you finally had a story. You got in your car, unable to hold back your smile that stretched from ear to ear, absolutely ecstatic.

As awful as it was to be excited to expose this woman... A) you had no remorse for cheaters, and B) you were going to crush Matthew Stone.

***

By the end of the week, Matt was back in his old office. Yours was still being renovated, but you didn't mind. No, not today. Today, you were submitting your article for authorisation with the big boss. Like, your boss' boss. You didn't want to get too ahead of yourself, but you were positive your story would bode well.

You packed up for the day, heading out before turning on your heels when you heard your name being called. Of course it was Matt.

You sighed before turning and entering his office, folding your arms before him. "Yes?"

"Just wanna wish you luck," he grinned, though you couldn't quite tell if it was out of kindness, or if he was being his typical condescending self. "You look really nice, by the way."

"What are you getting at here?" You sighed theatrically, running a hand through your hair.

"Have a seat, would you?" He smiled again, gesturing to the chairs in front of his desk. You unwillingly obliged, slumping down into one of the seats. Velvet again! What is wrong with these people?

"You ignore me all week and now you wanna talk?" You raised an eyebrow at him inquisitively, not wanting to be a part of his fucked up mind games in any form.

"That was wrong of me, I'm sorry." You wanted to kick him in his stupid gap teeth... but you also wanted him to bend you over his desk until there were nail marks in the wood and you were screaming his name. "I just couldn't have any distractions, and God knows you're a good one."

You rolled your eyes at him, gesturing with your hands for him to get to the point.

"Right, right." He cleared his throat, folding his hands on his desk. "Now that this is all over, what did you write your exposé on?"

"I guess you'll have to find out when I make the headline and get my promotion," you smiled, getting up from the chair. You weren't going to sit here and be humoured by him. He'd probably found a way to go in and change his submission, and you'd never give him the satisfaction.

He groaned once you left the room, trailing close behind you.

"Jesus, slow down," murmured, catching the closing elevator door with his hand. "You don't need to ice me out," he rolled his eyes this time, adjusting the cuffs of his dress shirt. You couldn't control your eyes as they followed his movements, large, veiny hands that were nearly fully healed now.

"Can't you just leave me to have a nice afternoon?"

"I wanna see you tonight," he confessed, following you out to your car space.

"After the way you treated me? Fat chance," you scoffed, unlocking the car and climbing in. His car was conveniently parked beside yours, causing you to roll your eyes in frustration yet again.

He rolled down his window, his voice faintly echoing outside your closed window. You sighed before rolling it down, looking toward him incredulously. "What?"

"Madame," he started, putting his car into gear. "Cheated on her husband." He pulled out of the lot, and that horrible, heavy cloud of frustration was back.

You watched his stupid white Mercedes disappear from your view, jaw slack, sitting in disbelief. How did he know that?

It's like a switch flicked in you or something. You loved this job more than anything. He knew that, he wanted to get under your skin. And by God, did he. You pulled out of your parking space and headed straight for his house. You didn’t care how crazy you looked, he was an asshole and you were determined to make him pay.

Your blood boiled in your veins, scorning every capillary beneath your skin, peppering a trail of angry kisses across your cheeks in the form of pure anger. You white knuckled your steering wheel, clenching your jaw tighter each time you were trapped at a red light.

You remembered his address from when you were in the cab together last, and were familiar with the area as you nearly bought a house on the same street. There was his ridiculous Mercedes in the driveway, almost mocking you, so to speak, silently taunting, ha! Beat you to it.

You practically flung yourself out of your car, slamming the door behind you as you stormed to his front door, knocking so hard your knuckles stung.

“I knew I’d get you to hang out with me,” he grinned widely, smug as ever. Somehow he’d already changed into a black t-shirt and knee length cotton shorts. Damn, he always looked good. “Bit concerning that you know where I live, but I’ll let it slide ‘cause I want you here-“

“What is your fucking problem?” Your cheeks were still burning red, your fists clenching at your side as your heart pounded against your ribs, egging you on to strangle him to death.

“Come in,” he rolled his eyes, grabbing your arm and effortlessly pulling you into his house. “Don’t need the neighbours eavesdropping your meltdown.”

“Meltdown?” You laughed incredulously, even angrier by his stupid unbothered demeanour. “You stole my idea once again, you asshole!”

He tsked, walking toward his kitchen, grabbing out two glasses before continuing, “the name calling is a bit juvenile, wouldn’t you agree?”

“How did you know she’d be there?” You asked, brows knitted together as you clenched your jaw, resting flat palms against his kitchen counter.

“That doesn’t really matter now, does it?” He chuckled, sliding a glass of water to you. “Let’s be real, I have a bigger name than you, they wouldn’t have even thought twice about your submission.”

You walked toward him, inches from his face at this point. So close, in fact, you could feel the warmth radiating from his body, you could smell his cologne. “You’re going to revoke your submission.”

“Or what?” He furrowed his eyebrows in faux fear, hands gripping your waist, pulling your front against his.

You breath hitched slightly, the feeling of his tight abdomen pressing against you with his fingers digging into your sides sending a chill through you. Quite the contrast to the fire ignited inside you.

“What’re you gonna do, huh?” His hands trailed down to the swell of your ass, fingers lightly gripping the soft skin. He pouted in your face, kneading your ass a little harder. “Nothin’ to say? S’what I thought.”

He pressed into your ass, your pelvis flush against his body. “You don’t want to find out,” was all you could muster, a defeated blush splattering across your cheeks as your voice wavered slightly.

“Cute,” he grinned, pressing his lips against yours. You cursed your lack of autonomy, hands quickly flying to cup his face without a second thought, opening your mouth slightly in invitation. He accepted, sliding his tongue in slowly, tasting one another as he grabbed your lower thighs, picking you up as if you were as light as a grocery bag, wrapping your legs around his waist. You desperately tugged at his soft curls, your tongue roaming the expanse of his as your soft sounds of approval reverberated off one another.

He grunted as your lips trailed to his neck, leaving warm, open mouthed kisses on his skin. He opened what you could assume to be his bedroom door, lowering you gently onto his bed before he pulled away. He unbuttoned your dress pants, warm fingers brushing your hipbones as he pulled them down, a trail of goosebumps forming on your skin.

You watched his careful, almost premeditated movements, as if he prepared for this exact scenario. His eyes raked over your figure hungrily, eager lips placing wet kisses along your inner thighs, sparking a fire in your stomach as the goosebumps continued to prickle at your skin. His lips got close enough to your underwear that you jolted when he licked a flat stripe over your skin, only about an inch away from where you needed his tongue.

You bucked your hips reflexively, an embarrassingly desperate noise escaping your lips. He roughly pushed your hips back down, mocking the noise you made. Your face instantly heated up, trying to pull from his touch.

"I'm joking," he chuckled, hooking his fingers in the waistband of your panties. "Sounds pretty, wanna hear more," he more mumbled the last part as he slipped your panties off, blowing cold air onto your very wet heat. You squirmed lightly under his touch, involuntarily bucking your hips as he drew his tongue flat up your clit, ripping a groan from deep inside your chest.

He flit his tongue across your clit again, this time applying diligent pressure to the area; tracing gentle shapes into your it.

“More,” you breathed, desperately reaching for his hand on your hip, forcing it down to your throbbing core. You were wet enough for him to slowly slip a digit in, siding in until up to his knuckle was coated in your slick, pulling out completely. He coated his ring and middle finger with your slick before sinking both digits in without warning, eliciting a sharp whine from you. Your hands flew to the short praline curls you’d grown to love and hate so bad, raking your fingers along his scalp as you ground against his face. Times like this you were reminded why big noses were a feature you loved in your sexual partners.

He pulled his mouth away, flipping his hand so his wrist was bumping against your clit as he continued to thrust his skilled fingers in and out of your heat, unrelenting with his rhythm. He knew he found that dizzying spot inside of you when you arched your back against him, your chests touching as he hovered over you, muffling your pretty affirmations of pleasure with his own lips.

He continued rubbing his palm over your clit, realising how close you were when your walls began to tighten around his long, slender, concerningly skilled fingers.

“Matt,” you warned, unable to even kiss him back with the waves of pleasure rippling through you.

“Not yet,” he grinned against your lips, pulling his hand completely away from you just before you reached your peak.

“Fuck you,” you cried frustratedly, pushing him away from you.

“Give me a minute, would you?” He laughed, pulling his shirt over his head, his pants following shortly after.

Your eyes widened and your jaw slackened, not only at the sheer size of him, but the impossible girth.

"I-" you shook your head profusely, as if to admit that it wouldn’t fit in any way.

“You can take it,” he encouraged brazenly, clearly very fond of his endowment.

“At the risk of giving you an even bigger head, nuh-uh.” You closed your legs, holding yourself up on your palms. He tsked you again, stroking over his length slowly, using his spare hand to grab the back of your neck, connecting your lips once more. You melted into him, reciprocating immediately.

“You’re so easy,” he chuckled triumphantly, rubbing his cock across your aching heat, collecting your slick over the tip.

You slapped him across the face without thinking, your stomach flipping at the girly whine he released.

Unbeknownst to you, he wanted you to get angry. "Do it again," he demanded, and you did. Well, attempted to. When your hand was but millimetres from his face, his fingers laced your wrist with a vice grip, slamming it into the pillow above your head as he thrusted his entire length into you in one swift motion.

You released a guttural gasp/moan, your unrestrained hand frantically searching for something, anything, to hold onto, opting for the broad shoulder before you, leaving behind crescent moon shaped indents on his lightly freckled skin.

"Mmh- so tight," his words were almost lethargic sounding, drawn out and breathy.

"I fucking hate you," you confessed through grit teeth as he continued to rut in and out of you at a mouthwatering pace, teetering on the fine line between pleasure and pain.

"Not a big fan of you either," he grunted between thrusts, a moan cutting through the end of his sentence as your walls flexed around him.

"You feel so good though," another juxtaposing confession from you, wrapping your free arm around his shoulders for leverage, pulling yourself up to connect your lips with his once more. He reciprocated greedily, taking up all of your air before shoving you back onto the bed, propping your legs up over his shoulders. He bottomed out once more, this time pummelling your g-spot with each precise thrust, and now you were being loud.

You exchanged sounds of pleasure and insults, the neighbours undoubtedly hearing every word and likely very confused.

He slipped his fingers down to rub your clit, immediately hurling you to the edge.

"Finally got you to shut up," he chuckled playfully. Embarrassingly enough, you attempted to speak but no words came out, only a strangled, almost painful moan; mouth dry from panting profusely and eyes threatening to roll back. You were a hot mess, and you had no idea what it did to him.

The look on his face combined with his unmistakable skill sent you well and truly over the edge. He looked so focused, furrowed brows, droplets of sweat threatening to fall, bottom lip trapped between his teeth. You couldn't even formulate a warning, coming undone around him. You slipped your legs down his arms, thighs now resting atop his, back arching, toes curled. He wrapped his arm around you, pulling your chest against his as he fucked you through your orgasm, soft and drawn out praises, "theeeere you go, yeah," slipping past his tongue and melting down skin.

Your eyes were screwed shut as you slowly came down, wrapping your arms around him as you continued to match his thrusts.

"Cum in me," the first words you muttered in a while; words that seemed to be the magic phrase. He gripped you hard, hips stuttering as he released inside of you, his own eyes rolling back as ecstasy surged through his being.

You carefully climbed off him once your breathing steadied, immediately picking up your clothes and slipping them back on. He lulled his head to the side from where he'd laid back, curls wet and stuck to his forehead. "Glad we resolved things," he grinned, covering himself with a blanket.

"That was amazing," you sighed in a mix of exhaustion and contentment. "So, there's one thing you're useful for."

"M'gonna have to piss you off more often."

You scrunched up your nose with a fake smile. "Bathroom?"

"Down the hall to the left," he sighed this time, stringing his arm over his face in a more understandable fatigue. "You might wanna fix your face too. You look like a hooker."

You shot him a glare, not that he could see, before heading to his bathroom. Sheesh. He was right. Your mascara had run down your cheeks, smudged all around your eyes. Your hair was an absolute birds nest, and your lips and cheeks were flushed a matching shade of pink. You used the toilet, grimacing at the uncomfortable wetness between your thighs, a messy mixture of both of your arousals.

You walked back into his room just as he'd pulled his briefs back on, standing in the door frame, brazenly admiring his figure. Though very tall and skinny, his muscles were well defined and lightly glistening with sweat.

"See you at work."

You did the walk of shame to your car, his conservative looking neighbours looking at you both disgusted and mortified.

you can tell when i write this over a few days when the writing style changes 😗 hope you enjoyed