#all three of these bugs slap

[imalwaysaslutforthevoid]

[solace-seekers]

got to play the fun game of Is It Bugs Or Just Paranoia??? at work today!!!

[jeonginsleftcheek]

Dolly

pairing: hyunjin x afab!reader

synopsis: you feel lonely and buy a new sex doll on the market, not knowing what you got yourself into.

genre: smut, fluff, sci-fi

word count: 10.3k

warnings: alcohol, multiple sex scenes, unprotected sex, oral (f and m), squirting, creampies

a/n: spooktober continues🤭🫶🏻 if u love black mirror, these are vibes for u! also i'm sorry if the ending seems rushed but i have two more things to write for hyunjin before i continue with my spooktober🫠

!!! this fic has an ambiguous ending

~ divider by @bunnysrph

~ Masterlist

Your cursor hovers over the 'continue to payment' button.

Are you really doing this?

It's embarassing enough that you can't get a date lately, and everyone around you keeps bugging you about it, asking when you're going to find a partner already.

Like you need one. You were perfectly fine alone.

But everyone has needs, and the ad for the new sex dolls that have just come out on the market looked enticing.

Each one of the new models was a unique one, only one of them made as it was sort of a trial run for them and your attention was captured by Hyunjin, the romantic doll.

It was expensive too, but you had money saved up on the side and thought, why not get something for your pleasure and try something new as well.

'Fuck it!', you thought and clicked on the button, purchasing the doll; there was no going back now.

Eagerly, you awaited the day it would be delivered to your door and three weeks later, there was a big box in the middle of your living room.

Biting on your lip, you stare at the box as your heartbeat quickens.

In the pictures, it looked so real. Like it was a real human being and to say you were a bit disturbed was an understatement.

But as freaky as it was, you were still so curios about it so you opened up the box slowly, your eyes wide for the peculiarity of it all. There were covers neatly placed over the doll, and bubble wrap just about everywhere, but on top of it all was a letter.

You opened it up and it read;

Hello,

my name is Hyunjin and I am your romantic doll.

I love art, good food and wine, long walks on the beach and heartwarming movies.

Please, treat me with great care as I am sensitive, and no matter what you do with me, always end it with cuddles.

Hope you come to love me as much as I already love you.

As you read that, you couldn't help being a little freaked out by the doll professing his love to you, but you had to remind yourself it's just the creators of it who wrote the letter, making the concept more real and human to give some kind of comfort to the buyer and personality to the doll.

Taking a deep breath, you remove all the bubble wrap and slide off the cover.

"Oh." you gasp loudly, your hand slapped on your mouth as you finally see the doll.

He looks too real to be just a doll and for a second you just stare into his eyes, unmoving but somehow warm, his facial features chiseled to perfection, his lips plump and inviting.

Your eyes travel down to see he was dressed in a nice button up, intricate flower patterns sewn into the material, coupled with nice pants and even some very expensive looking shoes.

The doll had jewelry on, his nails were painted, there was so much detail on it; he even had a mole under his eye. You marvelled at the dedication of the people who made it and obviously put a lot of though into Hyunjin.

You notice then that there is a note sticking out of the shirt's pocket and you carefully pick it up.

My love!

I got dressed for our first date!

Hopefully you like it and enjoy our first romantic night together.

"Wow, they really went all out with this." you say out loud as you look at the doll, the next question forming in your mind.

How heavy is the doll?

You spend a few more minutes just examining it with your eyes, too nervous to touch it and you can't get over the way it looks just like a real human being.

You rest your hand on the box, your fingertips gently grazing the doll's cheek.

"Oh!" you gasp, retracting your hand. It feels like real skin and with wide eyes your hand moves closer to his face again, your palm pressing slowly against his cheek.

"Are you alive?" you chuckle to yourself but the doll doesn't answer or move at all, just as you expected.

Your fingers slowly explore the doll's face, his lips are plushy and they seem actually kissable, the material they used, whatever it was, made it seem like they were real human lips.

You lean in closer to take a better look into his eyes, your hand coming up to play with locks of dark hair, which again, seems like real hair, the little curls are soft to the touch and bounce back as you pull on them gently.

Now you're leaning so close to him, and you can smell the nice, comforting scent radiating off of the doll. You've no idea what they used, but he smells fresh and flowery.

"Okay, let's get you out of the box." you lean back and hook your hands under the doll's arms before making it sit up.

His head falls to the side a little, making you feel a bit creeped out because it really seemed like you were handling a dead person instead of an actual doll, but the only indication that it wasn't a dead human is the lightness of it.

He wasn't as light as a feather but he wasn't as heavy as dead weight either.

"Maybe the couch?" you talk to yourself as you look over to your comfy couch, the pillows fluffed up already and a soft blanket thrown over it.

Somehow, thankfully to your regular exercise, you manage to lift the doll into your arms and carry him to the couch.

The way he slumps when you put him down, again freaks you out a little, but for some weird reason you're even more interested in how you can actually use the doll.

You prop him to sit nicely and turn on the tv to some art channel, remembering how the doll 'said' that he likes art.

"I hope that's what you enjoy." you shrug and throw the fluffy blanket over the doll's legs, folding his soft hands into his lap, before you go back to the box to find the manual.

"Here it is." you dig out the booklet and start reading.

They listed the materials but you still had no idea what they were so it flew over your head. There was also a page with pictures of the other dolls and the makers' letter to the customers, thanking them for purchasing the doll.

Flipping the pages, you find what you were looking for.

Your face becomes red as you read the doll's 'abilites', including that his thing can vibrate and cum, he reacts to your touch and that he has a usb charger that gets plugged into the back of his neck.

"W-wow." you nod to yourself as you keep reading until you flip to the last page.

WARNING!

If there are any malfunctions with any part of the doll, please contact our services.

The doll can bathe in water except the charger opening so be aware of that.

Please do not disfigure or mutilate the doll.

Do not throw the doll into the trash.

Do not break, bruise or cut the doll.

If you're not satisfied, you can always return it to us and get your money back.

If you've purchased our Hyunjin doll, do not be too harsh on him considering he's sensitive.

Hope you enjoy the romantic soul you chose!

Bruise? The doll can bruise?

Why are they talking about it like it's alive?

You gulp and turn to look at the couch but the doll is unmoving, turned towards the tv, same position as before.

You peek back into the big box to find another, smaller box inside it, that was beneath the doll's feet earlier.

You carefully take it out, putting it on the floor and opening it curiously.

Inside, you found a change of clothes, more casual looking ones and something to be used as sleep wear. It was like getting a Barbie doll with all her outfits when you were a kid.

So bizzare, yet it made you feel excited in a way.

After getting up, you decide to clean up the mess you made with the bubble wrap and put the box away in your closet, just in case, if you ever wanted to return him.

"Okay." you nod and come back to peek at the doll.

The television screen reflects in his eyes, his hands crossed in his lap, just how you left him and relief washes over you.

Why are you even scared?

You shake your head and decide to prepare lunch.

You're in your kitchen, listening to some slow music as you cook, completely forgetting about the doll sitting in your living room.

That is, until the volume of the tv suddenly increases making you jolt and gasp.

Your back straightens as you turn off the stove.

Slowly turning around, you stare at the direction the sound is coming from.

You swallow and make your way to your couch, you don't know what to expect but the doll is still in the same position you left it, the tv remote is out of his reach, down on the coffee table.

You grab it and decrease the volume before looking back at the doll.

"If that wasn't you, we have ghosts in this apartment. But if it was you, you're obviously wanting my attention." you cross your arms as you stare at him.

Nothing.

"Fine, I will eat lunch with you." you declare before going back to the kitchen to get yourself food.

You mostly eat in front of your tv anyways, not caring about any rules since you live alone, enjoying the freedom it brings you.

Settling down next to Hyunjin, you pull the blanket over your legs too and start eating.

You chuckle to yourself, if someone saw you right now, they'd think you're absolutely insane, sitting down next to an inanimate doll that looks eerily human.

You take a peek at Hyunjin, sighing as he sits still.

"You do look alive. But I'm literally talking to myself." you say and of course get no answer.

Shrugging, you continue about your day, washing dishes and doing laundry, enjoying your selfcare routine after getting your apartment in order, your Hyunjin doll observing your movements from the couch.

In the evening hours, you finally come back to him.

"Are you tired of being in the same position?" you ask, knowing there will be no answer.

"We can have dinner now." you add and leave to the kitchen to bring out some food and a bottle of wine.

"This is insane. Top 5 weirdest things I've done." you talk to yourself as you look down at your black satin nightgown, with lace details on the top, perfectly resting on your chest. "Maybe it even takes up the first place."

You settle next to Hyunjin once again, changing his position a little as you fill up two glasses of wine.

"Our first date, I guess?" you sigh with a chuckle before drinking the wine.

His glass stands full on the coffee table, untouched as you start eating next to him once again.

"I guess I should tell you a bit about myself. I work in an office. I hate my job but it pays the bills." you say, "I always wanted to be in a band though. Played guitar in high school. Never got too far with that. I love art too, you know, any shape or form of it. Maybe that's why I chose you. You seem like an artist. Or you would be if you were real, ha." you chuckle, yapping away as you keep drinking the wine, the doll listening to you without moving.

You keep pouring the wine into both his and your glass but it's only you drinking from both glasses.

It gives you a nice buzz, warmness that spreads through your body and manifests itself between your legs.

Usually, you'd play with your vibrator or dildo but seeing as you got a literal sex doll, you thought you should use him for the purpose he's made for.

"Now, what do I do with you?" you smirk, your hand coming up to play with the doll's hair, twirling the lock in your fingers.

"I mean, I can do anything I want." you nod, scooting closer to the doll.

"I feel fucking crazy." you laugh, pulling the covers off of Hyunjin.

Your hand is pressed on his thigh as you touch him gently through his clothes, your mind still marvelling at the fact that he feels like a real human being.

"I'm curious." you whisper, your fingertip playing with the button of his shirt, wanting to see what he looks like underneath the nice clothes they made him wear.

Slowly, you start unbuttoning the doll, taking your time with it, as anticipation builds up, creating a swirl of excitement inside you.

When you pop open the last button, you open up the shirt and gasp.

"Wow." you lick your lips at the sight, the doll's nipples look aroused, his stomach is toned, it looks like there's a vein leading down into his pants making your eyes fall down at his crotch.

You still have no idea how they made him look so real but you're eager to explore, planting your hands on his chest, running them up and down to his stomach, tracing the vein with your fingertips.

You run your hands back up to his nipples and flick them gently with your thumb before pinching them experimentally.

Gasping, you notice a growing bulge in the doll's pants.

"Am I pushing the right buttons?" you chuckle at your own joke as you continue playing with his nipples.

Your impatience however doesn't let you stall for too long, so your hands make their way down to the hem of his pants.

"Let's see." with a smirk you unbutton and unzip his pants, pulling them down with a little struggle as you have to lift him up a little.

You place your hands on his thighs, squeezing the flesh a little, watching as his cock twitches like he was really alive.

"You really do react to touch." you gasp in wonder, what kind of technology was this?

They even put underwear on him which you think is a nice touch but at this point, you were too curious not to slide them off immediately.

"Woah!" you gasp as his cock springs free of its confines.

You think it's the biggest and most beautiful cock you've ever seen, framed by a neatly cut bush, a visible vein running up the whole length.

You stare at it for a little while before you wrap your hand around it, your other hand fondling his balls.

It feels real once again, like he's throbbing and twitching, hot and heavy on your palm, a bead of precum at the tip.

"What in the hell?" you mumble, your finger swiping at the tip as you gather the liquid and bring it to your lips.

You suck your finger into your mouth, swirling your tongue around it and tasting the sweetness of the doll.

How he tasted so sweet was beyond you.

"Fuck it." you chuckle, pulling off your nightgown and tossing it aside, which leaves you completely naked like the doll is.

"I didn't even kiss you. Not very romantic of me." you smirk as you throw your leg over Hyunjin, sitting in his lap, your wet folds pressed against his cock.

You lean in and press a kiss to his lips, and of course the doll doesn't kiss back but his lips move with your movement and it feels good as you grind on his hard length.

"Look at you. Letting me do all the work like all the rest of them." you scoff with a smirk and at that, the doll's cock twitches a little too hard against you, almost pushing inside you.

"Wow. Someone's excited." you stare at the doll's eyes but there is nothing in there to indicate that he was in fact listening to you.

"For how much you cost, I hope this is worth it." you shrug and grip the base of his cock, guiding it inside you.

Sitting down on his length has you gasping as he fills you up perfectly, like his cock was made exactly for your pussy to take.

Your grip the doll's shoulders and use it for what you intended to when you clicked on that purchase button.

No matter how turned on you are though, staring at Hyunjin's almost expressionless face proves to be a turn off so you lean forward, wrapping your arms around his shoulders as you press your chest to his and continue bouncing on him.

Save for the fact that his hands lay limp on the side, his skin feels human and he feels kind of warm, like there was something inside the doll, warming it up.

"F-fuck." you whimper as the head of his cock brushes against the spongy spot inside you, it's like the more wet you get and the harder you fuck on him, his cock responds to you.

"R-right hand for activation." you repeat the instruction from the manual, as you blindly search for his right hand, sliding your fingertips on his wrist to his palm, your head leaned on his shoulder as you slowly gyrate your hips.

Your fingers interlace with his and it feels almost like Hyunjin grips your hand back, making you jump a little but before you can move away, his cock starts vibrating inside you.

"A-ah!" you moan loudly as your other arm curls around him, holding onto him while you fiddle with his fingers, your legs clamping around him as you start falling apart.

"G-gonna cum!" you whimper, burying your face in Hyunjin's neck and he smells so nice, feels so good as his cock keeps vibrating against your spot, bringing you to your high quickly.

The ecstasy you feel as the vibrations persist, prolonging your orgasm, overstimulating you while you ride the feeling makes you miss the single blink that Hyunjin's eyes make before returning to their original glassy and unmoving state.

"Too much." you whimper, squeezing his thumb and the vibrations stop.

You know that the left hand brings a happy end to the doll but you're not sure if you're done with it yet.

Leaning back to finally look at his face has you a little disappointed as you don't notice any kind of change on his face.

"Kinda wish you were real." you whisper, hugging the doll as you start bouncing on his hard cock again, bringing yourself easily to another orgasm.

You squeeze the doll's left hand after that, and feel spurts of warm cum shooting inside you as his cock twitches, the head bruising against your spot violently as he fills you up with copious amounts of the sticky substance.

You're pretty sure the neighbors can hear you moan as you cum again, the feeling of being filled up to the brim satisfies you and has your eyes rolling in the back of your head.

"Wow." you breathe hard, your cheek leaned on Hyunjin's shoulder as you grip his wrists while you come down.

You lean back to look at the doll again.

Were his lips slightly upturned before?

In the fogginess of your orgasms, you couldn't tell or think straight.

"Be right back." you slide off of him and make your way to the bathroom, taking a quick five minute shower before you grab a wet cloth to clean the doll up.

He sits how you left him, and you kneel between his legs to clean him up carefully.

His cock is not completely soft nor hard anymore, it's somewhere in the middle, but as you touch it gently, it seems to react and twitch again.

"You came already." you smirk and experimentally pinch the tip of Hyunjin's cock, but nothing happens except the member twitching again.

You stand up with a sigh, covering him with the blanket again before you leave for the bathroom to get ready for bed.

Just as you turn on the water to wash your mouth out, you hear something akin to a sigh coming from your living room.

You freeze, turning off the water and listening closely but you only hear the quiet buzz of the lamp above your mirror.

Maybe you were just imagining things.

You shake your head and finish your business before going back to Hyunjin.

"I'm too tired to dress you now, but boxers should be enough." you say and struggle to get him dressed, almost giving up during the process.

"I should just keep you naked in my bed to avoid the hassle." you say, lifting him up and carrying him to your bed.

"Cuddles, right? I do love me some cuddles too." you say with a tired smile as you adjust Hyunjin in your bed.

You join him under the covers and lean on your elbow as you lay sideways, staring down at him.

"How'd they make you look and feel so real?" your hand is on his cheek, and you trace his eyebrows, his nose and lips.

Fingertips travel to his ears, down to his neck and his chest.

"Don't come alive and scare me while I'm sleeping, Hyunjin." a shadow passes in his eyes as you say his name but you're too busy caressing his toned stomach to notice.

"Night." you kiss his lips before turning off the lamp and laying your head on his shoulder.

Somehow, you adjust his arms so that it seems like he's holding you and you throw your leg over his, your hand tracing patterns on his chest and side.

It was like hugging and kissing your pillow in high school, except this one took the shape of a human being.

With thoughts and questions about Hyunjin swimming in your head, you fall asleep quickly, not noticing how the doll's arms tighten around you ever so slightly.

Early in the morning as your alarm starts blaring loudly and annoyingly, you groan and stir, almost forgetting about Hyunjin being next to you.

"Oh!" you gasp. "Good morning, dolly." you say after turning the alarm off, as he stares at the ceiling.

"Sadly, I gotta go to work and leave you here alone. You better behave while I'm out." you lift a finger up menacingly, but there's a playful smile on your face.

"Man, I'm crazy." you shake your head before leaning in to leave a nice, wet smooch on Hyunjin's cheek.

"I'll come say bye before I leave."

And you do so, after eating breakfast and getting ready, you're back in your room.

"Should I put you in the living room so you can watch tv?"

The doll never answers.

"Maybe, yeah. You'll be bored lying in bed all day." you nod and carry Hyunjin to your couch.

You make him comfy, cover him with the blanket, card your fingers through his messy hair and then turn on the tv, leaving the remote in his lap.

"Gonna be late because of you." you sigh and lean down to place a kiss on the doll's lips.

"Be a good doll."

And with that you finally leave your apartment.

All day at work, you can't help but wonder if your Hyunjin doll somehow came alive, and for some reason you were looking forward to seeing him even if he didn't.

"What's got you so happy? Finally got laid?" your coworker chuckles as you stand in the office kitchen making yourself some coffee, you know she always gossips about you behind your back so you don't wanna give her the time of the day.

"Mind your business, Amanda." you answer quickly, turning to leave back to your office.

"Okay, you didn't then." she calls behind you with a giggle but you decide to ignore her.

"Fucking bitch." you mutter to yourself as you close the door.

The rest of the day goes by uneventfully and you can't wait to drive back home to Hyunjin.

"I'm home!" you yell out as soon as you step inside, hearing that the tv is still on, nothing out of the ordinary.

You make your way to your living room to find Hyunjin in the exact same position as you left him almost 9 hours ago, the remote still next to his right hand, the same channel you turned on this morning on the tv.

For some reason, your shoulders slump.

"Well, I guess you've been a good doll and took my warning literally." you shrug a little.

"Still, I want to reward you. As soon as I eat and take a nap that is." you add and go about your routine, eating lunch, taking a shower and of course changing into your comfy clothes, which at this time of the year consisted of an oversized t-shirt and panties.

"Let's take a nap together, dolly." you say to Hyunjin as you lift him up and move him to your bed again.

You lay him on his side, then mirror his position, taking his arm and wrapping it around your waist, the other comfortably under your neck.

Tracing patterns on his stomach and chest again, you start talking.

"Your life is so easy. From the couch to the bed, you don't even have to work or go anywhere. Meanwhile, I have to endure fucking Amanda every day at work. Do you have any idea how bitchy that woman is?", you talk as you cuddle your doll. "She has to know eeeeverything about eeeeeveryone. Soon, she'll crawl up my ass just to look at my insides."

You look at Hyunjin's face and for a moment it seems as if his eyes moved.

"Are you listening to me, perhaps?" you whisper, your hand on his cheek. "I know I'm probably crazy. But I'm glad I got you. Even though you're a bit creepy, you bring me comfort." you add, tucking your head into his neck.

"I'm gonna sleep now."

Slowly blinking your eyes awake, you feel warmness enveloping you that's not coming just from your blanket but from Hyunjin.

Quickly, you realize that somehow his thigh ended up pressed against your core, your leg thrown over him as you scooted closer to him in sleep.

"Oh." a little sound escapes your lips as you grind against his warm thigh, feeling wetness on your panties.

Before looking up at him, you press a kiss to his collarbone and it seems like his thigh moves against you once, making you jolt.

"Hey." you look up at him, but his eyes are unmoving as always.

You observe his face but the throbbing between your legs makes you grind against him again.

"F-feels good." you whimper, leaning in and kissing him, letting your tongue dart out and lick at the plump lips.

You feel his erection press against your other thigh, the one flush against him and you chuckle a little.

"Someone likes me a lot." you say, leaning back to look at him.

It looks like there's a small smile on his face that you swear wasn't there before.

"Hm." you squint your eyes as you stop your movements.

"Gotta try something." you declare after a moment of silence, lifting up and removing the blanket.

You push Hyunjin on his back, hooking your fingers in his boxers and pulling them off of him.

"Aw, you really do like me a lot." you smirk at the sight of the doll's cock, twitching and leaking again like it did yesterday.

"I'll give you some attention, you deserved it."

You spread his legs, adjusting them so you can kneel between his thighs and you lean down.

"I haven't done this in a while. You can't complain though." you chuckle a little as you grip his cock and let your tongue dart out, catching the sweet tasting precum with it.

You don't understand how he tastes so sweet, it's hard to put your finger on what exactly the taste is but it makes you want more so you swirl your tongue around his head, your moans muffled as you swallow the sweet liquid.

"Mm. Fuck you taste good." you whine and put your lips around him again, slowly taking more of him in as you bob your head up and down.

Sucking cock like that is not your favorite thing to do, sometimes it makes you feel uncomfortable but having Hyunjin be so still and so tasty has your arousal pooling on your panties and you keep wanting more.

You take as much as you can, coating his cock in your saliva, your tongue pressing along his vein as you fondle his balls has him twitching inside you.

You smirk and grip his left hand, spurts of hot cum hitting your throat and it tastes even sweeter than before as you whimper and swallow everything.

"Damn hot." you whine, quickly getting rid of your shirt and panties, before you take his now completely wet cock in your hand and start jerking him off to make him hard for you again.

It doesn't take long to excite the doll and you decide to turn your back to him and fuck on his cock like that so that you don't have to look into his lifeless eyes while pleasing yourself.

You sit on him and push his cock inside yourself, your warm cunt engulfing his entire length easily.

"Mm." you gyrate your hips as you close your eyes and enjoy teasing yourself, your wet pussy coating his navel and balls.

"God, you're perfect Hyunjin." you whine and start fucking on him.

In the deep throes of passion as you bounce on him, your nails digging into his thighs for support, your eyes closed in pure bliss, you don't notice anything.

You don't notice Hyunjin blinking, his lips opening to speak but nothing comes out.

He can't move no matter how hard he tries and once again his eyes go back to the glassy state they're always in.

"Gonna cum." you whine loudly, gripping his right hand and he starts vibrating inside you, pushing you over the edge and making you scream as you squirt all over him.

"Fuck." you whine as your eyes focus, noticing you have left red marks in his thighs.

"Oh. Did I hurt you?" you gasp, your fingertips gently running over the marks.

"Didn't mean to." you look back at him but he lays still.

His cock twitches inside you and you grip his left hand, making the doll fill you up as you slowly ride him.

You lift up slowly, his cum sliding down your inner thigh together with your release.

"Made a mess of you, dolly." you look at the state of him.

"Maybe a bath?" he doesn't answer but still you prepare a bath and place him in it, careful of the usb opening on his neck.

You get inside after him, settling between his legs and leaning your back on his chest.

"Why are you so warm, Hyunjin?" you caress his arm as you hold it, his other one thrown over your stomach.

Sighing, you lean on his shoulder and close your eyes, trying to relax in the warm water, as Hyunjin 'held' you.

You still couldn't understand how they made him, but you were willing not to think about that, as he brought you a kind of comfort you didn't expect, making you wanna indulge in that feeling for as long as you could.

It's been exactly two months since you've gotten your Hyunjin doll, and ever since then you've loved spending every day with him.

You talked to him like he was alive, you watched movies with him, you read him books, you slept next to him every single night, you brought him to the kitchen so he can watch you cook, you even took him on late night drives sometimes, feeling bad that he was locked up in the apartment all day.

Sometimes, you thought you saw a flicker in his eyes, a slight smile on his face, or his fingers twitching against his thighs.

Some nights, while you're half asleep, you could swear that he tightened his hold on you or his chest lifted up and down like he was breathing.

Some days, as you'd come home from work you found him in a slightly different position than you left him.

One time, you sat him next to the window so you could watch rain together, and when you came back from making some tea, there was a heart shape in the fog on the glass.

"Did you do this dolly?" you caress his hair and look at him closely but he doesn't react.

You sigh, tracing another heart next to the first one before you sit in his lap, bringing the warm cup to your lips and observing him.

You thought you were going crazy in the beginning but as time passed by, you were becoming sure that there was more to Hyunjin than you initially knew.

"Just say something if you can hear me. Or squeeze my hand." you try for the nth time as you sit on your couch with Hyunjin but nothing happens.

"Fine." you huff. "Maybe you want something first. What would you like? I bought you new clothes. Maybe you want something else like... like something to do with art? We can paint together, if you'd like."

Hyunjin doesn't answer.

Nevertheless, you bring your art supplies and a bottle of wine.

You make yourself comfortable on the floor, next to Hyunjin's legs as he sits on the couch.

You end up being the one painting and drinking, Hyunjin's eyes move to look down at you, the look in his eyes softens, unlike the glassy one he always has.

He wants to talk, he wants to lean over and caress your hair, he wants to taste the wine off of your lips and feel the paintbrush between his fingertips.

But he can't. His eyes become glassy again as your phone rings, jolting you out of your peaceful activity.

It's your mother.

The conversation starts as always and it escalates into a fight of when are you settling down, why aren't you married, why are you closing yourself off, why are you such a failure?

As soon as you hang up a sob escapes your lips and you fall into Hyunjin, seeking comfort as you wrap your limbs around him, your face buried in his neck and your hot tears sliding down from your cheeks to his shirt, soaking it up.

"No one would understand." you cry. "They'd say I'm crazy and maybe I am. But I don't give a fuck."

Your body trembles against Hyunjin as you hiccup and sniffle, your arms wrapped tightly around his waist, your leg thrown over his thighs.

His body seems warmer than before and you squeeze him a little.

"Maybe I'm fucking crazy for loving a doll. But I love you Hyunjin." you sigh, closing your eyes as you lean against him.

His eyelids flutter a few times. He blinks.

A deep breath through his nose and you almost miss the way his chest moves up.

You place your hand on his chest, and feel it.

A heart beat slowly forming, at first almost too slow to be normal until it becomes steady and then speeds up.

He's breathing, his lips are dry as he licks at them, his hands clutch onto you and you scream.

You jump up quickly, your eyes wide as you look at him.

Hyunjin looks back up at you, his eyes wide and filled with fear and shock, mirroring yours.

He opens his mouth and a series of coughs escape his lips.

"Wh- How? Am I hallucinating?"

"Y- y/n." is the first thing he says, weakly and quietly as he reaches out for you.

You stay still as a statue, not sure what the hell is happening before your eyes.

"P-please, don't be scared." he begs as he tries to get up but his legs give out and he falls to the floor with a thud.

"Ugh." he whimpers, his hands grabbing at the coffee table.

You're slow to react to him falling from the shock of it all, making your way back to him cautiously.

"Did you hurt yourself?" you ask quietly.

"N-no, I don't think so." he says as he looks up at you.

"Who- who are you?" you don't know what else to ask, because the doll you used and played with was now a human with a heartbeat and he was looking at you, even knew your name.

"What do you mean? I'm- I'm Hyunjin, your romantic doll." he answers like it's the most normal thing ever.

"How are you alive? Why now all of a sudden? I don't get it." you say as he sits back on his legs.

"You... You love me. Your love brought me to life." he swallows, his cheeks rosy.

"Oh... There was nothing about this in the manual." The fucking manual. The doll's actual purpose. Everything you ever did to him. Embarassment washes over you and you feel absolutely mortified.

"Do you... did you hear me all this time? And um, see and feel what I was doing?"

"Y-yeah." he nods, his cheeks becoming even more red.

"Fucking hell." you whine, covering your face with your hands as you sit on the couch.

"Hey, it's okay. I- I was made for that." he says, his hand on your knee in an attempt to comfort you.

You peek at him through your fingers.

"And you were so nice to me. So... warm and loving. You made me feel so good. You never mistreated me even when you knew very well you could do whatever you want with me. I'm thankful for that. And I- I love you too, y/n." Hyunjin talks, his thumb gently caressing your skin.

"Are you programmed to say stuff like that? Are you a robot?"

He chuckles.

"I'm not programmed and I'm not a robot. Didn't you feel my heart beating?"

"I did but... I don't understand. How were you made?" you finally remove your hands from your face.

"I don't know. I wish I could answer your questions but I'm as clueless as you are. I just know I was conscious the whole time while I was with you but I couldn't speak or move. Like I was paralyzed. It was horrible. I tried giving you signs, I tried to talk multiple times but it's like something would hold me back, like there was a wall and I couldn't break through."

"That does sound horrible. I'm sorry if I ever did something you wouldn't agree to." you say quietly, your face burning in embarassment.

"No, no, I liked everything you did." he says with a sheepish smile, averting his eyes. "Wish I could reciprocate." he looks up at you through his lashes.

You're biting on your lip nervously, his hand reaches for you and you accidentally snatch yours away, not used to your doll talking to you and trying to touch you.

"A-are you gonna abandon me now?" he asks quietly as he eyes your hand.

"What?" you look back at him to see that his eyes are watery and you gasp. "No, of course not! I always wished you'd come to life. Didn't think it would actually happen so I'm still processing and hoping that I'm not dreaming."

"Oh, thank god." he exhales and you let him grab your hand. "I- uhm... I'm very hungry and thirsty. Could you help me with that?"

"Oh! Of course! I will make some dinner for us." you say and help him sit up on the couch, noticing that now he's heavier than he used to be.

"I guess I still need to get feeling in my legs and arms." he says as you bring him a glass of water.

"Mhm, probably you need to have blood pumping properly through your body. Don't worry." you pet his hair as he drinks and he looks at you.

"Here, you'll be warm like this." you wrap him up in your fluffy blanket and notice a change on the back of his neck.

"Oh!" you exclaim, your fingertips touching the skin there, making Hyunjin shiver a little.

"The usb opening is gone." you declare and he brings his hand to touch it, your fingertips grazing against each other.

"That's weird." he says absentmindedly.

"All of this is weird." you chuckle and he chuckles with you, making you look at him.

God, he's even more beautiful with a smile gracing his face, you think to yourself.

Without thinking your hands gently cup his cheeks.

"You're really alive." you whisper, your thumbs gently stroking his face, his eyes flutter as he pushes into your hands.

"I am. Does that make you happy?" he asks with a sparkle in his eyes.

"Very happy." you nod with a smile, leaning closer to him.

"Good. I want to make you happy. When you're happy, I'm happy too."

"Hyunjinnie." you whine against his lips and kiss him gently.

Having him kiss back as he clutches at your shirt is the sweetest thing ever, you think as you wrap your arms around his shoulders.

"Okay, I don't want you to starve now that you came to life." you lean back with a chuckle as he chases your lips.

"Yeah, please, I need food." he nods and you make your way to the kitchen, whipping up a quick dinner, checking constantly if he's okay.

You bring two plates as soon as you're done and Hyunjin's eyes seem to get bigger as soon as they land on the food.

"Be careful, it's still hot." you warn him.

"Okay." Hyunjin nods.

He eats happily, asking for more which you of course bring to him.

"Are you feeling better?" you ask when the two of you finish eating.

"Yes, much better. But I feel very tired now."

"You need sleep. Let's go to bed. Do you think you can walk now?"

"I think so." you grab his arm and help him become steady on his feet.

You lead him to the bathroom and he looks at you.

"Now that you're alive, you need to brush your teeth and wash up before bed."

"Right." he nods.

After a whole ordeal of getting ready, you finally plop down under the covers.

"Can I- Can I hold you?" Hyunjin asks sweetly and you chuckle, rolling your body into his.

"Of course."

"Always wanted to do that." his limbs wrap around you as he holds you tightly, your face buried in his chest.

"Good night, Hyunjin. Please be there when I wake up." you nuzzle into him, inhaling the familiar fresh and flowery scent of him.

"I promise I will. Good night, y/n."

It wasn't a dream.

Your eyes flutter open and Hyunjin smiles at you fondly, his hand gently caressing your cheek.

"Morning, dol- Hyunjin."

"You can call me dolly if that's what you like." he smirks and you chuckle.

"Eh, well you're human now. It feels like I'm degrading you." you gently touch his chest.

"I don't mind." he shifts and you feel his erection press against your thigh.

You gasp a little, your core throbbing with want.

"I'm sorry." his face is red instantly. "It's just- when you touch me... I can't help it."

"It's okay, Hyunjinnie." you slide your hand down to cup him through his boxers.

He whimpers, leaning into you, his eyes fluttering shut and you press your lips on his in a heated kiss.

His tongue licks at your lower lip and you let him in, eager to finally feel his kisses how you craved to.

Hyunjin kisses you messily and hungrily, grinding into your hand, grunting against your lips.

As soon as you slide off his boxers, automatically your hands lift up to push him on his back but he grabs your wrists gently to stop you.

"My sweet girl, let me take care of you how you deserve now that I'm able to." he rasps, his eyes hooded as he looks at you with lust.

"O-okay." you whisper and lay down on your back, letting Hyunjin slide your panties off as you pull off your shirt and toss it somewhere aside.

"I've spent so much time receiving. I want to give, my angel. My hands hurt when I couldn't touch you and make you feel good. That's all I want to do." he sounds desperate as his lips attach to your neck, leaving wet kisses on your skin, his hands roaming on your body and settling on your breasts.

"Mm, make me feel good, Jinnie." you whimper as he squeezes your breasts, massaging them and moaning against your skin like it was more pleasurable to him than to you.

He mumbles sweet praises as he leaves more kisses that lead to your nipple, his tongue darting out to swirl around it, making you arch into him.

His eyes are dark as he wraps his lips around it and starts sucking, his other hand sliding down to grip your inner thigh.

Fingertips ghost on your skin, both his hands now spreading your legs apart.

"Do you know how much I longed to taste your sweet nectar? Will you let me drink from you, my angel?" Hyunjin asks, his finger gently pressing into your clit, circling it.

"Yes, please, oh my god." you whimper, your hips lifting up into his touch.

He smirks, trailing kisses down to your core.

He stops for a moment to admire you and you don't even have time to feel self-conscious as he spreads your pussy lips apart and leans in to stick his tongue inside you.

"F-fuck!" you jolt as he starts moving it before he leans back a little and licks at your sensitive clit.

"Taste even sweeter than I imagined." he moans, his lips wrapping around your clit as he sucks on it, his thumbs gently caressing your pussy lips.

"H-H-Hyunjin!" you whimper as he sucks harder, your hips lifting up in pleasure.

"Could be here for hours. Eating this sweet pussy out." he moans, pushing his tongue inside you again, this time fucking you faster, his nose giving the perfect pressure on your sensitive nub and driving you crazy.

Your hand grips his hair, pushing him more into you as he skilfully moves his tongue, his lips pressing into your lower ones as he makes out with you.

Your orgasm washes over you quickly, coating Hyunjin's face and he laps it all up greedily, his eyes shut as he whimpers into you, sending vibrations right into your core.

You feel crazy with desire the more he continues eating you out like a man starved and you have to grip his hair and pull him away after he gives you two more orgasms.

"H-Hyune, please, I need your cock." you whimper, feeling like you're falling apart.

He licks at his red lips, his eyes crazed with lust he feels for you.

"Anything my angel needs." his voice is husky as he leans over you, the tip of his cock pressed against your wet, messy cunt.

He pushes in with ease, after all, you've been fucking on him for the last two months, your pussy was used to the stretch.

"Mm, Hyunjin!" that doesn't make it feel less pleasurable when he fills you up, the tip of his cock kissing your cervix.

"Move, please." you whimper, already feeling out of it.

Hyunjin grips your thighs and starts fucking you at a steady pace, his cock dragging against your walls deliciously, sliding easily through your wetness.

"Feel so good. So warm. Just for me." he whimpers, his eyes fluttering shut before they open again and look down where his cock disappears inside you.

"Just for you, Jinnie." you moan and he looks up at you, a smile on his face.

He leans closer to you, wrapping his arms around you and in turn you wrap yours around his shoulders, bringing your bodies flush together as he buries himself deep inside your heat.

He ruts into you desperately, your lips meeting in messy kisses, spit dribbles down your chin and he licks at it, kissing your jaw and your neck wetly.

"P-please tell me you love me." he whimpers in your ear, holding you tightly as he fucks you harder, only taking a little bit of his length out and shoving it back in with force that has your mind spinning.

"I love you, Hyunjin. I love you. So much." you cry happy tears, making him cry too as you clutch onto each other.

"My angel, I love you more than anything." he says as he kisses you, his tongue playing with yours.

He brings you to another orgasm, his fingers on your nipples, pinching and pulling as he keeps rutting into you desperately.

"C-can I cum?" he whimpers, his hands gripping desperately at your waist.

"Yeah." you nod quickly and he gives you his left hand to squeeze and as your fingers entwine, he cums, filling you up endlessly, more than when he was just doll and you whimper as your legs clamp around him, lifting your middle into him and cumming with him again.

Both of you breathe hard as he stays inside you for a moment, before pulling out and watching his cum drip out of you.

"D-do I still have to squeeze your left hand for you to cum?" you chuckle a little.

"No, just... force of habit, I guess." he says sheepishly like he didn't just fuck your brains out.

"What about the vibrations?"

"You really liked that, didn't you?" he smirks, his hand sliding up your thigh tentatively, before his fingers slide between your folds, playing with the wetness.

"Shut up." you say embarassingly, swatting his hand away.

"Don't worry, I can vibrate if you want." he bites on his lip as he looks at you.

"I'm too sensitive now." you whisper and he chuckles.

"I know. Usually you don't go above four, five orgasms in one sitting. Maybe six if you're extra horny."

"It's embarassing to me that you know this in such detail." your face becomes red as Hyunjin chuckles, shaking his head.

"Nothing you should be embarassed about. I'm happy to please you." he says and leans down to kiss you gently.

You pull him into your embrace, hoping that from now on, he stays human, and keeps loving you because in this moment you can't imagine your life without Hyunjin in it.

"Thank you for letting me use your painting supplies." Hyunjin smiles up at you as he sits on the floor of your living room, like you always did when you painted.

"Don't thank me, Jinnie. What's mine is yours." you smile as you sit next to him and lean in closer.

"Let me see." you say as he looks down sheepishly.

He pushes the sketchbook towards you and you gasp.

"Hyunjin, this is amazing! How did you manage to paint so well?! And you painted me! That's so sweet."

"I- I don't know. As I started, it's like I got déjà vu, like I already did this before and many times so."

"Really? That's peculiar." you say.

"Maybe we should call the company I got you from." you add, tapping your chin.

"P-please don't!" Hyunjin panics, gripping at your thigh. "I'm scared. I don't know why but when I try to think of that place, it feels bad. Please don't call them. I don't want them to take me away from you."

"Hey, hey, it's okay. No one will take you away from me. I won't call them." you quickly grab his face to calm him down.

"You promise?" his pupils shake as he looks at you.

"I promise." you nod and kiss him sweetly to let him know he can trust you.

Hyunjin visibly relaxes with your touch, wrapping his arms around you and tucking his face in your neck.

"Um... could we go outside? We only ever went on night drives which is understandable but now that I can walk and stuff, we could go out on real dates and maybe visit museums?" he looks up at you with a smile.

"Of course! Anywhere you want to go." you smile back at him, and he leans up to kiss you.

For the next several weeks, you take Hyunjin everywhere.

To the park, the movies, museums, to a club, to different restaurants, to a mall, anything that comes to your mind, the two of you decide to visit, even going to a little town nearby for a day trip.

You don't remember the last time you were this happy and had someone next to you who made everything look so easy and sweet.

Hyunjin had taken an interest in capturing all the pretty moments so you got him a camera, deciding to surprise him for your 6 month anniversary.

As you came home from work, you called out to him but there was no answer.

"Jinnie? Are you sleeping?" you pushed the bedroom door open but the bed was vacant.

A heavy feeling settled in the pit of your stomach as you searched your entire apartment and couldn't find him.

Frantically, you looked for him again, knowing that he didn't suddenly become Barbie sized and hid somewhere.

He was gone.

You ran out of your apartment to knock on your neighbor's door.

"Tony! Did you see Hyunjin today maybe?" you asked him as soon as he opened the door.

"No, I didn't, sorry." he shook his head.

You didn't know what to do so you went back to your apartment and burst into tears.

Hyunjin didn't have a phone you could contact him with as he never had the need to use one so you had no way of reaching him.

All you could do was sit and wait, biting your nails as every single scenario runs through your mind.

He will come back, you reassure yourself as you fall asleep from exhaustion.

And he does, around 10pm the door clicks open and you jolt up from your nap on the couch.

"Hyunjin?" you say into the dark space and he turns on the light, standing in the middle of your living room with two gift bags in his hand and an apologetic look on his face.

"Oh my god, Hyunjin!" you jump to your feet, running to him and throwing your arms around him, squeezing him tightly and almost knocking him down as the bags fall out of his hands and he wraps his arms around your waist.

"I'm so sorry, y/n. I should've left you a note. I-I went out to get a gift for our anniversary tommorow."

"Please, don't ever disappear like that again. Do you have any idea how scared I was?" you cry and Hyunjin gasps, his hands on your face as he wipes away your tears.

"I'm really sorry. I will never ever do something like this again." his eyes water too.

"I should get you a phone." you shake your head. "Hey, how did you even manage to buy a gift? You don't have any money." you chuckle, wiping at your cheeks.

"I went to the park and painted portraits of people for money, then got the gift."

"Oh, Jinnie, you sweet fool. Just don't give me any more scares."

"I promise I won't." he nods and your lips seal in a kiss.

Despite having so many options to choose from now, Hyunjin and you decide to have a nice dinner at home for your anniversary, where it all started.

You even took out the most expensive plates and silverware you owned, adding some candles to create a more intimate atmosphere, some light romantic music playing in the background.

"Y/n, I um- got you something I'd like to see you wear tonight for me."

"Oh, you did?" you smirk. "Show it to me."

Hyunjin grabs one of the gift bags and reaches it to you with an excited smile.

You chuckle and peek inside, seeing that he got you black and red lacy lingerie as well as a dress.

"Do you like it?" he asks.

"Very much so." you take out the dress and touch the silky material. "This dress is very revealing." you notice the opened back and the deep neck line that would definitely almost make your breasts fall out.

"I was counting on the fact that we celebrate here because you in that dress is for my eyes only." his eyes darken suddenly.

"Oh yeah? Let me get ready for our dinner then." you chuckle and make your way to the bathroom.

Hyunjin decides to wear the clothes he arrived in, since those were the only fancy clothing items he owned, and he thought it was kind of symbolic to put them on tonight.

You walk into your bedroom to find Hyunjin dressed and staring at the big box he was packed in, one you still didn't get rid of.

"Jinnie?" you call out as he seems to be deep in thought.

"You kept the box." he says, still looking at it.

"I did. I had no idea what I was getting into so I left it just in case. I was gonna throw it out, it's just really heavy." you explain, making your way to him.

"When you arrived, two men had to carry the box in, and somehow the box seemed heavier than you. I barely managed to get it into the closet. Had to push it and stuff. Sorry I didn't have the chance to get rid of it."

"It's okay, y/n. You don't have to apologize." he smiles as he turns towards you.

"Oh." a gasp leaves his lips as he sees you all dressed up for him.

"You like?" you smirk, winking at him.

"Mhm." he nods quickly. "You look stunning, my angel."

"Thank you, Jinnie. You look handsome."

His cheeks seem to become more red with the praise as he mutters, his eyes darting left and right.

You enjoy your dinner together, romantic music playing in the background, the tv mute, left on just from the habit of it.

After you finish eating, you migrate to the couch to cuddle and drink wine, some stupid show playing on the screen and the two of you jokingly read from the character's lips, making up nonsensical conversations and laughing.

After some time and some more wine, Hyunjin becomes even more handsy than usual, grabbing at your thighs, sliding his hands on the silky material of the dress.

You melt into him, kissing him as your arms wrap around his shoulders, your tongues languidly massaging each other as your core throbs with need.

Hyunjin caresses you gently, his hands worshipping you, sliding down your throat, to your collarbone, to the swell of your breasts, down to your stomach and waist, landing on your hips.

His lips attach to your neck as he leaves wet kisses on your skin, licking at it and sinking his teeth in.

"Mm." you moan, playing with his hair as he kisses your collarbone and the flesh of your breast, leaving another love bite on the soft skin.

His hands travel under your dress, roaming around on your legs and your eyes open, landing on the tv, making you gasp.

"Hyunjin, that's you!" you jolt, pointing at the screen.

"Huh?" he mumbles, already drunk on you.

You quickly grab the remote and turn on the sound.

"...seemingly the dolls have some kind of malfunction that the company does not wish to reveal to the public. All eight of the purchased dolls are required to be returned and the buyers will get their money back, guaranteed. The customers will be contacted accordingly..."

"M-my friends. I vaguely remember them." Hyunjin breathes quickly, you can see that he's getting upset quickly. "They wanna take me away from you."

"I won't let them." you quickly shake your head.

"What are we gonna do?" he asks, clenching his fists and you gently grab his hands, trying to soothe him.

"We're gonna... leave."

"Leave?"

"Yeah, I have a house my aunt left me up in the mountains. I don't think they can find us there. For now, until we think of where to go next." you start planning immediately.

There was no way you would let anyone take Hyunjin away from you.

"But, what about your job? And your things?" Hyunjin bites on his lip.

"I don't care. All I care about right now is making sure you're safe." you smile at him, your hand coming up to caress his cheek.

Hyunjin smiles, leaning into your touch and wrapping his arms around you.

"Thank you." he whispers into your hair.

You get a call from an unknown number the next day, but one quick google search tells you it's the company Hyunjin came from.

You packed one bag of a few essential things you'd need, leaving most of your belongings behind.

"Y/n! There's a black van posted outside. It's been there for hours. They're looking at the building right now." Hyunjin announces and you make your way to the window, half hiding behind him.

"We need to use the fire exit." you declare and Hyunjin nods as he turns to you.

"I won't let them take you. I promise." you hold his hands.

"I trust you, my angel." he smiles and you kiss him gently before the two of you exit the building, quickly entering your car.

You step on the gas, and reach out to hold Hyunjin's hand in yours.

As you speed off into the sunset, hoping for a better tomorrow, a black van rounds the corner, following you from afar...

✨Taglist: @moonchild9350 @janepg @velvetmoonlght @hwanghyunjinismybae @jehhskz @porangporangmeong @laylasbunbunny @laughatdanger @jeonginslefthand @sapphirewaves @simpforleeknaur @s3ungm1nxxl0ve @lixies-favorite-cookie

[usedtobecooler]

eddie ‘monstercock’ munson, who is painfully unaware of the sheer size of his dick.

tw: sexual content 18+ minors dni, size kink, oral m receiving, piv sex, praise kink, dirty talk, general debauchery. for my love @raccoonboywrites

and, listen, you’re not a size queen at all. don’t care much for how big or small a cock is so long as whoever it’s attached to knows how to use it. but you gasp out loud once you get your fingers dig under eddie’s waistband, pulling the offending material down to let his length spring out.

it’s enough to shock you back into the room, watching as the thick weight of it slaps against eddie’s tummy, the way it curves into his navel. he’s wet, leaking at the head and matting down the pretty swirls of black hair that lead a trail down, down, down.

he’s rumpled against your bed frame, slumped down with his shirt rucked up his tummy. the prettiest pink flush spreading across his cheeks, tinging his ears and dipping as low as his collar. you’re willing to bet his chest is blotched with the lovely rosy colour, too. he grips aimlessly at your comforter, wide eyes watching your every move; tracing every hitch of your breath.

you wrap your hand around the base — purposely ignoring the pathetic little whine eddie makes, because jesus now isn’t the time to think too much about that — and you moan despite yourself when your hand doesn’t even wrap fully around the girth of it, dwarfing your fingers and palm.

“you— you’re so big, oh my god,” your voice catches at the end, desperate and dampened by your own desire for it. you lean forward, hot breath ghosting over him, tugging his foreskin back just enough for the head to pop out, shiny and reddening with need, “you could’ve at least warned me you were packing a python down there, fuck.”

“oh shit, really? i thought it was aver— holy fuck, you don’t have to—“ he’s bug eyed, eyebrows shooting under his fringe as you mouth at the head, determined and eager to get a taste of him. uncut, heavy on your tongue, the heady splash of precum blurting out to coat your tastebuds.

eddie’s knees kick up a little as you mouth greedily at his tip, pointing your tongue to run in circles around the glans on the underside. you smirk despite yourself, getting a kick out of it when eddie goes a little cross eyed, burying a ringed hand into your hair.

you indulge yourself, feeling the weight of him in your mouth as you sink lower, just far back enough as to not trigger your gag reflex. your lips wrapping around his hot flesh, suckling softly, reveling in each blurt of pearlescent release that drips onto your tongue.

“baby, sweetheart — fuck,” eddie gasps, breath shuddery, lightly pulling at your tresses to test the water. his mouth falling open into a quiet moan when your eyes flutter at the feeling, “y’can- y’can take more, right? s’not… s’not that big.”

your jaw cracks under what of him you’ve fit in, which truthfully isn’t much. despite your efforts, there’s still a good three inches of eddie’s cock left untouched by hand or mouth, and you really have to wonder if he’s that clueless of his size. you pull off with a wet pop, strings of saliva keeping you connected to him as you stare up with wet orbs.

“eddie, you’re huge.” your voice is wrecked, butterflies swirling in your tummy as you make eye contact with him once again. you flush under his debauched gaze, "i— shit. nobody's ever told you before?"

eddie shrugs, considers for a moment. you don't think he's aware of the fact he's holding you in place with his hand, gripping your hair just enough to keep you still, hovering over his dick just close enough that if he wanted to, he could push you back down, get your mouth back on him.

though, that’s clearly not what he wants. because, he’s slipping the hand from your hair, doing this kind of awkward dance as he lays you out where he wants you.

you end up on your back, thighs spread wide as eddie slots between them, mouthing hotly at your neck. his fingers graze along your flushed skin, dance on your hipbone, across your pelvis. dips those godforsaken fingers into your panties, carelessly fumbling over your sopping wet pussy.

“this is okay, right?”

“it’s all okay, eddie. anything you want.”

"not— not even touched you yet and you're already this wet?" eddie's voice is a low timbre against your skin, has you arching up into his touch with a soft little moan. he sounds shocked, no heat or teasing in his words.

"can't help it," you gasp, exhaling shakily when eddie swipes two fingers over your clit deftly, unable to hide his smile at how receptive you are, "feeling the size of you in my hand — my mouth, god. would've let you choke me with it, would've thanked you."

eddie buries his face into your cleavage, poorly concealing a choked whine. he's skillful with his fingers, working you over fast despite how much your words are clearly affecting him.

your hips rock in short little circles, fingers sinking into eddie's hair, tugging lightly at the nape of his neck. you whine, body set alight with the feeling of calloused fingers grazing the small bundle of nerves.

he's biting you, brandishing you with little blooming bruises, and with the noise he makes against your damp skin you'd think it was him getting touched like this, him hurtling towards the edge.

you're so wet that the slick noises of eddie's fingers on your pussy are deafening in your ears, causing your back to prickle with heat, tummy winding tight.

the hot, heavy flesh of his cock presses against your inner thigh, shocking loud moans from you both at the same time. you arch up into his touch, ears ringing as pleasure takes over your body.

"i— you're making me cum," you gasp breathily, a static feeling warming your body, eyes rolling into the back of your head. you grapple for eddie's hair once more, tugging with a ferocity as your release washes over you.

it's. something. you feel like you're fucking floating, and eddie keeps swirling his fingers perfectly, whispering little shocked praises and keening into your rough pulling as he wrings you out.

once eddie's sure you're done with the aftershocks of your orgasm, he hazards pushing two fingers into your soaked cunt, and you're practically shooting away with overstimulation. crying out, somehow swivelling your hips and pushing down onto his fingers further once the shock wears off.

"you're a shit," you gasp, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes, "god, might've known your dick was gonna be big, fuckin' size of your fingers."

"was— was that good for you? can i, shit can i?" eddie's desperate, rutting the thick outline of his cock against your thigh. he's never stopped fucking leaking, soaking your leg in milky precum and allowing the slip and slide to feel good.

you nod, shaky hands tilting his head up so you can finally, finally, get your mouth on his. eddie's whole body presses flush against yours, his hand coming out to stabilise himself so he doesn't crush you, and fuck.

it's so charged, like he can't stilt his emotions as he snakes his tongue into your mouth, lapping at your own wetly. it's probably disgusting, doesn't feel like it though — you'd swallow his spit happily, whenever he wanted, if it meant he kept making you feel like this.

eddie's shaky hand fumbles for the base of his cock as you continue kissing, positioning himself so that he's nestled prettily between your legs. the kisses turn languid, and he almost sounds pained when he next speaks, "s-sorry. if it, if it hurts."

"let it hurt, i want it to," your demeanor falters a little, turning doe eyed and pleading as eddie slides the ruddy head of his cock up and down the seam of your cunt, flirts with the idea of pushing the tip in just to watch you gasp and keen.

"would never," eddie promises, finally — fucking, finally — pushing the first few inches into the sopping wet heat of your pussy. he cries out when you clench around him unwittingly, and you mumble out a small sorry as you adjust.

it's. not good. it's not bad, either, but fuck. you feel like you're being split from the inside, the thick tip pushing you wider than you anticipated. your fingers grapple for eddie's biceps, nails digging in tightly, "so fucking big, oh my god, you're gonna split me in half."

you're breathless and eddie catches on, panics a little, "you're okay? you're okay, right? i can sto—"

"if you stop, i swear to god," you seethe, looking at eddie with a fierce spark in your eyes, "keep going. fuck. keep going."

before long and with a little bit of resistance, eddie's buried deep inside of you. your bodies roll against one anothers, shallow, slow breaths

it starts slow, the catch and drag of eddie's cock shocking you both into silence. but, before long, your pussy catches up with the programme, gushing wet and allowing eddie to push in further with each thrust.

it's intimate, erotic.

"you're so tight," eddie all-out whimpers, head falling and shoulders shaking as he fucks you at a lazy pace, clearly trying his best to hold out for as long as he can.

"fuck, you’re so gentle,” you try, knees squeezing eddie’s narrow waist, thighs encapsulating him, “you can go quicker. not gonna break me.”

eddie shakes his head, almost like he’s bewildered. looks at you all fucking soft, clearly can’t help the rut of his hips as he buries in deep, biting his inner lips to muffle his noises.

you grasp a hold of eddie's hand with nimble fingers, guide his hand over the softness of your tummy, let him push down where his cock is buried deep inside of you. his whole body shudders, and you can feel where he kicks up.

"practically in my guts," you wheeze, unable to shake the full feeling despite how your pussy gushes for him, so full you swear you feel him in your throat with every deep thrust he can muster, "you're s-so big, eddie."

"oh— jesus, can't do shit like that. can't say shit like that," eddie grunts desperately, rutting into you and gripping for your waist tightly, other hand still pushed down on the pudge of your belly, "gonna make me cum so, so quick."

"can feel every ridge of you, you're splitting me apart," you keen, "i can't— god, you've ruined me f-for anyone else. yours, yours, m'yours."

eddie's forehead slumps against your own, and you're panting into each others mouths more than anything else, lips barely brushing, "mine, you're mine." he agrees, though he sounds pained and submissive as he says it.

your hand snakes around eddie's neck, holding him in place as he fucks you so desperately, so rough you're rattling the stupid bedframe, and you don't think you've ever felt anything like this before. it's all-consuming, the tug between sore and soul-crushingly sensual.

your second orgasm hits you like a freight train, the constant press against your spot causing a quicker build up than you could've anticipated. you both make eye contact as you come with a muted gasp, nails scraping harshly at the soft skin on eddie's neck as you rock it out.

"didn't think you could get any tighter, god," eddie whimpers, eyes squeezing shut, finger-shaped bruises sure to be left on your hips as he fucks you in some sort of reckless abandon, "fuck, i'm so close. i'm so sorry, fuck, fuck."

you nod, understanding, the wet clap of skin on skin deafening as your release allows an even smoother glide. he's fucking ethereal above you, covered in a light sheen of sweat, mouth open in a constant stream of steady moans.

you reach between where both of your bodies meet, where the final few inches don't quite fit, spreading your fingers either side of his cock to allow friction as he fucks in and out rapidly, chasing his high.

eddie looks at you with a wild expression, eyebrows shooting up into his fringe. he grunts like a fucking animal, eyes drifting down to where your hand is, "you— you— i'm cumming, holy fuck—!"

he's loud when he comes, full body wracked with it. you feel his cock pulse and kick inside of you, painting your insides deep. the moan you let out at the feeling is hardly voluntary, so pathetic you flush hot when you realise just how loud you are.

"thank you, thank you," eddie's mumbling against your skin, kissing the side of your neck softly as he comes down, "god, you're perfect. so perfect."

you shudder, overcome with this sappy fucking fond feeling, allowing eddie to collapse on top of you once he's done. it's soft, domestic, even.

you both end up in some sort of gross, body fluid covered cuddle as you calm down. blissed out in the post-orgasmic haze, and fuck.

maybe you're in love with him.

[littlelightfish]

Holm nation... I have a heartbreaking announcement to make.

We didn't get to see this panels animated.

(I wanted to see Laios helping him, this one isn't the one this post is all about)

I feel it's important to his character enough that Kui decided to dedicate three panels about how he aproaches and resurrects Kabru.

He is used to resurrecting people, his party sucks at keeping themselves alive. He walks up to Kabru's corpse with a worried look on his face. Then he kneels besides him and takes a second to process what he is seeing. He is seeing a young man, Kabru, dead. It makes him feel unseasy, a bit of shock that he can't take the luxury of process at the moment. He doesn't want to look, so he closes his eyes and focuses on his spell. He is realizing he is the only one alive from his party (he doesn't know where Mick is or how he is). He is the last one standing. The reality of it all slaps him in the face.

The panel of him just... looking at the mess Kabru's corpse is was just... It was important. It talked about him as a character. "I'm not doing this because I want to, but because I have to". He doesn't has time for emotions. He has a job to do.

It's just three panels. But they provide lots of context between the ones that came before and after.

He doesn't just rubs Kabru's head because he's being afective. He does it because he cares. He does it out of relief. "As long as I'm here, any of you'll be dying soon. And I'll always be here. Don't worry." He is far from being OK after all this. Marillier died, Daya died, Kuro died, Kabru died, Rin died, Mick probably died too (but he doesn't saw it). He... By the time he was the only one standing, the fight was over, and he could alredy resurrect them. He wants to feel sad. To worry, to be concerned, to mourn. But he can't. It isn't necessary.

He is a cleric. He for sure has a notion of dead way different than anyone and feels a certain way about resurrection. "Dying is dying, even if you resurrect." It's a bug at the corner of his mind, he doesn't pay it any attention. He gets resurrected multiple times, he is gratefull he is alive. But seeing all his friends dead? And the most of them mutilated? Covered in their own blood? He has this desire to mourn. To cry the loss. To panic. "They are all dead."

He knows they'll come back. He has to make them come back. So he does. And they are alive. But they weren't a few seconds ago. And he just plays it off, he puts his calm face on as soon as there is another party member alive that could ask him what happened that it disturbed him so much. He throws all those sad feelings under the rug and focuses at the task at hand.

They're going to be ok, he just has to do his job: bring them back from death. They shouldn't even be dead. But they are. And he's going to fix it. No point on feeling sad about them dying if they can be alive soon!

I think the concern that the anime puts here it's something that could come close to what he feels inside. Those seconds are the only ones we see him looking something akin to worried for his friends.

But then...

His worry vanishes in seconds. The moment Kabru revives, he does it in such a "Kabru" way, that he tells himself: "This is fine, they're going to be back soon, nothing to worry about, I just have to hurry". He wants them all back to live. We know for sure that in his priority list there wasn't any "reviving Toshiro's party members first". He was going to make sure all his party, all his friends, were alive before even thinking of resurrecting other people if he still had the magic.

Those three panels they didn't animate are something that was there for a reason. To give depth to Holm. This last episode is definitely the one in wich he shines the most. He isn't the main character at all this episode, but he does the most important stuff on the background. He revives them all. This all lack of something if you don't show what Kuy drew on those panels.

Here he just... goes to work. He says: "lemme handle it" and he does. No concern, no worry, no, nothing. He just does. No thoughts.

It makes me sad. Those panels were important. :(

[neuvilyney]

𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ how/when they first realized that they're in love with you ⋆｡𖦹°‧

ft. Tighnari, Wanderer, and Xiao

★ I can't remember if this was a request or not, but I found this draft from last June and I couldn't let it go to waste, so here's this! :D

★ No content warnings that I can think about. Just fluff and the boys not knowing how to cope with catching feels lmao

𝗧𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗶 " 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝗱𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿 "

★ Tighnari is extremely in tune with himself: this includes his feelings, his body, and his thoughts. And yet, he finds that around you, everything gets mixed up into one big puddle of goo. Whenever you weren’t watching, his observant eyes were trained on you. He’d analyze you like a foreign species of flora, trying to pick apart what about you made his heart pound in his ears, what made him stutter and blush like a lovesick teenager, what caused the ache in his chest whenever you weren’t nearby. He’s considered the thought of having a crush on you, but each time, he’d simply brush it off as a hormone imbalance or try to rationalize it as a perfectly normal reaction. 

★ Realizing his love for you felt like a double take. “Oh.” and then “Oh.” It’s a split second that changes his entire perspective, and it hits him in the most random of times. He could be pressing flowers and then smile at the realization that those were your favorite flowers. Or maybe he’s jotting down notes and finds himself writing a few letters the same way you do. It could even be something as small as looking up at the sky and wondering if you saw the same shape in the clouds that he did.

★ Once he realizes he’s in love with you, everything makes sense. The puddle of goo slowly melts away and everything feels okay again, and the clarity of everything hits him like a truck. He needs to say something. Tighnari is a man of action. He thinks before he speaks, but he speaks before you can think. He’d take a moment to think about what he would say, but then he’s standing right in front of you with rosy cheeks and a determined look on his face. And then finally, he’d say those three special words to you--

- 𖦹 -

“You’re a pain.” Tighnari couldn’t help but sigh as he crossed his arms, looking at you up and down with a tired expression. Yet, a faint smile tugged at his lips as he watched you struggle with a particularly invasive type of vine. You’re tangled in it like a bug in a spiderweb, a defeated look on your face as you hang limply from the vines. 

You groan, crossing your arms as you glare at him. The sight of him looking at you so smugly made you want to slap him and possibly kiss him. Maybe not in that order though. “I am no such thing! I’m just-- ugh…” The vines dug into your skin as they held you by your ankle, and you sighed in defeat before reaching out to him. His fluffy ears twitched with delight at the way you frowned so adorably, and he swiftly used an arrow to cut the vine, catching you when you fell. However, he clearly didn't think this through all the way. As he held you, watching your expression shift from relief to shock to a mixture of embarrassment and bashfulness, his own eyes widened and a warm blush spread over his cheeks, his fluffy ears twitching whilst his tanned skin continued to redden.

Oh.

Oh.

Tighnari was dead silent when he put you down, and he briskly turned around before starting to walk away. “Wait! Don’t just leave me here!” You sighed, starting to swiftly follow him, doing your best to ignore the way your heart pounded. The walk back was painfully awkward, your attempts at conversation followed by dry responses if a response at all. And eventually, you had enough! The way he refused to meet your gaze, how his hands clenched at his sides just to make sure they didn’t touch yours, he was avoiding you like the plague despite being right beside you. And so, you pivoted on your heel until you stood right before him.

“Okay, what’s with you? Ever since the vine thing, you’re acting like I did something wrong! Did…did I do something wrong?” Your confused and hurt expression made his heart ache, and Tighnari couldn’t help but shake his head fervently-- the way his ears bounced with each movement would have been adorable had it not been for the hurt you felt. Tighnari’s cheeks blushed a soft red, his multicolored eyes trained on you in a serious manner. It looked like he was about to scold you, with his serious frown and crossed arms, so you mentally prepared yourself for yet another lecture. 

“No, you’ve done nothing wrong. Well, getting tangled in the vines was rather stupid,” You bit the inside of your cheek, resisting the urge to say it wasn’t your fault, but he continued regardless. “But, I’m grateful you did. Had it not been for your adorably clumsy nature, I would not have had the chance to catch you in my arms.” As your eyes widened, a small smirk tugged at his lips and he took a step towards you. “And if I hadn’t held you so close, I don’t think I would have realized this just yet.” Tighnari seemed to trail off on this annoying cliffhanger, and you sighed before looking up at him. 

“...Realized what?” As if he’d been waiting for you to ask, he leaned close- close enough that his hair tickled your nose and his lips brushed against your ear as he whispered:

“That you have me foolishly, hopelessly smitten.”

⋅˚₊‧ ଳ ‧₊˚ ⋅𓇼⋅˚₊‧ ଳ ‧₊˚ ⋅

𝗪𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗿 " 𝗞𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗸𝘂𝘇𝘂𝘀𝗵𝗶 "

★ It took him ages to realize he loved you. No seriously, it would take years. Some part of him knew you were special, but he could never figure out why. Was it the way your smile made him anxious? Or perhaps the way your voice made his face heat up with-... with rage? Maybe it was the way every little thing reminded him of you, like an annoying bug that wouldn’t go away. Yet, he found that none of these things were actually…bad. He loved your smile, the way it made his artificial heart race. He adored your voice, the way it made him blush so heavily. And he absolutely loved the way everything reminded him of you, like some part of you was always with him. It took him a while to realize he did actually like you, and not hate you. And then after that, it took even longer to realize he loved you.

★ Realizing he was in love with you felt like a nightmare. It was a panic, a moment of weakness. Him? Love? Please, what a sick joke. Yet…after the panic subsided, he found his heart reaching out to you who he adored so dearly. You would understand, wouldn’t you? Surely you, who had the patience of a mother, would understand his pathetic feelings? Or would you turn him away, and leave him behind yet again? He’d spend days agonizing over the what if’s though he tried not to. He was too prideful to admit someone like you could reduce him to a total mess. The amount of questions circling his brain only served to make him angrier, and he swallowed back his fears for just long enough to shout a very upset sounding “I THINK I LOVE YOU.” Honestly, it almost sounded like he was cursing at you.

★ In summary, Wanderer is an emotional mess. His hundreds of years alive have been dedicated to anything but his feelings. He was destined for something greater than human emotions in his mind. However, when he sees the way your face shifts from shock to a relieved happiness, he realized maybe this was his destiny all along. Maybe loving you, who made him truly feel, was the divine purpose he was meant for all along.

- 𖦹 -

A chill ran down your spine for the fifth time in the past few minutes, and your eyes awkwardly shifted to the ground. He has been staring at you for a creepy amount of time, but it wasn’t his usual glare- and somehow, that only serves to make you more nervous. You gulped thickly, drumming your fingers over your arm before your head snapped to him, and you raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, what is it?” In response, Wanderer simply shrugged. Gods, he could be so infuriating. You could feel your eyebrow twitch as you gritted your teeth, resting a hand on your hip. “I see, so you’ve been staring at me for five minutes just for fun?” Once again, he shrugged. The faintest shade of red dusted the tips of his ears, and his hands limply rested in the pockets of his shorts. You could see the way he turned his head, hiding it behind his intricately-detailed hat. The sight of his blushed ears made your eyes narrow, and you reached out to grab his wrist- causing him to let out a curse. Finally, a reaction!

Wanderer looked down at your hand on his wrist, and then back up at you. And then down to his wrist before he tugged his hand away. Though, he found that he quickly missed the feeling of your soft hand warming his cold skin. The way his hand subconsciously reached out to hold yours once more made him scoff and he shoved his hand back in his pocket, quickly looking away. “What’s the big idea, huh?” His indigo eyes crinkled when he snarled, but a certain glitter swirled within them that made you smile knowingly. Wanderer leaned forward, flicking your forehead when you didn’t respond. He did this a lot, and always smiled at the way you yelped and/or pouted. But this time, his smile wasn’t mocking or amused, but oddly…endearing? 

“You’ve only insulted me three times today!! Come on, we both know something’s up.” You rolled your eyes, crossing your arms- and you didn’t miss the way he mirrored your expression.

He sighed, shaking his head before looking up at you. “You really wanna know? Really?” His arms crossed as his wide-brimmed hat cast a shadow over his face, but even through the dark, you could see a blush begin to coat his pale cheeks. When you nodded, he sighed again, leaning close to you. “You’re making my head do weird shit and I don’t like it one bit.” Your confused expression made him groan as he tried to explain further. “Come on, don’t play stupid!! I keep having these…gross and cheesy thoughts about you whenever you get close. And the way you smile…it makes me…happy.” He spoke the word with such disgust, it almost made you laugh. “When I see your hand, I want to crush- no, hold it…” The more he spoke, the more those dark eyes softened until they were nothing more than pools of indigo honey. But sadly, he snapped out of it, growling in frustration and grabbing your shoulders. “S--So what’re you doing to me, huh?! What, are you some kind of witch? Do you enjoy making me feel this weird?!”

The more you processed his words, the more you smiled. Slowly, your head tilted to the side and you laughed, shaking your head when his blush only worsened. “Wanderer…do you lik--” He quickly slapped a hand over your mouth, squeezing his eyes shut before shouting-

“I THINK I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU OR SOMETHING, OKAY?!”

⋅˚₊‧ ଳ ‧₊˚ ⋅𓇼⋅˚₊‧ ଳ ‧₊˚ ⋅

𝗫𝗶𝗮𝗼 '𝗔𝗹𝗮𝘁𝘂𝘀'

★ Realizing his love for you felt like a insult. He figured that his romantic feelings towards you were just…a glitch in the matrix. There was something about you that made his heart do backflips, and he did not like it. And so, he avoided you like the plague. But, distance makes the heart grow fonder after all. With each moment that passed without you beside him, he only felt lonelier. Even despite his eons of solitude, a mere moment without you felt like another thousand years. And so, one lonely night, you call out his name. And there he is, red faced and wide eyed, standing before your teary eyes.

★ He didn’t want to admit he was in love with you. Could he, The Conqueror of Demons, feel something as human as…love? Did he even deserve to? And so, the mere thought of falling in love with you felt almost insulting to him. It was a shock, something that almost angered him. He shouldn’t feel these things! But…if it wasn’t meant to be, then why does he like it? Why does he love the way his face heats up when you smile up at him? Why does he love the way you make him blush and laugh like a fool? Why does he love the way he loves you? Ultimately, he decides these questions are futile. Slowly, his feeling of betrayal and offense morphed into a feeling of fondness. And even slower, he’d finally brush the dust off of the lonely heart he’d safely sealed away behind the armor of his ribs. 

★ He didn’t want to tell you at first. He didn’t know how to tell you. Despite that, after the realization of his feelings, he just couldn’t wait! He felt like an impatient child, bouncing on his feet and biting the insides of his cheeks. But, when you rested a reassuring hand on his shoulder at the sight of his pensive face, he knew it would all be okay. As you gave him the sweetest smile he’s ever seen, he understood his feelings for the first time. For Xiao, falling in love with you was a confusing, terrifying process full of heartache and betrayal. But, loving you? God, it was the easiest thing he’d ever done. 

- 𖦹 - 

You’ve never seen him so anxious before. It was oddly unsettling, to be honest. Watching him shift his gaze every few seconds like a guilty child, the way his fingers fiddled with the material of his pants, even his scowl looked more like a nervous frown. Slowly, you set your pencil down, looking up at him with a concerned gaze from where you watched him pace around the inn. “Xiao, are you oka-”

“YES.”

You deadpanned for a moment, wanting to be amused at his immediate answer that contradicted his expression of pure nerves. Instead, you were only more worried. Slowly, your hands pushed against the table to prop you up and your shoes glided over the wooden floor before you were an arm’s length away from him. Xiao sighed slowly, resting his hands on the sill of the balcony with his head tilted away from you. This is a common occurrence for the both of you. Standing on the balcony, resting on it while watching the sun set. It was calming for both of you, but also made it much easier to discuss feelings neither of you liked. Past memories, traumas, bad days, any and all of it. But this…this was different.

“...No, I’m not.” Ah, there it is. Xiao’s eyes averted from yours, trained on the sky above the both of you as his hands gripped at the wooden sill. Patiently, you watched him, awaiting his next words. He was tense, and in all the time you’ve known him, you hadn’t seen him this afraid since the fall of Rex Lapis. Slowly, his head tilts to meet your gaze. His eyes were wide, glimmering in the fading sunlight while his pale skin carried a rosy tint that reached all the way to his elven ears. 

You smiled gently, reaching over to pat his shoulder- he still tensed, but it was nothing like before. He wasn’t one to let people touch him. Not even you, not at first. He would flinch, shove your hand away, and move from you- always the same actions in different orders. But, over time, he started to relax under your touch. This time was no different as he let out a small sigh.

“There’s something bothering me.” Xiao spoke slowly, his voice gruff and low but also hesitant. “I feel…weird around you. I’ve heard of these feelings in those stories told by Liyuen romantics, how one’s heart flutters around those they…love. But I’m not…capable of that.” He continued on this spiel, and your eyes widened at the way he indirectly confessed to you. But, even as a wobbly smile overtook your lips, you remained quiet. “I’m a Yaksha, an adepti, I-I can’t feel something like this. And yet, I am. I am, and I don’t know how to feel about it.”

Xiao groaned, raking a hand through his hair before he turned to you, a small frown on his lips when you rested a gentle hand on his shoulder. You hummed softly, scooting closer before resting a head on his shoulder. “I feel the same way, Xiao. You may be an adeptus, but you still experience human emotions. Feelings confuse all of us, even adepti like you and humans like me. But, there’s no need to be afraid of them.” Your voice is nearly a whisper, letting your eyes flutter shut as his hand shakily reaches over to hold yours. He sucks in a quick breath, letting out a slow exhale before whispering:

“In that case…I think I’m in love with you.”

⋅˚₊‧ ଳ ‧₊˚ ⋅𓇼⋅˚₊‧ ଳ ‧₊˚ ⋅

Word Count: 2907

⋅˚₊‧ ଳ ‧₊˚ ⋅𓇼⋅˚₊‧ ଳ ‧₊˚ ⋅

- Ky♡♡

[seattlesellie]

e. williams — moonflower.

pairing: ellie williams x fem!reader

synopsis: it’s ellie’s birthday, and you have three gifts for her. a moonflower bouquet, the latest savage starlight, and a pin from joel. maybe, you even have a fourth one.

warnings: smut (mdni), established relationship, dom!ellie, sub!reader, inexperienced reader, loss of virginity (r!), first time everything, loads of praise, loads of romance, cute little slaps, and as weird as it is to include this in these warnings; mentions of joel and ellie’s complicated relationship.

an: finally finished it. this is very very fluffy, as smutty as it may be. if you love flowers this one’s for you <3 i truly could have made this longer but i was super self conscious so i might post a little blurb instead!! constructive criticism and all comments n discussions are very much appreciated. thank you for being patient and sweet i love u 💗

enveloped up in a baby blue ribbon, it sits pretty on top of your duvet. the latest edition of “savage starlight” — ellie’s favorite comics series, and a bouquet of flowers. when you picked them out just for her— forehead glistening under the radiant june sun, you noticed a singular flower that set itself apart from the others. blinding white, trumpet shaped— it’s lemon fragrance wafted through the thick air. it's petals were curled up, but you decided to keep it nevertheless. you’ve never seen one quite like it. when you brought it to your house, along with the fresh daisies and the garden roses, you noticed something bizarre, and oh so beautiful.

the odd flower bloomed underneath the moonlight that snuck itself inside the big window of your room. as the white petals unfurled, there you stood— awestruck.

⋆˙⟡♡

you decided to bring it over to louisa, the frail old lady who ran the jackson community garden.

“s’quite beautiful, isn’t it?” you told proudly, taking a whiff of the flowers creamy white petals. louisa ran her fingertips delicately over the flowers green stem, and just like you— louisa was awestruck.

“oh dear, it certainly is. how did you… manage to find it?” louisa probed, and your heart skipped a beat. your relationship with ellie was new, and fresh as a daisy. your face flushed, but you told louisa— your precious confidant, nevertheless. “ellie’s birthday’s coming up soon… so i, was picking up some flowers for her. s’not much, i know… but,” you scratched your arm, feeling extra timid. “i think ellie will like them. i… hope”

louisa smiled soft heartedly, the aged skin around the sides of her eyes folding itself and forming three little lines. somehow, it felt like the old lady knew more about you two than you did. “she’d be a fool not to”, she assured, and pressed tightly on your shoulder.

“i would have asked you if you were in love… but, no need to.”

“how come?”

“it simply shows, pumpkin’”

louisa sighed deeply, and began guiding you towards the humble old basement, where she stored all of her gardening books.

ipomoea alba, the tropical white morning-glory, jimsonweed, or for those of us who are a tad scatterbrained— moonflower. the moonflower, is the most romantic flower of all. it is dreamy, and mysterious, and it yearns for the warm embrace of the sun, but it also requires a cold caress of shade. it slumbers amidst the daylight, closing and hiding its delicate petals up, but during the night— it blooms, and it’s magnificent. as wispy and precious as the moonflower may be, the bloom may also be deadly.

it reminded you of her.

⋆˙⟡♡

ellie and you had numerous conversations about things that were… hypothetical. if you were a planet, which planet would you be?, if you were an animal, which one suits you best, would you say?, make it more specific, even— if you were a bug, what bug would you be? ellie told you were a butterfly, and that she would be a spider.

“don’t… spiders eat butterflies?” you probed, your head resting on top of her shoulder. it was a quiet, chilly night in jackson, and for some reason, being around ellie made you feel scorching. ellie huffed and chuckled, “yeah, think they do”

“well… that sucks” you noted, as a loose strand of ellie’s auburn hair tickled your cheek. ellie thought for a while, and then chuckled again. she did it quite a lot, chuckle to herself without saying a word. “i wouldn’t… eat you though. i’d… build a little web around you. protect you from the other spiders. you could be my personal butterfly… pet, thing”

you hummed, being caged in ellie’s spider web didn’t actually seem all that bad. in fact, it had a certain charm to it. but, wait… “wouldn’t being around me make you hungry?”

ellie’s breath caged in her throat.

it already does.

“guess i’d have to fight against my urges” she rasped, and you nodded.

if you were a butterfly, ellie would be the brave spider who protects you.

if you were a lily; who blooms during the daylight, the resurrection of spring, the goddess oestre, enlightened and wise, ellie was your missing piece. the moon to your sun, and the darkness to your light. the universe thrives because of it’s harmonious balance, and so do you.

⋆˙⟡♡

sugar, flour, cocoa powder, salt, two fresh eggs, a cup of milk, and one cane of sweet vanilla. the chocolate cake was damn near perfect. writing her name on the cake with a thick layer of vanilla icing was extremely precious and necessary to you. woefully, the can was nearing on empty, so— the cake read; “happy birth, el”

you impishly giggled to yourself. sounds like ellie’s going to give birth. with one more dip of your finger inside the rich ganache, you came to a firm and final conclusion— it was heavenly, the perfect balance of sweet and chochlaty bitterness. the secret ingredient that must have made it as amazing as it was, was the espresso powder you traded for a bargain. or maybe, maybe it was love.

“ugh, quit it. cheesy” you silently mumbled to yourself.

⋆˙⟡♡

the weather was hot, and the air felt thick. you always deemed it funny, ellie being a june baby and hating the heat. the town bustled with noise of chatter on a busy monday mornin’, and maria stood with her arms crossed against her chest in the corner. she seemed to be in the midst of scolding a guilty looking tommy, and next to them, were a handful of children giggling in the background.

balancing the chocolate cake, alongside with the gifts sitting inside the brown paper bag (with the pretty blue ribbon you clasped onto it), and the flower bouquet was hard. waddling around the town, on your way to ellie’s house, no wonder you nearly dropped it all on the floor when you bumped into a large man, that hit your front like a stone.

“oh— uh, easy there, kiddo”

you could recognize that rasp and that texas twang everywhere, even when your eyes were squinted, avoiding the rays of the sun.

joel.

you hastily managed to balance it all together again, apologizing profusely to the middle aged man— whomst you almost smashed the entire cake onto. he wore a black button up, it seemed… festive. huh. “headin’ to see ellie, i assume?” joel rasped.

you nodded and smiled politely. you’ve never been completely alone with joel, and most importantly, you’ve never talked to him about ellie. things between them were… complicated. you didn’t know why, and sometimes— you were too afraid to even ask. it all seemed too sensitive. ellie would nearly wince when his name was mentioned, and her eyes would fill with something that seemed like sorrow, or regret, or anger. usually, all of those emotions— all at once.

“that her gift?” he pointed towards the brown paper bag.

“mhm! savage starlight. s’the latest edition… i think”

joel smiled softly, and hummed in response. his eyes too, were filled with something that seemed to hold a droplet of sorrow and regret, but no anger though. different than ellie’s.

“she’s still into it, huh?”

“she’s obsessed” you giggled. truthfully, she had a good reason to be. savage stralight was fucking awesome, you grew to realize. it was even more awesome when she read it to you in the dark, cuddled up in her squeaky bed, holding a flashlight to illuminate the written words. when you dozed off, she’d continue reading out loud, maybe to herself, or maybe for your subconscious to absorb.

“i have… this, thing, uh—“ he shifted awkwardly, and began searching for something in his pockets. joel took it out, and showed it to you while holding it in his palm. the thing he mentioned, was a golden, diamond studded pin of the fallen apollo 1. it was beautiful, highly detailed, it’s unmistakable shine reflecting the rays of the sun.

“found it last week while i was patrollin’”

“it’s… woah” you marveled, running a delicate finger over the polished metal.

“is she… still into the space thing?” the stony man asked with a slightly shaky voice. something in you had to physically fight the urge to pull him into a warm hug.

“yeah… we… well, we went to look at the stars the other day”

joel placed the pin in your hand, and wrapped your fingers around it. “could you give it to her? don’ gotta say it’s from me. tell her you found it”

you nearly choked up.

“joel… you should come with me”

joel sighed, and smiled softly again. joel wasn’t into smiling, but you made ellie smile, and that made joel smile.

“maybe next birthday, kid”

joel, just like louisa, knew ellie loved you before she did. and joel, saw his girl turn from a sulky, sullen teenager, to someone who looked like she had something, someone, to live for.

⋆˙⟡♡

12:00pm, and exactly three knocks on ellie’s wooden door. you’d be lying if you said you weren’t filled with anxiousness. being anxious around ellie wasn’t a strange new feeling. you had butterflies swarming around your belly when she looked at you, had butterflies when she talked to you, especially when she used that one tone, when she got out of the shower with only a small towel wrapped around her glistening body, you had butterflies, or better yet— a painfully lage bee colony growing in your tummy. when she kissed you softly, the bees calmed down and were a little more subtle, you could imagine them having black oogly heart eyes— but when she kissed you roughly, forcefully against the wall (or against the concrete floor that one time), the bees buzzed uncontrollably, and somehow flew down to a lower part of your body. when she grabbed your waist and gave it a squeeze, as she ravished your mouth with her wet tongue, they went even lower and…

well, anyways— ellie made you nervous. handing her her gifts made you nervous and having her first birthday with you made you even more nervous. you were a fuzzy ball of nervousness and anticipation, and now ellie opened the door and you nearly dropped the cake on the ground.

again.

usually, ellie would greet you with a shy “hey”. exactly a week ago, she added a “babe” to it. (the belly bee colony buzzed and they were tremendously loud, you thought ellie could possibly hear them — so you had to hold on to your tummy) today, ellie greeted you with blown out eyes and a gasp. “oh…”

“happy birthday” you mumbled adorably as if it was a hushed little secret, too shy to look her in the eyes. ellie was too shy too, a coy smile painted on her lips, rosy cheeked, with her hands clamped in two fists inside her oversized grey sweater (it’s june, she would not let that hoodie go). her pupils were glued to the “happy birth, el” written in white icing.

when she felt bold enough to look you in the eyes after not speaking (just staring) for one whole minute, as soon as she caught your gaze— your orbs began dancing around everything you saw, purely avoiding her look but with a huge grin plastered on your sweet, overly excited face.

would it be stupid for ellie to tell you that she loved you right now? because it was getting incredibly hard not to.

instead of a (perhaps) misplaced i love you, ellie decided a pure “thank you” would be have to suffice. she held the door for you, and you shyly tiptoed in. when you placed the chocolate cake on top of the oakwood counter along with the paper bag, you felt ellie’s hands shyly creeping up to your waist, pulling you in a tight hug. “you really… really, shouldn’t have” she whispered. her voice was still groggy, lazy, raspy.

it was her morning voice.

funnily enough, this was your first time hearing it. you never stayed over past 2am— the night was dangerous in your eyes. the night meant going to sleep, it meant staying in her bed, and it meant sleeping with her inside of it. the idea of a night with ellie felt as if the bee colony in your stomach was about to erupt and explode and splatter everywhere.

“you know i don’t… celebrate these things” ellie rasped again, breaking you off from your idle thoughts. you placed your hand over hers, and giggled. “s’not a thing, el… it’s your birthday”, ellie hummed in agreement, and you continued. “besides, it’s an—“ she planted a soft, chaste kiss on your neck. it made you shudder and it made your voice break. “an… excuse to eat some cake”

“just cake?”, ellie sighed, her raspy voice tickling your cheek.

“mhm” you nodded, distracted as ever.

“whats in that paper bag then, huh?”

the flower only blooms during the night, and savage starlight was meant to be consumed with the help of a trusty ol’ flashlight, under a thick blanket. the sun was still out, so the moonflower slept. for the comics, you wouldn’t need a flashlight, and that would simply demolish all of the fun.

the sun was still out so unfortunately, ellie will have to sit and patiently wait.

you pull yourself out of her hug, and waltz away slowly. “well… paper bags for later”, you tilt your head, drawing out your words just to tease her and then some. “so, not gonna show you what’s in there”

ellie raises a brow, a slight half smirk creeping up on her face. saying ellie was a patient girl, would be similar to saying a cat doesn't walk on four. technically, it could… be biped, but— well, wouldn’t quite work. so similarly, patient and ellie couldn’t quite work either.

“you gonna say no to me on my birthday?” she jests, pulling her arms and crossing them over her grey hoodie ridden chest.

“oohh…” you nod twice, “so now you do celebrate these things?” you teasingly raise an eyebrow, mirroring her stance. ellie chuckles and it comes out from deep within her throat. she squints her eyes, “you’re such a tease”

she must not know one of the bee’s just stung the insides of your own stomach and dropped dead. or maybe it’s not dead yet, because you can still feel it’s erratic buzzing and the venom makes you feel as if you’re about to pass out.

“mhm… it’s okay, i’ll wait, babe” — there’s that babe again, and the little bee is definitely dead by now.

“can we eat the cake outside? s’nice, warm… we could do a picnic!” you chirp, each and every single one of your words laced with that syrupy sweetness that makes ellie melt.

ellie smiles and feels a little blush creeping up on the apples of her cheeks. “could do… whatever you want, it’s your cake” she states, and you roll your eyes at her sweet humility. “s’not my cake, it’s yours” you mutter serenely as you point towards the vanilla icing. “see? has your name on it and all”

ellie tries plunging a slender finger into the icing, a foolish attempt to taste it, but you slap it away, a faux pout forming on her face.

“can’t taste my own cake?”

“nope. outside” you speak, popping the p’.

“yes ma’am”

⋆˙⟡♡

you take a sip of the freshly squeezed lemonade, a droplet of sour and sweetness flowing down from the corner of your lips. ellie— propped up by her elbow, brings her thumb and wipes it away. “so messy” she jives playfully, putting the pad of her thumb in her mouth and joyfully sucks on it. she’s squinting her eyes, attempting to avoid the rays of the sun, and you giggle impishly. “can i finally taste my cake now?” she drawls.

impatient as ever, ellie doesn’t even bother pulling out the white plastic fork. instead, she shoves her hand into the cake and takes a big bite. her eyes shut as she devours it, humming at the taste. with her mouth full, she utters “happy birth, el, huh?”.

you breathlessly laugh and nudge her arm away so she almost falls on the checkered, red and white picnic blanket. “sounds like… mmh, fuck, this is good”, she licks her finger — “sounds like m’giving birth”

“i didn’t have any more icing left!” you raise your tone brightly. ellie looks you in the eyes and swallows a sly smirk. this time, it’s your turn to wipe some residue off the corner of her lips. you taste it, and god damn was she right— it’s finger lickin’ good.

“i think that like, when we have babies, you’d be the one to give birth… not my thing. don’t want some… little intruder in my stomach”

before you have time to answer, ellie bites the insides of her cheeks and feels like slapping herself in the face or burying herself 7 feet in the ground. she’s talking about having babies with you?!

she’d smack herself so hard right now if she could.

for you, however, it’s becoming insufferably hard not to start jumping up and down and ripping your hair off in excitement.

“let me get this straight…” you begin, and ellie’s convinced you’re about to tell her that she’s too much and leave. “an intruder, as you put it, can live inside my belly for nine whole months, but not inside yours?”

ellie has to stop herself from breathing a sigh of relief. “it’ll suit you, is all i’m sayin’”

ellie manages to eat half of the creamy chocolate cake all by herself. she was never one to have a big appetite, did you sneak something inside of the batter, perhaps?

maybe it’s love, ellie wonders. she scolds herself internally, quit being such a sap. it’s definitely the espresso powder her taste buds managed to pick up on.

laying face to face with her eyes closed, you manage to count some of her splattered freckles. one… two… fifteen…, some of them grew darker, tanner. ellie’s chest rises up and down, and you almost think she must have dozed off like a little kid having a post—dessert nap, until;

“hey” she whispers.

“hi” you whisper back.

ellie opens her eyes, a soft, lazy half smile adorning her face. she bites her bottom lip, “can i open my present now?”

impatient.

you shake your head softly. “nuh uh, sun’s still out. sorry, els”

she wants to scoff but she loves it when you call her by that little nickname. “but…” you look down shyly, reaching out for your pocket. “i ran into… joel, on my way here” you speak quietly, afraid of saying the wrong thing. ellie blinks twice, and clears her throat. taking it out of your pocket, you place the little precious pin in between ellie and you. ellie only looks at it, doesn’t touch. you can’t quite describe the expression on her face. surprised? dreadful?… doubtful, maybe, and a tad curious perhaps. “he wanted me to give you this… s’the fallen apollo eleven, i think”

ellie let’s out a quiet chuckle.

“apollo one”

she lifts herself up, taking the pin in her hand. her green eyes begin examining it, brushing her fingers on the golden metal. you sit quietly for a while, allowing ellie to be one with her thoughts. she doesn’t know what to think, what to feel, really. sorrow? regret? tears threaten to fill the brim of her eyes, so with her back to you, she sighs deeply and swallows them up. you bring your hand to lay a small caress on the small of her back, and ellie gazes to the side. she grabs your hand, and plants a small kiss on to your fingers. “ellie…” you silently whisper, and ellie sniffles.

“it’s alright, m’okay” she assures, and lays herself on top of the blanket again. her hand still holds your fingers, and you bring them around her thumb and squeeze. “thank you” she voices. before telling her that you’re not the one she should thank, a small tear flows down her cheek. you’d wipe it away, but ellie grabs your other hand and interlocks her fingers with yours. “sometimes it… fuck—“ she laughs, it occurss to both of you you’ve never quite seen her cry. “it’s okay” you comfort. keep going, you got her. ellie deeply sighs, “feels like i don’t deserve any of this”. the tear is hanging from her chin now, then flows down to her neck. you don’t ask her why, because now is not the time, but you’ll ask her one day. for now, all you do is assure her that she does. and for once in her life, she actually might start to believe it.

⋆˙⟡♡

apparently, chocolate cake, raspberry jam and some bubbly champagne (that you stole borrowed from the tipsy bison) can really get you two going. after hours of aimless giggling, tummies hurting from all of the fine delicacies, it’s time for your favourite past time— ellie and yours hypotheticals corner. naturally, with your head laying on top of her firm chest, you’re the one who starts. “okay, so… plants”, you gush. “mhm, so plants” ellie repeats, her fingers tracing lazy circles on your half covered shoulder. “which plant would i be?”

ellie thinks for a while— you two really take this seriously. she hums before responding, puffing some air from her nose. “chocolate plant, for sure”

interesting. you thought she’d say a certain flower, a delicate one, a soft one, one that blooms in the day. chocolate plant. “intersting… why chocolate? — ellie doesn’t quite know either. perhaps it’s because she loves chocolate and she loves you, and the champagne is making her feel giddy and silly and you’re her little chocolate bean, plant thing.

“cause it’s tasty” she responds, and you almost settle on that except… you seem to have an important anecdote you have a blinding urge to point out.

“well, it makes zero sense. you’ve never even tasted me”

that she hasn’t. yet.

ellie’s breath hitches inside her throat and she nearly chokes on her spit. do you know… what you’re doing? you muttered that sentence so innocently, so absentmindedly, and of course she hasn’t tasted you, but did that thought occur in your mind like it did in hers? you’re still smiling, patiently waiting for her response, and ellie can’t help but feel so… well, she couldn’t quite put her finger on what she was feeling. her cheeks however— light up in a shade of dusty pink.

“imagine if you like, ate me! i’d probably taste so…”

sweet? intoxicating?

“gross!” you exclaim, exaggerating and blowing your eyes out. ellie’s cheeks calm down a little, the pretty pink diminishing slowly. “thank god you’re not a cannibal…”

nah, she thinks she might be something worse.

slowly, ellie pushes her body closer to yours. you feel her faint breaths on the tip of your nose. “tickles…” you murmur, and ellie huffs out and smiles. it’s that smile she gives you before saying something. the way her eyes dart from your lips to your eyes… it makes you feel vulnerable, coy, and it’s as if she’s studying you, taking in your features one by one. perhaps, she loves seeing the way your eyelashes flutter like small butterfly wings when you feel her gaze on you.

“i have tasted you though” she rasps, her voice low and husky. her eyes are focused on your lips now, as hers slightly part, and then close up again. “you have?” you mumble, shy under her gaze. she hums, bringing the pad of her thumb to your lips again and pulling on your bottom one slightly. this time, you don’t have lemonade juice running down your chin. this time— the gesture is truly just for her. those lips… she thinks.

“you taste… good. and sweet, like…”, your lips curl up to a smile. “chocolate?” you complete. ellie hums again, her palm cupping your cheek. you feel warm, how are you always so warm? — even when you’re shivering cold, warmth is all she can feel.

“and vanilla… and coconut” she caresses your cheek with her thumb. you giggle, “you’ve never even had coconut”

“nah, but i can imagine…” — and oh, imagine she can. is this the champagne talking? it must be it, because that fizzling bubbly voice in her head would not let her go. funny, she doesn’t even feel drunk. “you taste sweet too” you state, nearly purring into her hand as she keeps delicately caressing your skin. she chuckles, “no i don’t” — and she’s right. she doesn’t taste sweet, in fact, she tastes minty and earthy and it makes you feel dizzy each time.

slowly, ellie gets her face even closer to yours. she sees your eyes twinkling, and she swears they shine brighter than every star she’s ever seen. back in the old times, nasa would have a field trip exploring your orbs. they might even find new galaxies in there, and ellie wishes she could explore each one. she really should have been an astronaut.

“ellie?” you quietly whisper. ellie nearly gets lost in the way you say her name, but responds to you nevertheless. “yeah babe?”

“can i taste you? to prove how… sweet you are?” — she knows you mean her lips, regardless, that dusty pink turns a deeper shade of crimson. she thinks it’s absolutely adorable, how you still feel the need to ask. however, she forgets that she asks you that question each time as well. can she… kiss you here? right below your ear? that feel good?

she doesn’t respond with words, but with actions. she cups your cheek harder now and with fervour, and she knows she needs to be romantic but she’s famished, so as soon as she feels your lips part— she plunges her tongue deep inside and you surrender to her domination. almost like a waltz, your tongues dance together, swirling around each other and tasting— and she still doesn’t taste all that sweet, but you do, and it makes her brain feel like mush. you whimper into her mouth and it almost sounds like your “els”, and she knows she needs to come out for air soon and break off the kiss but how can she? how can she when you’re so damn sweet?

her hand dips lower, placing itself on your throat, and she gives you that little squeeze (that she realised must have made you feel good, because you always had chills when she did and she could feel them), and this time— you really did whimper out her name. ellie groans, but you abruptly break the kiss, holding on to your stomach. she pants slightly, before releasing your throat from her grasp. “did i do something?“ she asks quietly.

thing is, she truly didn’t. in fact, it was that damn bee colony that did. she must have heard them buzzing and flying into each other and bumping into your stomachs walls and dip even lower and— “can you hear them?” you question— and you’re panicking slightly, she can tell.

“hear who?”, ellie looks around, but nobody’s there. intruders? clickers? you must have drank too much, but you really hadn’t so…

“it’s so fuckin’ stupid…” you whine, lowering your head and hiding your face in the crook of her neck. ellie still thinks you must have heard something for real— and by all means, it is real, just not… like that. “hey” she encourages, placing her hand on the back of your neck. if she dares to even move it to the front of it, you’d panic again and be totally screwed. ellie notices you’re holding on to your lower stomach, “does it hurt?” she questions, worrisome.

“no… no, s’not that…” you voice, an octave higher than a whisper. “just when… when you kiss me? like, when you kiss me like that, you know?”, you hide your face again, and ellie’s worried sick— oh god, you hate it. you hate it when she kisses you.

you take a moment to gather your thoughts, you can explain this.

you breathe deeply, and ellie still holds the back of your head. “you know how people say… that you have… butterflies, when you’re around someone you like?”

“uh huh” ellie sighs. she gets it now. you don’t have those butterflies. you get sick when she kisses you, it makes your stomach hurt and you hate it and hate her and she knew you were too good for her and fuck.

“well, mine feel more like… well, they feel violent. it feels like i’m going to explode. i call them my bees, my bee colony, it’s so fucking stupid and i feel like they’re everywhere—“

oh.

ellie laughs (finally), breathlessly so, and she giggles and squeezes your body closer to hers and you continue to ramble, your voice slightly muffled by the fabric of her hoodie. she’s going to squeeze you so hard you might die, and you start banging your hands on her chest and you’re embarrassed, mortified at your little confession and the bees are so mad! they're calling for a conference call and you nearly explode.

“babe, babe—“ ellie calls out, forcing your head out of her neck and nearly begging you to look at her. you don’t though, you shut your eyes tight as she looks at you and thank god you do because she looks so amused but so enamoured she nearly doesn’t even want you to look.

“you wanna know what i have?” she probes, and you finally open one eye to take a peak. “no!”, and immediately— you shut it again. “i don’t have butterflies either” she calmly states, playfully pressing on your nose so you can huff out and look at her. when you do, you expect to see a smile— but instead, you’re faced with a serious expression, ellies eyebrows furrowing.

“i have wasps”

“wasps?” you doubt her quietly.

“mhm…” her lips part and she licks her bottom one before she speaks. “more like… tigers, or like, lions. way worse than yours. i mean, i’m in terrible condition”— she chuckles, and she just might be.

her words don’t comfort you, in fact, they make you buzz even louder.

doe eyed, you look up at her. “lions?”

“mhm” she nods. lions that might just tear you apart on the grass if you keep on looking at her like that.

this time, when she kisses you again— you don’t hold on to your stomach, you place your hand on hers. as the bees grow even louder, crashing into each other and ruining your slippery insides, you swear you can nearly hear her own lions roar alongside with your buzzing. she grabs your neck and squeezes it again, you nearly shriek, and ellie groans into your mouth and she’s the one to stop, but for an entirely different reason now. “inside?” she murmurs, staring at your glistening, kiss swollen lips and at the drool that runs on one corner. “please…” you whine, and ellie’s eyes nearly roll to the back of her head. please…? she repeats in her mind— and oh fuck.

⋆˙⟡♡

so she takes you inside, your hand in hers.

with the chocolate cake and the bottle of champagne and it’s glasses far forgotten, the sweet raspberry jam slowly melting away, the chocolate cake growing into a chocolate… pudding, the ants are sure to come. how pitiful, that bees will always triumph over them, and the wasps— or the lions, well, they triumph over everything.

what ellie wants to do right now, is take you up to her bedroom and ravish you in all your glory, but you’re no forgetful fool. with everything else washed away, how dare you forget her presents?, her moonflowers?

“ellie!” you exclaim, squeezing on her hand. “it’s nighttime! your birthday presents…” you wiggle out your eyebrows.

shit— she nearly forgot, she’s pretty sure that if someone placed an actual living and breathing dinosaur in her living room she wouldn’t even notice because you keep on rendering her a distracted mess.

besides, its your own fault, because how do you do that? how do you go from driving her crazy and making her want to eat you on the grass, to making her heart flutter and burst inside of her chest the moment after? you’re a magician, a witch, what the fuck are you? not a fairy— that’s for sure, fairies are scary.

“so… you wanna open them up or not?”

she wants to open you up. no, no! bad ellie! that’s definitely the champagne still talking (it’s long gone.)

“fuck yeah”

you grab the paper bags (with the little blue ribbon), and drag her upstairs. you physically drag her, because for some reason, opening her presents is making her incredibly nervous. you expected her to be more eager, to snap the bag out of your hand as soon as you allowed her, but instead— she sits on the bed and just waits. she’s waiting for you to hand them out to her.

the nervousness seems to eat you up as well, tummy aching (still the bees, but also some normal excitement)— and as you hand her the bag, a few questions start to arise.

what if she hates it? what if she hates flowers? what if she’s allergic to the ipomea alba, what if she starts sneezing and coughing and dying?! or what if she already managed to get over savage starlight? (in a matter of two days…) what if the cake sucked and she was lying all along and you’d disappoint her and she dumps you and—

“HOLY FUCKIN’ SHIT!!!!!!!!!” — she yelps, you didn’t even notice she opened the damn bag!

“this is…..” her eyes are bright and she smiles so big it nearly damn hurts the apples of her cheeks. “savage fucking star— fuck! s’the latest fucking one! how did you even manage to, fuck— gotta fuckin’ kiss you right now or i’d die”

ellie practically pounces on you, kissing you all over your face. cheeks— two kisses on each one, your nose, your forehead, your chin, both of your earlobes, “close your eyes, gotta kiss ‘em too”, your jaw, your neck…

“are you into me or something? cause it looks like you’re super into me, giving me this fuckin’ gift… dude. if you have feelings for me…”, she places her pointer and her middle finger on your chin and makes you look up at her. you stifle a giggle, “you gotta just tell me, might be into you too” she pecks your lip slowly and you instantly melt.

“we have to read it today… but only eight pages! gotta save it up”

she nearly buries her entire face in the comic book pages. she sniffs, “shit… even smells new” — a layer of fine dust adorns it, so you know it doesn’t.

“rented it from the library!” you chirp, the concept of libraries being one you merely only read about.

“there’s… something else in there too…” you begin. for some reason, giving her those flowers you picked makes you even more nervous. she curiously looks up at you. “there's more?”

you bend down to grab the paper bag off of the wooden floor. the moonflowers’ petals opened up, and there you were— awestruck again. “you can’t give me more things… it’s too much i don’t…” deserve it? you know she thinks so. regardless, she looks up at you adoringly, as your hand tremors and you lift the flowers out of the brown paper bag. you look at them, trying to decide if maybe you were just being delusional, maybe they’re not nearly as pretty as you thought they were when you came across them for the first time. perhaps they’re…

“woah…” ellie gazes at them, wide eyed. she doesn’t even know the meaning of them but yet she is nothing but mesmerised. “wh… what flower is this?” she asks, running her fingers on their dark green stems. when she reaches their creamy white petals, she moves her fingers even more delicately. caressing it, her knee nudges yours.

“moonflower” you reply silently, watching ellie’s digits adoring the bloom. “it’s… it’s really pretty”

you take a deep breath. “i picked it up cause… it reminds me of you”, you exhale, fiddling with your fingers. when she notices, she puts her hand, the one with the flowers in it— on top of yours. the room is quiet, except for ellie’s shallow breaths.

“it um… well… first of all, it’s beautiful, like you”, you flush, and ellie flushes as well. she swallows deeply, and involuntarily, a small “fuck” escapes from her throat.

“and… they’re not supposed to grow in jackson. it was purely by accident, so they’re special… like you, and uh… well, they only bloom during the night, which is why i waited. they’re strong, and they’re deadly, i mean— the venom is… so don’t… eat it, i guess.” you chuckle, and you barely even notice two fat tears streaming down your cheeks. “they remind me of you because they’re the prettiest flowers ive ever seen, and when i saw them… i was kinda of like… woah, just like what happened when i saw you for the first time, remember?” — ellie sniffles, and ellie’s crying. “so… you’re my moonflower”

ellie doesn’t know what to do. she looks up, covering her face with her hands. she wipes away a stupid tear, and then wipes away your precious one.

one whole minute passes.

“if i ever…” she begins, swallowing hard. “if i ever lose you? i think i might die” — because the moonflower needs sun to live, and you’re her sun, her lifeline.

you take her face in between your shaky palms. ellie’s lips hold a slight tremor, and then she laughs.

“i’m in love with you”

you don’t have to say it back. you really don’t, because again — actions speak louder than words. your soft lips meet her slightly chapped ones, and ellie hums into the kiss. different than the one before, this one is gentle, dim, the lust hasn’t disappeared— it’s still there, but it has something more to it, not diminishing it, just hovering above. could you guess what it is?

“i love y…” you whisper out, attempting to break the kiss, just if you could simply say this one thing, but ellie knows, she knows. she pulls you by the back of your neck more forcefully now, deepening the kiss. because you couldn’t finish your sentence, you pout— but ellie suckles on your bottom lip and wipes your silly pout away. her hand goes lower, from the back of your head to hold on to your waist, and she squeezes the covered flesh. you moan into the kiss, tasting her spit and her tongue, and oh god— the bees. you think you might have just another precious gift for her. one she’s been waiting for, one she’s been fantasising about, one that you’ve been fantasising about. when you moan into the kiss, ellie breaks it. she’s staring you down, panting again. “think i… have… one more gift” you whisper, and ellie— her lips parted, nods once. “one more?” she rasps, squeezing your waist again and pulling you up to straddle her. “mhm”, you hiccup as you feel yourself snugly pressed up against her.

she places one hand on your thigh, simply caressing it back and forth. the more up she goes, the more your breaths become uneven and so do her’s. it’s not entirely an unfamiliar territory— you've been seated on her lap a few times before (seven, but whos counting? she is), but this is… different. “whats your gift, huh?” she teases. you? are you going to be her gift? you always have been…

you whine when she traces small circles with her slender fingers on your clothed inner thighs. you whine and it makes ellie throb— you’ve never quite made that noise before, and she yearns to pull every single noise you could possibly make out of you. a whimper, a moan, god— a scream. she feels like she’s about to explode and christ, you’re still fully clothed.

like a hunter examining it’s prey, ellie moves her face forwards, and then downwards, towards your neck. she places a few chaste kisses, “ah! tickles…” ellie chuckles darkly, yearning to “tickle” you once more. she plants two more delicate, tickling kisses before suckling on the flesh. at first, her tongue meets your skin and she laps up at it. then, her teeth bite into it, and you nearly jump. “sorry… that hurt?” she asks, and really, she’s not sorry at all. “feels…” ellie cuts you off and sucks again. this time, she’s determined to leave a mark. “oh… feels…” you continue, shuddering in her arms like glass. she hasn’t even touched you, not really, and yet everything feels damp. your face, from your tears and from her tears and from spit, to the flesh of your neck that’s being sucked on and played with, down to the small wet patch inside your panties that you’d be mortified if she noticed.

when she finishes the assault on your neck, she moves up to your lips again and grunts when she sees how your lips were already parted, just for her. the kiss is slow, wet, her tongue kitten licking your own. it’s nasty, really, wet smacking and sucking noises filling the air. almost involuntarily, your hips start moving and grinding up against her thigh. ellie moans deeply. “mmph… yeah?” she teases, or at least tries to, because her voice is shaky and turned on to the max. she helps you move slightly, and my god she needs to take your pants off and feel your naked heat against her like this. when she thinks about what it must be like for you— she imagines your fat pussy lips squished up inside your panties, grinding on her thigh and she nearly loses it. she wants to help you grind harder… could she make you cum just from that? cum inside your pants whilst using her thigh? “fuuuck”, ellie groans and lifts her hand up, nearly smacking your ass but it ends up just landing on her own leg.

“s’not fair… what you’re doing…” she murmurs in your ear, “what did… what did i do?” you respond back, your voice high and needy. ellie doesn’t even know what she meant to say. all she knows is that it’s not fair. it’s not fair how you make her react and feel like this, the way your eyes glisten isn’t fair, the way you grind up on her thigh and make those sounds isn’t fair, the way you make her feel sticky and mushy and wet — without even taking your clothes off, isn’t fair.

still moving with fervour on top of her legs, her hand is dangerously close to where you need her the most. she nearly cups it, flips you over and ravishes you whole, but she stops herself. “can i please… take your fuckin’…” she rasps, running her short fingernails on your sides. she’s not scratching, but it’s not an entirely gentle movement either. she doesn’t know where to start, should she ask you to take your top off? your pants? — maybe she should just ask you to go completely naked. she settles on the little top, however.

you lift the fabric up slowly, but you do it out of nerves. as much as ellie wants it off, she lets you take it slow. you peel it off, exposing your skin inch by inch— do you even know how bad you’re teasing her right now? “ah, fuck” ellie groans out. when the shirt meets the top of your head, it gets stuck there for a second. you giggle nervously, your lacey bra on full display, and ellie considers just leaving you there to struggle by yourself. if your eyes are covered by the material, maybe you won’t notice how hard she’s staring. “need some help there, babe?” she teases as she leans back on her elbows. your laugh is muffled, and ellie chuckles. how are you so goddamn sexy and adorable at the same time? after ten whole seconds of struggling, ellie lifts it up for you. “there, good girl… wasn’t that hard, right? just needed my help?” she teases, and god is she mean— that little twinkle in her now much darker green eyes making you feel like your ears are about to melt off.

swiftly, ellie begins planting soft kisses all over your collarbones. her hand isn’t touching your breasts quite yet, but it’s hovering on top of them, and then you realize— she’s waiting for your approval, for your yes. you put your hands around her neck and push her forward, which makes her hands land on top of your breasts. ellie moans as soon as she feels them, and even though they’re covered by fabric — the lace is thin and she can feel your hardening nipples. she runs her thumb over the swollen buds and you shiver. “knew you’d be sensitive…” she murmurs to herself against your skin. “what did… uh, what did you say?”, you stutter, and then she looks up at you. “said…” she flicks it and you buck your hips. “fuck… knew you’d be sensitive”

she knew… you’d be? “you’ve, uh… thought about this before?” — and ellie chuckles, fully laughs nearly. if you only knew how many times she’s thought about this you’d probably crumble like a danish biscuit. “too many times” ellie confesses, and she almost gets too embarrassed to admit, but she swears she can feel a little wet patch on her jeans so she knows you must have thought about this as well, perhaps more than she has — but not likely. “i have too” you murmur shyly, and there it is.

“oh, really?” she asks, kissing right in between of your tits and making you jolt. if her lips feel this good on your chest… your eyes roll back to the top of your head. “so you’re just as filthy, huh?”, her right hand lands on your ass with the smallest smack, she knows she could make it hurt if she wanted to (and she does), but not yet. you jump and squeal, and in a random burst of confidence — “m’filthier…” you whisper.

with that, ellie grunts and takes your tits in her palms, she kneads the swollen flesh, pushing both of your breasts together and kisses right between the formed cleavage. “bet you’re filthier…” she whispers, opens her mouth so her tongue can stick out and lick between your cleavage line. when she does so, she brings her hand to your back and unclasps your bra with just her two fingers. she lets it cascade down, and she notices how shy you get, trying to bring your hands to cover yourself up. ellie is faster than you, and grabs both of your wrists so you can’t. you’re fully exposed, and ellie’s all pants and heavy breaths. when you try to wiggle yourself out of her grip, your tits move and bounce in the slightest, and ellie’s in trance. “you’re so… fuckin’ pretty” she takes your hard nipple in her mouth and you wince as soon as you feel her pink muscles wetness. “that feel good huh?” she takes your other breast in her hand and toys with it, palms it and making it shake.

with hungry kisses, she lays you down on her bed. you buck your hips forward, and ellie parts your legs with her own. she runs her hands all over your body, and before kissing you again, she stops. “els?” you ask, but ellie ignores you. ellie takes her top off, and fuck you’re nearly drooling. she wasn’t even wearing a bra, and her pretty pink nipples are just as hard as yours. you’re staring, and it’s ellie’s turn to go shy. “you like… ‘em?” she giggles, “shit, nevermind”

you don’t expect it, but ellie grabs the brown paper bag and pulls the moonflower bouquet out of it. “wh… what are you doing?”

“don’t worry about it” — she places the flowers on your chest. for some reason, your ears start to burn. “hold ‘em like that for me?” she asks, and you do. with ellie straddling you, it almost looks like she’s about to pull out a camera and take a picture. “perfect…” she murmurs, “feels like i marked you. s’over for you, you’re mine, y’know that?”

you think you’ve always known. “yours” you whisper coyly, giving her that toothy grin that makes her melt into a puddle. she leans forward, kissing the tip of your nose. “yours who?” she kisses your cheek, and then below it, and then on your jaw. “yours… ellie” — and she must be smiling, because you can feel her lips curl up on your skin.

she kisses you everywhere, on every scar, every blemish, sometimes she bites, but then soothes it with her tongue. you’re growing impatient, the pressure down your panties becoming insufferable. before she unbuttons your pants, she unbuttons her’s. she pulls them down, to sit right below her boxers covered ass. she comes up again, kissing on your tummy, and then — she puts her ear to it. “m’hearing them…” she murmurs. “they're… talking to me, the bees are begging me to fuc—“

“ellie!” you call out, embarrassed. you try and muffle your giggles with your hand but it’s all for nothing, because when she pulls your pants down you gasp. she takes a moment to stare, she could just stare at you forever, she thinks. ellie toys with the waistband of your panties, running her pointer finger on the line. she’s breathing heavy, and you’re nearly wheezing. she bends down to kiss your sopping covered cunt, “oh fu— wait!” you call out.

“i’m… i feel, i’m too shy i can’t…”, ellie smiles and kisses it again. she knows you are. “feels like i might—“ you cry out, feels like you might what?

“explode!”

“you might… but i got you, yeah?” ellie coos, and this time, she doesn’t kiss it, she runs her tongue along the wet patch. she wiggles it from side to side and fuck, she can taste you already and she thinks she might be addicted. your thighs tense and they involuntarily wrap around ellie’s head. she chuckles, and parts them apart. to soothe you, she runs her fingers on your inner thighs and caresses you gently. she kisses your clothed clit and she swears she just felt it pump. “awh… yeah?” she coos again, and it feel like she’s talking to your pussy and not to you. you whimper and drop your head back, and she sucks on it. she’s making the fabric grow nearly sheer with her tongue, and when she sees the outline of your pussy lips she moans deeply. “so wet…” she murmurs to herself, “this all for me, huh? did i do something?” she looks up at you, and your eyes are tightly shut, not even in a place where you feel like you can talk.

you’re fuzzy everywhere.

“can you answer me?” she warns, but chuckles when she sees your back arching as soon as she pulls your soaking wet panties to the side. you hum, “all f— for you”, but ellie doesn’t even hear it, because she’s faced with the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

your glistening folds, the tiny swollen button on top, and your hole practically clenching in and out over nothing and she thinks she might just die. she spits on it with a small “ptu”, watches as her warm saliva cascades down from your clit to your inviting hole. when you clench, your hole absorbs some of her spit and she groans deeply. “fuck that’s cute”

you’re panting, a sweet harmony of “please, ellie!” escaping your lips, and when you accidentally muttered a pathetic, squeaky “puhleaseee!” ellie scratched the idea of slowly, butterfly kissing your cunt till you’re begging and began placing an open mouthed kiss on it.

as her tongue meets your clit for the first time, you clutch your thighs around her head. it happens twice before she forces them open, “quit that, gotta see you” — she warns, and you listen because you just do. “look at me” she instructs, her voice muffled by your sweet pussy in her mouth. her tongue laps up the wetness from your hole, brings it to the top of your clit and sucks. ellie hums, she was right — you really are fuckin’ sweet. “so good…” she murmurs, “doin’ such a good job”, truly, you aren’t even doing anything, just squirming and whimpering under her touch. she moves her tongue around and you swear you just felt her spell something with it, “ellie!” you cry, and ellie’s breath hitches down her throat so she comes out for air and spits on your cunt again. she rubs the wetness with her fingers, then separates your pussy lips with her thumbs so she can see all of you.

you’re just like a flower, she thinks. slowly, she places her tongue on your clit again, but with her fingers on it still, she begins toying with your tight hole. she merely teases it, probing your entrance with her ring finger. “gonna put it inside, that okay?” she asks, but you’re unresponsive, a blabbering mess who doesn’t even remember her own name. ellie chuckles, she could probably do anything she wanted. she slips it inside, feeling your gummy walls squeezing her in, and she moans right when you do. “oh… gosh, ellie!”

“so fuckin’ tight” she whispers, returning her mouth on your clit and suckles deeply. she adds a second finger and now you’re gone, fully consumed by this filthy, pleasure filled monster. “i think m’gonna!” you cry and ellie whimpers out, nearly going cross eyed when she notices you’re toying with your nipples just like she did. “explode?” she breathlessly says. “c… cum!”

“good fuckin’…” she wants to complete that sentence, but instead her tongue dips lower and her hands push your thighs so your knees are pushed up against your chest. it goes even lower, licking your tightest entrance, the one that’s never been explored, not even by your own hands, and when she flicks her tongue upon it and then immediately goes back to your swollen clit you’re—

“cum’… m’cumming! m’cumming!” and yeah you are, ellie thinks, and slaps one of your thighs. you're jolting when you do, her name leaving your mouth like a prayer, and pray as much as you want but heaven will not be the one that accepts you, perhaps it’ll be purgatory, but with her in it it’s more than perfect. “uh huh… cum for me”

when you do, you see stars, and ellie sees moonflowers.

she laps up your saccharine juices, sucking them off her fingers one by one. you’re feeling faint, buzzing everywhere, from the tips of your toes to the top of your head. ellie looks up at you, eyelids half shut. when you see the index finger that was deep inside of you just a moment ago, go inside her mouth, her pouty pink lips around them and she’s lapping it up and she’s greedy— you cringe a little. she’s tasting and tasting and humming, “told you… you’re sweet”

[phantomrose96]

Sham Sacrifice: Chapter 2

(Sham Sacrifice: Chapter 1)

Chapter 2, because @ciestess voiced an idea that absolutely consumed my entire mind and I could not rest until I made this

...

Danny’s eyes tracked the swing of gunfire raining bullets across the horizon. Tucker reloaded, crouched, dodged left and pivoted, another blast of bullet confetti launched through a gaggle of zombie heads. He tossed the magazine and reloaded. Click. Ching. Danny flinched when a zombie smashed a hammer clean through Tucker’s head.

 “God. Fucking…” Tucker pulled out of his hunch. He unclamped his fingers from his controller like bug legs unfurling. He extended the controller to Danny, bouncing it in his grip. “Your turn.”

“Huh?” Danny asked, as if he hadn’t been watching Tucker’s game the whole time.

“You. You’re up. I died.”

Danny accepted the controller, reloaded the screen, and jogged about a hundred feet forward before the first horde of zombies took him out football-style from the left. The death screen rolled.

“Oops,” Danny said.

“Not your best work.” And Tucker took the controller back. Tucker shot a few spare glances to Danny while the level restart loaded in. “Is it Vlad?”

“No. Well, yes,” Danny answered, flopping back into his normal position on the Foley attic armchair. Tucker’s mom had planned to toss it ages ago, before it became Danny’s chair. “But at least he left when my parents went all zombie mode into the basement.” Danny picked absently at the scabs of leather flaking from the armrest. “It was just weird.”

“I don’t mean this as an insult, but it’s definitely not the first time your dad’s gotten some math wrong,” Tucker said. “He blows up like three things a week doesn’t he?”

“He does. But he doesn’t care when he gets that math wrong. This one was like I broke something important.” Danny’s expression soured, and he picked a leather flake clean off the chair. “Vlad did, I mean.”

“Does any of the math actually work?” Sam offered from Tucker’s desk. She leaned an elbow around the back of his chair, head tilted to Danny. A pencil dangled from her loose fingers, nib-half worn to the History of an Invention report she was actually working on. Tucker had half-assed his earlier in the day about the palm pilot. Danny had not done his. “Like, it’s all crackpot theory, right? Do ghosts even follow math?”

“I think they follow some math. It’s not magic that makes the ecto-bazookas work, or the Fenton-phones work, or—well the thermos DIDN’T work—until I made it work.”

The unspoken thing Danny had been not-quite-saying hung in the air. He said it this time.

“So I’m wondering if I did it. Like the Fenton thermos. And now maybe they’re gonna do the math all over and realize the missing piece of the equation is one half-ghost son.”

“Well the order is backwards, for starters,” Sam said. “Thermos worked because you pumped ghost-energy into it. How would you have done that to the portal? You were human when you walked in.”

“Sam’s right. What do you think you brought to the table exactly? Button-slapping abilities?” Tucker loaded up the next level. “It was their portal, and their math, and it worked. There’s a million-billion kinds of math and they probably just forgot one thing.”

Tucker took a headshot and died. Mechanically, he handed the controller back to Danny.

“Yeah, probably.”

“Ask Vlad. He’s got a portal.”

“Like Vlad’s gonna tell me.”

“Just promise to be his diligent little son minion or whatever. He’s easy. Wait, let me do the next level. You know I like the cyberpunk levels.”

“It’s not your turn,” Danny said, reeling the controller just out of Tucker’s wiggling grasp.

“I’ll let you do two in a row for your next turn.”

Danny knocked Tucker away, distracted just long enough for a zombie cyberbeam to launch from the horizon and take him out through the head.

The screen washed sepia. Danny stared at it. You died.

…

Danny hadn’t really meant to stay the night at Tucker’s place. They’d just gotten really far in Man vs. Zombie, and Sam had gone home, and Danny was just resting his eyes between his turns with the controller.

So when he woke to the bright strip of sunlight beaming into his eyes through the attic skylight, his first thought was Fuck.

He was awake, here, morning, school. Fuck he had not actually done his History of Invention report, despite the stupid amount of grief it had already caused him this weekend. He pulled his face out of the armrest, now pineapple-patterned from the decaying leather, and pawed for his phone fallen on the floor. If it was still early enough, he could maybe still afford to desperately half-ass something before sixth period science.

He flipped his phone open. A text from Jazz. “Don’t come home. Make up an excuse.”

“…Fuck,” Danny whispered, through the sensation of his heart launching itself into his throat.

He scrambled upright, whole body shaking at the mercy of adrenaline shock so soon after being pulled from dead sleep. His mouth was dry, teeth unbrushed, wearing his old clothes from yesterday, report not done, Don’t come home, Don’t come home, Don’t come home.

They knew. He’d fucked it up. Somehow they knew. The math. Something. And it had to be with guns blazing, because Jazz would not send that text if they’d taken the “We accept you” angle.

Were they coming for him? On their way here? Tracking by his phone? Did they like Mrs. Foley enough to not SWAT-slam her against the wall when she opened the door for them so they could come capture the ghost pretending to be their son?

Fuck.

Danny was upright. Danny was standing. Danny was shaking. Danny wasn’t actually sure what the next thing was he was supposed to do.

Tucker’s ball of blankets rustled from the couch. “Mmph?” he asked, articulately.

“I have to. Go deal with my parents, I think,” Danny said, because any plan felt a little better than no plan. “I think they know.”  

Danny was a ghost. Danny was gone. Tucker sat upright, alone, blinking himself awake. He was staring at the You Died sepia screen still displayed on monitor, now burnt into the plasma of the tv.

…

Danny paused with his human hand slick on the Fenton front door. The gears in his mind turned as his plan quickly unraveled into no-plan. He had no plan, right? What was his plan? Handle this Man vs Zombie style—open the front door ready to dodge wide, because both zombies and parents liked to camp behind closed doors with bazookas at the ready?

“—absolutely absurd, and entirely unscientific, with no probability of being true. It goes against everything we know about neurology.”

Oh, Jazz. Was Jazz enough of a bazooka-deterrent? Probably not. Knowing his parents.

Danny turned the knob. His heart hammered. If bazookas, dodge left.

The first thing he noticed was in fact the no-bazookas. It was what he was most looking for. And so it was Jazz’s expression he did not notice until second—whites of her eyes wide, snapped to Danny, with a look that would be accusatory if worry hadn’t won that battle. Her cheeks were pale. Her hair was unbrushed.

He noticed his parents third. Compulsively, he rocked back onto his right foot, still outside the doorway, still outside the threshold of the Fenton family household.

Seeing his parents tired was of absolutely no shock-value to Danny. It was at least a twice-per-month tradition to see them haul themselves up from the basement sweaty and glaze-eyed at 7am, babbling excitement about some new ecto-spectral-hoozy-whatsits whose concept had shimmed into their minds at 8pm and now existed, fully operational, 11 nonstop hours later.

So it wasn’t the exhaustion on their face. It wasn’t the stagnant smell of sweat or the paleness of their faces or the stains on their clothes.

It was the way they looked at him. Like their whole world had fallen apart with his foot passing over the doorstep.

“Danny,” Jazz said, choked, a break in the silence. “Things are…! A little weird here. So maybe, if you wanna just get to school, I’ll finish clearing up—there’s a misunderstanding Mom and Dad have with their math. I am state finalist in Math League and have been studying college-level calculus in preparation for school applications so I’ve offered to help them fix their math, or prove to them—”

“Danny,” Maddie said, an echo of Jazz, but it felt worse. Danny scanned her hands for anything pointed enough to be a weapon. They were empty. “Danny can I just ask you something honestly, just quickly? Jazz is right. I’m just trying to clear up an issue with our math. And I won’t be mad. Whatever the answer is, I won’t be mad. I just want an honest answer.”

She stepped closer. Danny fought the urge to match her with a step backwards. Her eyes roved over him in a starved way, looking for something.

“Were you there when the portal turned on?” she asked.

“No, I wasn’t,” Danny answered. He wasn’t sure what to do with his face to make it look convincing. “It just. It needed some time to boot up, or something, right? That’s what you two said.”

“That was our guess ,but we don’t really know. The security tapes are wiped. We tried to make them EMF-resilient but a very, very strong blast of EMF could still corrupt them.”

“Yeah. I mean the portal’s gonna do that, right? When it turned on? Ripping open the Ghost Zone that’s—gotta be huge EMF.” Danny’s focus bounced between his mother’s eyes. “Just a guess. I really don’t know. I was in bed, already, whenever the portal started working.”

Left eye. Right eye. Why was she looking at him like that? Like she was sad. Was this part a trick? Make Danny let his guard down, go hey Mom need a hug? and that’s when the bazooka-whipping starts? It made his ribs feel scratchy. Stop looking at me like that.

“Have you felt anything weird at all, since the portal started working? Any gaps in your memory? Any parts of you that don’t feel right? Is there any part of you that feels like it’s changed in a way you can’t explain?”

She reached a hand out. Danny instinctively recoiled.

“Uh, yeah. They taught us about this in health class. They call it ‘puberty’ there.”

“Danny,” Jack said, and his voice was scratchy from disuse, from a long and uncharacteristic amount of time spent not speaking. “Did you die in the machine?”

A beat. A moment. Like when the zombie sends a hammer through your head.

“I’M alive!” Danny declared with a crack in his voice, with hands slammed to his chest. “Look at me. What are you talking about?”

“It’s the only math that works,” Jack continued, his words like chalk, his voice too dead. He looked too much at Danny. “If one of you two walked into the portal, and died in it. And I don’t think it was Jazz.”

This was bad. This was weird. Danny had ghost powers, sure. ‘They can’t kill me I’m already dead,�� was a funny joke sometimes. But it was funny as a joke. He was a ghost sham, really. A faker, a LARPer, whatever Tucker had called it. He was a human who was just kind of a freak now. More of a freak than he already was. He looked dead, for someone who was super-duper still alive.

He’d buried that worry, already. They weren’t allowed to bring it back.

“Look… at me!” Danny continued, mouth dry. He threw his arms wide. “Look how super alive I am! I’m awake! Using energy! Eating food and sleeping with my human body. I’ve got flesh and blood and bones and stuff! I’m not a ghost-expert but ghosts don’t have that.”

This was weird. This made Danny feel like something was scratching to get free from inside his rib cage. It twisted his entrails. Sure Tucker and Sam had thought he was dead, for those first horrible few minutes, but then he changed back to a human and the nightmare ended there. Jazz never called him dead. The ghosts called him freak and halfa and whelp, but never ‘one of them.’ That was his whole thing: being different from the ghosts who became ghosts by something so normal as dying.

He was not dead.

“If you died in the portal, your ghost wouldn’t have been ripped out of your body. It would have been allowed to stay, and then you’d be…” Jack hesitated. “I don’t know what you’d be, but you wouldn’t be alive.”

“Dad,” Jazz said, and she stood herself bodily between Danny and Jack. “What an absolutely messed up out-of-line thing to say to your son! You don’t know that! Dad you’re tired, and just because you weren’t able to solve your math problem in one night doesn’t mean you get to treat Danny like this! I said I’d help you with your math! Now apologize to Danny.”

Jazz looked over her shoulder to Danny, her expression falling at the sight of Danny’s face.

Danny backed up over the door threshold. He shook his head. “I’m not comfortable with this. This is weird. I’m gonna go to school now.”

“Danny, I promise they’re just—”

Danny turned on heel. No backpack, no change of clothes. He took to the street without a single school supply and moved, and moved.

It was supposed to be guns-blazing. Molecule by molecule. Headshot you died. He’d prepared for that this whole time, in the shower, in his dreams, in his daydreams in class. He’d duck and dodge and explain himself over and over until they understood him.

Danny wasn’t sure he was capable of explaining himself anymore.

…

Danny knocked the heavy iron knocker. He was in ghost form, as a threat. He wondered if he still smelled like yesterday’s sweat now that he wasn’t wearing yesterday’s clothes. Now he was wearing the clothes he died in.

No one answered the door. Danny phased himself in.

“Vlad!” he called, and his words echoed along the slope of the two elaborate winding staircases that twirled and met at the top like caduceus. Gold-plated banisters. A security camera buried somewhere in the ceiling, no doubt.

Danny phased into the library. His eyes roved the three stories of bookshelves wrapping the perimeter like a sheath. Gaudy. Audacious. Like Vlad would ever read that much. Danny racked his brain because some something in here was the secret to opening Vlad’s laboratory. Jazz had told him. Some gold something to be touched, and pressed down, or pushed up? Or it opened to a button. Or a keypad, maybe.

Danny spat a curse. He was being stupid. He was frazzled. He wasn’t thinking straight.

He dove into the floor below. Intangibility was the only key he needed.

The sheetrock was cold, even when he wasn’t touching it. The darkness was so piercing it made static jump in his vision, some weird trick of the brain Jazz had explained where, in the absence of all light, the brain hallucinates its own. It came with a sensation of pressure against his eyeballs, and a complete disorientation of direction, and he simply just kept going down.

Danny emerged into a wash of cold air. Cold like metal was cold. The low lights of dials and clicking machines were bright to his eyes previously dunked into the pitchest nothing. He drank it in, eyes grateful for light no matter how little, inner ear grateful for orientation that had left his head swimming and his stomach tight.

His feet tapped down to the stone ground, and the air that breezed past him was chilled.

“Vlad!” Danny called again.

Nothing.

He moved by the floor lighting, which ran in trim along the perimeter of the laboratory rooms. It lit things from beneath, made machines gaunt and specimens into sharp geometries of darkness and flesh. It made the Fenton lab feel warm in a way Danny had never considered it warm.

His feet clacked. His breath puffed.

“Vlad!”

He followed light, followed a wash of green miasma percolating from some far room and catching on the particulate of water and dust that disturbed with the air currents. Danny disturbed it too, walking through, wearing its shade of green which his shadow robbed from the wall behind him.

“Vlad. I swear to god Vlad.”

He crossed the threshold of the portal room, where the dusting of green ambience became a medallion wash of golden-green coating, painting every surface of the room. The Fenton lab was one single expansive room, portal anchored into the far wall and facing all the dead and empty air in front of it. This was different. A much smaller room, walled on all sides save for the simple doorway, and each surface reflected the color back deeper and heavier. It was like a fishtank in the wall of an aquarium lit radiant aqua-blue by all the lights within, but green instead, pure ecto-green.

Danny approached the open portal. He stared into its placid swirls, mesmerized, and scared of it, in a way he hadn’t previously felt about the portal in the Fenton basement.

“Ah, seems the cat is a good mouser after all, it dragged you in my boy.” The words came sing-song. They came spine-shivering for Danny, who felt them like hot breath on his shoulder and reeled back, pivoted, fire crackling to life in his palms.

Vlad stood at the doorway, a solid 20 steps from Danny.

“Vlad.”

“So I’ve been hearing.”

“I need you to explain the portal.”

“Ah, I see you’ve spoken to your parents.” Vlad stepped in, washed in the ecto-green which muddied his ruby red eyes. He held his hands behind his back, cape trailing, a smirk on his fanged face. “Last I heard they weren’t taking the news very well.”

“What news. What did you tell them?”

“Me? Nothing. In fact, very kindly for your sake I even tried to drive them away from the answer but… We know how stubborn your parents can be.”

“What answer?”

“That you’re dead, Daniel.”

Shock washed like ice down Danny’s spine. It sent prickles like spider legs across his skin.

“Well, I suppose there’s still chance for some doubt. It could be Jazz. She could take the fall for you, if there’s any benefit to that at all.”

“I’m a halfa. We are halfas,” Danny said.

“A silly made up word by a silly child,” Vlad mused, and the light smile left his lips. “We are dead.”

“I’m not dead,” and Danny’s words were small, and they were childish.

“You are. I am. Embrace it. It’s nicer this way.” Vlad took a few steps closer, lionously tall in his saunter, feet clacking the ground. “It’s very freeing. After you’ve died already what is there left to fear?”

“I’m alive.”

“You’re a dead body with its soul still stuffed inside it like a Christmas goose. A lot of things in your body don’t work anymore, but ghosts don’t work right anyway and it is, for all its defiance of nature, a perfectly symbiotic relationship.” Vlad’s smile brushed his lips again, warm. “It’s nice to share this with you. Isn’t it nice to share things with people?”

Danny’s heart was beating too fast in his chest, and it was a human heart, a human beat. “I’m not dead,” he declared.

“Your wounds heal quickly because the ghost piloting you only needs to remember form. It stacks cells back into place and calls it good. You’ll endure fatal injuries as you no doubt have many times in your fights, but they’re trivial because physical trauma is not what kills a ghost. It’s what creates one. You’ll necrotize in places but it’s okay, because you’ll carry on, and it will bother you only if you let it bother you, if you’re too sentimental about the puppet you’re still inside.” Vlad closed in closer, neck craning to appraise Danny. “Ghosts love a facsimile of life so you will keep your heart pumping, your lungs breathing. You’ll eat and you’ll sleep but you’ll find you won’t perish if you don’t. It just won’t be a good time if you want to keep occupying your flesh form. Take better care of it. You won’t get another.”

“You’re psychotic. And you’re wrong.”

“I have all the math to prove it.” Vlad leered from over Danny’s shoulder. He circled the boy, knocking Danny’s balance, who still on a hair trigger stood ready to fight. The light from the ghost portal painted Vlad’s face like the phases of the moon as he moved. “Did your parents explain that part to you properly?”

“No, because they didn’t get the math right.”

“Oh they’ve gotten it right. This time. It only took them two decades longer than it took me.” The portal rolled like static, and its fizzling pattern crashed like an ocean wave across Vlad’s cape. “No amount of man-made power is sufficient to drag the entire fabric of the Ghost Zone up against our own, tear a hole through it, and anchor it to a stable frame. It requires something with a pull on the Ghost Zone, a strong pull, and that thing is a human life at the moment of an extraordinarily violent death.”

Danny backed a step away from the portal, from Vlad, but the walls boxed him in. He swam in its green light.

“You stepped in and you turned the portal on, that’s what you thought, right, Daniel? Pressed a careless button on the inside and now here we are. Silly parents for not finding that button first.” Vlad’s face hardened. “No. Jack and Maddie knew about the button. Maddie explained it to me over the phone. What engineer designing and building their own portal would forget the location of the on button? They’d pressed it from the outside. It didn’t work. And so you pressing the button was not the important part. It was you dying to the electrocution that clicked everything right into place. And while your ghost should have been torn from your lifeless corpse and pulled to the Ghost Zone you instead pulled the Ghost Zone here. Your ghost got to stay put. You opened the portal. You became the undead freak you are. And now we’re here.”

Danny’s eyes bounced between Vlad’s. His cheeks felt hot, like he was enduring an accusation of wrongdoing. And he had none of the knowledge to refute what was being said.

“You’re messing with me. You’re wrong,” Danny shot back. He thrust an arm out, drenched in the fog of the portal. “If the portal needs a person to die in it then explain your portal! Are you so casual about it? You killed someone? You’re admitting to murder and you think I won’t do anything about it?”

Anger flashed like a storm across Vlad’s face. His aura swelled, pressing down with a pressure on Danny as Vlad halted and cast his shadow clear across Danny, coating the back wall. “The killing of other people with the wanton carelessness of half-baked machines is the domain of Jack and Jack alone. I’ve brought no such harm onto anyone else.”

“Then how do you have this portal?”

“This portal? This portal that I’ve had for 20 years? Which I opened when I solved the piece of Jack’s broken math that he was never able to solve until this morning?” Vlad stalked closer, hunched, imposing. Danny stepped back. “My boy Daniel you’ve had it so easy. You had it so simple. A truly clean break. So clean so lucky. A single lethal dose of electricity and it was already over. I’m jealous. You never even suffered.”

Vlad stepped closer, striking distance, arm extended. Danny flinched, but Vlad only swept his cape around, clenched in his fist, and pivoted to approach the portal.

“Put out of your misery before it even started.” Vlad slammed his fist against the portal rim, and the explosive metallic clang bounced through the rooms. His laugh belted out. “I should have been so lucky.”

19. Vlad Masters was 19. A sophomore in college. A man actively in the midst of sabotaging his social life to chase a woman who was already deeply in love with Vlad’s best friend who he hated more every day. He wasn’t sure what he ever enjoyed about Jack’s bumbling ineptitude, or his loudness, his brashness, his poor social skills, his bad breath, his mullet. Maybe Vlad had gravitated to Jack because deep down he loved how superior it made him feel to surround himself with the likes of Jack Fenton… And now, he hated how enraged it made him to watch Maddie’s eyes skip past his to focus on Jack Fucking Fenton again and again and again and again.

But surely there was hope still. Surely it was a matter of time before the rose-tinted glasses fell away and Maddie saw bumbling and inept and every such word in the basket when she looked at Jack. There’d come the day she tested the waters with Vlad to complain about one of Jack’s little quirks, and they’d find solace together in all the things Vlad was that Jack wasn’t, and all the things Vlad had that Jack didn’t. And he’d be gone, back to bumble elsewhere, and it would be just them.

The day didn’t come. It wouldn’t come. And maybe Vlad needed to change himself for Maddie. If he listened to her and Jack’s ghost ramblings, if he could put Jack in his place and solve the things Maddie couldn’t, it would show her. She’d understand.

Because that was the thing about Jack. His math was never right. Enduring Calculus 1 with Jack was all it took to prove this to Vlad. How many times he’d caught a single error on a single line for Jack, like a dropped stitch that would unravel the whole sweater. Every problem, without exception. Jack only passed on his homework grade with Vlad’s help. On his tests, he failed.

So Vlad was staring at Jack’s equation, full of bogus math, which Vlad knew was wrong because Jack had penned it, and Vlad had not yet fixed it himself.

“I’m telling you Jack, it won’t work.”

“Bogus V-man it totally will!”

It wouldn’t. But Vlad wouldn’t fix it for him. Not yet. Vlad would let Jack embarrass himself first, fully in front of Maddie, watching on, judging. Vlad would solve it for her. After. Once Jack had made a fool of himself for the hundredth time since college began.

He leaned in to study the portal frame. The gears were turning in his head already. He didn’t hear the whir of the power source catch.

…

19. Vlad Masters was 19. A tube ran down his nose and into his lungs, supplying oxygen for lungs which were failed by a diaphragm sloughing itself away. He was poisoned from the outside-in. Irradiated by ecto-energy none of the nurses or doctors could fully understand. It damaged his DNA. First obvious in the skin of his face where the blisters of his ecto-acne drained and sloughed. “Acne” was the wrong word. An unkind word. They were boils where the blast had cooked his skin, microwaved his cells. The skin on his body blackened over time. Organs decayed. Vlad Master read a lot about radiation sickness. He knew everything he had to expect.

Jack and Maddie had stopped visiting. They were dating now. It was on their last visit they’d told him, and Vlad hadn’t taken it well, and he’d perhaps burned a few bridges with the words he chose. It was deserved. Considering what Jack did to him.

He’d found the error in Jack’s math, by the way. Errors, but all the rest paled in impact compared to the lambda. The ecto-energy. The necessary ecto-potential to pull the Ghost Zone here. How stupid. How idiotic. For Vlad to die to a machine so botched in its construction.

When Vlad was released from the hospital, it was not because they’d cured him. It had been because there is a certain cruelty in making a 19-year-old live the last of his days bedded down in a white-walled room with just his books, his equations, and no one coming to visit anymore.

He was released with bedrest instructions. Vlad did not heed them. In his beater car, every cell of his body aching, he drove. At the materials lab, he disconnected his oxygen tank and moved through the lab space with the tube dangling loose from his nostril. No one was Vlad Masters’ friend. No one cared to stare long at his ugly boil-ridden face. No one stopped him as he hauled sheet metal, and supports, and bolts and wiring and resistors and power tools, checked out with a valid student ID, from the lab. The lab inventory room would not be seeing these back.

It was a prep bunker, buried beneath a vast lot of empty Wisconsin land, that Vlad hauled his materials. He and Jack had discovered it as freshmen. Poked through its bowels with flashlights and quipped and laughed over how eerie it was. Deep beneath the sheetrock, boxy rooms carved out of walls of stone. Shelf upon shelf of dusty canned foods, and shotguns sealed in cases fastened to the walls. The locks had rusted with water damage.

His arms ached until they throbbed, dragging beams of metal across the stone floor, scratching chalk-mark stains into the ground. His skin sloughed, inflamed, burning to the touch. Vlad didn’t bother to rest, because these injuries would never heal anyway. He hauled, and welded, and wired up his circuitry and resistors with a care and caution Jack would never have bothered to practice. He checked it against his math by flashlight. He took naps on the cold stone floor and woke with deep purple bruises on every part of his body that had pressed against the ground.

His appetite left him. His lungs filled with mucus. The boils on his face had spread down to his chest, his shoulders. The touch of his shirt chafed them, so he worked without one, a figure of skeletal rib ridges jutting from tight skin that bloomed with the projection of his shadow against stone walls.

He knew why Jack’s math was wrong.

A silly mistake. A stupid mistake. Anyone with half a mind for the paranormal should have realized the Ghost Zone was not so easily at your beck and call. Not without chumming the water with something it would rise to feast on.

And in that violent death, what would happen to the ghost? It would stay, wouldn’t it? If it successfully anchored the Ghost Zone to the portal it stood inside, then by definition the ghost would stay?

And was that death? Yes, in a way. But it was a death one would get to keep living. As opposed to the death Vlad was headed for, whose coldness and finality scared Vlad more than anything he could put to words.

He’d fixed the oxygen tank back to himself. He couldn’t work without it, hauling it about on a little dolly with him, back and forth, while he fetched and affixed the last of the plating he needed to craft the frame of his silent soulless portal.

He’d stolen a generator from the sports storage shed. It was meant to be enough to power the portable stadium lights they hauled onto the fields for late games, an absolute obelisk meant to cast light across an entire football field.

Surely, it contained enough power to kill one simple human.

Vlad fixed the last bolt in place. Jumper cables clamped generator to portal wiring. It was a pure skeleton. A paltry thing, like the bones of something already picked clean. Built in haste, sloppy, by a 19-year-old whose fingers were too inflamed to clutch a wrench any longer.

He could have asked Jack for help. Maddie. But he wouldn’t let them have this. They had to solve the portal on their own. They didn’t get to know his hard work. They did not get to save him.

Vlad would save himself.

A ghost anchored to a body. What was that? What monster was that?

Vlad moved. He coughed mucus from his lungs. It made it hard to breathe. So he moved slowly, and crouched, bony jutting angles, painted blotchy purple, all bruises and skin, sloughing away.

He crouched, because the portal he’d constructed was not large enough to hold him standing up. He bowed inside it, a small thing, a pathetic man of little life. He wheezed. He hurt. His eyes burned.

And he held in his hands the remote to flip the generator switch, and connect the circuit, and bring to life the math Vlad had so kindly corrected out from under Jack’s grip.

Vlad did not. Because throwing the switch would kill him.

Deep in his animal brain, his dying brain, he knew this intimately. It filled him with a drowning fear like paralysis. He did not want to die.

He would die if he did nothing.

It would be this one throwing of the switch which could save him. Which would burst the portal to life right through his heart. Electrocute it out of its rhythm, slaughter him like a pig on spot and… maybe… hopefully… drag the Ghost Zone here. And whatever he was, dead, would stay.

And whatever he was, dead, would be better than this.

Vlad held the remote in his clammy hands.

And from within the humming skeleton of his portal, his fingers caressed the on button.

…

The portal sung its happy contentment, mused in its healthy green aura, staining all the slabs of rock wall. Danny swiveled his head, recognizing now the bunker this had been before it had been a laboratory.

“I’ve harmed no one, Daniel,” Vlad concluded, his voice too measured for the horrors it had spilled forth. Too calm against the blossoming terror its words had wrought across Danny’s face. “I opened the portal to save myself. You’re lucky, Daniel. It was because of my fast thinking that your father is not a murderer. I took that honor from him.” Vlad’s head tilted to the side, suddenly sympathetic. “Although, you’ve maybe made the title whole for him.”

Vlad reached out, Danny shot away.

“Dad didn’t kill me,” he choked. “I did this to myself.”

“How lucky Jack is, to always dodge responsibility for his actions.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Of course you don’t. If you believed me, you’d have to accept you’re not wriggling out of this. There’s no denial you can bring home to your parents. If you believe me, then this is reality.” Vlad smiled, a playful glint to his fangs. “I suppose I should have more sympathy. I quite like being this way. It is so much nicer than wasting away to death, like I was. But you. You were healthy before this. This killed you, and it didn’t save you from anything.” Vlad cocked his head. “Such tragic fates, both of us, due to the carelessness of Jack Fenton.”

Danny shook his head. His heart beat—his human heart beat—all too fast in his throat. It made him sick. It made him feel like the walls were closing in around him. This was Vlad’s doing. Vlad’s trap. Vlad’s prison he’d been forced to join.

"That's not true. I'm not like you."

“Of course not,” Vlad said, sweetly. “How sweet denial is. Deny it if you like. Call me a liar. But if you ever want to come to terms with what your father did to you, consider coming to me. I understand you in a way no one else will.”

Danny gave no response. He gave no acknowledgement of Vlad’s words. He took to the air, phased himself up through the sheetrock that had been packed atop the doomsday prepper bunker. Up through the mansion, which had been built atop the portal beneath it, and not the other way around. Into the open sky, he breathed fresh air not stagnant and damp beneath the ground, bathed in light pure white from the sun and not tainted green like the bowels underneath him.

And he flew back toward the portal that made him, leaving Vlad with the portal from which he’d made himself.

...

(inspiration post from @ciestess)

[woso-dreamzzz]

Zoo

Jessie Fleming x Child!Reader

Niamh Charles x Child!Reader

Part of The Big Adventures Universe

Summary: A day out with Jessie and Niamh

"Jessie! Jessie! Niamh!" You call out, practically skipping down the front steps of the house, wiggling out from under Pernille's arm to crash into two of your favourite people.

"Careful, princesse!" Pernille yells after you but you ignore her.

Niamh laughs as she catches you, lifting you easily up onto her hip as Jessie gives the run down of what you're doing today to Pernille.

You get a bit impatient though because you already know where you're going and what you're doing so Niamh puts you into the car.

"What are you looking forward to today?"

"Tiger!" You say," Rawr!"

"I think the tigers are a great idea," Niamh says, throwing the car in reverse just as Jessie slides in and does up her belt.

"Jessie!" You say," Tigers go rawr!"

There's not a lot of time spent in the car because Niamh pulls up to the zoo fairly quickly and Jessie helps you out of your seat, holding your hand like she's Momma when she doesn't want you running off in the car park.

You're a bit impatient though and pull a little but Jessie doesn't mind as she gets you through security.

"I think tigers last," She says," So they're the last thing we see."

You grumble a little because Jessie is like Momma sometimes, making you wait for the best thing until the end.

"Oh, come on, Jess!" Niamh complains," I wanted to see the tigers!"

Niamh's a bit like Morsa, you think. All tall and funny and constantly getting on Momma's nerves in the best way possible.

"Later," Jessie says," Let's go look at the bug house first and we'll work our way up to the tigers."

"Are we getting lunch?" You ask as you watch one of the zookeepers feed a tarantula," Or did Momma pack me something?"

"Are you hungry?"

You shrug. "Little bit."

Jessie rummages through the backpack Momma gave her, pulling out your favourite goldfish crackers to munch on as you wander around the zoo.

Eventually, your feet start hurting so you get Niamh to pick you up and walk you around as you look at the big animals like elephants and giraffes.

You do stop for lunch though even though Jessie says it's stupidly overpriced and very bad for you.

There's not a lot of pasta on the menu, which is your favourite and all the sandwich options have icky stuff like mayo instead of butter and bread with seeds instead of just plain so you settle on some mac and cheese and a little pot of fries.

Niamh steals a few of them so you puff out your cheeks in outrage but ultimately keep eating. You slap her prying fingers away when she tries to grab more and Jessie giggles.

You stick your tongue out at Niamh for a moment before pushing your little portion of fries towards Jessie.

"Do you want some?" You ask her and Niamh's jaw drops in shock.

Jessie winks at Niamh. "You know what? I would like some. Thank you."

"You can have as many as you want!"

"What?" Niamh demands," What about me?!"

You give her a disappointed look like Morsa does when Momma puts broccoli in the oven and calls it cooking. "Maybe if you didn't steal some earlier, I would let you have some now. Stealing is bad Niamh."

"Yeah, Niamh," Jessie snickers," Stealing is bad."

Niamh doesn't steal any more of your fries so you finish your mac and cheese and share the rest of your fries with Jessie just to prove a point.

"Tigers now?" You ask after Niamh brings you back from the toilets.

"I don't know..." Jessie pretends to think, tapping her finger against her chin," Aren't there more animals to see first?"

"Jessie, please!" You grab her hand and try to pull her up," Time to see the tigers."

"Alright," She says eventually, right when Niamh swings you up for a piggyback ride," Let's go see the tigers."

You've been out a long while, hours since you left the house and in that time, Magda and Pernille have done a deep clean. They've washed the floors, cleaned up the shower, changed all the bedsheets and done three rounds of laundry.

It's a little empty in the house without you and Magda feels herself just kind of drifting around, anxiously looking out through the windows for Niamh's car.

"Waiting around won't make them come back quicker. They're getting dinner right now."

"Dinner? I thought we were feeding her tonight!"

"I'm sure she'll be hungry when she comes in," Pernille shrugs, flipping aimlessly through the tv channels," But hopefully, they've worn her out enough that she'll just want to go straight to bed without a bath. I mean-"

The doorbell rings and Magda doesn't stick around long enough to hear the end of Pernille's sentence.

"Morsa!" You say as Magda throws up the door.

She stares down at you in shock.

"Got my face painted like a tiger! Rawr!"

You're definitely going to need a bath tonight.

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

ooh im glad!!! so, expanding on that then..

how about price with a civvi wife/gf, and when they’re talking over the phone while he’s gone, she’s being kinda cagey and definitely omitting something, but he doesn’t know what. so when he gets back home she tells him she’s pregnant? really just a lot of fluff (and maybe angst? 👀 like about how his job is super dangerous and he might not come home, so he has fears about it?? bc your angst is so good it makes me sob violently /pos)

ive never sent a request before, so if this is too specific or something, feel free to whittle it down or toss it, i don’t wanna bug you lol

have a good day hal, love u!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our Remains

Pairing: John Price x F!Reader

Synopsis: You disliked hiding things from John. Certainly something as big as this.

Word Count: 4.8k

Warnings: Pregnancy, allusions to breeding kink & unprotected seggsy time, morning sickness, angst, major fluff at the end

A/N: This was an adorable request, Anon!! Thanks so much for sending it in.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

You disliked hiding things from John. It not only felt like a betrayal of his unlimited trust in you but also a slap in the face for what you had built with each other. The both of you were always honest to a fault when it came to your relationship—like how a bird was loyal to the sky. It was an unselfish principle; a promise of pure love and devotion that transcended touch or given gifts.

You told each other things. Everything. Down to how much you had spent on groceries that day just because it was something to talk about and share; something that made you closer to one another even when you were apart. You told the Brit what you planted in the back garden—what shirt you were wearing!

But now you hold the ringing phone in your hand and for the first time in your entire relationship, you consider lying. 

Your eyes bore into the icon of John’s smiling face, head covered by a black beanie and beard tilted up softly. Affectionately, his name on the device had been changed to ‘Grumpy St. Bernard,’ but now the title made your lips go thin instead of the usual giggling reaction. No heat spreads over your cheeks; no excitement.

Just an overwhelming sense of dread.

The week had started just as the last three had. A special form of hell. At nearly six o’clock you would whip back the covers with all the fervor of a terrified rabbit being chased by a hawk; the taste of bile immediately snapping you to attention as the toilet acts as your commanding officer. 

You imagined John would get a chuckle out of that comparison, but when you’re hurling up your guts in nothing more than a pair of your boyfriend’s boxers and a tank top it’s hard to think about all that. The taste of bile was still lickable from your lips as the bathroom tile digs into your knees, ringing phone still in your palm. 

The idea of a pregnancy test slid into your subconscious in the first week of John’s two-month deployment, the tantalizing thought that was like a hook to a fish. You had pulled on the string, of course, and had instantly drowned in air. But you hadn’t taken one until now. Too nervous, perhaps. Hesitant. 

In your other hand, opposite of the buzzing phone, you held three positive pregnancy tests in a shaking grip. Pink and white plastic mock you from the corner of your vision; two double lines. 

John’s icon dims. 

You press the green circle in your panic, mouth opening and closing yet no sounds escaping. Would you tell him now? Later? Was it right to tell him about this now—when he was halfway across the continent? Fear overtakes your heart for no apparent reason. You didn’t want him to act rashly, especially when John could act so stubborn when he wanted to. 

He was always so concerned about you when he was away but you were concerned just the same. That man was the one who was getting shot at constantly, not you.

“Took you a while to answer. Trying to give me the slip, then, Sweetheart?” John’s gravelly voice helped slightly, making your heart still, even if for a short moment. You close your eyes and tilt your head down, lips quivering at the soft chuckle over the line.

God, you loved him so much.

Blue eyes furrowed in confusion at the silence on the line, the chilled Switzerland air sneaking inside John’s compression shirt as he stood on the hotel balcony. The sounds of gentle conversation twitch his ears from inside the room—the voices of the One-Four-One a dull mumble behind the half-closed sliding door. They had been playing cards before the Captain had easily slipped away to check up on you. 

He tried to call as often as he could. 

John’s hips shift, one arm crossed over his chest as the other presses the phone harder to his ear. Lips pull to a frown, beard bristles going with them, before the lines on the Brit’s forehead grow larger.

“...Love?” Naturally, a sliver of concern wedges itself into his ribs but it subsides when your calming voice spreads honey over the call. John’s shoulders fall back down. 

You breathe deeply, hands dropping the tests onto the bathroom counter with a small clack of plastic. 

“John,” forcing away the hitch to your words, you stare at yourself in the mirror, free hand sliding up to lightly rest over your collarbone as a soothing method. Your eyes are so filled with shock that it throws you off. “I…I wasn’t expecting a call so soon.” 

“Hm, been up since 0500.” the man grunts, looking out over the city and seeing the rising sun before asking softly with a deep-set brow. There was something about your tone…lids narrow at nothing. “Did I wake you?” 

“No, no,” You force a chuckle, having to take a deep breath before ripping your sights from your own reflection. The disgust was settling at you trying to avoid this. But if your own brain could barely process this right now, what gave you the right to tell John when he wasn’t here? “I’ve been up for a few hours.”

Licking your lips, you run a hand over your hair, glancing out of the ajar door into the master bedroom, pushing out bland answers for only the fact that you couldn’t think clearly right now.

Jesus, this was actually happening. 

You study the thrown covers from your morning rush to the bathroom, seeing the pictures on the nightstand and feeling the delicate atmosphere that was sparking—electricity between atoms. A silent moment of realization that everything down to the bare bones of your relationship was about to change. Blinking back to the tests, you dwell in the strange fuzz that took residence in the back of your mind. 

“What’s been going on?” Your voice isn’t right. Too tight. Too…nervous. Why were you nervous? “Everyone good?” 

The Brit frowns stiffly, shifting his feet again and sending a look back into the hotel. Hunching forward, John’s large fingers fix the position of the phone as his voice lowers, ignoring your question entirely. He doesn't want to jump to conclusions, but there were pros and cons to his line of work. 

Above all, he knew when something was up with you.

“Are you alright over there, Sweetheart?” Blue eyes rove the street below, “Feelin’ okay? You sound a bit stuffed up.”

Your heart lurches, quickly stuttering through an explanation of, “O-oh, I think I just came down with something.” The irony wasn’t lost on you. “A stomach bug,” you cringe, “I’m sorry, was it that obvious?”

The laugh that exits is less convincing than you thought it would be, but it does the trick. John sighs in relief, chuckling as he shakes his head.

“No need to apologize, Love…anything bad, then? I can bring some meds from Base when I’m back if you need me to.” He was still concerned for you, but knowing that you’d never lied or withheld the truth from him before there was really no reason to believe that anything else was going on. John trusted you to the end of the earth. 

The Captain rubbed at the back of his neck, cracking his spine as he bent back. It was still early and waking up on a hotel bed without you beside him was torture. John longed for home. Longed for you.

Back at the house, your face scrunches together. 

Bad? You wonder, saying absentmindedly that some medication would be lovely. Was this…bad? 

John had always wanted to have a kid—or, at least, he’d told you as much when he was above you, filling you to the brim and then doing it again a second and third time. Thighs quivering and eyes fighting to stay open through layered bliss as sharp pants rung in your ears. 

“Gonna get you pregnant…watch you swell up…c’mon sweet thing, you can handle another one, can’t you? Need to watch it take.” 

…But was that a true feeling or just a kink? You blank and realize you’d never asked him. More than that, though, was this what you wanted? 

“When do you think you’ll be home, John?” You speak softly, palm flattening over your stomach as you exit the bathroom and sit on the end of the bed, gut swirling but not in a nauseous sort of way. “I…I really miss you, y’know? It would all be better if you were home.”

The brunette blinks softly, lids peeling back in shock for a moment before a thin thread of guilt worms its way into him. 

“Kate said two months, Love,” John speaks slowly, the grumble in his voice trying to convey his unease at your strange behavior, “You know that.”

He’d explained his job when you both had gotten serious, how he would be gone for long periods of time, and the somewhat uncomfortable situations you’d be put in because of it. You’d agreed and never brought it up when John would have to leave in the small hours of the morning and disappear for months on end. It shocked him, really, with how well you adjusted but that was just how you were. One of a kind. 

There was no one else with whom John could see himself building a life—being buried beside in some nice meadow grave plot and turning to dust together. Growing a family with. 

John cleared his throat, tilting his head down slightly before pulling himself back to the present. 

“It’s bothering you that much, eh?” His brows furrow, “Are you sure you’re alright? I can call hospital and—”

“No!” You slap a hand to your mouth, halting your outburst as blue eyes go somewhat wide, jaw slackening. Taking a breath over the shocked silence over the line, you dig your fingers into your cheek before letting your limb drop. “No, John…I-I’m sorry I just…” 

Your voice quivers.

Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry…

Eyes burning and nose twitching, you breathe heavily, mouth closing shut because you knew that if you say another word you’ll explode. You were shivering with cold sweat, scared and confused, and wanting John to hold you in his arms; whispering that it would all be okay into the shell of your ear. 

You force through a sob, “I’m just really scared.”

John tenses, one hand going to grasp the balcony with white knuckles. His mind goes into overdrive. “Scared?” the Brit prods, muscles going stiff and mind running, “What in the hell is going on?” 

Authority leaks into his tone, serious and deep. It made him nervous that he couldn’t see you right now—couldn’t stop the sounds coming from your mouth. Why were you crying? Has something horrible happened to you? Were you in trouble but were unable to tell him? John runs over your conversation again, every word and sound, as his heart races. He was wound up like a spring. 

From behind him, the conversation in the hotel room halts. 

You force your eyes closed, now up on your feet and pacing. Tears lightly patter to the floor. 

“John, I can’t tell you over the phone,” you admit, shaking, “that wouldn’t be…wouldn’t be fair to you.” Swiping at your eyes, you spread the salty liquid away from your lashes, sniffling; praying that he would understand. “But I really need you home as soon as you’re able. I don’t want to break up what's going on over there, it’s just really important. I don’t think I can wait two months by myself. You know I would never ask this if I didn’t need to.”

John’s jaw clenches, legs unable to stay still as your anxiety leaks to him. He’s nodding before he realizes you can’t see him, taking a deep breath to fill his lungs. 

“...I’ll see what I can do, then.” The brunette runs his hand over his beard pulling at the strands aggressively. What was so crucial that you can’t tell him over the phone? It was a secure line, John always made sure it was; yet, at the same time, that fact didn’t matter at all. If you needed him home so fervently—then he was coming home. That was that. “How long can you wait for me, Love?” He spares a glance inside. “There are a few loose ends that need to be taken care of here. Might complicate things.” 

You blink around the bedroom, hand wrapped around your middle and trying to run soothing circles into your skin. 

“I…I don’t…” John’s face softens, closing his eyes.

“Breathe, Sweetheart,” he whispers, “I’m comin’ home to you. We’ll get whatever this is sorted, yeah? I need you to be brave for me until then.”

Listening, you let the words calm you down, sniffling one last time like a kid who had fallen off the monkey bars before you let out a chuckle. John instantly follows his own advice when that sound wafts over the line. His shoulders fall back once more, silent sigh exiting.

“You said that exact same thing to me when I ended up burning that loaf of bread I was making—two years ago, was it? ‘Breathe, Sweetheart.’” Blue glimmers with love, cheeky tone growing. 

“Hm, nearly set the kitchen on fire, didn’t you? So much smoke I swore someone had set off a charge in the oven.” John doesn’t push you to answer him, though he’s more questions than anything else at this point. You’d said you would tell him when he’s home and he believes you. “Please, Love, at least promise me you didn’t burn the bloody house down, yeah?” 

A laugh strikes his chest, and he’s chuckling slowly in retaliation. 

“I promise, John.”

“Good.” You’re smiling for the first in what seems like ages, tears drying as the flood down your chin stops. You lick away the water stuck in the corner of your mouth when John grunts lowly, “I’ll tell the boys and inform Laswell. But I can’t say it’ll be less than two weeks.”

Nodding to yourself, you say, quietly, “Okay.” Your eyes fall to the framed picture on the nightstand—the image of John and you smiling brightly on your third anniversary. You’d gone hiking, both sweaty and dirt marks on your cheeks, but happy…always happy. Your veins pump blood faster. “I love you, John.” 

The final comment is tender; the words are more silk and soft furs than vibrating vocal cords. 

He blinks away the blush that lights his pale cheeks. John huffs, an infectious smile flickering over his face as his chest wells with affection. Acting like a bird preening itself, he smirks and says, “Well, you’re lucky then…I love you too, Sweetheart.” An exhalation echoes over the call as his tone drops, “Keep safe for me, eh? I’ll call to update tomorrow.” 

“I’ll be waiting.” 

When the phone is set down on the bed, tossed down carefully, you try to think over this situation more rationally. You wouldn’t say you were against this—building a family with John. In fact, if not him, then you don’t believe it would be anyone else. 

The Brit was the only man for you. You both knew the risks of having unprotected sex and in reality, you think neither one of you cared about the consequences. 

Nodding to yourself, you wonder how to explain this to him when he comes home as you get to fixing the sheets, one hand always drifting back to your stomach with a growing appreciation.

—

John jogged to his car in the underground parking garage, unlocking it with his fob as his bags are slung over his shoulders. He wastes no time chucking his belongings into the back seat, swiftly sliding into the driver's seat and slamming the door shut as the engine starts. His dog tags bounce on his chest, but he’s half convinced they move from the rate that his heart is going alone.

All through traffic his fingers are tapping against the wheel, grunting stiffly at red lights and shifting his hips. 

It had been three and a half weeks of fixing loose ends. 

“Fuckin’ hell, c’mon,” John huffs, one elbow on the car frame as his hand flattens over his lower jaw. The light slowly snaps back to green after a long minute. 

Pressing on the gas, the vehicle moves forward and continues until the familiar home comes into view on that quiet street nearly twenty minutes later. 

John barely parks the car before he hops out, leaving his bags in the back, and rushes to the door. Taking the key from under the doormat, his mind is focused on only you. He had been unable to stop his worry about you and your unnamed fear, watching the phone with every free instance he could. It had only grown as the days got longer, and no matter how much you assured him that you would be okay until he got back, deep-seated apprehension grew. He didn’t like living under a shroud, especially when it came to your health.

The key in his hand was inserted with a firm wrist and twisted, shoving open the door with a heavy shoulder like there was a cloud over his head.

“Love?!” He calls, not bothering to shuck off his boots before looking around the visible living room and foyer. “Where are you?” 

Long legs move swiftly as an utterance calls from the kitchen, barely taking the time to close the door behind him in his anxiety, “John?” 

The Brit immediately backtracks, skidding to a stop and turning with blinking eyes. His ears twitch at the sounds of dishes being dropped back into water, as his heart steadily slows at the sound of your beautiful voice calling his name. 

He rushes around the doorframe, feet stomping and hand catching the wall as you come into view, staring wide-eyed. 

Your digits are around the fabric of a dish towel, fingers dripping as John finally presents himself to you. You hadn’t heard him until he had called out, too preoccupied with your own thoughts to hear the lock click. 

But now it was like every worry you had was wiped clean at the sight of that gruff face; the hitch in his large chest. A smile slashes your lips after a moment of shocked silence.

“John!” You laugh, rushing forward, and the man lets his face soften—bringing you close to him as you draw near and trapping you in his arms. 

His breath spread out over the top of your head in a great sigh, grumbled chuckles accented by the way John’s great hands wrap around your shoulders. Fingers press you into a solid chest, digging through hair to let your ear twitch at the sound of his heartbeat. 

John doesn't speak until he has held you in his arms for at least three minutes, just pressing his face into your scalp and feeling your warmth against him. You don’t pull away either, breathing in his musk as it instinctually leads to your muscles loosening. 

Minutes later, the Brit pulls back slowly, gripping you by the shoulders and looking down into your eyes. His gaze filters over yours, taking you in before his lips meet yours in a brief yet deep kiss. You melt into it, hands going to grip his cheeks and spread throughout his beard hair, soft strands leaving you shivering when John’s thumbs rub circles into your flesh. 

He pulls back and you fight the tears in your eyes as he connects his forehead with yours. His optics shine with love, bleeding out like trapped stars; silver flecks of devotion and a blue the color of sea storms.

“What’s going on, Love?” John whispers, concern alight and raving as his grip goes to your waist, squeezing comfortingly. “I’m here. Tell me.” 

You blink slowly, lips going thin with tight brows. Swallowing through a tight throat, you nod. 

“Can you go sit in the living room, please?” Speaking carefully, you tilt your head and watch John get confused—his nose scrunching and moving his lips together. You run your thumbs over his cheeks and smile slightly, obviously nervous again. “Trust me.”

Though it wasn’t a question, John replies under his breath, “Always.” 

But still, he holds you, studying your expression and the whites of your eyes with stiff lungs. You were making him fear that something horrible was coming—something he couldn’t control. His heart begins to hurt, but he backs away from you, brows tight as he exits the kitchen and disappears into the living room. 

Taking down a swift breath when he’s out of sight, you fiddle with your fingers above your abdomen, looking down at your still-flat stomach. You knew it was stupid to worry, but how could you not? It wasn’t every day you just told your Lover you were pregnant with his child…

“John loves me,” you mutter to yourself, nodding and getting ready to go through with the plan you’d formed over the three weeks you’d been alone. “And he’ll love the both of us. I know he will.” 

Hand flattening over your stomach, you open a drawer with the other, pulling out a small cardboard box no bigger than a book. Fingers shaking, you lick your lips and feel the slight pull of a nervous, yet giddy, smile. Turning, you exit the kitchen and see John sitting with his nose resting above the clench of his fists, foot tapping. His head immediately snaps over when you come into view, hands falling to hang off his legs as the couch under him dips from his weight. 

You steel yourself and raise the box. 

“Here.” Placing it on the coffee table, you sit across from John in an armchair. 

He blinks slowly, eyes going small with curiosity. The man sends you glances through his lashes as he stares down at the object but he says nothing. Rubbing his beard with one hand, he reaches and grabs it carefully. 

Testing the weight, John is genuinely confused, clenching his jaw and feeling the material in his palm. 

“...What’s this, then?” He asks lowly, glancing at you with a raised brow and lines on his forehead. 

You put your intertwined hands in your lap, prompting with a tilt of your shoulders. 

“Open it.” Off put by your cryptic answers, John nods firmly, grasping the top of the box and pulling lightly, careful not to disturb the contents. It was strange to think, but he was honestly quite perturbed. 

What exactly was inside this box, and why had he been called home for it? He loved being here, no doubt, but the circumstances….

Blue eyes glimmer. You didn’t look overly afraid as you shifted in your seat, just plain timid—like the inside object would change something fundamental about his and yours relationship. 

John pops the top off and looks as you start talking before your throat threatens to shut you up. “I…I know it’s not a life-threatening thing to call you home for,” the man stills as if he was made of stone; a statue as non-breathing and pulse-less as anything, “But I didn’t want to tell you over the phone because that seemed so—!” 

Your voice is drowned out as John’s shaking fingers delve into the box, ears ringing. His fingers flinch off of three positive pregnancy tests and the soft fabric of the plain army green baby onesie that surrounds them; skimming slowly. 

“I found out the day you called and I said I had come down with something.” Your laugh is strained when it exits you, and you stare at the Brit hard, seeing his features utterly halt all expression. Thumbs digging into your skin, your tone drops, speaking slowly, “...John? A-are you okay? Say something to me, Love.” 

It’s only in that long minute of nothingness that you really start to get an all-consuming tenseness to your bones like a rabbit. 

Why isn’t he saying anything? 

John clears his stiff throat, blinking rapidly as he brings out one of the tests, dropping the box lightly to the coffee table with a dull thump. The twin red lines are ingrained into the softness of his retinas as the sun would be if you were to stare directly at it. 

Pregnant. 

His heart swells to an almost painful degree, blue eyes moving to look at you across the table and then dipping to your stomach. The Brit stands up slowly. 

Your lungs are tight, lids moving quickly with wetness growing in your tear ducts. 

“Please, John, what are you thinking—?” Large hands capture your arms, bringing you up as lips meet yours in a passionate and heart-stopping kiss. 

John’s limbs wrap around your hips, bringing you up into the air as gently as a bird, face parting from yours with a series of loud and genuine laughs. You snap your arms around his neck, shocked but not at all complaining as he holds you up with ease, twirling you around in a firm but ever-gentle hold. 

“You’re pregnant?” His whispers meet you, airy and deep with awe. It was like he was in his teens again, running around Herefordshire with his mates—his eyes shone with happiness; pure unabashed love. “Oh, truly, Sweetheart?”

Tears dribble down your cheeks at the sight of him glowing, beard peeled back in a large smile with wet eyes. Hiccuped giggles leave your lips as you nuzzle your face into his neck, the sight of him like this overwhelming. All stress leaves you in a millisecond when your feet hit the ground again. 

“Yes, John,” you sob, overjoyed, pulling back so you both can stare into each other's teary eyes as the Brits’ fingers go to shakily wipe the waterworks from your under eyes. His orbs flicker quickly, looking you over in an entirely different light. “You’re going to be a father.” 

He fights through a scratchy voice, “Me?” The tone is amused, but he can’t articulate how exalted he feels to hear that. A father…him? It was more than he could have ever asked for, and, even better—John whispers out, “You’re going to be a mum.” 

You kiss him, multiple quick pecks that he returns through shared joyous chuckles.

“I didn’t want to tell you over the phone,” the confession meets the air as one of John’s hands travels to cup your flat abdomen, fingers flinching over the fabric of your shirt to sneak under. You laugh and shiver at his calluses, as his blue eyes are so soft they could be compared to butter. “And I couldn’t wait two months.”

“Christ, Love,” John lays a kiss on your forehead, needing to be as close to you as possible. You can feel his heart through his chest, and you know yours isn’t any better. This was far more than you could have hoped for. He mutters against your skin, “I’m so glad you didn’t. This is bloody amazing news—I want to be here for all of it.” 

Sea storms lock onto your face with a grunt, “You’re so lovely. Perfect, yeah?”

His warm hand still rests under your shirt, and you doubt it’s going to leave anytime soon.

You feel your cheeks heat and you smile bashfully, heart about to explode.

“You are.” John reiterates. “You’re so fuckin’ perfect, Sweetheart. I’m so happy.” 

The air is ripe with tenderness, a soft state of being that just keeps getting better. John had silent tears dripping down his face, blinking to clear them and not letting you leave his hold for a second. 

“Oh, John,” you whisper, digging your fingers into the back of his shirt, looking up. “Me too, Love.” 

While the glee is nearly physical enough to grab, there is a moment of hesitancy in the Brit. He was gone more times than not for work; put into situations that could leave him going through bodily harm. You didn’t deserve that stress—didn’t deserve to sit at home with a swelling stomach just watching the door and wondering if you’d have to become a single mother. You had a child in your womb. His child. Both of yours’ child. 

A family that you both had made.

John swallows and says to you seriously, without an ounce of hesitation in his blood, “I’m telling Laswell to pull me out,” you blink up and listen, letting him continue as his press on your flesh gets even more prominent, nodding to you, “I’m not missing this—not putting you through that worry. Two years, then I’ll head back in. We have enough saved, I give you my word you’ll want for nothing.” 

Blue eyes flicker down, and a small mumble so tiny it nearly disappears hits your ears. You almost start sobbing again. “This is more important. You both are more important.” 

There were few moments in your life that you think you’ll remember when you are old, weathered and wrinkled, but this you tell yourself is one that you will carry to your grave. John and yours’ grave. 

What remains behind, you ask? Simple.

White bones entangled with an eternity of deathless worship, and the generations that will come to lay flowers on the headstone.

TAGS:

@blueoorchid, @jxvipike, @revrse, @shuttlelauncher81, @bruhhvv, @kittiowolf210, @aerangi, @spikespiegell, @ghost-with-a-teacup, @1234ilikecowsthanyoumore, @uberraschungg, @neelehksttr, @shoe1412,@jemandderkeinenusernamenfindet​, @pukbadger, @omeganixtra, @nanialis, @gills-lounge, @voidinfernal, @sukunas-left-nut-sack, @untoldshortsofthefandoms, @batmanunicorns523, @icepancakes, @copiasratscheese, @besas-stuff, @marytvirgin, @misfne, @halfmoth-halfman, @lothiriel9, @anna-banana27, @jade-jax, @cl0wncxre, @emerald-valkyrie, @michirulol, @330bpm-whiplash, @lora21, @bespectacledhuman, @wolfyland07, @dilfsaremyfavourite, @astronaunt2009, @shmaptin, @levietc, @kk19pls, @semieitabby, @thriving-n-jiving, @cringe-kats, @n1choles, @gaychaosgremlin, @johnpricesprincess, @haleypearce,

[slayfics]

Katsuki reaches out to you after ghosting you.

Katsuki rested his head back on the headrest in the car chauffeuring him to his hotel. He had been on this mission for 11 days now on the other side of the country than he was used to. He was thankful this mission had a driver who specifically worked with chauffeuring heroes around. It meant not running into Uber drivers that were fans. Most importantly, the agency that assigned the chauffeur to Katsuki knew to pick out drivers who didn't make small talk.

Katsuki put in his earphones for the drive wanting to drown out the day's events in music. The problem was he had no idea what the hell to listen to. That's when he wondered. Were you awake? Were you listening to something?

Back in U.A., you, Eijiro, and Denki bugged the crap out of him until he agreed to join you all in a dumb-ass video game you three were obsessed with. He hated video games and thought they were a waste of time. But, he gave in just so you all would shut up. He even made a Discord to join in voice chat.

Although, It didn't take long for him to get angry at the game and accidentally explode his computer. He still kept the Discord app, however, and even installed it on his phone. From time to time he looked to see if you all still joined in the same voice chat to play whatever game caught your interest. The times he saw you all talking were few and far between now that everyone was busy with hero work. He had noticed though, that whenever you listened to Spotify it showed on Discord what song you were listening to.

From time to time when he was away on extended missions he'd look to see what you were listening to. It was hard when he was away. He knew he wasn't good at words. Honestly, he'd rather shoot himself than call you and say some dumb mushy shit like he missed you. Sometimes he hated that he was this way. He'd seen Eijiro communicate so easily with Mina every time he was away, why couldn't he be like that? Why was this shit so hard for him?

Katsuki opened his discord and saw you were indeed listening to Spotify. He clicked on your username and it popped up that you were listening to Shirt by SZA. He navigated to his own Spotify to play the same song and read the lyrics along with the song. Some of the lyrics jumped out at him.

Kiss me, dangerous Been so lost without you all around me

In the dark right now Feeling lost, but I like it

Is that how you felt about him? Lost and in the dark? Did his actions when he was with you not carry through the space and time when his hero work kept him away from you?

He knew he should have called you, texted you, or something in the past 11 days he was gone but- You could have called him too. Damn it. Why did you both have to be so fucking stubborn? Katsuki inhaled sharply. He was probably just thinking too much about it. Even though he hadn't listened well to this song before, he knew it was popular at the moment. That was probably the only reason you were listening to it. He was being too egotistical making it about him. Surly you were fine while he was gone.

The song ended and he navigated back to Discord to see what song you were listening to now. That's when his eyes widened, grip tightened on his phone, breath caught in his throat. You were listening to that damn stupid song the class of 1A played at the summer festival. The one he played the drums in all those years ago.

You were thinking about him. Fuck. He ran his hands over his face frustrated with himself. If he were more like Eijiro even that fucking idiot Midoriya, you'd never question how he felt about you because he'd be able to say easily and gracefully. The fact was though, that just wasn't him, and he just couldn't. Simple as that. However, this did give him the slap in the face he needed to reach out to you.

Katsuki opened his messages and scrolled down to his text thread with you to type out a message.

I'll be back next week, what are your days off?

He watched anxiously as three dots appeared while you typed. Would you tell him off for not reaching out to you for almost two weeks? Would you accuse him of not caring?

I have Monday and Tuesday off.

Can I see you Monday?

Your next response left a lump in his throat and mist in his eyes.

You can see me whenever you want Katsuki.

You were too forgiving of him, too patient and he knew he didn't deserve it. You deserved someone who could say all that fucking cheesy shit, someone that didn't ghost you for two weeks because they were afraid of their feelings. But for some reason, you never seemed to mind, and you always welcomed him back in. He tried so fucking hard to show it when he was there, and he hoped that you were seeing it. He was trying. In the best way that he could.

Tags: @unofficialmuilover

[sparklingcid3r]

I promised a rumble rundown, so that’s what I’m gonna do. Let’s go🙏 also here's the yt vid i used lol

0:14-0:17

Paul says, “Hello, Darrel. Long time, no see” and then immediately starts checking him out with that upside down smile, ik what u think abt 👁️👁️

0:24-0:27

“I’ll take you” yeah Paul I’m sure u will 🙄 Darry’s cold af w the staredown tho, it’s unfortunate that Pony and Soda have do a full head turn to look at each other like “IKKK he ain’t j said that”

0:27-0:31

DALLAS MY GLORIOUS KING ARRIVES,, shirtless??? And the crowd goes mild‼️ Pony also gets popped in the face and down he goes, it was so good that he was here for just a little bit, everyone say bye now bc the next time he shows up in the fight u won’t even know it’s him I’m deadass

0:48-0:55

Soda is ripping into this guy right, my baby’s a champion!! And then gets up and kinda… walks past Steve getting his ass beat lmao. He even puts his hand on Steve’s shoulder to steady himself as he goes by😭

He just misses the mean double gut punch Steve tanks like the unit he is, because Steve GRABS THIS MAN’S PUNCH and RIPS one across his face, it was beautiful. Masterclass in the ring I’m afraid

0:56-0:58

Okay. I need to give yall the play by play for this single two-second sequence because it was genuinely the greatest clip of cinema I’ve ever seen in my life.

Paul’s got Darry out of frame and he’s confident, dare I say cocky. He’s doing the universal hand signals for “Cmon, hit me bro.”

And I’m gonna say this next part softly. Lean in and listen to me:

When I tell u that Darry clocks Paul in the face, I don’t mean he just clocks Paul in the face. Darry rises like a phoenix from the ashes and swings so hard that everyone around him can feel the aftershocks. Paul has just experienced the equivalent of a steel boxing glove to the dome. Teeth are flying. Paul will have no recollection of this moment for the rest of his life. Take a look at this.

Alr now we back up because YOU CAN SEEEE THE MOMENT OF REALIZATION. This man starts BAILING. The minute Darry spins back, Paul’s got bug eyes, all “Hold up. Wait a minute. He really ‘bout to clock my shit.” He did not want that smoke NEARLY as much as he thought he did, and ykw? I don’t blame him 🤷‍♀️ 

Letting yall know that I had to go back and slow down the playback speed so that I could bask in the glory that is Darrel Curtis’s behemoth of a punch. Geologists are losing their minds wondering how volcanoes are erupting and mountains are shifting, unaware of what just happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

1:00-1:03

Dally bitch slapping a dude is a great way to kick off the one-minute mark, and a good kick to the ribs just for funsies ig. U go girl🫶

1:04-1:07

Hottest Two-Bit has ever looked sorry

1:19-1:21

Alr Dally is literally picking people up and WWE rocking their shit as he slams them to the ground. That kid was dropped neck first. How did Pony not have to write a sequel.

1:22-1:24

Just an entire sequence dedicated to Soda mewing even as he gets bitched in the face. It’s alr tho, he got his get back

1:47-1:49

Istg I’m not tripping, u listen and u can hear Pony screaming for Darry yall I thought this was supposed to be a good time, I’m actually sobbing

1:55-2:01

STEVE CLUTCHES UP??? DEADASSSS that was the CLEANEST three-shot KO I’ve ever seen, then he body flips the guy behind him??? I WASN’T FAMILIAR W UR GAME, RANDLE 🙏

2:09-2:15

The Socs are kind of getting ready to retreat at this point but rq we gotta check in on the exes, Paul’s getting clowned on again lmfao.

This man tried to kick Darry, then when Darry’s got his foot and is getting ready to spin him like that pigskin, he’s PULLING on Darry’s HAIR??? Man, just leave 😭 ur cooked. And the last time we see him, he’s CRAWLING AWAY😭😭 at least STAND UP

2:24-2:27

Pony’s getting washed in a 6v1 it ain’t his fault this time, bless up. Luckily my goat Darrel Shaynne Curtis Jr. pulls up and literally starts throwing bodies. Absolutely spectacular that I get to live in the same lifetime as this movie.

2:30-2:32

Darry’s asking, “Ponyboy, you okay?” and some NOBODY tries to grab Darry’s shoulders. Who do u think u are???

3:35-3:45

Greasers get the W👏

So in conclusion I think we can all agree that if u are locked in an iso with Darry, just offer up ur cheek and get it over w. Ur not getting the dub. Roll down ur sleeves and go home, ur benched.

Sorry this is messy af, I'm just having fun rn LMFAO

[eyesxxyou]

PLZ DO A DRABBLE ON MOVIE HOBIE TAKING READER’S VIRGINITY REALLY SWEETLY

❝ first time ❞ hobie brown x gn!reader

❝ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 ❞ taking virginity, soft sex, sappy sex, Hobie is so sweet and reassuring, hand holding

Hobie Brown was your first everything. Your first kiss, your first “I love you” and he was now about to be your first first. The first to know your body with an intimacy no one else has every hand the honor of having.

He had laid you down on your bed, lips peppering across your face from your head to your cheeks, to your nose, and your lips. You trembled beneath him, aroused yet terrified as his cock weigh heavy on your thigh. He was nothing to pass over, length and girth equally impressive as they were intimidating.

“I’s gonna fit, dove.” Hobie reassured you when you questioned if you could take jhim. He eased his lips onto yours, a slender hand pulling up your thigh to hook your leg over his narrow hips while his tongue traced hearts on yours. He soothed your nerves with ease, breath heavy against your lips between kisses.

“‘ve gotcha, okay? ‘m gonna take care of ya.”

Hobie made sure you were properly lubed enough to take him, his fingers prepping you with meticulous care. You shuddered every time they entered you, spreading your walls a little more to accommodate him. You were hot, wet, and tight. Your hole taut, gripping his fingers in a vice.

“Jus’ relax.” He made sure his cock was lubed up enough as well before he brought the tip to your entrance, stroking where you needed him most with the head, tapping where hole until it made a soft, wet, slapping sound.

You thought you were prepared for him to continue but as he began to push into you, his head stretching your hole open to accommodate, your cried out a little, toes curling, heels digging into the little plush on his ass while your hands grip his shoulders. “Hobie!”

“I know, luv. I know, just breathe f’me, yah?” He paused, took the time to let you regain a hold on yourself and adjust to what little he had given you before he continued.

He pushed till he bottomed out and managed to work all 8 inches of thick, long cock into your wet entrance. Your eyes fluttered, rolled and your hands roamed his shoulders and neck, pulling him in and desperately placing sloppy, wet kisses on his lips. “Fuck- it hurts.” You murmur with a pathetic whine.

Hobie let you pepper kisses onto his lips. “Give i’ time. I’ll feel better.”

He was slow for your sake. Pulling back until only the tip remained snuggled within your heated love before sliding back in with a little resistance. He cooed at you, soothing every whine and cry with a stroke of his thumb against your hip.

He was right. With time, it did start to feel better. The stinging pain of being stretched out soon relaxed into pleasure and before either of you knew it, you were moaning instead of crying.

Hobie was still gentle with you, each stroke of his hips saying the same three words “I love you”. His cock split you apart and you were okay with it, in fact, you begged for more.

“Ah~ mhn- fuck H- Hobie. Can you– God… can you hold my hand?” You wanted the touch, wanted more intimacy. You needed him close, needed to smell his soft musk from being out all night patrolling, needed to know he wasn't just using you for your body.

He wasn't. He’d never. Hobie chuckled softly at the way you timidly turned your gaze away from him. He nosed at your jaw. “Look a’ me.”

You turn your head back to him, your gaze catching his. He looked so softly at you, so tenderly. His hand took yours with a gentleness you had only ever known from him as he laced his fingers in with yours and pressed your hand into the mattress. He thrusted his hips into yours and you moaned with delight, nipping at your lips as Hobie pressed his forehead to yours.

“I love ya, bug.”

taglist: @hobs-kiss, @hoe-bie

[eleonoraalbright]

The Mystery of Mistletoe

Pairing: Peter Pan x fem!reader

Summary: You find yourself underneath a mistletoe with Pan. Unfortunately for you, when you rush off in a hurry it leaves Peter with an insatiable desire to know why you are afraid of the small plant.

You hummed a merry tune while your hand brushed over the bushes’ green leaves to find edible berries. The dazzling sun hung high in the cloudless blue sky, causing beads of sweat to roll down your forehead.

You wiped them away and continued your work. It was a great pity that berry picking had to be done during the hot afternoon. The cool mornings were too full to add this chore to the busy schedule, and the evening sun would trick your eyes into picking the wrong, poisonous berries.

Your two consolations were that three out of the four baskets were filled, and you had help with the task. Peter Pan himself labored alongside you in the humid jungle. You were very grateful for his aid though you couldn’t fathom why he did it.

Surely, as Neverland’s ruler, he had better things to do than this. You wouldn’t voice this question aloud, lest he decide to quit the drudgery. Pan straightened out from hunching over the greenery and arched backwards, a satisfying pop emitting from the stretch.

“Let's take a quick break,” he suggested. Even though you had half a basket left and a break would prolong your time out here, you agreed. You and Pan sat on a log to rest. You brought out your waterskin and took a much-needed drink.

The cool water soothed your parched throat. You would have taken another long swig, but Pan held out his hand for a turn. You handed it to him for he must have been as thirsty as you were. He tipped the water skin and gulped down the refreshing liquid.

A trickle of water escaped his mouth and ran down the side of his chin. You had half a mind to catch the single drop with your finger and lick it. Not one bit of water should go to waste, should it? You shook your head to clear your muddled thoughts. It wouldn’t be a good idea to do that.

Annoying insects buzzed around your head, adding to the discomfort. A mosquito landed on your arm and you slapped it off. Had you been thinking, you might have worn a long-sleeved coat to ward off the blood-sucking bugs, but the notion had seemed like lunacy in the oppressive heat.

Your options were being drenched in buckets of sweat or covered in small, red bites. You had chosen the bites. Now it seemed the wrong one to pick; the following nights would be spent scratching your arms, legs, and neck to relieve the itchiness. Pan let out a sigh and scooched closer to you on the log where it was partly in the shade. He tossed the empty waterskin to the ground.

“Do you think you could assign some other Lost Boys to berry picking tomorrow?” If you had to endure yet another day in the muggy forest, you would scream. Well, that was a lie. You were too tired to scream, the most you would be able to muster would be a grumble.

“I don’t think anyone will do any chores tomorrow. We’ll all need a respite from this blistering heat. Tomorrow we’ll go down to the river. It’s been a while since we’ve played any river games anyhow.”

“Oh, that sounds amazing.” You imagined splashing in the water, your whole body cooling off from diving down and swimming. You would have a breath holding contest with Qian, Devin, and Darragh.

Last time Qian had won, but you had been practicing. Maybe everyone would participate in the game Marco Polo you had introduced to them. They had loved it previously, a little too much.

Bjarki had gotten a bit too invested in the game and gave one of the smaller boys, Andres, a black eye and knocked out his tooth while trying to catch him. The scuffle had turned to a full out war which led to three boys getting concussions and almost drowning underwater.

No lasting harm had been done as they had been rescued and resuscitated. The group could also play sharks and squids which was similar to the game of sharks and mermaids you used to play at the pool, but with more violence.

Pan interrupted your thoughts by mumbling, “I wish we were able to eat mistletoe. It looks delicious.” You followed his gaze upwards and saw the plant dangling from a branch above you both. All drowsiness and lethargy disappeared from your mind as you hurled yourself off the log, tumbled to the ground, and scrambled farther away from the red berries.

Peter was surprised by your actions. He glanced at the plant again to see if anything was wrong with it to have caused such a reaction. Nothing was. It seemed to be a regular old mistletoe. He said with slight amusement coloring his voice, “You seem more terrified of that plant than the dreamshade.”

“And for good reason!” You blurted out. You were confused by Pan’s words. Wasn’t it obvious why you wouldn’t want to be caught under a mistletoe with him? It then occurred to you that, of course, he wouldn’t be aware of the implications and traditions from your world.

He wasn’t from it, so why should he? You breathed a sigh of relief and stood up, dusting yourself off. You laughed, “My mistake, Pan. The heat must be getting to me. I’m not acting like myself.” You grabbed two baskets and began dragging them away.

“Well, I think we have enough provisions. I’ll get these and see you back at camp.” Thankfully, Pan allowed you to leave. You didn't know whether your face burned from embarrassment or from the sweltering temperature. Instinct made you leap from him, but to be honest, kissing Pan might not have been the worst scenario to find yourself in.

You doubted that would happen even if you did explain the custom to him. Doubtless, he would think you were making it up in a poor flirting attempt and mock you. It was better for him to think you batty for a fear of a mistletoe plant or going delirious in the stifling atmosphere.

Peter plucked the plant from its place off the branch and inspected it. He had thought perhaps there had been an enormous beetle or arachnid in its leaves. Just as he thought, there was nothing outright alarming about the humble flora.

Heat had not been an issue for you before, so why would it be now? No, Pan was quite sure your peculiar behavior was because of the mistletoe. The question was what exactly. It seemed like some tests were needed to find out. Was it the whole thing or only parts of it that scared you? Peter Pan was determined to find out.

A day later, the sun was setting in the west, bathing the clear sky in a multitude of blazing colors. An array of pinks and purples washed over the blue and tinged the horizon edges with orange. The Lost Boys were chattering and laughing as they prepared their crude makeshift beds for tonight. A few tents were pitched up.

There weren’t enough to go around for all the boys due to an unfortunate mishap regarding a not-properly-put-out-fire and high winds, meaning the boys had to take turns in sleeping in them. Luckily for Pan, tonight was your turn to sleep directly underneath the stars. He watched from a good distance as you made your pallet ready.

You managed to take another blanket from an older boy and gave it to a younger one who had been complaining about being cold. You went to fluff up your flat pillow when you spotted the small gift Pan had left on the mat. Teleporting closer, Pan lurked in the nearby bushes to witness firsthand your reaction.

He saw you bend down and pick up the bunch of mistletoe berries he left scattered there. You brought them to eye level and stared at them hard as if unsure what they were. Recognition flashed in your eyes and Peter noticed with delight your head swivel this way and that, looking for the person who did this.

Well, that got an interesting reaction out of you. However, to his disappointment, you tossed the red berries into the fire and went off to bed. He was hoping for a bigger outburst from you. He had even speculated you might try to switch sleeping pads with someone else from fear that more berries would appear.

But no, you had been quite commonsensical. On the other hand, there had been that little panicked moment when you realized what the unwanted gift was. Intrigued by your reaction, Pan decided more testing was needed.

The temperature had cooled down considerably the following morning when Peter sent you on a ‘special’ mission. He assigned you the task to find a particular carrot which could force whoever ate it to dance an entire day and night.

The root was on Neverland’s southern side and grew in the rocky area between the forest and the beach. He told you it was identifiable by its bright, sparkly pink leaves. This was complete balderdash needless to say; Pan only wanted you in that region because he had a certain surprise in store.

He tracked your location and became more excited as you approached the destination. Hiding behind a large boulder, Pan spied as you trudged out of the forest and came into view. Your expression morphed into one of great confusion.

Spread out for what looked like the whole beach were leaves. You stepped onto the green mass and grabbed a leaf, tracing its spiky edges. You let it fall to the ground, placed your hands on your hips, and gazed upwards. As far as he could tell, you were very bewildered at the strange situation.

Pan waited with eagerness for you to throw a fit of some sorts or at least run away from the mistletoe leaves. Again, to his disappointment and ever-growing bafflement, you did not. Instead, you plodded along, kicking your feet through the leaves. Evidently, you were still on your quest to get the imaginary root. Pan cursed.

How thick-headed could you be? Did you not see that it was a trick? Pan left. He would let you waste all morning, afternoon, and evening searching for the stupid carrot. It served you right for being such an enigma; worrying about mistletoe one day and not caring about it the next.

Pan sulked. He sat on a log on the camp’s outskirts, fiddling with a crown made of mistletoe in his hands. This was preposterous. Why should he care whether or not you were afraid of the parasitic plant? In an instant, he answered himself: because it would be funny if you had a mistletoe phobia. What was different regarding the circumstances? It couldn’t be the presence of people.

He was there the first time and the Lost Boys had been there the second time, but you had thought you were alone in the last instance. Your first reaction was big while the other two weren’t. Peter held up the leafy crown to study it.

Should he try to recreate the situation to see if the same thing happened? He was so deep in his pondering that he didn’t notice when a Lost Boy came up to him until the youngster spoke.

“Hiya, Pan. Me and some boys made another tent outta the animal hide and we’re wonderin’ if–” He stopped and gawked at the plant his master was holding. “Say, ya got yourself some mistletoe! Neato! Ya gunna use it tah kiss some mermaids? Sure as heck wouldn’t mind smoochin’ those setta fish lips! Ya should–”

Seizing on the peculiar words, Pan leaped to his feet and clutched the boy's shoulders. “What do you mean by ‘use it to kiss some mermaids’?” Did this flora have a secret magical ability he was unaware of? Could this have any connection to your dislike of it? Would it have anything to do with why you flung yourself away from it and threw the berries in the fire?

The scared boy gasped, “If t-two people are under a mistlet-toe, they have tah kiss. It’s tra–tradition.” Pan released the boy. It all made sense now! Patting the boy on the back, he set off to one of his tree houses on the island. He had much to plan and prepare!

You plopped down at the Lost boys’ campsite. Your bones ached and hunger gnawed at your insides. All day was squandered looking for that carrot. You foraged high and low for that thing and had nothing to show for it, not even a sparkly, pink leaf.

You were beginning to wonder whether it existed or if the expedition was a mean joke played for fun. If that was the case, then it wasn’t a very good joke.

If it was real, you would be in hot water with Peter Pan for not finding it. Why would he want a carrot that made you dance? Your tiring questions were forgotten when Felix marched to the spot where you were sitting.

As usual, he spared no time on pleasantries. No, how are you? Do you want some food? Where have you been? To your annoyance, he stated, “Pan wants to see you at trumpet vine tree house.”

You huffed in displeasure, “Why?”

“I don’t know why. He wants you there now.” Felix gave you a stern look which clearly said, If you don’t get up of your own accord, I will drag you there myself.

You groaned. Pan’s word was law. Any protest against his commands would not end pretty for you. You complied with the order and made your way to the trumpet vine treehouse. The place got its name from the vines curling along its trunk and branches, beautiful reddish-yellow flowers bloomed to add a lovely fragrance in the air.

It was about a fifteen-minute walk away. Why did Pan want to see you and in a private setting to boot? Did he want the enchanted carrot? How angry would he get when he found out you didn’t retrieve it?

Should you pretend to have eaten it and dance for twenty-four hours. No, that was a dumb idea. Oh well, you would just have to tell the truth. You arrived and began to climb up the rope ladder.

You poked your head through the opening in the floor and your jaw dropped. On the ceiling, hanging above you, were dozens of mistletoe plants. What the hell was going on with mistletoe! Two days ago, had been the starting incident, then it was the berries on your pillow, then a whole beach full of them!

You didn’t notice Pan was in the room before he spoke, “Something the matter?” You had difficulty in forming a sentence. He pulled you up the rest of the way into the treehouse. He looked pleased with himself and rather smug. “Surely you’re not afraid of a little mistletoe, are you?”

“No, no, no! It’s– it’s fine. I wasn’t expecting it though. Nothing to be afraid of with mistletoe after all.” You prayed he wouldn’t be able to detect your lies.

He held onto your wrists and pulled you closer. “Oh? So, you’re not scared of anything we might have to do underneath it?”

“You know…” You admitted, defeated. “How did you find out?”

He smiled in a self-satisfied fashion. “I have my ways. It took a little bit of careful observing, a couple of tests, and a sprinkle of luck. But it was well worth it. Although it is an odd custom to be sure. What other eccentric traditions did you have back in the Land Without Magic?” He stroked your cheek with his thumb which trailed down your neck. His other hand grasped your waist.

Your attempt to answer was blocked by another query. He quirked an eyebrow up and leaned in further to ask, “Don’t you think that for all the grueling work I put in to understand your old world’s ceremonies and rules that I should be rewarded for my effort?”

Hmm, he did have a point. Giving him a small prize for all the work he endured couldn’t be that bad. Grinning, you performed the exact act that you had avoided doing not forty-eight hours prior. The kiss was sweet and simple and you pulled back three seconds later. 

“I would have preferred a kiss on the forehead, but that wasn’t too bad either.” He chuckled at your shocked and hurt face. “That was a mere jest, love. The kiss was near perfect. Much too short of my liking however.” He took a step to the right, bringing you with him. “That’s fine because we are under a different mistletoe and have plenty more to practice under.”

He was right as he always was. Evening faded into night and you and Peter were still in the treehouse practicing.

[clumsybriar]

Ghost X Fem! Reader — Savior To The Neighbor

*Minors do not interact! I repeat do not interact if you are a minor!*

Ghost x Fem! Reader

Masterlist

Word Count: 16,687

Warnings/Notes: sexual themes at the end, smut, (y/n) is used, reader can be clumsy or needs saved often, she’s ghosts neighbor. Minors do not interact. (Re-read but not closely so mistakes could still be in the writing!)

———————————————————————————

What was it like being a neighbor to a 6’4 SAS Soldier? (Y/n) would describe it in three different words, ‘thankful’, ‘terrifying’, ‘embarrassing’. All three words she deemed as the correct response for being a neighbor to the War ridden soldier named Simon Ghost Riley.

Just like now, as he grumbled about having to kill a spider on her bathroom wall while it was all steamed up from her hot shower. Not only that but he had the distraction of the woman in nothing but a towel.

(Y/n)…was embarrassed. Dispising that he had heard her squeal like a little girl, and embarrassed that she had been caught in only a towel.

If he would have let her handle the situation though, the house would have been on fire as she kept ahold of her towel and the torch she had rushed off to get.

“Jesus, give me that.” He grabbed that from her hand as she nodded her head unsure whether arguing spiders deserved to be roasted with the SAS soldier was a good idea. “Torch your house and I won’t save you from that.” He grumbled. Oh but he would.

He was always grumpy, in her eyes, hence the word ‘terrifying’.

“Got a death wish?”

“No sir.” She uttered quickly.

“Good, then don’t grab the torch.” He told her raising a brow at her ridiculous idea. His skull balaclava hiding the rest of his facial features, she was sure she didn’t want to see them knowing his expression would be a sign he was judging her.

“But…spiders are from hell.” She uttered softly.

“They eat bugs, not you.” He looked her up and down as she flushed red.

Well, how did he know that? He didn’t know that? She was a very well informed person about spiders. The info wasn’t right, but he didn’t need to know that. Right? Right.

She was petrified of spiders and her in form was fear based off of her own fears.

“It wanted to kill me,” she said quickly. “It was looking at me with those beady eyes.”

“Did it slobber?” Simon asked.

“I’m sure it did…”

“No it didn’t, you're too big to be its meal.” He grumbled. “It’s more afraid of you then you are of it.”

“That’s a very under-thought statement.” (Y/n) said softly.

“Your right,” Simon corrected himself. “The spider is almost just as afraid of you as you are of it.”

“That’s probably pretty true.” She took a deep breath as he started to walk out of the bathroom with the dead spider in a tissue.

She got frantic following him. Who wouldn’t, her father used to tease her and act like he was throwing it at her, or joking that it’s under her pillow.

“You're throwing it away right? It’s dead right? What if it comes back to life? It’s a spawn of Satan, it might come back from the dead.” (Y/n) were panicking and he knew it.

“It’s dead, if it comes back to life, call a priest.” He uttered. “I’m leaving, have friends over, don’t scream unless you want a stranger to come bursting over here.” Simon warned her. “Always have a hard time telling Johnny to sit his ass down when you need…rescuing.” That was a judgment, he just judged her. Rescuing was not the word he wanted to use, she knew that. But he used a politer word than what he wanted to use.

She didn’t realize she was standing in her window that faced his backyard where Johnny was standing smiling at her.

“Oi, little lady,” Johnny waved. She screeched and stared at Johnny embarrassed. How much worse could this day get.

“Stop staring in her window,” Simon walked past the open window slapping Johnny’s head.

“Oh but Ghost, a Bonnie lass like that needs a good man to worship her.” Johnny said walking away with Ghost as (y/n) was left staring at the trash can.

She trotted back to her shower where she sat in the warm steaming water thinking about her embarrassing moment with her grumpy neighbor.

She knew it wasn’t the first time and it wasn’t the last time she would be saved by him.

After that save, she was in need of help three days later. she had a mouse scurrying in her house as she screeched.

Simon—with his sixth sense of whenever she was in some weird situation where she needed help—had already been halfway across his yard heading into hers when he heard her shrill screech.

“The lassie in trouble?” Johnny asked as he sat his cooler of beer on the porch.

“Yes,” Simon said as he walked into (y/n)’s house as if he was a resident there too.

“Oh, they're on a new level of no knocking now, just barging in.” Kyle hummed as he looked at Johnny. “He’s such a hero.”

“I think he’s in love.” Johnny hummed.

“How so, he seemed to lack enthusiasm.” Kyle asked, cocking his head to the side.

Johnny knew his best friend, that man had a sixth sense for the ‘young hot neighbor’ (soaps words). Simon—a man who would not go out if his way to help his last neighbor who was also a young and pretty woman—was helping (y/n), a new young and pretty woman. Maybe it was because she was a foreigner. Truly it could have been anything really. Johnny though had seen how Simon held his body, having puffed his chest out more and making sure he looked strong and attractive as if he was a peacock showing off his colorful feathers. Plus Johnny knew the last girl screamed and screamed more about things than what (y/n) did and he never came running over to help. Never ever puffed his chest out and looked bigger and more attractive.

Johnny knew there was attraction there.

“What are ya’ bloody screaming’ about?” Simon asked as (y/n) jumped, turning around and running into his arms. It was quick and there was no thought. She just ran and clung to him like her life depended on it.

“A mouse, Simon, a mouse!” She clung to him. Her eyes darted around as she looked for the little mammal that had made its home in her kitchen. “There is a mouse in my kitchen!”

“Alright mama,” he said carefully as he sat her on the kitchen counter. Her legs were pulled up as if she thought the mouse could jump that high and get her. Her eyes darted around as she squirmed a bit.

He left her there where she grew a bit frantic. She was nervous and wondering where he was going. Was he just leaving her here? She hoped not, she was so frantic and worried.

She didn’t hate mice, she just didn’t like them in her home. They were cute and all, just not cute scurrying across her floor.

Simon walked across his yard as Johnny and Kyle watched with a beer in their hands as he crossed back over with a live trap for the mouse. He had peanut butter on the trap as he walked back into her house.

“A mouse,” Kyle hummed.

“A mouse,” Johnny agreed.

Her eyes met his as he sat the trap in a location where the mouse would be able to get to.

“Alright, we’ll catch him this way.” Simon hummed. As he sat the trap down. She watched him. One thing was for sure his muscles didn’t go unnoticed as he was wearing a tank top. It was a hot day, if she had her way she’d be in something much cooler than what she was wearing. Everything felt suffocating in this muggy weather, and don’t forget the daily rain that would only make it muggier.

“Thank you.” (Y/n) said softly as she looked at the man who had grown to be a decent neighbor to her. There were many reasons for that statement, and one was because he saved her from a million spiders at this point, and bats in her home. Now she could add mice to the mix of animals he’s saved her from.

“Ya’ ya’,” he waved it off with his grumpy demeanor. “Let me know if the mouse takes the bait.” He said as he walked back out to his friends as they got everything set up for their almost daily poker game.

Almost daily because if they could play it everyday they would.

“Ye’ got a crush, mate?” Johnny asked as he looked at Simon.

“No,” he hummed as he cracked open a beer taking a large sip. “Why?” He asked so calmly. He eyed the two men up as they sat under the cabana Ghost had put up. It was mainly for at night time when they could zip up the sides and keep the mosquitos away while playing into the wee hours of the morning.

“Cause ya’ run over there when she’s in dire need of some help.” Kyle added.

“Ghost’s in love?” Price asked as he lit his cigar trailing his cooler of his own beer behind him.

“No,” Simon shook his head. “Far from it, I don't need love in my life to distract me from my work.”

“I don’t know, mate, ye’ seem to be fallin’.” Johnny laughed as he started to set up the cards.

“Shut up,” Simon grumbled at them.

Needless to say four hours later in the middle of the game she rushed out onto the porch shouting from her yard to his. “Simon!”

“Yes love?” He asked, unzipping the cabana cause the mosquitos were out. They had candles around them to keep the bloodsuckers away too.

“You caught something!” She said leaning over her porch.

“Get away from the edge like that.” He chided her. “You’ll fall off.”

“But…” she paused and backed away like he said.

“You're clumsy, you dimwit.” Simon grumbled out. Johnny could be heard chuckling at a comment Price made.

“Expressed his careingness in such a friendly manner.”

Simon would remember to make the captain regret those words.

“Mmm,” she brushed it off as she padded behind him into her own home.

Surely enough it was a little mouse that had been feeding off her little crumbs she had been dripping and trying to clean up as best as she could. It was like anyone’s kitchen, it wasn't going to be a hundred percent clean, it would still have crumbs that would need to be swept up, and swept up again until the person sweeping said forget it.

“It’s so cute.” She smiled as she looked at it kneeling down in front of the box.

“You screamed four hours ago ‘cause it was scampering across ya’ kitchen floor.” He uttered lost at her change of temper for it.

“Don’t want it in my house, it can live outside.” She smiled up at him.

That smile, oh god, that smile. Simon could feel his legs go weak. It was so cute, so pretty, so gorgeous.

“Ya’ ya’.” He uttered as he scooped the live trap up and went to release the animal in the very backs of their yards. She trailed behind him like a lost puppy. His chest was puffed out as she followed behind him asking questions. He would answer calmly but he was masking it with his grumpy attitude to make sure the guys didn’t get any wrong ideas. When she trailed behind him coming back the boys watched finding it funny how he had his chest puffed out showing off and she was oblivious, but it seemed to be working as she rambled on.

“He feels like a pretty bird puffin’ his chest out ta’ attract the little lassie as his mate.” Johnny giggled to Kyle who giggled some more.

“You two keep blabbering your mouths and we’ll all three be killed.” Price tried to keep them shut.

“Sorry Captain.” The two said in unison as Simon ignored the three of them

“Thank you Simon, I appreciate it.” (Y/n) said softly as she leaned up and kissed his cheek for the first time. She had never had this type of confidence before. Simon was frozen as a glare was etched onto his face. She was so embarrassed and upset at herself for making such a slip up like that.

What she wasn’t hearing was Simon’s friends, specifically Johnny laughing about him. That’s why the glare was etched into his face.

“He’s so in love, so is she, the two just have this connection.” Johnny giggled.

Simon wanted to strangle the ever living hell out of him, but it would have to wait.

“Anyways, thanks again.” She walked away quickly as she bolted into the house she had made a home about a year ago.

Simon stood still as he turned around slowly making his way back to the poker game.

“Got choked up there mate.” Johnny teased.

“I’m going to choke the ev’ah livin’ ‘ell outta you.” Simon grumbled as his accent got thick. Meanwhile Johnny giggled.

“Also forgot ta’ puff your chest to get the pretty mate.”

Oh Johnny was gonna be buried in his backyard tonight,

Days had passed and you had been avoiding Simon like he was a live wire about to catch you in fire. You were so embarrassed for kissing his cheek.

“A simple thanks would have been enough dummy!” (Y/n) huffed as she got out of her car grabbing her reusable grocery bags. She walked into the grocery store oblivious at the moment of the harsh world they lived in. She grabbed a basket and shopped around for a bit.

“What’s the difference,” she uttered to herself. She sat the one product down and went with the one that looked better in her mind.

She froze though, froze as soon as she heard a gun ring out. She ducked as she looked around seeing if anyone was close to her. Screaming came from the cash register area. And then the intercoms went on.

Everything was moving so fast.

“Everyone get down, we’ll shoot you if you try to escape or run, we’re not leaving until we have all the money from the cash registers and from the back.” A man shouted at the surround sound.

She almost screeched though when a man picked her up and covered her mouth as he took her to a secure area in the back of the grocery store where they stored delivery truck packages.

“Just me mama,” She felt a breath of fresh air having recognized the voice.

Simon.

“Simon,” her voice was muffled as his mouth was over her lips clamping down on it tightly to keep her quiet. Almost as if this wasn’t the first time he had to drag someone who could possibly be screaming away.

“You’re safe.” He said as he took her to the exit of the building in the back where the gunmen had made a grave mistake and didn’t have anyone guarding the exit in the back. It was clear to Simon they were an armature crew.

“Listen to me,” Simon whispered. “You get out of here and walk half a block down, and call 999. Think ya’ can do that for me, (y/n)?” He asked softly.

She paused as she nodded but then looked back at him. “I mean yeah, but what about you?” She clung to his forearm.

He paused as he shook his head, “don’t worry about me.” He urged her to go out the door. “Don’t worry about me, I got to go help some people.”

“But it’s not safe,” she tried to tug him with her.

“I’m a trained SAS soldier, darlin’ I have a duty, I’m gonna go do my duty.” He pushed her out the door and latched it. She tried to yank on it to get him to open it up.

“Simon,” she hissed through the door. “Simon.” She gulped as she grabbed her phone and ran down the blocks like he told her to do. Her heart was beating and her mind was fuzzy and she was panicking a bit. Mainly about the people and Simon, hoping he was okay and safe and away from harm.

“Simon,” she whimpered as she made it to a shop bolting in looking frantic. “I don’t have service but someone needs to call 999!” She looked around seeing it was a metaphysical shop. The smell was one to instantly soothe and calm her mind just a hair. It smelled like incense and sage and things she remembered growing up with at her grandma's house. It was a sense of comfort in such a stressful and scary situation. “Please, the market, um…” she tried to remember the name. “The family run market, uh… Tillie's Market, men with guns and hostages. Please, many people are in danger.”

The shop keeper didn’t wait, she called 999 and quickly reached a responder who had cops and people at the scene quickly. (Y/n) had taken a look around as she waited unsure of what to do whether she should go back for Simon or if she should stay.

“I need to go back.” She uttered.

She didn’t wait for the old woman to call out to her. She left the metaphysical shop and rushed to the door she had escaped from.

The lungs in her air felt heavy, and the time seemed to be slow even if she was running faster than when she had escaped. She darted down the alleyway seeing a crying mother and her baby in her arms as she didn’t know where to go. (Y/n) could hear the sirens as it caused the baby to stir, she knew if Simon was right here at the moment he’d tell her to take them to safety.

The police were still a distance away.

“You're safe,” (y/n) cooed. “Please let’s get you to safety.” Her words came out in a rush. “Simon, got you two out safely, I assume.” She guided them down to the metaphysical shop.

And that’s what (y/n) did with the wayfinders who found their way to the back of the shop with Simon exiting and guiding them to safety.

She had caught Simon’s eyes on her a few times as he looked at her. He would grumble at her and urge her to stay at the shop where it was after but she refused. Continuing to do her duty if he was doing his.

“They figured out what he was doing.” A man was frantic. “They figured out he was sneaking people to safety. They didn’t even know he was there until they had caught him.”

“Simon,” (y/n)’s eyes widened. By now the police had set up caution tape and were negotiating with the criminals to let go of civilians. (Y/n) stayed put at the metaphysical shop biting her fingers now as a crowd of people sat nervously.

“Simon,” (y/n) uttered as the old woman urged her to sit behind the counter with her as others sat watching the tv thankful for Simon’s bravery.

“He’ll be fine, honey.” The older woman said softly. “I have no fear.”

“I hope so.” She took in the scent of the intense and natural drying herbs that hung from the old wooden ceiling.

The old woman wasn’t wrong, he was safe and the first thing he did was come searching for you. He rushed down the sidewalk looking everywhere shouting your name.

“(Y/n)!”

(Y/n) could hear him shouting. She stirred from her hazy daydream that was laden with fear and rushed out from behind the counter and stumbled out the door as she saw him there panting and breathing heavily. He had a bit of blood from getting hit in the head from the butt of one of the men’s guns but for the most part he was sound and safe.

“Simon.” She felt her eyes water as she looked at him.

“You’re okay?” He asked quickly.

“I’m okay.” She nodded as she rushed into his arms. “Are you okay?” She asked softly.

“I’m okay,” he nodded as he held her tightly. He wasn’t letting her go anytime soon.

But she knew at some point the high of them finding each other would dwindle down and she would get a lecture, especially when she was doing something so dangerous and that was constantly sneaking down that alleyway and helping those to safety.

“Don’t you ever do that again.” Simon pulled away and grabbed her firmly by the shoulders. She squeaked out in a bit of surprise. “Do you understand me?”

“Simon?” She looked up at him.

“No, do you understand me? That was dangerous.” He said his tone was stern and she felt like she was a puppy who just made a mess in the house. She felt horrible, now she knew how the puppy felt. “I don’t ever want to see you do something reckless like that again!”

“But—“ she uttered.

“No buts, you’ll never do that again. It’s too dangerous!” He seethed at her.

“Yes sir,” she said quickly, averting her eyes.

He was panting as he slowly started to calm down. “It was dangerous and reckless, yet very brave of you to help all those people.” He said softly. “I worry, that’s all.”

“I know.” She looked down at her hands as she messed with her rings she always wore. “You scared me, that one man said they had found that you were smuggling people out.” She said softly as her eyes met back up with his.

“You're not gonna lecture me, no, no.” He tried to turn this around, looking down at (y/n). He had a slight frown on his lips and she could see it.

“It was also dangerous.” (Y/n) added nodding her head.

“Oh no, no,” Simon shook his head. “You're not lecturing me mama.” He looked at her cupping her face. He brushed her hair from her face as he saw her watery eyes.

“I was so worried.” She sniffled.

“I know mama.” He cooed softly. “I know.” He hugged her tighter to his chest. She clung to him crying as he tried to soothe her.

It had done this weird pattern of worry for one and another and calm one and another, to receive a lecture, back to calm and worry about one and another.

“Are you sure you're okay?” She asked softly.

“I’ll be just fine, something I can patch up on my own.” He told her softly.

(Y/n) knew she wasn’t going to let Simon do that by himself, no way! She could help, she was going to help. No ands, ifs, or buts.

That’s where the two ended up, in Simon’s home, cleaning up his cut as Johnny tried to help.

“Take off the mask,” Johnny's deep Scottish accent made (y/n) jump as she cracked her head on the cabinet below the sink.

“Johnny,” Simon grumbled. “Scared her.”

“I’m so sorry, lassie.” Johnny apologized quickly.

“It’s okay Johnny.” (Y/n) wiggled back out of the cabinet. “Not in there.” She said softly to Simon.

“Ah fuck.” He huffed as he rubbed his temple but hissed. “Give me a second mama, let me think.”

“Need a first aid kit.” Johnny hummed. “Brought the one from my jeep.” He held it up.

“Perfect.” (Y/n) giggled as she stood beside Johnny looking at the contents fluttering around and pulling things out.

“Just got a bad headache mama, don’t need nothing’.”

“LT, you took a hit to the head.” Johnny hummed looking at the man.

“Take your mask off and I can look at it.” (Y/n) cooed. He didn’t move for a few seconds as he leaned forward and breathed slowly as if he was trying to calm down something. A minute had passed and he didn’t move, Johnny had an idea of what was going on but (y/n) was fretting.

“You okay, Simon?” She asked softly. Her eyes remained on him as he let out a deep breath.

“Feeling a bit queasy mama, give me a minute.” He said softly. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Concussion.” Johnny hummed softly. He flipped the switch off putting the three of them in the dark.

“Should I take him to the doctor?” She asked as she looked up at Johnny.

“Nah, he should be okay in a few days, we get concussions all the time.” Johnny smiled. “Let’s just patch him up and get him tucked in bed like a wee’ baby.”

“Yeah.” (Y/n) quietly agreed as she rubbed Simon’s back.

An hour later they had Simon tucked in bed as Johnny got ready to leave.

“I’m gonna head out, don’t fret about him, he’ll be fine.” Johnny said as she nodded her head.

“Yes Johnny,” she said softly. She shut the door as she quickly and quietly walked up to his bedroom where he laid with a pillow over his head.

“Mama, what’s up?” He lifted the pillow off his head and looked at her.

“I was just gonna lock the doors and leave for the night, if you need anything let me know okay.” She said softly rocking in her feet.

“Could you do something for me?” He asked softly as she lit up, happy to help him in any way. She nodded her head and smiled at him softly. “Come rub my belly.” She nodded her head as she sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his belly.

“Believe it or not, my mum used to sit and do this for me when I had an upset stomach.” Simon said softly as she rubbed her hands on his belly.

“Did it soothe your stomach?” She asked softly.

He chuckled as he nodded his head and licked his lips. She looked away flushed and red from embarrassment and from finding such a display of actions attractive.

“Yeah, when m’mum would rub my stomach it would go away and as soon as she would pull her hand away it would come back.” He hummed softly.

“Simon…” she stopped as she looked away embarrassed. She couldn’t express the feelings she was feeling right now, there was no way he would reciprocate her feelings for him. She was just some woman, who wasn’t probably good enough for the strong soldier.

“Yeah, mama.” He said softly.

She gulped quickly and thought of something to say because she had such a weak display of actions. “Um…I’ve gotten some really scary messages from my abusive ex.” She said softly as she continued to rub his stomach softly. “He’s been threatening to come and get me and drag me back to my country with him.” She said softly.

“You can stay over here mama,” he said softly.

She felt her heart swarm with love. She was grateful he would let her stay but she also knew he had no idea where she lived.

“That’s okay, I appreciate it, but he doesn’t know where I live.” She said softly. “I was just hoping maybe you could help me hook up cameras.” She said softly.

“Yeah, I can get you some good ones and get them hooked up.” He hummed softly.

“Thank you.” She nodded, smiling as she bit the inside of her cheek as she looked away. She was feeling disappointed in herself for not saying what she truly wanted to get off her chest, but she also knew there was no way he would feel the same way.

Ever since the grocery store, (y/n) had been too afraid to go shopping alone. Especially without Simon nearby. So Simon had suggested they go together, and that’s what they did.

She stuck close to him as he pushed the cart for the two of them, it was easier just to split the cart and split the bill.

They went around the store crossing things off their list as they went laughing at silly things.

Simon was no longer her grumpy terrifying neighbor. She had grown over the last few months to stop being terrified of him. She rather enjoyed the moments she got to spend with him where he would often rescue her from something going array.

(Y/n) was stretched reaching for something as Simon’s phone buzzed. He didn’t care to look at it thinking it was Johnny.

“My mother used to buy these when I was a little kid.” (Y/n) tossed the snack into the cart that had so many memories and so many happy moments associated with them. “I didn’t think they would have them here.”

“Sure it’s gonna taste the same as when you were a kid?” Simon asked as he chuckled lightly.

“Oh god no,” (y/n) giggled with him. “They have had to change the recipe since I was a little girl. But it’s just the nostalgia of eating them for me, whether it tastes the same or not.” She nodded. “Did you have anything like that?” She asked softly.

“My mother used to make me an apple dumplin’, had a apple tree growin’ in the backyard.” He hummed as he pushed the cart while she listened intently. “And every year she’d pick the ripest apple and bake Tommy and I a damn good apple dumplin’.”

“Mmm,” she smiled. “My papa used to make apple dumplings.” (Y/n) said softly. “Of course I didn’t appreciate them until it was about three years before he passed, so I missed out on a lot.” She rocked on her feet as they stopped to grab something he needed. “Damn where they are good and damn do I miss those apple dumplings. I’d do anything to get an apple dumpling made by him again.” She smiled sadly.

“Sounds like we need to try and make some apple dumplin’s, mama.” He said softly,

“Sounds like we should.” She giggled. “Oh, I forgot to let you know, Johnny said he was stopping by with his sisters later on in the week and wanted me to let you know. He had stopped by when you weren’t home and came over to me to relay the message.”

“Oh dear god,” Simon took a deep sigh and used it to express his emotions. “You room the Mactavish’s.”

“M-me!” She pointed to herself. “Oh no, no, no!” She shook her head quickly. “Johnny is beyond enough for me, last time he stepped foot into my house he broke my vase that was full of flowers.” She giggled softly. “My house would be falling in.”

Her words were so sweet it made Simon melt a bit. His cold heart was thawing more and more everyday.

He knew as soon as he came running out of that grocery store that day, he was going to hightail it to (y/n) because he had to know she was okay. Yeah he had a tiny lecture, but he wanted to make sure she was safe and sound and the only way he could trust it was if he saw her and god was she a sight to behold rushing out of that metaphysical store crying for him.

“I don’t want my house to fall in, I just put that new addition on.” He looked at her smiling underneath his mask.

“I don’t want my house to fall in, I’ll have to move back to my country.” She giggled. “You wouldn’t have anyone to save constantly.”

She wasn’t wrong, he would be lonely then, lonely and stuck with a neighbor he didn’t care for like the last one who was always trying to impress him and wear skimpy clothing outside to get his attention.

“Yeah, maybe I’ll stick to keepin’ the MacTavish family at my home then.” He snickered.

The two walked to his jeep as they continued to giggle and chuckle about things off and on. It was a flourishing friendship at the moment, that was one thing that was for certain. Though it was quite obvious the two had a crush on one and another.

“I can get my groceries Simon, don’t worry about it, you have a lot to put away too.” She hummed as she fought to keep his hands off of her bags laughing as he would win and start tugging a bag into her home. She would chase behind him and open the door for him smiling as he carried a heavy load.

He would then start unpacking groceries with (y/n), wanting to be closer to her in the moment, especially since in his eyes she was so pretty doing such candid things.

“Simon, seriously, you don’t have to get my grocers unpacked for me either.” (Y/n) snorted. “Johnny just pulled in over at your house I can get this.” She giggled softly.

“Oh alright mama,” he hummed softly. She leaned up and kissed his cheek.

It made Simon pause as he looked down at her smiling, but she couldn’t see with the mask on his face.

“Thank you Simon for talking me shopping and helping me unpack.” She hummed.

“Anytime mama,” he smiled at her and paused looking back at her. She looked at him smiling seeing as he paused almost wanting something.

“Is something the matter, Simon?” She asked softly as her eyes looked deep into his. Simon’s breath caught in his throat as he slowly made his way back to her. They were lost in each other's gaze while Simon’s arms wrapped around her waist. Her hands rested on his thick muscles as she felt the butterflies swirl in her stomach, she was so excited, was he going to kiss her.

“Simon!” Johnny jolted the two out of their moment as they both backed away and looked embarrassed. “I should go.” Simon said softly before he left through the back door.

“Yeah,” she said, a bit disappointed. “I should uh, put these away.” She paused and knocked her hand on her granite countertop. “Not that this open space needs to know, maybe a ghost that lives in my home.” She hummed softly. “I should just stop talking.” She nodded her head and went to work.

Simon came to his jeep as he started to unpack the back as Johnny rushed out of his house.

“I was lookin’ everywhere fer’ ya’, mate.” Johnny patted him in the back. “We’re ya’ with the lassie?” He chuckled as Simon turned and glared at him. “Oh.” Johnny paused as he knew that look. “I interrupted somethin’, didn’t I?”

“Ya’, ya’did.” Simon nodded.

Johnny paused as he chuckled lightly. “Oh me’ were ye’ two kissin’!” Johnny howled with a bit of laughter. It was deep from his chest and sounded not like a chortle.

“I was gonna’ kiss ‘er, until ya’ yelled my name.” Simon huffed grumpily that his moment didn’t come forth with his girl.

“Sorry, LT.” Johnny snickered as he followed the man close behind up his steps into his home which the Scottish man frequented. “Maybe next time.”

“Maybe next time.” Simon uttered.

“Hey who knows m—“ Johnny was interrupted when the phone went off and Simon grabbed his phone quickly.

“Eek—“ he could hear (y/n) scream as he flung the phone away and rushed out of the house. Johnny didn’t have time to think, but he sprung to action just like his LT knowing it came from (y/n)’s home and LT wasn’t pissing around.

“(Y/n)!” Simon rushed into the kitchen seeing that she had obviously put up a struggle. As she had knocked over her groceries and a mess was made down the hallway leading up to her stairs.

“I’ll make sure it’s clear down here.” Johnny said as he started to inspect the bottom floor. Ghost didn’t hesitate as he rushed up the stairs slowly peeking into rooms deeming them clear and safe.

“Let me go, you bastard!” (Y/n) shouted as a man grunted and grumbled at her to shut up.

Simon felt like he was ready to fight and rip this man apart whoever it was.

“Mama,” Simon rushed into the room tackling the man who was your ex.

“Get off of me you idiot!” The man growled.

Simon got a good look of the man as he memorized his face, one thing was for sure no one fucks with his baby. No one. And Simon was going to protect her for as long as he was allowed to and he hoped that was for an eternity.

Simon could feel his heart beating in his ear as (y/n) was quickly on the other side of the bedroom watching the two men brawl. It wasn’t before long Simon was sitting on top having won the brawl of dominance as he shouted for Johnny.

“Bring me some Zipties Johnny, got the bastard!”

What was this, Florida men capturing a crocodile? No it was just Soap and Ghost doing what they knew best, beating the bad guys (in the simplest of terms).

It wasn’t long before Johnny appeared with zip ties as the two men began to restrain (y/n)’s shitty abuseive ex.

It wasn’t long before Simon’s focus was on her again as he looked at her.

“Ya’okay, mama?” Simon asked as Johnny held the man in place by sitting on him while also calling 999. It was a weird sight to see, but at the moment they were both heroes.

God bless their teamwork, it really made the dream work.

“Why the fuck is this bastard calling you mama? Are you pregnant with his kid?” (Y/n)’s ex snarled at her as the young woman jumped back a bit. She was terrified of the man, terrified of what he had done to her and what he would do to her, that’s why she ran. Now she was wondering who gave up her location. Was it her mama who had too sweet of a heart and was also afraid of the man? Wasit her papa who slipped up and made a mistake while he was arguing with the bastard? Was it her shitty ex friend who found out and then told him? Oh god, it was making her head swirl and her stomach heave.

She didn’t want to think about it, off the mind, off the body, and off the soul.

“If she was it wouldn’t fuckin’ matter to you mate.” Simon snapped. “Mama, let’s get you in another room.” Simon cooed softly as he guided her to the spare bedroom. “You’re not stayin’ alone no more.” Simon said softly. “Either I stay with you some nights or your stayin’ with me.” He was stern.

“Yes Simon.” She bit her lip as she looked at the man nervously.

“Don’t look at him mama, he’s not a threat to you.” Simon brushed her hair away. “Come one sweet girl, hide yourself away from his sight. I’ve got ya.” She curled into his arms hiding away from the man who was her ex and had caused her a lot of caution in all her relationships. Something that Simon was tearing down piece by piece.

Things soon turned into a big long fiasco. Police questioning (y/n), Simon after, and then Johnny at the very end. Asking them what had happened, maybe what his motives were. It was questioning her sanity. That was a fact. She was ready to go see if a bear really did shit in the woods.

“Come on mama, you're safe.” Simon cooed softly as she had a meltdown. Good thing the meltdown occurred in his arms after being questioned. “You're okay.”

Her mind was buzzing all night long. Thinking about the what if’s, the why’s, the maybe’s, and the not so much’s. Simon knew she needed to change her mind right now before she lost any sleep in this. So as he was corralling her into his room—after a very long night of fretting for her safety—he kissed her passionately on the lips.

She didn’t know how to react, didn’t know what to say. But it was very obvious how she felt when she kissed him right back.

They had finally shared their first kiss. One that was needed a lot sooner than when it had arrived.

(Y/n) felt like she was floating, maybe it was a bit too much with the day she had, but she didn’t care, she liked it. Liked his lips on hers as he kissed her so tenderly, so passionately.

He loved it, he loved how she melted against his embrace as his lips merged with hers.

The two were currently feeling things out, like is this what he wanted, is this what she wanted? Was she into it as much as he was into it?

Answer: yes!

Weeks had passed and the two would sleep off and on at one and another’s house. When they were sleeping in hers, they were at his. And when they weren’t at his, they were at hers. It was back and forth making sure she was safe and she was okay, she didn’t mind as it kept her close to Simon, and she liked to be close to the man. He was her big strong hero and she wanted to keep it like that.

We’re playin’ poker, mamas,” Simon said softly as he looked back at her. “Wanna play?”

“Never played before.” She came down the stairs looking at him confused. There was another woman standing in his home. It wasn’t Moria and Kaitlyn, Johnny’s sisters who would visit often. She seemed more put together unlike the fun Scottish sisters (y/n) enjoyed hanging with. “I can teach ya, mama.” Simon said softly his eyes twinkling as he wanted her to be seated right beside him.

“Is Moria and Kaitlyn here?” She asked softly.

“Oh lassie, their comin’ tomorrow.” Johnny added as he started to introduce the woman. “Has Simon introduced you two?”

“No,” (y/n) said slowly, always unsure about people in the beginning.

Simon had learned that when she had met Moria and Kaitlyn, she was fearful of people and it had to do with her ex who created that fear. Simon had learned real quick that he would feed her lies and fears so she would stick close to him and never leave like mother gospel did to Rapunzel.

“This is Farah, mamas,” Simon said softly. “She is the commander of the Urzikstan liberation force.”

Simon knew she had been on edge since her boyfriend and tried to force in a position she didn’t like. Her fear and constant needing to be on edge was her body keeping her alert and ready to run if she needed to. The thing was, she had nothing to fear when Simon was right here, he wasn’t going to let anything hurt her.

“She’s good friends with the 141.” Soap added as he smiled.

“Nice to finally meet you, they all say good things about you,” Farah smiled softly as she reached her hand out.

“Nice to meet you too.” (Y/n) said softly as she shook her hand looking back at Ghost, he had on his balaclava like always. “Can I watch?” She asked softly, sticking close to his side. Johnny and Farah left the house with a beer in their hands as they giggled and joked about something. Simon rested his large palm on (y/n)’s hip as he leaned forward and nuzzled his face onto her head.

“Good girl.” He said softly. She tensed up subtly liking the way he called her a good girl. It wasn’t something she ever thought she’d get to hear from him, but then again she wasn’t so sure why she thought she wouldn’t ever hear this, he was so sweet to her. “Gonna be my good luck charm, pretty girl?” He asked as she wasn’t so sure what to even say.

Yes?

Yes…

Yes!

“Maybe I could bring you good luck,” she smiled as she spoke softly following him out to the usual place they played poker in the middle of summer.

The two were seated so close to one and other it didn’t go unnoticed by the guests residing at the Riley residence. Soap who always sits beside Ghost was now sandwiching (y/n) in between the two large SAS soldiers.

(Y/n) had her leg lifted up and over Simon’s where he had tugged it as his large palm rested on her thigh rubbing her skin in a soothing manner. He wanted her calm and wanted her as relaxed as he could get her.

“Keep Johnny from cheatin’ and lookin’ at my cards, mama.” Simon hummed softly as she giggled nodding her head fighting Johnny off at times.

The night couldn’t go any better, it actually took a turn for the worse. All because of a simple slip up from Johnny and his terrible ways of phrasing things.

“(Y/n), lassie,” she looked at the Scottish man curious as to what he was going to say. “You got the LT running after you constantly saving your clumsy arse from things. When are ya gonna learn from him and care for yourself lassie?” (Y/n) froze up as she laughed nervously.

“Yeah, guess I do rely on him too much.” She fiddled with her lip.

‘Embarrassing, relying on Simon all the time. Embrassing and probably a hindrance.’ She thought in her head as Johnny continued to tease her. He wasn’t meaning to make her feel like shit, he was just play-teasing her. It wasn’t supposed to be taken in such a way where he was ridiculing her. She just panicked because she already felt like a problem. Simon was always rescuing her it had to be annoying.

‘Knew I was annoying.’ Her eyes got a bit glossy. She blinked a few times hiding them.

“Can’t have a big guy saving you all the time!” Johnny was a bit tipsy, he really didn’t mean anything ill about it. “Be a big girl and go take on the world a bit without Simon’s help, ya’, it’s not too scary.”

“Yeah.” She frowned slightly. “I-I’m sorry,” she looked up at Simon. “I-I’m gonna go to bed. Not feeling so good right now.”

“Lovie, don’t listen to him,” Simon said quickly. “He’s just drunk Dovie. You’re not a problem.” Simon nodded his head as he sat the cards down. “He’s a terrible joker when he’s drunk and doesn’t understand what he’s saying.”

“It’s okay, I’ve been a problem enough.” (Y/n) shut the cabana leaving the crew to hide in her house.

“Jesus Johnny!” Simon snarled conveying his anger at Soap.

“I’m sorry, mate, it was a joke.” Johnny uttered.

“Not a harmless one, now mamas is upset.” He was so protective of her. So madly in love with her.

So much so that when he found out she had locked him out of her house he tossed and turned all night not able to sleep. Worried she would need his help, he opened his windows and shut the AC off and listened Incase she called for him.

Meanwhile she was beating herself up for being so…immature. In her eyes she felt immature, felt so kiddish always needing rescued by some SAS soldier who was her neighbor.

“She won’t even come out and talk to me Johnny.” Simon snarled as he spoke to Johnny in his kitchen three days later. “What the fuck were ya’ thinkin’?”

“LT, it was a playful joke, everyone knows she’s a fully capable woman.” Johnny said softly.

“Yeah, well, now she avoids me like the fuckin’ plague.” Simon slammed the dishrag on the counter. He was having withdrawals, withdrawals from the most addicting drug he’s ever had in his life, (y/n). “What the fuck!”

“Let me go talk to her,” Johnny said calmly. “I’ll right my wrongs and things will go back to normal.”

Meanwhile she was in her head sitting on her bed trying to read a romance novel, but just not able to get into it.

‘He hates me, resents me, he can’t even have a relationship because I ruin it. Constantly needing his help. When was the last time he went on a date, pretty sure he went on them all the time before. I’m ruining his life.’ It went on and on in her head like this until a knock made it pause and she could hear Johnny calling for her at the front door.

“Lassie, m’sorry for what I said, I was trying joke in a playful manner but I made a hurtful joke.” Johnny was apologizing. “Open the door and we’ll talk. I owe you an apology in person.”

‘Don’t, he’ll make fun of you again, and Simon will be there and he’ll agree.’ Her mind shut her off as she hauled herself more into the bed. If she was quiet they wouldn’t know she was here…right? She hadn’t left her house the last three days, just got a shower are food and made sure nothing went wrong. When nothing went wrong it kept Simon away, and he could then find a social hour again and maybe find a woman he likes. Not some girl who screams and can’t take care of stuff on her own. Like killing a spider, the one from the shower. She was working herself up to killing it, just hasn’t been able to yet…it’s a work in progress…maybe.

She just kept her eyes on it and pleaded to any god that would listen not to let that bastard move while she was showing.

“Please let me see ya’, Simon’s about to break down this door and do a wellness check.” Johnny knocked louder.

“Johnny get the fuck out of the way!”

“No LT, she’s maybe coming downstairs, don’t kick it in!”

“Or maybe she fell down the stairs and has a broken limb…please not a broken neck, mama, I’m coming!” That was like his battle cry as Simon kicked down the door. He was like a new parent who locked his beloved kid in the car. He was in frantic mode.

(Y/n) could hear the crashing of the door biting off the wall. She jolted forward on the bed, she didn’t think he’d actually break it down. For god sakes she was just in boyshort underwear and a sports bra.

“Mamas!” His cries for her were getting loud as he stomped on the stairs and walked right into her bedroom like he owned the place. She stared confused, really not sure what else she should be feeling.

Her eyes met his brown ones as he let out a breath of relief.

Soap wasn’t too far behind as he fought his breath. “I’m so sorry lassie, I tried, I really tried.” Soap said as he was hunched over catching his breath from the hike up her steps. “We’ll fix your front door, we swear.”

Needless to say, that night her toes were curled while his toes were digging into his mattress to get better traction while he made her lose her mind.

That’s what (y/n) gets for making Simon worry like that for three damn days. He was claiming his stakes and his were her.

And when Simon was all done making her scream and cry, he rested beside her brushing her hair from her pretty sweat coated, tear stained face.

He had just gotten her all cleaned up while he looked at her proudly.

‘That’s my girl,’ repeated on his head while he smiled content.

“He’s right, you know.” (Y/n) broke the silence. “Drunk or not he was right, I need to learn to take care of myself.”

“The fuck you do,” Simon snarled as he nipped at her neck making her squeak in suspense. “Mama, I’m taking care of you from now on, that’s my god given duty.” He said while he kissed behind her ear. “Let me do my one and only duty I actually care about.”

“Okay,” she gasped out squirming a bit. “But let me learn to do some things, si.” She had never called him that before and his head shot up and he got the wild look in his eyes. He liked feeling her naked body below his squirming just like it had been a few minutes ago. He also really liked the fact that she called him Si, it made some gears churn in his head and he could feel his body buzzing and hearing up.

“I’ll let you try, but I’m gonna take care of ya’ at the end of the day.” He said sternly. “Like right now, lay down and call for me mama.” Simon trailed kisses up her neck,

“Simon,” she squeaked out in surprise but was quickly shut up as soon as her mind went blank from the rearing pleasure he was giving her. At this rate he was most likely going to break his own bed, but she wasn’t going to complain, not when she was on the receiving end.

On top of that, she was gonna be lucky if she could even walk tomorrow.

After a few days of trying to get Simon to back off a bit and let her learn how to handle some simple scenarios—not the spider in her bathroom that one was gladly done by Ghost. She was able to make it so Ghost wasn’t saving her twenty-four-seven.

He wasn’t being pulled away from poker games and things such as that.

She thought she had everything under control, until her faucet had fallen off in her sink as the water spewed everywhere. How she had no idea, it just popped off and chaos ensued.

She turned the water on and turned her back to grab her veggies she needed to wash and next thing she slowly processed that she was getting rained on and not from a leak in her ceiling. She went into instant panic as she turned around trying to shut the water off but it kept spewing.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” She cursed as she slipped on the puddle forming on her laminated flooring. She groaned and quickly shuffled to the cabinets pulling them open as she tried to shut the water off down there but she knocked something and it spewed in her face.

Well at least it wasn’t raining…now it was just gushing in her face. She squirmed back but the water quickly stopped. She was confused, but then her ears picked up on Simon’s loud steps coming from the basement. He shut all the water off to her house.

She crawled on her hands and knees away from the sink as she stood up. She was sipping wet and entirely embarrassed by the fact that she had made it worse and didn’t think of shutting the water off from the start.

Ghost stopped behind her glad his mask was on. He quickly averted his eyes for her respect trying not to turn his head again to look at her pretty black lace panties. Made something in his stomach churn in a good way, gave him butterflies. Though it was game over when she turned around, he couldn’t not gawk, a white shirt and water didn’t go well, especially when one wasn’t wearing a bra.

A sight to behold. Now in this moment, he’d be smacking Johnny and telling him to not look but he himself couldn’t look away.

It didn’t matter if (y/n) and Simon had already done the deed. He still tried to be respectful, especially since they weren’t dating yet and surely as hell weren’t married yet. It would be different in those scenarios.

“Thanks Simon,” (y/n) brushed her hair back as his eyes remained on her chest. Not the makeup she was wearing running down her face looking horrible but somehow still making her so pretty.

“Didn’t expect to get wet today, I see.” He couldn’t help but utter out. He wanted to slap himself and see his mouth shut. What an idiot, what an absolute idiot. He still couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “Not company also, it seems.”

She paused and took a minute to try and understand what he was saying.

“Yeah,” she snorted softly. “Not expecting any company, and not expressing to get w—“ she froze as she remembered she was wearing just her black lace panties and a white shirt that belonged to her ex who dumped her. It was a weird rock band shirt she had never heard of, but kept it because she could swim in it and liked to wear it on hot summer days—like today—and stay cool without having to wear a bra. “Don’t look!” Her screech was shrill and loud as she threw a towel at him. Simon had winxed as he quickly looked away.

“I’m an Idiot.” She uttered as she tried to walk past him to get a change of clothes. Ones that didn’t show her perky breasts when it got wet.

“Mamas,” Simon said softly with a bashful look in his brown, honeyed eyes. “I need you right now.” He said softly. “I’ll fix your leaking tubes, after…” she paused as she looked at Simon.

He what?

“What?” She asked embarrassed and flustered.

“Mama, don’t make me say it again.” He was also flustered.

“Say it.” She said softly. Her eyes lingered on his for a second.

“Mama, let me have you, please.” He looked at her. She could see his arousal not only in the physical action of his member but in his eyes. How they lingered in her body how they looked deep into her eyes showing his want and need for her.

He slowly walked up to her while staring at her back, he then put a hand on her hip and moved closer to her.

“Yeah, I want you…” he said in a low and gruff voice. His body was just behind her now. He then leaned down and put his face close to her ear. “Real bad.”

“Simon,” she was flustered as she felt his thumb rub her hips. She was red and embarrassed but she felt her own need pooling in her abdomen. It was a warm and tingly sensation, one he always pulled out of her.

He loved how her body reacted to his touch. Her breath hitched as she spoke his name. His large hand was still planted on her hip while his other hand came forward and put a piece of her wet hair behind her ear. “Say you want me too.” he whispered in her ear.

Her breath hitched as she gasped slightly, feeling his hands trail across her abdomen.

Her hands slowly found his hands as her fingers weaved into his large fingers. He breathed in her scent as he felt her small hands weaved through his much larger ones. He moved his lips up to her neck and gave it a light kiss.

“Tell me you want me…” he said again while his tongue traced her neck lightly.

She gasped as she felt his tongue glide across her skin. “Simon.” She gulped. She felt her mouth go dry as she tried to formulate a sentence.

He chuckled in her ear then gave her neck another light kiss. “Come on, baby girl, I know you want me too.” Ghost left a trail of light kisses up the side of her neck. He then grabbed her hips and pulled her back against him.

She could feel him pressed up against her, her eyes fluttered closed as small moans left her lips. She couldn’t think straight and she wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t find the words.

He let out a soft growl as he heard the little moans escape her lips. He couldn’t get enough and his lips left a trail of kisses on the back of her neck. “Can you feel how bad I want you?”

He pulled her hips back into him more. His body was now completely pressed against hers and she could feel the heat and want come off of him.

“Yes.” She said softly gasping as his large hands trailed her abdomen and slightly under her panties. Her hand was still grasping onto his as he held her sturdy against him slowly grinding against her.

He loved how her body reacted to his. Her soft little gasps and moans drove him wild and her body moving against his was driving him to the edge.

“You like that, sweetheart?” He murmured in her ear as his hand crept further into her panties. “You like how I’m touching you?”

Oh yes, yes she did. He was a god to her when he toyed with her like this.

“Please Simon, I-I…” she trailed off having always been bashful, but she knew Simon was a gentle lover as this wasn’t the first time the two had acted out of instinct. “I-I, want you t-too.” She gasped being at his mercy. “It feels good.” She whined.

He smiled against her neck as he felt his hand reach her most sensitive parts. Her body arching against him and her breath hitching as he made contact. He let out a soft growl as she told him that she wanted him too. The sounds she was making were driving him crazy. “Yeah?” He asked while he slowly started to apply pressure to her. “How bad do you want me mamas?”

She for this hips grind against her ass as she was being hit with so many pleasurable things. She almost felt dizzy and delighted all at the same time. “I-I…” she stuttered.

He bit down on her neck as she ground her hips back into him. He had to take a second to recover from the sudden movement before he started speaking again. His fingers started to circle her most sensitive part. “Mmm… you’re being so good for me, mamas… tell me how bad you want me.”

The man had skill, god did he have skill.

She arched as she tried to focus but his hands distracted her. She gasped and moaned as she couldn’t focus. She whined slightly as his hips still grinded against her.

Simon moved his lips from her neck to gently brush against her ear. “C’mon sweetheart….” he coaxed her again. “I need to hear you say how bad you want me.” He continued to move his fingers against her, slowly increasing the pressure as he heard her sounds getting more needy and desperate. His hips kept grinding against her, his grip on her waist keeping her against him.

“C-can’t think straight,” she uttered, feeling a bit dizzy and overwhelmed. Her head rested on his chest as her head was thrown back in ecstasy.

Simon chuckled softly and he heard the sound of her head falling back on his chest. Seeing her all flustered and a mess was such a turn on for him. He could hear how hard she was breathing and he could feel just how much her body was shaking. He continued to circle his fingers against her while his hips continued their slow but rhythmic motion against her. “I know you want me, mamas. I can feel how much you’re enjoying my fingers.”

“S-Simon, slow down.” You squeaked out. “C-can’t think—“ a deep moan interrupted her. “Bad.” She groaned out loudly. “So bad, Simon!”

Simon smiled as she had no choice but to surrender to him. He was having so much fun watching her struggle to form a sentence. It looked like the only words that came out of her pretty little mouth were his name and how bad she wanted him. “Mmm that’s it sweetheart, tell me just how bad you want me.” He could feel that she was starting to get close as she started squeezing around his fingers.

“So bad.” She pulled her hands away from his as her hand trailed up to her breast.

“That’s it sweetheart…” he could see her reaching up and he almost thought she was going to take his hand away, but as it moved higher he realized what she was doing. He was now breathing heavily as he watched her hand reach up to her chest. He slowly his grip on her waist, wanting to see how far her hand went on her own.

“Just like that.” She uttered as she bit her lip, eyes closing in euphoria. She started to lift her one leg up holding it there for Simon so he could feel her better. Her hand worked on her chest.

He grunted as he saw her leg go up. He grabbed her thigh and pushed against her more. He could feel her shaking in his grip and he could see how her body was losing all control. “F-fuck… mamas,” he mumbled in her ear while his fingers kept their steady movements against her. He pressed his lips to her neck again and started leaving a trail of kisses. “You’re so good, you feel so good.”

She could feel his fingers delve into her core.

She gasped and whined, her back arched as her head was thrown back. He leaned down and kissed your lips softly.

He pressed his lips firmly against hers and let out another low growl as he felt her arching against him. She looked so beautiful like this. In his arms, completely coming undone. He increased his pressure on her and continued his slow but firm circles around her core. He wasn’t surprised when she let out a needy moan against his lips.

“Simon!” she cried out. “Simon, I-i love you.” She gasped as the sensations were getting too strong for her to handle. She gasped when she realized she said she loved him, neither of them had said anything like this to the other before.

She almost felt embarrassed and could feel the pleasure dwindling down because she felt like she fucked up.

Simon froze as he heard her whimper out that she loved him. Never in their time being together had either of them said those words to the other. He was still holding her thigh up and his fingers were still touching her most sensitive parts, but he slowly removed his lips from hers and started to pull his hand away.

“What’d you just say…?” He asked gruffly as he looked at her.

Now she felt like she fucked up, she looked away bitting her lips. Tears welled in her eyes. Now she was being a big cry baby, how embarrassing.

She held them off as she tried to find the words to say. Did she say it was a mistake? Should she say she didn’t mean it when she really did mean every word she said. Did she come out and say she loved him again? It was all confusing.

Simon was completely taken off guard by her saying that. He knew they didn’t have any labels but what they had was more than just some casual fling.

He let go of her thigh and moved his hand to her chin. He grabbed her firmly and turned her head back to him so she’d look at him. He then reached up and brushed the tears away from her eyes. “Say it again, sweetheart…” he said softly as he looked into her eyes.

“I-I love you…” she said quietly.

“Again…” he said with more demand now. He needed to hear her say it again. He wanted to hear that she loved him over and over again. He moved his hand from her chin to cup her cheek and gently brush his thumb across it.

“Say it again, baby girl…” he repeated once more.

“I love you Simon,” she said with a bit more confidence.

A big and stupid smile appeared on Simon’s face as he heard her say it again. He leaned down and gave her a quick and soft kiss.

He then wrapped his arms around her and pulled her flush against him. “F-fuck…you...” His voice was barely above a whisper as he held her tight against him. He was obviously having a hard time finding the right words.

“I love you too, mamas.”

She felt her heart beat pick up at Simon’s words and also at the sight of Simon undressing.

Her eyes lingered in his body as she bit her lip. Her hands clung to her wet white shirt as she rang out the edges gently out of nerves and excitement.

Simon shrugged out of his shirt. The man’s physique was insane. A perfect mix of muscle and scar tissue. His eyes never left hers while she watched him and she could see the heat and need in them.

Simon looked at her and noticed that she was holding onto the edges of her shirt, he tilted his head slightly. “What’re you doing with that shirt, baby girl?” He asked curiously.

She looked down nervously at it, not sure what she should be doing seeing him stripped down into nothing.

He walked over to her and stood right behind her. He looked down at her. The shirt was practically see through but he was still disappointed there was anything blocking him from seeing her body. He pressed up against her. His chest against her back as she was once again very firmly pressed against him. He wrapped his arms around her and ran his finger up and down her arms. “Why aren’t you taking this off, sweetheart?” Simon asked quietly.

“T-take it off?” She asked softly, embarrassed.

He chuckled at her response. He was almost surprised she was so shy all of a sudden. Seeing her so embarrassed was a new but exciting feeling for him.

He leaned down in her ear and spoke with a low and gruff voice. “Yeah… I want you to take it off, mama. I want to see your body… all of it.”

She nodded as she slowly lifted the white shirt off, but it left her in her black lace panties.

As the shirt made its way over her head and her hair fell back he could finally see her. And god was she a sight to see. “Damn…” he growled quietly as he took in the view of her body. The way her curves were shaped, the way the lace hugged her body, everything. He took a moment to recover before he spoke again. “Turn around.” He commanded.

She did that, slowly turning around for him.

Once she finished turning around he just took a second to look at her. He had an almost wild look in his eyes as he looked her up and down.

He was practically salivating at the sight of her so he took a step closer to her. “You’re so damn beautiful, you know that?” He ran his hands up and down her arms. “Look at you. So good for me.”

“S-Simon.” She was so shy right now.

He smiled as she said his name and he saw how shy he was making her. It wasn’t often she was shy like this and he loved it. “You’re so damn cute when you’re all flustered and shy, baby girl.” Simon said with his gruff voice as he continued to run his hands up and down her arms. “And you’re so good for me,” he continued to murmur as he moved his hands down her sides.

She felt her breath hitch. If she wasn’t wet from the water, she would be soaked from his words.

He smiled as he could see she was really starting to get worked up based on the way her chest was heaving and he could hear her breathing getting heavier.

“Lay down for me, baby girl,” he said in a low voice. “Right here on the floor and I’ll take real good care of you.”

She felt the cold water touch her skin as she did as told.

He stood over her and stared down at her. Seeing her laying on the floor, her body now completely visible to him, was a stunning sight. He knelt down, his knee on either side of her legs, and positioned himself right above her. He didn’t move, he was just staring at her body. “God. You’re perfect,” he mumbled.

If it wasn’t for Simon and her nipples already being hard, the cold water would have done it as she gasped at the feeling.

Simon let his eyes take in her entire body as he knelt over her. Hearing her gasp when the cold water hit her skin was an absolute treat. “S-so damn cute…” he mumbled again as his hands slowly ran down her sides and came to rest on her thighs. He gave her a little squeeze before he continued his hands’ journey over her body.

He grabbed his shirt and bunched it up underneath her head as a pillow as he leaned down against her grinding his bare body against her clothed core.

Simon grunted as he felt his hips press against her. He continued the slow grind back and forth as he leaned down and kissed her, both of them still damp from the raining tap water that had spewed from her faucet about fifteen minutes ago. He could feel how warm and wet his body felt against hers. He continued to press his chest against hers and his hips continued to rub against her core. Both of their breathing was heavy at this point.

He then stopped as his fingers looped under her panties.

His fingers were looped around her panties and he was slowly pulling them down while she was still laying down beneath him. He leaned down to her ear and started to talk in a soft and low voice. “Lift your hips for me, baby girl…”

“Simon.” She gasped as she did as told.

He chuckled as he heard her gasp as she did what he told her to do. She was being so good for him right now. “That’s it…” he mumbled as he started to slide her panties down her legs. “God look at you. You’re so good for me, baby girl. So damn good.”

She felt his hands lift her thighs up some as he spread her legs taking a look at her. She squeezed her eyes shut as she felt embarrassed.

He looked down at her, taking in the view of her now completely exposed body. He had been anticipating this sight and it didn’t disappoint.

“Don’t close your eyes, sweetheart, open them for me…” he said in a gentle and soft voice. “I want to look at you.”

If she wasn’t throbbing before—trust me she was—she was surely throbbing now.

“Simon, you can’t say stuff like that.” She arched off the ground. As her hands reached for something of his.

Her arching her back had his chest pressed even closer against her and her hands reaching for him, searching for something on him, only turned him on even more. He chuckled, amused that he was making her so shy and embarrassed. But there was just something about it that made it more exciting. He slowly ran his hands back and forth along her thighs as he spoke to her. “Why not? I want to look at you, baby girl. You’re so damn Beautiful. I want to see all of you.”

She could tell this was a much more emotional and deeply bonding intimate moment then the time he had sex with her the night he broke her door down when she was hiding from him embarrassed at soaps drunk words about how she needed to learn to take care of herself.

This time around the two souls were bounding to one and another as he showed her sweet love. The love he wanted and could provide to her.

This time had been different than that night. It was a more emotional and intimate moment between them. They both knew how they felt about one another now.

Simon gently stroked her thighs, his hands moving slowly up and down her skin. He was completely captivated by her. He was captivated by the way her body reacted to his every touch. He moved his hands closer and closer to her inner thighs before running his thumbs across her core. “You’re perfect, you know that?”

He started gently kissing and biting his way up her body, his lips leaving a trail of kisses on her skin. When he finally got to her neck he spent extra time there before moving up and kissing the corners of her mouth before finally capturing her lips with his.

He slowly and gently started kissing her, his tongue gently tracing her lips, seeking entry. His hands were resting at the base of her head, his fingers playing with her hair.

“You really think so?” She asked as her hands rested on his waist.

“Yeah, I do think so.” He replied as he hovered over her, staring down at her as he replied. “You’re so goddamn beautiful, mammas. Every inch of you.”

“Simon,” she got so lucky having him. “I love you.” She said softly.

The way she said his name, he loved the way it sounded coming from her mouth. Every time she said it, he felt a sudden rush of feeling. Feeling he’d never felt before he met her.

He looked into her eyes, hearing the three simple words come out of her mouth again. Those three simple words were everything to him and he couldn’t hear them enough. “I love you, sweetheart, more than you’ll ever know.” he mumbled as he looked into her eyes.

She smiled as he sat up looking down at her core.

He was big and the two both knew it. She had gotten pretty good at adapting to him. But it still took her a bit to get used to his fit. He knew he needed to be gentle.

His finger ran up her core making sure she was slick enough, and she was. He didn’t have to worry there.

He leaned down and kissed her core before cooing at it.

He leaned down on her and let his lips touch her most sensitive area. He gave it a gentle kiss before he looked up at her. “So damn beautiful…” he muttered. “So sensitive for me, huh?”

“Only for you.” She nodded.

He chuckled as she responded to him. “Damn right it’s only for me.” He grumbled before he took another moment to admire the view. “God,” He groaned. “Every part of you is so perfect, but this…” he mumbled as he looked down at her core. “This is my favorite part.”

His lips touched it one more time. As she giggled at his words. “And here I thought your favorite part was my lips.” She teased softly.

His lips caressed her one last time before he lifted his head and looked at her. He chuckled a little as she teased him about his favorite part.

“You’re pretty cheeky today,” he said with a small smile on his face. “Looks good on you. But don’t kid yourself, sweetheart. I love a lot of parts of your body—your lips included.”

She giggled some more as his head rested on her thigh. He looked at her softly smiling. “You like the way she clings to you.” She said softly.

The sound of her giggling caused his smile to deepen. He could probably listen to it all day.

He chuckled softly and ran his hands along her thighs. “Mmm, I love the way she clings to me. It’s like she's begging me to never stop.”

“Don’t blame her, she knows what she likes.” She hummed as she arched her back feeling Simon leave a hickey on her thigh.

Simon didn’t look away from her thighs as he continued kissing and sucking the skin of her thighs before he left a big hickey on them.

He chuckled as he looked up at her and saw her arch her back. “Mmm, she’s a smart one, ain’t she?” He said in his gruff voice. “She knows I’m all about giving her what she likes.”

“Simon,” (y/n) gasped as her hands touched her chest.

Hearing her gasp his name and her hands coming up to touch his chest was enough to have him aching for her. He didn’t wait for another moment.

He moved out from between her legs and came to hover above her. He had a wild and lustful look in his eyes as he looked down at her. “Say my name again…” he said hoarsely.

“Simon,” she chanted like a prayer as her head lulled back and forth. She felt his member poke at her.

The way she said his name, each time she said it was like she was chanting it, praying to it. It had his body on fire, the need for her was almost painful.

He leaned down and positioned himself right between her legs, his member rubbing her core, teasing her. It was a grinding motion and it was enough to make her squirm underneath him. “Again…” he growled softly.

“Simon.” She gasped out, eyes opening up to look at him as her head was thrown back and she arched.

As she said his name again, her eyes opening and looking up at him, the arching of her back, the gasping as she was on the edge, it was all driving him crazy.

He placed a hand underneath the small of her back and slowly started to press forward. “Again…” he said huskily. “Say. My name.”

“Simon,” it was more blissed out than before. She was gonna reach ecstasy if he kept teasing her like this.

The way she said his name this time, it sounded like she was completely lost in the bliss of the moment. It only drove him wilder.

He held his hips in place, continuing to tease her but not fully giving her what she wanted. “Just say it one more time, baby girl and you’ll get what you want.”

“Simon Riley.” She sighed, cupping his face as she brought his lips closer to hers kissing his lips and then trailing down his jaw. “Please, I need you.”

Hearing her say his name as she took his face in her hands and trailed kisses down his jaw, hearing the need in her voice as she said she needed him, finally pushed him over the edge.

He grunted, his body stilling for a moment before he moved, finally giving her what she was begging for. “I got you, baby girl. I got you right here…” he muttered before his lips met hers.

She felt the pressure as she arched her back. She moaned. Her eyes rolled back in her head.

“Ah, fuck, Simon.” She groaned out.

The noise she made when he entered her made his body ache with need for her. He had never heard anything so good.

He grunted as he felt her arch her back and felt her tighten around him. “Fuck—baby girl.” He gasped. “You’re so damn good for me, so good…” he muttered. “Mamas, that’s it. Take it, atta girl.” He gasped as her pussy fit him so well as he moved at a slow pace. “She’s just eager to greet me, eager to take me. Atta girl, mamas. Spread those legs.” She did as asked. “Mamas pretty girl is just sucking me in.” Ghost groaned.

He cooed to her more as he talked her through the pleasure and pain making her heart swell with love at his actions.

He started moving his hips, slowly and softly at first. He wanted her to get used to the feeling.

He leaned down and placed his arms next to her head so that he was hovering over her. “Shhh—just breathe, baby girl, I got you… you feel so damn good, so damn good.”

She could tell she was losing him to pleasure. She tried to ground him, but her core tightened on him when he hit a certain depth.

When she tightened around him he let out another low moan. He was getting completely lost in the feel of her.

He grunted as his movements started to get quicker and more sloppy. “W-wait baby girl… slow down…” he muttered as he was still trying to ground himself.

“Simon, you’re the one moving.” She mewled and arched.

He grunted when she said his name and she started to wither underneath him.

He realized she was right, he was the one moving. He slowed his movement down, trying to make them more softer and more controlled.

“Sorry, sweetheart, you just feel so damn good…It’s hard for me not to lose control.” He paused for her as she clung to him. His one arm lifted her thigh above his shoulder.

When he finally got completely buried inside her he had to stop himself again. He needed a moment. Being completely inside her felt that good. He grunted and his head hung down for a moment, trying to control his breathing. “Oh fuck!” he mumbled before he picked up his head and looked deep in her eyes.

He looked down at her and saw her eyes closed and a smile on her face. Even just the expression on her face was enough to bring him pleasure. He grunted and started moving his hips again. Starting off with a slow and controlled rhythm.

“You like that, baby girl?” He asked her in a low voice.

Her toes curled and her body pulsed and buzzed with heat. That should have been a good enough answer.

“Yeah,” her eyes rolled back in her head as she arched. “Right there Si!” She begged.

When she said his name again and arched back and begged for him to keep going, it only made him pick up the pace. He needed to hear her say his name again and again. “I got you baby girl. I’m gonna take real good care of you…” he mumbled and he started to thrust faster, making sure to hit the spot that made her say his name louder.

“Simon,” she gasped. “Oh god, so good.” She kissed his jaw with hit open mouthed kisses leaving a hickey here and there.

He panted as he continued to move his hips, each of her gasps and every whine and moan that escaped her lips only pushing him forward. He couldn’t even think, all he wanted was to hear her moan his name more.

“That’s right baby, keep saying my name.” He groaned, his head tilted back, exposing his neck more of her kisses.

Her hands dug into his biceps as she closed her eyes panting, “Simon, can’t think right.” She gasped.

The ecstasy was getting to both of them as they both had blissed out looks in their faces and their eyes couldn’t pull away from one and another.

He groaned and grunted as he felt her fingers digging into his arms. He couldn’t think straight either, all he could focus on was the way she was making him feel.

“Don’t think, baby girl,just let go.” He gave her a sloppy kiss. “Feel me inside you…hmm? Feels so good, right?” he mumbled through his moans.

She wasn’t sure if she could even find the words at the moment as she felt his hands grip the back of her head as his face rested against hers. He was being so sweet to her like usual.

He was completely lost in her. The way she felt around him, the way she gasped and moaned his name, the way she dug her fingertips into his arms. Everything about her drove him crazy. He wanted to give her everything. He wanted to show her how she made him feel. She was so damn perfect.

He grunted into her ear as he held her head up to him, their faces were pressed against each other as he continued to move inside her. “You feel so damn good, mamas. I need you so bad—only you.”

She gasped at that.

“How do you do it?” She uttered as her lips touched his as she spoke against them.

He kept his face pressed against hers, his voice was gruff as he spoke. “Do what?” he muttered as he continued to move his hips forward. He had a feeling he knew what she was going to answer, but he needed to hear her say it. “How do I do what, baby girl?”

She took a minute as she groaned and gasped feeling the intense pleasure.

He grunted as she gasped and their lips touched. Even a soft touch from her lips to his was enough to break his heart and heal it all at once.

He continued to thrust into her, a little faster this time, getting closer to his release. His body was on fire for her.

“How do I do what?” he breathed out, panting as he spoke to her. A few strands of his hair were sticking to his damp forehead.

“H-how—oh god—how do you make it feel so good?” She uttered. “How do you know all the best places to touch me and…” she groaned, trailing off as her body shook from ecstasy.

He chuckled a bit when she began to speak, then cut herself off with a moan. The way her body shook when he hit that right spot was one of his favorite things.

“Do you really think there’s a place on your body where I haven’t kissed or touched, baby girl?” he responded to her. He grunted as he continued to roll his hips. “I do it because I know you like it, I need to touch you. I need to hear you moan so bad.”

She was falling apart in his arms and it was driving him crazy. Seeing her struggling to speak because of the pleasure made him grunt when her body shook, the tightness around him making his body react to her.

“Simon,” she arched. The puddle they were laying in made things slippery still, but not enough to deter Simon.

When she arched her body he let out a moan and grunted loudly.

How was she even real? How did he ever manage to get her into bed with him?

The sound of her core as he moved inside her was like music to him. It was perfect. She was perfect.

Hearing her say his name again, caused his pace to quicken. “Say it again,” he panted out to her. “Say my name, sweetheart.”

“Simon,” she rocked with him gaining some friction. Her arms wrapped around his neck pulling him tighter to her.

Her could feel her perky nipples brush against his stimulating the two of them more.

Simon grunted as her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him closer to her body.

He was completely surrounded by her. Her scent, her voice, her touch, her taste. It was all driving him crazy.

“God,” he grunted as his eyes looked down at her while his hips rolled. Her flushed face was Divine, her parted lips made him want to devour her mouth, and her breathy words and moans made him feral. “You feel so good, baby girl. So damn good.” He mumbled against her skin before he pulled his head back and looked her in the eyes, continuing to pant as he spoke. “Look at me.” His words were hushed and breathy as he was feeling the heat of everything.

Her eyes met his as she gasped and panted squirming a bit underneath him as he kept hitting that specific spot with his hips rolling. She knew that he knew that was her G-spot.

Watching her react as he kept hitting that sweet spot with his hips made him smile. How was she so perfect?

He loved making her gasp and moan his name. It was addictive.

He grunted as his hips moved into hers a little harder. “You know I love it when you look at me, sweetheart. I could never get tired of seeing those beautiful eyes.”

“Having a man as highly addicting as you, telling me that—“ her head was thrown back as immense pleasure rolled over her body. “It just does something to me.” She whined scratching down his chest as his biceps now caged in her head.

The way her head was thrown back and the loud whine that she made caused goosebumps to rise on his skin. It was so damn good watching her fall apart because of him. He grunted and panted as her fingernails scratched down his chest. She left behind little red lines.

Looking down at her, seeing all her perfect features, how did he get so damn lucky with her?

“Does it, now? What does it do to you, baby girl?” he asked her through his grunts and pants.

“It makes my body feel on fire.” Her cunt tightened.

The feeling of her pussy tightening around him was something he knew he would never get tired of. He grunted and groaned as the feeling combined with her words, making him move faster.

“I’m on fire for you too, baby girl.” He grunted out to her. “I’m on fire for you all the time. You drive me crazy.”

“Yeah?” She cupped his face brushing the sweat away.

He leaned into her hand as she cupped his face. Even just a little touch like that had him aching for her. He let out a soft moan and nodded his head before he looked into her eyes. “Yeah,” he mumbled, panting and grunting. “I’m crazy for you, mamas. All the damn time, you don’t even know. I’m just trying to control myself from losing it for you all the time.”

Her hand touched her chest as her other hand touched his swirling around his nipples. It sent him into a tizzy.

When her hand touched his chest and her hand went to his nipple, he let out a loud moan. It was sensitive for him as well. He arched his back a little bit and let out a shaky gasp. “God, fuck! You’re gonna break me, baby girl. You know how sensitive I am there,” he grunted.

“Sorry.” She didn’t stop though, she kept rubbing and flicking with both hands now. So, his thumb found her clitoris and rubbed it in smooth circles.

He chuckled when she said she was sorry, but didn’t stop. It felt too good for either of them to stop.

He let out a low moan as his breath was shaky.

Her rubbing the sensitive skin of his nipple and running his thumb over her clitoris had them both whimpering. They were both really sensitive to each other’s touch.

His face hung down as he let out a loud groan. “Don’t be sorry, baby. I love it.” He hummed. “You’re just driving me crazy though.” He lifted his head and looked into her eyes, his own eyes looking very dark with desire.

“Simon,” she cooed softly. He didn’t think it was possible but her legs spread even more.

When she spread her legs more, taking him deeper, it got a loud moan out of him, and he buried his face in her neck. “Fuck, mamas, fuck,” he panted out against her skin. “You’re going to be the end of me if you keep this up. Can’t think straight when I’m with you like this. I’m addicted to you, maybe I’m obsessed with you.” He nipped at her neck.

“That feels good for you Simon.” She cooed softly as her back arched. “Feel so good, hmm?” She brushed a hand through his hair.

He groaned into her neck as her words. “It feels so damn good, mamas. Never felt like this with anyone.” Those words made her feel like she was soaring. “I need you, mamas. Always. All the damn time.” He growled out as his hips rolled into her faster. “No one else. ” he mumbled against her skin. He panted and grunted, continuing to move his hips. “Need you so damn bad. I’ve never wanted or needed anyone so damn much as I need you, baby.”

His words could push her over the edge, but add the sex itself and she was driven mad by the end of it.

She felt her abdomen tighten as her release was coming. She clung to him as her moans and breath got faster and louder. She couldn’t think straight, she couldn’t even see straight. Her eyes focused on Simon as she called out his name like a prayer to some god who she had devoted her whole life to. Simon was her god and she would devote her life to him if he asked.

There it was. His favorite sound.

He loved it when she said his name. He never could tire of hearing it, especially when she said it like that.

He panted and grunted as she panted and called out to him. Her body was clenching around him tightly, her walls squeezing him as her release approached.

He could feel her body reacting to him, how tight she was getting… and it made his mind go blank. Nothing else mattered to him. It was the end for him. He couldn’t keep it together anymore. Hearing her call out his name and feeling her squeeze him was too addicting.

“Oh god mamas.” He kissed her lips. “I’m close…

so damn close.” Every moan and every gasp she let out as he kept moving his hips was like music to his ears. He was addicted to the sound of her voice and saying his name was like a drug. His most addictive drug.

Then the bough broke. She could feel the flood gates release and her whole body was in euphoria. Was that a god before her? A god that made love to her in no ways a mere mortal could.

When she came, her body arching underneath him, it was all he needed. Feeling her squeezing him, listening to her moan his name, all of it sent him over the edge.

The curve in her back as she arched against him chanting and praising him through a prayer of his name.

He let out a loud and shaky moan as his body tensed, his release overtaking him. He buried his face in her neck.

“Oh god!” He growled as his thrusts were uneven just trying to ride though his own orgasm and hers. “Oh fuck mamas, that’s all you baby, that’s all you! Fuck!” he growled into her skin.

He continued to twitch as his body tried to ride through his release. He was gasping for air, his face still buried in her neck. She wasn’t in any better shape.

“God, mamas, never felt anything like that before.” he mumbled in between breaths, his body still shaking.

She let out a wail of a moan as she stopped twitching herself.

The sound of her moan made him shiver, he could have sworn she could have him coming again with a sound like that.

“Bloody hell,.” He muttered as his body went a little weak on top of her. “You’re gonna be the death of me, baby girl, I swear to god.” He chuckled.

He looked down at her smiling face and gave a weary smile back at her. He was so tired but seeing her smile just made his heart melt.

He started to kiss her face softly, peppering her forehead, cheeks and nose with gentle kisses. He was praising her. His perfect and beautiful baby girl.

“Okay, mamas, let’s get you cleaned up.” Simon picked her up softly carrying her up the stairs knowing she would need to relax. Aftercare was important to him and he was going to run her a nice warm bath while he fixed the faucet. He returned after about an hour.

“Such a good mamas.” He cooed softly as he found her sleeping in the tub. “Faucets all fixed mamas.” He cooed as he kissed her forehead watching her stir awake.

“Thanks, Si.” She smiled. “Let’s call takeout.”

“Good idea, mamas.”

Needless to say, if you asked her what it was like being neighbors to the 6’4 SAS soldier she would have three words to describe it.

‘Pleasurable’, ‘greatful’, and ‘hers’.

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

CAT-EYES

PAIRING: Runaway Groom!John 'Soap' MacTavish x F!Thief!Reader

SYNOPSIS: What begins as a normal day of stalking the back road for wealthy carriages, turns into a walking nightmare spanning three days. Who is this finely-dressed man stumbling about your woods?

WORDCOUNT: 13.3k

WARNINGS: Blood, injury, light gore, pining, intense banter, sarcasm, insults, kind of enemies-to-lovers but eh, angst, protective!John, light hurt/comfort, bittersweet?, etc.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

You were sitting in the branches again.

Lightly swinging your legs from over the sides, the rough bark at your spine shifted as you let out a tiny sigh into the chilled air. In your ears, you’re hearing the bugs fly past, and the large hart about fifteen feet away pushing through the undergrowth—built body just barely there as the puff of his hot breath wafts upwards. 

Twirling the arrow between your fingers, your bow sitting carefully in your lap, you close your eyes and listen. 

The years had come and gone and yet you remained here in this small corner of nowhere—resting in this old gnarled oak tree with its branches and leaves giving protection from the elements when nothing else would. Sure, you had a small home to call your own in these very woods, but your windows didn’t give a view of the back road to the East. Barely anyone took it now, and you think you’re partially to blame for it, but, well, perhaps those pesky nobles shouldn’t have been too prone to flashing their coin.

So it was their fault, and on your failing honor, the money always went to a good cause anyway. Who wouldn’t want a poor woman to eat?

But, no. There are rules that every thief follows, no matter how unsavory. You never killed anyone; you never harmed them, either. Just the money—a brandished dagger or an arrow to the side of a carriage wouldn’t hurt anything besides pride, and many of those you stole from had enough to last them multiple lifetimes. 

“Greedy fellows,” you sigh under your breath before you stretch like a cat, arching your spine and spreading your arms high above your head. The few rays of sun you get through the leaves dance across your face, but still, the thick layer of cold air is present all around. 

Shuffling a bit in your shoulder-wrapping, you yawn and fall back once more—licking your lips and thinking of warm stew and fresh bread from the inn down in the town. Shivering, your fingers move to play with your bow, tapping along the bend of wood as the trees are brushed by a soft breeze. The hart below huffs louder still—hooves crushing across the fallen twigs, and you think it’s a bit strange the thing is still here despite your scent clearly in the air, but your eyes are more focused on the road than an animal. 

Until it speaks.

“Hells fuckin’ bells, this damn get-up is going to be the death of me,” the words are barked out quickly—laced with heated anger as a branch is slapped by heavy hands.

Startling, your head snaps below you rapidly; heart jerking inside of your chest so suddenly that you nearly send yourself off the side of your perch. Scrambling for your bow to make sure it doesn’t clatter to the dirt of the Earth, you force down a loud gasp at what you see. 

“Bastard things,” meets your ears as you stare open-eyed at a bulky man as he stumbles out into the small clearing below your tree, looking behind him as he pants. Your jaw goes slack at the extravagant apparel clothing this sudden stranger—a red, black, and blue tartan thrown over his shoulder, pinned with the silver image of a great boar head, and the kilt has more than one bramble stuck into it as it swishes with his turn. 

He has a sporran as well, made of dark furs with three tassels hanging, the metal also silver, as your experienced eyes can tell as they narrow in confusion. 

“What in the hell…” You breathe quietly, leaning just a bit more over the edge of your branch slowly. 

There were black belts and buckles, rich shoes of leather, and your gaze slowly drags to the hanging body of a sword strapped to his waist, swinging as the man rests his feet and looks down at himself with a deep annoyance. There wasn’t an inch of him not coated in dirt, mud, or sweat—all that deer-ish panting and huffing escaping his mouth in condensed clouds. 

“Fuckin’,” he stops himself from continuing the curse, holding up his hands as he glares down at his form. “Jesus, this’ll never come out at this rate.” 

This comment made your lips twitch, eyebrow-raising as your sharp vision filtered from one detail to the next—learning the brown shade of his cut hair and the strange way it’s kept long down the center, and short along the sides. He had a strong build to him, and the boar broach, while it may be something to distinguish a family line as he seemed wealthy, perfectly reflected the individual. 

He was a being of muscle and stubborn willpower. All tusk and bristled fur.

Your eyes linger a bit longer on the silver of that broach—the thing that glints in the light alluringly. You hum under your breath, tilting your head softly. Yet, your impression was made, and your wits are about you as sharply as they always had been.

This was a formal outfit, for a formal occasion. So, why was this important man trampling through the woods where you were set to ambush the next unassuming noble on the road? Why was he looking over his shoulder so tense-like? Your curiosity had piqued the second you’d figured out the rabid crunching from the bushes wasn’t a deer but instead, a wealthy-looking man who wasn’t, you admitted, too hard on the eyes. 

Blinking, you smile, fingers twitching over your bow as the stranger brushes his vest rapidly, growling down at the large mud stains. 

“Lost, then?” Your voice makes him startle, skull whipping forward to the tree trunk until you whistle and lean forward; moving your bow to push away the cover of leaves. “Up here, now,” blue eyes immediately lock with yours and you hum, chuckling, at the moment of shock that shines through. “Poor bastard, look at you and all that mud. You’ve been through hell, mate, eh? By the state of you, I’d say you fought a bear and found yourself at the end of an unfortunate outcome.”

Your words are smooth—nearly sly just as they always are. There’s intent leaking out of every one of them until all that remains is a layered purpose, like that of a butcher peeling away flesh from a hide. You have to process that skin: lay it to a rack to let it dry before it can be stretched to the desired firmness, and, finally, softened.

You took as much pleasure in the mental hunt as you did the payoff. Where there’s money to be earned, there’s also knowledge—you were a thief of all. 

The man watches you with wide eyes, those blues glinting as they blink, glancing around rapidly to check for any others like you that may be hiding. He steps back, a hand brushing his sword, and you think to yourself slowly, he’s smart. 

You breathe down chilled air. Before he responds he checks to make sure it’s not an ambush—the man understands he’s out of his element here. He’s on edge. 

The both of you stare at one another, before your face shifts, brow-raising up on your forehead. 

“What, did I startle you?” Legs looping to hang off the same side, your body feels lighter than a feather as you send yourself over the edge, knees taking the brunt of the force as your head catches up to your stomach—grunting as you hold your bow heavily in one hand. The jostle moves the limbs of your arrows, kept in a quiver at the small of your back. 

Standing fully, you huff and set an easy smile to your lips, all teeth.

“My apologies, Lord.” Your free hand finds your heart, and you bend your spine forward. “I couldn’t help but see you down here below my tree.”

“Best to stay where you are,” the stranger grunts, only giving you enough of a glance to deem you unthreatening, apparently. Your form straightened. He watches you warily on the next go-around, attention always drifting to every snap of a twig off into the trees or the breeze shifting the leaves. “No need to apologize,” is the hurried reply, caught on a rough accent and a hissed gravel huff. “I’ll be on my way once I get my bearings. I don’t have time for conversation—and you should find your way home before long.” Eyes dart. “It isn’t good to be out today...or tonight, I’d say.”

If possible, your intrigue gains strength like a saint in Heaven. 

The man’s square face raves in a clench of his jaw, tongue darting out to wet his lips.

“Are you sure you’re not lost, Lord?” You continue, undeterred, and shift your bow to sling it over your shoulder. “I live in these woods, I’d have no trouble directing you to the road. It isn’t far.”

“It’s John,” he grunts, glancing over, out of sorts. He was tired—his limbs were shaking with exertion even if he didn’t realize it yet. You think that perhaps if he were more focused, he’d ask why a woman had just landed in front of him from the branch of an Oak; dressed in trousers and a tunic, with just a woolen wrap to keep out the chill. Dirt over her face and a cunning edge to her words. Or, maybe he did know, you wondered, and simply didn’t care at the moment. 

“Just call me Johnny. And,” he shakes his head firmly. “No. Go home to your husband, Bonnie, this doesn’t involve you.” He blinks, staring with a line across his forehead, stubble pulling along his cheeks. “I know this place—there’s a road just to the…” he turns his head to the direction of your trail, blinking at the coverage of thick foliage. “Fuck,” the dark-haired stranger growls, blues sparking up in a feral display of desperate weight. 

You can only see the winding bends if you have a vantage point—that was why you chose your tree in the first place. Your smile grows.

“It’s that way, Lord,” you breathe, pointing in the opposite direction of the road, back to the small path of brambles and bushes that leads closer to your home instead. “We pass my property on the way, I can offer you some drink for your troubles.” A chuckle wafts the air. “You look like you need it.”

There’s a large moment of hesitation, in which you begin to wonder if this prize might be too big to catch, but, then, as there’s a flash of something over John’s face, he grits his teeth and sighs. 

“Aye, fine,” he nods, looking to the side as he lowers his tense shoulders and clears his throat. You’re offered a sincere expression that borders on strained guilt. “Thank you, Dearie. I…” John pauses, frowning. “I hope I didn’t scare you too much when I burst through the trees like that—I’m in a bit of a rush if you can’t tell. I need to make for the shore.”

“My,” you huff, shifting your body and motioning him to follow—he does, setting his feet carefully ahead of him with experienced movements; keeping a respectable distance away. Johnny wasn’t new to the woods, then. He knew where to place his feet, at the very least. “The shore? That sounds exciting.” You conclude, hiding your creased brows as you stare forward. “Making for the South? I’ve heard handfuls are leaving for the weather.”

Looking over your shoulder, you make sure he keeps on your trail as you push through the bushes. “More agreeable, they say. Less rain.”

John chuckles, though he’s still visibly aware of everything around him. He spares you a look, a small smirk taking over his slightly chapped lips. “Keep talkin’ like that, and I just might.”

You’re surprised by the genuine laugh that fights in the back of your throat. Humming under your breath, you shrug it off as simply as a dog does a fly. It was painfully obvious neither of you trusted the other. 

John’s eyes were stuck on the back of your head, and yours were eager to slide back to his form on the off-chance you had to use the dagger strapped to the meat of your thigh, carefully hidden under your trousers and accessible via a cut in your pocket. He was all muscle, and already you know that any attack coming to you would be unwise to try and retaliate—slash and retreat was a much better escape plan. 

You could outrun him.

“So,” your words bleed curiosity, eyes imploring as you glance over your shoulder. “Why are you out in the woods, Johnny? In such a nice outfit as well. Is there something going on around here?” 

The dark-haired man tilts his head your way, sighing long. “A wedding, actually. Horrible thing, if I have to comment on it.” 

Your lips twitch. 

“Oh, aye. I’d heard about it in town not two days ago—something about a marriage of advantage? Who was the unlucky pair, then?”

John clenched his jaw, hand coming up to push at the smear of dried blood on his cheek, which you’d just noticed wasn’t dirt and instead the result of a branch slap. Pale cheeks were wind-bitten. Lungs heavy. You narrow your gaze before stopping the surge of questions in your mouth. 

“Some poor bastard, that’s who,” he responds slowly, mostly under his breath, before blinking. “How much further is the road, Dearie? No offense,” he grunts, staring seriously at you “but I'd rather not be here for much longer.”

The boar broach winks at you.

“Not far,” you smile coyly. “Forgive me, Lord John—”

“Just Johnny—”

 “—But I do hope you’re not a fugitive.” 

Blue eyes widen, sure feet faltering. 

“.... Negative, Bonnie, no, I’m not running from the law. You don’t have to worry about any of that with me,” he breathes, and not once does he look away from you. You have to commend the man, he seemed an honest fellow, and those, you knew, were very rare indeed in your time. “I just need to get out of these woods. You’ll never hear from me again after I’m gone.” He takes a breath, looking past you. “You have my word.”

“Is it worth believing?” You push, smirking. “There’s few dressed like you that I can say it is.”

John licks his lips as you both pass a fallen tree, standing more side by side than previously now that the density of bushes had dispersed. He huffs, sending you a side-eye before he seems to study your face, brows pulling jokingly. 

“I don’t think my answer would make much of a difference, would it?”

You pause, enjoying this man’s company more by the second. “No, it wouldn’t.” The both of you stare, before you grin and pull your sharp gaze away, chuckling. “Follow me,” you motion a hand. “Before you fall into a mud pit and completely ruin what little is left of your outfit that’s sellable—” You fumble, faking a cough as you clear your throat and finish off with tension now in your spine, “Salvageable.”

“If I’m bein’ honest, Bonnie,” Johnny grumbles, either not noticing the mistake or simply not registering it. “I wouldn’t fuckin’ care if it got covered in horse shit.” 

—

You open the door to your home, shifting out of your bow and setting it against the wall with your quiver following to rest beside it as two siblings should.

“You’re lucky,” you hum, “I just went to the well this morning—freshwater is in the basin, cups on the table.”

John’s eyes give a firm once-over, fingers fidgeting above his sword’s hilt. He nods once, moving into the doorway, and immediately goes to where you describe and grabs onto a carved cup, tilting it in his hands. 

“Thank you,” he mutters sincerely, hand dipping into the collection of water. “Eh,” John puffs a laugh, “I’d imagine I would still be stumbling along if it wasn’t for you, little Lady. These woods are larger than I remember them.” 

“You come from around here?” You ask, brushing down your wool wrapping as you pull at the burs in the fiber. “Don’t recall your face in the town, though I’m not there often.”

“Hm,” he takes down the water, and you watch his Adam’s Apple bob as droplets slip from his lips to drop off his chin. Once he had drunk the entire cup, he removed it and wiped at his mouth with his forearm, blue eyes peeking above it. “I…wasn’t in town usually. Not really my place—the forests outside of my property took most of my attention.” He confesses, head tilting as the strange cut of his hair flops along with his skull. “Those, I could run blind.”

“I’m sure,” you puff a laugh.

While the air was somewhat calm, there was still an underlying hesitancy: Johnny didn’t know who you were, and you didn’t know what he was running from. Both were important questions that needed to be answered. Yet, John seemed the casual type.

“Doubt me?” His eyes narrow, a smile brewing. 

“I never said that,” you walk past him, also grabbing a cup before dipping it into the basin. Your finger points. “But it would be interesting to test.” 

“Unfortunately,” John breathes, setting down his cup, “I’m occupied at the moment.”

“A groom would be,” you tilt your head, casually sipping at your drink. “Your wife must be fucking fuming right now.”

The room flips on itself, and the man is instantly frozen. 

Johnny stares, shocked, and you see his feet instinctually ready a stance to either blot to the door, or to take up his sword. His expression is layered with secrecy.

“...What was that?”

“I said your wife must be fucking fuming,” you say louder, slipping your hand into your pocket and shrugging to make it seem meaningless—your dagger’s hilt is smooth under your flesh. “Or did you not finish the ceremony? Betrothed, then, Johnny Boy?” Your eyes glint. “Hell, the event must have been absolutely laced with wealth. Did you have wine imported? New fabrics for your wedding clothes? I’d almost be disappointed if you didn’t.”

“That’s none of your business, Dearie,” he levels, glare heavy and firm while his face is stoic. You can clearly see his body wound up like a wild dog. “I think we’re done here.”

He backs up quickly, legs taking him to the exit until you’re suddenly right behind him, and the man feels the sharp press of a blade into the back of his spine.

Your lips are at his ear, and you chuckle. “Sorry, but we’re not done until anything valuable is in my hands and not on your body.” 

“If you wanted me naked,” he growls, glaring from over his shoulder, as his form is rod-straight. “You could have just asked, Little Thief.”

“I’d call it heavy persuasion,” you chuff. “Sounds better, don’t you think.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Johnny barks, teeth gnashing. “Put the knife down before this gets ugly.”

“I’m not entirely sure I want to,” your answer meets the air. “There’s enough silver and fine fabric on you to feed me for an entire winter, even when the deer move to better grounds.” 

John grits his molars, his neck bent as his fingers twitch at his sides, slipping along to his sword slowly. 

“Money? That’s why you’ve got a bloody blade on me? Christ, my day just keeps getting better and better.” You glare, anger moving behind your eyes. 

“Some people have to work for what they want, you—” Your hand is slapped to the side as John spins, and your dagger is sent along the floor in a loud clatter; a hand finding your upper arm as you gasp, and, suddenly, there’s the chilled edge of a blade at your throat. 

Wide-eyed, you gape at John as the man smirks at you, yet his orbs are infected with annoyance. 

“When you draw a knife on someone, you best know how to use it.” The edge is slightly pressed deeper and your body refuses to move. “You put it at the neck, Cat-Eyes.” John frowns, glaring. “Knew there was something about you—down to the bow and arrows.”

“What,” you growl out, a low embarrassment stemming in your gut as John’s puffs of breath move along your face. Your face burns, and your fingers jerk with anger. “A woman can’t have hobbies?”

“Not when I find ‘em up trees waiting to ambush any bastard that comes by wearing silver.”

“Mate,” you sneer, eyes glimmering. “At this point, you can keep your damn silver. It’s more of a reward to watch you stumble like a fool through the woods five feet from the road.” Johnny’s face tightens, yet there’s little time to fight like children anymore when the sound of breaking branches is echoing off the windows of the house.

Both of your necks whip to the door, yours a great deal more carefully as you’re slightly nicked by the sword's edge, but the drip of blood is voided. High voices carry over the air.

“Find him!”

“His tracks lead through here—get the hounds on it!”

“Here!”

Your brow raises, smirk getting larger as you chuckle under your breath. “Better get on your way quickly, then.” 

“Shut the fuck up,” Johnny snarls, all at once ripping his sword from your neck yet keeping his ruthless grip on your upper arm. He looks nervous now—his eyes jumping from one place to another, thinking. “Where’s the damn road, you minx.”

You shrug, eyes sharp. “What road, Lord?”

The strong man rages, eyes burning with a thousand suns as the sword is taken from your neck and re-sheathed in one motion—a second hand staples itself to your waist, gripping tightly. You blink, saliva swallowed down thickly at the dig of heavy fingers into flesh as your heart stutters.

“You’re going to tell me,” John levels, shifting the both of you back as the sounds of fast footsteps are echoed by the bay of dogs. “As much as I would enjoy being away from you in any capacity at all,” you smile humorously to him through his dead-tone monologue, “I need a guide out of these woods and across the land. If you won’t help willingly, I’ll just have to make do.”

You blink, confused. 

“Make do?” Your body is taken up, and you shout as you’re ruthlessly flung over the man’s shoulder with a hiked toss. 

Johnny’s smirk is lost to you, but his chuckle is not as he dashes to the door and slams it open, taking a quick left and looping the house—diving into the foliage as if a fish to water. “Unhand me, you brute!” You scream, clawing and hitting at the man’s back—kicking even, as your knee speedily finds his ribcage. “Ow!” John laughs, his grin highly amused as he turns back to look at you. The shouts from the trees get larger, but that doesn’t help you much as you’re both soon going deeper and deeper into the woods. “Jesus, you have a pair of legs, don’t you?”

“If I were marrying you,” you bark down at him, struggling with all of your might as your home disappears from view. “I’d be running instead of the other way around!” 

“Well,” Johnny calls, his sword bouncing off of his hip. “It’s a good thing you’re not, then, isn’t it, you bonnie little thief? Your husband would be dead and all of his coin in your dirty pockets!”

“Stop calling me a thief!” You send a closed-fisted slap to the top of his head, and he grunts, balking to the side. “Learn how to handle a fucking lady!”

“Lady?” He breathes heavily, shoving into another bush as leaves get tangled in his hair—twigs stuck in yours as you scowl rabidly. “If you’re a lady, Bonnie, then I’ve got a beast waiting for me back at my ceremony.”

—

He stopped when the light of the sun was low, and your constant attack of his spine left an array of large, fist-shaped bruises on his skin.

“Easy,” John grunts, dropping you with a huff to a down-turned stump. 

It isn’t long before you shoot back up, hands clawing for his throat. “Hells Bells!” The man ducks, boyish glint in his eyes as he darts to the side, stepping out of the way as you stumble on tingly legs.

“I’m going to skin you alive,” you yell. “Piece of utter dog shite!”

“Now that’s a bit strong,” John breathes, panting from his mad run for his single life. “Don’t you think?”

You take one step forward, and he takes two back—stuck in a game of cat and mouse. Your eyes are like tiny fires, illuminated with only anger and hatred. 

“Give me one reason why I should even attempt to help you,” your screams rise above the trees, hands splayed as John puts his hands to his knees, taking down breaths as sweat dribbles down his neck into his vest. “You-you,” your tongue fumbles, “kidnapper!”

“Technically, it would be an abduction, Dearie.” You slap him across the face and see the man’s cheeks go red from the blow. Shoving your nose nearly right into his, you sneer. 

“Correct me again, and it’ll be your balls I hit next.”

He swallows, blinking, before he smirks and pairs it with a chuckle as his eyes spark. “Yes, Ma’am.”

You growl as he holds up his hands, moving one to rub at the back of his neck and itch at the shaved portion of his scalp. That damned smirk—you despised it.

“Get me to the closest port,” John settles, getting to business as his expression mellows out. “And I’ll make it worth your while, I give you my word.” 

“What?” You laugh, shaking your head in exasperation the longer the silence falls; realizing how serious the man is. “Oh God in Heaven, this has to be a joke.”

“Anything you ask for, you can have from me when this is over,” he sighs, crossing his arms over his chest and shifting his mud-caked shoes. “I don’t need more than the fee to secure a spot on a good ship sailing away from here, and whatever is left I’ll give to you if you want it. You win in this situation, and I’m not trying to hide it from you.”

Your sharp eyes hone in, unwavering in its heat.

“Christ,” Johnny breathes, “I’d even give you my damn socks if that’s what it takes—I need to get out of here. Quickly.” 

You stare, sneering. “Is your betrothed a damn witch or what?”

Blue eyes blink, and his words are firm as they meet air. “Are you taking up my offer or not, Cat-Eyes?”

“Of course, I’m taking the offer!” You bark ruthlessly, rolling your eyes as you kick at the dirt. Rocks and grass fly as darkness settles heavier. “I’m not a fool.”

“Well,” he sighs in relief, looking to the shadows along the ground. “I can’t say you’re that, either, but you are certainly something.” 

You narrow your eyes at Johnny but don’t waste your time any longer as you turn and study what you can see. 

You had grown up here—in this land. The woods knew you just as much as you knew them. Already you could pinpoint a general map of this section based on the large cracked boulder to your right, and the tiny cluster of trees across the way. You knew the way to town, and from there, the port. 

“It’s a three-day walk,” you grumble, side-eyeing the man as he moves to lean against a trunk. He wouldn’t be moving through the night—you didn’t complain on that front either. “You grab at me like that again, and I’ll—”

“Let me guess,” Johnny raises a brow. “You’ll hit me in the balls.”

Your thin lips tell him all he needs to know. 

Shuffling past him, you frown and pull your wrapping closer, shuffling your chin into it. No fires for warmth, you know—not with people on your trail.

“I want an explanation,” you turn and dig into him, walking closer as John looks to the side. “If I’m sticking my neck out, I want answers as well as coin.” Poking him in his chest, you force your neck to find his gaze. “Why are you running?” 

Johnny sighs, licking his lips as he nods with a low, “Fine.”

You tilt your head, and John moves back to sit against the stump, moving out his hands in an honest display. 

“I was told I needed to marry and produce heirs if my house was going to survive, aye?” He states, and you know the story well. “My parents are gone, and my sisters are all married, but my estate is barren of anyone besides myself and the staff. To keep the peace, I gave my word that I would join into a union to secure my assets for my bloodline.”

It was all so formal, the talk of a wife and children—you never understood it. Why couldn’t people simply marry who they love and leave it at that? All this bloodline and assets. Don’t they ever get sick of it?

“What’s your last name, then,” you ask. “McDuff? Mackenzie?”

“MacTavish,” John shakes his head, rubbing his hand up and down the back of his neck. Blue eyes stay with yours. “John MacTavish, I have lands to the North.”

Your brows tighten, arms going to cross themselves. “You’re running from your home because of a union you can freely exit?”

“It isn’t free,” he grumbles, shaking his head firmly and setting his jaw. “My father’s wishes for his children were written down and sealed. I was to marry a daughter of Arthur Campbell when I came of age.” John chuckles face going a bit pink. “As you can see, I’m a good few years past that.” 

You tilt your head, and while Johnny was certainly passed the normal age of a male in his position to be wed, it struck you as odd as to why he didn’t want to be in the first place. In marriage during these times, a man has little to lose when joined. Almost nothing else changes for them except another title is added to their long line of others already living under him.  

John continues, and you stay your snake-like tongue for now. “Wasn’t until I learned that by now, Mr. Campbell’s second born daughter, who was the only one near my age, had passed nearly an entire year ago—leaving only the oldest behind.”

“And?” You hum, intrigued to see where this goes. Johnny itches at his chin, scratching the stubble that lives there along with the dirt and grime. “What, I’d imagine the head of the Campbell family wanted to uphold the arrangement?”

“Aye, they did,” John grunts, nodding. “Fiona Campbell was the woman I was set to marry today.” He pauses, sighing heavily before looking to the side. Darkness had set, and there was little light by way to see the expression of guilt growing on his face. “I’m not lyin’ when I say I didn’t want to make such a mess of it, but there’s only so much a man can do when he learns his bride is not only twice his age,” John breathes, grunting, “but also just…” He stops himself, sighing. 

You frown, gut swirling. 

“She was blank, do you understand?” Johnny asks, motioning a hand in a display of unknowing explanation. “All she seemed to care about was children and wealth. A slate waiting to be filled with someone else’s thoughts and ideas. I didn’t want to be the one to fill it—I’ll not be some husband that runs a wife around like a dog. That isn’t right to me; it wasn’t how I was raised.”

Your mind twists on itself with an indefinable feeling—skin tight to your bones as if taken and tied by ropes. Your heart pumps blood a little harder, but just because this man seems less of a bastard doesn’t mean you like him. He’d dragged you into this hunting party of his grand problem, and the sooner you got your payment, the better and easier it would be to disappear.

“How noble,” you huff, rolling your eyes. Yet, your voice is hiding an under-the-breath shock. “So you bolted into the woods?”

Johnny rubs at his nose bridge, growling in annoyance. “Yes—it was the best cover I had. Been going through the trails since sunrise.” He slaps his hands to his knees and stands back up with a grunt and an ache in his thighs. His sarcastic voice peels the shadows. “Are we satisfied, now, Bonnie?”

“I won’t be until you’re out of my sight,” you level, moving forward. “So are you going to bed so I can drag you to the port or not?”

John’s body is heard shifting as you slip down the trunk of a tree, backside hitting grass as you settle in for a restless sleep—pulling your wrap tighter over your shoulders. Here you were: weaponless and in the company of a runaway groom still in all of his finery. 

You wanted that damn boar broach. 

“Sleep’ll be smart, we need to be up early,” John says seriously, his shoes shifting the leaves. Letting the chill seep in, you burrow into your fabrics and glare ahead. Johnny’s sly voice is so reminiscent of yours, that you have to wonder if the two of you were cut of the same cloth. “I won’t be opposed to a cuddle if you get chilly, Little Lady—”

“I should have stabbed you when I had the chance.”

Johnny’s low chuckles waft over the air, and then the silence settles fully. 

Yet, you’re up far later than you anticipated…and you find this honest man’s confession to be bouncing inside of your skull like an enraged bird.

—

“Christ, did I do that?” A finger is pressed under your chin, tilting your head up as you strangle a gasp at the sudden motion. 

Johnny looks at the tiny cut along your neck from the edge of his sword—the barely-there irritation of the skin that you’d been itching at as you walked forward through the trees. 

He frowns, glancing into your eyes as your body stills at the feeling of warm flesh. 

It was the first day of walking, and the silence between the two of you had stayed. Not only were you annoyed at the situation, but also John’s story—you’d been mulling it over since last night. 

But below that anger, you might have even felt a little wrong. 

“Who else?” You sigh sarcastically to the man, trying to hide the rising flood of heated shock. Thick digits drag along your esophagus slowly in study, and John’s face creases the longer he looks. He’s hunched near you, too—and you can smell the low scent of leather and earth. 

Johnny pulls back with a huff and slips a hand into his sporran. Your eyes watch with blatant distrust until a relatively clean rag is taken out by a steady hand.

He motions with it. “Come ‘ere. Let me get the dirt out of it before it gets infected, eh?”

You sigh lowly but decide it’s a good idea at the very least before nodding—John’s fingers return as the light from above leaks through the branches. The morning was cold, but not unreasonable; the woods gave shelter from the otherwise abusive wind of the open country.

“Look at that,” you breathe, “The first nice thing you’ve done for me.”

“Ah,” John lightly glares. “Not quite right—I carried you away instead of making you run with me.”

Your eyes roll, and Johnny’s chuckle echoes off the surroundings.  

“Such a gentleman,” you grumble, feeling the rag press into your throat and the soft scrape of it across your scratch. 

“So,” the man hums, blue eyes stuck to your flesh as he takes care of it far more nicely than you’d imagined someone to be. “Seeing as I’ve shared my sob story, Cat-Eyes, I think I’d like to ask after yours.” His voice is full of amusement. “As we’ll be keeping one another company.”

“It’s less as in-depth than yours,” your fingers twitch as Johnny moves back after the cleaning is done—returning the rag to his sporran as he blinks. 

“I don’t believe that,” he raises a brow, as you ignore the remembrance of his touch and continue, paving the trail as the dark-haired man follows a close distance behind. “Can’t say there’s many times I’ve seen an unwed woman wielding a bow and thieving someone out of their money. I’ve seen a lot of things, Bonnie,” he laughs, “but never that. Scared the hell out of me when you dropped down.”

“You can add me to the top of the list, I suppose,” you puff a teasing breath. After an expecting pause in the conversation, you grow bored of the nothingness. 

“I’ve lived out here my entire life—I do what I have to. That’s all there is to it.”

John’s face gradually pulls into itself, only looking away from you to glance at the path to make sure he won’t fall. 

“No family?”

“None,” you tilt your head, shimmying under a low branch and pushing leaves off your shoulders. They sway to the ground softly as you brush an arm over your forehead, sensing Johnny’s attention. 

The man grunts. “M’sorry.”

Your feet stumble for a moment, pace faltering, until you cover it up easily. You turn to stare, narrowing your eyelids as open blues watch silently. John’s shoulder brushes yours.

“It’s life,” you blankly answer. “Least I wasn’t married off. Where you had to worry about a blank slate, I had to worry about becoming a broodmare for a man who most likely would never love me.”

Johnny licks his lips, eyes darting to the ground. “Can’t imagine you like that,” he mutters, but it isn’t some joke—he’s truthful. 

“Perfect,” is what his ears twitch to. “Because I’d sooner act like you and bolt from my wedding as well.”  

“Would that make me the thief in your story, then?” Johnny asks, chuffing as he smiles towards you, reaching a hand above him to push another branch out of the way—separating it from your form as you bend under. “I’m tellin’ you, I wouldn’t be very good at it. All that dropping down from trees would have my knees screamin’. Not that they don’t already.”

Your laugh pierces his chest, and the man sends a kind if not a bit startled, show of interest to you. It sounded like a bowstring slapping a wrist—harsh and telling all at once: something to be known and understood even if heard only once. 

John blinks at you, and his heart patters along in his chest.

“I think it would be more fun to think about you with a dagger,” you narrow your gaze at him, smiling. “A small thing like that would disappear in your hands, Johnny Boy.” 

“Disappear?” He tilts his head, raising his hands to hover in front of him. “Ah, they’re not that big, are they?” 

You shift, and, nearly without thinking, you slip your hand to sit above his. Johnny makes a noise in the back of his throat, eyes going wide as you reference the size of his grip under yours, but allows you to regardless. A blue gaze slides to your face, openly imploring, before they dart back down to your shared hands as the roughness of his callouses scraped against your flesh. 

“Care to compare?” You smirk, lifting a brow.

Johnny’s lips parted quickly, blinking a few times as he tried to find the words to accompany his running mind. He clears his throat, but the small sheen of red pigment on his cheeks is undeniable. 

Laughing, you detach the connection and pull ahead, leaving the man behind as he stutters with a fast pulse.

“You’re the strangest woman I’ve ever met,” is what he decides minutes later, a large grin on his face—he was enjoying this, for whatever twisted and flawed reason, he was. John’s adrenaline was pumping, his heart was pounding, and his feet were passing over the earth, yet, even better, his brain was sparking at a mile a minute for the woman who walked only three feet ahead of him. He watches you take these trails like an expert, not having to look down at your feet as stone and wood are passed as if you were water above them, whispering and nearly silent.

“At least I’m not boring.” Your eyes meet him, and in them, they create some horribly beautiful amalgamation of twin flames—two sparking fires that feed from the same ember. “You would never catch me becoming a housewife, Johnny Boy.” Your gazes never break. “There are far too many things to steal in this country, and so very few men who can keep up.” 

John’s chest moves in the beat of his pulse—his attention wholly transfixed upon the sight of this wild-born woman whom he’d only met yesterday. There were leaves in your wrap, and brown-black mud coated up to your ankles, even sweat sitting at your temple, yet you moved with grace befitting a Lady: never seeming to tire of jokes or firm surety. Yet…you weren’t cruel—you weren’t without purpose. 

Any accomplished thief would have just stabbed him and taken what they needed in your house. You offered John water, however, you chose to give him a chance to comply. It was such a small thing in the grand scheme, but Johnny was always one to analyze how one feather on a bird can affect the flight pattern, so to speak. One action that speaks volumes. 

You liked creating games, and, lucky for him, John loved to solve them. 

And that glint in your sharp-slitted eyes was becoming more and more enjoyable every second, he found. 

Pushing back the strands of his wayward hair, John keeps up with you for every step, not unfamiliar with how to traverse unsteady terrain. He wasn’t lying in what he told you—he had spent most of his life in the forest beside his home: hunting, fishing, riding. There wasn’t an activity he didn’t enjoy when he was outside, though his mother was always heavy on him about the mess he brought back. 

Blue eyes drop back down to your dirt-laced pants, and the man can’t help but give his best, lip-pulling smile. 

Hell, if he didn’t know any better, he would say that you were something that made so little, and at the same time so much, sense to him. 

“Well, maybe they just aren’t accustomed to hiking, Little Cat-Eyed Thief.”

There was something special in the glances you two would throw one another.

—

Your hands dip into the clear water, fingers open to feel the current drag through them gently. 

“If you want a sip,” you say, cupping the liquid and bringing it up to your lips, “it’s safe. This river flows down from the hills—not perfect, but there’s only a small chance it’ll make you sick.” 

John comes up and hums as he sits down beside you, folding his legs under him and leaning forward to submerge his arms up to his elbows in water. He sighs, and you hear the river gurgling as the man begins to rub up his flesh, getting rid of all the grime. 

“Good to know.” Blue eyes spare you a look as he continues. “What’s this one called?”

“Woodney river,” you answer. “Old Man Jack Woodney ran a water wheel on this river a long walk West. If this place had a name before that, it won’t tell.” 

Johnny washes his face, scrubbing at his stubble as the scratch of it plays in the side of your ear. You watch along the opposite shore, eyes going from trees to birds—even to the shadows of fish that quickly swim past. Sighing, you have to admit the beauty of this adventure. There were few times you could say you’d gone this far into the woods with no wealth to trade in with the townspeople. 

You side-eye John and study him just as heavily as you do a wild animal.

He wasn’t unattractive, you admitted. Strong—sturdy. Johnny was capable in a way that most Lords wouldn’t be, some, you guessed, would already be complaining about the uncomfortableness of their clothes or the flesh of their blistered feet. But John was bright-eyed; more than once you’d seen him actively watching the stretch of the trees for any sign of his pursuers. He never complained. Not once.

“You’re not as insufferable as I thought you’d be,” you say. Frowning, your hands push back into the water and cup some of the chilled liquid. You let it drip before you extend your hand to your neck and feel your eyes droop in relaxation. 

Johnny laughs, staring at you for a minute as he slowly raises a brow. His face shows amusement.

“Am I supposed to be insulted or not?” 

“I leave that for you to decide.”

John cracks his knuckles and shakes his head as he stands. “C’mon,” he drags, but the smile in his voice is clear. A hand is set in front of yours. “Sooner I get out the port, the sooner I’m out of your hair.”

Your face softens slightly. 

“Am I ever going to get an apology for being tossed like a sack of potatoes?” Skin meets skin as you slip your hand into his, and the man pulls you to your feet as you smile. Calluses brush yours, and yet again, you find you enjoy this game—perhaps more than any other you’d played before.

And you don’t understand why.

Johnny’s fingers are firm over yours, curling as water drips to the ground below in reflective droplets, and you think back to the first time you’d met him—panting breath and rapid eyes. Your eyes glance to that boar broach, and find it attached to a man that is suddenly more of a mystery than a closed book. 

“Easy,” John mutters, steadying you by your shoulders as you remember where you are. The dark-haired man squeezes your flesh and looks into you.

Blue eyes glint, and that smirk, you find, is always followed by a tiny tint of his head. “And what’s that look for, Cat-Eyes?”

“You called me strange.” 

John’s brows furrow. “Aye. I did.” He looks you up and down slowly. “You are.”

You do the same to him, not wasting more than a moment. “And I find it funny that you haven’t said the same thing about yourself. You’re far more strange than I’ll ever be.” 

“Guilty,” Johnny smiles, nodding slightly. His hands are still on you, and he doesn’t seem to even notice. “I don’t think a normal one would fuck off from his own wedding, would he?”

“Or kidnap a woman as a guide,” you state, pulling out of his warm hold even as your stomach flips as you brush past

“Again,” John’s hand motions through the air. “Abduct.” 

“You’re just saying that because it sounds slightly better,” you grimace over your shoulder. “Like comparing a dog to a wolf.”

Johnny is hot on your heels, and when the river-eroded stepping stones to the other side of the water are the clear path to take, he’s already on the first and holding out his arm for you as a true gentleman would. You glance at him and hop to the first stone, liquid sloshing at your shoes. 

Your smirk is stuck with his like two pieces of a quilt, and neither of you realizes it.

“You put a knife to my back first, Dearie.” John puffs and his face is right next to your ear as you both cross the stones—you lean into him and elbow his side before your arm slips into his. The man grunts, blinking as he chuckles above the slosh of water. 

“So? Maybe I only point knives at the men I like.” 

“Then I’d say you have every right to put one right at my throat.”

Feet move carefully over rocks and the spray of the water that coats them—a dance of wit in their own right. It was like animals circling one another, all sharp eyes and pulled lips trying to find weaknesses. Deadly flirting and addictive banter. 

Where annoyance was such a common emotion, now there was a near expectation of jabs; of tantalizing quips for the glimpse of another's mind.

Neither of you could understand the other, which was exactly why you both reveled in the brush of warm flesh. 

“Careful,” your feet meet the hard ground once more on the other side, and John only lets go when he knows that you don’t need him to steady you. “You’re engaged, Johnny Boy.”

Your tease slips in one ear and out the other, and the man watches you turn and begin walking again with sly eyes. John’s wide gaze stays stuck there for a moment—mouth eager to continue any conversation given. Watching you walk, his heart beats speedily. 

“I think my, ah, reputation has all but ruined my chances on that front—”

There’s something unique about the sound of an arrow sinking into flesh that can’t really be forgotten. John had heard it many times—even been behind the bow that shot it; the slap of the string across his forearm, the set of his shoulder blades widening until the arrow disappeared. 

But there’s something worse knowing that the sudden expulsion of air from lungs, in fact, belongs to you and not some wild animal. 

You’re hit in a fraction of a second, down on the ground in less than that—your mind not even understanding above the immediate pressure and the slam of earth. You gasp loudly, and then the pain hits. 

Hand snapping to your left bicep, your eyes slash down to stare as grass and mud fly into the air, rabid sounds escaping the back of your throat at the image that strikes you. An arrow was stuck deep into your skin—sticking out as blacked feathers flutter at the end of the shaft. The adrenaline hits rapidly, but the expression of horror still remains.

“Cat-Eyes!” Johnny yells, rushing forward, and unsheathing his sword, the sound of metal on metal harsh, but not as harsh as the sound of blood in the man’s ears. 

You see the swelling of crimson, and, from under your fingers, the red of blood slips as your breathing gets hoarse. Biting into your lip, the quick sound of an under-the-breath groan of agony ripples.

But you’re not stupid.

Scrambling to your feet with the arrow still poking out of you, Johnny gets to you and pushes you behind him just as your shaking legs straighten—-your eyes slashing the woods in panic. Pain can wait.

The runaway groom spares you quick glances, pushing you further behind as his raging gaze darts this way and that. He yells into the trees, anger and order infecting his voice, “Show yourself!” 

Just as suddenly, there’s a relieved call and a moving shadow. You clench your eyes tight and grit your teeth as a wave of pain rockets through you.

“Fuck,” you grind out, lost under the louder voice. Blood drips to the ground.

“My Lord!” Men burst through the leaves, bows, and swords aloft. “Quickly—to us!”

Johnny’s face is stiff; there isn’t an ounce of care, but the flash of recognition is swift, and in his chest, his heart, once beating so quickly, drops to his stomach. 

Knights. His knights. Christ, the two of you hadn’t been fast enough. 

“Stand down!” John spits, and cares little now for the thought of robbery or assault on his person—these men wouldn’t hurt him, but they were tasked to bring him back. “Fucking bawbags, the lot of you.”

His sword is sheathed by twitching fingers, and no sooner were those digits around you instead.

You pant hoarsely, face tight as your vibrating body tells you to run—eyes locked onto Johnny’s, the man in front of you ushers you over to the trunk of a tree hurriedly, uttering, “Just breathe now, Dearie—listen to me. It’s alright, aye?” 

“What is this?” You raggedly push out, flinching as your spine meeting the bark jostles your arm painfully. 

Your teeth grit, tears collecting in the corner of your vision.

“Knights,” John mutters as if his words are chased by wolves. “They’re after me—probably thought you were either holding me hostage or trying to lead me into an ambush.” The colorful fabric of his pinned tartan is dragged off from over his shoulder and shoved into your weeping flesh, and you lightly moan in agony, head falling back to the tree. 

Tears slip from over your cheeks.

“Easy.” John’s concern is palpable. Worried eyes dart from your face to your wound. “Jesus,” he utters under his breath, anger flashing. 

“Who is this?” One of the knights asks, taking a step forward as Johnny holds the fabric to your wound and speaks to you lowly, utterly ignoring the people behind him. 

“I need to break the shaft off, okay?” Blue eyes try to keep even, and John’s other hand captures your cheek. He levels your face right in front of his, breathing lowly. The man clears his throat as your tight gaze flutters, tightening his grip. “Hey,” Johnny breathes. You grunt, voice a low grind. 

“Just make it quick.”

John’s lips thin. “Yes, Ma’am.”

His large hand swiftly moves to the arrow, gripping around it just where flesh meets wood, you hiss loudly, spitting and raging as your vision partially blackens. Pain sparks up and down your spine, racing like a cat after a mouse.

“Lord,” one knight tries again, coming closer and reaching out for Johnny’s shoulder. “We need to get you back to Castle Campbell—we’ve been hoping to find you unharmed for your future wife’s comfort. Everyone is in a panic!”

“I’ll count down to three,” Johnny whispers to you, breathing heavily as he swallows and steady himself, hand lightly clammy. He wished he had his hunting gloves with him, but this was the best he could do. “Eh,” the man grunts, eyes steady, “You listening, Bonnie?”

“I don’t care what you count to,” you nearly bark, orbs flashing. “Just break the damn thing off—!”

The wood snaps with a defining splinter, and your scream afterward has the man having to hold you up with his arms around your waist, muttering into your ear with his lips against the shell. 

“It’s alright, you’re alright,” John hears the clatter of the shaft to the grass just as the knight’s hand is heavily placed on his shoulder. “Breathe. M’right ‘ere.”

You sag into Johnny taking in the scent of sweat, blood, and dirt—the musk that stays even as your ears start ringing and the voices start getting louder. 

“Best get your hands off o’ me before I break ‘em, Mate” Johnny grunts from deep in his chest, shifting your body to the side and effectively ripping his flesh out of the knight’s hold. 

All the others shift nervously—hands on their swords and looking back and forth between the strange scene.

Who were you? A mistress? A bandit luring their Lord away? Why was he with you out here; going in the opposite direction of where the ceremony was supposed to take place? They’d been given orders, and a knight is no good unless he can follow them. 

John MacTavish was needed, and their duty was to see it through.

Johnny’s tartan had fallen to the ground behind the two of you, getting kicked by feet as they shuffle and as your blood slips off of your limp fingers. Mind failing, your pain-addled form shakes even as the knowledge of imminent danger is present. 

You needed to figure out a way to get out of here. 

Pushing your head up from Johnny’s shoulder, your eyes flutter but manage to analyze what little you can see clearly—adrenaline can take care of most of your agony, only leaving a dull ache as your heart continues to rage. 

A group of four knights have their hands on their swords, and all of their eyes are on John. 

Run, a deep part of you urges. Your legs are still good. Take off—none of them know the terrain like you do. You’ll be free. 

You pant, your nostrils flaring with every breath as your sweat trickles off your jawline. Johnny’s grip on you tightens, head shifting back and forth, unknowing where to anchor itself, not understanding which is more important—your state, or your safety. 

Free, free, free. 

Your mind flashes to an empty house: silent woods. How you would go months without seeing another human face, but that was your own choice. 

Wasn’t it? 

Your eyes slip to Johnny.

“We’ve been tasked with bringing you back, My Lord,” the first knight says, looking heavily upon the runaway. “We have our orders. Please understand.”

“And I’m telling you your orders are utter shite,” John spits. “So back the fuck up and drag yourself out of this place. Now.” He glares, teeth snapping. “Those are my orders.” 

Your arm is numb, and your chest expands as it sits on John’s own. And you think.

You knew you were a selfish person. 

There was no debate about it—even when you’d stolen enough coin to feed you for weeks, there was still a part of you that longed for some chase; some challenge to your senses. You liked stealing. You liked the looks on people's faces when they realized they were being swindled for every valuable item they had in their possession. But there was something you liked even more than all of that—a challenge. 

Johnny, to you, was that challenge. He was the largest challenge you’d ever faced. A Lord who was running from a bride, a man who held his beliefs higher than praise or standing…a blue-eyed stranger who matches your poking jabs word for word.

“Damn,” your growl, and John takes it as an exclamation of pain. 

He grits his teeth and studies you, opening his mouth as his concern grows at the smell of blood. 

“We need to tie it off,” he utters. “Bastards made me drop the tartan—I’m sorry, Dearie.”

Your lips are near his ear.

“When I say ‘go,’ run to the left.”

Johnny halts, attention snapping down. His fingers flinch around you, face open until the mask of sudden knowledge flies over it like a curtain. But it’s gone just as quickly—hidden by intelligent eyes that glint. 

He doesn’t question you, and, in the crux of your shoulder, you get a near-infinitesimal nod from Johnny’s head. 

The guards grow suspicious, all mulling closer by the second the longer you two remain so close—on opposite ends, you feel your heart mirroring John’s in a rapid and ravaging pulse: Thump-thump, thump-pump, thump-pump-thump.

Your attention is split three ways.

One: the rising numbness of your limbs and the heat of your brain. Two: the spread of Johnny’s panting breath across your sweat-slick skin and his hands tightening. Three: knights and the clatter of their armor. How they slide their hands across their weapons like intimate partners—the tension building in a hemp bowstring and the sound of arrows hitting off one another; one taken and played with between fingers so similarly to how you would act. 

Your tear-stained eyes glare at the knight who’d shot you, your expression building into an act of hatred. 

They take a step forward. 

“Cat-Eyes—” Johnny begins to warn slowly. 

“Go.” Your words are no shout. They don’t echo off the trees, which all hold their breeze in expectation, they don’t ring in ears except the ones of the man holding you. But they’re like the personification of a sword strike—like the release of an arrow and the impending thump of it hitting home. 

The knights dash forward with calls for their Lord to stand down, but John’s already flinched away with a heavy grunt. 

You do the same, your plan already formed—you would run the opposite way as Johnny, only slipping off when the cover of bushes had enshrouded the both of you to create two sets of tracks. With any luck, the guards would break off into two groups and pursue the both of you, and you could easily lose yours. 

From there, circle back and find John: get your bearings before—

Arms never detach from your waist, and you’re once more tossed into a strong grip.

Eyes bugging, your focus breaks as gravity leaves and your head goes light. Johnny dashes away, and, just as the last time, you’re in his boar-like hold. 

“You idiot!” You bark, the only difference to your predicament now is that you’re held in a bridal grip and not slung over his sweaty shoulder. There was only a small sliver of relief before the annoyance overtook you. 

Johnny’s body crashes through the leaves, the shouts of the knights following as he gruffly raises his voice to the wind. The trees shake with amusement. 

“Thinking you could hand over some directions, Dearie?!”

“Thinking you could put me down?!” You shout back, your arm sparking with pain as your opposite wraps the man’s neck firmly. “Damn.” Your lips twist in response. “My legs work just fine, you know—I wasn’t shot in the arse!”

“Acting like you were,” John grumbles, a branch slapping his cheek before you can. Despite it all, he chuckles wholeheartedly at his own joke.

An arrow whizzes through the air, and you yelp, ducking behind his body even more as your skull fits under his jaw. Your eyes snap to the visible terrain as Johnny’s legs push from one side to the other, running in a zig-zag pattern to avoid any more injuries. 

“There,” your brows rise, fighting past the pain to find the familiar slash of a gnarled willow tree that whizzes by in brown and dark green. 

Your head rises to see more of the woods, only to be pushed back down by an all-expansive hand as John utters a fast-breathed and firm, “Not the best idea.” 

He shoves through brambles, and the sounds of rampaging knights are gaining. The second John sloshes through a low pool with a loud curse, you know instantly where you two are. 

“Take a left near the overhang with vines coming down!” 

“That one?”

“Yes!”

And so this game continued long after the knights had been lost to the woods, stumbling about without any sense of where they were, and the two of you came to a panting halt an hour later. Deep night was setting in on the second day, and, as your shaky feet hit the ground, John kept a heavy eye on you. 

“Steady,” he mutters, sweat pouring off his face; saturating his clothes. He worriedly stares, looking you up and down.

Your vision swirls, the glade around you the exact place you both needed to be. There were hills here—surrounded by thick trenches carved by rivers long dried. The stars were out, and the moon was shining down; one thin trickle of a river was feet away, the sound of water on rocks addictive to your pounding ears.

All of it was null to the way your gut flipped at the humming agony of your arm. 

Your hand snaps to the puncture and the flood of blood is enough to leave your fingers dripping with crimson glinting in moonlight. 

There’s a heavy ripping sound, and then you find yourself sitting down in the grass as Johnny shoves the torn fabric of his suit into the small river. You hear the splashing as you glance down at your arm before rapidly looking away, biting at your lip as your spine hunches. 

“Christ almighty,” you growl, glaring to the side as your fingers quiver. Tears well.

“The arrowhead is keeping pressure,” John hurries to speak, trying to distract you just as his own exhaustion is bare to see. The rung-out fabric is looped around your arm, tying off until you have to strangle down a scream at the tightness on your flesh. “We have to keep it there until there’s enough sterile material to fix it up.” 

“Your knights are pieces of work,” you hiss, more from the wound than anything.

John gives a little look, blue eyes darting up until falling. 

“Aye, they are.” His strong jaw clenches. “This shouldn’t have happened, Dearie.”

You stare as he finishes up, and you feel his fingertips slipping along your arm. Your eyelids droop, closing as your nostrils suck in shaky air. You take a moment to take in the silence that follows, John’s eyes not straying as your face is illuminated. 

He watches the streaks of dirt along your skin, and, in a soft attempt to fix this, he stands and moves to the river once more—cleaning his hands. Johnny takes the rag out of his sporran and wets it, coming back to your body as the grass waves back and forth. 

 “Let me…” the man says slowly, and your eyes open back up as the chilled item is pushed to your cheek. 

Wide orbs staring forward, you swallow as John concentrates on cleaning your skin carefully. 

“Infection is my immediate concern,” the man says with a sigh, yet continues as your tongue stays tied; face growing more heated by the second. “But you mentioned it takes three days to the town, aye? That’s not unmanageable with two already under our feet.” 

Blood, dirt, and sweat slip away with every drag of the fabric, and, stuck into his suit, that boar broach still sits—crooked now, but still there.

Your attention is momentarily taken by it, and your fingers twitch before you notice how very close John’s face is to yours. 

The man focuses, relaying a plan as you’re stuck mute; your arm holding its own heartbeat as the grass shifts.

“I’ll use what I have to get you into a doctor. Make sure there’ll be no problems before I get going.” John blinks, tilting his head. “‘Course, that’ll decrease the amount you’ll get in turn.”

“Fortunately for you,” you breathe, voice strained, and blue eyes stick to yours. John pauses, brows slightly pulling up on his face. “I value my own life too much to complain about a man paying for my care.” 

John’s rag stays where he placed it, right on the swell of your cheek as, this close to one another, you can see the scar on his chin—one that curves to the muscle and bone. 

He was handsome, make no mistake about it. You knew it; you understood it. A lord with morals and the smarts to go along with the strength—now that was utterly unheard of. You liked that, truthfully. Someone who could think, and plan. 

And, of course, follow directions. 

“You’ll be fine,” John mutters, glancing to the side, yet his head doesn’t move back. He clears his throat with a sigh. 

You roll your eyes, moving out and grabbing his hand with the rag. Johnny’s expression startles, arm tensing as you steal the dripping fabric from him. Water runs down your neck.

“I know I am.” You huff, smiling. 

You push the rag onto his own face, and begin your cat-like approval of his character, washing away the grime just as he had your own. A blue gaze stays firmly on your flesh, the man’s shoulders loosening until he’s sitting just in front of you. Verident grass whispers in a language like a soft breeze, and you study Johnny’s skin until everything becomes a mosaic of scars and blemishes—stories woven into sinews holding as much history as the tines on an elk or the chipped tusks of a boar. 

Two days and he’d become even more of a mystery than he had been before. Or maybe he always had been, and now your previous contentment had grown into an addictive curiosity. 

He’d called you Cat-Eyes. 

You couldn’t love a title more—not even if Lady were on the table.

“I settle my scores,” you grunt, tilting your head as you push back mud from his forehead, leaning in. “You wash my face, I wash yours.”

“Literally, then?” A sarcastic eyebrow makes you huff. 

“Is that not what I’m doing, Johnny Boy?” 

“Seems so, Cat-Eyes.”

Your matching glares hold no venom. 

Smirking, you lean back after the last swipe at his forehead, pushing Johnny’s skull back as he chuckles, moon-lit visage something you would see scrawled on the parchment of an old story-teller's sketches. A man not made for this age.

Your face softens slowly, and it is a strange thing sitting atop the sharpness of your eyes. 

John’s chuckles fade, and his breath catches in his throat. 

“You’re an odd fellow, John MacTavish,” you say, here, with blood from an arrow wound drying to crack along your skin. 

Your head tilts, eyes narrowing. 

John’s lips slowly pull upwards, and the water on both of your faces drips to the listening earth. This place is alive with possibilities, and all of them stem from the growing draw of twisted human souls.

A just Lord and a cunning thief.

A sharp-eyed cat and a strong-bodied boar. 

A future and a past—riddled with arrow marks; long sword slashes.

“Well…then I’m thinking we make quite the pair, Bonnie.”

—

The third day was spent on the latter half of the journey. Re-correcting the course and giving the best directions you could with the numb ache of your arm spreading up your shoulder. 

But the town came easily as the midday sun rose to crest your heads. 

“Want to lean on me?” Johnny asks, standing close by, but you’re already shaking your head. 

“Feels better to keep myself focused,” you mutter, grimacing. You look at the entrance to the town, and as you both walk it, the stares are immediate—shocked residents looking at the haggard appearance of two individuals. 

“Alright,” John sighs, side-eyeing you. “Just let me know if you’re goin’ to keel over, yeah?” 

“Duly noted,” you tilt your head his way. Your lips smirk like a smug child. “You’ll catch me, won’t you?”

Johnny chuckles, shrugging his wide shoulders as his tattered finery is chock-full of brambles and leaves. 

“Can’t say no to that.”

The Lord kept his promise—the doctor took the arrowhead, cleaned, cauterized the wound, and sutured you back up. For payment, as you lightly touch the bandaged section of your arm, you find your eyes freezing as a silver glinting reflects off the light through the window. 

Johnny hands over his boar broach to the doctor. 

Widely staring at the prize being pawned off for your health, your heart stutters in heavy greed.

No, you rapidly think. No, that was the one thing that I—

Your eyes inexplicably snap to Johnny. 

The immediate thought is that he looks angry, but, the next and more accurate one, is that he looks sad.

John’s blues continue to follow the broach as it disappears into the doctor's pocket, and you see the weight fall back to his chest and arms—sitting heavy like a stone. The man’s feet shift along the ground for a moment, and he looks like he’s about to say something before he grits his teeth and shakes his head to himself. John grunts, fixing his nose.

You blink, and then your heart twists in on itself for no reason at all. 

Or maybe there was a reason. 

“C’mon, Cat-Eyes,” Johnny sighs heavily, tilting his head as his arms cross. “Time to see me off, then.” 

He walks out the door, and your eyes follow like a loyal dog. 

Standing there for a moment, your lips contort your face into a deep frown, sharp eyes gaining a sheen of light anxiety. Yet, there was no mistaking it—it had been said a million times—if there was one thing you could do, it was play a game.

Maybe you weren’t so bad after all.

“Oh my,” you mutter, putting a hand to your head and stumbling. 

The doctor starts forward quickly, grasping at your un-injured arm. “Careful now, Woman. Don’t rip my sutures.” 

He tells you, getting you fully up as you chuckle, placing your hands above his thigh, fingers twitching on the fabric. 

“Apologies, apologies,” you mutter, retracting your hand and cupping it against your abdomen with a meek smile. “Just a little lightheaded. Thank you, Doctor.”

“Best be off, now,” the man grumbles, and you’re out the door swiftly. 

Your shoes meet the cobble as you shift your hands into your pockets, shifting your body to look along after the large form that leans against the home waiting for you. 

“Ready?” Johnny asks, though his attention is firmly planted on the ground five feet away, lost in thought.

“Aye,” you sigh, nodding your head to the East. “Port’s that way—let’s get this nightmare over with.”

“Hm,” Johnny agrees, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Quite the adventure for a runaway.”

“You can’t have thought it would be easy?” Your brows furrow. “You’re heir to the MacTavish lands.”

“I never said I thought it would be easy,” John moves at your side, a great hulk of honesty. He hands over his attention at last as you fiddle with the smooth item in your pocket. He huffs. “Just that it was an…experience, to say the least. One I’m not sure I’d want to go through again.” 

“You’ll miss me,” you say confidently, meeting eyes with a smirk and a cocky shift to your form despite the lessening pain. 

Johnny watches. He smiles, eyes crinkling. “Aye. I will.” You pause, expression stilling. The man hums, and you swear there’s something special in the way you can describe his look as delicate. 

“You were the one part that I don’t regret,” he says lastly to you as if the words aren’t spears laced with poison. 

Your breath gets caught in a way it never has, and John seems not to notice as he pulls ahead, muttering about him seeing the docks. The smell of salt water slaps your nostrils.

The legs under you slow until they’re stopped, and you look after the man as he begins speaking to workers along the port, asking for a spot on the large ships that sit in the water, rocking with the winds.

Your eyes trail, seeing the way he talks with such confidence—openly offering physical labor as his payment for even the dark quarters with the other laborers. 

After what seems like hours of watching, you see him shake another man’s hand, and, just like that, passage is earned. He jogs back over, smiling. 

You open your mouth to say something, but find the words null and void. You don’t know what to express. For once in your life, everything seems to be moving horrifically fast.

“Well,” John’s expression slowly sombers. “I suppose this is it then. I said you could ask for anything, and, I suppose,” he shifts the sword on his belt off after a moment, looking down at it. He holds the item, testing its weight. “I suppose this is all I have left.” Blue eyes slowly meet yours. “If you’ll take it.”

Always a thief, never a saint.

“I suppose it’ll have to do, Johnny Boy,” you sigh, the pain in your heart outweighing the one on your arm. “Hand it over.”

The sword is transferred and slipped to your waist. Many a man on the docks gives you strange looks, and, you find you welcome it—none could compare to the admiration in Johnny’s. 

You lick your lips. 

“Do one thing for me, hm?”

“Anything,” John mutters, not blinking. 

You move forward, and place a firm kiss to his lips.

The man freezes, fingers twitching at his sides, before he sags and bends into you—his great hand capturing your cheek until all that remains in the sear of his heat and the scent of the earth. 

You softly pull away, though not far enough as to where you can’t feel his breath on yours. Gazing into his eyes, you smile the widest you can remember.

“Don’t go running away from another wedding anytime soon. I can only save so many Lords until my reputation gets slandered.”

“You’re ruthless,” John growls, smirking as his eyes glint, looking you up and down. “Little Thief.” 

He leans in for another kiss, but your hands only shift above his sporran before you dart back, chuckling. 

“Always,” your hands brush his sword on your hip as you walk backward, grinning behind the strange pressure in your heart. If someone asked, you wouldn’t even know how to describe it.

John takes a step after you, face open and raw—an emotion you feel like mirroring if not for your excellent control. 

Not yet.

“I’ll take care of this,” you call, patting the weapon. 

“Good,” Johnny calls, taking one more step forward before stopping himself. One of the shipmates calls from the dock, and his eyes snap there with a jaw tense. He looks back at you and blinks, brows pulling in. In the heat of the moment, he exclaimed, “I’ll be back for it one day, Cat-Eyes!” 

“Lovely!” You yell, back turning. “I’ll be waiting for you then. I do hope you’ll be able to get through the woods, and, please, don’t keep a woman waiting! You’re much too handsome for any of that.” 

And then you’re gone. 

Johnny stares at where you were, his smile large and his face heated, and after a louder call from the dock, he’s forced to turn and jog to the ship, hurrying up the board until he can stand on the swaying deck with his two feet. 

He looks around, chuckling to himself, and still, his eyes shift back to land without fail; hoping for a glimpse—a small shadow. 

Shaking his head at his own foolishness, the man reaches into his sporran for his rag, intent to clean and set it to dry when he’s able to get the chance to settle in. It’s one of the last items to his name no matter how pathetic. 

Yet, his hands touch something far more precious. 

Johnny’s body goes as straight as a tree when his fingers caress smooth metal, and, slowly, his grip pulls out the silver of his broach. 

It glints in his palm as he sets it there, and his breath is stolen in one great bound of shock and confusion.

“What in the…” He already knows. 

Johnny’s feet take him to the railing gently, and his body stands there—torn wedding clothes and all looking over a town that begins to move as the ship sets sail. He holds the broach carefully, not intending to let it go for an age. He just needs to lay low for a while. He needs time.

John smiles. 

“I won’t keep you waiting,” he mutters to the moving homes, and he swears he sees the glint of a sword from between the buildings, and two sharp eyes digging into him. 

You’re there, of course. Hidden as always. 

You want your trees back, and you think that a day of sitting in your Oak is a good idea. 

There’s dirt on your face again—your lips are chapped and your face is bitten by the wind; scars and blemishes that time won't heal but make all the more visible as the ages pass by on bird’s wings and cat purrs. Yet here is an action held immemorial. 

A gift given freely by a thief is one to be treasured like pure gold, and the man on the ship knows that more intimately than any other as he clips the broach to himself with a hum.

You both watch the other from opposite, distant points until there’s no sun in the sky left to see with. Just a faint hope lights the way: the hope that your eyes will grace each other's visage, at the very least, just one more time in your life. 

There was never a story so willing to be experienced than that of a runaway groom and his cat-eyed Thief. 

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