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monstersandmaw · 9 months ago

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Male kelpie (dad-bod, single father, biker) x plus size f. reader - Part One (sfw)

Background info post on the Full Moon Motorcycles group here Oats Appreciation post here

Featuring a plus-size, bisexual, not very confident reader, and a divorced, Scottish, single-dad, biker kelpie with a soft-dad bod and a heart as big as his bike’s engine (possibly bigger).

CW: there is a very brief moment where a character (not Oats!) insults the reader for her size and uses some fat-phobic language towards and about her, unaware that she can hear him. If you’re sensitive to that, it is brief, but you can skip from “…you caught the conversation drifting over from the other guys who’d arrived just ahead of you.” to the paragraph beginning, “After some deep breaths and a check in the mirror…”. Also, if you squint, there’s a passing moment that could possibly be interpreted as the reader having some potential issues with food, but it’s not intended to be a big deal and it’s only for about two sentences. Still putting it in here too, just in case.

Wordcount: 7562

You pushed open the glass door of Full Moon Motorcycles and willed yourself not to feel self-conscious or out of place.

Having both an older brother and a mother who rode motorbikes had at least given you a fair bit of familiarity with bikes and the general ‘biker culture’, but it was mostly the fact that almost all the ‘biker girls’ you saw posing on social media were slim and toned, which you were decidedly not.

From the utterly foetid takes in the comments section of the one post your brother had shared on his page with you in it, you’d also got the impression that the biker community was not particularly kind to any woman with a waist over 25 inches. It probably wasn’t the case, but your one experience with it had been enough to make you very wary.

And yet, as you made your way towards the bike shop’s counter and the older man with floppy, greying hair and warm brown eyes looked up, you were greeted with an open, welcoming smile.

“Hi there,” he said, standing up with a grunt from the comfy chair where he’d been sitting in the corner near the shop’s antique cash register. “What can I do for you?”

You smiled shyly and glanced along the wooden countertop before returning your gaze to him. “I’m looking for a present for my brother, but I’m kind of on a budget…”

“Gotcha. We’ve got some silly key fobs there,” he said, indicating a rotating display rack at one end of the counter, with mottoes that ranged from funny to explicit, “But if they like working on their bike themselves, you can’t go wrong with some maintenance supplies… Not the most glamorous but I promise they’ll be grateful to you all the same.”

“Could always tie a festive ribbon round it,” you said, and he chuckled and nodded.

“That’s the spirit.”

You eyed the reasonable price of the fobs with some relief, and then followed his gesture towards the various bottles of chain degreaser and the like, and a few other useful tools and kits that were stacked on shelves on the back wall to the right of a door that presumably led into the back and store rooms.

The right hand side of the shop had the counter and some shiny, new bikes that had been parked in a row around the perimeter of the space, and the left hand side was more open with a bench or two against the brick walls, and some red, mechanics’ tool-chests tucked against the back wall. A number of leather two- and one-piece suits hung in racks at the furthest end though, with helmets on shelves and a few rows of t-shirts, jeans, gloves, and boots displayed too. There were oil stains in the centre of the polished concrete floor, and you suspected that tinkering took place there outside of the shop’s usual opening hours.

The whole vibe of Full Moon Motorcycles was friendly and cosy, with a slightly industrial, grungy note for some flavour.

In short, you loved it.

“There are also some fun helmet covers –” the older man chuckled, and added, “A number of the regulars here have them, and there are also some earplugs, or perhaps a tough phone case and mount? A chain care kit? There are some vinyl stickers too, and t-shirts, socks, neck warmers, balaclavas, mugs, helmet care kits, thermals…”

Laughing, you held up your hands for him to stop, and he started to chuckle too.

“I’ll let you browse in peace, sweetheart,” he said, his whisky brown eyes twinkling. Even his un-looked-for endearment came across as kindly instead of creepy, and not many men could pull that off. “You just holler if you have questions and I’ll be happy to –”

The door opened behind you and he broke off as his attention was snagged by the arrival of a heavy-set guy in dark jeans and a softly-worn, black leather jacket. He held a black helmet with a tinted visor in his large hands, and he looked more than a little wind-blown and rumpled.

Incongruous with his rather roguish-dishevelment, a lock of his long, thick, slightly grizzled, black hair was held back by a little hair-clip with a Barbie-pink, fabric bow. It didn’t fit with the dark scruff of stubble on his jaw or the piercing green-blue eyes at all, but he seemed completely unfazed by its presence.

“Oats!” the older man exclaimed with obvious joy, clapping his hands. “It’s been a while, my boy! How was the trip to Scotland? You make it round the NC500 this time?”

The ‘boy’ looked to be in his mid to late thirties…

“Ach, no’ a chance this time, Hank,” the man chuckled with a heavy, Scottish accent lacing his rich, rough baritone. Exactly where in Scotland he was from, you couldn’t tell, but it was lyrical and attractive all the same.

“Ah, next time, next time. And is Natalie well?

“Oh aye, my wee Loch Ness Monster is doing just fine. She’ll be terrorising her mother for the Christmas holidays. I came straight from the road though — clutch started playing up just south of Birmingham.” He grimaced, but even that looked charming somehow. “Sort of hoped you might find a minute to take a look at it for me if I left the Old Girl here. No rush though.”

“No problem, Oats. We’ll get her running properly again in no time. Bet you’re missing little Natalie already,” Hank added sympathetically.

“Ah, you have no idea,” the man, peculiarly-named ‘Oats’, sighed ruefully, shaking his head.

“See she left you with a parting gift though,” Hank snorted, pointing at the bow hair clip.

With a slight frown to his dark eyebrows, Oats reached up and patted at his head until he found it, and then he laughed. It was a loud, delighted, full-bellied sound that reverberated through the space while it lasted, and he left the hair clip where it was with no trace of self-consciousness as he lowered his hand again. “Aye, that she did. Surprised it survived the journey down with my lid on and everything. Oh –” His unusually pale green eyes landed on you, watching him and lurking near the rows of t-shirts on the back wall, and he went still.

Those sea-grey eyes raked you up and down, clearly noting the way your black leggings clung to the curves of your thighs and hips, and the black hoodie, which maybe went some way to hiding the softness of your stomach a bit, and he swallowed visibly. He looked… hungry. That was not the usual reaction you had grown accustomed to from men, and you let the flare of heat lick up your insides for just a moment, daring to hope that maybe he did find you attractive.

“Sorry,” he said in your direction, with a soft, dusky smile. “Didnae mean t’interrupt.”

“It’s fine,” you managed to croak back at him before returning your attention, however reluctantly, to present options for your brother while the older man, Hank, hobbled out around the corner of the wooden counter to chat amicably with the man. You couldn’t hear what was said as the two chatted in lower voices, but it was evident that they were good friends. While they talked, however, you couldn’t help noticing that he stole occasional sidelong glances in your direction, and you felt your face warm pleasantly.

‘Oats’ was certainly an unusual nickname, but then again, almost everyone who rode with your brother also had their own nicknames for one reason or another. As you browsed, you wondered what Oats had done to earn that one. He certainly looked like a snack to you, but you vowed not to let your attraction to the stranger show. Awkward situations (or worse, silences) tended to arise when you let that happen.

He had a tanned, outdoorsy complexion, and longish, black hair that was tied back in a low ponytail that brushed below the collar of his black leather jacket. It looked like it had a tendency to flop into his face when not restrained by that out-of-place pink bow. He filled out the jacket very well, and clearly had a soft paunch, and his thighs looked frankly delectable in those thick, indigo jeans. You prayed you wouldn’t have to see him fully from the back if he turned around, to witness the way he filled out the seat of his jeans too.

Fuck. Concentrate.

Bike gifts for brother, not delicious-looking stranger you’re never going to see again.

“Well, I shouldnae hang about, I suppose.”

Oats’ voice cut through your musings in front of chain degreasers and you jumped a little. Glancing back over at him, you offered him a smile when he too turned to look at you one last time, and a slow, charming smile crept onto his handsome face.

“See you,” he said with a dip of his head. Before he strode from the shop though, he let his eyes roam once more down the length of you and he bit his lower lip, almost regretfully, then turned away abruptly.

Oh yes. He absolutely did fill out the ass of those jeans beautifully.

Quite honestly, you weren’t totally sure what you ended up getting your brother for his birthday. You took whatever it was to the counter in a daze, your mind replaying over and over the way he’d looked at you.

“Must say,” Hank said conspiratorially as he fished your change from the antique cash register and slid it across the polished, wooden counter towards you. “I’ve never seen Oats quite so taken with someone, miss.” He chuckled, his kind, whisky-brown eyes glinting. “You take care now.”

Swallowing, you nodded and left the shop, hoping perhaps to find Oats waiting for you outside on the street, leaning against his motorcycle, but life was not a movie, and wherever he was, he was not lingering in the hopes of seeing you. In fact, the street was completely deserted, so you crossed, clambered into your little hatchback, and drove home with the feeling that you’d let a pivotal moment in your life pass you by.

Your sour mood persisted like a raincloud for the whole week, but by the time you were driving over to your brother’s on Saturday for his birthday ride, you were trying to pull yourself out of it. You had your own helmet with you, secured in the back of the car, and beside it was (now wrapped) the present you’d got him. In fact, it was a chain care kit, and, although you hadn’t noticed at the time, Hank had thrown in a free keychain that said ‘In my defence, I was left unsupervised’ which was very on-brand for your brother. You had planned to go back and thank him for the freebie as soon as you could, but your brother’s birthday ride had been planned for that Saturday, and work had been hell that week, so you’d not had the chance.

Predictably, Alex wasn’t in the house when you rang the doorbell, so you followed the sound of metallic clinking and laughter, and went round the side to find him tinkering with his mad little Honda Grom in the garage, while his two best mates — Eggs and Sparky — were lounging around and either making unhelpful suggestions or lewd comments.

“Yo!” Sparky grinned when he saw you, sitting up straighter and almost falling off the mechanic’s tool chest he was leaning his weight against. At Sparky’s exclamation, your brother sat up and banged his head on the handlebars of the short little Grom with a curse.

“Hey,” you mumbled in Sparky’s general direction. “Happy birthday, Alex.”

Alex scrambled upright and came over to hug you, probably smearing grease and dirt all over your armoured jacket, but since it was black anyway, you didn’t mind too much. Alex was about as opposite to you as it was possible to get — straight up and down like a beanpole, and tall. You took after your mother, inheriting all her thick curves and soft edges. Soft heart too.

“Thought this might come in handy,” you mumbled when Alex released you and you held out the brown paper bag stamped with the logo of Full Moon Motorcycles.

His eyes lit up when he saw the logo, and he tore into it like a chipmunk after a peanut, grinning in delight when he’d dismembered it, and in particular he showed off the keychain to his mates. Eggs snatched it and tried to claim it for himself, but Alex was having none of it, and the three of them scrapped and goofed around while you sat down on an old, metal stool in the corner and waited for the other two of your small party to show up, with a cool, curdling kind of dread in the pit of your stomach when you heard one name in particular. Nooner.

Within an hour though, you were all out on the road.

You took the pillion seat behind Alex, and warded his mates off at red lights when they came for his killswitch to immobilise him. A while later though, Alex zoomed off down the open road that would take you all out of town and towards the somewhat famous biker cafe, ‘Elusive Neutral’, that sat nestled amongst the fragrant heather of the rolling hills surrounding the old market town.

The sky was a gorgeous, autumnal blue and the weather was perfect, neither too hot nor too cold, and as your brother’s Yamaha flew along the winding A-road that was every biker’s dream, you cracked a smile and gently tipped your head back. As much as it had scared you when you’d first ridden behind your mother all those years ago, you did love the feeling of being out on a bike. Not that you were actually brave enough to want to try and learn yourself though. Something always held you back, made you wary and unsure, and then you inevitably felt down about that too. God, you wished you had Alex’s wild confidence.

Nothing good ever seemed to last for you though, and when Alex’s R1 had purred into the car park behind Eggs and Sparky, and you’d hopped off to let him reverse more easily into a space, you caught the conversation drifting over from the other guys who’d arrived just ahead of you.

“…if he didn’t have his fat sister with him, we could have fucking ripped it up along those twisties.” That, of course, had come from Nooner, named for the fact that he rarely stuck to two wheels and always pulled wheelies, or ‘nones’, whenever he got the chance. Out of all of your brother’s friends, he was the one you liked the least, for… obvious reasons.

“Talk about killing the vibes, huh?” Eggs replied, trying to suck up to him, as ever. “More like ‘crushing’!”

The reason Eggs had earned his nickname was that he’d lost a bet and shaved his head when they’d all been about sixteen, and he’d looked like a boiled egg til it grew back. You wished you had the sass to remind him of that every time his spine seemed to crumble in favour of earning a half-hearted snicker out of Nooner.

When Alex joined you, he caught the crestfallen expression on your face and frowned, but you shook your head and walked away from them, heading for the cafe alone.

“Can’t wait to shove some cake in her fat gob already,” Nooner added as an aside to Eggs, and your vision blurred as tears welled along your lashes. Why did people have to be so cruel? To trample all over someone else just to feel a little taller themselves?

You vaguely heard what sounded like Sparky’s voice countering the comment, but you didn't stick around either way. If you mentioned it to your brother again, he’d just say it was banter with the guys and not to take it to heart. Easy for someone who's never been on the end of that kind of comment to shrug it off, after all.

You ducked straight for the toilets when you got inside the airy, modern cafe, not even bothering to look around or find a table first.

After some deep breaths and a check in the mirror to see that you hadn’t turned your eyeliner into a panda cosplay, you headed out again and made for the little bar that doubled as a counter for people who were there solo to sit and eat instead of taking up a whole table to themselves. None of your brother’s friends joined you, and when you glanced back over your shoulder, you saw that they’d settled themselves around a table in the far corner and already had a number for a server to bring their food order over. They hadn’t even waited for you.

“Fuck them,” you hissed through gritted teeth, taking a seat at the bar instead. The stools were made of old tractor seats, and they were surprisingly comfortable, and as you leaned your forearms on the countertop, the young woman behind the counter came over to you with a smile that made you feel a little better.

“Hey,” she said. “What can I get for you?”

You ordered a hot drink, and then took out your phone while you waited for her to make it for you.

For half an hour or so, you sat scrolling through social media and sipping your drink and telling yourself this was your brother’s day and not yours. He did come over a couple of times, but you declined to sit with his friends, and because he’d never had any real reason to doubt you before, he took you at your word when you told him you were happy enough where you were. “I don’t want to get in the way,” you said, and he believed you.

Patting you on the shoulder, he left you for the third time, and you looked down into the dregs of your drink with a heavy sigh. “This sucks.”

Outside, the sound of more bikes arriving made your ears perk up, and you wondered idly what they rode. Elusive Neutral had once been an old cattle barn, but it had been completely redone and the walls on two sides had been replaced with vast picture windows that showed the sweeping expanse of moorland beyond, and a small sliver of the car park at one end. Craning your neck, you saw a group of maybe five or six bikers draw up, some on hipster looking cafe racers and others on racy sports bikes. There was even a Ducati Panigale among them, and behind them followed an old, battered, blue pickup truck.

The door opened a little while later, and you glanced over, eyes drawn instinctively by the movement.

Above the general chatter and merry chinking of china in the room, the energy of the new group of bikers rose like a cloud of dizzy mayflies; buzzing and excited and full of joy. You watched them all with interest from your perch at the counter.

The first through the door was an absolute Amazon of a woman, with her long black hair restrained in a thick braid, and shoulders the width of a barn door. She was lean and tall, and in her biker gear she looked… incredible. Her face was strikingly handsome, but until she glanced down at the woman walking beside her, her features were hard and glowering and unspeakably stern. She held the door open for one of the others to follow her inside, but when she locked eyes again with the brunette by her side, her whole expression melted into unguarded adoration. Your gut twisted briefly with jealousy.

It wouldn’t matter to you who looked at you like that, if only someone would.

You looked away, and by the time you glanced back at the bikers, the whole group had filed in from outside. There was a guy with golden-brown skin and beautiful dark brown eyes who had his arm wrapped possessively around the waist of a pale, skinny guy in black jeans and a moth-eaten, black jumper, with his long hair tied back in a bun, and behind them came a strikingly attractive guy in a manual wheelchair, flanked by a very short biker with slightly anaemic looking skin. You wondered fleetingly if the guy in the wheelchair had ridden a motorbike there, and if so how, before you realised he was probably the most beautiful person you’d ever seen, with long, flowing red hair and dark green eyes, and the kind of mouth that was made for laughing, and for kissing.

Jesus, was it an unwritten rule of being a biker that you had to be unfairly attractive? Even Hank, who you recognised with a start of surprise coming in behind the guy with red hair, wasn’t unattractive, in a bulky, older man kind of way.

The guy walking with him though… he truly made your stomach swoop.

It was Oats.

You looked away before he could spot you, sitting alone at the bar like some pathetic creature waiting for cocktail hour to begin. It was lunchtime on a sunny, autumnal Saturday though, and there you were sitting alone because you didn’t fancy sitting with your brother’s loser mates.

God, the way Oats had looked in his tough-looking leather jacket, with his eyes crinkled mid-laugh at something the guy in the wheelchair had shot back at them over his shoulder… You bit your lip and stared into the bottom of your cold, empty mug like it would divine some kind of solution to your situation for you.

The new group didn’t seem to notice you while they filed up to the counter, jostling and joking, and when they drifted off to another corner of the cafe, you turned back to your phone, trying desperately to resist the almost overwhelming urge to keep turning over your shoulder to watch them.

Before too long however, you startled at a soft tap on your shoulder, and you looked around to find Oats himself stepping back to a polite distance and smiling down at you like he’d found a treasure in an unexpected place.

“Hey there,” he said in that rolling, Scottish accent that did unspeakably indecent things to your insides. “Sorry if I’m intruding, but you were at Full Moon last week, right?”

Mute for a moment, you nodded, and mustered up a slightly dazed smile for him.

“You… here alone?” he asked, eyeing the currently-empty seats to your left and right. In fact, someone had only just gathered up their belongings and left.

“Kind of?” you croaked, letting your eyes slide over to the table where your brother and his friends were hunched over one of their phones, snickering at something. “It’s… It’s my brother’s birthday today. I… tagged along as pillion, but… you know… I’m kind of a spare part really.”

At that, Oats’ dark eyebrows knitted into a scowl and he looked across the room at them before returning his attention to you. Then, his unearthly, almost prismatic, silver-green eyes took in your empty cup and he grinned. “Can I get y’a top up?”

Your instinct was to refuse, but you bit your lip. This didn’t feel real. A cute, handsome, courteous guy was actually taking an interest in you.

“Sure. Thank you.” And the smile that spread itself across your face telegraphed your delight in a way that was impossible to disguise with any kind of suave grace.

Oats, however, seemed equally delighted, and nodded. The barista came back over and he leaned his weight on the counter to talk to her. He seemed to have that enviably easy manner with everybody, and he even charmed a free slice of cake out of her too with what felt like no effort at all.

“Chocolate? Or something else?” he asked you.

“Pardon?”

“Cake.”

“Oh, no, that’s fine,” you said, but he frowned.

“You sure? I’m gonna have a bit of their chocolate cake. It’s so good, it’s practically a sin.”

“I…” you faltered.

He didn’t pressure you though and shrugged easily, turning back to the barista. “Gimme two forks with that, love. Just in case.”

“No problem,” she beamed back while she bustled about, and Oats eyed the empty bar stool next to yours.

“May I?”

You swallowed your nerves and nodded. “Please.” And then, because apparently a demon of confidence had temporarily possessed you, you eyed his slightly helmet-flattened forelock and said, “No pink hair clips today?”

He guffawed loudly enough that your brother actually glanced over and frowned when he saw you talking with a stranger.

Oats snorted and shook his head. “No, not today. My daughter is still up in Scotland with her mother.” He fixed you with a more serious look and said, “She and I divorced, before you get the wrong idea about me flirting like this with a beautiful woman.”

The compliment caught you so off-guard that you just froze for a moment, but when the heat of a blush filled your face, you looked away and he chuckled.

“I’m not normally so forward, but I’ve been kicking myself for not talking to you when I first saw you in Full Moon. Hank was telling me just this morning what a muppet I’d made of myself for walking away like that.”

You looked behind you at the group of his friends and then turned back to him. “Won’t they think you’re being rude, ignoring them like this?”

He shook his head and smiled. “They’re probably all taking bets on how quickly you’ll shoot me down.”

“What? I’d have to be an idiot to do that.”

At that, his face split into a huge, handsome grin and he shook his head just a little. “Lucky me,” he said. “You ride?” he added, eyeing your jacket that was obviously a motorcycle jacket.

You shrugged. “Pillion. I’ve never ridden myself, but my brother lets me come out with him sometimes.”

Oats nodded, and then, as the barista set down his coffee, your top-up, and the plate of decadent chocolate cake with two forks, he said, “I’m Euan, by the way, but everyone calls me Oats.”

You introduced yourself, and then said, “Oats?”

He snorted and nodded. “Not the worst nickname, for sure.”

“Can I ask where it came from?”

Oats nodded and shunted the plate towards you first before leaning his elbow on the bar and watching you while he spoke. “I think it’s because I’m a dad, but I’m always prepared for most situations, and when it comes to my Natalie, she’s always hungry. I’ve usually got about a thousand granola bars stashed away about my person —” he said, cutting himself off to pat conspicuously at his jacket pockets. Pulling a slightly dog-eared crunchy bar from his breast pocket, he wielded it like a magic wand at you and said, “Case in point.”

“Hence, Oats,” you said, eyeing the healthy brand name on the packet.

“Exactly. Like I said, it could be worse. See the tall lass over there with the dangerous scowl?”

You didn't need to turn around to know which of his friends he was talking about, but you did anyway. “Yeah.”

“We call her Pixie.”

“Do I even want to know?”

“Probably not,” he chuckled, stowing the granola bar back into his pocket and taking a huge scoop of the chocolate cake with his own fork.

“What do you ride then?” you asked.

“Triumph Bonneville T120,” he said with almost exactly the same intonation and fondness as he’d just said ‘because I’m a dad’, and you couldn’t help smiling. “Can’t be doing with all these glitzy sports bikes and the like,” he added with a laugh, setting his fork down and blinking slowly. His lashes, you noticed, were thick and dark and enticingly long.

Laughing, you smiled. “Don’t say that too loudly — my brother rides an R1.”

“Nice,” Oats grinned back. “But nothing could entice me away from my girl.”

“I’m surprised you’re here, flirting with me then,” you said. Evidently that confidence demon was still lurking.

Again, Oats laughed, though it was more of a low whicker this time, and it rolled right through you and lit you up all over. God, how long had it been since someone had laughed like that for you?

“There are… exceptions,” he said in a rumbling murmur. “Tell me about yourself?” he asked, and you did.

You spent the next hour at least talking in an easy back and forth with him while he charmed a few more refills from the barista and a lot of answers out of you, before one of his friends sidled up shyly and waited for a lull in your conversation.

“Sorry to butt in,” the small, unbelievably beautiful woman said. She was the one who’d been on the receiving end of the adoring look from the Amazon, ‘Pixie’. She had chocolate-brown hair falling in thick ringlets around a gorgeous face, and, you were pleased to note, she had wide hips and a softness to her that a lot of the biker chicks you’d seen online didn’t have.

“Coco,” Oats beamed. “Meet my new friend.” He introduced you by name, and Coco smiled at you, holding out her hand.

When your palms connected, you felt a warmth rush through you and you felt like your heart skipped a beat. The feeling like you could tip forwards and drown in her endless, dark brown eyes almost unseated you, but she let go of you and stepped back with a pretty smile on her Cupid’s-bow lips. “Pleasure to meet you. Just wanted to tell Oats that we’re thinking of heading off soon. Ariel has a photoshoot he wants to get to in an hour or so, and Demon’s keen to get going as well.”

Oats nodded, and you tried not to let your stomach drop down to your boots at the thought of all this coming to such an abrupt end.

Coco turned her head sharply to look at you just as the feeling hit, and she smiled faintly. “You could always stay here though, Oats,” she added with a pretty smile. “We’re only going back to Full Moon, and Demon clearly has no intention of lingering there…” She shot a meaningful glance back at their table. Demon, the guy with dark hair and tanned skin, was seated with the guy he’d entered with now draped in his lap, his skinny legs dangling as he sprawled languidly back against the guy’s muscular chest. Demon whispered something into his ear before he clearly bit the shell of his boyfriend’s ear, which made him sit abruptly upright and flush a vibrant pink.

Oats laughed again and shook his head. “Fuck me,” he chuckled privately. “Never thought I’d see the day. You guys go on. I’m… I’m very much content here.”

“I can see that,” Coco smirked, and walked away.

When she was out of earshot, you turned to Oats with a hot flush of your own in your face and said, “Don’t stay if you don’t want to… I’m sure my brother will be leaving soon anyway…”

Just as you said that, and before Oats could reply, Alex reappeared at your side and jutted his chin in Oats’ direction. “You good?” he chirped at you.

“Fine,” you replied. “This is Oats. I met him at Full Moon Motorcycles when I was buying your birthday present.”

“Oh,” Alex replied, holding out his hand for Oats to shake. “Good to meet you, man. You tell her what to get for me? If you did, it was a good choice.”

“No,” Oats said carefully, his grey-green eyes sliding back to your face even while he shook your brother’s hand amicably. “No, whatever she got you, it was all her.”

“Oh, cool,” Alex said. “Listen, sis, we’re gonna hit the road in a while. Nooner and Eggs want to hit the twisties for a bit, but I can’t really do that with a backpack, so Sparky said he’d give you a ride home, if that’s ok.”

You swallowed. “Um…”

“I can give her a lift,” Oats replied after a swift glance in your direction. “She’s already got her own lid, and there’s room on the Bobber’s double seat for both of us.”

“I don’t know, man,” Alex said with a wary frown.

“Your choice,” Oats shrugged easily, looking at you and holding his hands up just a little.

For a fleeting moment, you weren’t sure, but the idea of wrapping your arms around Oats’ thick middle and sitting astride his gorgeous bike kind of decided it for you. Besides, it was a long time since you’d done anything truly just for yourself; simply because you wanted to. You nodded at your brother. “It’s fine. You go ahead.”

“You sure?”

Nodding to reassure him, you smiled again and Alex backed up a pace. “Cool. Text me later, ok?” he said as he retreated towards his friends, clearly trying to hide his excitement at not having a passenger for the great, twisting section of A-road they were heading for.

“Will do. Have fun, and don’t crash!” you called after him. “Or get a speeding ticket!”

He waved a hand over one shoulder without looking back, and you laughed and returned your attention to Oats. “Brothers.”

“Bikers,” he replied. “You try telling that to any of that lot though —” he gestured towards his own group of friends who were now filtering out of the door. “You ready to head out too or do you want to stay?”

You did want to stay, but the seat wasn’t that comfortable anymore, and you wanted to move around a bit. “No, I’m good to go,” you said and prepared to slide off the stool, but Oats stepped down first and held out his hand to you. You didn't need helping down, and his playful little smirk told you he knew as much, so you rode out the last of that demonic possession and let your fingers slide across his palm and he steadied you off the stool.

“Thank you,” you smiled.

“Pleasure.”

You picked up your helmet from where you’d stowed it on the floor at your feet and straightened to find him waving casually across the room to the good-looking guy with the ethereally pretty boyfriend. Before he stepped away from you and made towards the door though, you cleared your throat and said, “Oats?”

“Mn?” Looking down at you, his entire attention honed in on you, like you were the centre of the universe, and you swallowed back a sudden welling of emotion.

“Listen… Thank you… for… coming over to me today. Like I said, it’s my brother’s birthday, and he was here with his friends, and he only included me so I didn’t feel completely left out, but…” Accursed tears washed over your eyes for a moment but you blinked them away furiously and ploughed on regardless. “I’m really glad I came along today anyway,” you finished rather pathetically.

His full, beautiful lips curled into a gentle smile and he blinked softly and exhaled. When he spoke, his voice was low and his words private, as though you weren’t standing in a busy cafe surrounded by people and the cheerful clatter of coffee cups and laughter. “I’m really glad I did too. I wasn’t going to, you know? I was going to stay at home and edit a boatload of raw photographs for a client, but Demon convinced me to come out. I guess I owe him.”

“‘Demon’? For… For the speed?” you asked, wondering how he came by his nickname.

“For the horns,” Oats replied in deadpan humour. “Have a look if he’s still there when we go outside. You ready?”

You followed him out of the cafe with a nod, and just as you took a deep, indulgent breath of fresh, heathland air, Oats’ group of friends filed out past you on their bikes. The one named Demon was in the lead, and the nickname made immediate sense. Sitting astride a blood-red Panigale, with his boyfriend clinging on behind him like a limpet, the guy had pale, curving horns fixed to the crown of his helmet.

“Yeah, that tracks,” you said, and Oats waggled his dark eyebrows.

The Amazon had a Yamaha R1 like your brother’s, but hers had a pearl-white wrap that made it look almost spectral, and riding out in front of her was Coco on a yellow and black Honda Hornet.

The telltale red plait told you that the guy in the wheelchair was on a modified Kawasaki, with unusual struts at the back that looked like they would come down when he stopped to stabilise him instead of having to take his legs off the foot pegs, where they were currently Velcro-ed in place. Watching the whole group file out was Hank, standing beside a battered old pickup. In the bed of the truck, you could just see that the red-headed biker’s wheelchair secured in place.

Hank waved the last of them off, then glanced over at Oats. The older man lifted his nose just a little, as if he too was enjoying the fresh, moorland wind that whipped across the car park, and he nodded once at Oats, and then at you to your surprise, before clambering stiffly up into his pickup and closing the door. It shut with a raucous yelp of rusty hinges.

You stood there and watched Oats’ friends all file out, all waving at Oats as they passed, before they set off down the road in a roar of revving engines to leave a lonely looking Bonneville waiting patiently near the stone wall of the car park nearby.

“Yours, I presume?” you said, nodding at it.

“Yup.”

“She’s a beauty,” you mumbled, self-consciousness prickling at the sides of your neck for the silly comment.

Oats beamed though, his sea-foam eyes lighting up as the crinkles around his eyes and the slight dimples in his cheeks creased under the force of his obvious pleasure. “Thank you. She’s my pride and joy. You ready? Oh, wait, you should put your address into my phone before we get going,” he laughed.

You nodded, taking the offered phone from him. Your fingers brushed against his warm skin as you took it, and a tiny thrill passed through you that you did your best to quash. With your address plugged in and a route home waiting to be followed, you handed it back to him and looked up into his handsome, rugged face as he smiled.

“Cheers. Let’s go,” he said, and you trailed along beside him over to his bike, heartbeat thudding in your ears with your nerves.

He swung a leg over and turned the key, then pushed the bike upright and nudged the side-stand in with his left foot before flicking the switch and bringing the bike to life. She growled beautifully, the low, thundering rumble of her engine sounding far more visceral and primal than your brother’s sports bike did. Perhaps it was the design of the lower-slung Bonneville, with its visible parts that made you think of a Steampunk aesthetic, but you instantly preferred it. Plus, the double seat looked way more cushioned — and less precarious — than the one you’d perched on to get to the cafe that morning.

Oats got himself comfy while you slid your helmet on, then he looked over his shoulder at you and nodded, so you took that as your cue and got settled on the pillion seat behind him. The footpegs were already down. The pulsing purr of the machine beneath you was almost enough to distract you from the fact that you were entrusting your life to a relative stranger, whom you’d never seen ride before, and as you climbed on and rested your hands politely on his shoulders, you felt a shiver travel through your whole nervous system.

“Do whatever’s comfortable for you, obviously,” Oats said over the noise of his bike, “But if you want to hold my waist — if you can actually get your arms around my middle, that is,” he chuckled self-effacingly, “— feel free. Totally up to you.”

“Thanks,” you yelled back, and, because apparently that pesky demon of confidence was still kicking around, you hugged his torso.

It was wonderful.

Slowly snaking your arms around his middle, you felt your chest press against his back and you caught the way he inhaled slowly and tried not to wonder what it meant. It felt so good to hold him that you had to remind yourself it wasn’t a hug. It was to keep you in place while a gorgeous stranger drove you home on his equally gorgeous bike. With a final thumbs-up to check you were happy, to which you replied with a nod of your head and tried not to clack your helmet against his, he pulled away and your heart leapt for the sheer joy of it.

Where the R1 was built for sleek speed and bursts of power, the Bonneville was build to be enjoyed, and oh gosh, did you enjoy every curve.

And not just the curves in the road, either.

Oats was soft, but he was solid, and the urge to rest one hand on his thick thigh was almost overwhelming, until he took the corners at just the right pace to be exhilarating without you having to worry about your safety, and you clung on instead and laughed behind the safety of your visor.

It was all over way too soon, and as the Bonneville chugged into your road like a steam train and halted outside your poky, terraced house with its quaint little kitchen garden out the front in the postage-stamp of space between the pavement and the house, your heart squeezed painfully in your chest. Please don’t let this be it, you thought desperately.

You went through the motions of getting carefully off the bike without staggering or falling, and again, Oats held out his hand to help steady you. You gripped his fingers gratefully and when you gave an extra little squeeze to his hand at the end, you could have sworn he answered with one of his own and a throaty chuckle.

He dismounted too, which surprised you, and you wondered if you were going to have to ask him inside. As much as you wanted that in principle, you desperately didn’t want it to happen today because the house was a mess: laundry was still hanging up all over the place, and you’d cooked a curry the previous night and it was definitely still lingering in the air.

Oats took off his helmet but left his bike idling, which went a little way to reassuring you, and when you looked more closely at his expression, you thought you saw a hint of something familiar lingering in the corners of his eyes. Was he nervous?

Swallowing thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing behind the thick, 5 o’clock shadow that looked like it lingered pretty constantly no matter the time of day, Oats took a deep breath, held it, and then smiled at you. “Fuck,” he exhaled, and laughed. “I’m… very rusty at all this.” He held his helmet in both hands before him, toying with the strap.

“If I gave you my number, would you maybe like to meet up again?” you asked, taking pity on the man.

“Very much,” he said softly. “Like I said, Natalie is with her mum for the holidays, and apart from a wedding I’m covering next week, this is a pretty slow time of year for me. I’m free… mostly whenever.”

The reminder that he had a daughter with someone else did make you wonder what you were letting yourself in for. Children weren’t really something you had any expense of, since neither you nor your brother had shown any parental inclinations yet, and you weren’t particularly close to your cousins who had small kids.

“Ok, let me give you my number and we can figure something out.”

That done, he slid his phone back into his pocket and zipped it up, biting gently at his lower lip for a moment. “I know it’s bold,” he said, “But may I kiss you?”

Your heart skipped and soared. Breathless, you looked up at him and whispered, “Yes.”

His tiny, gentle, lopsided smile heralded the kiss’ approach, and he took your jaw delicately in one, leather-gloved hand as he leaned down and brushed his lips against yours. They were soft but insistent against yours, and you answered with a little moan as your eyes fluttered shut.

He groaned, pulling you closer with a low growl so that you were pressed flush against him for a moment before he stepped back and exhaled roughly. “Fuck,” he breathed. “Thank you. I’ll… I’ll see you soon?”

You nodded, feeling like you were floating inches above the ground.

You watched him re-mount his bike and adjust himself a little once he was settled, then he revved it playfully for you, and rode away after a final look back at you. He flipped his visor down as he pulled away, and you watched the bike and its rider disappear down the road.

‘Soon’ couldn’t come soon enough…

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#oats the kelpie #monster romance #kelpie #male kelpie x female human #full moon motorcycles #supernatural biker group #plus size female reader #plus size reader #male kelpie x female reader #male monster x female reader #exophilia #monster boyfriend #dadbod monster #dadbod #single father monster #monster dad

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sundew199 · 3 months ago

Text

Times Two

a/n: good lord this is long and filthy. If you prefer to read it on AO3, it'll be linked. I've also never written a threesome before and tried my best, hopefully it isn't too horrible :)

words: 8,180

tags: Reiner x Jean x F!reader, rough sex, rough oral sex, Eiffel tower position, slight panty kink (Reiner), cum eating, Reiner and Jean are Bisexual, College AU, Reijean if you pay attention or care lol, pet names

What was it about Reiner and Jean that had you constantly glued to their hips? If you’re friends were to ask they’d say it was a double crush you were denying. If you asked your family their answers would vary from underlying crush, to enjoying being the center of attention or a close friendship. You personally didn’t think you were attached to their hips at first, but the more people started to whisper and theorize, you started to ask yourself the question. In reality, Reiner and Jean were your closest and longest friends, surviving multiple friend groups and growing up. You met Reiner in grade school, sat next to him on the first day of fourth grade and throughout the whole year due to the teacher’s assigned seating. The two of you might as well have been siblings, walking home together, eating dinner and playing at each other's house, even his mom and your parents were close after a while. Jean entered the scene later, seventh grade to be exact when he transferred mid year and as luck would have it the three of you shared almost all classes together. Reiner was the one who sought out Jean’s friendship and you became friends by proxy and from then on all the way to college the three of you were tight knit.

Attending the same university is what you think further solidified the glue between the three of you, swearing to everyone it wasn’t intentional to attend the same university together. Some believed you and others didn’t, but you really didn’t care. Thankfully rumors spreading about you being in a three way relationship with them ended going to college, high school was rampant. You’d admit that it did bother you, because why couldn’t you be really good friends with two guys? Why did everyone have to make it seem the other way around? Reiner and Jean never hesitated to defend your honor against the rumors, landing themselves in suspension once or twice when defending you turned physical. Even when you tried to blame yourself, they never allowed it.

Now when people questioned what the true nature of your friendship was with them, you’d play into the bit and come up with wildly different answers on how the dynamics of the relationship worked. Reiner and Jean both got a kick out of it as did you.

Junior year of college is what changed things for the three of you. Since you couldn’t room with them in the dorms since they were guys, all three of you decided to rent a condo off campus. You’d spent almost all your life with both of them so there wasn’t any harm in living with them, besides all three of you were just friends.

Towards the end of the first semester of junior year already and finals quickly approaching, you were buried in your books, studying like a madman to keep your GPA around or above a 3.5, needing the best possible grades to earn the degree you were working towards. Jean and Reiner had it easy in your mind, ashy haired man working towards a degree in Art History and the blonde meathead shooting towards that finance degree. In hindsight, they didn’t have it much easier than you, but they were also stupidly smart in their own respective studies. You envied them in a sense.

It was chilly out, keeping two blankets wrapped around you sitting at your desk and scrolling through the notes you took the other day to refresh your mind for the practice test on Monday. As much as you wanted to deny it, you need a mental break from school but wouldn’t allow yourself to take it, not when so much was riding on the line.

“Hey.”

Jumping in your chair at the sound of a gruff voice at your bedroom door, blinking and rubbing your eyes from staring at the screen for too long. Swiveling to face whichever one of them it was, you wrapped the blanket around you tightly.

“Yea.”

“Are you still planning on watching the season premier of the show later?” Reiner asked, tapping his knuckles on your doorframe and leaning into it. Your eyes refused to focus on his face and instead on the bulging bicep through the fabric of the long sleeve shirt he wore. Since when were his arms that big? I mean fuck you knew he worked out but you’d never noticed how ripped his arms alone were.

“Yeah if I finish going through my notes.”

Reiner scoffed, rolling his eyes and approaching you, reaching over you to slam the laptop shut, deciding for you if you were going to look over the rest of your notes or not.

“Reiner-”

“You’ve been holed up in here for almost two days. I know finals are important but I’ll bet your brain is fried to a crisp.” Defiantly declaring, crossing those beefy ass arms over his chest and waiting for you to give in like he knew you would.

Whatever. The premier of the new season of the show the three of you watched would only be an hour, and then you could return to forcing yourself to absorb as much information as possible. Sighing dramatically for effect and throwing the blankets off of yourself, you uncross your stupidly numb legs and ignore the sharp tingles running up from your foot as you stride over to the small closet to put on a sweatshirt. Reiner didn’t bother leaving as you tossed your t-shirt and bra from where you stood partially out of view to pull the sweatshirt over your head.

“Jean is picking up food and drinks - is that my sweatshirt that I haven’t been able to find?” Sounding hurt and accusatory as you brushed past him out of your room, looking back to nod with a smile, because yes it was his and it was his fault for mixing it in with your laundry. He muttered down the small hallway to the main area of the condo all three of you shared, pinching your shoulder when he purposely knocked past you, hearing the muttering replaced with chuckles.

One of them had taken the liberty to find all the blankets that were supposed to already be in the living room and tossed them all over the couch, setting up for the three of you to comfortably watch the premier. You could hear Reiner in the kitchen that flowed into the open concept living room, making a whole bunch of unnecessary noise in trying to find whatever it was. If you were being honest, living with your closest friends was turning into living with siblings, getting into pointless arguments and doing everything to get on each other's nerves. Would you change it to live with a regular roommate that could be a hit or miss in how well you got alone? Hell no.

Finding a spot on the couch while waiting for Jean, you decided to look through all the notifications you missed while studying for hours. Some of your classmates were checking in, or asking questions about the notes, contemplating on whether you should respond. They could wait, Reiner was probably right when he said your brain was fried at this point. Checking social media quickly turned into envy seeing some of your other friends enjoying the holiday break, done with their finals and celebrating by jumping from parties to bars or wherever they sold cheap alcohol. If only you were done with finals so you could actually destress, but that just wasn’t in the cards.

Jean came through the door after barreling through it, hands full with food and drinks. From the strong aroma, you knew he went to go get wings, always choosing the messiest option somehow.

“Damn out of your room finally? Swore you died or something.” Commenting with a smirk as he passed by the couch to get to the kitchen where Reiner was snickering at his comment. Rolling your eyes instead of lashing back, you joined them in the kitchen to plate some of the food and momentarily forget about the weight of finals.

“Please tell me you didn’t just get beer.” Approaching the center island of the kitchen, noticing the familiar white box in one of the bags that happened to be Jean and Reiner’s preferred drink of choice. If they wanted to give you a break, they would’ve at least gotten drinks that didn’t take four or five to actually start to feel the buzz.

“No, I got you those lemonade drinks.”

Ugh you could kiss him. As much as you loved Jean as a friend he had a tendency to forget to grab whatever you needed when he went out, always having to send you or Reiner back to the store to go grab it. Taking the glass bottle and popping the lid, the tingling fizzy drink left a slight burn as it went down your throat, just the right amount for you to down an entire six pack in a night and not regret your life choices in the morning.

“Shows about to start.” Reiner announced after checking his phone, taking his plate with him to the couch. You and Jean did the same, grabbing the drinks as well to keep from having to get up and get another if you wanted.

Sitting next to Reiner at a reasonable distance, Jean plopped down next to you and ended up sandwiching you between them. They were doing the absolute most to work every single one of your nerves, but you didn’t want to lash out again like you did earlier this week when one of them accidently ate your leftovers in the fridge. Tucking your feet under you as Reiner found the streaming service the show was premiering on, you actually didn’t mind being squished between them, their combined body heat doing more than the blanket over your lap would warm you up.

The host for the show gave a quick recap of last season, breaking down the drama and how it might affect this season. This dating competition game that you had started watching out of boredom surprisingly took the guys interest, somehow watching it with you when it was on to turning into offense when you’d watch the latest episode without them. Despite the show being corny and scripted and at times unbearable to watch, it was nice to do something like this with them.

“I swear to god if Jodi and that dick Preston aren’t broken up I might not watch the show anymore.”

Jean hummed in agreement with Reiner, guzzling down the rest of his first beer and reaching for another. “I know, he’s so fucking annoying and Jodi is either dumb or desperate if she hasn’t left him yet.”

Biting back a laugh as you took a bite of one of the wings, you looked at both of them to see they were being completely serious, so engrossed in this stupid show. The premise of this variant of a dating show was two people are paired up as a couple in the beginning and go through a series of challenges to see if they’re right for each other. Couples who continuously didn’t work together could get voted off or petition to break up with their partner. The downside was if there wasn’t another couple trying to split, you could be left without a partner and voted off, ya know all those stupid dating show rules that make you question why anyone would sign up to do it.

Finally beginning to destress while nursing your vodka infused lemonade, it all went to shit when the couple you were rooting for petitioned to split.

“Oh my god no! Why?! They were so good together!” Exclaiming and throwing your arms up, throwing your head back into the couch and pouting like a child.

“Man that sucks, but he did fuck Serena last season so I’d leave him to.” Reiner commented, grabbing your attention even more, failing to recall that important detail.

“Really?”

“Oh yeah, they were getting each other off in that hallway, remember? Moaning so loud it's a shocker no one heard them.” Jean answered, laughing a little as he recalled the scene you’d clearly missed.

“Yea! She was standing there going ‘oh josh faster! I'm going to cum, oh my god I’m so close!’” Reiner took it upon himself to imitate the moans one of the contestants were making, and you wouldn’t have felt as uncomfortable if it wasn't for that throaty laugh he let out there at the end, turning your cheeks flush with pink and throwing back the rest of your drink to hide it. Jean found Reiner’s imitation hilarious, laughing a bit harder than you’d imagine he would if he wasn’t finishing his second beer already, grabbing another and throwing his arm behind the couch and slouching, lifting his hips in the air trying to get comfortable.

Suddenly the short commercial playing on screen was so interesting, taking small sips of the second bottle of lemonade and trying to drown out the sounds of their talking over you. Studying your ass off for the last couple of months left you little to no time to snag yourself a quick one night stand. You’d been able to ignore the urges and pour everything into your notes and reviews, but fuck it was harder than you expected. Espescially when you pick up on conversations between Reiner and Jean on their nights out, the girls they sometimes went home with and wishing you were getting fucked into the next semester. When all three of you moved in here, everyone agreed not to bring anyone home, unless clearing it with the other two that they’d be gone for the night. It hadn’t happen yet (that you were aware of) and you were glad, unsure how you’d feel knowing one of your best friends was getting their dick wet and having to listen to it.

Regular programming returned and tried as you did to focus on what was unfolding, you just couldn’t. Replaying Reiner’s laugh in your head and Jean’s hip motion, turning you warm all over and settling something funny yet familiar in your abdomen. You wouldn’t lie and say you haven’t though about fucking one of them, mostly they were just passing thoughts and that was it, but now? Jesus fucking christ your head was a mess. This what you get for turning down outings with other friends to study, leaving you hornier than a motherfucker. It’d be fine, the show only had about thirty minutes left and then you could go back to studying and rub one out if you really needed to.

“I wonder why there aren’t any same sex couples? I’d like to see how that plays out.” Jean’s words had a slight slur to them as he spoke, now reclined completely with his feet propped up on the coffee table.

“Wasn’t there one last season?” Reiner asked, in a similar position as Jean, one arm behind his head and his half drank beer between his thighs.

“Mm no, I think Zach and Marco made out on a dare but they weren’t a couple.” Giving them an answer after searching through your brain for that jaw dropping scene from last season that had everyone talking about on social media.

“Oh yea I remember that, that was hot.” Jean slurred, heat dripping in his words and causing you to raise an eyebrow. Maybe it was because he was drunk, that was what you told yourself instead of questioning how your friend really felt about that scene unfolding.

Every little movement either of them did drew your attention, watching as Reiner drank the last of his beer, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, only to be pulled away by Jean’s groans as he adjusted on the couch. They weren’t doing it on purpose and you were tipsy so that explained the clenching of your thighs to ease the throb, not because you were getting turned on by them.

A preview of next week's episode played at the end of the premier, taking the liberty to watch it before getting up and heading back to your room to get your mind out of the gutter. But as you walked away, Reiner grabbed your wrist, pulling you back towards him lazily.

“Leaving already?”

“I said I’d watch the premier with you guys and then study before going to bed.” Ignoring how large his hand looked around your wrist and how warm it was on your skin, taking in a sharp breath.

“It’s Friday though.” The blonde whined, the slight inebriation turning him a bit sappy.

“Play a game of cards with us and then go, please.” Jean chimed in, fluttering those hazel eyes at you, begging to spend just a little more time together.

Not giving it much thought, you let out a sigh and walked to the media console below where the T.V hung on the wall to grab the deck of cards. Surely there was a quick game the three of you could play that wouldn’t send your mind further into the gutter or put you in a compromising situation. Jean managed to get up and grab some water for everyone, tossing one to you and Reiner as he sat down on the floor behind the coffee table, leaning back into the couch for support.

“One round of B.S, alright?” Shuffling the cards between your hands and the table, repeatedly doing so that way everyone played fairly.

“Lame but alright.” Jean agreed, chugging some of the water and sharing a look with Reiner that you didn’t understand and didn’t care to acknowledge.

Dividing the entire deck between the three of you, now waiting for one of them to put down the ace of spades to begin the game. Reiner ended up having it and motioned towards you to go next. This game used to be a staple for you guys, playing every chance you got and getting into heated arguments whenever someone suspected someone else of putting down the incorrect card.

The game went quietly in the beginning, until you picked up on Jean and Reiner putting down cards that they ‘supposedly’ had, smiling behind your deck every time they called out cards that were in your deck, the only thing keeping you from calling them out was waiting until the deck got a little thicker.

“Two eights.” Reiner called out, looking at you to go next.

“Bullshit.”

“Ha! You sure? Cause I promise you I just put down two eights.” Reiner laughed, encouraging you to rethink your decision but also egging you on to check in hopes of watching you take the entire deck.

“Check it.” Jean motivated from beside you, pushing his shoulder with yours. Reiner still had that confident look on his face which did end up making you regret your call out a bit, second guessing if you were right to call his bluff. No matter what since you called B.S, you had to check and you were going to livid if it actually was two eights.

Reaching forward and thumbing apart the top two cards from the rest of the deck, you snuck a peak and saw what you didn’t want to see; two eights.

“Nevermind, I take it back.” Knowing that wasn’t how the game worked but hoping you could worm your way out of it.

“Uh uh, check.” Reiner insisted while standing up, coming to lean over you from behind, taking your arm and trying to force you to check the first two cards so the entire deck would go to you. Doing everything to resist, laughing as the man behind you snarled and laughed in your ear, still trying to force you to check with his hand over yours. Jean was leaning over to help, slipping an arm under the one that held your deck in the other hand, sandwiching you between them for the second time that night.

“Just check, it’s okay if you’re a loser this round.” The taller of the two sneered in your other ear, brushing his lips over the shell and letting out a breathy laugh. You instantly shivered and became much more aware of your position, Reiner pressed into you from behind and Jean from the side. Heat rose in your entire body, refusing to let yourself enjoy the firm muscular bodies rubbing against yours.

Resistance faltered completely as you got caught up in the overwhelming thoughts and sensations coursing through you, Reiner succeeding in getting your hand to flip over the top three cards, chuckling directly into ear.

“Now was that so hard?” So close to the side of your face, you couldn’t help but turn and meet him. His eyes were still a bit hazy from the alcohol but not enough for you to feel guilty for leaning in and pressing your lips to his.

Reiner gasped softly, giving into the feel of your soft plush lips on his and parting them when he felt yours begin to. You had absolutely no explanation for what spurred you to lean in and kiss what you considered your best friend, but you did and fuck did it feel nice. Reiner’s lips were surprisingly soft and the lingering remnants of his beer on his tongue kept you latched to his mouth.

Behind you, Jean watched intrigued, though not entirely shocked. He would feel left out if he weren’t enjoying his two best friends making out on the floor of the living room, noticing how his sweat pants turned a little tighter. He smirked when Reiner peeked an eye open, a silent invitation to join in while pulling away from you. Jean wasted no time grabbing you by the back of your neck and slotting his lips into yours, sighing delightfully and wasting no time moving them with his.

There wasn’t enough time for you to process that it was Jean you were kissing now, your other best friend, letting out a small moan when his tongue dipped into your mouth. He was slightly more insistent than Reiner was, moving faster and with a purpose but still reeling you in as your mouths stayed locked together.

Coming up for air, not even wanting to think about what had just happened, you stood quickly.

“C’mon,” Nodding towards what you think was Reiner’s room, knowing that if you gave yourself a moment to consider what you were about to do, you’d back out and hole yourself away in your room and never speak of this again.

Both of them were quick to follow, smiling victoriously behind you. The door shut and you sat on the edge of Reiner’s bed, looking at both of them and debating on how this should continue to carry out. Consequences could come later, right now you’d gotten a taste of what you’d been actively avoiding for the sake of a GPA and needing so much more.

“However you want to do this, I’m down.” Voicing your consent and ultimately putting all of your trust in both of them. You would admit this could be smoother sailing since you’d known both of them since childhood basically, but just not like that. There wouldn’t be much need to worry about keeping them in check like you would if it were someone you went home from the bar with and part of that excited you.

Out of the two of them, Jean approached first, standing between your legs and grabbing your face and kissing you again. Slowly as your mouths returned to motions from minutes ago, the taller man began to push you back into the bed, holding himself above you with his hands beside your head. The bed dipped in the sudden weight of another person, knowing it was Reiner.

Slender hands slipped under your sweatshirt, roaming around your skin and littering it with goosebumps. You gasped when the lith fingers brushed the underside of your breast, remembering you weren’t wearing a bra. Jean chuckled into your lips, humming as he dared to cup the flesh, sighing pleasantly when brushing his thumb over your nipple.

Abruptly his mouth left yours, leaving you dazed and sitting up to search for his lips, only to see hands that weren’t Jean’s pulling his shirt off. Reiner stood on his knees just behind your head, tossing the shirt to the other side of the room and giving a playful smack to Jean’s pectoral.

“Sharing is caring by the way.” The blonde rumbled behind you, scolding Jean and pinching his nipple teasingly, hearing Jean hiss softly before Reiner slipped his arms under your armpits and hauling you to face him. He was in nothing but his boxer briefs, the faint imprint of his half hard cock catching your eyes and widening at how big it looked beneath the fabric. Fuck you hadn’t even thought about how big either of them were, both impressively fit and no doubt having a dick to match the rigid muscles rippling over their bodies.

Falling with Reiner as he leaned back on the bed, you threw your legs over his torso and smashed your mouth to his, feeling another set of hands from behind you lift the hem of your sweatshirt until you were bare from the waist up. The man below you groaned when you sat up on his abdomen, running his hand across your stomach. Acquainted hands from earlier snakes around to your chest, Jean cupping both of your tits and softly kissing down your neck while circling his thumbs over your nipples.

“Fuck,” Reiner breathed from below, raising his hips as he watched Jean tease and stimulate your nipples in to pert buds. Mindlessly, you began to scoot down until you came in contact with the bulge beneath Reiner’s boxers, grinding in time with Jean’s circling thumbs. The blonde groaned again, bringing his hands to your hips and encouraging you.

“Eager huh?” A voice teased, pinching both nipples harshly and sucking the side of your neck. You couldn’t think of anything but the rising heat in your body, the teasing from Jean and the quieted groans from Reiner below. Maybe you were stupid for never giving this a shot before, both seemed eager and willing to please and show you what a good time looked like.

“Are these my sweat pants?” Jean asked, pulling off of your neck and slipping one of his hands to the waistband of said sweats, snapping the band against your skin.

“Mhm.” Unable to give any other answer as Reiner started rolling his hips up to yours, matching the roll of your own. Wasn’t intentional to wear either of their clothes but seeing how it looked now only made you more desperate for them and if that got you what you wanted, then where was the harm. Reiner began to tug at the waistband, sitting up on his elbows after hearing the short conversation between you and Jean, aiding him by lifting your hips and no longer straddling his waist.

Enough teasing, you decided, pulling down Reiner’s boxer briefs after he tossed the sweats aside, gripping the base and watching his face contort at the contact. He was thick from the base up, intimidating you from the sight and size alone. Jean chuckled, moving to lay beside his friend, cupping the side of his face and hovering above his lips. Interesting to see there was no resistance from Reiner when their lips slipped together, craning to reach the ashy haired man like he was desperate for his taste. Smirking while the two of them made out, you flattened your tongue over the top of Reiner’s cockhead, fluttering your eyes at the delicious groan that Jean swallowed from Reiner. It’d take some working up to taking his dick all the way down, girthy enough to know your jaw would ache when it was all said and done.

Sucking around the head and moaning when Reiner’s hand reached down to grip Jean’s dick still shielded by the fabric of his briefs, seeing his hand move up and down. Had they done this before? You couldn't help but wonder the more you took Reiner’s dick down seeing how they were both so comfortable with each other’s touch, and the slight jealousy of being left out. Jean’s hip rutted into Reiner’s hand, breaking their make out session to finally pull his briefs off and give you a look at what he was packing as well. It was slightly longer than Reiner’s, by an inch or two but not as thick, pausing your bobbing head to stare between his legs.

“I think she likes it.” Reiner hissed, bringing a hand to your head, pushing you further down his dick and letting his head fall back when the tip brushed the back of your throat.

“Haven’t met anyone who hasn’t.” Jean quipped back, moving off the bed and coming to stand behind you. You watched Reiner’s eyes follow him, a sly smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. Warm hands massaged your ass cheeks, gasping around the cock still deep in your throat when two fingers swiped over your clothed pussy.

“Fucking soaked.” He commented behind you, Reiner groaning approvingly as he still guided your head up and down on his dick. Jean then pulled your panties down, tossing them over to Reiner who shamelessly brought them to his nose, listening to him mutter a few words and pull you off of his dick to give you a break. Jean then took to spreading you apart, licking a strip from your clit to your entrance, squeaking out a moan and falling forward onto Reiner’s abdomen. The blonde pulled you forward until your tits dangled in his face, taking one into his mouth.

“Holy shit-” Gasping at the double stimulation, forgetting all shame and grinding back into Jean’s face, who appreciated the gesture with a firm slap to one ass cheek, dipping his tongue inside you, slurping obnoxiously. You were shaking, struggling to hold yourself up, moaning like the whore you felt like. Reiner managed to keep you steady above him, holding you so he could bite and suck at your over sensitive nipples. You knew both of them were experienced but fuck, they were intent on making it impossible to make any future hookups impossible to enjoy, hoping this wouldn’t be a one time thing.

Reiner suddenly bit down hard on your nipple, pulling off it with a tug and causing you to wince at the slight pain. Unsure of what would cause him to do that, you turned around to see one of Jean’s hands between your bodies, languidly stroking the blonde’s spit coated dick. This wasn’t exactly the right time to question the nature of your two friends' relationship, but the way Reiner was moaning and struggling to return to the task at hand, it continuously flashed in the back of your head. Jean was still buried in your pussy while simultaneously jacking Reiner off, pressing your forehead to Reiner’s and practically synchronizing your moans.

“Fuck, have you two done this before?” asking the man below you, watching his slow nod come before his answer.

“Yea - fuck - every once in a while.” panting as his hips grinded into Jean’s hand, and sitting up enough to where he could pry the man away, seconds away from cumming.

Jean took the hint, also pulling away from your pussy and stroking it affectionately. You winced at the final slap he gave to your ass, coming back to lay beside Reiner, taking the side of his face and turning it towards him.

“Pussy tastes fuckin’ devine.”

“Oh yea?” Bolding swiping his tongue over Jean’s bottom lip, speaking as if you weren’t there listening to them talk. You watched as they kissed again, yearning for the combined taste and chastising yourself for not noticing the signs for whatever they had going on sooner.

“Think I need a better taste for myself, lay down for me baby.” Reiner instructed, already moving to get out from under you. Jean chuckled deviously, pecking the side of your mouth and moving to the very back of the bed, reclining against the headboard, patting his inner thigh. Reiner immediately knew what he was wanting and waited until you were sitting between the other man’s legs to center him between yours.

“Keep’em spread for me.” Glancing up to the other man, running his palms over your inner thighs.

You were already so sensitive from Jean eating you out minutes ago, you were afraid you weren’t going to last much longer. Nevertheless, you let Jean hook your legs over his and watched on baited breath as the blonde examined your slick and puffy folds.

“Fuck, such a pretty pussy.” His voice so airy, breathing over your cunt prior to latching onto your clit. Your back arched off of Jean’s chest, whining at the intentionally harsh sucks. The man behind you held you down with an arm around your chest, chuckling right beside your ear. Reiner looked up, smiled against your tingling flesh and flicked his tongue over your clit while he continued to suck.

Jesus fucking christ, it was too much, you were already starting to feel yourself cum when Jean’s hand tipped your head back. “Don’t cum, not yet gorgeous.”

“Jean, I can’t.” Mewling pathetically, feeling the beginnings of tears at your waterline from the overstimulation.

“Sure you can.” Giving a slow grind of his dick on your lower back, the promise of a silent reward if you did what you were told. Keeping your head thrown back on his shoulder you shamelessly moaned and whimpered as Reiner alternated between sucks and swirls of his tongue, listening to his chuckles as you writhed against Jean. He finally pulled away only to shove his middle and ring finger inside, pulling you too look at him by your chin as he sat on his knees between your legs and furiously fingered you.

“Fuck look at you, so pretty baby.” He cooed with a smirk, running along the spongy part deep inside of you and giving a small tilt of his head, knowing you would take it as your indicator to cum.

You came on a broken cry, arched off Jean’s chest and pulsating around Reiner’s fingers. Both of them laughed endearingly at their combined success at getting you to come. Reiner pulled his fingers out, locked his eyes with yours and sucked the two digits clean. Jean was the one who moaned behind you at the act, dick still grinding into your lower back subtly.

“Think you’re okay to take one of us?” One of them asked, still delirious from your orgasm to tell who was asking. You gave a nod and sat forward, not really caring how but still feeling the ache in your cunt for more.

“Alright hands and knees then princess.” It was Jean instructing, hearing his voice vibrate in his chest that was still pressed to your back.

On shaky legs you sat on your knees, watching them move around as you positioned yourself on all fours. Reiner was still behind you, massaging your ass cheeks and letting out huffs of appreciation at your puffy wet folds, his and Jean’s handy work. Jean sat on his knees in front of your face, running a loose fist over his angry cock, using the pre-cum leaking from the slit to lubricate his motions.

“If it’s too much, pinch my thigh or kick the brute behind you.” Jean swooned, holding your head up to look at him as he spoke, stroking his thumb over your bottom lip, watching the anticipation blaze in his irises.

“We’ll take care of you angel,” Reiner pressed himself into your back, lips brushing against the shell of your ear and sending a shiver down your spine. All you could do was nod, witness the shared glance between both of them and wait on pins and needles.

The fat head of Reiner’s cock started to slide between your folds teasingly, wetting the tip and making it hard to focus on your gentle kisses you were giving to Jean’s. It was good they were both aware of their size and knew they couldn’t just shove themselves in disregarding you completely, but holy shit, if your weeping cunt wasn’t enough to entice Reiner to slip inside you already then you weren’t sure what will.

A hand held your jaw when you enclosed your lips around the tip, sucking long and slow, tasting the salty pre that continuously leaked out. Jean’s head was thrown back, the defined muscles cascading over his body clenching the more you took in his cock more. You could hear Reiner chuckle on a low breath, pushing just the tip inside of you and giving a full body shutter. If their goal was to drive you insane with their pace, it was working, taking things into your own hands and pushing your hips back into Reiner until you were flush to his pelvis.

He choked, dug his fingers into your hip and somewhat growled with the ragged breaths he was taking. It was Jean’s turn to laugh now, the sound so disgustingly seductive you could feel yourself grow wetter around the cock you shoved yourself on.

“God you’re fucking tight, feels so good.” The blonde breathed out, pulling his hips back nearly all the way, returning the favor by thrusting forward and sending Jean’s cock deeper down your throat. The hand not holding your chin tangled harshly in your hair, looking down with parted lips and hooded eyes at the sight and little reaction you gave. They may have known you all your life but they didn’t know how well you could take dick, letting a small amount of pride surge through you at their astonishment.

Their rhythm synchronized quickly, settling somewhere in the middle of not too soft and not too rough, letting you adjust to their respective sizes. You knew it wouldn’t last before they abandoned it all and used you to find their pleasure, just from radiating restraint coming off of them, eventually fucking your throat and pussy like you were nothing but a hole to be filled and that thought alone was exciting.

“Shit, do that again.” Jean breathily exclaimed, enjoying the method of your tongue swirling around his shaft as he plunged in and out of your mouth, tipping your head back with the hand still in your hair. Giving him a hum, you repeated the action, felt your stomach flip in on itself as he moaned prettily.

There was a slight hitch in breath from the man behind you, faltering in his thrusts and seemingly regaining his composure. Something about Reiner experiencing the same surge of arousal as your were at Jean’s expression and action thickened the lust hanging in the air around you. He didn’t resume his pace like you were expecting him to, but yanked back into focus on Jean tightening his grip in your hair and pistoning his hips forward, fucking your throat with vigor, something snapping inside him.

“There you go, gorgeous.” Growling, inhaling sharply through his nose. Your eyes were welling up with tears, the ache in your jaw beginning but you didn’t want to stop, not until his cum was trickling down your throat, leaving you no choice but to swallow. Reiner palmed both of your ass cheeks, spreading them far apart and slamming into with the same force Jean was. This sudden switch up had your legs nearly buckling, tears rolling down your cheeks and pathetic whines and whimpers muffled. Your pussy fluttered around Reiner everytime Jean thrusted down your throat, the wet squelching noise turning obscene, your gummy walls sucking the blonde back in over and over, like your pussy craved to be stretched and fucked on his thick cock.

“Fuck she feels so good, so wet,” Reiner groaned, talking to Jean, again like you weren’t there.

“Mm, she sucks cock better than you.” Jean groaned back at the mental image his friend was painting, acknowledging your mouth felt just as good as your pussy probably did.

“Not my fault, you barely give me a chance before trying to get me inside you.”

Their banter of a conversation sending you into a new wave of arousal, images of their bulky bodies fighting over who would fuck who and never in your life did you think something like that would turn you on. Despite it being your two best friends fueling these fantasizing images, you couldn’t help but want to be in the middle of that from here on out. From the way both of them fucked you, there wasn’t any desire to look for anymore hook-ups, not when the two perfect candidates were right here.

“Gonna cum princess, be a good girl and swallow it all for me.” A husky voice drawing you back to reality, doing your best to give him a nod and look up at him with doe-like eyes, a trick that worked on just about every guy.

With a slow drawn out groan, Jean pushed the entirety of his cock into your mouth and down your throat, pressing your nose to the happy trail below his belly button. Hot ropes of cum shot down your throat, feeling him ease up and pull out of your mouth so he wouldn’t accidentally choke you with his cum. He gave you a lopsided smile, wiping away the milky liquid from your bottom lip and the corner of your mouth with his thumb, shuffling over to Reiner who was still fucking your pussy absolutely raw. You could only assume the blonde cleaned off the cum smeared thumb Jean presented him, based on the hiss and brief collision of mouths.

A heavy palm landed on the center of your back, forcing you off of your elbows holding you up and forming a deep arch in your back. From this angle, Reiner was able to sink so much deeper inside you, splitting you in half on his thick cock, crying out with a moan.

“Glad I held off, been dying to hear those pretty moans again baby.” He chuckled, putting more of his weight into the hand on your back, forcing you to keep the arch.

“Fuck Reiner, don’t stop.” Gasping, twisting the bedsheets in a tight fist, the tears welling up in your eyes again.

“Don’t plan to, sweetheart, I want to see you leaking by the time I’m done.”

Your eyes rolled into the back of your head, unable to stop the constant moans and incoherent noises leaving your lips. Jean had come back into view, partially laying down beside you, keeping your hair out of your eyes and giving you a look of endearing smugness, like watching you getting fucked by Reiner was better than fucking you himself.

Skin slapping on skin echoed in the bedroom, your body coated in a layer of sweat and your limbs so weak that if it weren’t for Reiner holding you by the hips now, you wouldn’t be able to keep yourself upright. Your spongy walls clenched repeatedly around him after another orgasm, unsure of how many at this point.

“Doin’ so good, doll.” Jean cooed, pinching the nipple he had been messing with and muffling your broken squeak with a soft kiss, keeping you occupied. Reiner grunted, beginning to break his steady harsh rhythm and fucking into you furiously with abandon. His breathing turned into short gasps, letting out something of a whine, tipping his head back with two final slams of his hips before cumming inside of you.

A familiar warmth filled your pussy, moaning weakly into Jean’s lips, giving up on holding your position. Reiner pulled out slowly, groaning as he watched a glob of his cum drip from your hole. You collapsed on the bed, forcing yourself to turn over and lay on your back, placing your hands over your eyes to ease the dizziness you were experiencing.

Just when you thought all the nerve endings in your body were shot, you sprung forward when a flat tongue glided over your folds, seeing Reiner lap up the mess he made between your legs, smirking and moving out of the way so Jean could do the same thing.

“Fucking filthy.” Muttering at the sight of them both taking turns cleaning you up, your legs twitching and tingling from sensitivity. They both looked at you guiltless, even though you were shaking with overstimulation that didn’t stop you from pressing Jean’s head into your folds, watching as he eagerly lapped at Reiner’s cum. They switched again, Reiner being gentler this time, only running his tongue across your messy slit twice before using his middle finger to shove some of it back in.

Reiner moves out from between your legs to lay beside you, cradling the side of your face for the sole purpose of giving you a taste of his cum. You were just as shameless, moaning into the kiss and running your hand through his sweaty hair, feeling him smirk against your lips. He pulled away, grabbing Jean by the back of the neck and slotting his lips between his, kissing him rather tenderly.

With zero strength to make it to the bathroom, let alone your room to grab a change of clothes, Reiner and Jean took the liberty of taking care of you. Both of them pulling on their sweats thrown around the room, Reiner cleaned your inner thighs while Jean went to your room to grab you some underwear after tossing you one of Reiner’s sweatshirts. All three of you situated yourself into Reiner’s king bed, you of course in the middle of them both. There was so point in going back to your room and studying, not when you had several unanswered questions.

“So how long have you two been dating?” They both froze beside you, and you couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“We’re not dating, we just fuck occasionally.” Jean answered, Reiner nodding to further reaffirm the statement, but you weren’t buying it. Their chemistry in bed was enough to convince you they’d been hiding a relationship from you.

“You just fuck? No feelings attached?”

“There’s obviously feelings when we’ve been friends this long, but we’re not exclusive.” Reiner responded, propping himself up on his elbow and looking in the direction of you and Jean. “We didn’t tell you because there wasn’t anything serious between us.”

Okay, that made more sense than you were expecting too. But experiencing what you just did created a longing inside of you, one that might’ve been there that you didn’t want to acknowledge before now. Jean and Reiner were your best friends without a doubt, but they were also so much more than that and in order to not ruin the friendship, you shoved that deep down inside of you.

“But,” Jean’s hands from behind turned you to look towards him. “We’re also not opposed to the idea of you being a part of this situationship.”

“You’ve talked about this?” Surprised to know this wasn’t a coincidence happening, sounding like they planned this in a way.

“Of course we have, do you know how long both of us have had a crush on you?” Reiner laughed, sending your mind into a flurry of confusion. They liked you? Like holding affectionate feelings beyond friendship for you?

“Huh?”

“Since junior or senior year of high school. We didn’t know we both felt the same way about you until after we had sex for the first time six months ago, agreeing that if it ever came to the point where you chose one of us over the other we would be okay with it.” Jean was speaking now, softly and almost lovingly, sending a blush to your face.

“And we’ll never ask you to choose, if you want only one of us that’s fine and if you end up wanting both of us, that’s fine too.” Reiner spoke with the same inflection Jean did, softly smiling and looking at you endearingly.

“I want both of you.” Blurting out without even thinking twice, hearing them laugh. But you knew you would rather have both than just one, it's always been the three of you.

“Don’t decide now idiot, we’re being serious.” Jean pinched your shoulder with a frustrated grunt, rolling his eyes while Reiner just laughed softly.

“We can talk about it more tomorrow, it’s late.” Reaching over to turn the lamp off on his bedside table, pulling you down under the comforter into his arms and kissing the top of your head. Jean shuffled behind you, pressing his chest to your back and kissing your cheek.

For a few moments you refused to close your eyes, trying to break down all the new feelings and emotions you were experiencing, from earlier when you were at their mercy, to the confession from them both. It was in a way exciting, and whatever ended up happening between the three of you, it would work out in the end.

#reiner braun #jean kirstein #reiner x reader #jean kirschtein x reader #reiner x jean x reader #attack on titan #aot reiner #aot jean #snk #reiner smut #jean kirschstein smut #snk smut #aot smut #smut

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i-dont-wanna-be-me-anymore · 3 months ago

Text

Friends | Five H. x male!reader | Part 1!

Five Hargreeves x male reader

SPOILER WARNING FOR SEASON 4 UNDER CUT!!!!!

Summary: Five, after gaining a job at the CIA, has found himself falling in love with his coworker, for whom which he both hates and admires. But after his brother gets kidnapped, Five has to resort to, for the first time in 50 years, trusting someone other than his family to help him. THIS IS KIND OF LONG SO BEAR WITH ME.

Warnings: fluff?, Cursing, mention of gun, frenemies SPOILERS FOR SEASON 4 ‼️

A/n: I just really hated the whole relationship between Five and Lila, so I’m erasing it, erasing their 7 years together, and making an ACTUAL uninvolved and un-family love interest for Five. This is also based off of the fact that Steve Blackman said he wanted to give Five a love interest whether it be a guy or a girl. I AM NOW A HEAVY BISEXUAL FIVE BELIEVER.

Part 2

• • • • •

It’s been 5 years since Five and his family reset the universe and brought about this new timeline. 5 years of trying to make his life worth living and actually trying to enjoy the peacefulness of this new life. But he couldn’t help but feel like something was missing. Something that he needed in order to keep him stable or at least just keep him from losing it. Maybe that something was actually a someone….

He always hated the thought of being completely alone. Ever since the apocalypse, losing his family and people that he loved or cared about was his number one fear. He didn’t want to ever be alone again.

In his new job with the CIA, he’s been able to observe and oversee what things could attempt to hurt those people that he cares about. Helped him have control over his life for once.

The only downside of the job was having to deal with stubborn coworkers and the terrible work hours. However, there was one person in particular that he was thinking of.

Y/n. He was a royal pain in the ass to Five. He was a talkative person. Always wanting to know how Five’s day was, always asking about his cases. And when Five would interact with him, he would sometimes leave mid conversation just to piss him off.

He thrived off making him annoyed, like it was his reason for being there in the first place.

And although Five would never admit it, but Y/n did have some redeemable qualities.

He was intelligent. One of the most intelligent people Five knew, all things considered. In his eyes, he was smart and knowledgable when it came to his job, he took it seriously, but in other cases he would always act rather stupid.

Another thing, that Five again would never admit to others or himself, was that Y/n was undeniably hot. And Five was honestly somewhat attracted to him because of that.

Not attracted to him in the way where he wanted to be with him, no…

Never in the way where he wanted to have a life with him…

Get Past being coworkers and actually learn more about him…

Have longer conversation rather than the short and sweet ones that they already had…

No, not in those ways at all.

When it came to work, Five would always try to find a way to swerve around him, try not to get caught up in whatever stupid conversation he wanted to have with him. But when he did get caught up, there would be times where he would leave an implicit comment and then rush off, ending their conversation.

Despite interacting with him, Five preferred to work alone in the office. Allowed him to know everything that he needed to know without having to ask anyone, or communicate with anyone…unless it was his boss, Lance, whose office he was currently sitting in.

Lance sat in his chair, staring at the “teen” for a bit before speaking.

“How are you handling your job? You enjoying the experience?”

“Yes, sir, I’m very grateful for this job and I intend to do everything I can to be efficient and productive with it.” Five answered, his fingers pinching the skin of his fingers as he watches his every movement, not understanding why he was here in the first place.

“Mm, I like to hear that. You can send him in,” Lance says to his assistant, who quickly nods sending in the man himself, Y/n.

“You summoned me, boss?” He asked, glancing at Five for a quick second as his eyebrows twitch up at the sight of him.

“Yes, I did. Because I have taken it upon myself to assign you two as partners,” he points to both of them.

“What?” “Come again?” The pair say, both now standing as they look at each other.

“With all due respect, sir, I don’t think Five and I would make good partners-“

“That’s exactly the reason I’m doing it. Look,” Y/n and Five both sit back down.

“I know you two don’t like each other that much, maybe even at all, but I’ve seen you, Five, you don’t talk to anyone else in the office. And Y/n, you talk to everyone in this office-in this building really, and you rarely talk to him. I think with this opportunity, you two can actually get along and succeed in working with each other. And, maybe this will take your mind away from the Keeper case,” he says to Five, who leans back into his seat, a deep sigh emitting from him.

Y/n groans quietly, slumping into his chair. Five rolls his eyes at him, making Lance speak up again.

“I’ll make a deal with you two,” they perk up, “solve one case together and maybe I’ll reconsider allowing you two to work separately again, all right?” Y/n looks at Five, who does the same, and they both nod.

“Good, now leave,” the assistant opens the door for the two, allowing(forcing) them to leave.

Y/n sighs, “do you have any open and easy to solve cases?”

“Oh a shit ton, but I’m not gonna let you get in the way of my job,” Five spits, Y/n now looking at him with an unamused face.

“Well, that’s good, because I won’t let you get in the way of mine, either.” With that, the two walk out of the building, heading in separate directions from each other.

• • • • •

Weeks had gone by since then, and they still had not solved one case together. They attempted to lie and have one of them solve a case and the other also have credit, but that ended up backfiring because they didn’t get their processes of working on it completely in sync with one another. There were details either missing or added in each other their reports. Granted the case was solved, but not for their own benefit.

Y/n was starting to grow annoyed, wanting nothing more than to go back to how things were. Where Five was just a simple guy in the office that he would annoy just for the hell of it, and there wouldn’t be any consequences to their work ethic and values.

Later that night, however, Y/n got a call.

“What? What is it?” He answers, groggy from the fact that he just woke up.

“Hey, I need your help,” the person on the other line says, seeming like he struggled to get that out.

“Wha-Five?” He looks over at the clock on the wall, “why the hell are you calling me at 12 in the morning?”

“Just-I need you to help me, okay? My brother’s been kidnapped and…” he sighs, his siblings listening at him talk to the unknown person.

“It would be nice to have some backup,” Y/n grins, already getting up to get dressed.

“Aw, Five, I never knew you had it in you to actually ask for hel-“

“Are you going to or not?”

“Okay, okay, fine, yes, I’ll help, where do you want me to meet you?”

“I think it’ll just be easier if I-“

“YOU’RE NOT DRIVING WANDA!”

“-If we pick you up. Jesus, Diego,” Y/n pulled the phone away from his ear as he heard someone yell, he assumed it was one of the many siblings Five had told him about.

“Okay, I’ll meet you in..five minutes?”

“Make it three.” The phone goes silent as Y/n grabs his gun and his badge, making sure it was loaded before heading down the stairs to his apartment building.

The family picks him up, in what he learned to be Wanda, and they head to the laundry mat.

There, him and Five go in front of the group as they hold their guns and a flashlight in front of them, checking in every area to make sure that they are safe and not at risk of getting hurt.

When they see Viktor, he’s loosely tied to a chair and not even looking as if he’s in pain.

Five helps his brother as Y/n makes sure his gun is still up, making sure Five’s family and him are safe.

A man then appears from the back, shakily holding a gun as he asks for their help.

Y/n eventually drops his hands and puts away his gone when he realizes that the man was asking for help to find his daughter, Jennifer.

After some explaining, Five tells the man that he’ll get her back to him in at least 24 hours.

“Five, what the hell, why are we helping that guy, what if he’s lying? And what the fuck is the ‘Umbrella Academy’?” Y/n had a million thoughts racing through his head after that conversation.

They weren’t stopped, in fact they grew into ones of more confusion as Five responded to him, and his siblings confusion, by holding up a jar of glowing particles.

They all ended up in an asian restaurant, watching the man entertain them with knife tricks.

“So, what? You guys all used to have powers?” Five nods.

“And now you don’t because your dad, who’s an alien, reset the universe and made this timeline?”

“Look, I know it’s hard to understand, and I would prove it to you if I could, but-“

“Well, you can prove it to him, Five, with this!” Ben holds up the Marigold as Five quickly shuts him down.

They all argue and banter as they all, except Ben, agree to not regain their powers.

Ben then heads to the bathroom and Y/n drinks a shot of whatever liquor they had there.

“Look, maybe this can be the case that we solve together? And then you don’t have to see me working with you again, hm?” Five proposes, making Y/n tilt his head to the side, agreeing with him, for once.

Ben returns and they all have shots, including Y/n who was just about to leave.

“Alright, I’m leaving,” Y/n stands up and starts to leave.

Five looks at him and then back at his siblings.

“I’m gonna walk him out,” he follows Y/n, silently walking as they head outside.

“My apartment’s not too far from here, so you don’t have to drive me. But, I’ll, uh, follow up with you tomorrow I guess,” he chuckles, looking at Five for a second longer than he meant to.

“Yeah, I’ll…see you tomorrow,” they stare at each other, their bodies starting to take control as they go closer to one another with each moment of silence.

They step back once they hear the rest of Five’s siblings come outside.

“Uh-bye,” Five rushes off, hopping in the van as he silently curses at himself.

“What are you doing? You hate him…right?” Five thinks, staring at the back of his head.

He watches as the guy he’s started to hate walks away, unknowingly getting wrapped up in whatever crazy family shenanigans are about to happen.

• • • • •

A/n: I kinda fuck with where this is going, so if you guys liked this, let me know!

#five hargreeves x male reader #five hargreeves #five hargreeves x male #the umbrella academy #the umbrella academy x male reader #tua #tua season 4 #tua spoilers #tua s4 #tua x male reader #umbrella academy

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retrievablememories · 1 month ago

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marrow | dpr ian

summary: you're not the only eater. many of your kind exist, but you have always tried to avoid them, continuing to play the charade of the normal, boring life that you can never truly have. until one day, someone shows up at your door.

pairing: dpr ian x black fem reader

genre: horror, angst, hurt/comfort, slow burn romance, bones & all au, 1980s au

word count: 22.9k

marrow (noun):

a soft, highly vascular modified connective tissue that occupies the cavities of most bones

the choicest of food

a/n: this is a “bones & all” au, so if you didn’t like the movie/book you probably won’t like this. based off both the book and movie but with some changes.

please heed the warnings; there are strong HORROR elements in this fic. (i mean, people are eating other people…) if you’re not interested in reading about these particular concepts, please just scroll on by, make use of your filter settings, or block me.

as we all know, this is just fiction...it doesn't claim to be an accurate/real representation of anyone.

dividers: here | here

1985

You smell him before you can see him.

It comes as somewhat of a surprise: You don’t realize you’re smelling something different, something other than Alicia’s perfume, the cigarette tray, or the stale, woody air of the motel’s office, until it’s right up on you. It makes your body stiffen with fear. Not that you have any right to be afraid.

After a few long minutes, though, no one walks in. You don’t see the familiar blinding sight of headlights flashing in the windows as a car pulls up. And yet the smell remains. Despite your apprehension, you get up from your chair behind the desk to see if anybody is outside, walking to the windows facing the expanse of the parking lot. That is when you see a figure lying on the ground, somewhat obscured by the shadows where the office’s lights don’t reach. It looks to be a man, though you aren’t 100% sure.

From what you can see, he’s covered in blood. Large stains of it ruin the white of his shirt and the blue of his jeans. You could guess that it’s probably not his own. Your mind jumps ahead of you, trying to create the image of him feasting on the body of some unknown victim, of him carrying a bloody bag filled with someone’s clothes and trying to find somewhere to hide it…

It’s a terrible thing to think. Maybe he’s an innocent person, severely hurt. He probably used what little strength he had left to drag himself here for help.

But the smell never lies.

You quickly grab a flashlight sitting in one of the cubbies on the wall. Then you open the door, the jingling of the bell loud in your ears, and give the parking lot a quick sweep before stepping outside, seeing nothing but the same cars that’d been parked at the same motel rooms earlier. With it being a one-story motel, there wasn’t much area you needed to scan.

Standing out here now and pointing the flashlight into the shadows, you can see he’s still breathing, at least. But now you can also see the dried blood around his mouth and down his neck, which makes you want to promptly walk back into the office and lock the door behind you. Turn out all the lights and pretend no one was ever here.

There’s a big blood stain in one area near his abdomen like he was stabbed; you can see that the fabric is torn. Whoever he ate clearly didn’t go willingly. But when do they ever?

Again you think about going back inside—maybe telling Alicia to call for an ambulance. You think of calling the police, and shame immediately follows. How could you call the authorities on him knowing you and him share the same crimes? You’re unsure of which action to take, but it’s a little late to make the decision now. You see him begin blinking from the light you’re shining directly in his face; you hadn’t paid attention to where you were pointing the flashlight as your mind raced with options. He raises a bloodied hand to shield his eyes, the movement causing him pain.

You shift the light away, pointing it in the vicinity of his torso again. Only now do you pay attention to the numerous tattoos covering his skin. Unsure what to ask or say, you can only come up with a broken “...Hey.” You haven’t used your voice in the last hour.

He doesn’t reply. Instead he pushes himself to sit up, his hand hovering over the presumed stab wound.

“What…uh, what are you doing here?”

He looks at you like he’s deciding whether he ought to be suspicious of you or not. The irony. “I need water,” he finally says.

“Water? I think you need a lot more than water.”

With effort, he starts getting to his feet, and you can’t help flinching away. It feels stupid to act this way, to still be so afraid. As if being afraid could allow you to pretend that you are more human than you really are.

And what timing—Alicia appears at that moment after being locked up in her room sorting paperwork all night. The door bell sounding off behind you makes you jump hard, the wooden beads on your braids all rattling against each other. You spin around to look at Alicia, who’s too busy staring at the man in front of you with concerned eyes.

“What the hell? Are you okay?” she asks, her voice loud in the relative quiet of the parking lot. The motel being located on a less-frequented stretch of highway means things are often quiet like this, with only the sounds of cicadas and frogs and occasional passing vehicles to fill the late hours.

“I’m fine,” he says, disinterested in her concern.

Her eyebrows rise at his accent. “You ain’t from around here,” Alicia says, as if that intrigues her.

“But you’re not fine. Haven’t you been attacked?” you argue, gesturing toward the wound he can’t keep his hand away from. He lets it drop to his side then.

“I’m fine. I bandaged it. I just need water.” His tone and the dark quality of his expression don’t leave much room for you to object.

You and Alicia look at each other for a long moment; when she sees the tension in your face, you both come to a silent agreement. Strange people and motels go together like thunder and rain, but that fact often keeps you in something of a hypervigilant state. Unbeknownst to Alicia, you are certain you know why this man has shown up here bloody and wounded, insisting he only needs water and not even asking for medical help—which would entail needing to be admitted to a hospital—and you conclude it’s best to get him off your hands as soon as possible.

Once you do, you can start trying to forget about him and the smell of blood clinging to him. After not encountering it for so long, its return makes that familiar taste of iron rise up on your tongue like it’s encoded in your DNA, activating your salivary glands from just the memory of eating, and you feel like an animal for it.

Alicia relaxes her shoulders and puts on a gentle smile. “Well, okay. There’s a bathroom in the office. You can get cleaned up in there. And we got plenty of bottled water too, though it ain’t the fancy stuff like Evian.”

So you let him in.

You listen to the water running in the bathroom while you sit with your back rigid in your desk chair, like you’ll need to spring into action at any moment. Alicia doesn’t bother to speak, knowing the walls are too thin to get away with it, and leans next to you to write on a page of your notepad instead. You watch her small lettering fill the white space:

He looks fucked. We’re probably more dangerous to him right now than the other way around. You think he walked all the way here from town bleeding like that? Maybe someone dropped him here.

You realize with a jolt that Alicia thinks it’s all his blood. You shake your head but give no explanation. After a pause, she shrugs.

Still, you know where the gun is.

“Please…” you choke out, not wanting to think about having to use it tonight—or any other night, for that matter.

You don’t know if he’ll be a danger, considering he clearly ate not too long ago. But you can never say that for certain. Every cannibal’s appetite and impulses are different.

When he comes back out cleaned of blood, Alicia casually slides the notepad out of sight and stands up straight again. The shirt he was wearing is balled up in his fist, leaving him standing there with nothing but his jeans and shoes on. Seeing people in various states of undress, especially in the South during the warmer months, is nothing new. Still, his nakedness feels oddly misplaced in this macabre situation, and you don’t know where to put your eyes. You end up fixating on the bandaging around his middle, which is all stained through with old blood. It needs to be changed, but that’s not your problem.

Alicia blinks for a moment, the side of her mouth quirking up slightly.

“Of course—silly me. You’re probably wanting some new clothes, ain’t you? We might have something in storage. I’ll just be a few minutes.” Alicia takes a pair of keys from one of the desk drawers. You want to grasp her arm and tell her not to go, but she just directs her eyes to the notepad; you nod reluctantly and watch as she heads to the back door of the office and out to the storage building a couple yards away. It’s a spacious outbuilding that holds everything needed in the running of a motel, including the commercial laundry machines.

Now that the man is somewhat calmer, he looks at you like he recognizes you. You turn away from him when you see the change in his gaze. It’s strange to be seen and known by another eater. Though it’s happened several times, it always unsettles you. You don’t know anything about him, but you’re suddenly, maybe irrationally, worried that he’ll reveal your secret to Alicia.

“I’ve never met another one like me,” he says.

There are several things you want to say. Why didn’t you say it sooner? Have you really never smelled another eater until now? Who did you eat? Will you just leave already? None of these questions are what comes out. “Never?”

“Never. But I suppose I don’t stay anywhere long enough to find them.”

Then please leave soon.

“When was the last time you ate?”

You bolt up from the chair. There’s nowhere for you to go, though, so you stand there wiping your sweaty palms on your pants and glancing at the back door, hoping Alicia returns soon. “Don’t ask me that.”

You still won’t look at him, but he tries and fails to meet your darting eyes. You find a different part of his body to focus on. This time it’s his hand resting on the desk counter and the intricately designed tattoo that covers it.

“You must get hungry sometimes.” He leans closer, but the tall counter overlooking the desk keeps you separated. “Are you gonna tell me you’ve never had the urge to have a bite of her?” He gestures his head toward the back door. “It’s so fucking lonely out here, maybe no one would notice if you did.”

“Shut the fuck up.” You surprise yourself with the force of your reply, though your voice shakes. “I-I have self-control.”

And then he laughs. Like you two are old friends catching up—like you didn’t just curse him out. It makes him wince immediately, and his hand goes to his wound again. He sighs. “Sorry, darling, but I don’t think it’s about self-control.”

You ignore the name, though it irritates you and reminds you of the sleazy men that often make their way to the motel looking for midday entertainment in harassing young women. “We’ve both been born infected with it,” you say, your voice tight. “It can’t go away, but it’s something that should at least be minimized—not just given into whenever.”

“Is that how you think of it?”

“How could you not feel bad about it?” Despite yourself, you feel tears stinging your eyes. “Each one of them was a person with a life and dreams. We’re the ones stealing that every time we give in.”

“Feel bad about it?” He seems to consider that for a moment, his dark brown eyes far away. “The only thing you can do is get used to it. I would think that at some point, after you’ve eaten enough, it wouldn’t be shocking if it didn’t feel wrong to you anymore. Or if you started enjoying it. You’ve never felt that?”

You don’t answer his question, too disturbed and mentally exhausted to continue arguing and unable to agree with him. You wish he’d never crossed into this part of town, that you’d never met him. His presence makes your head and your chest hurt. He is everything you are and everything you don’t want to be, facing you head-on so that you cannot ignore it.

He’ll go away like the rest have, you try to reassure yourself. You’ve never befriended any of the other eaters you’ve met; at most, you ran into them a couple more times but never saw them again after. But even as you think it, it feels like a lie.

You sit back in the chair with a stilted movement just as Alicia returns, feeling like the precarious little life you’ve built is suddenly on the verge of collapsing. All the effort you’ve put toward modeling the spectacularly average life of the everyday human being—gone.

“Sorry that took a while. I figure you can’t put new clothes on with all that—” she gestures to the bloody bandage “—going on, so here you are.” Alicia hands him a small stack of clothes and a first-aid kit. “I hope that’ll do you some good, mister….?” She looks at him expectantly, and you realize that you haven’t known his name this entire time.

You feel his eyes on you when he answers, but your mind is elsewhere.

“It’s Ian.”

—

The next time you’re struck by the familiar smell of another eater, it happens in the early morning hours when you’re helping an older couple check out of their room.

It causes you to stumble and break in the middle of your sentence as your mind blanks, and you have to take a moment to remember what you were saying. The two elderly folks look at you strangely, their previous neutral-at-best demeanor now giving an air of annoyance. But at least they’re on their way out. You tune out their unsubtle mumbling about young people and their drug use as they finish up and step out the door.

You watch the front windows with a rising panic in your guts, wanting to run and hide but unable to move your feet. What horrific luck do you have to encounter two within the short span of three weeks? It seems that whenever they smell you, they come to you—whether it’s to size you up or attempt to make an acquaintance.

And a few minutes later, there’s a beat-up sedan, a gray Renault Alliance, pulling up in one of the parking spaces.

What you don’t expect is for the person to be Ian.

The ground has been kicked out from under you. You think maybe you’re suffering from acute vertigo. Your breaths and heartbeats are simultaneously too slow and too fast as he gets out of the car, wearing a button-up shirt that he only bothered to button halfway and black pants. He’s pristine this time—no blood, no torn shirt with an open wound, though his movements hint that he’s still healing. His eyes are shaded by sunglasses, but he takes them off as he walks to the door, making eye contact with you from the other side of the glass. That look sends cold water down your spine.

In another life, if he wasn’t like you and you weren’t like him—if you both didn’t share this bodily pestilence, this cursed impulse—maybe you would’ve felt some spark of interest. Maybe you would’ve thought of him as handsome, giggled with Alicia about it later, a brief respite from your mountains of paperwork. But in this life, you don’t feel anything but repulsion and fear.

You’re momentarily blasted with the unbearable summer heat when the door opens. It’s quickly chased away again by the air conditioning, causing your skin to prickle. Ian gives a close-lipped smile as he stops in front of you.

“Why are you back here?” you whisper.

“Checking into a room. That’s allowed here, right?”

If he’s a paying guest, you can’t really turn him away. He hasn’t done anything yet to warrant that. Even if he does eat other people on a regular basis.

You look past him to the car sitting outside. “Why didn’t you drive last time?”

“I just got it.”

“From which dealership?”

He taps his fingers against the sunglasses and glances down before answering, his voice low. “I think you know.”

Some part of you wants to know who it was in a futile attempt to keep their memory alive if only in your own mind, but you don’t ask. You don’t even know what type of person they were, after all; maybe he’d rid the world of some domestic abuser. It could be…understandable, in that case. People die everyday, you try to remind yourself—a useless platitude you have always told yourself after the act is over. It never absolves the guilt. They would’ve died someday anyway only goes so far when their blood is underneath your fingernails.

“And why come back here, of all motels? There are others in this area that don’t have mold in the bathrooms and roaches in the walls.”

He pauses after hearing that information, like he’s trying to figure out whether you’re pulling his leg. “I thought I’d be in pretty good company here, you know.”

“I don’t want your company,” you say wearily, watching him as he starts taking cash out of his wallet. “Do you think I’ll let you stay here just because—?”

“Because we’re the same? Because you’d cover for me?” he says, voice even lower like he only wants you to hear. That doesn’t matter anyway. Alicia is busy cleaning and preparing one of the newly vacated rooms, and it’s just you two in the office. There would’ve been one more person present if anyone had answered your For Hire ad in the paper, but it still remains only you and Alicia running this joint. “My God, darling. Forgive me for thinking you’d have a little mercy on a fellow cannibal. Anyway, I wouldn’t be so obvious as to do it here.”

You give him a look of disdain. In all sensibility, you should turn him away. You have no obligation to help him or break the law in doing so. The circumstances of his last appearance were already outrageous, and now he shows up with a stolen car. Who knows if someone might come here searching for him and making you and Alicia complicit in his mess? And ultimately, you want nothing more than for him to stop bringing up the whole cannibalism bit. Deep down, you are afraid that these mentions of it—maybe even the simple proximity to him—will reawaken the urge you haven’t felt in over a year now.

You’ve stayed silent for a beat too long. In a mess of movements, he shoves his wallet back in his pocket, slips his sunglasses back on, and brushes a hand through his hair, disappointment visible in his expression. “Okay, then. I’ll go elsewhere.” Something about his reaction makes your stomach twist. Maybe the sheer resignation in it. You shouldn’t care where he goes after this, if he has anywhere to go. He’ll be miles away from you again, just like you want. But…

It comes rushing out of your mouth as his hand reaches for the door handle, and you have no idea why you say it. “How many nights?”

—

It’s been a few days since Ian checked into the motel and you haven’t heard anything from him since then, but sometimes you spot “his” car in its parking space when you go to see about one of the other rooms. Whenever it’s not there, you can’t help but wonder where he’s gone and what he’s doing.

Without seeing him, you would almost be able to forget that he’s there, if not for the smell. It constantly keeps you on edge, more than you already tend to be. Alicia picks up on your restlessness but of course doesn’t know the origin of it—meaning she’s left to come up with a new guess everyday.

“Well yeah, he was surely strange…but maybe he appreciated us helping him out and just wanted to return the favor?” she’d suggested on that first day when he returned and you’d let her know with a less-than-thrilled attitude. “It ain’t like he’s the first weirdo to come around.”

“Maybe you just ain’t getting enough sleep. That’s enough to turn anybody’s mind out. Hope somebody replies to that ad soon so we can have some more help…” she’d said the day after that.

“You missed him earlier, but he came by the office this morning. Had an extra one of those breakfast muffin thingies and left it here. Ain’t that nice? He’s pretty cute, actually. You sure you ain’t just crushing and feel weird about it ‘cause he’s a paying customer?” Alicia laughed one afternoon, the third day of his stay. “Worse things have been done at this motel, Y/N.”

“No, Alicia,” was all you could muster up, and your stiff reply was just as good as an actual confirmation in her mind.

Sometimes, even though you are deeply ashamed of it and try never to acknowledge these rare moments after they happen, you stare at Alicia with her long curly brown hair and her sinewy limbs and her shining brown eyes, taking in the full breadth of her humanness, and you wish she were like you. Even though it would take away her normalcy and happiness…if she could smell that blood-curdling aroma that only you can—if she could understand the weight of this secret—if she knew what it was like to feel the rough grind of bone fragments between her teeth—

—maybe everything could be easier. You wouldn’t have to live with an imagined cowl of judgment, which she had yet to even bestow upon you, always blanketing your mind. And though you’ve always thought it better to have fewer eaters in the world than more, maybe navigating this existence wouldn’t be so isolating.

—

One muggy evening, the motel office phone rings, and you see on the caller ID that it’s from Ian’s room. You have to take a pause to steel yourself, letting it ring for several moments before you pick up the receiver.

“Hi, how can I help you?”

“Hey, yeah, um, the sink faucet has started leaking quite badly…not sure how that happened. It wasn’t like that last night.”

You sigh quietly, knowing you’d suggested changing all the faucets to Alicia a while ago, but the budget wasn’t quite there to do so. The summer festivals will be starting up soon, though, and festivals mean a higher number of travelers, so maybe there will be more money for it by the end of the season.

“...I’m sorry about that. I’ll be right there.”

“Right. Thanks, dear.” Your mouth twitches, but you don’t reply; you just nod as if he could see you. Neither of you hangs up. For an awkward stretch of quiet, punctuated only by the shuffling sound of movement, it seems like he wants to say something else. There’s an intake of breath like he will. You slam the phone down before he can.

You find the toolbox in its usual spot and take your umbrella from the stand before heading out the door. It’s raining lightly outside, the force of the droplets picking up and then dying back again every so often, but the humidity is so high that you feel uncomfortably soggy by the time you get to his room.

When Ian opens the door, there’s a cigarette burning between his fingers.

“Um, hello.”

You don’t like the way he smiles at you—like you’re co-conspirators on some big scheme. “Hi. You know where it’s at, yeah?”

You resist rolling your eyes. “Of course.”

He lets you in and then leaves the door propped open so he can stand outside and smoke. At least he won’t be breathing down your neck while you work like some other guests do.

Some game show program is playing on the small box TV; it looks like Press Your Luck. The sound of the TV and the rain falling outside accompany you as you set the toolbox down on the sink counter and start making the necessary fixes to the faucet. Situations like this one, though annoying, do give you a tiny bit of reprieve; you become too engrossed in the work to think about all your life’s problems.

That is, until you realize the problem with the faucet is too convenient to be caused by any natural malfunction or wear and tear. No he didn’t…you think, though part of you is still trying to convince yourself that your eyes and brain are deceiving you.

When you’ve successfully repaired the faucet, you straighten up and are startled to find Ian already leaning against the bathroom door frame, the cigarette now gone.

“Uh—well…works like a charm now.”

He acknowledges your work with a small nod. Before you can say anything else, he immediately says, “How do you experience it? The hunger.”

You could swear that your heart ceases beating. Your words come out in a shaky rush of breath. “Please stop.”

“You’re the only other one I’ve met, and I have to know what it’s like for someone else.” His voice and expression are genuinely pleading, and this takes you aback. “Please try to understand where I’m coming from.”

You put the tools back in the toolbox with trembling hands, your mind racing with things you should and shouldn’t say. “It doesn’t happen often,” you finally admit, your voice so small that he has to step fully into the bathroom to hear you. “There are usually months or years between occurrences. But when it comes…it’s oppressive. It’s like I’m being gnawed on the inside, like I have to do it or I’ll die. The last time was before I met Alicia.” The blurred memory of it causes you physical pain; it’s impossible to escape the self-hatred and disgust you feel, enclosed in this small room with him.

“Who was it?”

You shake your head. The thought of recounting what happened—no, what you did—makes you shudder. You refuse to let the barbed words leave your mouth for fear of being cut by them and bleeding out, but you find yourself mentally back in the scene anyway; you can almost hear the lapping of the lake and the distant sound of her voice if you concentrate. “Her name was Marygold. That’s it.”

He nods, left to accept that you don’t want to talk about her. “Years…hmm. The urge comes every few weeks for me.” He smiles sarcastically. “Lucky one, aren’t I?”

“...I thought you said you enjoyed it,” you murmur.

“Look, dear: What’s not enjoyable is always having to cover your tracks—or making too big of a mess and having to leave the area because of it.” He crosses his arms. “The guy whose car I have? He was just some lonely grocery store worker. You probably want me to say something noble, like I ate a fucking axe-murderer or something. No—I just needed a car again, and he was convenient. That’s how it is.

Maybe I could try to ignore the urge, put it off, but I don’t. When I feel it, I just go and find someone to satisfy it. Does the average person debate about whether they should eat a meal when they feel hunger? No, they just eat.”

You groan, your stomach lurching as you clutch the edge of the counter. “I-I can’t believe you messed up the faucet to get me in here to talk about this. What if Alicia had come instead?” For a second, you allow yourself to consider the danger in that implication—if Alicia had been in here with him alone…

He gives an airy laugh at your mention of the sink. “So I wasn’t very clever, then.”

Trying to gather yourself, you pick up the toolbox and glare at him. “I’ve told you plenty. Don’t ask me about this anymore.” In reality, you haven’t said even half of what he wants to know about, but getting anything else from you is impossible at this point.

Ian steps aside to allow you to leave the bathroom. You grab your umbrella from where it’s resting against the dresser and hurriedly open it.

“Please don’t call again unless it’s a serious problem. One that you haven’t purposely fucking caused.”

He raises his eyebrows. “That’s unfair. Staying here means I’m also paying for your services, you know.” Then he adds, “Not that I believe in superstitions, but I thought it was considered bad luck to open umbrellas indoors.”

You roll your eyes, already halfway out the door. “That’s ridiculous. And it’s not like I was born with any luck to begin with.” You let the lock click behind you, not bothering with a goodbye or goodnight.

—

Guests continue to come and go as the season rolls into the beginning of July; they mostly consist of travelers from outside of the area, contract workers, and truckers. You and Alicia work yourselves to near exhaustion with upholding the motel’s operations. You have often thought it lucky that you found her when you did, as she’d just fired her previous two employees for stealing funds when you answered her ad. You don’t know how she would’ve done all this alone, owning and upkeeping this motel after her divorce from her husband; but she always carried herself as if she were just happy to be doing something entirely of her own volition, without him ordering her every move.

Amidst this rush, Ian’s been at the motel for several weeks now. You wonder if he plans on living here, as it seems he has nowhere else to stay. But he’ll need to eat soon, won’t he? Guilt begins gnawing at you as the days pass. You’re putting the other motel guests’ lives in danger just by having him here.

But he’s been doing this just as long as you have—and with greater frequency. He should know by now to avoid eating too close to home. In those quiet moments when you have more time to ruminate, you find yourself hoping that he’ll go somewhere farther out, maybe to one of the bars or a nightclub. As long as it isn’t here.

But you don’t know why you debate with yourself over this or wish such a morbid thing. Someone will have to die either way.

—

The last person you checked in had been hours ago, and the cut-off was at 10:00 p.m. No one else would be coming through here tonight. With that, you’d mentally prepared yourself for another night of getting things in order for the next morning. A half-empty cup of coffee sits on your desk as you go through the budgeting again, the computer’s light illuminating your face and straining your weary eyes. New bathroom faucets, I’m coming for you…you think.

Alicia’s floral perfume swirls around the room as she goes about tidying up the lobby area, switching out the magazines for more recent copies and sanitizing every hard surface with cleaning spray and a cloth. A couple with kids had been through earlier in the day to check out, and their kids had great fun making a mess of things, to the chagrin of their tired parents. Neither one of you had gotten around to cleaning it up until now.

You’re closing out of the budgeting spreadsheet window and about to move onto something else when your stomach twists and aches. It’s been so long that for a few precious seconds you don’t recognize the sensation, but then dread smashes into you when your brain registers it.

The smell of Alicia’s perfume is suddenly too loud. The smell of her body, soft and muscled and warm, is too loud. Your eyes drift to her tanned legs revealed by her shorts, and you’re overwhelmed with the need to sink your teeth into the fat of her thighs, the muscles of her calves. You swear you can already taste the blood running through her veins; you imagine how it’d feel on your lips. You want to sob from how badly you want it and how badly you don’t.

Your eyes sting with gathering tears as you breathe hard, your panic increasing. You should get up and go to the door, run outside and get the hell away from her. Even if you have to run into the highway and surrender yourself to death by speeding car, you should leave and spare her of this nightmare, but you’re incapable of making yourself move anywhere but toward her. Your body acts without your volition.

That’s how you find yourself rising from your seat, pressing your body against the desk counter as you take a couple of strained steps in her direction. Her body is angled away from you as she finishes wiping down an end table, and you see her cheeks rise as she grins in satisfaction at her own work. You understand innately that this smile will be the last, and a terrible ache swells in your heart. You know you’ll regret not seeing it fully so that you could imprint it in your mind.

“Alicia…” you moan, anguished.

She turns to you in alarm, and you want to scream when she walks over to you. “Y/N! What’s wrong? You look like you’re in a world of hurt.” Her breath is warm, and beneath the scent of spearmint, you can still smell a hint of what she’d had earlier. Some frozen TV dinner of mashed potatoes, meatloaf, and peas. You yearn to share her meal—suck her tongue into your mouth, chew it into pulp.

The sights and scents are all too much, and you are so, so hungry.

“Are you ill?” Alicia asks, brows furrowed as her hand clutches your arm. In your hypersensitive state, you feel each individual finger, the lines on her palms, and the swirls of her fingerprints. Though they are hands you have thought about many times before, it’s as if you know them intimately now—like you formed them and carved all the lines yourself. “I knew it. I’ve been putting too much stress on you, ain’t I? You coulda told me, Y/N.”

Tears drip down your cheeks as you shake your head in denial of her words. “I...I’m sorry.”

Alicia’s expression is soft and remorseful, her mouth downturned. “I should be telling you that.”

Her selfless words only worsen your guilt, even as you lean forward—your body controlled by a force you can’t deny—and press your lips to her neck.

When it’s over an hour later, the only things that remain are her bloody clothes. Physically, you feel frighteningly satisfied with your hunger now alleviated. Your reward for it? A shower of blood. The vinyl floor surrounding you is covered in red. Drops of blood streak down the front and side of the wooden desk, with more on the wooden wall behind you. There are probably more microscopic drops of blood all around the office that you’ll never be able to find. The air is filled with a mingle of odors; the cleaning fluid she used earlier, your unfinished coffee, iron and flesh, the ever-persistent woody, rustic smell of the office itself—and much farther in the background, Ian.

From your place on the floor, you drag yourself up onto your desk chair and fumble the phone receiver with slick hands. It’s difficult to see the buttons with the tears blurring your vision, and you futilely wipe them away, which just smears more of Alicia’s blood across your face. You have to think for a moment to remember which room number is his, and you desperately hope it’s correct as you punch it in.

You think you could faint when you hear his familiar accent. “Hello? That you, Y/N?”

“Help me,” you cry, your voice strangled from the tears and hyperventilating. “God, fucking help me!”

He hangs up a second later. You don’t know what you expected, but that wasn’t it. You begin resigning yourself to your fate as you slump into your seat, the receiver clattering on the desk. Some guest will find you here tomorrow and call the police, and you won’t be able to prove either innocence or guilt. What could you say—I ate her, all of her? You could open my stomach for the evidence; I don’t want to live anymore anyway? Despite what you tell them, the police will think you insane and continue searching for a body that no longer exists. That’s how it often is; another eater had told you this many years ago.

A fresh wave of tears bursts forth, and it causes you to miss the figure rushing past the windows and flinging the door open.

When Ian comes up to you with concern in his eyes, his hands reaching out to steady your shoulders and hold your bloody, tear-drenched cheeks, you don’t know whether he’s your demon or your savior. You feel a perverse relief at his presence, knowing that only he can understand your situation; and you resent him enormously for the casual way he can do the same thing and hardly think of it. It’s this curse you share, borne differently.

“We can clean this up,” he insists as he kneels before you, eyeing all the blood around him like he’s done this a hundred times before. You shake your head and begin to mumble a rebuttal, and he grasps your cheeks more firmly to regain your focus. “Darling, listen to me. It can be like it didn’t happen.”

“It did happen,” you retort, voice strained with anger. “Even if no one else knows it, I will. I can’t stay here and work here everyday knowing I—” your words break, “—that I killed Alicia.”

“You can do it, Y/N. You can get used to it. You have to get used to it, learn how to clean it up and move on. You don’t want to live a life constantly on the run—believe me.”

You practically snarl at him through the tears. “I can’t run a fucking motel by myself.”

He pauses, and then says, “I could do it with you. It’s not like I have shit else to do.”

You scoff. “And what when you need to eat? What then?”

“I could—”

“Start eating the guests, and this will become known as the motel where people go to disappear. How long do you think you’ll get away with that before the authorities come?”

“I’ve already told you I wouldn’t do that,” Ian insists. You think he might continue trying to argue with you, but then he says, “Okay. Okay. If you want to be done with all this, then we have to get the fuck out of here.”

“And leave it like this?” you groan, glancing at the bloody floor.

Ian finally lets you go so he can stand up. “Of course not. We have to clean everything. How many hours do we have until this office is supposed to open?”

You two spend the next several hours meticulously scrubbing every surface in the office. You try to turn yourself into an automaton—focus on the motions your body needs to perform and empty your mind. You aren’t successful. Too many times, you find yourself sniffling and averting your gaze from Ian’s direction so he doesn’t see your teary eyes, which is ridiculous in hindsight; he’s already seen you sobbing and covered in someone else’s blood. Held your face while you did so, like you were a small child. It doesn’t get much worse than that.

When the cleaning work is done, you stuff Alicia’s clothes, your bloody outfit, and the stained rags and brushes into several plastic bags you dig out of storage. Ian promises to stop somewhere so you can burn them all later. Everything else you take is more clothes to wear, some essentials, and your birth certificate folded small and stuffed in one of the pockets of your traveling bag—your only form of ID, and the only memento you have left of your birth parents.

Before abandoning the motel, you remove Ian’s name from the guest ledger to make it seem as if he never stayed there; his motel room looks untouched by the time you’re both done getting his things out of it and fixing it back up. You return his room key to its designated place on the wall of keys and then hurry out of the office, unable to spare another look at the place you’re leaving behind. You and Alicia lived and worked here for so long, spent so many exhausting nights and early mornings keeping the motel going even when it seemed like it might not survive, but there’s nothing left for you now. In just one hour, you destroyed it all.

So in the early morning hours when the motel guests are still asleep and there’s no one to witness but the gradually lightening sky and the cicadas, you and Ian hit the highway in his stolen Renault Alliance.

Once you’re a few miles away from the motel, you roll the window down to get some fresh air, and the warm breeze is one of the few things that helps hold you together. You almost want to stick your head out the window. Maybe if you fill yourself with enough oxygen, it’ll replace all the remnants of Alicia inside you. But you don’t want that to happen, either; you have nothing else left to remember her by but some bloody clothes that will be destroyed anyway. Only the memories of her smile, her sunny demeanor, her melodious Southern accent, and her perfume will remain in your mind, vulnerable to the passing of time. And eventually, those too will begin to fade and lose their clarity, gone to the same murky place within you that the other victims reside in, revived occasionally by your unpredictable nightmares.

“Where are we going?” you ask, and it’s the first thing either of you have said since you left.

“I’ve already been through most of the North…and I’m not really eager to go back soon. So unless you want to hang around the South a bit longer, it should probably be out West.”

“...I’d prefer the South. What kind of trouble did you cause up North?” you ask, your voice devoid of any meaningful emotion.

Ian glances at you and taps his fingers against the steering wheel. “Some…people saw me eating someone. I took someone to this broken-down house, looked like it had been abandoned for years and I knew people rarely came through that area, so I thought it was safe. But some fucking teenagers came there to do their graffiti and shit, and…”

“What did you do?”

“I ran. I hid out in the woods until night, and then I got the fuck out of the state.”

“Which state?”

“Pennsylvania.”

You nod slowly. “And then you come down here and get yourself stabbed. By the person you were eating, wasn’t it?”

Ian chews on his bottom lip before saying, “Yeah.”

In another context, you would make some comment about him being sloppy with it even after his years of experience, but you’re too drained to engage in the back-and-forth that would cause. You sigh and sink deeper into the seat.

“I’m not from this town either, you know. I’ve already done my fair share of running. But with the urge being so infrequent, it’s easier to stay in one place for a while. And even if I do give in to it, sometimes…I can pretend as if I didn’t. Buy myself some more time. Not much evidence but clothes, after all. And clothes are easy to get rid of.” You’re silent for a few moments. “But Alicia…” You close your eyes. “I can’t pretend.”

—

The beginning of your new life is exhausting. You’d forgotten how stressful it is to live like this; you’d gotten used to having one place to live in, the promise of running water everyday, and consistent meals that didn’t come out of a convenience store or vending machine.

You gladly watch Ian flirt with waitresses or waiters at the restaurants you stop in so you can get discounted meals. It doesn’t take much negotiation for him to get cheaper stuff at the occasional farm stand, either; the vendors are quickly enamored by his smile and his charming manner and those pet names he likes to lavish on every living creature. You don’t know where he got all of his cash from—probably that poor grocery worker’s house—but you do remain cognizant of how much of it is left every time you both have to buy something. You haven’t even touched the money you took from the motel safe yet, but that won’t last forever either. Your mind always remains ten miles ahead of where you are in the present, making it harder to focus on anything.

Sometimes you find an abandoned or empty house to sleep in for a few nights, left standing alone by the homeowners who are on vacation—whether permanently or temporarily. Entry is easier thanks to your lock-picking abilities. But most often, you two sleep in the car. Ian lets you have the entire backseat, which made you feel awkward at first. “Are you sure?” you’d asked.

“Quite. Why not?”

“...You don’t have to be so courteous considering we still barely know each other. I mean, you…” you faltered.

He’d given you this sarcastic smile and said, “How sweet of you to think of me, darling. I could sleep back there with you so neither of us has to deal with the front seats—”

“Nevermind. I’ll take it.”

And other times, he chooses someone at random—a bearded man at a gas station, an older woman at a grocery store, some sluggish-looking twenty-something eating lukewarm scrambled eggs at a down-home eatery—and spends a few days watching their movements. He’ll follow them at an inconspicuous distance in the sedan and find out where they live; subsequently, there will be hours of mind-numbing car-camping nearby as you both wait to see their vehicle turn down the road at the break of dawn or the onset of afternoon. Another day means more opportunities for observation.

But not everyone owns a car. Sometimes he’ll become interested in someone who’s traveling on foot, and he’ll leave the car to you while he trails after them for hours. You hate it the most when he does this.

He has enough decency to tell you a specific place where you can both meet at again in a few hours—maybe a park, or a drugstore—or he’ll say something about meeting you back here later.

“Later” is an unknown to you. Not knowing exactly when he’ll be back and not wanting to sit in the same place all day drives you mad. You might go to a local trinket shop or an outlet store or some boutique downtown to try to ease your anxiety. But sooner rather than later, you end up in your agreed-upon meeting spot, watching for his reappearance in the side mirrors.

Whether he walks or drives, you’re always left waiting on him once he decides to eat them.

The very first time he played this game, he’d told you to “come back later,” front door open and one leg already outside the car. You’d both been tailing a man for a couple of days already, and he had been none the wiser. He’d just returned home from work not too long ago; the sedan had rolled in after, and you both watched his house from your distant spot among the trees—waiting for something to happen? You didn’t know. The sun was setting, making way for the dark of twilight to paint the world; through the trees, you could see the glow of the house’s lights in the distance.

“What? Wait, what are you doing?” you hissed. You impulsively reached for his arm to pull him back in the car and then thought against it, retracting your hand. But you didn’t need to bother with pulling him back, because he leaned into you like he was telling you something confidential.

“Trying to give you a break. I would ask you to join, but I know you hate this and all, so just come back in like, two hours.”

You were unsure how to respond. You stared at him, knowing what he was about to do and wanting to stop him but understanding that your efforts would be futile. “Ian, what if I can’t find my way back here? It’s going to be pitch fucking black.”

He took your hand in his and squeezed it. If this was meant to comfort you, it did nothing of the sort. “You will. Just remember the street names.”

Then he’d left. You didn’t stay to watch him approach the house; you climbed into the front seat and carefully navigated the car along the path that wasn’t really a path and back onto the road. You waited the two hours, your eyes twitching to the car’s dashboard clock too many times as you drove aimlessly around the town with your palms sweating, hoping not to seem suspicious. All the while, you repeated the street names in your mind so that you could get back easily.

When the time came, you did find your way back—just as he said. The door was already open as you walked up the grassy path to the porch, your legs trembling from what you might find. Ian stood there with the yellow glow of the interior outlining his form, and as you looked past him, you saw that there was nothing amiss inside. There were no signs that any death had ever happened here, carefully scrubbed and cleaned away.

And that is how you ended up with a new home to stay in for a little while.

You’ve never seen him consume anyone, and you don’t ask. But sometimes you wonder…after he makes himself known to them—what does he do? Force his way into their house? Play whatever innocent persona that would give him a good reason to be suddenly on their doorstep, in their driveway? Does he press his lips to their neck the same way you do, the last gentle touch before the ravaging, or go for another body part—or does he kill them through some other method before ever sinking his teeth in?

Deeper down, you always wonder if maybe this will be the time he fails. That maybe he’ll change from hunter to hunted, or that he’ll be caught again.

He seems to have a preternatural skill for picking the types of people who no one would really miss, though. People who live alone and often in homes or trailers that sit off on a densely wooded and scraggly piece of land, separate from any houses nearby. Too far away for anyone to hear screams for help. Sometimes they’re the type of people who’ve burned all their bridges with their loved ones and whose calls for a savior would probably go unanswered anyway. This ability of his deeply unsettles you, but you never admit this aloud.

Once, you ask Ian why he even puts in so much effort—why he goes this far just to find someplace for you two to lay your heads at night that isn’t the worn material of the car seats. You aren’t expecting some virtuous or sappy answer, but you don’t quite anticipate his actual response either.

He hesitates for a moment, as if wary of how you’ll respond. “I like it—that’s all. That slow pursuit and the inevitable ending…somehow, they taste better that way.”

—

Initially, you weren’t sure if it mattered to have some sort of disguise. You’d crossed paths with hundreds of people at the motel and wondered if you might someday be recognized, that they would somehow know what you’d done, why you left the motel, and expose you to the national papers. (Some regional papers had reported on the motel’s sudden and unexplained abandonment, you find out later, but they proffered no clear answers for it or your and Alicia’s whereabouts.) But you didn’t know if those largely brief encounters would be memorable enough for anyone to recall you months later.

Either way, you end up taking your braids out not too long after you’ve been on the road. They were beginning to frizz to an unmanageable level anyway, and your chances of having them continually refreshed is virtually zero now. In a way, it’s a relief to not have them anymore, as if you have somehow transformed into a different person—a stranger you could look in the mirror at and not recognize as an eater—by letting your hair free. You burn the hair and all of the wooden beads inside a fire pit at a camping site, watching them die nestled in the flames.

But there are always occurrences that refuse to let you forget. Because on that same campground, you catch wind of another eater a few days after your arrival.

Their scent makes your stomach drop, as it always does in the presence of another eater. You wonder if they have purposely decided to stay at this site because they smelled you and Ian, or if they’re merely passing through. How will the encounter unfold this time, with three of you present?

When you go to talk to Ian about it, you find him by the river, where he has managed to catch a few fish. They sit nearby in a cooler. The midday sun beams down on the both of you with no relief, and you have to shield your eyes from the water’s reflection.

“I hope you know how to gut those, because I’m not doing it,” you say, frowning.

“It’s fine, babe. I’ve got it.” You scoff and roll your eyes, unimpressed.

“Can you smell that?” you ask him abruptly, quieting your voice.

He looks at you thoughtfully, but you continue shading your eyes from the sun and trying to appear casual and not at all disturbed. The continuous tapping of your foot gives you away, though. Ian glances around to see that none of the others near the river’s edge are close enough to hear, and eventually murmurs, “Yeah, I can.”

“Okay. Okay, maybe—”

“You’re nervous?”

You return his gaze then. “You’ve never met other eaters. I have. Let’s just boil it down to this: It’s often better for us to stay out of each other’s way. Us being dangerous to everyone else doesn’t mean we aren’t a risk to each other, too. Not because we feel actual hunger for each other—I’ve heard that isn’t possible. More strange genetic shit no one can explain. But some will feed on other eaters just because they can.” You shift uncomfortably. “Some see it as like…a conquest, I guess.”

“Is that why you were so eager to see me gone back then?” You don’t expect him to say that, and it takes you aback for a moment. He smirks, but the expression doesn’t have a genuine quality to it—like he’s only showing levity because he assumes you will be repelled by him without it.

“No, it’s…not why.” The real reason feels too vulnerable to disclose, so you don’t. Again, you find yourself unable to meet his eyes, and you return your attention to the blinding waters. “Look, I just wanted to tell you so that you’re—aware. I’m not saying we have to up and run away, but…”

Ian’s face becomes hard to read; you don’t know whether he’s feeling apprehension or whether he’s neutral about the possibility of meeting another eater. Or maybe even fascinated by it. “I get it. Let’s just see if they make the first move or something. And if they show themselves as dangerous to us, then we can leave.”

You don’t love the idea of sitting and waiting for something to happen, but you aren’t fond of the thought of packing up and hitting the road again either. You are beginning to enjoy this campsite; it’s not so remote that you feel isolated, but all the campers are spread out enough so that you can avoid feeling crowded in or watched. Or like you’re exposing others to danger. “Fine. Let’s see.”

—

You and Ian sit outside at the fire pit after eating, listening to the cacophony of frogs at the river and other night sounds as your after-dinner entertainment. You hear a train in the distance and wonder where it’s going. You imagine hitching a ride on it and traveling someplace where you can settle down without the prying questions of new neighbors and the requirements of real estate agents—buy a house and live in one place for the rest of your life like normal people get to do.

You scrub your face with your hands and sigh. Ian perks up at your heavy exhale, a question in his eyes.

“When I mentioned genetics earlier…” you try to order your words correctly, “...I think I got this thing from my mother. I was told that I was given up for adoption as soon as I was born, as her parents didn’t think she would be fit to raise me, and they didn’t want me either. They didn’t specify why she couldn’t raise me, but I always assumed it was because of that.” This is more personal than anything you could’ve told him earlier, and you aren’t sure why it comes spilling out now. “I don’t think either of her parents were eaters. I think it can skip generations, but I’m not really sure…I don’t exactly sit and have tea and reminisce about family trees with other eaters.”

You’d been passed between many foster homes as an adolescent, never truly feeling like you belonged in anyone’s home or that any of your new “family members” loved or cared about you. At best, you were tolerated or left to your own devices. At worst…you’d once lived with a strictly religious older woman who was half the cause of your constant feelings of guilt. She never found out that you are an eater, but there was plenty more than that for her to convict you about. The lectures about hell and brimstone still come back to mock you if you let your mental guard down for too long.

During the time when you’d been traveling through the world on your own, you only took shelter in churches—abandoned or not—if there was truly no other suitable place to camp for miles. The large windows always reminded you of eyes peering down on you, seeing inside of your soul and cursing you for the blood you’d spilled.

Ian leans back on his hands. The flames of the fire pit illuminate his face, and somehow, he looks different. Like the act of reaching so far back into the past is making him into someone younger, softer, and newer to the world.

“...I guess it would be my dad, then. I never knew him, and mum would never talk about him. I don’t know anyone else in my family who would be. Family secrets always stay so well hidden.” He begins chucking little sticks and other debris into the fire pit, and you watch them spark as they hit the flames. “Mum tried to hide mine once I started, but I felt like such a burden to her…I just went out on my own as soon as I could.”

“So when did you start, then?”

“When I was starting high school. What about you?”

“I was still in the single digits…eight or nine, I think…” I’d snuck out to my friend’s treehouse at night even though I wasn’t allowed to, and the hunger came without a warning. Despite the blood inside the treehouse, no one could ever figure out what happened. The missing posters all over town haunted me. The finer details are gone now, but you still remember the basics of it. These things arise in your mind but you don’t say them, wanting to avoid the sting of voicing what you did.

“So it’s not the same timing for all of us? I’d thought it was some fucked-up symptom of puberty that none of the other kids at school had gotten or something…” Ian says, his voice trailing off. After a moment of silence, you laugh and keep on laughing, though it’s more an expression of your incredulity at this situation—at your lives—rather than true amusement. Ian laughs alongside you, though he sounds more light-hearted about it than you do. “I’m serious.”

“Ah…yeah. I guess it kind of is, in a way,” you whisper, just enough to be heard over the fire popping and the forest’s sounds. “A coming-of-age type of thing. You can never be the same after it happens.”

“That first time was scary for me, but mostly because of mum’s reaction when I told her.”

“What about before you told her?” you ask, wondering if you’ll regret this question.

Ian tilts his head back and stares up at the stars for a moment. “Physically, I felt…complete. Like…I don’t know, sort of like something in me had been starved and empty my whole life and I didn’t realize it until I finally ate.”

To your surprise, you feel some measure of envy at this, wishing it could be that straightforward for you. If you could eat only to satisfy the need, to achieve wholeness, and not feel any particular emotion about it—least of all the normal combination of negative emotions that crash down on you afterward—things could be so different.

This and all your previous conversations together might be the most time you’ve spent talking about the urge with any one person. That realization cools your blood and makes you want to draw back again. You’ve told him about your relatives and nearly spoke of your first time, and now you find dangerous words itching in your throat: I think I envy you. Maybe it’s all too much to lay in his hands and trust him with—even though you had no choice but to trust him with your life at the motel.

Trying to restore the emotional distance between you, you get up from your spot on the log and promptly announce, “I’m, uh, gonna go piss.”

Ian’s eyebrows crease in the middle, and a short laugh bursts from his mouth. “Uh, sure, be my guest.”

You walk off into the trees, trying to tell yourself that the physical distance is enough for now—even though you feel like you’ve splayed your chest cavity open before him and let him scrutinize your every cell.

—

You wake up in the tent alone the next morning, pulled out of sleep from the sound of voices nearby. It’s not unusual for Ian to wake up before you; with you not needing to get up at dawn hours anymore to run the motel’s affairs, you take every opportunity to sleep as long as you can.

Within seconds of waking, you realize the smell of the other eater is much stronger, which raises alarm within you. You peek your head outside the tent’s opening to see what’s going on, adjusting your scarf on your head. Outside, you see Ian talking to someone else at the picnic table—someone who you can only assume is the other eater. She has strawberry-blonde hair that reaches the middle of her back and skin that’s been tanned from weeks in the sun; there are freckles across her face and chest, and her eyes are a clear blue. She seems engrossed in the conversation, and though you can’t see Ian’s face, he must be the same way; this is the second eater he’s met after knowing none at all his entire life. You’re reminded of the almost desperate way he’d appealed to you in that motel bathroom, and all your internal organs wince at the remembrance.

And then she glances over his shoulder and sees you sitting there yards away. A small smile shifts her expression, but it doesn’t have the same energy of the friendly smile you get from a passing stranger in public. It says I know what you are, and we both know you cannot hide it from me. It creates that familiar unease in you.

Ian notices the change in her face and turns to look at you as she gets up from the table to walk over to the tent. “Hello there. We were just having a nice little talk; it’s not often I meet other eaters who’ve never encountered their own before. You caught yourself a rare one.” She smiles with her teeth now. “I’m Sherry. What’s your name?”

You tell her a fake name, still cautious about your identity. You wish you’d been awake earlier to catch the beginning of their conversation, but it’s too late to ruminate on that. “What did you talk about?” you ask, shuffling out of the tent now. You’re only wearing a tank top and sleep shorts because of how hot the tent can get when you’re both in it; you don’t know how the hell Ian puts out so much body heat.

“You know, the things every person talks about…the weather, things to do ‘round here, favorite foods.” Sherry cocks her head at the last phrase, as if amused by her own words. You’re unable to muster up a smile to match hers. “Personally, I like to feed every month…I think Ian would agree. It’s too bad you don’t indulge as often, I hear? You could eat plenty more—not just when the hunger tells you to.”

It’s clear that he’s said more than he needed to. You shoot him an annoyed look, and Ian smiles weakly before biting his lip.

“I’m fine,” you say curtly. “Really. A few times a year is more than I could ever have asked for.”

Sherry nods, her smile never becoming less amused. “You’re one of those eaters who’s not fond of the whole deal. That’s charming. Maybe you were gifted with more compassion than the rest of us. Or maybe you’re just…repressed.”

A blurred montage of all the people you’ve previously consumed flashes in your mind, along with the lives they lived, and you don’t know whether to feel angry or defeated. “Better some compassion than none, I would say.” Even with the annoyance behind your words, it seems useless to say this; there’s nothing you could say to make her see things your way.

“To each their own.” Sherry shrugs, nonchalant despite your irritation. “But I suppose I should be going now to get my day started, so—nice meeting you two.” You both watch her depart, Ian giving her a wave before she disappears into the trees. You sigh deeply, trying to tamp down the boiling in your chest as you begin picking out something to wear for the day from the small pile of clothes you own.

“Alright, look—she came up and said hello, said she had smelled us, and I…I was curious about her experience,” Ian says.

“I don’t know why you’re explaining anything to me; you’re grown and can talk to who you want. No one was chewed to pieces, right?” you say sarcastically. “That’s pretty much a win.”

“Because you’re obviously annoyed.”

You stand up straight now, gesturing angrily with your clothes as you speak. “Maybe because you should’ve left me out of your conversation. I didn’t even want to talk to you about this shit at first, do you remember? But you kept fucking begging me. Now some stranger knows about my situation without me ever sharing it with them?”

Ian smooths his hair back with both hands and sighs. “Okay, I can see how maybe that was fucked up. I shouldn’t have said anything about you to Sherry, but do you realize she would’ve known you’re an eater anyway?” You glare in response. “I’m sorry, alright? But it’s hard for me to get used to you being so closed-off about it when all I’ve ever wanted was to know I’m not alone in this shit. It doesn’t make any bloody sense to me!”

“Because I never cared about being alone in it,” you say, and a tiny flare of guilt pricks you from the dishonesty. “I didn’t think about who else might experience it. I was too busy trying to hide what I was. Even if I did consider it, I didn’t want to be around anyone else who could’ve been—like me.”

Deep down, you realize that despite what you’d sometimes fantasized about Alicia—that if she were an eater too, she’d understand you without judgment and you wouldn’t have to live under such stressful circumstances—the reality is nothing of what you thought it would be. Living your life with another eater hasn’t relieved you of the condemnation and shame you always feel, and you wonder if maybe the emotions have been ground too deeply into your soul to escape them.

The darkness in Ian’s gaze reminds you of the way he’d looked at you and Alicia when you confronted him in front of the motel office. “Stop bullshitting, I don’t believe you. People get lonely about smaller shit everyday, but you didn’t care whether you were the only cannibal in the world or not?”

Before you can respond, you hear the sounds of foliage rustling and feet shuffling; there’s a small group of people walking one of the trails yards away and laughing about something. You can make out flashes of their clothes through the tree branches and bushes. Sweat springs up on your body.

You lower your voice, hoping they haven’t heard any of your conversation. “I don’t give a fuck if you don’t believe me. Your experience isn’t the only one there is. Just stop telling others my business. You don’t have that right. For all I know, you could’ve slipped something about the motel.”

Ian’s eyes widen. “I didn’t say a damn word about the motel! All I mentioned was that sometimes the urge takes years for you, and that you hate it when it happens. You think I’m that unreliable, after all I’ve done to help you since then?”

You know he’s right about the motel, at least. You’re still somewhat incredulous that he dropped everything to help you clean up and escape unseen when he could’ve stayed in his room, acted like nothing happened, and left you to be hauled off by the law. But you’re angry, and though it may be petty, you don’t want him to be right about this. “What am I supposed to think of you? I don’t fucking know you like that. In case you forgot, we were perfect strangers not too long ago.”

“And I try to know more about you so that we aren’t strangers, but you never want to talk about anything. Last night was something rare, but does that even matter to you?”

Your conversation from last night is like a distant memory, the personal details you shared with each other now dust in the wind. You wish you could take all of those words back, embarrassed from the vulnerability you allowed yourself. You wish you’d never known about him being a kid in high school, not knowing what to make of the new life that was waiting in his DNA, and that you hadn’t felt some measure of sympathy for him after hearing that story. You wish you’d done a better job of keeping him at arm’s length.

You gather your clothes close to your chest and shove your feet into your shoes so you can head for the river. “I’m starting to think it was a mistake. That’s all I know.” You walk past him without waiting to see if he’ll reply, trying to ignore the hurt in his expression.

—

The next morning is similar in that you are awakened by the sounds of voices again, but this time they are alarmed. Shouting, searching. Farther away, but approaching your area.

Ian’s next to you sleeping this time, his back to you as you sit up; at the start of this camping excursion you both had agreed to sleep facing away from each other, mostly for your own comfort. But it’s also convenient in this current situation when you’re still pissed at him.

You climb out of the tent to get a better listen, standing in the early morning air that’s already becoming too hot. You realize now that the shouts are someone’s name—Michael. The distress and pain are palpable in the voices of the people calling for the presumably missing person, and your stomach begins hurting with dread as your mind fills in the blanks about what might’ve happened. Not in such a public space…

Ian pokes his head out of the tent a few moments later, his long hair covering his eyes. “My God, what the hell is going on?”

“How would I know?” you scoff, squinting through the trees. You see a middle-age man and woman heading your way; there are other individuals spread farther out in the forest, still calling that person’s name. You catch glimpses of them through the foliage, their hands cupped around their mouths and heads swiveling like owls. When the couple reaches your camping spot, you notice the tear streaks on both their faces.

“H-have either of you seen this boy between last night and this morning?” the woman blurts out, holding up a picture with shaky fingers. The person depicted is a gangly blonde boy with a bowl cut who looks to be fifteen at the most. His wide smile shows his metal braces, and he’s holding up a large catfish. “We can’t find our son, p-please. He l-likes to go out exploring by himself even when we warn him not to, even at night—and he didn’t come back this time—he must’ve went out last night and got hurt or something, b-because some other campers found a patch of bloody grass…” The mother collapses into incoherent sobs.

The father tries to pick up where she left off, though his brown eyes are also wet and red and troubled beyond measure. “S-some other campers found this area of bloody grass in the deep woods away from the marked trails, so we—we thought maybe he got hurt and wasn’t able to find his way back—this is our first time camping here—b-but…”

“There…there was so much blood,” the mother gasps, shaking her head and clutching the picture so tightly you think it might rip.

“I-I’m…sorry,” you say, your throat feeling choked with a guilt that’s not yours to bear. “We haven’t seen him, or anyone else. We went to bed pretty early and only just woke up, so…” You ate dinner in silence with Ian last night before heading to bed earlier than usual. He’d stayed out by the fire pit smoking a cigarette for a while longer before coming in beside you.

The father nods, though your words seem to be another weight on his shoulders dampening his hopes of finding his son. “Thank you,” he mumbles, gently tugging the mother along to the next camping area.

“Jesus…” Ian mutters. It’s hard for you not to get lost in a rabbit hole of thinking about that boy and his apparent love for fishing and what he might’ve become if given the chance and the time. If only someone had had some kind of mercy on him. If only some otherworldly force had saved him. If only someone had simply not chosen him as their meal.

You walk away from the tent, trying to settle your nerves and corral your thoughts. You don’t know where you’re going, and you don’t respond to Ian’s call of your name, but you let your feet carry you away until you’re standing at the shore, looking out over the river. You listen to the tiny waves splash against the shore and feel the cool water run over your feet and try to let it ground you.

Maybe you shouldn’t care. Not when you’re capable of the same; it’s too hypocritical. Still, you can’t stop thinking about it as you dig your toes into the mud, trying to block out the sounds of the search party in the far distance. You’re almost ready to crouch down and put your hands over your ears when a hand touches your shoulder. You whip around to see Ian behind you.

“What?” you ask, voice coming out louder than you intend.

“Relax,” he murmurs. “It’s not like anyone thinks it’s us.”

“Why would they? And who cares about that?” you snap. “A boy is dead, and you’re sitting up here—of course it wasn’t us. But we do know—”

“We don’t know that he’s dead, and we don’t know that either.”

“You don’t think she did it?”

Ian sighs. “Should we assume that? If she did—it was always gonna be someone, Y/N. If not him, someone else. No one gets spared when you have to live like we do, you know that.”

“You two seem quite similar, honestly,” you say, exasperated. “Maybe it’d make more sense for you two to be together like this instead of us. I just can’t understand how you think.”

Maybe you’ve made a huge error. Not by accepting his help, or even by renting him the motel room—you’d have to go further back than that. You shouldn’t have even gone out to check on him that night. You could’ve avoided this all if only…

One decision. The difference between you being in this campground-turned-crime-scene and you standing at the motel desk taking yet another stranger’s information was just one decision.

…But you still would’ve eaten Alicia, wouldn’t you have? The hunger is always beneath the surface, just waiting to reemerge. If not then, it would’ve been later.

You’re spinning out of control. The thought comes to you suddenly: There’s no way you can sustain this strange relationship with him, in which you travel endlessly with no destination and you try to pretend like he doesn’t eat other people and like you don’t have the same craving. Your talk at the fire pit should’ve shown you that; how can you ever be on equal ground with him in the way that another eater like Sherry could? And why should you want to? You’ve been trying to outrun this desire to consume for as long as you’ve had it; you won’t let him make you think this is normal.

Even if your thoughts are anchored more in your current emotional frenzy than in reality, you’re unable to regulate yourself to see things differently. A vise of panic grips your body and crushes you between.

There has to be a way out of this.

“Y/N. I don’t think you’re in the right state of mind right now,” he says more gently, noticing the frantic vibe emanating from you. “If you’re that concerned, we can leave, okay? Remember, we said we’d leave if things didn’t feel right?”

“Right…” you murmur, though your mind is elsewhere, planning. “Tomorrow. We can leave tomorrow.”

When night falls, Sherry returns to your campsite. To your knowledge, the search party is still out there somewhere, pushing out to the very edges of the campground’s boundaries to cover all the bases. All of the other campers who didn’t get involved in the search have either decided to stay to themselves or leave.

“Hey, friends. I come with gifts.” Her smile is big and white in the dark of night as she holds up some beer cans and a pack of cigarettes.

That’s how the three of you end up sitting around the fire pit, smoke from both the flames and the tobacco curling through the air. Your beer can sits nearly empty in your lap; you’d taken a few apprehensive sips at first, and then more, in an attempt to numb yourself out. Sherry leads the conversation, talking about her travels and the exciting things she’s done and never once bringing up anyone she’s preyed on. You don’t know if she avoids the topic for your comfort. You highly doubt she cares. You say little to either of them, too lost in your own mind to engage.

But eventually, amid a lull in the talking, she sighs as if burdened and then smiles. It’s an odd contrast.

“I’ve always preferred to feed on males,” she announces. “I like to pretend each one of them is my father. I guess you could call it daddy issues, but I don’t give a fuck.”

Your heart quickens. “Your father?”

“‘Course. He’s the one who gave me this little gift. Then tried to kill me for it. Ain’t that something? Didn’t even do me the dignity of eating me; he tried to strangle me with his bare hands like some kind of brute.”

“That’s so fucked up,” Ian mutters.

“If I didn’t fight him like a bat outta hell, I’d be dead. I didn’t eat him after. I just ran away from home and never came back. But shit, sometimes I wish I had eaten him.” She chuckles, taking a drag from her cigarette.

“So, the boy…” you start, but don’t know how to finish.

Sherry leans her head against her palm and studies you before saying, “Take a guess.” Ian raises his eyebrows.

“But why him?” you ask, voice cracking. “Why in a place like this, with so many others around? Don’t you think it’s dangerous?”

“It’s not if you know what you’re doing.” Sherry shrugs. “Besides, he was curious, easy to lure, and outside at night when he shouldn’t have been. They never expect danger to come from a sweet little thing like me. You should take advantage of that.” Sherry gestures to you, grinning again. “Use your feminine wiles and all that shit.”

You pour the last bit of your beer into the grass and stand up from the log you’d been sitting on. “It doesn’t work like that for me.” You walk back to the tent feeling chilled despite the humidity of late August. You try to ignore the sensation of two pairs of eyes following you.

—

That morning, you wake up much earlier than Ian does. You check to make sure he’s asleep, his chest rising and falling evenly, as you crawl from under the covers. You’re as careful and quiet as can be as you gather your things in the tent and strewn around the campsite—though they are thankfully few—and shove them into your traveling bag.

Once you have all your belongings together, you slip back into the tent. Ian’s jeans are folded in the corner with his other clothes; you know the car keys are in one of the pockets. As you slowly search through them, you hope that he won’t awaken. You watch his face for signs of consciousness, and as you do, the sight of him lying there scratches at something deep inside of you. It arouses a sentiment you don’t want to think of as sympathy. Are you betraying him in some way by doing this?

The feel of metal against your fingers causes your heart to race. You slide the keys out with as much control as you can muster. Then you back out of the tent, telling yourself this is the last time you will see him, before letting the flaps close and obscure your view of him.

You don’t breathe properly again until you’re in the parking lot, clutching the strap of your bag and the car keys like you’re being hunted. You falter in your steps, however, when you see Sherry in the parking lot too, messing with something in her car—a boxy, dark red Chevy. She isn’t the only person out here—there’s a man and his small child at their own car, the man tiredly searching for some beloved toy in the backseat while the child whines—but somehow you feel cornered.

You try to ignore her as you shove the key into the lock and throw your bag into the passenger seat, scanning the trees as if Ian might be there, shouldering his way out of the foliage. There is no one.

“Leaving so soon?” You turn at the sound of Sherry’s voice, unsure when she got over here and how she moved so soundlessly. “It’s probably for the best; there’s rumors the park rangers are gonna be temporarily closing this site.”

You shrug, your body stiff. “And?”

Her eyes search the car as if looking for something in particular. “Doesn’t look like enough stuff for both of you. You’re leaving Ian behind?” She laughs, her face simultaneously surprised and amused.

You don’t owe her an explanation, you tell yourself. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I won’t. When I think about it…you two probably wouldn’t have made it very far together, anyway.” She throws her hands up in a casual what can you do? motion and makes for the treeline, calling over her shoulder. “Maybe you’ll change your mind about eating one day.”

“Maybe not,” you mutter, sliding into the front seat and starting the engine.

—

Summer fades into fall, though the weather doesn’t yet reflect this change.

You drive for miles and try not to think about many things—most prominently, Alicia or Ian. Yet, your version of not thinking about Ian involves a lot of ruminating on whether you should’ve left, what happened to him after, where he might be now, whether he decided to tag along with Sherry or just ended up alone again. You feel sick whenever the last possibility crosses your mind.

It doesn’t matter, you tell yourself. He was alone before me, and he’ll be fine after me. We were never really going to work anyway.

During your worst times, you wonder if you were purposely setting him up for disaster; you’d told him yourself how dangerous other eaters could be. You know you would never try to feed on him, but what about Sherry? The guilt threatens to make you implode; sometimes you want to fly back down the highway and find him again somehow, and say…what? What could you say to make it less horrible? Whenever your mind turns down that road, you attempt to convince yourself that it doesn’t concern you anymore. Whatever happens to him, good or bad, is no longer your business.

Not thinking about Alicia involves a lot more open wallowing and feeling sorry for yourself while simultaneously hating that you feel any pity for yourself. You deserve no one’s sympathies. But that doesn’t stop you from curling into the backseat and recalling past memories through sobs, dragging your fingernails down your arms until you bleed and scar. Even when you’re asleep, your dreaming brain conjures terrible scenarios in which everything is normal again, you’re working at the motel again and you’re laughing at some silly comment she’s made, shying away from her as she tickles your arm or pinches your side, and it feels so real that it’s physically painful when you awaken.

So you spend your days like this, hoping to somehow purge the trauma from your system by ignoring it—and doing a terrible job of both. You go entire days without speaking to anyone, walking through parks or down busy sidewalks without regard for the people around you who buzz with life and excitement. You count the money you have left every night and begin shoplifting to try to slow down your spending. You even consider finding a job again, though you still don’t trust yourself to be in such close proximity to other people for hours at a time; you just have to find a city you like enough to live in first. Somewhere populous enough for you to be insignificant, and fast-paced enough for you to have plenty of distractions from your oppressive thoughts.

You ponder this idea one early morning in a small diner; there are a few people here for their breakfast, but not an uncomfortable amount. The other diners are too sluggish or disinterested to regard your presence—or each other’s presences.

The atlases for several different states lie on the table in front of you; you flip through one on Georgia. You and Ian had collected many of them while traveling. Maybe you could work somewhere that doesn’t require you to be around too many other people. A call center, perhaps. But you’d still have coworkers. Maybe a typist job; you’d spend all day behind a computer filling in spreadsheets and taking tedious phone calls. It wouldn’t be much different from what you used to do. You could sew clothes in the backroom of a tailor’s shop, or take some mind-numbing factory job…

You just need something to occupy your mind. Being left alone with nothing but your thoughts and the road ahead of you is wearing you thinner each day. Was it even this bad during the time you spent alone after Marygold? You can’t remember. Maybe your brain is blocking the memories for your own sanity.

As you place your tip on the table for the waitress, she stops in the middle of gathering your dishes and observes your face. You catch her gaze and stare back, wondering if she knows you from the motel. You’re beginning to mentally spiral when she says,

“You look like a girl who’s lost to love.”

“Love?”

She puts a hand on her hip, looking at you like you’re the saddest thing she’s seen all year. It makes you uncomfortable. “You have that lovelorn look I’ve seen a thousand times before. Poor thing. Who would think of breaking your heart?”

Myself. “I don’t love anyone,” you mumble, chest aching as you say the lie.

“Everyone loves someone,” the waitress says. “I believe you’ll find someone new, if that’s what you’re yearning for. Don’t be so down.”

You shake your head, wanting to escape this diner and this conversation. “I’m a little too fucked up for that.” Your voice fractures on the last words, and you hold your body still in an effort to stop yourself from crying. If you hold your breath long enough, maybe your body will shut itself down and forget that it was about to break.

“Everyone’s a little fucked up, too, girlie. But that’s why you find that special someone who can put up with your crazy—or someone who has the same wild hair up their ass.”

You swallow hard and let out an exhale; there’s still a sheen of tears on your eyes, but the drops haven’t fallen. Your lips form a miniscule smile at her turn of phrase, amusement briefly flitting through you.

“Anyway, I don’t mean to be nosy. I just didn’t want you to leave here looking so depressed.” You probably look more disturbed than you did when you first entered the establishment, so you’re pretty sure that mission has failed. But some part of you appreciates that this stranger took the time to even speak to you, to care that you looked upset and want to do something about it.

She smiles and places her hand over yours. You allow yourself to take comfort in the touch for a moment; warmth spreads upward from where your hands meet, sparking something in your chest. But in an instant, the vault door in your heart slams back closed from where it’d cracked open, and the fears rush back in, spiking all your senses into anxiety. You’re soon pulling away, slipping out the front door and into the morning sun.

—

You’re not sure how to feel when you smell him again.

The scent comes to you while you’re in a grocery store, debating whether to pay like all the other customers or just steal the few essentials you need and leave. The end of October is days away, and the vibrant Halloween decor and packaging are in full force throughout the store.

Many emotions race through you at once. You become hyperaware of your increased heart rate and the sweat that prickles your body, and you can’t figure out whether you’re afraid of or angry at his presence. Or relieved. You wonder how he managed to find you again—probably the same reason why you know he’s here without laying eyes on him, though that seems unlikely. You don’t think any eater can pick up smells from that kind of distance. Then you consider that maybe this is just a coincidence, the two of you arriving in the same place. Or some sick variant of fate. Could the universe be that cruel?

You think about dashing out of the store before he can see you, though there’s not much point. Why should you run? You were here first. If so-called fate has decided that this reunion was always going to happen at some point, then you don’t want to spend the rest of your life running from him. So you wait for him to come to you, trapped in a tornado of emotions.

You’re in the vegetable aisle trying not to get sprayed by the misters suddenly cutting on when you see him. You shake droplets of water off your hand and then you glance up and he’s there, approaching you like he only intends to leave this store with one thing: you. For a split second, you wonder if it’s really him; his hair is unkempt under a baseball cap, and he’s wearing a pair of yellow-tinted glasses you’ve never seen on him. His bag is slung over one shoulder.

You can feel the anxiety pouring off of him when he stops in front of you; his fingers tremble as he fidgets with his rings. He has the air of an older brother—or what you’d imagine one to be like—annoyed and afraid after you’ve run off without him in the store and gotten lost, and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry or curse.

“Didn’t expect to ever see me again, huh, darling?” Ian keeps his voice mostly even, but it sounds like that requires significant effort. “Not the way you drove off with my fucking car, I bet.” It was never your car, you think.

“How did you even find me?” you ask, voice small.

“Think about it. The atlas.”

You do think about it. And then you remember; you’d talked about the next place you’d travel to after staying at the campground. You both agreed on a random town named Hendersonville, which is where you are now—but only after months of directionless hopping around from city to city. How would he think to come here now, months after the fact, when it’s possible that you could’ve already been through the town and long gone, or decided to never visit Hendersonville at all? Terrible fate…

Something else catches your attention before you can reply to this. Despite the agitated state you’re both in, you realize that you’re picking up on his scent and no others.

“Did you and Sherry…?”

“She’s dead,” he says.

That’s the last thing you expected to hear. “What?”

He pulls down the collar of his T-shirt. There are many scars along the junction of his neck and shoulder that weren’t there before, and it takes you a moment to notice that some of them resemble teeth marks.

“So…” Your throat seizes up, and you have to clear it a couple times to speak again, though you avoid speaking too loudly. “...she tried to eat you?”

He lets his collar go and nods with a jerky movement. “After only a month. I had to kill her or she would’ve done me in. It was close.”

Your words haunt you yet again. Us being dangerous to everyone else doesn’t mean we aren’t a risk to each other, too. And for that reason, you don’t understand why he’s returned to you, a fellow cannibal.

You are shocked again when you register that there’s a small part of you that feels sorry for Sherry. You think of how she tried to regain control after her father’s attempted murder of her by preying on so many other men, doing to them what she wished she had done to him, only to end up dead by another man in the end. There’s something terribly unfair about it all.

“I…see.” You realize you’ve been holding a bell pepper for an awkwardly long time, and you waffle between getting a plastic bag for it or setting it back down. Frustrated, you toss it back with the others.

“Then I ate her,” he continues. You resist the urge to recoil.

“And you’re back here in front of me because…why? You’re not worried I might turn on you the same? I did take ‘your’ car.”

His laugh is colorless and dry. “You’re fucking joking, right? I know how you are. You can barely stand to talk about it, and I’m supposed to believe you’d eat me?”

“Shut up.” You’re more offended by him saying I know how you are as if he understands you so intimately after only a few months. It angers you to think maybe he could know you—know all these unpleasant things about you and still want to return for you. You begin walking away from him then, though there’s no real urgency in your movements to get away from him.

“You shut up. You may have tried to throw me aside, but we both know we’re not finished with each other.” He follows you into another aisle; there’s an old woman pushing a cart coming from the opposite direction, and he waits to speak again until after she’s gone. “We’re some of the few who know what it’s like.”

You suck your teeth, feeling foolish. “But…that’s why I left you. Thought you’d gravitate to Sherry, fit better together.”

“You see how well that turned out. What does it really matter that we feel differently about it as long as we’re not trying to fucking kill each other?”

You don’t know how to respond to that, because responding would mean admitting you’ve put yourself through months of emotional torment on the basis of a false and impulsive assumption. You want to bury the guilt chewing at your organs but it only worsens when he says,

“I just—fuck’s sake. I don’t want to be alone again.”

You stare at each other as those words settle in the air, though you struggle to maintain eye contact and soon look away with a wince. The most unbearable part of it is the pain in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I fucked things up when I shouldn’t have. I…misjudged.” Your words fade at the end, as you are left with nothing else to say to remedy the situation. Ian rubs a hand across his face, shifting his glasses up as he does so, and you pretend like you don’t notice the redness around his eyes. The both of you continue walking down the aisle, slower this time, the silence between you thick. Neither of you feels any better than you did before this meeting, but at least there aren’t thousands of miles between you anymore.

Finally, he says, “So. Are you gonna get anything, or will we just walk around until closing?”

“Well…I don’t know. Do you have a car? How did you get here?”

“I’ve been hitch-hiking. And walking. But mostly hitch-hiking.” As if to prove it, he slides a wad of cash halfway out of his jacket pocket.

“Oh. I—was thinking of finding a job,” you blurt out. It has nothing to do with your current conversation, but you feel like you’ve lost your ability to talk to him in his absence. You reach for anything to stop from thinking about the reason why he was gone, why he had to hitch-hike with total strangers. “To get more money.”

“And staying here?”

“No…there isn’t anything in this town for me. But maybe somewhere else.”

“Gotta find somewhere to live, then. I’m guessing you aren’t counting on having a roommate.” His voice is cynical, and you know he probably expects you to abandon him again.

“It was just an idea,” you mutter. “I haven’t even tried to look for anything.” You find that you’ve walked back around toward the entrance of the grocery store. A life-size skeleton grins at you open-mouthed from where it’s been propped against a display bin, all 32 teeth showing. You shake your head and sigh. “Let’s just get out of here. I’ve been in here long enough.”

The sky is turning dark blue with the onset of night as you walk outside; the streetlights have already come on. You go to the driver’s side of the sedan and gesture for Ian to get inside. He hesitates for a moment like he might reject—your heart nearly ceases—then throws his bag into the backseat. Exhaling, you get behind the wheel. For a moment, you just sit there with your hands slack on the wheel as he gets in beside you and lights a cigarette with shaking fingers.

You almost miss his quiet words when he speaks at the same time you start the engine up: “Did you even miss me?”

You don’t know if you can admit that you did—or that “missing” him felt more like something had been scooped out of you, your insides painfully scraped clean afterward. You chalk it up to your inherent loneliness, the reason why you’re drawn to him despite not wanting to be. You wish your heart hadn’t reacted so painfully at the possibility of him deciding to leave you after all, and yet you have no one else. Not your grandparents who abandoned you, your cannibal mother lost somewhere in the world, or your father who died before you were even born.

“I…regretted it.” You don’t look at him, occupied with pulling out of the parking spot. “Yes, if it makes a difference for you to know…I regretted it all the time.”

He says nothing for a while. You wonder if your reply was enough, if he expected more. It feels like there’s a third thing in the car with you, sitting in the space between your bodies and preventing you from fully accessing each other—everything that remains unsaid.

“Where are you staying now?” he finally asks.

“An abandoned barn near here. Seems like the owners just up and left all their things. Still smells kinda like horse, but…the loft isn’t so bad.”

“...Nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”

—

“You never did tell me exactly how you showed up at the motel that first night,” you tell Ian. “I deserve to know that much, at least. What brought you into my life.”

It’s the second week of November, and you’re still in Hendersonville.

You gaze at the large pond before you, your view broken every so often by Ian walking through the overgrown grass around the pond—treading an aimless path but never venturing very far from the car. The engine is still warm underneath your butt where you’re half-leaning, half-sitting on the hood, and you try to enjoy the warmth while it lasts.

The pond is about 10 minutes from the barn where you’re staying, and you’d driven here several times when it was just you. But you’ve only been here during the light hours; seeing everything at night is much different. Something about it feels overly familiar in a way that unsettles you. The scene threatens to dredge up old memories of your nighttime swims with Marygold—right down to the nearly full moon, huge and clear in the sky. You have to fill the quiet with your voice if you have any hope of outrunning the dark thoughts.

Ian crosses his arms and sort of side-eyes you, like maybe he’s skeptical about you initiating a conversation like this after the fallout of the camping excursion, and you mimic him until he breaks with a small, barely-amused laugh. Better to focus on his past issues than your own, you figure—as fucked up as that may be. You don’t move your gaze from him as he tells the story, watching him continuously flick around a few loose strands of his hair on his forehead.

“Right. Well…I tried to eat this young farmer guy—saw him at this country bar, or he saw me, and I guess he liked what he saw…I ended up going home with him, because I was hungry. That’s why I’d gone to the bar that night. Told him I was living on the streets and had barely eaten in days. Made him feel sorry for me. And then I tried to eat him…but when he started fighting it, I didn’t realize he had a pocketknife, and he got me pretty good before I ended up killing him. Too much commotion alerted the neighbors. I only had enough time to try to bandage it before I had to get the fuck out. Walked through a fucking corn field…then eventually I reached the highway, and you know the rest.”

“So you killed someone and didn’t…finish them.” The thought of that almost bothers you even more than the eating itself. It just seems senseless. The man could still be alive now, but his life was ended and went to complete waste; his body didn’t even serve its purpose as sustenance. You realize that this isn’t even the first time this has happened, thinking back to that time he was caught while up North.

He doesn’t seem offended by your shift in mood—maybe just weary. He rubs his eyes. “It happens. But I aim to make sure it happens as rarely as possible.”

You turn away and look across the pond again, your mind getting lost in the dark copse of trees on the other side. Being outside at this time of night is not the most comforting thing in the world, but in truth, is your nature really that different from whatever dangers lurk in the woods? “I wonder, then…how are we any better than the average serial killer?”

“We kill because we have to.”

“Being chained to our physiology doesn’t get rid of our blame.”

“I never said it did,” Ian replied. “And that’s your problem. Eating doesn’t need to be innocent or pure or blameless in order for you to accept that it’s a part of yourself…it just is.”

You can’t muster the will to counter him, and he doesn’t press the matter, likely not in the mood for yet another round of verbal sparring. He resumes walking his circles, wearing trails into the grass. You continue sitting on the hood long after the engine has cooled, watching the moon’s reflection tremble on the water’s surface and imagining what you’d tell Alicia and Marygold and all the others if they could hear you, somewhere in the universe.

I’m sorry. It’s just who I am.

—

With Hendersonville behind you, you’re back to sleeping in the car many nights. Among the various things you see as you travel through urban cities and rural areas, fall festivals are common occurrences everywhere.

There’s one coming up in the distance now; you’ve been idling in evening traffic for minutes, and it becomes clear that this congestion must be because everyone’s heading to the festivities. You press your face closer to the car’s window glass to see. The bright lights of the numerous booths, rides, and decorations illuminate the late evening. Countless people walk or run around, some wearing elaborate outfits.

You’re just coming from a mom-and-pop restaurant where the wife of the owner had called you darling even more than Ian does. She’d assumed you both to be lovers and gave you a free slice of pumpkin pie to share, and neither of you bothered to correct her if it meant treats you didn’t have to pay for.

As you observe the festivities, you see that there are two booths set up on either side of the festival’s main entrance; one claims to offer some type of spiritual readings, denoted by a large sign of a purple crystal ball. But your eyes catch on the bone-white trailer sitting on the other side of the entrance. It has been converted into a mobile booth with a large sign with red and blue lettering that asks one question: Are You Going to Heaven? An older man with graying hair sits in the booth, hands clasped together as he watches groups of people entering the festival grounds. It’s too far away and too dark to be entirely certain, but you don’t think you’re imagining the cross hanging up behind the man on the trailer’s wall or the thick book resting near his hands.

“Looks like they’re having fun,” Ian says, face illuminated in red by the taillights of another car, one hand on the wheel.

“Mmhm…” you answer, your mind still hung up on that booth and sign as the car finally drives past. Memories of your former life knock at the door of your consciousness, but you don’t let them in.

You’re unable to ignore your discomfort later that night, though, when you and Ian return to the safe parking spot you’d found days earlier and settle in to go to sleep. The cold has finally become a permanent fixture as the months venture deeper into late autumn, and you clutch your blanket tightly to your body as you drift off in the backseat.

In your dreamscape, you wake up in Alicia’s bed in the living quarters of the motel office, blood dripping from every part of you—hands, arms, face, chest. The sight of your bloody hands splayed out in front of you makes terror spike through your body, your breaths coming short. As you turn to look at your surroundings, you see the remains of Alicia lying on the bed next to you, her torso almost completely hollowed out. Her brown hair is streaked with new and drying blood—same as the red-dyed ivory of her broken rib cage. Her dead eyes look at you with a frozen expression, pained and imploring. Begging, even. Why did you do this to me?

You have the sensation of screaming, feeling it emanating from your body and hearing the sound pierce your ears, but your mouth isn’t open. You try to scramble off the bed and away from the mess you’ve made of the woman you love, but no matter how hard you fight, you have no leeway; it’s like the sheets are holding your limbs hostage, sucking you in like quicksand. Sweat pours from your body and stings your eyes.

In the next moment, you’re no longer struggling, and Alicia is no longer next to you. You’re not in her bedroom at all anymore; you’re sitting at a kitchen table you don’t recognize. The kitchen has a rustic and homey appearance, as if it belongs in a country homestead. Lacy floral curtains frame each side of the window above the farmhouse sink, allowing the dark orange evening sunlight to stream in, and the black wood stove a few feet away from your chair has a steady fire burning inside of it. Someone’s cooking, then, or preparing to cook. Who?

Ian turns to face you from where he is standing at the counter—when’d he get there? You didn’t notice him before—with two porcelain plates in his hands and a delighted grin on his face. Have you ever seen him look so happy before? You smile back at him as your eyes shift from his face to the plates; balanced on top of each is a perfectly bloody heart, the muscle thick and hardy and still beating although it’s attached to nothing. The kitchen floor around you both is stained with large swathes of blood, which have sunk deep into the wood’s fibers, though you hardly notice this.

Ian sets the table and sits in front of you, and neither of you bother with utensils as you pick up each heart with your hands. You hold the heart against your lips, feeling the slickness of it and letting the blood smear across your mouth, marveling at the constant pumping motion of its ventricles. It’s endearing, you think. How it tries so hard to maintain life when it’s fruitless anyway.

Then you bite into it.

You both eat ravenously, blood staining your mouths and hands the deep shade of carmine. The taste of the raw flesh is better than any food you have ever consumed, and innately, you know this is what you were made for. You laugh at how good it feels, glancing up at Ian with pure mirth. The indulgence is so sweet that you don’t notice the wood stove growing hotter and hotter in the corner of the room until the wallpaper behind it catches fire.

By the time you finish eating and regain enough wherewithal to realize what’s going on, the entire room is ablaze, and you are alone. The fire crawls up your chair and then engulfs the table. There’s nowhere safe for you to run, but you try anyway as the flames catch hold of your feet and then your legs, eating their way up your body. You stumble through the house screaming, the heat raging around you at an incomprehensible level.

Your skin begins to slough off and you scream endlessly for it to stop, but it never does. There is always more skin to replace what’s being scorched off of you; it grows back with an unbearable itching sensation as it knits together, only to burn right up again. You collapse to the ground on your hands and knees, though it’s excruciating to put weight on any part of your body.

Through the brightness of the fire and the heat haze, you make out a strange white and blue pattern on the floor in front of you, and you realize that it’s shards from the porcelain plates. Together, the broken pieces spell out:

Are You Going to Heaven?

You wake up in a flurry of limbs and blanket, hitting Ian who’s sleeping in the reclined front seat. The accidental violence combined with the sudden rocking of the car is enough to startle him awake. His voice floats out somewhere in the chaos, but you don’t really register it as you fling the car door open and stumble out of the sedan. You walk a couple yards away from the car—just enough to let the cold night air spear through your skin and convince you that you’re no longer trapped in a much hotter place. You hear the front car door open behind you and footsteps on the grass as Ian steps out. He calls your name, and you pretend not to hear as you stare at the ground and then toss your head to the skies, hands on your hips for some sort of stability. Your stomach aches badly, but you can’t get sick now.

“What’s wrong? Did you have a nightmare?” he asks when he gets closer.

It takes you more than a minute to work up a response without the possibility of a scream or vomit tumbling from your mouth, and he waits patiently as you do. “Y-yeah. It’s…probably not that big of a deal…I was…” The next words spill out before you can think to keep them inside. “Just a bit…freaked out by a…sign.”

“A sign?”

“The sign at the…festival. The white booth…” You wave your arm, unable to say much more. A steady throb is starting to take over your skull, and it’s too much effort to keep talking.

Ian thinks for a long moment before he seems to realize. He takes another step towards you. “Babe, look at me; it’s okay. Nothing bad is gonna happen to you. You’re fine. I know it feels bad in the moment, believe me, but you’re here now, and you’re safe.”

“You can’t guarantee that,” you murmur. You can’t imagine the look on your face right now, but your eyes feel dry and painful, like you’ve actually been in a fire pit for hours. Maybe he can safeguard you against the physical dangers this world presents, but he can’t hold your hand into the afterlife. If there even is one.

He grasps your upper arm, but only lightly so as not to make you more distressed, and draws you into his side—his head leaning into yours, his hair tickling you when the wind blows through it. You find yourself sagging into him even though you hate yourself for doing so. You don’t deserve this show of affection, not after how you left him behind and not even before then; you desperately want to preserve the distance between you, and yet you want this touch, too. You’re unable and unwilling to tease apart those feelings, though, as the only things that register in your mind are that he is warm against you, he is doing his best to comfort you, and his smell—the smell of him, not of being an eater—has become familiar to you in a way that disarms some frantic part of your brain. Because of all those things, you allow him to put his other arm around you and silently hold you in that grassy lot.

And for the first time since you met in that grocery store again, you feel like whatever’s between the two of you isn’t broken beyond repair.

—

1986

The next time you eat someone, it happens at a nightclub in January.

Going to this club is Ian’s idea, although you agree to it when he brings it up. In hindsight, you can’t say what possessed you to do it. You’ve never been a fan of crowds of people because they could readily create a catastrophic situation if your hunger comes. Maybe it’s how fresh everything still feels after the New Year passes—the sensation of anticipation it brings. Maybe it’s the blanket of stars that appear extra luminous tonight, rivaling the shine of the city buildings around you. Maybe Ian has just gotten better at using his powers of persuasion on you, or his recklessness has rubbed off on you, similar to how you feared his desire for flesh would increase your own when you first met him.

No matter the true reason, you find yourself amidst a scene of sweaty strangers boxed in by the small club’s four walls. The other people’s proximity to you quickly spikes your anxiety, driving you away from Ian and back to the outer edges of the room, though he tries at first to persuade you to dance with him. You give him a slight smile and an eye-roll and let your arm slip through his tattooed fingers.

“Go dance,” you mouth to him before heading toward one of the many booths lined up against the far wall.

You sit there watching everyone dance for a little while, working up the nerve to rejoin the crowd. There are so many bodies, all moving to the sound of In My House playing over the speakers at what must be max volume.

“Did you come here alone?” a feminine voice shouts from your left, startling you. You turn to find a woman with softly-waved hair that touches her shoulders; she wears a dress with big swirls of color, the flared skirt stopping just past her thighs. Your gaze goes all the way down her pantyhose-clad legs to her high heels and back up again. The pink and purple lights framing her from behind make her seem like she’s glowing.

“Uh—” Awkward pause as you try to figure out how to respond. “I…didn’t, but the person I came with is just my friend, so…” You shrug. It feels somewhat odd to refer to Ian as a friend, even after all this time. You are two people traveling in the same direction, lashed together by your fatal flaw, but you suppose “friend” is as accurate as it gets.

She smiles amusedly, undeterred by your awkwardness. “So that means you’re free to dance with me, then?”

You think about how you rejected Ian’s offer and chuckle to yourself. Ironic. But you find yourself not wanting to say no to this woman with her sweet brown skin and dimpled smile, despite your inner sense of judgment trying its best to pull you back. So you accept, still feeling embarrassed as she slides her lace-gloved hand into yours and guides you onto the dancefloor again.

Her perfume contains different notes, but as you dance together to another uptempo pop song and the aroma encircles you, it reminds you of Alicia’s signature scent all the same. You try to put that reminder out of your mind, though it’s difficult. Instead, you make an effort to focus on her shining face under the lights, the long gold earrings dangling from her ears, the sway of her black hair and dress as she moves.

You Give Good Love comes on afterward, and before you know it her body is pressed to the length of yours, virtually no space left between you as she tucks her face into your neck. You put your arms around her and sigh at how she fits against you, thinking you might like to do something like this more often. All the time, really. It feels good in a way you don’t quite have words for, even though you’re still surrounded on all sides by a bunch of sweaty and excited people. Just by the movements of your bodies, you could close your eyes and be spirited away to some other realm where everything is right—where you are not the monster you’ve come to believe you are.

You are finally beginning to relax a bit when your stomach twists painfully.

All your organs freeze from the shock of this unexpected sensation. You have paused indefinitely, and you watch your body from above as you and the woman continue moving together, two dark figures flashing in and out of the strobing lights. And yet, you simultaneously feel yourself still in her arms. Her breath is on your neck, warm and smelling of alcohol and some fruit—lemons. The muscles of her back are beneath your hands; you want to peel her skin away and see what they look like underneath, run your fingers across the striations. Her soft cheek is pressed to yours, so soft that it makes you want to tear into it like the flesh of a plum and swallow it. Your mouth twitches with the desire to consume.

“No!” you shout, pushing her away from you so fiercely that she falls back into someone behind her. You turn and begin shoving a ragged path through the club-goers. The sights and smells of pure humanness are overwhelming, begging you to tuck your face into the nearest neck or arm joint and just bite. There are too many hearts beating in one space, too many lungs expanding with wet and bloody life. You begin to cry, but you force your body to continue moving until you’re stumbling through the club’s back exit.

In the dank alleyway behind the club, you splash through a puddle and collapse behind a dumpster, pressing yourself into the corner and hoping that the smell of garbage will disappear your appetite, though you know it doesn’t work like that. You tuck your head between your knees and try to breathe evenly. The music is only slightly less loud out here; whereas it was simply an overzealous volume before, you feel like you’re being crushed by the sound itself in your overly sensitive state.

You don’t know how long you sit there shaking, the hunger ripping your stomach apart and forcing a long whimper out of your mouth, but your whole body jumps when you hear the exit door slam open. When you look up, Ian’s stepping out of the doorway and fumbling with the limp body of a man, his hands clasped around the man’s arm and waist.

You watch with terrified eyes as Ian lowers the man to the ground in front of you, leaning him against the wall so that he won’t slump over. “No—what are you doing—”

The man in front of you is too drunk to put a sentence together and barely seems to know where he is. His sweaty brown hair flops in his eyes, and his bearded mouth moves with nonsensical speech.

“No,” you cry again. “I can’t do this. Don’t make me do this!” Ian crouches beside you.

“Darling, you have to eat.” His hand is on the back of your neck, not forcing you toward the man but trying to ground you in your body. He’s so close that his words reverberate within your nervous system. Eat. You shake your head, but you’re becoming lightheaded from the sheer hunger. The smell of alcohol from the man is overpowering, but underneath it you can still detect his vulnerable fleshiness, and you need to know how it tastes. As if once again disembodied, you watch your hands reach for the man’s shoulders, Ian’s own hand slipping away from your neck, and bring him closer so that his throat is bare to you.

You mouth at the sweat on his neck, the saltiness intensifying the taste of his skin; you lick his Adam’s apple and savor how the ridge of it slides against your tongue. Then you bite down.

The tears continue to roll down your cheeks as you devour the man. Ian doesn’t leave you to dine alone, however.

He reaches into the mess of the open chest, digs between the deflated flaps that are the lungs, and tugs out the man’s heart. Takes a bite of it. You watch as he does, horrified but unable to look away even as you crush part of a rib between your molars. He offers it to you—tears the muscle in half and gives you the unbitten part. You accept it with eager hands and eager mouth, chewing through muscle fibers like it’s a delicacy. Ian licks the blood from his fingers, a smile playing at his lips, and goes back for more.

It’s too much like the dream, and it frightens you. You half-expect a portal to hell to open beneath you both and send you free-falling into a lake of fire. But you are unable to make yourself stop. Neither of you stop until an hour has passed and the blood and a pile of crimson-stained clothes are all that remains.

You find a still-intact plastic bag in the dumpster and place the clothes into it before tying it thrice and shoving it as deep into the trash as you can.

Using an old rag from the dumpster and another puddle of water at the back of the alley, you both do your best to remove the blood on your hands and faces. It makes you feel disgusting, but it’s the best you can do for the time being, and you can’t go inside the club or onto the streets like this. Then you shove the rag back underneath the pile of trash, too.

As you and Ian emerge from behind the dumpster and walk down the sidewalk to find the sedan, despair envelops you. You accept it inside of you—let it spread throughout your bones and blood without much of a fight. You are defeated, understanding fundamentally that you can never be like the people in the club, the people walking these city streets, no matter how many of their human peculiarities and normalities you try to adopt. The knowledge hollows you out.

On the way back to the house you’ve been squatting in, you steal a cigarette from Ian’s pack and turn the radio to several different stations before choosing some talk show discussing nothing you care about. Emotionally, you’re floating somewhere in the space between numb and wounded.

But people die everyday, right?

Like with Alicia, Ian tries to prevent you from becoming lost in your grief about it. There isn’t anything said between you during the car ride. But once you get to the house, he wipes the fresh tears that spring forth, runs the shower for you, and makes sure you have clean clothes for afterward.

“Are you good?” he asks before you get in the shower, standing in the bathroom doorway with you. He brushes your cheek with the same hand that plucked the heart out. There’s still blood underneath a few of his fingernails and staining the cross on his ring. For a few seconds, you feel an unfamiliar comfort in knowing that he has seen you destroy another person and feels no animosity or repulsion toward you because of it.

“I’m fine,” you murmur, shifting your face into his palm. But the moment passes, and the chill overtakes you again. You step away from him and shut the door, letting the bathroom fill with steam.

—

Your feelings toward Ian have always hovered in an odd limbo, going from distrust to tolerance to something that can be called companionship. But just like the seasons transition into each other, something inside you starts to shift after that night at the club.

Your eyes begin lingering on him when he lifts his shirt to wipe away sweat or strips it off entirely when the heat becomes too much. Your gaze can’t help but be drawn to the way his long hair sticks to his damp, darkly-inked neck, or how his cigarettes fit between his full lips like they were made specifically for his mouth. When it’s the last few weeks of winter and you have no choice but to sleep together in the backseat for extra warmth—the car’s HVAC system on its last leg—being smushed into that small space with him isn’t unpleasant like you once assumed it would be. Far from it.

When you and Ian go to a theater one day—one of those matinees in the middle of the week that only elderly people attend—and end up watching a random film that you didn’t know was a romance, you are startled when you have the sudden thought that you want him in the same way. That you wouldn’t mind him holding your face in his hands again but kissing you this time, or walking down a street hand-in-hand, or lying next to him in some stranger’s bed and listening to him talk until you fall asleep. You try to send those thoughts somewhere far away, but days pass and they keep coming back, and that wanting in your chest only grows.

You’re reluctant to think of your feelings as love—at least not yet, with your heart still grieving the woman perished by your own hand—and you know he can’t save you from this reality that you must live in until your time ends. But as imperfect as everything is, you feel like he knows you in some inutterable way. You begin to believe that this could be enough. Maybe you’ve always subconsciously understood that the world of love is no home for monsters, proven by the multiple times it has expelled you from its viscera, leaving you shaking and bereaved. But maybe whatever this is now could be enough to escape its view and its judgment—two monsters together to leave the humans to their softer affections.

And though he doesn’t say anything outright, Ian notices your newfound attention, smiling knowingly whenever he catches you looking. His hand stays on yours for longer than it needs to whenever he passes you items, his fingers trailing away from your skin like they regret having to leave. When he shoplifts supplies when the money is low, he swipes silly little trinkets that he says he “thought you would like.” You catch the way he always presses his body closer to yours when you’re sitting together on a pier, on the hood of the car, on a random bench—anywhere. The tension builds between you for what seems like forever, drawing so tight that you’re almost afraid you both may get hurt when it snaps.

When it finally does, it feels natural to do, this dance that unfolds in the backseat of this sedan he stole over a year ago. You both know the hunger for flesh intimately even though you experience it in such different ways; instead of it being a grotesquerie that would repel a normal lover, it’s a bond that has inextricably tied you together, for better and worse. In that sense, the joining of your bodies is just another type of desire for you two to tease out the intricacies of.

The catalyst is one question posed to you on a humid summer night. “...Darling, answer me honestly.”

Ian’s eyes are heavy with some mix of want and curiosity when you turn to look at him. You’re both sitting in the backseat as you study a map from one of the atlases; you’ve spent a half-hour trying to figure out the best route for your next destination in Georgia, tracing the lines illuminated by the car’s dome light. Maybe you’ll both try settling down this time; find that new job like you said, and live in one singular place for a few months. Someone else’s house you can pretend is your own, someone else’s car you can drive around the city. Years are too heavy to think about, but months…you can do months.

But it’s clear your decision-making is over. Your attention had broken every time you sensed his eyes shift to your face and stay there for a little while, searching for something, before moving back to the map. Now, you let the map lie forgotten in your lap.

“What is it?”

“Would you hate it if I asked to kiss you?”

Your body temperature rises, but you reply to his question with a question. “Have you thought about that before?”

“Many times.”

You swallow hard. You want to ask him about the first time that thought crossed his mind—did he realize it around the same time you did?—but you say, “And why do you think I would hate it?”

“Things will change between us.”

“Things have already changed between us, several times.”

“This is different,” he insists, and you notice that the space between you has decreased, bodies subconsciously drifting even closer together. “If we go down that road, I don’t want us to go back. I don’t want you to have to wonder about whether I care for you. I want you to trust me.”

You lean your forehead against his, a small smile forming on your lips. “I already trust you, Ian.” You have never vocalized it before, but you find that you really do mean it.

Then you move forward, doing yet another thing that would’ve been utterly absurd to you this time last year—pressing your lips to his. Your insides feel like they’re melting, but not in the uncomfortable way that comes from the summer heat. It happens in a way that makes you think that, maybe if you both melt down into your very basic parts and become nothing but atoms, you might blur together completely. Ian’s reply is immediate in how his hand comes up to your nape, his mouth separating from yours for one painful second only for him to kiss you deeper. The map slips between you and to the car floor. It’s strange to indulge in this close proximity with another person without the threat of death, without the underlying worry that you’ll become hungry in the worst way, but it’s also freeing to a degree you didn’t know was possible.

That’s why you allow yourself to become submerged in his body heat, his mouth, his hands—everything.

Afterwards, you both climb back into your clothes only halfway; your shorts are left somewhere underneath one of the front seats, and Ian doesn’t bother putting his shirt back on—though it stays off most of the time anyway. Your bodies are sluggish but satisfied as you rest your head against his bicep, tracing your fingers along the tattoo under his sternum. They come away damp from the sweat that shines on his body. You still feel all the places on your own body where his lips and fingers touched, as if your skin has been imprinted, and you wonder if it’s the same for him.

The window is rolled down to let the smoke curl out as Ian takes a drag from a cigarette. A soft rock station plays on the radio, and he taps the beat of the song on your knee with his free hand. For the first time in many years, your mind isn’t crammed full with constant thoughts of guilt and contempt about being alive and being what you are. Even if it only lasts for tonight, for now, you can just exist.

#dpr ian x reader #dpr ian imagines #christian yu imagines #christian yu scenarios #dpr scenarios #black reader #x black reader #female reader #fem reader #black fem reader #x black fem reader

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cwritesforfun · 10 months ago

Text

Regina George x Fem!Reader: Girl Crush

Regina George thinks a lot about Y/N. Like a lot and she talks about her a lot. After a talk with her new friends and her former girl squad, she realizes she is bisexual and that she likes Y/N!

I'm loosely incorporating lyrics from Girl Crush by Little Big Town and they will be in italics! Also - I know the song is about wanting another girl's man, but I used it differently.

** I don't own any of the characters, except for Y/N and Regina's jock friend, Sally** this is from my Wattpad but I added more here!!!!

Y/N = Your Name **

Regina's POV- Saturday Afternoon

I'm on my way to see Y/N. She invited me for a sleepover. We only see each other on weekends because she goes to a different school and it's at least a 30 minute drive away. My mom and her mom don't want either of us driving on week nights. If she ever needed me on a week night though, I would go in a heartbeat.

Recently I found out I was bisexual. I used Aaron back in junior year for power and because I was a b****!!!! I can admit that to myself now. I say now as if it has been so long since it happened. It's only spring of my senior year, so like half a year.

I arrive and knock on the door. Y/N’s mom opens the door and exclaims, "Ah Regina! Good to see you, sweetheart. Y/N is in the backyard already. I can bring your bag to her room if you want to go straight out there." I reply, "Thank you. That's perfect! I'll go out back! Thanks for having me." She replies, "No problem sweetie. You girls have fun." I nod and smile.

I walk through the house, go outside to the chairs next to the pool, and sit next to Y/N, who is lost reading. She's beautiful.

I ask, "Aren't you gonna say hi to your guest?" Y/N looks up, smiles, jumps up, and hugs me. I hug her back and smile. Wow, can we hug forever? Maybe? Pls. She says, "Omg Regina! I'm so sorry! I was just so lost in my book and I lost track of time." Old me would have made fun of her for being such a nerd. New me doesn't do that. That is personal growth.

After we release from the hug, I smile at her. She smiles back and asks, "Sooo... did you wear your swimsuit and want to swim?" I answer, "Yes, and yes!" She then takes off her sundress and she's left in her bikini. My jaw drops. She's wow. Stunning, beautiful, pretty, and perfect. Y/N laughs and replies, "Regina, are you okay over there? Did my bikini leave you speechless?" Oh, she has no idea. I reply, "I ... It is actually very flattering. You look really good." Was it too obvious that I like her? She answers, "Thank you so much." I take off my dress and she says "I love your bathing suit too. Everything is better in pink." She's so sweet! Wow:) I reply, "True."

We both swim and eventually she brings two floats over, so we can both lay on them. We float around the pool and we talk about our life recently.

I get out the pool to grab some water and Y/N swims a little more.

I lie back on the pool chair and Y/N pulls herself out of the pool. Ahhh you know how people do! She places her hands on the side of the pool and pulls herself up and out of the pool letting the water fall down her body. If I didn't already have a crush on her, I would now. That song by Little Big Town goes through my head ... I got a girl crush Hate to admit it but I got a heart rush It ain't slowing down...

She walks over to the chair area and smirks at me. I want to taste her lips ...

I ask, "So what's for lunch?" ... You? She answers, "My mom's making lunch. We found this yummy summer salad recipe and we decided to have smoothies since we will need something to cool us down. Tonight's dinner is going to be so good though because it is pasta and I made dessert." I smile and reply, "Good! I look forward to it!"

Her younger brother walks outside and hands Y/N a tray of two salads + two smoothies. We thank him and he walks off.

She hands me my food and we eat together.

I ask, "Can I ask you something kind of personal?" She answers, "Go ahead." I ask, "This is just something I've been thinking about recently. How do you feel about having friends that are LGBTQ? And what is your sexual orientation?" Yeah I didn't go the subtle route. She answers, "I think everyone deserves to be with whoever they love, so I'm cool with having friends who have different preferences than me. I think it's great to surround yourself with all kinds of different people. I am bisexual actually. What about you?" I answer, "I'm bisexual or I think I am. I only just kind of discovered it, but my friends at my new school said it was obvious. I didn't know it was obvious, but I guess it was." She laughs and smiles.

We continue talking outside until we decide to shower. I take a shower in her bathroom first and when I walk in, I see her perfume. I take off the lid off, smell it, and I smile. This smell is Y/N and it's wonderful. I want to drown myself... In a bottle of her perfume...

After my shower, I throw on my matching pink pajama set and I take a teeny bit of her perfume and put it on me. I then leave the bathroom.

Y/N goes in and showers.

As she's in the bathroom, I call my friend from lacrosse named Sally.

((Start of conversation)) R- Regina S- Sally S - Hey Regina. I thought you were with you know who. What happened with that? Is it not going well? R - Hi Sally. She's in the shower right now. I don't know what to do. S - Join her. R - I already took a shower and no I'm not doing that just yet. I haven't even told her that I like her. S - OK fine. What has happened so far?" R - We hugged, swam, sunbathed, ate lunch, and each took showers. I ... I also dropped my jaw seeing her bikini and just complimented her. It was a close call. Then I asked her what her sexual orientation is and she told me that she is bisexual. I told her I was too. She smiled about it. I just don't know if I want to tell her now or later or ever. S - I ship you two. You're so into her that I'm surprised it took you forever to realize it. What else is planned for the day? R - Dinner with the family and usually we watch a movie plus Y/N made a dessert for tonight, why? S- Wow, you're already meeting the family. I'm so proud of you. R - Omg geez Sally! Not like that! Haha! S - Fine fine whatever you say. Just tell her you like her. She knows you're bi and you know she's bi. That means you have a sliver of a chance. Take that leap. R - A sliver of a chance means I could still get rejected. Okay, I'm gonna go. Thanks, Sally. S - No problem Regina. Go get your girl. ((End of conversation))

I hang up laughing.

Y/N walked back into the room near the end. I notice her outfit and it's identical pajamas to mine just in a different color. I exclaim, "Omg I love your outfit. Wow, I always forget we have matching ones and then this happens." She replies, "Goals right?!" I laugh and nod. Y/N asks, "So, who were you talking to?" I answer, "My friend, Sally." Y/N asks, "Isn't Sally your lacrosse friend?" I answer, "Yeah, she's really cool and friendly. You'd like her." She replies, "I'll have to go to one of your games this semester to meet her and of course, to support you." I ask, "Wait you'll come to my soccer games to support me?" She answers, "Of course Regina. I'm so proud of how far you've come in both soccer and personal growth this year. I have to support you! And, at least this isn't the dance you did for the talent show." I laugh and ask, "Wait you didn't like it?" She laughs, smirks, and answers, "I liked it when you were dancing and center stage, you were really good." Did she just say I was a good dancer?! I was dating Aaron Samuels at the time, but I really wanted Y/N's opinion. So she liked my dance?! She might actually like me.

Her brother knocks and lets us know dinner is ready.

We go downstairs and eat dinner with her family. It's so good!!

After dinner, we eat dessert and Y/N asks, "How do you like the dessert?" I answer, "It's literally so delicious." She replies, "Thanks. I'm glad you liked it."

After dessert, we go to Y/N's bathroom to brush our teeth. I glance over at Y/N brushing her teeth and smirk causing toothpaste to slip out of my mouth. It's like we're an old married couple in a movie. Imagine me living with Y/N forever and always being her person. That would be the life. I really like her.

We both spit our toothpaste out and Y/N asks, "What made you laugh?" I answer, "Oh nothing. It's a silly idea." I then walk out and to my bag.

When I'm done, I get on her bed and she sits down next to me. She faces me and rests her hand on my hand. Y/N exclaims, "Regina, whatever you have to say, just say it. It made you smile. I want to know what made you smile. I care. I won't call it silly. I promise." I nod and say, "As we brushed our teeth, it just reminded me of old romantic movies where married couples brush their teeth together. That's all." I glance over at her and she replies, "I think that's a cute idea, Regina." Awww. Well, do I take that sliver of a chance? I think I will.

I exclaim, "Y/N, I like you. I've liked you for a while and I just didn't realize that I liked girls until recently. And when I realized it, it all clicked and I've just had a crush on you forever. I know that makes us hanging out awkward depending on what you say back, but I really like you. I just think you're perfect and I'd love to take you out on a date." She smiles and says, "I would love to go on that date with you. I like you too." I smile and ask, "May I kiss you?" She nods and we kiss.

THANKS FOR READING!!! I LOVE YOU ALL :)

#Spotify #regina george #mean girls movie #regina george x reader #regina george x you #wlw #gxg imagine #gxg #wlw imagine #mean girls #mean girls musical

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mirellapryce · 4 days ago

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My submission for DBDA Positivity Week is the essay I wrote for Queer Media Meetup. It's a spoiler free-ish breakdown of the show, what makes it queer, and why I loved it so much. It is my love letter to the show, and the writers, actors and creators who brought it all together <3

What is the title?

Dead Boy Detectives. Tragically it was cancelled after one season on Netflix, but you should watch that one season anyway.

What is it about?

It’s written on the tin. They’re ghosts, they’re teenage boys, they solve mysteries. They’re the Dead Boy Detective Agency.

Okay, it’s more than that, but we do start with our main boys Charles and Edwin who are ghosts that work together to help other ghosts resolve their “unfinished business” on Earth so that they can pass on to the afterlife. This is tricky sometimes, because they’re also avoiding being taken to their own afterlives by Death. As Charles describes them, Edwin is the brains, and Charles is the brawns of the operation and they’ve been working together for 30 years.Which brings us to our main plot. They receive a job to help out a ghost’s living friend, Crystal, who has been behaving strangely for a while. Crystal is psychic which is why she can see ghosts. It turns out that she’s been possessed by a demon, but when they remove the demon, her memories are also mysteriously gone. Charles says that she can stay with them until they come back. Edwin is less than pleased to have a new person thrown into his perfectly normal, codependent household (but he can’t say no to Charles). For plot reasons, Crystal convinces them to take on a case all the way in the US where the majority of the plot takes place as they solve various mysteries before they can go back home.

What makes it queer?

Charles sitting on any surface that is not a chair is peak bisexual behaviour.

Kidding (and while I would have loved that arc for him, he was busy this season working through his trauma and learning to be more honest about his feelings, so we will move on to the actual queer characters).

Edwin gets his own gay awakening and subsequent coming out. He’s a repressed Edwardian boy who was bullied for his queer behaviours in his day. That doesn’t stop him from behaving very queerly even after EVERYTHING HE’S BEEN THROUGH (my boy is king of the trauma Olympics), and we love that for him. Another potentially queer aspect that wasn’t really explored, but was brought up in the show is that all of his human disguises are female. If the show had gotten another season it might have been interesting to see how that particular gender expression applies to his personal feelings on his own gender. Alas, I can only fall back on tumblr meta and fanfiction for that. Despite being stiff and awkward, the next two queer men are both down bad for him.

Monty is a lot of spoilers all on his own, but he immediately develops a crush on Edwin, and one of our living girls, Niko encourages Edwin to pursue the relationship.

The Cat King…Uhhhhhh he’s hundreds of years old. He’s a shapeshifter. He is in fact a cat, who just sometimes looks human, so expect typical cat behaviour. He doesn’t have time for humans gendering their clothing. He will rock all of these skirts, thank you very much. And he will dress down to try and seduce the hot British twink.

Now onto our lesbians. We forgive Jenny for being a landlord, because she’s also a hot, goth butcher (and now I wonder if that pun was intended when they wrote her job), and she hates that she genuinely likes our two female leads (our Alive Girl Detectives, Crystal and Niko, as it were) and as the only adult she has taken it upon herself to take care of these kids whether she likes it or not.

Maxine is also a lot of spoilers, but we will say she’s the cute librarian, and through shenanigans and matchmaking she goes on a date with Jenny and they are super cute.

Why do you like it?

I am weak for the classic, red-blue, sunshine and grumpy ship dynamics with banter, and our leads absolutely provide that. Admittedly I was drawn into this show from the fandom first for Edwin and Charles’ relationship. All of our characters have interesting and varied relationships with each other, whether they are best friends, frienemies, autistic besties, or romantic rivals. And once again, you all know how much I love a found family, and I only wish we had more episodes to see more of that family unit be built.

It should also be noted that the whole cast is just very nice to look at. I should not be admiring Jayden Revri’s jawline as much as I am.

Niko doesn’t get her own queer or romantic arc, but I love her all the same. I want to give her a queer honourable mention, because she’s the one who first explains to Edwin that two guys can like each other romantically. She has manga about it if he needs evidence. She is me in high school, and I love that for her. She loves love and just wants her new gay bestie to be happy, and maybe to kiss Monty.

Important notes that I picked up from a review of this show before I even watched it that I actually really appreciate. 1) It is well lit. You can see what’s happening! I did not have to fight with the lighting settings to see faces or settings or to know what was going on! 2) It is an “R rated family show”. To elaborate, the show does not shy away from cursing or violence, but there are no awkward sex scenes that suddenly make you wish you were not watching this with friends or family around. It doesn’t unexpectedly turn into porn so it’s good wholesome fun you can watch anywhere.

Another part I enjoyed was how certain plots gave us breadcrumbs, so we could pick up on the plot twist before it happened. It was subtle enough to not feel forced, but then when you see it you can look back and shout about how it was a sign.

I don’t know how they did it, but somehow it is the perfect combination of lighthearted, campy shenanigans and funs times, while also respectfully addressing a lot of darker themes. There’s a man who used to be a walrus. There are themes of grief for both the living and the dead. The Cat King is so extra that he brought a chandelier into the woods just to impress a guy. They bring up how abuse can mess you up and that if you try to ignore it, it can come back to haunt you. There are tiny gods who heckle you with white suburban Karen energy. The show calls out abusive and stalker behaviours for what they are. The afterlife is a bureaucracy with very specific paperwork that needs to be filled out before you can do anything. Our main characters are ghosts, because both of them were murdered in their teens.

All of that and more in just 8 episodes.

#dbdapositivity #dead boy detectives #charles rowland #dbda #edwin payne #crystal palace #niko sasaki #monty the crow #jenny green

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goldengalore · 2 years ago

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Hardest to Love

Summary: Harry and Y/N are broken up but still good friends. He worries that he’s holding her back from moving on and finding love again, so he tries to distance himself from her. But Y/N is too sweet and people are too dumb to treat her right. Stuck between his fear of hurting her and his desire to give her the love he knows she deserves, Harry finds himself in a difficult predicament.

Word count: 8.7k

Warnings: some kink-shaming, mention of cheating, angst, smut (dom!harry, bondage, choking, spanking, degradation, orgasm denial, teasing)

A/N: This fic was inspired by two songs by The Weeknd: Hardest to Love and Scared to Live. Also, Y/N is bisexual in this one—just mentioning this for anyone looking for bi!Y/N fics :)

***

Harry hasn’t been good to Y/N.

The awful realization dawns on him while he’s sitting in a cafe with her one afternoon along with their two friends, Elena and Jordan. Well, actually, they’re more Y/N’s friends than his. He met them through her and only hangs out with them when she’s around. He may not have much in common with them, but whenever Y/N invites him to hang out, he always says yes because how could he turn down an invitation to spend time with her?

At least after Elena and Jordan leave, he gets to have her to himself. Not today though. Today, Y/N announces prematurely that she has to head home. Harry’s shoulders sag in disappointment.

“Whyyy?” he whines, resting his chin on his ring-adorned hand. “What could possibly be more important than spending time with your mates?”

She smiles. “I have a date tonight.”

Her three friends eye her with curiosity.

“Ooo, is it that guy from Tinder you’ve been seeing?” asks Elena.

“Yes, but don’t get too excited. I’m ending it with him.”

“What? Why?” they all ask, almost in unison.

She shrugs vaguely. “I realized he’s not my type.”

Elena snorts. “You say that about everyone you date. What even is your type?”

“Him,” says Jordan, pointing at Harry, who just chuckles.

Y/N’s cheeks flush. “I just haven’t found the right person! Leave me alone.” Her phone vibrates on the table. She checks it. “Oh, it’s him. He’s asking if our date is still on.”

“Poor guy,” says Jordan. “He’s got no idea he’s about to get his heart ripped to shreds tonight.”

Y/N rolls her eyes. “Please. You’re acting like he’s in love with me. We’ve been on two dates.”

“I don’t know. You’re pretty easy to fall in love with,” says Harry, smirking at her.

Her cheeks turn even more pink as she attempts to bite back a grin. “Okay, I have to go.” Rising to her feet, she grabs her phone and pulls her bag over her shoulder. “See you guys!”

“Good luck tonight, heartbreaker!” Jordan shouts after her as she walks away.

“I can’t with this girl.” Elena shakes her head. “I thought I was picky with dating.”

“She wasn’t always that picky. It was only after Mr. Grammy Award-Winner over here came along,” says Jordan, nodding his head towards Harry.

The comment elicits an awkward laugh from him. “What do you mean?”

The two friends exchange looks. Harry hates when they do that; he always feels left out of the joke.

“You do know that you’re the reason Y/N keeps turning down all the people she dates, right?” Elena says, as if it should be blatantly obvious to him. “She’s still not over you.”

He scoffs. “That’s ridiculous. We’ve been broken up for eight months. She’s been seeing new people for four of them. Don’t reckon she’d be doing that if she wasn’t over me.”

“It literally could not be more obvious,” says Jordan. “She goes on dates with people, then she hangs out with you for five minutes, and oh, all of a sudden, those people are no longer good enough for her?”

Shaking his head, he leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. “I think you’re reading too much into it.”

Elena sighs and tucks a strand of her pink-dyed hair behind her ear. “Look, ever since you told her that you’d be willing to get back together with her when the time feels right, she’s decided—either consciously or subconsciously—not to give anyone else a chance. It doesn’t help that every time the two of you are spotted anywhere, Twitter acts like you’re back together again.”

“Y/N doesn’t even use Twitter,” he says, purposely deflecting now.

“You know that’s not my point.”

“So, what then?” He throws his hands up in defeat. “What am I meant to do? Stop spending time with her?”

“That, or you can just tell her you’re not open to being romantically involved with her again,” Elena suggests. “Until you say something, she’s never going to move on.”

He won’t admit it to them, but he knows they’re right. He too has noticed Y/N’s pattern of going on a couple dates with someone, then conjuring up some excuse for why she can’t envision a future with them. Everything from “he’s a snorer” to “she thinks bald cats are ugly” to “he uses too many exclamation marks in his texts.” And Harry is guilty of enabling this behaviour by telling her that it makes total sense to turn someone down for such trivial reasons.

Truth be told, he likes watching these other people try and fail to win her heart. It gives him a sick sort of satisfaction to know that for her, no one compares to him. But he recognizes the deep selfishness of these feelings, and it’s something he doesn’t like very much about himself.

Harry and Y/N’s relationship has been complicated from the start. They met at a wedding. Harry was fresh out of a year-long relationship, and in no way, shape, or form was he ready to jump into another one just yet. But how was he supposed to resist Y/N, who looked like a fairy in her pretty floral dress and had a voice sweeter than honey and blushed whenever anyone said anything remotely nice about her and made him laugh harder than he’d laughed in weeks, maybe even months?

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t resist. So, he pursued her until she fell for him hard. And he fell for her too. And they had the most magical three months together, attached at the hip whenever possible and constantly texting each other when not. But the spark began to fizzle out once Harry realized, and Y/N did too, that he hadn’t completely moved on from his ex.

Y/N was so understanding, albeit heartbroken.

Harry went off to Japan for a few weeks to focus on himself and his music. She was on his mind the entire time, so much so that his ex began to feel like a distant memory from another lifetime. On his first night back from Japan, he called her. And it was as if nothing had changed between them; they picked up right where they’d left off.

Over the next couple years, their relationship was a turbulent cycle of breaking up and getting back together, rinse and repeat. It was almost always Harry who would get cold feet and call it off when things began getting too serious—a habit he’d developed after getting his own heart broken too many times.

He could see the effect that this back-and-forth was having on Y/N, how it was wearing her down and sucking the liveliness out of her. He didn’t want to cause her any further pain, but he didn’t want to completely lose her either.

When they broke up for the last time, he told her that maybe now just wasn’t the right time for them to be together. They could still remain friends, and perhaps in the future, if the time ever felt right, they could try again.

He knows that Elena’s suggestion of telling Y/N that he’s not romantically interested in her anymore is the most sensible thing to do. However, he can’t find it in himself to do that. Instead, he decides to create a bit of distance between him and Y/N, hoping that it’ll be enough to help her move on from him.

Only time will tell if his plan works.

***

Y/N is pissed off. She doesn’t get angry very often, so when she does get like this, she doesn’t quite know what to do with herself.

Last night, she invited a few close friends over to celebrate her recent promotion at work. While Harry initially promised that he would be there, he texted her last minute that he couldn’t make it because he wasn’t feeling well.

This morning, as she was scrolling through her social media, she stumbled upon a picture taken by a fan of him leaving a pub last night with his friend Ben. He appeared perfectly fine and healthy, making it abundantly clear that what he’d told her was a lie. This isn’t the first time he’s cancelled on her in the past few weeks. She just assumed it’s because he’s been super busy with work, but now she feels stupid and naive for thinking so.

The discovery of Harry’s lie made her so upset that she got dressed that morning and drove straight to his house to confront him. Now, as she stands on his porch, waiting for him to answer the door, a sudden sense of self-awareness comes over her.

She’s never been a confrontational person. Showing up on someone’s doorstep unannounced to go off on them isn’t like her at all. She hasn’t even thought about what she’s going to say.

Just as she’s considering turning around and sprinting back to her car, the door opens to reveal a freshly awoken Harry, dressed in the fluffy lavender robe that she always loves seeing him in because he looks extremely soft and cuddly when he wears it, like a big, purple teddy bear. She has to resist the urge to squeeze him in her arms.

“Y/N, hi,” he says, brows perked in surprise. “Wasn’t expecting you this morning.”

“I just came to check up on you and see how you’re feeling.” She forces a smile and observes his reaction closely.

At first, he just stares at her blankly. Then it suddenly hits him, his eyes going wide as saucers. “Oh! Right, yeah, I’m, uh, I’m feeling much better. Thank you.”

Liar.

Y/N’s lip almost quivers from watching him lie straight to her face, but she maintains her composure.

“Must’ve been pretty bad, huh?” she asks. “Since you had to cancel so last minute.”

He looks down and fidgets with a loose thread on his robe. “Yeah, I wasn’t in the best state. Threw up three times.”

Her brows arch up, feigning surprise. “Three times! Wow! And you still had the energy to meet Ben at a pub on the other side of town?”

His face falls.

Y/N drops her facade now, letting her true emotion show. “You know, if you didn’t want to hang out with me, you should’ve just said so. There was no need to lie.”

“It’s not that. I love hanging out with you... Probably more than anyone else I know.”

“Then why did you lie? And why have you been so distant?”

He looks past her shoulder. Since she got here, a light drizzle has started, tiny droplets pattering softly against the ground.

“Let’s talk inside,” he says.

A stubborn part of her wants to keep her feet firmly planted on his porch, but it’s cold out here and the warm interior of his house does look incredibly inviting right now. She steps inside, taking off her shoes on the mat before marching into the kitchen.

He shuts the door and joins her there. “Do you want to sit?”

“No.” She leans against the edge of the kitchen counter and crosses her arms. He stands across from her, his hands resting behind him on the kitchen island.

She can’t help it. She has to say it, “It’s not fair, you know. I’ve always supported you and been there to celebrate your successes. I know getting a promotion at work isn’t nearly as exciting as getting a Grammy nomination, but still—”

“Don’t do that.” He shakes his head. “Don’t put down your accomplishments like that.”

She shrugs.

“I’m sorry I lied. And I’m sorry I’ve been distant. I just...” He hesitates. “I feel like I’ve been holding you back.”

Her brows furrow. “Holding me back from what?”

“From moving on. From falling in love again. I feel like the more time we spend together, the more you struggle to connect with the people you go out with. When we broke up, I told you that I’d be willing to get back together when the time felt right, and I said that because I still wanted you to myself, even if I didn’t want to commit to an actual relationship. And I realize now how shitty that was.” He sighs and stares down at the floor, seeming ashamed with himself. “I don’t want to sabotage your chances at finding love. Don’t want to be that guy.”

His explanation takes a minute to sink in and wrap her head around.

“So, wait,” she says, “you think I haven’t fallen in love with someone yet because I’m still hung up on you?” She laughs a little. “C’mon, H, that’s a tiny bit egotistic, don’t you think?”

He lifts a shoulder. “Maybe. But Elena and Jordan think so as well.”

She scoffs. “Oh, so now the three of you are, like, the committee of experts on my love life? What, do you meet once a week to discuss all the reasons why my love life is a flop?”

He blinks at her slowly. “Y/N...”

“No, no, this is stupid.” She uncrosses her arms, clutching the counter behind her instead. “You are not the reason that I can’t fall in love. You’re... You’re...” She finds herself grasping for some way to convince him that his whole theory is absurd, but suddenly, she’s not even sure if it is. In the end, all she’s able to say is, “You’re my best friend.”

His green eyes soften. “And you’re mine. But maybe...” He winces, like he knows the next part is going to hurt her. “Maybe, staying friends after the breakup was a bad idea.”

This feels like a punch in the gut. It’s like experiencing their breakup all over again, except worse because the pain of losing a best friend is somehow more visceral, more agonizing than losing a romantic partner.

“You don’t mean that,” she says brokenly.

“I’m just saying that we should try spending some time apart and see how that works for us. If nothing changes, fine... But if something does, then maybe it’s for the best?”

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she says, “Fine. If that’s what you want.”

He says nothing to reaffirm her statement, making her doubt for a moment that this is really what he wants, but then she snaps herself out of it. No, he has made it clear that he doesn’t want to spend time with her anymore, and she’s not going to chase after someone who obviously doesn’t want her around.

“I should go.”

He follows her to the front door. They both stare out the window at the rain, which has escalated from a light drizzle to a full-on thunderstorm within a matter of minutes.

“It’s pouring out there,” he says. “Do you want to wait until the rain stops?”

“No.”

“Well, do you at least want an umbrella?”

“No, thank you.” She’s being stubborn, but she doesn’t want to be around him any longer than she has to. After slipping on her sneakers, she steps out onto his porch and makes a run for it to her car but gets drenched by the time she ducks into the driver’s seat.

***

The next time Harry sees Y/N is three weeks later at a mutual friend’s birthday party. They’ve developed so many mutual friends over the years of knowing each other that they’re bound to cross paths at one point or another.

She arrives at the party a little while after him, accompanied by Elena. Her sleeveless maroon dress hugs her curves perfectly and brings out the natural pink tint of her cheeks. Her hair is shorter too, he notices. He tries not to stare when she walks in, but it’s hard not to. They make eye contact from across the room. She looks away before he can lift a hand to wave hello.

For the entire evening, every time he enters a conversation that Y/N is also a part of, she discreetly withdraws. Any time he even comes close to her vicinity, she drifts further away from him. It’s frustrating. But he probably deserves it after how poorly he handled things with her. Lying to her instead of just having a candid conversation about his concerns.

While he’s receiving the cold shoulder from her, Elena appears to be receiving quite the opposite treatment. Y/N sticks by her side the whole night, holding hands or linking arms with her, sharing longing glances, blushing whenever Elena speaks directly to her. He suspects there’s something going on there, but he can’t be sure. There is one person at the party, however, who might be able to give him the answers he seeks.

“Hi, Jordan,” says Harry, walking up to the short, dark-haired man who was oddly standing by himself in one corner, staring down at the phone in his hands.

Jordan glances up at him for a quick second. “Oh, hey, what’s up?”

“Not much. You?”

“Just sexting with this hot older guy I met last week,” he replies casually, his thumbs flying across the tiny keyboard on the screen.

“Oh. Nice,” says Harry. He’s not sure how to bring up the topic subtly, so he decides to forgo subtlety altogether. “So, um, Y/N and Elena...”

“I’m as shocked as you are.” Jordan laughs. “Who would’ve thunk those two would ever hook up?”

“Are they serious or...?”

“Depends who you ask.” Jordan glances up again and registers the confusion on Harry’s face. He elaborates, “If you ask Y/N, she’ll tell you they’re serious. If you ask Elena, she’ll tell you it’s still early days and too soon to say.”

“Huh.” He looks in Y/N’s direction again. This time, she’s resting her head on Elena’s shoulder, listening intently to whatever conversation was happening around her.

“Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck,” Jordan suddenly says.

Harry whips his head back around. “What?”

“The guy I’m sexting. He just sent me a video of him putting his dick in a—”

Raising a hand, Harry says, “You know what? I don’t think I want to know.”

Later that night, everyone gathers around to sing happy birthday to the birthday girl and watch her blow out the candles on her huge, extravagant cake. Afterwards, as the crowd disperses around the house again, Harry loses sight of Y/N. He decides it’s for the best since he’s spent most of the night watching her from afar instead of enjoying the party and mingling with friends he doesn’t see very often due to his busy schedule.

From that point onward, he tries to be more present in his conversations with people.

When he breaks away to find the bathroom a bit later, he passes by a room that looks like a den. The door is slightly ajar, enough to make out Elena sitting on a couch with a few other people. Y/N is nowhere to be seen, though she could be in some part of the room that isn’t visible from where he’s standing. But as he listens in to their conversation, it quickly becomes clear that she’s not in the room with them.

“Where’s your shadow?” asks one of the other girls sitting with Elena.

“Who?” she says.

“Y/N. She’s been following you around like a lost puppy all evening.”

“Oh, yeah, I don’t know where she went, actually.” Elena looks around vaguely.

Harry steps away from the door before she can see him. He leans against the wall next to the doorway, taking out his phone so that if someone catches him standing there, he can pretend he’s just messing around on his phone.

“The two of you are a couple then?” asks the other girl.

“I wouldn’t call it that,” replies Elena. “We’ve just hooked up a few times.”

A male voice chimes in, “What’s she like? In bed, I mean. I’ve always wanted to know, but she was always with that Watermelon Sugar guy.”

Harry rolls his eyes at that.

“She’s kind of a freak, actually,” Elena speaks in a hushed voice, like she’s revealing a scandalous secret.

“Oh yeah?”

“Uh-huh. She’s into that choking, slapping, getting tied up, being called names type of shit.”

Harry rolls his eyes once again. These must be the most vanilla people ever if they think liking a bit of bondage and degradation makes someone a “freak.” Most of the people he’s been with were into things like that, not just Y/N.

“Damn,” says the male voice. “It’s always the sweet, innocent-looking ones.”

“Yeah,” says Elena. “It’s kind of weird, but I just go with it. At least I can laugh about it later.”

A grimace has settled onto Harry’s face after hearing their conversation. He doesn’t appreciate the way they talk about Y/N, as if she’s some sort of anomaly or a sex object. He knows all too well what it’s like to have your sex life dissected and gossiped about by people who don’t even know you.

It especially irks him when he remembers how insecure Y/N used to be about her kinks when he first met her. It took her some time to open up to him about what she liked in bed because before they met, she’d never had the chance to explore her deepest desires and fantasies in a safe space with someone who made her feel comfortable. He’s grateful that he was able to give her that.

Now, he leaves to go find the bathroom again, but when he gets there, it’s already occupied. He heads upstairs to find another one. The music from the party fades as he ascends the staircase. It’s mostly dark up there, except for the warm white light spilling out of a room down the hall. As he gets closer, he realizes it’s the other bathroom and, of course, someone is inside this one too.

He groans internally until he reaches the open doorway and realizes that the person inside is Y/N. She’s standing in front of the sink, fixing her hair in the mirror. Her gaze shifts to Harry as he appears in the hallway.

“Hey,” he says softly.

“Oh, sorry, do you need the bathroom? I was just leaving.” She starts to exit, but he steps in the middle of the doorway, blocking her path.

“You’re avoiding me.”

She meets his eyes reluctantly. “Well, I didn’t know if I was allowed to talk to you or not.”

He frowns. “What? Of course you are.”

“Just wondering, you know, because we’re not supposed to be spending time together anymore.”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t talk if we see each other at a party, Y/N.”

“Well, how was I supposed to know?!” She crosses her arms in front of her chest. “These rules are confusing.”

His eyes wander over her face, taking in her pretty features. “They are confusing,” he agrees, pausing before adding, “and stupid.”

“Oh, so now you admit it.” A playful grin dances on her lips, making him chuckle.

Lifting up a hand, he takes a strand of her hair between his fingers and twirls it around, examining its length. He notices her breathing stop for a moment.

“You cut your hair,” he states.

“Yeah.”

“Looks nice. Pretty.”

She blushes. “Thanks.”

He releases the strand of hair and watches it bounce back into place. Then he reaches up and brushes his fingers against her cheek. She leans into his touch, almost on instinct. His gaze rests on her lips now—so red and full and tempting. He begins inching towards them, but at the last moment, she pulls away.

“H,” she whispers, “we can’t. I have a girlfriend.”

“You do?” he asks, even though he already knows what she’s about to say.

“Yeah. Elena. We’ve been seeing each other.”

“Oh,” he says. And he tries to control himself. He really tries to stop the words from leaving his mouth, but they come out anyway, “Y/N, I don’t think she’s right for you.”

“What?”

“I don’t think Elena’s a nice person.”

She frowns. “Where is this coming from?”

He doesn’t want to tell her about the conversation he overheard earlier. It would only hurt her. “I just think you deserve better.”

Her eyes narrow. “And what exactly is ‘better’? You?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what are you saying, Harry?”

He can sense her losing her patience with him. Y/N, who normally has the patience of a saint and puts up with a lot more than most people would, is done with his shit.

“Because you told me that you were worried about holding me back from moving on and finding love again. But now that I’m with someone new, you’re telling me that I’m with the wrong person? It’s just— It’s not making sense. You say that you don’t want to hold me back, but that’s exactly what you’re doing.”

Her words pierce through his heart. “You’re right... It doesn’t make any sense. And I’m sorry. But I stand by what I said about Elena. She doesn’t have your best interests at heart, lovie. She doesn’t deserve you. Neither do I.”

She stares at him for one long moment, a tenderness flashing in her eyes for the briefest second before she looks away. “I can’t do this.” She squeezes past him to leave the bathroom.

“Y/N—”

“Bye, Harry.”

***

Settling in bed with a book in his hands, a cup of chamomile tea on the nightstand next to his phone and his songwriting notebook, which is always there in case a lyric idea pops up in his head while he reads. This is how Harry spends most of his nights lately. It’s a soothing ritual to come home to after a long day.

The only thing missing is having someone in bed next to him. Someone to read with or read to. Someone to kiss goodnight. Someone to hold as he drifts off to dreamland.

Ever since his breakup with Y/N, he has been taking the time to figure himself out, to really look inward and, with the help of his therapist, work on some deep-rooted bad habits that he seems to carry from one relationship to the next. He’s never been good at being alone, which explains why he has a propensity to dive into a new relationship before he’s even moved on from the last.

He regrets rushing things with Y/N. If he’d just taken the time to get to know her and properly befriend her before taking the next step, things might have panned out differently. He truly believes that.

A yawn pulls itself from him as sleep begins to fog his brain. He places his book on the nightstand. Before he can turn the lights out, his phone buzzes with an incoming call. It’s Y/N.

He picks up. “Hello?”

He doesn’t receive an instant response. All he can hear is the beat of some techno song in the background and the muffled sound of female voices. He wonders if she just butt-dialed him by accident.

“Hellooo?”

This time, he hears her say on the other end, “You were right.”

Puzzled, he replies, “What?”

“You were right about Elena. She’s not a nice person.”

She doesn’t elaborate any further, but he can infer from the hollowness in her voice that Elena broke her heart.

“I just called to tell you you were right,” she says. “You can feel all smug now and say ‘I told you so.’”

“You think I’m that much of an arsehole?”

She sighs and mumbles, “No.” He hears her sniffle. “I just don’t get why everyone treats me like I’m some toy they can play with and throw out when they get bored. Am I that easy to discard? Or maybe I’m just hard to love.”

“No. You’re not.” If anything, that’s me, he thinks to himself.

“Then why does this keep happening to me?” She sounds so defeated, it makes his chest physically ache.

“Because, Y/N, people are stupid—and I’m including myself in that statement—and they don’t realize what they’ve got until they lose it. By the time they realize it, it’s far too late.”

She goes quiet. He can hear the music thumping in the background again.

“Where are you?” he asks.

“In the bathroom of a club.”

He quirks a brow. “What are you doing at a club? You don’t even like clubs.” He recalls her telling him once that she hates being surrounded by all the sweaty bodies bumping into each other.

“Jordan dragged me here. Said the best way to get over a heartbreak is to go to a club and find a stranger to hook up with. But he ditched me as soon as we got here, so I thought I would just drink and dance away my sorrows, but then some creep tried to grope me on the dancefloor and I wanted to throw up and now I’m hiding in the bathroom.”

“Fuck’s sake,” he mutters under his breath. His frustration isn’t directed at her but at Jordan for giving her such terrible advice and then abandoning her in such a vulnerable state. “Stay where you are. I’m on my way.”

“Wh— You’re coming here? You don’t have to do that.”

“Well, I’m doing it.”

He gets the name of the club from her and tells her he’ll text her once he’s there. Climbing out of bed, he quickly throws on some clothes and heads out to his car.

He’s prepared to go into the club to retrieve her when he gets there, but she’s already standing outside by the curb, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. She has on a flimsy jacket, far too thin to block out the cool night air. As soon as he pulls up, she climbs into the passenger seat, finding refuge from the cold.

“You all right?” he asks, studying her intently.

She nods. “You know, you really didn’t have to come all the way—”

“Hush. Put your seatbelt on.”

She raises her eyebrows at his authoritative tone. “Yes, sirrr.”

He feels something stir inside him when she says that but quickly squashes the feeling and starts driving.

“Do you want me to take you to your flat?” he asks.

“Ugh, no. Jordan’s going to come home with some guy in the middle of the night and wake me up with obnoxiously loud sex noises.”

He nods once. “Okay then. My place, it is.”

When they reach his house, he prepares one of the guest bedrooms for her to sleep in while she uses the bathroom. By the time she comes out, he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting patiently for her. She sits down next to him. As he turns to look at her, he catches her staring directly at his mouth.

“Kiss me,” she says.

“You’re drunk.”

“Just one kiss. Please?”

He rolls his eyes and gives her a peck on the lips, forcing himself to pull back before he gets carried away. “Happy?”

“No, I want more,” she says, leaning forward.

He smirks and squeezes her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Greedy girl.” He releases her chin. “Go to sleep.”

She complies and gets under the covers. Staring up at him with her sweet, tired eyes, she says, “Thank you. For taking care of me.”

He shrugs. “I like taking care of you.”

He gets up then and leaves the room, shutting off the lights as he goes.

***

Y/N wakes up with a miserable headache compounded by a deep embarrassment over her actions from the previous night. Calling up Harry just to whine about her pitiful love life, prompting him to come rescue her drunk ass from the club, begging him to kiss her...

She wants the ground to swallow her whole.

Eventually, she drags herself out of bed and into the bathroom. After cleaning herself up, she heads down to the kitchen, where Harry is sitting at the island in his purple robe, having his morning coffee. The sight is all too familiar to her; she used to wake up to this on a regular basis when they were still together.

“Morning,” he greets her as she walks in, avoiding his gaze. “How are you feeling?”

“Hungover.”

She fills up a glass with cold water and savours the feeling of it pouring down her parched throat. Finally, she turns around and forces herself to look at him.

“Sorry about last night,” she states. “I was, um, a bit of a mess.”

He gives her a kind smile. “It’s all right. You don’t need to apologize. Honestly, it made me quite happy to see your name pop up on my screen when you called.”

Her heart swells. “Really?”

He nods and takes a sip of his coffee to hide the timidness in his expression.

A smile spreads across her face. “Well, okay, that makes me feel better.”

He gazes at her for a while, like he’s carefully contemplating his next words. “So... You were upset last night and I didn’t want to ask, but... What did happen with Elena?”

Her eyes drop down to the floor at his question.

Noticing her reaction, he quickly says, “Sorry, it’s none of my business.”

“No, it’s fine.” She looks up at him again. “I found out she was sleeping with someone else. I caught her texting this other person while we were in bed, cuddling. She thought I was asleep.” A bitter laugh escapes her at the idiocy of it all.

Harry’s eyes turn sympathetic. “Jesus. That’s awful.”

“Yeah... So, hey, you may have broken my heart, but at least you can say you never cheated on me!”

“I mean, that bar’s pretty low.”

“Oh, the bar is fucking underground at this point.”

He laughs. She grins. Then he stands up and walks around the island to her, pulling her into a tight hug, which she happily reciprocates.

“I’m sorry people suck,” he says, resting his chin on her head. “I’m sorry I suck.”

She frowns. “You don’t suck.”

“Yes, I do. All I’ve done is break your heart. Over and over again.”

She pulls away to get a proper look at him, noting the guilt in his eyes. “That’s not true. You’ve been an amazing friend to me.”

He smiles sadly. “I don’t know about that.”

“Harry...” It concerns her that he’s being so hard on himself. He really has been a wonderful friend to her. Despite all the hardships they experienced during their relationship, he has been there for her more than anyone else in her life. To hear him fail to recognize that makes her sad.

“I want to be a better friend. I think I can do that. If you’ll give me a chance.”

“Of course.”

“I can even be your wingman if you need me to be.”

She laughs and makes a face. “My wingman?”

“Sure, why not?” He gives a casual shrug, as if the concept of her ex-boyfriend, whom she’s still undeniably attracted to, being her wingman isn’t weird as hell.

“Thanks for the kind offer, but I’m actually putting the brakes on dating for a while.”

“Oh, okay.”

She hugs him again, content to have him in her arms, content that she can finally go back to hanging out with her best friend again.

***

“I think we should watch the new season of The Crown tonight.”

Y/N’s eyes widen with excitement. “Oooh, yes! I’ve been dying to watch that.”

“We could order pizza as well. From that new place I told you about. You need to try it.”

“Absolutely.”

They’re sitting in their little corner of the cafe. Y/N finished work a while ago and headed there to meet up with Harry, who was coming from a writing session at the studio. Now, as they discuss their plans to wind down for the evening, something—or someone—catches Y/N’s attention from across the cafe.

“Oh, fuck my life,” she mutters.

“What’s wrong?” asks Harry, as he follows her gaze over his shoulder.

“I just realized Elena’s here. With her new girlfriend. They’re sitting over by the window.”

“Oh.” He turns back to Y/N. “Do you want to leave? We can go somewhere else.”

She replies with an adamant shake of the head. “Nope. This is our favourite cafe too. Why should we have to go?”

Suddenly, Elena’s gaze shifts over to her and they make eye contact. Without reacting, Y/N returns her attention to Harry. But then, out of the corner of her eye, she sees Elena standing up and walking over to them.

“Oh, great, she’s coming over here,” she says with an agitated sigh.

Harry squeezes her hand on the table reassuringly. “It’s okay. You’ve got this.”

“Y/N,” says Elena, once she reaches their table.

“Elena,” says Y/N.

“Harry,” says Elena.

“Elena,” says Harry.

A long, awkward pause follows.

Unable to endure the awkwardness any further, Y/N breaks the silence, “How are you?”

“I’m all right. You?”

“I’m fine.”

Another pause. Elena turns to Harry.

“So, the reason I came over here is because my girlfriend, who’s sat over there”—she points over to the table she just came from—“happens to be a massive fan of yours, Harry, and she was hoping she could get a picture with you. I told her that we’re friends and I would ask for her.”

It takes everything in Y/N to resist the urge to roll her eyes dramatically. The nerve of this woman to cheat on her, then come over here to ask Harry—whom she only knows through Y/N—to take a picture with the same person that she cheated with! Truly mindboggling. Not to mention, it puts Harry in a very awkward position.

He looks at Y/N unsurely, waiting for a cue from her before deciding how to respond. “Uh...”

She gives him a small nod.

“Sure,” he says to Elena.

He stands up and follows her to the table where Elena’s girlfriend is eyeing him with a frozen, starstruck look on her face. He chats with her for a minute, then poses for a selfie before walking back over to Y/N.

“That was quick,” she says.

He shrugs. “She was more interested in getting a photo than talking. I asked her not to post it until later though, once we’re gone.”

Now that the uncomfortable encounter is over, they return to their conversation from earlier, debating what else to get with their pizza tonight.

Some time later, long after Elena and her girlfriend have left the cafe, Y/N notices a group of young people lurking outside the entrance, trying to peer in through the glass door. It’s getting dark out, but she has seen, and worn, Harry’s merch enough times to recognize it on someone else even in the dark from a distance.

“Uh-oh,” she says.

“What?” Harry looks at her. With his back to the entrance, he has no idea what’s happening.

“I think I see fans outside. Elena’s girlfriend must’ve posted the picture already.”

He throws up a hand and lets it fall on the table. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Y/N takes out her phone to check, and surely enough, the picture is all over social media. The cafe logo can be seen on a sign in the background. “Yup, she posted it on Instagram and now it’s making rounds. This place is going to get crowded real fast if we don’t leave soon.”

“Would it be bad if we snuck out the back? I’m just not in the mood to deal with this.”

“Yeah, we can do that. I’m sure Theo would let us use the back exit.”

Theo is the owner of the cafe, whom Harry and Y/N have befriended over the years.

Harry scoots his chair back to stand up, then stops and looks at her with a conflicted expression. “I feel bad.”

She leans forward and locks eyes with him. “H, people can’t expect you to be on all the time, ready to interact and take pictures with them whenever they want. You’re a human being, not a tourist attraction.”

“I know, I know.” He bites his lip and sighs. “Okay, let’s go.”

They stand up, grab their jackets, and find Theo, who doesn’t even hesitate to help them sneak out the back exit into the empty alleyway behind the cafe. Once outside, they stop to put on their jackets. Y/N shivers as a cold breeze passes by.

“Holy crap. How did it get so cold?” she mutters through chattering teeth.

“You need a better jacket. This thing is paper thin.” Harry pinches the arm of her jacket to prove his point.

She rolls her eyes. “Okay, mom. It’s not that thin.”

“Here, put this on.” He hands her his thick, green jacket, but she pushes it away.

“No! Then you’ll get cold.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Nope.”

He glares at her. “Y/N, put it on.”

“Make me.”

His eyebrows raise high on his forehead. “What did you say?”

A devilish grin materializes on her face. “I said... Make me.”

Grabbing her by the waist, he pushes her up against the wall of the cafe. She stares up at him, gasping when she notices the unmistakable lust in his eyes. He leans forward and presses his lips against hers so firmly, so hungrily that it literally takes her breath away. She kisses him back with the same hunger until, all of a sudden, he pulls away.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” he blurts out.

She shakes her head. “No, don’t be sorry.”

He releases her waist and takes a step back, a look of dread now replacing the lust from before. “This is bad. This is so bad.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“I can’t do this again. Us being together. It never ends well.” He runs a flustered hand through his curls. “I don’t want to hurt you again. I love you too much for that.”

She tilts her head to the side. “Why are you so convinced that you’ll hurt me again?”

“Because that’s what I do, Y/N. I think I’ve proven that. It’s just who I am.”

“No, it’s not.”

He turns away, but she steps forward and takes his face in her hands, making him look at her again.

“I know who you are. You’re kind and thoughtful and loving, and you have the biggest heart of anyone I know. You’re also flawed and imperfect and you make mistakes, but who doesn’t? At least you’re trying to be better, which is more than most people can say.”

His eyes never leave hers as she talks, which tells her that her words are actually sinking in.

“I know you’re scared of hurting me again, but I’m not scared. I trust you and I trust that it’ll be different this time.”

“How can you still trust me after everything I’ve put you through?”

“Because like I said, I know you.”

Like a light switch, Y/N catches the shift in his eyes from fear to hope.

“Now kiss me,” she says. “Properly this time.”

And then she’s back against the wall with his hands squeezing her waist and his mouth claiming hers. No hesitation this time. No internal conflicts. Just pure love and fervor and affection.

He gets even closer, until their fronts are touching, and rubs up against her. She moans, squirming between his body and the wall. Whereas she was cold before, the heat of their passion is enough to warm her up.

He starts speaking in between kisses. “We’re not”—kiss—“having sex”—kiss—“in an alleyway.”

She giggles against his lips. “Okay, then take me home.”

***

Back at Harry’s house, they’ve barely stepped in through the door before he’s pressing her up against it, attaching his lips to her jaw and neck while his hand wanders down the front of her body. His deft fingers unbutton her jeans before sliding inside them. He caresses her clit through her panties.

She tilts her head back, exposing more of her neck for him to kiss and suck on. Her hands weave through his hair. He continues rubbing languid circles into her clit until her panties dampen with her arousal, then stops.

“Nooo,” she whines.

“Shh, just taking you upstairs. C’mon.” He leads her up to his bedroom where he begins stripping off her clothes. He doesn’t remove his own clothes just yet, knowing she likes it this way. Something about being completely exposed and vulnerable while he’s fully clothed is a turn-on for her.

He tells her to lie on the bed while he goes to the closet to grab a couple of silk ties. When he returns, her hand is between her legs. He climbs on top of her and grabs her wrists, sliding them up by her head.

“Can’t leave you alone for two seconds without you touching yourself, hmm?”

She gives him an innocent smile.

“What am I going to do with you?” he says.

“Anything you want.”

His cock twitches in his pants. “Gonna be a good girl and keep your hands above your head?”

“Yes, sir,” she says, still smiling.

He kisses her briefly and gets up to bind her wrists to the bedposts using the silk ties. He has her tug on them a bit to ensure that they’re secure but not overly tight. Then he’s back on the bed, positioning himself between her spread legs, almost drooling at the sight of her dripping wet cunt.

She watches eagerly as he lowers his head between her legs and swipes his tongue over her slit, savouring her intoxicating taste and scent. It occurs to him while he’s sucking on her swollen nub that they haven’t does this in so long and she’s probably been in bed with several other people in that time. The thought makes his fingers dig deeper into her thighs.

“You taste so fucking good,” he comments. “Annoys me to think of all the other people who’ve tasted you.”

“There haven’t been that many.”

“Well, even one is too many for me, so...”

She giggles and squirms as he dips his tongue into her hole. Whenever he draws back to take a breath, her hips automatically buck towards his mouth. He has to hold her down with one hand on her abdomen.

It’s easy to tell when she’s nearing an orgasm from the way her thighs tense and her moans become more frequent, breathing more ragged.

“I’m going to—” she begins.

“Don’t even think about cumming until I say so,” he warns.

“But I’m so close. Please—”

“Hold it.”

“I can’t!”

Ignoring her pleas, he continues licking at her clit as he pleases until she’s writhing on the bed, slowly coming apart. Her back arches as the orgasm ripples through her body. He waits until she’s done before pinning her with a disapproving look for cumming despite being told not to.

“What?!” she exclaims. “I told you I couldn’t hold it any longer. Not really my fault, is it?”

In a mere second, he’s hovering over her with a hand wrapped firmly around her neck. Her wide eyes stare up at him. He feels her throat bob up and down beneath his palm as she swallows. Her racing pulse can be felt under his fingers.

“What was that?” he asks.

“N—nothing,” she squeaks out.

“That’s what I thought, you greedy little slut.”

“I’m sorry.” Her voice is so small, barely above a whisper. He can see her sinking into subspace before his eyes. Tied up with his hand around her throat, completely and utterly at his mercy.

“That’s all right, darling,” he says. “I think you’ve forgotten who’s in charge, but we can fix that.”

He starts untying her wrists. She eyes him curiously but doesn’t dare to speak. He flips her over onto her stomach and reties her wrists.

Leaning down to her ear, he asks, “Do you remember the safeword?” He expects her to have forgotten after all this time, but she proves him wrong.

“Peaches!”

“Good girl.” He plants a soft kiss to her lips, then straightens up again.

He runs a hand through her hair and down her spine before resting on the delicious curve of her bum. He gives it one brief squeeze before lifting his hand in the air, watching her tense as his touch disappears. He allows the anticipation to build before bringing his hand back down in one swift motion. A resounding slap echoes through the room, followed by a grunt of pain from Y/N.

“Count, slut,” he orders.

“O—one.”

He spanks her again, harder this time, and relishes the way her ass bounces from the impact.

“Ah! Fuck. Two.”

The next few arrive in quick succession, causing her to squirm and fight against her restraints in a futile attempt to escape her punishment. He knows she’s enjoying it though because when the next slap lands on her pussy, his hand comes away covered in her juices.

“Look at you, getting off on your punishment. Only whores enjoy getting punished,” he teases.

Y/N presses her reddening face into the pillow and moans. He chuckles at her reaction and delivers a few more slaps directly to her cunt.

Finally, he stands up to undress himself. Then he lifts her hips off the mattress to shove a pillow under them, propping her up into the perfect position for a fucking. His dick is rock-hard at this point. He’s been palming himself through his pants here and there, but only her pussy can give him the relief he needs. He presses himself against her opening, then stops and starts rubbing his tip against her clit instead.

He keeps this up until she grumbles impatiently, “Can you fuck me already? Please and thank you?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” he says with a smirk, then plows his cock into her.

She inhales sharply. He groans. It takes them both a few moments to process the intensity of her walls stretching around him. He pulls out and pushes back in, his length gliding in and out effortlessly due to her wetness. She tries to grind her hips back into him, though his strong grip keeps her locked in place.

As he brings her to the brink of yet another orgasm, she says, “I need to— I mean, can I please cum?”

He slows the pace of his thrusts. “You came once already, remember? Now you want more?”

“Yesss.” She tries to look over her shoulder at him, and if he could see her big, beautiful eyes, he would probably give in way sooner. “Please, H, I’m sorry for earlier. I really am.”

“Hmmm, I don’t buy it.”

She whimpers in desperation, her hands curling in their restraints.

“I think I should cum inside you and leave you here, unsatisfied, alone, and dripping with my cum.”

Her jaw drops at his evil proposition. “No! God, please don’t do that to me. I’ll do anyth—”

“Shhh, I’m only teasing, sweetheart.” He rubs a soothing hand over her back.

She lets out a sigh of relief.

“You can cum now.”

The words are barely out of his mouth before her pussy is flexing fiercely around his cock, shrouding it in more of her creamy wetness. A few more sharp, sloppy thrusts and he’s cumming inside her too, moaning and repeating her name in his blissful haze.

After pulling out, the first thing he does is remove the pillow from below her hips and untie her wrists. Then he lies down next to her and pulls her into his arms, pressing his lips against her forehead.

“You did so good for me, baby,” he says. Then he draws back to take a good look at her. “Are you all right?”

She gives him a dazed grin. “Oh, I’m amazing.”

He chuckles. “Yes, you are.” Pulling her into his chest, he tells her, “I love you.”

“I love you.”

As they lay there together, he marvels at how lucky he is. Not only to have another chance to be with her, but to have her in his life at all. Y/N is right; things will be different this time. Because this time, he’ll spend less time worrying about getting his own heart broken and more time cherishing hers.

***

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