#also i need to figure out how to put the read more break for my next long posts

[puckinghischier]

Falling

Nico Hischier x fem!reader

summary: reader gets hurt and nico is worried about her

notes: y’all i ain’t gonna lie, i went through a bit of a rollercoaster while writing this. i loved it at first, then halfway through started hating it, then somehow started loving it again towards the end. so if it seems a little all over place i’m sorry. also i know very little about how a dislocated shoulder works, so just pretended i didn’t if i got anything wrong. i hope y’all enjoy it!! happy reading!! 🫶🏼

request: from my 400 follower celly - “A hears that B got hurt and rushes over in a panic to see if they are okay” where reader maybe gets in an accident or gets hurt in their sport (nothing major). Bonus points if you add “I can braid your hair for you- I mean, only if you want.”

[4.5k]

“Yeah, Mom, I’m fine. Nothing’s broken, just a nasty dislocation,” you attempt to calm your mother’s nerves, trying to unlock your apartment door with your good arm while balancing your phone between your cheek and shoulder. “They reset it for me and told me to follow up with my primary care on Monday. Gave me some pain meds and sent me on my way.”

“Well, what about until then? What if you need help? What about work? How will you drive?” she rapid fires questions at you.

“I’ll figure it out, don’t worry. Since it was a work-related injury, I’ll still get paid. And they’re paying all of the medical bills, so that’s all taken care of,” you make your way into your apartment, shutting the door with your foot behind you. “Everything else I’ll handle as it comes.”

She doesn’t seem satisfied with your answer, tsking into her phone, making you picture her trademark displeased headshake.

“What about Nico? Why don’t you stay with him until you’re back to 100%? I’m sure he’d be willing to help out,” she suggests, her tone switching from worried to suggestive.

You roll your eyes, knowing exactly where this conversation is headed.

“Mom, how many times do I have to tell you, Nico and I are just friends. We work together. Just because you think you saw him look at me a certain way when you were visiting doesn’t mean I have to call him every time something goes wrong,” you tell her, placing your bag on your kitchen table.

Ever since your mom came in a few months ago to visit, she’s been on your case about making a move on Nico, it all starting when she witnessed Nico helping you across the ice during a pre-game practice while trying to get some action shots.

You work as a photographer for the Devils, not realizing that being able to ice skate would have been a nice addition to your resume.

Your college advisor arranged the interview for you right before graduation. You had no previous knowledge of hockey, having come from a football family. You told your advisor this, but she insisted you didn’t have to know anything about a sport to be able to take good pictures of it.

During the interview, you made sure to inform your now boss that you didn’t know how to skate, hoping it wouldn’t be a problem. He assured you that you could take pictures from the stands or the players bench, the chance of you having to step onto the ice slim.

For the first few months of your job, it was smooth sailing. You were mostly taking pictures from the camera holes in the glass or being told to cover locker room and arrival pictures. You worked with one other photographer, a seasoned sports photography veteran named Phil. Phil was a New Jersey native, having grown up skating, so he took over the duties of any major action shots the director wanted from on the ice.

Unfortunately for you, Phil’s wife had convinced him to retire early, losing his help right before the league’s short Christmas break.

Seeing as they had just hired you, and it was the middle of the season, the hunt for a replacement for Phil was put on the backburner, more important team matters taking precedence.

You were forced to take over Phil’s duties, meaning you were now responsible for any on the ice shots. You had found a way to slowly scoot across the perimeter of the rink, staying out of the way while also getting the shots you needed.

Your system was working well until the morning of a gameday, having gotten permission from your boss to bring your mother along to this particular practice, wanting to show her all aspects of your job.

For this particular game, the players were especially focused on practicing their skills and running drills during morning skate. You were doing your typical shuffle while clutching the edge of the waist-high wall when someone came zooming past you, causing your feet to start sliding uncontrollably, not being able to find your footing on the slick ice.

You felt the moment you were about to fall, waiting for the impact of your butt on the cold ice, but it never came. You felt yourself fall into a body covered by plastic pads, gloved hands shooting out to grab your upper arms.

You looked up, seeing Nico smiling down at you in amusement.

“It’s a bit slippery out here, huh?” he jokes, making sure you’re standing steady on your feet before letting go of you.

“Well, we are standing on ice, so….” You trail off, grabbing onto the wooden ledge again, preventing another near fall.

Nico laughs, looking down and shuffling his skates back and forth.

“Well would you look at that? We are on ice ” He flashes a smile, looking back up at you.

You stick your tongue out at him, earning another chuckle from the team’s Captain.

“You know, most people use these great things called ice skates when they try to walk on ice,” he tells you, lifting one skate up for emphasis.

Rolling your eyes, you scoff out a “Oh wow, why didn’t I ever think of that?”

“Just some food for thought,” Nico shrugged as he placed his foot back down on the ice, skating in a little circle, as if to say “See, told you so.”

You let go of the ledge to cross your arms, forgetting that you needed the stability. When you try to shift your weight from one leg to the other, you lose your footing again, this time falling forward into Nico. You let the camera in your hands fall, grabbing onto his biceps to stay upright, thankful for the camera strap around your neck.

His hands shoot out to grab your forearms.

“You know the sad thing is, even with the skates, I’d still be as clumsy, considering I have absolutely no idea how to use them,” you tell him, the two of you still holding on to one another.

Nico shakes his head at you, placing one of your hands on his forearm, moving you from in front of him to beside of him.

He starts slowly skating towards the bench while you shuffle your feet along, putting all of your focus on keeping yourself upright until you reach your destination.

When you finally reach the bench, you step off of the ice and let out a breath of relief.

“Thanks, Cap. Would’ve hated to make a fool of myself out there while my mom’s watching,” you thank him, looking over to where your mom sits, a smile on her face.

Nico follows your gaze and waves to your mom, matching her smile.

“Well, we wouldn’t want that now, would we? What if she found out her daughter was a skating fraud?” he teases, leaning in to whisper the last two words.

“It’s her fault for never taking me to the rink my town would throw up once a year at Christmas. Who knows, maybe I would’ve been a skating prodigy if given the chance,” you shrug.

A mischievous smile makes its way onto his face. “I think we should put that theory to the test,” he tells you, causing your eyes to latch onto his.

“Come again?” You raise your eyebrows and tilt your chin down.

“I mean, I can’t have some photographer out on my ice during practices that can’t even stand up,” he keeps his tone light, making sure you know he’s just teasing, “So, I’m going to teach you how to skate, and see if you really would have been a skating prodigy.”

He skates off, winking before resuming his practice.

You don’t have a chance to speak to him again until after the game, when you get at text from an unknown number reading “Rink, tomorrow, 2pm. I’ll bring skates, just bring your prodigy skills.”

After that, you meet with Nico twice a week for skating lessons.

The two of you quickly form a friendship, Nico bringing you coffee on gamedays and you slipping him snacks on the bench during games. You even started inviting him over for dinner after your lessons, insisting the least you can do is feed him to repay him for preventing you from making a fool of yourself on the ice.

Today, however, you did make a fool of yourself on the ice.

You were standing behind the net, telling the players to skate towards you so you could get some shots for the team’s Instagram account by request of the social media manager.

Once you were pleased with the amount of shots you had gotten, you left your spot from behind the net, skating slowly towards the benches, still a little wobbly on your skates.

You were looking down at your camera, thinking of how you’ll have to get Nico out here after the game to get some shots, knowing he’s currently doing pre-game interviews in the locker room.

You weren’t paying the slightest bit of attention to the pucks littering the ice in front of you, skating right into one and losing your balance, holding your camera up with one arm while trying to catch yourself with the other.

You felt the way your shoulder shifted, crying out in pain as players turned and started rushing towards you on the ice.

The team doctor came out and told you he was pretty sure your shoulder was simply dislocated, but sent you to the hospital to make sure nothing’s broken.

The ER doctor confirmed your diagnosis, putting your shoulder back into place before pumping you full of pain meds and placing your arm into a sling.

Which leads you to where you are now, back at your apartment, explaining to your mother why Nico can’t be at your beck and call.

“Honey, when are you going to realize that boy is in love with you? I’m telling you, the way I saw him look at you that day I came to visit, the skating lessons and dinners,” she starts, giving you her typical speech when you tell her Nico is just a friend.

“Mom, it doesn’t matter what you think you saw, we’re seriously just friends. And he’s busy, his schedule is too hectic to spend his time babysitting me,” you interrupt her, not wanting to hear her Nico speech for the thousandth time, regretting ever telling her about the skating lessons.

She sighs into the phone.

“I’m just trying to help you, you know…” you hear your mother start, but you tune the rest of her words out, focusing on the three loud knocks on your front door.

Your head turns to your door, the unexpected noise causing you to jump, the sudden motion tipping your bag over, the contents spilling all of your kitchen floor.

“Honey, are you alright? What was that?” your mom halts her one-sided conversation, worry in her tone.

“Shit!” you exclaim, watching the container of memory cards fly open, the small squares sliding across the linoleum floor.

You forget about the sling on your arm, crouching down and trying to reach for the cards with your bad arm, a searing pain shooting through your shoulder at the movement.

Letting out a loud yelp, you bring your arm back to its resting positing in the sling.

“Y/N, what’s going on? Did you hurt yourself?” you barely hear your mother’s voice through the phone speaker, not being able to think about anything other than the throbbing pain in your shoulder.

You hear three more pounds on your front door, this time a voice following the knocks.

“Y/N! Open up!”

You groan, trying to stand up, too many people trying to get your attention at the moment.

“Honey, talk to me. Is someone in there with you? I heard another voice,” your mother asks you as you stand, making your way over towards your front door.

“Someone’s knocking on the door,” you grit through your teeth, trying to think about anything but the pain in your shoulder. “I dropped my bag and tried to pick something up with my bad arm. I’m fine. Just hurts,” you tell her, opening your door to see a frantic Nico standing there.

His wide eyes scan your body, stopping once they see the sling on your arm.

You notice his wet hair and lack of socks on his tennis shoe covered feet.

“Are you okay? They told me you had to be taken to the hospital before the game started, but no one knew what really happened,” he rushed out, looking up at your face.

“Hey, Mom, gotta go, Nico’s at my door,” you tell her, a little stunned that the object of your conversation just appeared, hanging up the phone before she could make any comments about it.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Are you?” you ask him, pointing towards his feet, an amused smile on your face. The shock of seeing him at your door making you completely forget about the pain in your shoulder.

Nico looks down at his own feet, looking back up at you with red cheeks.

“Oh, uh, I couldn’t find my socks after the game and i couldn’t get you to answer your phone, so I rushed over to the hospital to see if you were still there, and they told me you left about an hour ago, so I hopped in my car and came over here to make sure you were okay,” he tells you, not meeting your eye.

You’re shocked at his confession, not expecting him to be so concerned about your impromptu trip to the hospital.

“Well, I’m here and still standing,” you awkwardly stand in your doorway, not knowing what else to say, thinking about how if you weren’t arguing with your mom over Nico on the phone, you might have gotten his calls.

“Yeah, I see that now,” he shoves his hands in the pocket of his hoodie.

The two of you stand there, not really knowing what to say to one another.

“Do you want to come in?” you ask him, moving out of the doorway to let him step into your apartment.

Nico shakes his head yes and walks past you, looking towards the mess on the floor in your kitchen.

“What happened here? Is this the crash I heard?” he asks you.

“Yeah, the bag fell and spilled everything. When I went to pick it up, I forgot and used my bad shoulder,” you gesture to your slinged arm.

Nico shakes his head at you, crouching down to pick up the camera disks all over the floor.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to-“

“Well you’re sure as hell not trying to pick them up again,” Nico interrupts you, standing and placing the now full box of disks on your table.

You roll your eyes at him, walking over towards your fridge.

“So, what exactly happened? Jack told me you hurt your shoulder?” he follows you over to your fridge, watching you scan its contents, or lack thereof.

“Well, I was looking at my camera and skated right into a bunch of pucks on the floor, then was too focused on saving the equipment instead of remembering how to fall properly,” you told him, remembering his words during your first skate lesson, telling you not to catch yourself if you fall on the ice.

“See, I told you to just let yourself fall. Never try to catch yourself,” he echoes his words in your thoughts.

“Yeah, well, it’s a lot easier said than done,” you deadpan, shutting your fridge door and looking at Nico.

Your stomach growls at that exact moment, making you groan at your lack of food in your fridge, not having eaten since before your accident.

“When was the last time you ate anything?” Nico asks you, looking down at your growling stomach.

“Uhhh, breakfast?” you recall.

Nico’s eyes widen. “It’s almost midnight. Did they really not feed you at the hospital?” he asks you.

“Considering they were busy doing x-rays and scans to make sure nothing was broken or torn, no,” you walk over to your cabinets, finding them also bare.

“Alright, go sit down and I’ll order us something to eat,” Nico shoos you out of the kitchen, walking over and opening the drawer where you keep all of your takeout menus.

You wonder how he knows where your menus are, forgetting for a moment that he’s over at your apartment at least twice a week after your skating lessons. Sometimes more, the occasional movie night making its way into your weekly routine.

“What do you want? Sushi? Chinese? Burgers?” he questions, flipping through your menus.

For some reason, your brain chooses this moment to register how much you enjoy the sight of Nico in your kitchen, looking through your takeout menus and offering to order you dinner.

You think back to all the times he’s helped you make dinner, laughter filling every moment of your time together. You think about how he always wear his pjs when he comes over for a movie night, bringing a different chocolate candy to put in the popcorn each time. You think about how he somehow learned your coffee order without you ever telling him, bringing you a coffee every morning, even at away games.

You think about your mother’s words, and how you didn’t even have to ask Nico to come over tonight, or to give you skating lessons. You think about how you never have to ask Nico to do anything he does for you – which is a lot, you’re realizing – he just does it. He does it because he wants to, because he’s kind and caring and wants to spend time with you.

“Hello? Earth to Y/N, what do you want for dinner?” Nico snaps you out of your sudden revelation.

“Sorry, spaced out for a second. Must be the pain meds,” you tell him, knowing that your mind isn’t the least bit impaired right now.

“Okay, go sit down, we need to get some food in you then,” he fishes his phone out of his pocket, mumbling out “Can’t believe they pumped you full of meds on an empty stomach.”

You make your way to your couch, sitting down and taking your shoes off, making yourself as comfortable as you can.

You remove a stray piece of hair that fell onto your face, knowing how awful it must look.

When you fell on the ice, the claw clip that was holding your hair in its up-do broke, causing it to fan out over the cold, wet ice. Once you got to the hospital, you were put in and out of so many different machines, you can only imagine the tangled, matted mess it is.

You get up and go to your bathroom, finding your brush and trying to comb it out. The task proving to be difficult with only one hand. The tangles keep pulling your head back and hurting your tender scalp, but you keep trying, whimpering each time the brush gets stuck on a particularly bad tangle.

You don’t even hear Nico approach your bathroom, just a sigh and “I told you to sit down,” before the brush is taken from your hand and you see Nico’s reflection behind you in the mirror.

Without another word, he proceeds to brush your hair for you, ensuring every tangle is gone before setting the brush on your sink.

The two of you make eye contact in the mirror, neither one wanting to break the silence during the surprisingly intimate moment.

You clear your throat, looking down after the silence got too intense, causing Nico to avert his eyes as well.

“I really wish i could wash my hair, but i know that’s a no go tonight,” you chuckle, wishing your bathroom was a little bit bigger in this moment.

“I can braid your hair for you,” Nico starts, staring at you in the mirror, watching your eyes snap up to meet his. “I mean, only if you want,” he stutters out.

“Really?” you ask him, a little stunned.

“Yeah. I used to help Nina with hers all the time when I was younger,” Nico mentions his older sister, grabbing your hair lightly and starting to section it off. “Anytime she would have a sleep over I would always weasel my way into the party. So one day, she made me sit in a braiding chain and learn how to braid her hair.”

You let out a giggle, picturing a smaller version of Nico sitting at the end of a line of girls, braiding their long hair.

“Then, Nina claimed I got so good at it she always wanted me to braid her hair before her volleyball matches, then her friends all started wanting me to do theirs, too,” he continues talking, nearly lulling you to sleep with the soft movements of his hands as you listen to him speak.

“I think that’s adorable,” you quietly speak, closing your eyes.

“What can I say? When a pretty girl needs her hair braided, who am I to keep my skills to myself?” he jokes, making you wonder if he meant you or his sister’s friends.

“I’m sure it’s any little boy’s dream to have an entire volleyball team at his mercy, all those pretty volleyball players begging him to play with their hair,” you tease him, handing him the hair tie that you always keep on your wrist.

“I don’t know, I think playing with a pretty photographer’s hair is better, if you ask me,” he ties the hair tie around the bottom of the braid, reaching up to pull the braid loose, making sure it’s not too tight.

You keep your eyes closed, knowing he can likely see the redness on your cheeks at his words.

“Alright, eyes open. Need to make sure you like my work,” he places his hand on your biceps, making sure to keep his touch feather light on your bad arm.

He turns you around so you’re facing him, holding a handheld mirror that was laying on your sink in front of your face, allowing you to see the reflection of the braid.

You’re shocked to see the flawless Dutch braid that cascades down your back.

“Nico, you’re like…really good at this,” you reach your good hand to the back of your head, running it down the braid.

“Told you, I had a lot of practice,” he shrugs, setting the mirror down.

You yawn, the relaxing nature of having your hair braided allowing you to realize how tired you are from the day’s events.

“Nuh-uh, gotta keep you awake until we get some food in you,” he tuts, taking his hands and patting your cheeks.

You groan, leaning into his palms that stay resting on your face.

“C’mon, let’s get you changed and on the couch,” he motions for you to leave the bathroom.

You walk to your room, Nico helping you carefully remove your sling before leaving and giving you some privacy.

You change into your pajamas, somehow managing to get your arm into an oversized Devils shirt you found at the bottom of your drawer.

Nico is standing outside of your door when you open it, helping you back into your sling.

He stands in front of you, staring at you with a look that you can’t decipher.

“Is…everything okay?” you question him, noticing his stare after adjusting your sling.

His eyes snap up to you, seemingly unaware that he was even staring at you in the first place.

“Uh, yeah, sorry. I just- is that my shirt?” he asks you, pointing to your pj shirt.

You look down at the oversized shirt, trying to think of where you got it.

It had just showed up in your laundry basket one day, assuming it was one they gave you when you got your job, but Nico’s question makes you think harder.

You realize, suddenly, you do remember where you got it.

During one of your post lesson dinners, Nico had spilled his drink all over his shirt. You offered to wash it for him after he changed to a shirt in his duffel.

You meant to take it back to him after you washed it, but forgot about it entirely, packing it away in your pajama drawer.

“Oh, crap, it is. Do you want it back, I can go change?” you ask him, worried he’s upset that you forgot to give it back.

“No…no it’s fine. Keep it. I have plenty,” he shakes his head, glancing down at it once more.

The two of you make your way to your couch, finding something to watch on tv when there’s a knock on the door, signaling the arrival of your food.

You start to stand to go get it, but Nico sternly tells you to stay put.

Rolling your eyes you sit back down, grabbing the remote and continuing to channel surf.

Nico’s gone for longer than you expect, causing you to sit up and turn back towards your kitchen, wondering what’s taking him so long.

You see him walking over to you, a tray full of food in his hands.

He had ordered from your favorite sushi place, figuring it would be the easiest for you to eat one handed.

As he sat down the tray on the coffee table in front of you, you realized what took him so long.

Nico had put a toothpick in each piece of your sushi, knowing using chopsticks with your non dominant hand would have been hard for you. He poured soy sauce into a small container, allowing you to simply pick up each toothpick and dip it in the sauce before popping it in your mouth.

He had also ordered you a bottle of cherry coke, which he knew was your favorite, and placed it on the tray with the lid unscrewed and a straw peeking out of the bottle next to a glass of ice, just incase you wanted it that way instead.

You looked up at him, feeling that funny feeling in your chest like you did earlier in your kitchen, blown away at how he always seems to think of everything he can to help you out, even when you’re not injured.

You must’ve been looking for longer than you realized, because he cocks his head at you, confusion present on his face.

“What?” he asks, not understanding what’s wrong. “Did you not want sushi? I thought you said it was always the one thing that could cheer you up?”

You shake your head at him. “No, sushi is perfect,” you tell him, a small smile on your face as you look up at him.

He smiles back for a few moments, then started scooting the coffee table towards you so don’t have to reach to grab your food. He moves around the table to sit beside of you, the size of the small table causing him to sit so close to you that you can feel the warmness of his large thigh against yours.

You once again think about all of the things he’s done for you without you even having to ask. Now including coming over after a game—no doubt exhausted and sore—and taking care of you without even thinking twice. Braiding your hair and calling you pretty. Staring at you unintentionally wearing his t-shirt. Modifying your food so it’s easier for you to eat with one hand.

You sit there, staring at the man you fear you’re falling in love with, already planning out the apology text you’re going to have to send your mom.

[arolesbianism]

So I may or may not have spent a good chunk of my day trying to learn how to look into onis code and while I may not have yet succeeded I will likely keep fucking around with shit tomorrow and if I manage to succeed it'll spell great doom for my sanity as oni becomes the interest I've officially poured the most effort into analyzing

[strang3lov3]

Chevelle

Summary- (joel miller x virgin!reader) Joel figures out that you’re the one who hit his baby, his precious 1964 Chevrolet Chevelle. He needs you to make it right, but he doesn’t want your money ❤️‍🔥🍆 (5k words)

Tags- MDNI hot girls can’t drive, implied age gap, virgin!reader, we're calling him tender dark!joel, soft!dom joel, tender dubcon (power imbalance, joel solicits sex from reader, no explicit consent but reader is into it) reader has a luscious bush, Joel walks you through handjobs, blowjobs, fingering, oral, unprotected piv, creampie, come eating, loss of virginity. Joel is clothed and reader is not.

A/N- Writing this is how I spent my spring break. Hope you love it 🩵 Thank you @noxturnalpascal for all of your help editing and your encouragement.

Based on mine and @beefrobeefcal shared prompt where we asked, "What would happen if reader damaged Joel’s vehicle?” Her fic is here and it’s one of my favorite things I’ve read!! Kiki has such a beautiful voice in her writing and I love all the details she adds to her fics.

Pawn shop by @toxicanonymity came to mind when I wrote this story and was a source of inspiration. Also worth a read, I have nothing but love for Tox’s writing 🩷

It’s late when you get off your shift at Tony’s, the shitty Italian restaurant you’ve been working at for far too long. It doesn’t pay much and you’ve considered working a new job to save up and move out of your brother’s house, but you’ve been putting that idea off for a variety of reasons. One of them being Joel. 

Joel’s your neighbor, a sexy, older man you’ve got a certain fondness for. His hair used to be more brown but it’s grayer now, same with the scruff on his face. He’s got sparkling, chocolatey eyes and a sharp nose set above a thick, downturned mustache. He always looks a little dirty when you see him, with dirt caked into his forehead wrinkles and grease smeared along his temple or his jaw. He’s always either fresh off a contracting job or working on his car. He’s got this cute little Chevy he spends his nights and weekends with, a 1964 Chevrolet Chevelle, baby blue.

Joel was one of the first people to welcome you to the neighborhood and even helped you move your stuff into your brother’s house, though helping you implies he let you do any work. Joel offered you a pop from his fridge and then took over entirely, putting both himself and your brother to work moving all of your stuff in. You didn’t lift a finger that day. 

-

You can’t seem to pull your eyes from the little green glowing letters on your dash, watching letters and numbers on the screen roll on by. 12:37 A.M. 101.9. Paper Bag - Fiona Apple.  You’re so out of it. You yawn and blink a couple of times, focusing back on the narrow roads of your neighborhood. It’s so poorly lit over here, and it doesn’t help that one of your headlights is out. Joel’s been bugging you to let him fix that, he says it’ll only take five minutes.

You turn onto your street and bam. You’re wide awake now. You just hit something. 

You hit Joel’s car. Joel’s fucking car. What the fuck is it doing on the street? He always has it safely kept in his garage. Oh dear god, the panic is setting in. This is Joel’s baby. You just hit his baby, his pride and joy. 

You can’t even bring yourself to assess the damage you’ve inflicted upon his dear Chevy. Probably dented to shit, but you don’t really wanna know. Instead, you just pull your foot off the brake, press your remote control garage door opener, then pull into your garage as you press your lips together tightly. You’re surprised and relieved to find that there’s hardly a scratch on your own car. Joel won’t know. He won’t.

The next morning, you’re sipping on your coffee as you check your mailbox. Joel’s outside his house, loading up his work truck with some tools and supplies. He waves to you and you wave back, a small stack of mail in your hand. 

“Whose mail you got today, sweetheart?” he calls to you. 

You check the names on some of the letters. “Davidsons’ and Pierces’,” you answer through a chuckle. Joel rolls his eyes and laughs. The incompetent mailman is a running joke amongst yourself, Joel, and your other neighbors. He never seems to deliver anything to the right address, so you and your neighbors are often hand delivering each other your misplaced mail.

You laugh with Joel until you notice his smile disappear. He’s narrowing his eyes on his Chevy. Your heart drops as he steps closer to the vehicle, then pinches his nose in frustration. Fuck. Joel stomps back to his work truck, haphazardly tosses something in the bed and then slams the tailgate. Yeah, he’s fucking pissed. Your neck and your face heat in shame as you quickly run back inside.

-

In the two weeks since Joel’s car was hit, he’s been working to repair it tirelessly. He’s ordered a new tail light, since whoever hit his car shattered it and he’s spent a pretty penny ordering the exact shade of baby blue paint to touch up all of the scratches. Joel only trusts himself to touch his car, but the situation necessitates that he’ll have to take it in to a local repair shop to get the dents out. Fucking fantastic. 

When Joel gets off work tonight, he notices he’s got some packages on his doorstep, hoping it’s the shit he ordered for his car. He’ll open them shortly, but he first notices that one of the packages is addressed to you. Go figure, he thinks, chuckling to himself. He walks the package over to your house, noticing your car is parked outside of the driveway. And it’s backed in too, which is odd. Joel assumes your car must’ve been blocking your brother’s, so he probably played musical chairs with your cars to get his out and then backed yours up onto the driveway. You never back your own car in the driveway, and Joel’s pretty sure it’s because you don’t know how. You probably can’t parallel park, either. He’ll have to show you how to do that sometime.

What’s also new is a bit of baby blue paint on your red Honda Civic’s exterior, right by your headlight, the same headlight he’s been nagging you to let him fix. Joel bites the inside of his cheek. Interesting. He knocks on your door, package in hand, but he’s met with no answer. No biggie. He leaves the package on your porch and goes back to your car, inspecting the paint once more. He scoffs in astonishment and walks home. Unbelievable. 

-

The next evening, you check your mailbox after forgetting to do so earlier. As always, you never have just your own mail. This time you’ve got Joel’s. You walk it over to Joel’s house with the intention of dropping it off on his porch and going back home, not wanting to bother him as he works on his Chevy but his whistle startles you. “Hey you,” he says. “C’mere.”

“O-oh,” you stutter. “I’m just dropping off your–”

“Yeah, I know. Just c’mere a minute,” Joel says. “Got a fuckin’ bone t’pick with you.”

Your palms are beginning to sweat. He doesn’t know anything. Maybe he just wants some company while he works on his car, it wouldn’t be the first time. But still, there’s something about his tone. You step off of his porch and cut through his lawn to get to his garage. Once inside, you help yourself to a root beer from his refrigerator. Something cold and fizzy and sweet to help you calm your nerves.“Oh, sure, help yourself,” Joel mumbles. He notices your fingers slipping off the tab of the pop can and pulls it from your hands, then opens it for you. He’s wearing a stained Prince and the Revolution t-shirt and a slightly too tight pair of jeans that squeeze his ass just so. His garage is decorated with old license plates, posters, other odds and ends. 

“Thank you,” you whisper. 

Joel says nothing as he walks to his work bench. He pulls a lightbulb out of a cardboard box and waves it in your direction, he’s only a couple of feet from you. “Ordered the wrong bulb,” he tells you. 

You can only nod. You think about maybe making a joke about the mailman screwing it up somehow, but you bite your tongue. You don’t trust yourself not to stutter right now.

“M’sure you saw, my baby here’s all banged up,” Joel puts the bulb back in the box and leans against his work bench, facing you. “Happened a couple weeks ago.”

“Mm,” you hum.

“Hit and run, can you believe that?” 

“No, I can’t. That-that’s terrible.”

“I know it is. And here I thought we had a nice neighborhood…” he trails off before speaking again, “You think you know someone, huh.” 

Someone. So he has someone in mind? “Yeah, it’s terrible…what happened to your car. Can’t believe someone would uh…would do that, knowing how you, your car…yeah. Terrible.”

Joel stares at you for a minute before speaking again, taking note of how you can’t seem to hold eye contact with him. He steps closer to you.

“You wouldn’t know a thing about it, right?”

“Yes,” you answer, quickly realizing your word mishap when Joel raises his eyebrows. “No, yeah. I don’t know–yeah, nothing,” you sip your root beer before fidgeting with the pop tab and shifting your weight from one foot to the other. 

Joel notices. “Squirmin’ an awful lot over there, sweetheart. You got something you wanna tell me?” You shake your head, still playing with the tab on the pop can. Joel removes it from your hand, his fingers gracing over yours before placing it on the workbench. He’s moving closer to you now, matching your pace as you walk backward until the back of your legs hit his car. You gasp, he stands so tall and imposing in front of you. “Easy,” he warns. “You be careful with her.”

“Yeah, I know. Always,” you reply. Your voice is beginning to shake. 

Joel hums at your response. “Not always, though, sweetheart. Think you were pretty careless with my baby a couple weeks ago.” 

The familiar pressure behind your eyes is beginning to build as tears are pricking your waterline, “I don’t know what–”

“Awh, don’t do that. Don’t lie t’me.” 

 The tears spill over. You’re caught. You don’t know how Joel figured out what you did, but he did. “You’ve got a guilty conscience, dontcha?”

You nod before you can speak. “I’m so sorry,” you cry. Sobs begin to wrack your body, your tears now flowing freely. You’re so guilty. You should’ve told Joel what happened that night. It was an accident, and he might’ve been mad, but you’ve probably made it worse for yourself with your dishonesty. “I’m so sorry, Joel, it was late and I was so tired–”

Joel pulls you in a tight embrace, stroking your back with his fingertips. “Shhh, I know. I know,” he whispers in your ear,  “S’okay, sweet girl.” 

“It was so…” you try to explain, choking on your sobs and your sniffles. “So late and d-dark and I wasn’t paying attention.”

“I know. Quit your cryin’, s’gonna be fine,” Joel whispers. He pulls away from you, looking at you with those deep brown eyes of his as he wipes the tears from your face with his thumbs. Know you’ll make it up to me.”

“I will,” you agree quickly. “I’ll pick up some more shifts, Joel, and I’ll save and–”

“Oh, no. Not that. Save your money,” he tells you earnestly. “Somethin’ else,” Your eyes follow Joel when he leaves you for a moment to flip a switch on the wall of his garage. Something in the air changes then, a thick, heavy feeling between you both when he makes his way back to you. “Use your head, sweetheart. How are we gonna make it right?”

Your mouth is dry, your tongue swollen as you pick up what Joel’s putting down. “Let me give ya a hint,” Joel grunts, sucking in his gut slightly as he unbuttons his jeans. He wears no underwear, a thatch of coarse hair littering his skin is what you see when he pulls down his zipper. He grips your wrist and shoves your hand beneath the denim where you feel his package, already half hard. It’s warmer, thicker than you would expect. He feels heavy in your palm, his pubic hair wiry and scratchy against your knuckles. 

He doesn’t tilt his head in confusion at your hesitancy. “Don’t know what to do with all this, do ya?”

You shake your head no. “I’ve never…with anyone, before.”

“S’alright. I’ll walk ya through it all,” Joel says, seemingly unsurprised at the revelation. With your hand still on his cock, Joel pulls himself out of his jeans entirely. He’s harder now. “Like this,” he instructs, bringing your hand to his mouth and spitting in it. A pang of arousal fills your gut at the action. He pushes your hand lower and guides you to wrap your hand around his cock. It feels heavy, warm to the touch, sticky with his sweat and his saliva. Rock hard, but smooth like satin. You admire him, his blushed tip, the prominent veins on his shaft. 

Your breath hitches as Joel takes control, using his strong, weathered hand to guide your own to massage his cock. “You got it,” he encourages, sensing your rigidity. “Tighter,” he instructs, squeezing his hand around yours. You’re slow to gain confidence but he’s patient, doing the work himself for now. “You move your hand all the way up, all the way down my cock,” he tells you. 

You nod in understanding. Joel drops his hand but yours stays stroking his member. He sighs and tilts his head backward as you focus on the task at hand. Without the pressure of intense eye contact, you take the opportunity to admire him, the way his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, the small drops of sweat rolling down his throat. You’re shy when he smiles at you, quickly averting your attention from him and to his cock, watching the way it twitches beneath your hand, where a little bead of precum forms. Experimentally, you swipe your thumb over the tip. “That’s it,” he whispers, stroking your cheek with the back of his hand. He ruts his hips into your hips, “Doin’ just fine.”

You stroke his cock like this for a while, gaining confidence in yourself until he stops you suddenly.

 “Is that it?” 

“Is that it,” Joel mocks with a feigned pout. “No, hon. You banged up my baby pretty good. We ain’t quite square yet.”

His leaking cock bounces against his tummy as he approaches his work bench. Your heart pounds as you can’t quite see what he’s reaching for. “Know it’s new to ya,” he says.  “Just listen to me, s’all you gotta do.”

Joel returns to you with a dirty rag in his hand and lays it on the concrete ground, then reaches for your face. He pulls your bottom lip down and lets it go to watch it bounce back up. “Knees,” he whispers, gently pushing you by your shoulders to the ground. The rag he laid on the concrete for your knees is a sweet touch, all things considered. His cock is inches away from your face as he holds it between his thumb, middle, and forefingers. He presses himself to your lips, encouraging you to open your mouth. “Give it a taste,” he instructs you. “An’ you can kiss it too, if you’re feelin’ amorous.” 

You part your lips and tentatively lick the weeping slit of his thick head just once. After a moment, taking in the saltiness of his precome, you lick him a couple more times, gaining confidence quicker than you did using just your spit soaked hand on him. Bigger stripes now, using more pressure. Like Joel advised, you kiss his cock a couple times, each kiss sloppier than the last before swirling your tongue around the tip. You’re learning it all, the softness of his skin, his musky, heady taste. 

“Give me your hand,” Joel says. “Goes right here,” He wraps your hand around the base of his cock, same as before. He places one of his hands on your head, guiding you closer to him, encouraging you to take him deeper now. You do as such, sputtering and choking when you get overzealous and take him too quickly.

Joel chuckles, “Not all at once, sweetheart. Go slow. Try it again.” This time, Joel controls the pace at which you take him. He pushes himself into your mouth and senses when it becomes too much, pauses for you. He pulls his hips back, then rocks back into your mouth, building a slow, shallow pace for you to get used to. 

He’s pushing his cock deeper into your mouth. His tip teases the back of your throat as he whispers, “Little more. Be brave,” You gaze up at him, searching his eyes for some sort of approval. He nods with his brows furrowed. “Do it for me, hon.”

You allow him to fuck himself deeper in your mouth now, your eyes pricking with tears as you gag and sputter on his cock. This time, Joel doesn’t stop himself. He’s grunting, groaning, savoring the warmth of your wet, soft mouth. “So good,” he tells you before tapping your hand, reminding you to put it to use.

What you can’t reach with your mouth, you massage with your hand as you cup his balls with your other. You and Joel work in tandem, him drawing in and out of your mouth as you bob your head and flick your tongue against his shaft. Your jaw is sore with the newness of it all, and just as you’re becoming used to the thickness of his cock between your lips and on your tongue, he pauses. “M’gonna stop you now,” Joel mumbles as he pulls out of your mouth, his eyes focused on your swollen lips and how the string of saliva connected from them to his cock breaks. “S’your turn.”

“My turn?”

“Mhm. It’s etiquette, hon,” Joel says with a grunt, lifting you to your feet. He reaches between your bodies and unbuttons your pants, pushing both them and your underwear down your legs. “Always return the favor.” Joel lifts you slightly, sitting your bare ass on the hood of his car, then pulls your pants off your legs the rest of the way. “Arms up,” he tells you. He lifts your shirt off of your body, unhooks your bra and lets it fall to your lap. You’ve never been so vulnerable, so exposed in front of someone before.  Instinctively, you cover your chest with your arms and cross your legs. 

“You’re shy,” he whispers. Joel drapes your clothing over his shoulder before reaching for your arms, removing them from your chest and placing them on either side of your body. “Stay like this,” He holds your knees next, uncrossing your legs and spreading them wide for his view. 

Joel takes in your body and admires your wet cunt, how your thick curls frame it beautifully. A shiver goes down your spine as his eyes scan the rest of your body before he holds intense eye contact with you as he folds your clothes, placing them in a neat pile next to you on his car. You watch his chest rise and fall with steady breaths as he drops to his knees, situating himself between your thighs.

He presses a sloppy kiss against your inner knee, then another on your other leg. He kisses his way up your inner thigh, nipping at your flesh and soothing the marks with his tongue. He holds your legs firmly apart, knowing your instinct is to shut them when he reaches your cunt, his hot breath fanning over your center. “Wider,” he whispers, “I gotcha.”

The once cool metal of Joel’s car is now hot and slick under your sweaty, trembling palms. Your pulse beats as you look up at the garage ceiling, lacking the courage to look at Joel between your thighs. “Relax for me,” he tells you. You try. 

You gasp when he finally begins exploring you, first his thumb parting open your folds. Adding a couple more digits, he hums in satisfaction as he finds you’re already wet, your slick glistening on his fingers. He dips one of those fingers inside of you slowly, watching how you react to his touch. You twitch and fight to keep yourself still and silent as he adds a second finger, curling it rhythmically and stroking that sweet spot inside you. 

“Oh, god,” you moan as he dives into your cunt, the soft and warm, private place between your thighs, his mouth now joining where his fingers touch. His tongue is hot and wet as he drags it through your sex, circling your clit with it. “Joel, please.”

Joel’s satisfied as he hears sounds of pleasure fall from your lips, feeling your hips bucking and grinding gently against his mouth. He sucks one fold, nips at the other as he curls his fingers inside you rhythmically. With the hand that’s not teasing your pussy, he digs his fingers into the soft flesh of your thigh. “Quit squirmin’ on my car,” he warns with a firm squeeze to your thigh, hard enough to bruise you. “Ya tryin’ to scratch her again?”

His wiry stubble drags across your skin, scratching gently against the inside of your thighs. You can feel it building up quickly, that hot, sparkling feeling deep in your core as he works you, sucks your clit between his lips. 

“Please,” you cry, the only word you can form at the moment. 

“I know, hon,” he murmurs, escalating his efforts on your pussy. Sucking, licking, curling his fingers harder. He works you through your orgasm, feeling you gush against his mouth, your arousal dripping down his fingers and pooling into the palm of his hand. Your hands fly to his scalp, twitching and jerking from the sensitivity with your fingers tugging on his curls when he licks a stripe up the seam of your cunt. 

Joel pulls away from your center with a satisfied grin, lips shiny, his facial hair damp. He rises, standing above you, and sloppily kisses your lips. You’ve never tasted your own arousal before. His strong hands find your ass cheeks, pulling you closer to where he wants you.

From there, you gasp when he slides his cock through your slick folds, rubbing thick head against your sensitive clit and watches how you react to his touch. “What do you think I’m doin’ to ya next?”

“Joel,” you whimper, your hips chasing his movements, following where his cock teases your cunt. 

“Yeah, you know what I’m doin,” he purrs. “Crossin’ it all off your list tonight.”

You tense when he notches just the head of his cock in your pussy, reaching for his arm, his shoulder, any part of him you can hold. 

“Know you’re nervous,” he says softly, rubbing circles into your thighs. “But s’just me an’ you here. Wider, hon. Spread your legs for me.”

You nod quickly, following suit and spreading your legs to accommodate him. “Like this?”

“Yeah, like that. S’perfect, hon, that’s all I need from you. C’mere,” Joel adjusts his hold on you before inching his cock into you a bit more. You’re so tight, squeezing him hard and whining through the stretch as he pushes into you further, the gradual slide inside your body causing him to grunt quietly. “Relax for me,” he groans through a strained breath, parting your insides as he’s sheathed himself inside you fully now. “Bite me f’ya need to, sweetheart. It’ll be okay. You’ll get used to it.”

It aches, but the pain dulls as Joel lets you get used to the feeling, the newness of his cock inside you. He holds you close and you take advantage of his suggestion, biting softly into the flesh of his neck, tasting the saltiness of his skin as you whimper quietly. Joel groans, his eyebrows furrowing together. “Shh,” he hushes, “You’re okay, hon. You’re doin’ alright.”

Joel slowly pulls out of you and fills you up again. “That’s it, sweetheart,” he praises as you tilt your hips, opening yourself to accept more of him. You’re humming into his neck as his cock recedes and then pushes in once more. “Eyes on me now. There it is, easy. Easy.”

You do as instructed, pulling your face away from him to meet his gaze. His sparkling brown eyes stay on yours as he pulls out of you, pushing into you slowly, deliberately. You hold onto his neck, his broad shoulders, clutching the fabric of his sweat dampened shirt as he builds a steady pace now. He holds you close to his body, one of his hands traveling up your body and groping your bouncing breasts, teasing your sensitive nipples.

“You just follow my lead,” Joel says, fucking you faster now. His fingers are pressed firmly into your waist now as he rolls his hips against yours. The pain is gone now, dissipated with his continued languid thrusts into you. You feel so full, so satisfied with his thick cock inside you, massaging your insides.

He fucks you steadily but gently, maintaining a quick rhythm. You didn’t know sex could make you feel this way, so much pleasure.  You’re moaning freely, overwhelmed with emotion, tears flowing freely down your cheeks. God, you love it, and it’s nothing but pure pleasure. 

Joel’s not oblivious to your enjoyment. He’s watching you, your face contorting, he’s listening to your moans and your cries, feeling you shiver and twitch beneath his touch and how it’s all because of him, all of your pleasure at the hands of Joel and only ever Joel. He feels a sort of carnal sense of power over this, the effect his touch has on you. You’re soft, so soft and all for him, your flesh for his hands and his teeth alone to squeeze, dig into, to bite on. 

You reach for his arm and guide his hand to your center, pressing his fingers against your clit as that familiar tightness in your gut begins to build once more. “Please,” you beg. 

“Thought this was supposed to be a deal for me. Didn’t need to hit my car f’ya needed me like this,” he taunts, laughing breathlessly. But Joel obliges, of course he obliges you. He moves his calloused fingertips in circles over your clit, coaxing out your release. “Takin’ me so good, sweetheart. Look at you, m’gonna make you come again. Makin’ out like a fuckin’ bandit, aren’t you?”

Indeed you are. It’s not long before you’re coming for him. With his ministrations on your clit, his thrusts now faster, harder, deeper, you’re coming undone for him as his name pours from your lips, long and slow like honey. With your lips parted open, you’re twitching and shuddering against him as you watch his face, letting yourself go. You whimper and moan, and your release is volcanic in the way it washes over your body so fiercely. Heavy, vivid waves of pleasure washing over you the way lava rolls down the earth. Slow, fiery, intense.

Your pulsing cunt milks Joel’s own climax, his orgasm crashing through him in such a way that he loses focus on you. His eyes screwed shut, the noises he’s making louder than he intended–what starts as a grunt turns into a moan, long and libertine as he fucks you harder than he probably should as you whimper in overstimulation. His thrusts turn harder and frenzied as he milks himself with your cunt, spurting hot ropes of his come inside you. You take everything he gives you, feeling so warm and full of his spend. 

His movements then begin to ease, slowing down some more until he eventually stills inside of you. He takes the quiet moment to check on you, holding your face in his hands as he makes sure you’re okay. Your chest heaves as he wipes your tears, but you silently nod, reassuring him that you’re alright.

With a soft grunt, he pulls out of you. He watches how your combined arousal spills on the baby blue paint of his Chevelle, then uses his thumb to push a bit of his escaped come back inside you. Such a lewd action from the man. 

Joel helps you to your feet, steadying you as you stand on shaky legs. He reaches for your clothes from the hood of his car, helping you dress yourself. “Didn’t want ‘em to get dirty,” he explains. “Everything’s covered in fuckin’ dirt and grease in here.”

“Thank you,” you smile shyly. Joel opens the garage door, the once peachy and blue sky now inky black. You didn’t realize how much time had passed. You take off back to your house, but Joel grips your bicep before you can step any further. 

 “Nuh uh,” he tuts. “Ya already hit my car, hon, you don’t wanna leave your mess on the hood now too, do ya?” Joel gestures to your combined arousal on the hood of his Chevelle, swipes his pointer finger through the mess and pushes it between your lips. Your brows furrow at the taste, that salty, heady flavor you’ve never tasted before now. “Use your tongue, sweetheart.”

“You want me…”

“Lick it up,” he instructs in a quiet voice. Joel figured he might’ve let you off too easy, seeing as how you came twice–once on his tongue and once on his cock when this was all supposed to be for him. He bends you over the hood of his car, groping your ass as he leans over your shoulder to inspect your work, making sure it’s a job well done. “Good girl,” he praises, watching you lick his car clean. When you’re done, he kisses you softly.

He walks you home, dropping you off on your doorstep. You’re not quite sure what to say, whether you should apologize again, thank him, say goodnight. Joel fills the silence for you. “Gonna teach you how to drive right one of these days. Keep you out of another mess like this one, hm?” he smirks as he kisses your cheek. “Goodnight, hon.”

If you enjoyed, please reblog, leave me a comment, and/or send an ask 🩷 your words mean the world to me and your interaction keeps me motivated to write. Love you all <3

From now on I’ll be sharing cat pics at the end of my fics. Hope you don’t mind 🐈‍⬛😻

[inkskinned]

most writing advice is good as long as you know why it is good, at which point it is also bad. the hardest thing (and most precious thing) about being an artist is that you gotta learn how to take critique. i don't mean "just shut up and accept that people hate your work," i mean you need to learn what the critique is saying and then figure out if it actually helps.

i usually tell people reading my work: "i'm collecting data, so everything is useful." i ask them where they put the book down, even though it's too long for most people to read in 1 sitting. i ask them what they thought of certain characters. i let them tell me it was really good but i like it more when they look a little stunned and say i forgot i was reading your book, which means they forgot i exist, which is very good news.

sometimes people i didn't ask will read my work and tell me i don't like it. and that is okay, you don't have to like it. but i look at the thing that they don't like and try to figure out if i care. i don't like that you don't capitalize. this one is common, and i have already thought about it. i do not care, it's because of chronic pain and frankly i like the little shape of small letters. you use teeth and ribs in all your work. actually that is very true. i don't know what's up with that. next time i will work to figure out a different word, thank you. you're whiny, go outside. someone said that to me recently and it made me laugh. i am on the whine-about-it website as an internet poet. you are in my native habitat, watching me perform a natural enrichment behavior. but i like the dip of whiny, how the word itself does "whine" (up/down, the sound out your nose on the y), but i don't know if i want to feel whiny. maybe next time i will work on it being melancholy, like what you would call a male writer's poetry.

repeated "good" advice clangs in a bell and doesn't hold a real shape, dilutes in the water. like sometimes you will hear "don't use said." you turn that around in your head and it bounces off the edges of your brain like it is a dvd screensaver. it isn't bad advice, but it feels wrong somehow, like saying easy choices are illegal! sometimes i will only use "said." sometimes i will just kick dialogue tags out to the trash. sometimes i make little love poems where the fact that i do not say "said" is very bad, and makes you feel bad in your body, because someone didn't say something. i am a contrary little shitbird, i guess.

but it is also good advice, actually. it is trying to say that "said" sometimes is clutter. it makes new writers think about the very-small words and very-small choices, because actually your work matters and wordchoice matters. "i know," you said. "i know," you sighed. "i know." we both know but neither of us use a dialogue tag, because we are in a contemporary lit piece.

it is too-small to say don't use said. but it is a big command, so it gets your attention. what are you relying on? what easy choices do you make? when you edit, do you choose the same thing? can you make a different choice? sometimes we need the blankness of said, how it slides into the background. sometimes we don't.

i usually say best advice is to read, but i also mean read books you don't like, because that will make you angry enough to write your own book. i also mean read good books, which will break your heart and remind you that you are a very small person and your voice is a seashell. i also mean you need to eat books because reading a book is a writer's version of studying.

my creative writing teacher in the 7th grade had a big red list of no! words and on it was SUNSET. RAZORS. LOVE. GALAXY. DEATH. BLOOD. PAIN. I liked that razor and love were tucked next to each other like birds, and found it funny that he believed we were too young to know the weight of razor in the context of pain. i hated him and his Grateful Dead belt, where the colored teddy bears held up his appraisal of us. i hated his no list. it is very good/bad advice. i wasn't old enough yet to know that when you are writing about death you are also writing about sunsets and when you write about love you are tucking yourself into a napkin that never stops folding.

back then my poetry was all bloody, dripped with agony when you picked it up. i didn't know there is nothing beautiful about a razor, nothing exciting about pain. i just understood sharpness, which he took to mean i understood nothing. i wrote the razor down and it wasn't easy, but it was necessary. that's what i'm saying - sometimes it's good advice, because it's not always necessary. and sometimes it is very bad advice, because writing about it is lifesaving.

hang on my dog was just having a nightmare. i heard that it is a rule not to write about dogs - in my creative writing mfa, my teacher rolled her eyes and said everyone writes a dead dog. the literature streets are littered in canine bodies. i watched the rise and fall of his ribs (there is that word again) and had to reach out and stop the bad dream. when he woke up he didn't recognize me, and he was afraid.

it is good/bad advice to say that poems and writing have to mean something. it is bad/good advice to say they're big feelings in small packages. it is better advice to say that when my dog saw where he was, he relaxed immediately, rubbed his face against me. someone on instagram would make fun of that moment by writing their "internet poetry" as a sentence that tumbles across a white page: outside it is sunset and my dog is still in a gutter, bleeding a galaxy out of his left paw. or maybe it would be: i woke the dog up/the dog forgot i loved him/and i saw the shape of a senseless/and impossible pain.

the dog is alive in this one, and he is happy. when i tell you i love you, i know what i said. write what you need to write, be gentle to yourself about it. the advice is only as good as far as it helps. the rest is just fencing. take stock of the boundaries, and then break them. there's always somewhere else you could be growing.

i love you, keep going.

[incognit0slut]

The breaking point

Part 2 of Beyond the Limit (can also be read as a standalone)

Spencer realizes that being dominant doesn’t always require him to be rough, especially when he has complete control over your body.

warnings: (18+, MDNI) soft dom spence because there’s a lot of praising in this one, reader in lingerie, orgasm control or edging, overstimulation, reader gets cockdrunk (idk how to explain it better), a little cockwarming at the end

Words: 4,3k

a/n: this has been in my drafts for a while and i finally finished it, i don’t usually do a part two for my oneshots but…i’m actually tempted to do more

You were a tease—a goddamn tease. Spencer knew he needed to work on his self-control, but it was hard to keep his composure when you had the ability to stir desire within him. It was perplexing, given that there was a time when thoughts of anything remotely sexual never even crossed his mind.

For the majority of his life, intimacy had been a foreign concept. While he occasionally felt a pang of jealousy witnessing everyone around him find love, he managed just fine without it.  He suspected it was partly a defense mechanism, channeling his focus toward other aspects of his life—such as his mother's health, for example—to avoid dwelling on what he lacked.

But then all his beliefs shattered when you came crashing into his life. Suddenly, everything he thought he knew about himself was thrown away. Your presence sparked a fire within him that he never knew existed and he found himself craving the intimacy he had once dismissed as unnecessary.

He wasn't even aware of how touch-starved he was until he met you, and now it was hard to maintain that last thread of self-control he possessed. It wasn't that he didn't want to give in, but rather, he feared the intensity of his own desires, afraid that he might enjoy it more than he anticipated.

Because did he have to be rough with you for him to be satisfied, now that he had once known how it felt like? But how could he indulge in such temptation when you looked so utterly beautiful right now, so delicate, so precious in his eyes?

How could he even fathom ruining your perfection with roughness?

"Spence?" You nervously asked, suddenly feeling self-conscious. Your confidence was starting to dissipate as his eyes slowly traveled down your body, taking in the lingerie you chose to surprise him. Although this was not the reaction you were hoping for. "Do you not... like it?"

Spencer's gaze lingered on you, his expression was unreadable for a moment before a warm smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

"No, no, it's not that," he reassured you, putting down the book he had been reading on the bedside table before you walked into your shared bedroom. He reached his hand out, motioning you to come closer. "It's just... you caught me off guard, that's all."

You approached him cautiously and as you stepped closer, you noticed the tension in his shoulders easing, replaced by a soft warmth in his eyes. His hand found its place on your waist, drawing you closer and you instinctively fell on his lap, your knees dipping onto the bed on each side of his thighs.

Feeling his arousal right between your legs, you couldn't suppress the soft gasp that escaped your lips. "So you do like it," you murmured, a hint of satisfaction lacing your words.

"Like it? Sweetheart, that's an understatement," he replied. His calloused palms traveled along your sides as he took in the way the lace material hugged your curves.

The lilac-colored lingerie set on your body accentuated your figure perfectly. Both pieces were see-through, granting him a glimpse of your chest and lower region. The delicate edges of the top were adorned with more of the soft fabric, cascading over your stomach and back in a gentle, stunningly pretty way.

"You're so beautiful," Spencer whispered as he traced the intricate patterns of the fabric with his fingertips. "Absolutely breathtaking."

His touch sent shivers down your spine. You leaned into him, relishing the warmth and tenderness of his touch as one of his hands moved up your arm before resting behind your neck, pulling you closer to him.

His lips touched yours gently, sending a thrill coursing through your body. He nipped at your bottom lip, his touch both teasing and tender and as he sucked on it softly, a low moan escaped you. He then deepened the kiss, his tongue gently pushing into your mouth, and you kissed him back eagerly, your lips moving in perfect sync with his.

When he finally pulled away, you were left breathless, but he didn't stop giving you attention. His mouth made its way down to your neck, his lips trailing soft kisses along your skin and you couldn't help but arch your back, offering yourself to him completely. He then sucked on the spot below your ear, his lips creating a deliciously pleasurable sensation that made you moan softly in response.

You could feel his smile against your skin as he continued to travel further down, his lips leaving a trail of heat along your neck and collarbone. At the same time, his fingers pulled down the strap of your lingerie top, the material gracefully falling down your body, revealing more of your skin.

"Beautiful," he whispered as if it was the first time he laid his eyes on you, even if the two of you lost count long ago. His name slipped from your lips the moment his wide palms were pressed to your breasts, kneading the soft flesh and your nipples hardened beneath his touch.

Your mouth hung open in a silent gasp, and your breathing quickened in response when his thumb traced over your sensitive peak, sending electric sparks of pleasure coursing through your body. Spencer watched the way your eyes widened with desire, his own filled with a hunger that mirrored yours. And when he leaned closer, wrapping his soft lips around it, you were instantly gone.

The sensation sent waves of pleasure coursing through you, eliciting the most sinful sound you weren't even aware of making. It was like music to his ears, fueling his desire to please you even more. He continued to suck on your skin, giving the same attention to each breasts, his movements growing more fervent with each passing moment.

When he felt your hips bucking against his, he let out a low, guttural groan of pleasure. He softly drew back your nipple, your supple skin following his pull before he released it with a soft pop. Your skin glistened from his saliva, and honestly, Spencer had never seen such a splendid sight before.

The way you were grinding against him over his cotton pants frantically sent a surge of desire coursing through his veins. He could feel the thin fabric of your sheer panties pressing between your cunt, and with each movement, he could see glimpses of soft, bare skin glistening under the light, driving him wild with longing.

A primal need surged within him, a need to devour you, to lose control and indulge in the raw intensity. He craved to run his rough hands along your body, to explore every inch of your skin and claim you as his own. But he couldn't—not when you were the one in control as you sought pleasure in the way your hips moved against his.

So instead, his hands found purchase on your hips, guiding you to move faster. "That's it, sweetheart," he encouraged, his voice thick with desire. "Keep going."

You obeyed, pressing your aching heat against his cock, rolling your hips rapidly as a whimper of his name escaped you. You felt yourself growing hot and needy, your arousal dripping through your panties to coat his flesh beneath you, soaking through fabrics.

"Look at how wet you are," he mused, his voice laced with desire as he observed your flushed state and the evidence of your arousal staining the fabric between you. "Does this feel good?"

Your only response was another desperate moan, your body consumed by the overwhelming pleasure of being with him. What started lazy and slow soon turned into sporadic thrusts as you tried to cling to any friction. Your breath came in short, shallow gasps, and your body quivered with a delicious ache. It was too much, but at the same time, it wasn't enough.

"I need to feel you," you breathed out quickly, and before he could register what was happening, your fingers were pulling down his pants frantically. Sensing your desperation, he was quick to push the fabric down as his cock sprung free.

You bit down on your bottom lip as you lift your hips above him, taking him by the base with one of your hands while the other pushed the material of your panties to the side. He groaned when you pressed the tip of his cock to your dripping entrance.

"Are you sure?" he asked, his concern evident in his voice. Spencer always made sure you were fully ready, either with his fingers or mouth—or even with your own fingers. But you were already wet enough, and you couldn't wait any longer to feel him inside you.

You nodded eagerly, the need for him overpowering any hesitation. "Please," you begged, your voice pleading and desperate. "I need you now."

Both of you watched in awe as his girth stretched your clenched walls, the sensation of being filled to the brim overwhelming your senses. It wasn't the first time this happened, but it felt like a new sensation each time, and you found yourself instinctively clenching around him, eager to feel him even deeper inside you.

"Fuck," you whimpered, allowing yourself a moment to adjust to his size. His grip on your hips tightened, his fingers digging into your flesh as you squeezed yourself around him. With a slow, deliberate motion, you lifted your hips, feeling him ease out of you, only to lower yourself onto him again.

The sensation of him sliding back inside you made you gasp, a rush of pleasure washing over you as you took him deeper. His groan reverberated through your body, sending waves of ecstasy coursing through you. As his head fell back against the headboard, you couldn't help but whimper, the words tumbling from your lips without much thought.

"You fill me up so good," you confessed, your voice laced with desire as you rolled your hips against him. Your hands slipped under his shirt, feeling his soft stomach clench underneath your fingertips with every upstroke of your hips. "Take this off, baby."

With a low growl of approval, Spencer complied, swiftly removing his shirt and tossing it aside. Without hesitation, your hands trailed over his chest, reveling in the sensation of his smooth skin beneath your fingertips, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your touch.

He watched you intently, captivated by the raw display of pleasure that painted your features. The way your face twisted in ecstasy, the way your mouth hung open in silent gasps, the way your breasts bounced with every movement—all of it drove him to the edge of his self-control.

As you quickened your pace, he felt his restraint slipping away, the urge to claim you completely becoming increasingly difficult to resist. Each time you clenched around him, it became harder for him to hold back. And as always, you could tell. You could feel the tension in his grip on your hips, the way his fingers dug into your flesh with a possessive urgency.

You slowed your hips, bringing your hand to his cheek, forcing him to look at you. "You're doing it again."

His gaze met yours, filled with a mixture of desire and frustration. He knew exactly what you were referring to. "I... I can't help it. You drive me crazy."

"I know that," you responded, stilling for a moment as you kept him buried deep inside you. "I just need you to do something about it."

He slowly shook his head. "I don't want to hurt you."

"You won't," you assured him, your voice filled with confidence as you leaned closer, bumping your nose against him seductively. "Come on, I know how much you want to be in control."

When he didn't respond, you pushed him even further, your lips tantalizingly close to his as you whispered your seductive taunt.

"I know you want more," you teased. "Don't you want to take control? Lie me on my back and fuck me until I can't think anymore? Until I beg you to stop while you use my body over and over again?"

"Don't tempt me," he choked out, his voice thick with longing and restraint.

But you weren't finished yet. "Yeah?" you challenged, your tone daring as you buried your hand in his disheveled, sweaty hair. "Then I dare you to."

You tugged on his roots.

"Fuck me, Spencer." You nipped on his bottom lip. "Fuck me real good."

His breath caught in his throat at your bold words, his heart pounding rapidly. With a shaky exhale, he met your gaze, the intensity in his eyes burning brighter than ever before.

And then, in a sudden surge of boldness, he surprised you, flipping you onto your back as you let out an amused squeal. But your laughter was quickly drowned out by the heat of his lips crashing down on yours.

He kissed you feverishly, with a messy and desperate hunger that left you breathless. He clung onto you as if you were the very air he needed to survive. He was devouring you as if you were the most delicious meal he had ever encountered, and he savored every moment, every sensation, swallowing your desperate moans.

And then he pulled out and you whimpered at the loss but any hint of disappointment vanished as you watched him shed his last piece of clothing. Then with deliberate slowness, he reached for your panties, his eyes locked on yours as he dragged them up your leg, savoring the sight of the damp fabric clinging to your skin.

When he finally discarded it on the floor, he wasted no time in grabbing one of your legs. With deliberate tenderness, he began trailing soft kisses along the inner part of your thigh, each gentle press of his lips sending waves of pleasure radiating through your body. Your breath quickened as you watched him, your heart pounding in your chest.

"I'm not going to be rough," he whispered, his voice low and husky, his eyes never leaving yours as he planted soft kisses right at the edge of your drenching heat, teasingly close to where you craved him most. He then crawled over your body, settling himself between your legs, his gaze locked on yours.

"But I am going to use you," he murmured, his words sending a thrill of excitement coursing through you. "You'll let me do that, won't you?"

As he hovered above you, his weight supported by his arms, you watched a strand of his outgrown hair fall over his eyes. With a gentle touch, you reached out and tucked it behind his ear, a soft smile playing on your lips as you nodded in response.

"Say it," he urged. "Tell me you're mine to use."

You met his gaze, your own eyes dark with longing and anticipation. "I'm yours," you whispered, and when you felt his tip pressing into your entrance once again, you gasped. "I-I’m yours to use."

In one swift motion, he filled you again with a hard thrust that had you arching your back, a strangled moan escaping your lips as pleasure surged through you. "S-Spence..."

"Good girl," he praised, his words sending shivers down your spine as he kissed your cheek. His hips began to roll into you, setting a rhythm that drove you wild. "My good, pretty girl."

You whined in response, the sound music to his ears as he continued to thrust into you at a steady rhythm. He relished the way you responded to him, the way you surrendered to the pleasure he was giving you. He wanted to use the way you were satisfied, to use the way you wanted him, to take you to the brink of ecstasy.

He wanted to use you in every way possible, to make you his in every sense of the word.

Spencer never considered himself a possessive person, but when it came to you, he wanted to be the one you surrendered to completely. And in this moment, he had never felt more in control. It was intoxicating, the power he held over you, the way you willingly gave yourself to him.

That was why when he felt you clenching around him, knowing you were so close to your peak, he stopped. He wanted to draw out this moment, to savor every sensation, every sound you made, every breath that escaped your lips. He wanted to draw out your pleasure until you were begging for release, until you were completely and utterly his.

"Why—" you gasped. "Why did you stop?"

He smiled down at you. "Because I want to make you feel good, Angel," he whispered, brushing a strand of hair away from your face. "And I want to take my time doing it."

Your head fell back, and you couldn't help but bite your lip to suppress a moan. His use of the term Angel always had a way of melting your resolve, and you knew he was fully aware of the effect it had on you.

"Be patient," he chided before burying his head in the crook of your neck, nipping at your skin gently. Then, he resumed moving his hips, each thrust sending waves of pleasure coursing through you. It felt incredible, but you couldn't shake the desire for him to fuck you harder.

"More," you cried out, feeling as if you were in a deep haze.

"Yeah? Spread your legs wider then."

You whimpered at his simple command, your shuddering legs gradually spreading a few inches wider. It was becoming harder to breathe from the way he was pushing you into the mattress, but you welcomed the pleasure, craving more of him.

Your hands clawed at his back, leaving crescent-shaped marks from your nails as you desperately sought something to hold onto. The intense pleasure coiled tightly in your gut, making you feel as if you were gasping for air while your head swam with overwhelming sensations.

Your moans became more fragmented with every stroke of his hips, your thoughts clouded by the pulsating ache between your legs. All you could focus on was the overwhelming sensation building within you, traveling along your body. You were so close—and then it stopped.

It simply stopped right at the edge, and you couldn't feel anything but a raw need. It was incredibly frustrating as you caught him smiling down at you. You whined and bucked your hips, chasing the tight warmth you had so suddenly been denied.

Your breath came out in short, ragged gasps. "You're evil," you managed to say, your voice trembling with need. "I-I was so close..."

"Too soon," he murmured against your lips, his breath hot against your skin as he pressed his lips to yours. "Just imagine how good it'll be once I finally let you come."

Spencer then slowly pulled away, his eyes tracing every detail of your trembling form—the way your mouth was slackened open, the way your hair sprawled across the sheets, the way your eyes fluttered closed yet struggled to remain open. He noticed them glistening with unshed tears, on the verge of falling, and a pang of guilt tugged at his heart.

He knew he was pushing you to your limits, but he couldn't help himself. He was simply using you, just like you asked him to. But seeing the tears welling in your eyes, a wave of tenderness washed over him, and he leaned down to kiss them away, whispering soft words of comfort.

"Shhh, it's okay," he murmured. Although his words were spoken softly, there was nothing gentle about the way he continued to fuck you. "You can take it. Hold on a little bit longer, I promise."

A choked sob escaped you as he pressed soft kisses to your cheeks, murmuring soothing words. One of his hands reached between you, settling on the lower part of your stomach before pressing down gently as he felt the outline of cock moving inside you. He let out a groan, overwhelmed by the sensation.

"That’s it, Angel," he murmured, his voice filled with admiration. "You're taking me so well."

You whimpered almost pathetically as everything started to blur. You were a sweaty mess, both of you were, his skin gliding along yours effortlessly as he continued to thrust into you. The sound of wet skin slapping against each other filled the room, so sticky, so messy, but you didn't care. All that mattered was the overwhelming pleasure coursing through your body, driving you closer and closer to the edge.

The throbbing between your legs was starting to burn, but at the same time, it felt so good—the way he was stretching you, the way you could feel him moving in and out of you. Every stroke sent waves of pleasure crashing over you, it was all too much but also not enough.

"S-Spence..." you whined, your head spinning with pleasure, almost too delirious as drool seeped down the corner of your lips. "Pl-Please, I-I can't—"

A soft chuckle escaped him as he watched you struggle to form coherent words. "Alright, alright, I got you," he murmured reassuringly. "On three now. Can you be a good girl and come at the count of three?"

You nodded weakly. "Yes, yes," you managed to whisper, your voice barely audible over the sound of your ragged breaths.

"That's my girl," he praised, his voice filled with satisfaction. "One..."

Your breath hitched as anticipation built within you. Obscene wet noises filled your ears as he continued to fuck you, and with each number, his thrusts grew more deliberate, more intense.

"Two..."

You whined and he swallowed your moans, capturing your mouth in a deep, passionate kiss. You couldn't form any coherent words. You couldn't even think. It was too fucking much and you were on the verge of your breaking point.

And then, on the final count, he drove into you with such force that it sent you hurtling over the edge, your body convulsing as waves of pleasure crashed over you.

"Three," he whispered as he pulled back slightly, a string of saliva connected your parted mouths.

You gasped, holding onto him tightly as waves of pleasure consumed you. Your senses overwhelmed, your vision blurred with white-hot intensity, and tears leaked from the corners of your eyes as you teetered on the edge of overstimulation.

T-Too much—You can't. You fucking can't.

The sensation never seemed to end and you found yourself surrendering to it,  your mind going blank. It was as if you were intoxicated by the heady sensation, your senses dulled and heightened all at once, drunk on his touch. Your body felt so wet, so sensitive, so overwhelmed by the sheer force of your climax. 

And when you thought it couldn't get any more intense, he proved you wrong by rutting his hips even harder with so much force as he chased his own high. He tucked his head in your neck, his hot breath fanning across your skin as he moaned into your ear. With a few final thrusts, he drove into you deeply, his body tensing as he released himself inside you.

You were tired, so overwhelmingly spent, and as you both came down from the high, you gasped and trembled, your body finally relaxing from the pent-up tension. Your eyes felt glassy and unfocused, blinking slowly as you registered his murmured praises against your neck and shoulder.

He gently pulled away, and you winced as you felt him still throbbing inside you. Slowly, he searched for your eyes, his gaze filled with tenderness, and sighed in relief when you looked up at him with a tired yet blissful smile on your lips.

He smiled softly, relieved by your response. "You're okay."

You nodded, still feeling a bit dazed. "Hmm," you murmured, running your fingers along his damp hair. "I'm more than okay."

He leaned in to press a gentle kiss to your forehead. "You did so well," he whispered, his voice barely above a breath. "I'm so proud of you."

You giggled. "Me? I never thought you could be tempted to do that so easily."

He chuckled softly, brushing his nose against yours. "You have that effect on me," he confessed. "Besides, it's hard to resist you."

"I am pretty irresistible, aren't I?"

"Absolutely," he replied as he brushed a stray strand of hair away from your face. He shifted his weight and started to pull out, only for you to wrap your legs around his waist, locking him in place.

"No, no," you pleaded. "Stay inside me for a while."

He paused, looking down at you with a smile. "We need to clean up."

"And we will." You ran a hand over his shoulder. "Just... give me five minutes."

He sighed, his resolve melting under your pleading gaze. "Alright, five minutes," he agreed, leaning down to press a gentle kiss to your lips. "But then we really need to clean up."

You responded with a soft hum, snuggling closer to him as he shifted toward the empty space on the bed. With a gentle gesture, he pulled you on top of him, enveloping you in his arms as you sprawled across his body. 

You let out a sigh, tucking your face into the crook of his neck with the rhythm of his heart beating against your own. And as you savored the sensation of him still pulsing inside you, you smiled peacefully—you have never felt so complete.

I'm tempted to turn this into a series of one-shots where he and Reader explore new kinks together... or like how they try to navigate their relationship. I'm really, really tempted.

[luvvixu]

mind over matter pt. 2

synopsis: witness how your marriage was bound to fall apart with you on the front seat and your husband gojo had missed the show—now, he gotta figure out the story on his own.

content: arrange marriage au, angst, husband!gojo, mean!gojo, mention of blood, strong languages, some unsettling scenarios, emotional trauma, read at your own risk

a/n: couldn't still believe that this ff blew up like tysm for all of your support! and thank you so much for waiting~ and like always, this is not proofread lol

previous / masterlist / next

“if i'm not mistaken, the mission would take at least three to four business days.” yaga passes satoru a sheet of paper where it contains all of the information he needed to know and what kind of things he should focus on investigating.

satoru looked at his former teacher in uncertainty despite the blindfold in his eyes. he's very hesitant to take the mission not because he cannot beat this curse, but because he still needs to apologize to you as soon as possible.

“yaga, c—can i not…” satoru was about to continue when he suddenly trailed off.

“not what?” yaga raises his eyebrow.

but to think that it's all his fault, he must have really hurted you this time, and you wouldn't probably hear him out that easily. that is why satoru thinks that it is best to just give you some space as of now, and when he comes back from his mission, that is the time when he would bother you with his presence.

“it's nothing. i’ll be taking my leave now.”

“very well—” before yaga could even finish his sentence, satoru already vanished in thin air.

the duo, yuuji and megumi, was on their way to visit you just like what they had promised to themselves a while ago.

it was around eight o'clock in the evening and here they are, kind of tiptoeing through the hallway where your room is located.

“i think it's better to let her know our presence first.” megumi said quietly to the pink haired male while holding out a basket with foods that are suitable for digestion of a pregnant lady.

“then it wouldn't be a surprise if we told her.” yuuji then answered. he was carrying two board games on his left arm and a uno card on his right hand. you actually once told them that you were exceptionally good at these kinds of games, so yuuji wanted to test that out.

suddenly, the two boys stopped in front of a door where they immediately froze at the smell of something oddly familiar. “me…megumi, is this y/n sensei’s room?” yuuji slowly mumbles out a word, his eyes going wide.

however, megumi didn't answer him. instead, he immediately tries to open the door without any hesitation just to know that it is locked.

panic slashed across their faces as the smell of blood coming out of your room becomes the leading factor of their franticness behavior.

“y/n sensei! are you there?!” yuuji keeps on calling out to you while megumi does the door breaking.

“it's locked! i can’t break the door!” curse these doors in jujutsu high. megumi could not help but to mumble profanities when he remembered that the doors in jujutsu high are purposely made this strong so any invading curses could not sneak in especially during sleeping hours where most of the sorcerers are vulnerable.

“itadori! call yaga sensei and shoko-san, quick!” megumi screamed at the other boy, whom he instantly obliged.

a weave of panic surge on their bodies because you are involved in this situation. not to mention, you are pregnant on top of that and that puts the situation into a more nerve-wracking experience.

sweat drips on megumi’s forehead as he still tries to break the door. kicks and punches were made but still the door wouldn't flinch his attacks. the idea of using his curse technique came into his mind but he's afraid that it would worsen the situation.

sooner and faster, yuuji came back with the two elders running faster than before. both also have a panic flash on their faces as yaga begins to break the door with his insane force. and after countless tries, he successfully invades the door.

everybody froze at the sight, because there they saw you, lying unconsciously in a pool of your blood that trickled down on your lower body.

“shit! what happened?!” shoko was the first to react and immediately came closer to you to check your pulse, it was there but weak. then shoko proceeds to check your baby's heartbeat, and to her disappointment, there was none that she could detect.

“yaga sensei, please help me get y/n to my clinic. now!” without a further do, yaga carefully lifted up your body and then proceeded to follow the frantic shoko to her said clinic.

on the other hand, yuuji and megumi watch the two elders quickly move away from the scene and that leaves the two. they had been quiet all the time, probably still traumatized because they just saw one of their teachers (plus with an unborn child) on the literal verge of dying.

megumi's eyes trailed on the pool of blood that had been sitting on your floor. he could tell that you had been unconscious for like way past an hour now due to some parts of the blood being fresh while some parts were dried.

“what the hell just happened…?” yuuji was still flabbergasted. he would never expect that this would happen when he just visualizes this night as a fun one because he got everything ready for a surprise mini party to cheer you up.

“i don't know.” megumi solemnly answered.

“...do you think y/n sensei and her baby would be alright?” yuuji added, totally worried about your situation.

for the first time in his life, megumi didn't think he that would utter the same word but with a different tone, different meaning, and in a different situation.

“i…i don't know.”

satoru gojo was busy walking through the busy street of roppongi despite the sky being nighttime. the whole atmosphere was still so lively from bright signage up to crowded night market stalls. this makes a perfect night for a perfect leisure.

but satoru isn't here to do that. he was supposed to do a job and finish it as soon as possible so he could get back to you and finally do the right thing.

he was about to enter an abandoned building when he received a phone call. without looking at the caller, he answered.

“what?”

“where are you?” it was his corporate friend, nanami.

a teasing smile made it into his demeanor. “oh wow! here is my underclassmen calling me first—!”

“i am asking you, where are you?” nanami was clearly not in the mood for his bullshit. his tone was beyond serious and it made satoru wonder if something happened.

“i'm in roppongi. somewhere behind a luxurious night bar.” gojo said.

the moment he said his address, the phone suddenly dropped. confused, the six eyes looked at his phone then just shrugged it off. for the second time, he was about to enter the said building when someone appeared from behind.

“you should go back.” there he saw nanami, breathless as he tried to catch his breath. looks like he ran his way towards his location.

“yo, my man! what are you doing he—”

“go back to the jujutsu high. i’ll be taking your mission here.” nanami explained like he was .

did something happen? was on satoru's mind.

“why?” satoru dropped all of his mischievousness as it was replaced by his unhidden worry—you were literally there at the jujutsu high.

there was a pause on nanami, he seemed very hesitant to say it and satoru was growing impatient.

“just say it nanami—”

“yaga asked me to take your mission on your behalf after something happened. it's about your wife. she was found unconscious in her room.”

never ever in his life he could feel the quickest adrenaline rush in his body as nanami didn't even manage to utter the last syllables of his sentence when satoru already uses his technique and teleports himself towards your room back in jujutsu high.

and there, he was welcomed by the janitors of the said school, mopping the dried liquid on the floor. the smell was so familiar that it made his body tremble in a span of a second.

“w-what the fuck happened here?” he asked the janitor who looked at him in pity as he continued to solemnly wipe the floor.

“miss y/n was found unconscious and there was blood…in her lower area.”

blood, y/n, unconscious, my wife, danger, the baby…my baby!

that was the only thing that came into his mind as he went out of the hallway and ran somewhere he wasn't aware of. his mind raced with negative thoughts.

and since his life is not always about sugarcoating—he thought that probably you just had a miscarriage, got attacked by some curses, or worse, you're dead. his wife, you, were hurt when he was away and not even there to at least protect you.

unbeknownst, to the man, tears were threatening to slip down his six eyes, making his blindfold become wet as it was being absorbed by his tears constantly. satoru could feel that his body was filled with self-loathing, guilt, and regret all over his system.

“satoru.” a voice called him from behind. satoru does not need to turn around to know who it was. it was yaga.

“come to my office.” without waiting for him, yaga already left with satoru trailing behind him. taking off his blindfold, satoru wiped the tears that were about to fall.

when they arrived at yaga’s office, he saw his two students, yuuji and megumi, sitting quietly by the couch. they were both acting quietly odd, like they knew what was going on too.

“where's y/n?” satoru asked.

“do you want to know what happened first?” yaga avoided his question for now. instead, he goes into the other aspect that he's been wondering too. satoru fell quiet, so yaga took it as a yes.

the principal looked at the two students who were already looking at him. sighing deeply, yaga then proceeds to start explaining.

“y/n was found unconscious by these two. it has been over an hour since she's been in that situation judging by the dryness of her blood. right now, we still had no idea about her state since shoko's the one who's been handling the situation. and it's been a while too since we have seen her.”

“and the baby…i'm sorry, gojo. but we have no idea either.” yaga sighed heavily. satoru was all silent, he couldn't bring himself to utter any word. he was too caught up about the situation that he had so many things to say to the point that he couldn't figure out where to start.

“i know it's not my business to interfere but…did something happen that leads to this?” the principal asked the strongest. the next moment was something that everyone expected—they did not receive any response from the man.

suddenly, the door burst open, revealing the tired doctor. her eyes landed on your husband who's still frozen about your condition. on the other hand, satoru was too busy drowning himself with his thoughts to notice shoko in the room.

“itadori, megumi…go back to your dorm for now. it's getting late and i’ll just update you two tomorrow.” shoko scurry the two younger boys and they obliged.

as the door in yaga's office closed, the three grown-ups fell into a silent atmosphere, only the sound of the air ventilation could be heard inside.

“h-how’s y/n and the child?” yaga was the first one to speak among the three. but shoko's attention was drawn to gojo only and gojo was still unable to move.

“her situation was so severe that we needed to put her into a hospital as soon as possible.” shoko said quietly and directed to gojo only. her eyes were trailed to him, and only him. she wants him to taste the bitter medicine of his aftermath and she is going to make sure he's taking it.

call her brutal and cruel, but in your realm of marriage where her role is only being a worried close friend, she would choose you over everything. that's how much she cares for you. shoko could see what kind of person you are, and she believes that you deserve better than what you are right now.

sure, gojo was right when he said that she'd only known you for a short period of time. but that is enough for her to determine that she is going to stick by your side whatever may happen. because she knows how a gojo satoru works, she knows what kind of person he could be.

if gojo can manage to leave shoko out in his life, then he could do it to y/n too.

“she was bleeding too much, i'm afraid it has to do with the child. so if we don't act fast, we might have to choose who to save—are we going to save y/n and lose the baby? are we going to save the baby and lose y/n? or…what if we lose them both—”

*boogsh!*

a sudden explosion was seen. the four walls inside yaga’s office have officially become three when satoru couldn't handle his emotions that he let his cursed energy slip and create a hole into one of yaga’s walls. the impact was so strong that it literally shook the whole jujutsu high.

and surprisingly, none of the three inside the scene was scratched, just emotionally taken aback. the once gojo satoru who couldn't even utter a word earlier, was now looking at shoko with a mixture of menace, trouble, anger, grief, and…extreme sadness.

shoko ties his stare, looking equivalently. “did you hear what i said, gojo? your wife and your baby are currently facing the grim reaper. do you understand that?” she said calmly but there is a hit or hardness into her tone.

“shut up! fucking shut up!” another surge of curse energy flows in different directions, making yaga and shoko feel goosebumps on how strong it is.

“satoru!” yaga yelled in panic.

“where is she? where the fuck is she?! show me where she is!” satoru screamed at the doctor. shoko, whose face is now back to emotionless, decides to subside her annoyance to the man as she knows you are the top priority right now.

“i will let you see her. but once you see her, you have to teleport us into the hospital immediately if you still want to see her open her eyes.” shoko said seriously. thankfully, satoru managed to calm himself alone and just stared at shoko, waiting for her to continue.

“y/n was experiencing placenta abruption. it's a very serious complication in her case because the placenta in the inner wall of her uterus is completely detached. it greatly affects the baby’s supply of oxygen and nutrients and the situation causes her to bleed heavily.”

“i immediately minimize the bleeding but i cannot guarantee the two's safety, especially the baby, since it is not worth the risk to imply cursed energy to an unborn child—” before shoko could even finished explaining, satoru already stormed out of the room and just proceeds to the room where his guts tell you where. he was being followed by shoko who was screaming at him.

opening one of the doors, there he saw you all pale. he could feel your cursed energy barely beating, and that scared the shit out of him because that indicates your weakness.

“o-oh god…” satoru couldn't help but to feel his breathing pattern becoming irregular as a single tear followed by another drop from his gorgeous powerful blue eyes.

this can't be happening. you were just fine a while ago!

“y/n, oh my g-god! my wife…” gojo satoru, known by his title as the strongest sorcerer in his generation, was seen crying over his dying wife and dying unborn child. his tall figure was trembling in tangled emotions that he couldn't even determine the two ends.

“sorry to ruin your moment, but if you want to save your family, it's better for us to keep moving now.” shoko followed the suit, still savage as ever.

gojo does what she said and teleports the three of you into the bestest hospital that he knows. ignoring the toll on his cursed energy as it took more, more than the usual usage, satoru believes that your well-being should be his priority rather than his.

when they arrived, shoko immediately started to bump the people out of the way and started to call for help. “someone! get us to an emergency!” she screamed.

meanwhile, satoru keeps your body close to him. hugging your frame ever so delicately, scared that you might break or disappear.

a man like satoru gojo, whom to some called him a man-god, find himself crying out to every gods and deities out there to help you, to help him get this through. he prays and prays to keep you safe and how he's sorry for all of the things he would do.

for sure, he knew this sudden care for you is not born out of pity or regret, it is a late realization on how much he couldn't bear to see you like this. because deep inside him, satoru couldn't deny the warm feeling of having someone that was waiting for him to come home, provide him service, and even give him a bundle of joy.

the words he swore to himself that he doesn't need a wife to console his woes as he is completely capable of being by himself was getting eaten by his current self. served on a silver platter, satoru didn't mind eating his own words.

a stretcher was bought on sight and shoko instructed him to put your body there and watch the series of doctors rush your body into the emergency room. satoru watches the light above the door where you were in turns red, signaling that it requires immediate medical attention.

placing his traumatized body on one of the cold walls of the hospital, sliding his man shoulders and crumbling himself into small pieces to make himself as small as possible. never he would have thought that the night would end with him continuing to pray for your safety.

satoru didn't realize that he dozed off within the walls of a random corner of a hospital where he brought you in. he only realized his current situation when he could feel someone kicking his lower body constantly.

opening his tired eyes, he saw shoko eyeing him while still continuing to nudge him. “good, you're awake.” she said.

it feels like a surge of energy flows to his body and it immediately makes him rise up faster than he could. that was also when he started to feel all of the aches in his body just from sleeping in that kind of position.

“fuck, my whole body aches.” he mumbles to himself. satoru was about to stretch himself when he saw the time on the wall.

5:05 AM

and then his eyes landed on the door.

there was no red light anymore.

“y/n. shoko, where's y/n?!” anxiousness washed all over his body. he didn't know what to expect on what answers he's about to receive regarding his family condition.

meanwhile, shoko thinks that gojo looked like a lost puppy on how his eyes literally beg for a positive answer. despite his six foot frame, he looks like a poor and desperate child.

“the operation ended an hour ago. y/n was now stable and goy transferred into one of the private rooms. while the baby…” she pauses.

“w-what? what happened to my baby?” shoko almost grimaces the way satoru addresses the unborn child, wondering where the hell did he get the guts to say that.

the doctor was this close to brutally and savagely roast this man until he flew in shame—that’s how mad, angry, and upset shoko from what satoru did to you. but today is not the suitable day for that, she may be cruel but she had limits. so, shoko forcefully swallowed the harsh words and decided to just put it aside.

“the baby was delivered early through cesarean, it's the only way to save y/n and the child. the baby is currently in a neonatal intensive care unit where the bestest doctors monitor the child until it reaches mature development.”

so basically, you give birth to his child. satoru couldn't explain what he's feeling right now. he's happy for the baby, and yet at the same time, he feels really undeserving, but he still wants to be part of the child's life—this is too complicated for him.

and besides, this is not the right time to contemplate. because as a husband and father, he needed to stay with his family to provide them love, support, and to patch that once had been wounded. and he's going to start with…

“can i go and see y/n?” deep inside him, satoru felt ridiculous for asking that question since he is the literal husband! or was he? after everything he had done to her for five years?

shoko then tiredly pointed at the room at the end of the hallway and satoru, with the help of his long legs, never ran faster than his whole life.

gently opening the door in your room, satoru was greeted by your peaceful and sleeping form with all of the tubes connected on the back of your hand. closing the door behind him, satoru finally let go of the tears he's been holding the whole time, ranging from the confrontation with you until to to this situation.

sitting on the chair beside your bed, satoru weeps as he holds your arm. at this moment, the strongest no longer exists, it was just gojo satoru who couldn't stop himself from muttering an apology to his wife that he did so wrong.

they say, you would only realize the importance of something when it's now late. satoru would absolutely agree to that statement and he could even provide proofs and evidence. at first, he's being a total dick and douchebag to his wife who clearly doesn't even do anything wrong to him. then his own wife endured all of his actions for the whole five years and still remained as if their relationship could be only determined on a sheet of paper.

“i'm sorry. i'm so sorry.” satoru may not know what would happen the moment you would open your eyes. would you send him away? or would you let him stay despite all of the pain and trauma he caused you? for now, he can never know.

but one thing he's going to let you know, he's going to change for you and for his baby. he's done doing things for himself, and now, he should focus on you.

and he's going to start with cutting all of his ties to his mistress.

[part 3 is now posted! for those who wanted to be tagged, just say it on the comments — ©luvvixu2024]

taglists: @mistymuii @kalopsia-flaneur @sherryuki-callmeyuki @tttttttf @slyhersophia @rirk-ke @username23345 @lvstru @neteyxms

[bekolxeram]

I'm late to the party I know, but I need to learn how to make gifs first. I actually find the Bucktommy dinner scene a bit awkward, but not because they "lack chemistry" or the "flirting is problematic". It's not supposed to be just a cute bonus scene, it's engineered to stuff as much information as possible into mere 55 seconds. Here is my read on it:

The good old always at the hospital joke, probably just Tommy trying to lighten the mood after such a hectic day for the 118, but mainly a set up for the next part.

Buck does not see the humor in it, he seems upset.

Tommy has apparently gotten to know Buck enough at the stage to immediately clock it, and under all the dark humor and sarcasm, he does actually care about Buck's feelings.

The scene of Buck and Eddie in the hospital room with Bobby ends up on the cutting room floor, we've only got that one shot of teary eyed Buck when he breaks the news to Eddie at his house, so this is the first time in the episode Buck gets to express his fear of losing Bobby, his father figure.

And here we are, controversial moment number 1. There isn't much context attached to this line, so viewers interpret it differently. I'm in the minority camp that thinks Tommy is being serious here, Lou's delivery makes it seem like Tommy says this out of concern. I believe it's a call back to this line from the medal ceremony:

Here Buck is talking about Phillip the same way Tommy and Chimney (possibly Hen too) talk about Gerrard: like he's dead. Tommy is probably wondering if Phillip is another Gerrard situation, and he invites Buck to talk about it if he wishes to.

Buck gives a humorous but one word answer, so Tommy gets that he doesn't want to get too deep into it.

From this line on, it's a set up for the Gerrard reign of terror in S8. Tommy reiterates the jealousy he mentioned in 7x04, that he wants to become a part of the 118 family, which he only had a little taste of before he left to become a pilot.

Tommy backstory crumb. Buck and Phillip at least see each other at family functions, Tommy doesn't have a relationship with his dad at all. Judging by the medal ceremony, he doesn't seem to have any family left.

It confirms Gerrard as the anti-Christ anti-Bobby. Buck becomes the person he is because of Bobby, while Tommy behaved the way he did in the 3 begin episodes because of Gerrard. It acknowledges Tommy's toxic ways back in the days, but as we can see by the time Bobby became captain of the 118, Tommy was already on friendly terms with Chimney and Hen, we might have a chance to see the transformation in between next season. I've heard that season 7 is supposed to be a soft relaunch of the entire series, so maybe Gerrard is a good plot device to make new viewers understand the positive influence Bobby has on the firefam.

Classic deadpan humor from Tommy, Buck gets the message that he wants to keep the conversation lighthearted.

Now Buck has the power to decide which direction he's leading the conversation into, and he gives us controversial moment number 2, he brings up daddy issues and makes it horny. Look at his smirky face, he's definitely not trying to have a serious chat about father complex. He's the one who starts flirting, not Tommy, and it shows us unlike the nervous fumbling at the beginning of their relationship, Buck is now comfortable enough to initiate flirting.

Tommy can't say no to that face, so he flirts back, but it can also be interpreted as him being in denial of his obvious daddy issues. More conflict and angst for S8?

More flirting. Boy's got rizz towards all genders. He basically admits he might have "daddy issues" in a sexual connotation.

Now comes THE controversial moment of the scene, if not the episode. I've seen people online bashing Tommy for "making it sexual" (Buck did), "interrupting a meaningful conversation to satisfy his daddy kink" (no one is actually talking about any kink), or even "exploiting Buck's trauma to put him in an inferior role in a dom/sub relationship" (What? That's not what d/s is about).

I raise you the point that the word "daddy" is no longer some kind of kink exclusive lingo. This word has entered the popular zeitgeist the last couple years, and now it basically just means a sexy older man. I bet the daddy kink thing doesn't even cross the mind of most of the GA, they just take it as Tommy hoping Buck find this older man sexy. I think we might have collectively read too many smutty fanfics, that's why we all immediately jumped to the very extreme of the kinkiness spectrum when it comes to this scene.

Conclusion, the dialog in this scene may not sound natural, but that's not the point. This scene is in fact, an infodump. Kudos to the actors for making it cute.

[justlemmeadoreyou]

the hot-for-teacher fantasy (ta!harry x student!y/n)**

summary: when y/n discovers her charming, handsome college teaching assistant harry styles is also a porn star, it awakens intense lust and longing. one day, harry calls her for a private study session. she wonders what he'll teach her, oblivious that harry knows everything.

words: 4k+

warnings: flirting, fluff, smut. p in v sex, fingering, oral (f receiving), unprotected sex, kissing, dirty talk, creampie.

***

Y/N tried hard not to stare at her extremely good-looking teaching assistant during her Friday college lecture. But Harry Styles was just so hot, with his messy brown curls, bright green eyes, and perfect smile. His tight polo shirt clung to his muscular chest and shoulders. Y/N had to look away before she started imagining what he looked like without his shirt on.

"Girl, you're drooling again," her friend Liz teased in a whisper, nudging her.

Y/N blushed. "No, I'm not!"

Lately, she couldn't stop thinking dirty thoughts about the charming TA. His deep voice and confidence made it impossible for her to focus. There was something really familiar about Harry too, but she couldn't figure out what.

During the break, Harry passed back their graded essays. Y/N's breath caught when he got to her row.

"Nice work on this one," he rumbled, handing her the papers with a crooked grin and letting his fingers brush hers.

"T-thanks," she stammered, flustered by his touch and scent.

After class, Y/N rushed out, head spinning. Harry was just too much for her self-control sometimes. His flirty vibe and hints of his ripped body under his clothes made her imagination go wild.

Later that night, Y/N was scrolling online when she saw a weird tweet from her friend.

"'Who knew our former classmate had such an unexpected second career?'" she read out loud. "What does that mean?"

Curious, she clicked the link...and her jaw dropped. Short video clips played of a VERY naked Harry, putting on an X-rated show! He slowly stroked himself while staring intensely at the camera.

Y/N watched with wide eyes, feeling heated. So THAT'S why Harry seemed so familiar - he was a porn star!

For the next few weeks, Y/N tried to act normal around Harry in class while secretly reeling over his shocking second job. Every time he handed back papers or leaned across her desk, new fantasies popped into her mind of him in those porn videos.

Flashes of Harry's chiseled body and sexy pouts made Y/N shift in her seat, growing wet. She started touching herself at night while rewatching his videos, wishing his large hands were on her instead of himself.

"Hey, everything okay?" Harry asked after catching Y/N spacing out for the third time that lecture. "You seem...distracted."

Y/N snapped out of her daze, cheeks burning. 

"What? Y-yeah, I'm fine. Just a little out of it today."

Harry's brow furrowed, but he let it go and continued his notes. Y/N scolded herself - she needed to be more careful or he'd suspect something!

The semester continued torturously, with Y/N longing for the sweet yet filthy TA. She devoured every new porn clip, imagining his deep groans were because of her. Harry remained perfectly charming and professional, driving Y/N crazy.

***

One evening, he asked Y/N to stay after for help studying. Her heart pounded as they were finally alone together. Harry was dressed casually in a soft t-shirt that clung to his biceps and tight jeans that left little to the imagination.

"So, what did you need help with?" Y/N asked, trying not to stare at the bulge in his crotch.

"Actually..." Harry shut the classroom door and turned to face her with a smirk. "I know what you've been up to."

Y/N paled. "W-what do you mean?"

In one swift move, Harry crowded her against the wall, hands braced on either side of her head.

"I mean, I know you've seen my...other job," he breathed, leaning so close she could smell his sandalwood cologne.  "Judging by how distracted you've been, you must be a fan.I know what you've been up to," Harry said, his voice low. "In fact, I have proof."

Y/N felt her face flush. What could he possibly know? She racked her brain but came up empty.

Harry reached into his bag and pulled out Y/N's notebook from class. He flipped through the pages until he landed on one with "H ❤️" scribbled in the margins.

"This looks an awful lot like the little doodles I've seen pop up in the chat during my streams," he said with a raised eyebrow.

Y/N's heart pounded. He knew about her watching his porn! She opened her mouth to protest, but Harry cut her off by capturing her lips in a searing kiss.

"Wanted to do this for ages," Harry growled between heated kisses down her neck. "Could feel you eye-fucking me every class."

"Harry..." she gasped as he palmed her breast. This had to be a dream!

Y/N instantly melted against him, whimpering into his mouth. They kissed hungrily, all the pent-up tension finally unleashing.  

"You taste so fucking sweet," he groaned against her racing pulse in that smoky, ruined timbre that immediately flooded her core with fresh arousal. "Been driving me mad, pretty girl. Had to have you."

She had spent countless nights alone getting herself off to the fantasy of Harry - the casual acquaintance turned porn star she had established an embarrassingly strong fixation on. In those frenzied moments of pleasure chasing, her imagination had run wild with what it might feel like to have his large hands on her, to experience his undivided intensity and passion in the flesh.

But nothing could've prepared her for the reality. For this soft, reverent side of him she never could've pictured behind that dirty-mouthed and cocky boldness of his videos. Harry was watching her with those mossy green eyes, hooded but shining, his warm gaze flickering over her flushed face like she was the most precious thing in the world.

Y/N traced her fingertips over the sharp jut of his cheekbones, down the carved column of his throat, savouring the tickle of his rough stubble. She wanted to bottle the rich, woodsy scent of his cologne and sweat, to keep this moment perfectly preserved somehow. This exact pocket in time when Harry was focused solely on her, that made her heart swell and thighs quiver.

When she nodded mutely in response to his question, Harry leaned in to capture her lips in a slow, searing kiss. One large palm cradled the back of her skull, tilting her head for the perfect angle to lick into her mouth with slow and soft sweeps of his tongue. The other hand splayed over her ribs, fingertips trailing up to graze the underside of her breast, each pass lighting tiny sparks across her sensitive skin.

A soft keen parted Y/N's lips when Harry finally palmed her fully, the rough pads of his fingers finding her peaked nipple. His mouth instantly set to work soothing her desperate whimpers with deeper, more heated sweeps of his tongue. He continued paying homage to her breasts with laving kisses until she was writhing and panting.

"So pretty," murmured that devastatingly deep rumble. "So fucking soft and perfect for me, love."

Harry punctuated the dark praise with a sharp nip to the upper swell of one breast, soothing away the faint sting with rich swirls of his talented tongue. Y/N's back arched involuntarily, a strangled moan shuddering from her chest as the flare of pleasure echoed all the way to her clenching core which was already throbbing with need.

She grabbed at Harry's broad shoulders, tugging to seek out more delicious friction. But he seemed determined to drag this out as long as possible - their position putting her at his command as he mapped every inch of her squirming form in unhurried exploration.

His talented mouth continued blazing an open-mouthed path down her sternum, across the quivering plane of her belly, all while his callused palms held her hips in a firm, grounding hold. When his lips finally met the juncture of her parted thighs, Y/N let out a garbled keen, head thrashing against the hard floor.

Harry shushed her gently, nuzzling against her damp curls as his huge hands anchored her bucking hips in place.

"I've got you, sweetheart," he rumbled, hot breath ghosting over her sensitized flesh and dragging a desperate whine from her chest. "Be a good girl and let me take care of my pretty girl, okay?"

Y/N's chest felt fit to burst from the tangled storm of arousal, tenderness, and pure longing that seemingly came out of nowhere at Harry's husked promise to "take care of her properly."

She couldn't find the brainpower to formulate any response beyond a punched-out mewl, utterly spellbound already by the wicked promise in Harry's voice. She lay pliant and trembling as he hooked one of her legs over his shoulder, fully exposing her to the hot sweep of his piercing stare and the first scorching lap of his tongue against her aching slit.

What followed was a hazy, blissed-out oblivion of sensation as Harry set to work devouring her with so much focus. Focus she had only seen on him when he was in deep, grading papers. There were no more teasing licks or tantalizing nibbles - he dove in with determination, sucking at her slick folds and swirling his tongue in swirls around her throbbing bundle of nerves until Y/N was writhing and sobbing out his name like a prayer.

Her fingers twisted in those sweat-soaked chestnut curls, tugging and desperate for an anchor as the exquisite wash of sensation threatened to unravel her completely. Every breathless whine and whimper was duly rewarded with another purposeful flick of Harry's talented tongue, coaxing her higher and higher.

He lapped at her clit, one digit opening her quivering entrance to his assault. He pushed them in, while she arched her back, giving him a deeper angle. Wet noises erupted from between her legs, his two fingers perfectly anchoring inside, swiping against her sweet spot that had her whimpering like a muse.

He fucked his fingers in and out of her, the thick nerves on his arms seeming to be erupting to life. The same hands that she had imagined about, were now inside her cunt, wet and warm with how wet she was.

His other hand joined the slick heat of his mouth, cupping and kneading her bucking hips with possessive surety, it finally pushed her over the blissful edge. Y/N's whole body convulsed as her climax detonated with blinding intensity, keening gasps punched from her chest again and again on each bottomless wave of pleasure.

Through the whiteout ecstasy, she felt her hips being released. Then, powerful arms were scooping her up against Harry's solid chest, enveloping her entirely as aftershock tremors kept rippling through her frame. Her cries were instantly muffled as he kissed her, her taste lingering in their mouths as she drank him in.

"That's my girl," Harry praised, his voice almost low and aching with want. "So fucking gorgeous falling apart on my tongue like that, sweetheart."

Y/N could only whimper helplessly in response and manoeuvred herself closer to his sweat-slicked torso, shuddering at the raspiness of his voice. Large palms stroked soothingly up and down her back as she slowly came back to earth and rejoined gravity.

One calloused thumb caught a stray tear she hadn't even realised fell, swiping it away with tenderness. The gentle gesture finally focused Y/N's senses enough to really look up at Harry - and what she saw stole the breath from her lungs all over again.

His green eyes were molten and hooded, swirling with naked want but also something more profound. Harry gazed down at her with such adoration and protectiveness that another sob rose in her tight throat, heart spasming almost painfully.

"You're so beautiful," he rasped out. One large palm cradled the back of her skull as his lips found her swollen and panting mouth in a deep, searching kiss. "So fucking strong and brilliant and incredible. I've wanted you for so damn long, Y/N. Please let me..."

Y/N couldn't formulate a coherent reply. So instead she silently nodded, her assent between kissing him back with every ounce of frenetic passion burning through her and took Harry's full weight as he rolled them until she was cradled in his lap.

Their kiss turned searing and desperate as Harry skillfully discarded their remaining clothes. Y/N's strangled whimpers and whines were swallowed by his bruising mouth, her slick heat dragging against the hardness of his erection in tortuously light strokes.

Y/N instinctively sought out more of that maddening friction - rocking her hips up to meet Harry's in a desperate grind as she tangled her legs around his trim waist. The low, reverent rumble of approval he let out at her shamelessness made her entire body bloom with heat.

"So eager for me, aren't you love?" he husked against the swollen bow of her parted lips. Not waiting for a response, he sealed his mouth over hers in a lush, filthy kiss that left them both panting for air.

He teased her exactly to that tantalising edge of overwhelming bliss and sheer frustration until she was squirming and mewling into their heated embrace, nails scrabbling at the broad expanse of his sweat-dampened shoulders. At last, Harry tore away from her lips with a ragged groan, panting heavily as they pressed their foreheads together.

She was too far gone to feel self-conscious. The last threads of her self-restraint had snapped the second Harry palmed both cheeks of her ass in those huge, calloused hands and used his grip to pull her flush against the insistent jut of his straining cock.

"Wanted this for so long," he growled against her swollen lips before venturing down to scathe his stubbled jaw along the ultra-sensitive slope of her neck, leaving a stinging trail of fresh goosebumps in his wake. "Laid awake so many nights thinking about having you in my lap just like this..."

Y/N had no capacity to formulate a reply beyond a choked-off moan, hips canting of their own accord to chase that scorching friction. She wanted to whimper out, to beg him to stop teasing them both with this exquisite torment. But he didn't give her a chance, lush mouth finding her peaked nipple and suckling hard, stealing what little coherence she had left.

"Ah! ...H-Harry, please..." she panted out as sparks of both pleasure and sweetest pain lanced through her. She fisted those decadent chestnut curls tighter until he finally released her with a final teasing graze of teeth over her swollen, rosy bud.

He peered up at her with hooded, molten eyes, his pupils blown wide and inky with naked want. His mouth glistened obscenely in the low light. The sight alone nearly cleaved what little rational thought remained.

"Since you asked so sweetly..." he husked, gifting her one more searingly deep kiss before making a trail of open-mouthed licks and nibbles down the center line of her body once more. "My gorgeous girl deserves whatever she desires.Now look at me, love," he ordered, "Need to see those gorgeous eyes when I finally get to be inside my girl."

My girl.

Y/N's whole body locked up with need at his command. Their gazes crashed together in the space separating them - Harry peering down at her, mouth hanging open in blissful agony.

Holding that heated stare, he finally guided the slick blunt head of his cock to her entrance with one broad palm on her hip. They both exhaled harsh breaths in unison as he sank past that initial tight clutch, Harry's brows creasing with reverence while Y/N's mouth fell open on a choked off moan.

"You feel so good, baby, taking my cock like this," he groaned against her neck. "Wanted this pretty pussy for months."

The crude words somehow only turned Y/N on more. She matched Harry's thrusts, overwhelmed by how amazing he felt.

"You feel that, love?" he rumbled in that rasping timbre that immediately stoked the banked embers of her core back to feverish heat. "How fucking desperate you still are for me, even after falling apart so gorgeously?"

Y/N let out a helpless, pitchy noise of agreement muffled feverishly against the solid weight of his shoulder – nodding frantically as he kept up that slick, sinfully light rutting rhythm. Her entire body felt suspended in limbo, torn between too-much and not-enough with each deliberate slide of his cock spreading her wanting folds apart.

"Christ, you should see yourself right now," Harry practically purred in a haze of lust-drunk awe, swiping the pad of his thumb in a teasing circle around her revived, aching bud. When she arched into the contact with a strangled whimper, he let out a rumbling chuckle that reverberated through both their shuddering frames. "An absolute picture...and all for me."

On his final seismic stroke, the thick crown of his erection caught against Y/N's swollen, aching entrance - teasing her to the brink of shattering all over again. She let out a garbled noise that might have been Harry's name or just an incoherent plea, fingernails scrabbling at his back.

"Look at me," he ordered in a low rasp, drawing her hooded gaze up from where their damp bodies joined. Green eyes glittered with undisguised possession when their stares finally met - searing straight through her.

Holding that smoldering eye contact, Harry pressed forward with one inch at a time until Y/N thought she might combust from the sweet stretch and burn. Every shallow exhale punched from her lungs came out a choked whimper, matched by the fevered grunts rumbling from Harry's chest as he bottomed out, again and again.

Y/N's world had narrowed entirely to the joined point of their bodies, her fluttering internal walls struggling to accommodate the exquisite impalement even as fresh arousal flooded her with boneless surrender. She could only cling helplessly to Harry's sweat-slicked shoulders and lose herself in the intoxicating visuals before her - his arm muscles bunching with the strain, those ruddy, plump lips hanging open on ragged gasps.

"Fuck...f-feel so good, baby," he gritted out, words fracturing apart as his hips gave a minute involuntary roll. "Taking me so bloody well..."

A strangled cry escaped Y/N as that tiniest motion lit up every nerve-ending with bliss. Her heels dug into the small of Harry's back in a frantic bid for leverage, for friction, for anything to alleviate this keen edge between agony and rapture. He seemed to read her desperation, dropping his sweat-slicked brow to hers as he found her lips in a sloppy, uncoordinated clash of teeth and questing tongues.

Then he was pulling back in one sinuous torso-roll, finally giving Y/N what she craved as his initial retreat turned into a soul-shaking thrust that punched the air from her lungs anew. Somewhere in the spiraling vortex of sensation, she registered the harsh slam of his hips meeting her own, the strangled cry of gratification Harry loosed against her slack mouth as he set a steadily mounting cadence.

Any hope of finesse or coordination was swiftly abandoned as their shared need mounted inexorably higher. Y/N could only cling on and ride out the tide of Harry's sharp, bouncing strokes - bordering on too much even as every shuddering nerve ending begged for more, more, more...

Before long, his forehead had dropped to brace against her shuddering sternum, the rigid line of his body trembling with restrained power and exertion as his hips jackhammered with unchecked fervor. The slick, fiery noises of their joining felt loud enough to haunt Y/N's every thought from now until the end of time.

She could feel the heated pant of his breaths gusting across her neglected nipples with each punishing grind of their movements coming brutally unhinged. Every snap of his hips shoved impossibly deeper until she was seeing stars behind her screwed-shut lids, a high-pitched whine escaping with each narrow thrust mounting her up the cliff's edge.

Heat and tension built upon itself in a dizzying spiral, a thousand tingling points of rapture spiraling from Y/N's core until her entire being felt engulfed in the storm. Harry's large hand found her sweat-dampened nape and tangled in her hair, drawing her into a searing, wild kiss that only stoked things higher.

The groan he leaked into her mouth was utterly guttural and wrecked as she matched his hectic rhythm – nails dragging down the broad expanse of his quivering shoulders until her next orgasm suddenly crested with blinding force.

This time, there was no oblivion or sweet black voids of unknowing as Y/N came apart. Instead, she remained tethered to the blazing intensity coursing through every fiber, Harry's name escaping on a cracked litany as her release seemed to go on and on in pulsing waves. He swallowed each choked syllable, hips drilling her through the roaring tide until she arched clean off the desktop entirely.

Harry's broken cry of her name might have been reverent, might have been full of desperate adulation as he finally let go – thick spurts of wet heat joining the mess between their bodies as his tempo turned erratic and punishing. Y/N could only hang on with what little quavering strength remained,  drifting in the bliss of euphoria.

Eventually, the high tides ebbed and they collapsed in a sweaty, ruined heap upon the desk's surface. Both of their chests heaved like they'd run a marathon, senses struggling to reboot as little aftershocks kept shuddering through their temporarily departed forms.

Incrementally, Y/N floated back into her body and surroundings – the achingly pleasant stretch and ticklish trickle of Harry's slowly softening length, the damp cling of their overheated skin, the stark scent of sweat and sex and desperation sated. She cracked heavy lids, momentarily stunned all over again at the debauched vision of the handsome man draped over and still sheathed inside her.

Harry's summer green gaze was already waiting, twin pools of blown pupils shining through a heavy-lidded swath of mussed chestnut curls. Enraptured affection and lust battled for prominence as he stared down at her, sucking in air like a drowned man breaching the surface. When she met his eyes, he opened his mouth only to release a choked exhalation – clearly as adrift in the tide of their passion as she was.

Y/N lifted one shaky hand to paw clumsily at the damp curls framing his face, caressing his flushed cheek in what she hoped came across as reassurance. Her other arm snaked around Harry's shoulders, anchoring him to her as he nuzzled into the gesture with a shuddering sigh.

This time when he found her mouth, the kiss was slow and deep and almost unbearably tender. Their heartbeats gradually realigned as they savored the languid exchange, prolonging the hazy afterglow for as long as possible.

Harry finally pulled back to mouth a reverent path along the curve of her jaw, words rasping low and ardent against the hammer of her pulse.

"You're so incredible, love," he murmured like a hallowed oath. Full of naked adoration and something deeper that made Y/N's newly reawakened heart clench and squeeze impossibly tighter. "Knew you would be...but god, you fucking ruined me just now."

His raspy chuckle carried an undercurrent of disbelief and familiar self-deprecation. Kiss-swollen lips trailed along the sloped curve of her neck and shoulder as he continued pouring out those hushed, awed confessions.

"Don't think I'll ever look at this bloody classroom the same way again...not after feeling you come apart around me so beautifully..."

After, they lay panting on the classroom floor, limbs tangled together. Y/N traced the bird tattoos on Harry's abdomen, unable to believe this had happened.

"If I had known this is what you wanted, I would've bent you over my desk ages ago," Harry laughed, still looking deliciously rumpled and debauched.

Whatever came next, whatever questions arose about the status of their relationship or the unorthodox circumstances that had brought them here, for now Y/N was content to simply bask in the warmth and connection she felt . Her wondering heart could wait until the morning.

♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡

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[gottaluvharry]

family

carlos sainz jr x pregnant!reader

summary: your son has a few questions about why his little sister is in your belly, and carlos is happy to explain

———————————

Lazy mornings with your little family were your favorite. You smiled to yourself as you woke to the hushed whispers of your husband and your son. As you turn to face the other side of the bed, you’re met with 2 pairs of brown puppy dog eyes and 2 identical smiles.

“Buenos dias, mama!” good morning mom your son screeched, proud of himself for using Spanish. “Buenos dias baby” you say through a smile. He latches on to your neck and you feel Carlos’ hand rubbing patterns on your stomach. “Morning hermosa” beautiful he says going in for a kiss. “How is little girl?” he asks. “Sleeping I think. She must be tired after all the kicking she did last night” you groan, recalling the many hours you were woken due to the relentless kicking in your stomach. “lo lamento, se amable con mami” i’m sorry, be nice to mommy he says leaning to talk to his unborn daughter. You just laugh and shake your head at the pout he has on his face, guiding him up by his chin to give him another kiss.

“Papa,” your little boy starts, breaking you and Carlos apart. “How did baby get in mommy’s belly?” he asks as he puts his hand over Carlos’ on your stomach. “Well hijo” son Carlos starts. “Me and mommy love each other, and we made your sister together because we love each other” he says, hoping it’s enough to settle your sons curiosity. “Like when you and mommy make pancakes together?” he asks, now moving to sit in his fathers lap. “No, not like when we make pancakes” he laughs. “He is just made out of love, baby. When 2 people love each other so much and want a little baby like you, they will make one. That’s all I can tell you” he says, avoiding a heavier subject. “But mommy, did it hurt when baby went in your tummy?” he now turns to you with fear in his eyes over the thought of you hurting. “No buddy it didn’t hurt” you assure him, ruffling his hair; but you don’t miss the smirk Carlos sends your way remembering the night in question. “So why does baby stay in mommy’s belly for so long?” he asks, now turning to look at Carlos for the answer. “That’s just where they grow buddy. Babies need lots of space to grow and the only place there is enough room is in a mommy’s tummy” he responds. “Oh” he hums, taking in all the information he’s learning. “But how does baby come out?” he goes on, his eyes lighting up when he gets another question. “When he is ready to come out me and Mommy will go to the hospital and the doctors will help her come out” Carlos answers. “But does it hurt?” your son asks, once again scared of you being hurt. “Only a little bit” you say, “but it is worth it because then we get to hold your little sister”.

As your son continues asking questions and Carlos continues tracing patterns across your stomach, you can’t help but smile at the little life you’ve created. Who knew one bed could hold so much love on a random morning.

—————————————

hope you guys enjoyed this short little blurb:) sorry it’s been so long since i’ve posted, there was a lot going on and then i started school but in honor of Carlos’ birthday AND pole today i figured i’d post something!! might clear my drafts out and post some more in the next week or so<3

also my inbox is open, so request anything if you have any ideas! or if you just want to talk to someone, feel free!

okay last thing, thank you all for the support, it’s so special to me to have people with the same interests reading and liking my work, i want to give you all hugs<333

[amsznn]

can you do a first time with matt? they’re not together yet but really like each other and hang out together a lot kinda vibe. she goes on a date with another guy to get her mind off of matt and when her date tries to take her home with him and have a one night stand, she’s super into it but then freaks out because she doesn’t feel safe and comfortable with the guy. the date kinda gets frustrated with the reader because she “led him on.” so she asks matt to come and pick her up and she breaks down and tells him everything. she explains that she wants that kind of intimacy with someone so bad but she’s embarrassed and has so much trauma that she needs to feel really safe and comfortable with whoever she crosses that line of intimacy with. basically matt asks her if she’s comfortable with him and she asks him to be her first? he’s SO sweet during sex with her, MAJOR praising towards the female and really passionate and intimate. i’m really wanting/envisioning a side of matt during sex that’s very very sweet and comforting, yet a little dominant and sensual at the same time! but definitely gentle with her since it’s her first time and TAKES HIS TIME WITH HER??? like how sweet would that be you know??? BEGGING YOU FOR THIS. 🤍🤍🤍 love your writing :)

NOTHING LIKE YOU - m. sturniolo

warnings: slight cursing, SMUT (don’t read if you’re uncomfortable), p in v, soft dom!matt

A/N: thank you for the request, hopefully i wrote it how you were imagining. again if you want me to fix anything lmk! <3

-

“going somewhere?”

you heard a familiar voice call out behind you. you turned around to see matt, your best friend standing in the doorway as you attempted to zip up the black silk dress you were planning on wearing.

“believe it or not, i am going on a date.” you watched his reaction through your mirror, not sure of what to make of it. but ultimately matt just put on a small smile before making his way towards your figure.

“who’s the lucky guy?” he asked before assisting you in zipping up the dress. you didn’t miss how his hands lingered for more than a few seconds, or how his eyes traveled all the way down your body, admiring you.

you simply shrugged off his question. “ill tell you if it becomes anything serious.” grabbing your purse off your bed side table, you took one final look at your appearance, deeming it was good enough. “i’ll see you later okay? don’t wait up.” you said as you grabbed your house keys.

before you could make your exit, matt swiftly pulled you by the waist, bringing you into a secure hug. “what’s up with you?” you asked amused while circling your arms around his torso.

“call me if you need anything, alright?” matt said while pulling back from the hug, still not ready to let go. maybe your heart stopped for minute, matter of a fact maybe it exploded. from the way matt was looking at you, it was enough to forget about the whole date. but you knew you couldn’t. there was no point on waiting on something that would probably never happen.

“okay matt.” you softly replied before breaking out of his grasp, leaving the house to make your way to your date.

-

so far, your date was going well. to your surprise your date was easy to talk to. he started conversations easily, and listened to you as spoke, which is why it was easy for your mind not to wonder to the brunette you left back at home.

you two had went to a semi-fancy restaurant and were laughing the whole night through. from cracking jokes, to telling one another funny stories, you thought this might just end well for you.

“how about we go back to my place after this?” your date said while paying for his portion of the bill since you insisted on splitting it. you smiled at this while also putting your card down.

“sure, why not?”

-

back at his house things escalated quickly. mere seconds after getting past the front entrance, his hands were all over you.

he held you as you two engaged in a heavy make out session, leading you towards his room, never breaking the contact. your arms unwrapped around his neck before falling back onto his bed. quickly climbing on top of you, he dives down to your neck, leaving a trail of kisses all the way down to your collarbone. you sighed and propped yourself up on your elbows, making yourself more accessible to him.

as his free hand road your dress up, your hands were busy fumbling to get his shirt off, just as eager. he paused for a moment, leaning towards his bedside table to look for a condom. upon finding it, he undid his belt, and pushed his pants and boxers all the way down.

his teeth teared open the condom wrapper, as you watched his every movement. you laid back down, shutting your eyes, trying to brace yourself for what was about to come.

the guy placed his elbows on each side of your head. you could feel the tip slowly prying at your entrance.

shit

shit

shit

“wait, i can’t!” you quickly scooted back to the headboard. the guy looked at you confused, before taking the condom off and pulling his boxers back on.

“what the fuck, you serious?” he asked, eyes scanning your face to see if you were just joking. you adjusted your dress, swinging your legs off the side of the bed. “i’m sorry, im just not ready.” you muttered before finding your panties scattered somewhere on the floor, quickly putting them on you rushed out of the room.

the guy followed suit, yelling accusations at you. “you’re just gonna leave like that!?” he called out after you. you didn’t dare to look back, not even bothering to slip your heels back on, you ran out his house and didn’t stop until you were a couple of blocks down. you collapsed on the sidewalk, quickly pulling out your phone to call your pinned contact.

the phone rang and rang, until finally you could hear matt’s groggy voice on the other side of the phone.

“hey, what’s up?”

“matt, i need you to come get me right now.” you said, trying to compose yourself so he wouldn’t worry. on the other side you listened as matt shuffled around to grab his keys, making his way out the house in an instant.

“i’ll be right there.”

-

matt arrived in less than 15 minutes, since your location was a good distance between his house. he slowed down when he saw you at the side of the road, coming to a complete stop before you fell into the car.

he saw the look on your face. he didn’t need you to tell him, he knew something went wrong.

when you guys made it home, you made your way to matt’s room, not wanting to be alone that night. matt stopped in the kitchen to grab you some snacks before making his way back to your figure laid on the bed.

he shut the door and dimmed the lights, in case they were bothering you. he left the snacks on the table beside your head before laying down next to you.

“wanna talk about it?” matt asked gently. he turned over on his side to face you better. you sighed and ran your palm down your face. tears dropping down the plump of your cheeks. you couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“we almost fucked,” you took a deep breath before continuing. “but i freaked out and ruined everything.” your eyes continued to water before you turned to face matt.

“what’s wrong with me?” your voice broke matt’s heart. to him there was absolutely nothing wrong with you. to him you were perfect, there was nothing that compared to you.

“hey, hey, hey” matt gently caressed your face while wiping your tears with his thumb. “there’s nothing wrong with being scared y/n. you don’t have to be ready right now.”

you let out another frustrated sigh. “but i am ready matt. he just..wasn’t the one i guess.” matt pulled his hand away from your face before looking into your eyes.

“then who is?”

your heart skipped another beat, or maybe two. he’s been right in front of you this whole time. the one you wanted, the one you needed. it was matt.

you shifted on your side before your hand made its way to matt’s neck. you watched his expression, for any sort of discomfort before connecting his lips with yours.

although the feeling of your lips on his brought matt to euphoria, he couldnt bring himself to do this while you were in a state of vulnerability, causing matt to back away from the kiss.

“y/n, are you sure about this?”

“yes matt, im really sure.”

matt smiled before pulling you in for another kiss, instead this one was more passionate, and desperate. your bottom lip hung open as matt took this as an invitation to push his tongue past the entrance. the atmosphere in the room only got thicker as matt shifted his body on top of you. you could feel the bulge in his pants rub against your core which made you whimper into the kiss.

“matt..please.” you gasped into the kiss.

“there’s no rush, baby. it’s just me and you.”

matt’s hands made their way down your body, reaching behind you back to undo the dress and reveal your breast out in display for him. matt dipped down, kissing all along the area, but purposely dodging the place you needed him most.

as matt’s hands went further, you could feel them just above your core. he could feel how wet you were through your panties. he made work to take them off, causing you to shiver from the exposure. you pulled at the hem of matt’s shirt, practically begging him to take it off. he complied, while also pushing his sweatpants, and boxers off. you couldn’t help but tense up, and do the same as before and lay back down to brace yourself.

matt grabbed a condom from his drawer, tearing it open and rolling it down his length. he could sense how tense you were. he gently placed his hand on your waist while looking into your eyes, trying to ease any of your worries away.

“i’ll go slow okay? tell me if you wanna stop.”

you whispered an ‘okay’ in approval. matt lined himself up with your entrance, slowly pushing in. your knuckles almost turned white with how much you were gripping the sheets to the new burning sensation.

“it’s okay angel, i got you.” matt reassured while caressing your face in hopes to calm you down.

matt groaned until he completely bottomed out. staying in place so you could adjust.

“fuck, you’re so tight.” matt breathed out.

you shivered at his words before taking a deep breath before telling matt he could move.

his thrusts were slow, but deep. enough to make you feel every inch of him.

“matt, can you go a bit faster?” you breathed out. matt nodded before propping himself up on his arms, making the snapping of his hips faster.

“oh god, matt!” you moaned out at the newfound pace. you mind was clouded with pleasure and the with the brunette in front of you. you reached up to push matt back down by his neck so your lips could clash against each other once again.

matt moaned against your lips, the clenching off your walls around him was enough to make him explode right then and there.

“you’re doing so good for me, angel.” matt whispered above your ear.

you whimpered, the combination of matt’s pace and the feeling of his lips peppering soft kisses all around caused your head to spin.

“matt, im gonna..” you could barely finished your sentence before matt’s free hand made it’s way to your clit, rubbing circles helping you chase your own high.

“go ahead baby, im right here.” matt mumbled, talking you through your orgasm.

“matt!” you cried out as you felt the knot in your stomach burst, leaving you a shaking mess as matt, also came undone, moaning your name as he rode out his high as well.

“fuck.” matt muttered before pulling out, which earned a shiver from you, still sensitive. matt made his way to the bathroom to clean himself off before coming back in his black sweatpants and a fresh towel for you. he gently cleaned you up, careful as he knew any sudden movement could cause you discomfort. you sat up before grabbing a clean set of matt’s boxers, and one of his sweatpants before collapsing back into bed.

matt did the same, pulling the covers over you two. his arm snaked around your waist, pulling you in closer. “are you okay?” he asked while peppering kisses along your neck.

“i’m amazing.” you chuckled while playing with the hand that held your waste.

“yeah, you really are.”

-

A/N: yall i………..i have no words, i dont usually write smut, I’ve probably written it like once but i decided to try smth new ig. I WAS GIGGLING THE WHOLE TIME. also message me if you wanna be moots, need some more. (need matt rn)

[netherfeildren]

FABLE OF THE DOG : 2. Sugar, Not so Sweet

Series Masterlist; Chapter: 1,

Pairing: Joel Miller x FMC

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: Cowboy/Heiress AU; Slowburn(ish); Original Characters; Alcohol Use; Allusions to Attempted Suicide; Discussions of Grief; Daddy Issues; Parental Neglect; Angst and Fluff; Older Man/Younger Woman; Jealousy; Possessive Behavior; Brat Taming; Extremely Bossy Old Man; Past Teenage Crush; Yearning and Longing Galore; A Home is a Place but ALSO a Person!; Found Family

A/N: This is a deeply, deeply unserious chapter, and I make no apologies—I was taken away by whimsy!!!!

Apologies however, for the French people slander, I went on a truly heinous date with a oui oui baguette loser last month. I’m still working through my anger.

Word Count: 13.4K

Read on AO3

2. Sugar, Not so Sweet

They appear at the break of dawn, the young man and the boy. 

“How many heads’ve you got total?” 

Joel appraises him, the fresh-faced look, a boy just crossed over into the cusp of manhood—though he’s large and strong and earnest in the eyes. He’d be a good hire, if not for—

He glances over at the young boy sitting on the bunk’s couch, snickering quietly with Ellie as his brother tries to barter a place for the two of them. 

“Near to thirty large about now. We’re fixin’ to breed, but we’re pushin’ our limitations.”

“So you need hands,” he says eagerly. 

“We do,” Joel returns slowly, chewing on the mint he’d plucked from out front. His stomach is in knots, has been since—days and days and days ago, last night, and so much worse now. There’s a sick heat settled deep that he doesn’t know how he’ll scourge out and quick. 

“Listen, I know it’s unconventional, but—”

“Where’s his parents?” He tips his chin at the boy, and Ellie peers slyly over her shoulder at him. He’ll get hell for this later, he knows, she knows. 

“Our momma’s down south—by way of Odessa. She cowboys during the summer too, and—”

Joel sits up in his seat. “Texas?”

“Come on, Texas,” Tommy slinks behind him, sneaking an arm over his shoulder to thump Joel roughly on the chest. “Just say yes.” He lets out a gruff sound masking a cough, fucking Tommy, and leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ellie rise from the sofa and leave the bunk quietly with a parting pat on the boy's head. 

“You’re from Texas, too?” The young man asks brightly, that look of hope in his eyes that Joel’s about to quash. 

“We’re from Austin,” Tommy says from the coffee pot, his mustache spreading wide over a shit-eating grin. “Southerners way up here, we gotta stay united amongst all these Yanks’,” his brother puts on the drawl heavy, and Joel rolls his eyes. Clown. 

“Listen, Henry,” he says, trying to turn the conversation back to business. He looks at the boy again, the back of the small head bent and silent and something that could, perhaps, be thought of as guilt pulses through him, but to be honest, there’s so much of that moving about Joel’s system right about now, that it’s just one more drop of poison filling his cup. It doesn’t matter. He needs to do what’s right.

For who? He can’t very well tell yet.  

“I’m sure you’re a hard worker, son, and I’d not hesitate to give you a place were we in different circumstances, but I just don’t see how this would work—”

Henry leans forward in his chair too, ready to plead his case, fight for his brother and the generously paying jobs the Kelly’s are famous for. There’s something about the boy newly turned man that reminds Joel of himself. Perhaps during that young and fragile youth of his twenties, when he’d been alone with a newborn baby, trying to figure out the whole world and himself. 

“I know it’s unconventional, but he’s a good kid. He’s quiet and keeps to himself, and it’d only be for the summer, sir. We head back down for the start of the school year. It’s difficult, but it’s harder for my momma to get work with a kid than it is for me.” He trips over his words with the speed at which he’s spitting them at Joel, trying to convince him, and he knows that the fair thing would be to take them in. To give this man a chance the way Joel had been given one so many years ago, the mercy of safe harbor. But he’s got a finite amount of goodness in him now, he’s got to save it all for only one person. There’s none left for anyone else. And Joel doesn't want trouble, he’s got enough of that around here right about now. “He’s got his books and his summer worksheets, and he knows how to manage on his own while I work. I swear, he won’t be in any sort of way. You can—”

And then, amidst the young strangers' rambling plea, Joel's heart falls through his stomach. Here comes that trouble anyways. 

“What’s going on here?” In that soft, lovely voice that haunted his dreams last night. 

All the cowboys rise from their seats at the sound of your presence. 

From over your shoulder, Joel sees Ellie’s face twisted in a grimace at him, the flash of her middle finger and then her tongue. 

“Goddamnit, Ellie,” he growls low. 

You look exhausted, eyes red rimmed and swollen—as if you’d been crying all night, and Joel’s tongue is a swollen, poisoned thing in his mouth—a husk of guilt is all he is. He swallows convulsively, trying to find his words, trying to not scream at the thought of being what’s made you cry, trying not to look down the length of you and failing. Silky sleep shorts end way too high up on the long length of those too pretty thighs, an oversized pullover with Yale emblazoned across the front, a little hole at the neck and a large dark stain marr the front of it. You’ve got on a too big robe, dark and plaid, draped over your shoulders with your hair all a mess. He can see Ellie’s trying to pull it into some semblance of a braid behind your back discreetly while you stare at him with those eyes that, and he’s being damn honest now, fucking terrify him. Those puffy, ridiculous tan boots women wear, the impractical ones that become a sogging mess in the snow or wet despite the fact he understands they’re supposed to be worn in winter, are on your feet, two mismatched socks peek out above the tops. 

He’s pretty sure one of them has bombs with a capital ‘F’ in the tiny centers printed over it. The other, some sort of Easter bunny carrot print. Absolutely ridiculous, and he can’t help it, he notices it all. 

And worst of all, in your grip is that World’s Best Dad mug you’d sent the old fucker for Christmas several years ago, a little holiday fuck you from his best daughter. It’d been one of the years he hadn’t let you come home for the winter break, forced you to spend the holiday alone at that boarding school of yours. The whole ranch had known and whispered about it, and he’d felt embarrassed and offended on your behalf, that they’d all gossiped about the girl you were behind your back when they should’ve respected you for the woman you’d become one day, the one that’d eventually pay all of their earnings. 

And the jackass had the audacity to use the mug all the time afterwards. Joel was pretty sure it’d been his favorite. 

“We were just wrapping up,” Joel says, clearing his throat, finally finding his voice. It’s almost physically painful to look at you directly in the eyes, and the heat of shame and regret claws its way up his throat at the hollow look he sees there. You’re so angry at him, and he deserves it. 

“This is the new Kelly,” Ellie tells Henry, cutting him off, pressing you forward with her hands wrapped around your shoulders. Your shorts are way too short to be in here right now, and Joel feels something else, even hotter than shame, stirring inside him. “If you want work here, this is who you need to talk to. The big boss.”

“Miss Kelly,” Henry says reverently, pulling his cap off to press against his chest. “It’s a mighty fine honor gettin’ to meet you. I was just telling your foreman here,” he motions the cap towards Joel, and he feels like a bear who’s about to rip it out of his grip and stuff it down his throat. Fucking Ellie going and snitching on him. “How me and my brother Henry travel for the summer. I’ve got letters here, I’ve worked at the King before, and have a number your man can call if he needs more references. I’ve got lots of experience and—”

“What will you do with him?” Your gaze is on the little boy, has been the entire time. Joel steps forward and over the back of the couch he sees the kid, Sam, has a comic book in his lap he’s been reading this whole time, while adults who should have no bearing on his life decide what will and will not be for him. “While you work—”

Joel looks back at you, and he knows already what it’ll be. 

Henry’s smile is wide and gleaming, putting on the charm. What he doesn’t see, what Joel does, is that bleak sadness in your gaze that he’d put there himself last night. He needs to speak with you, to explain, to make it right between the two of you. 

“He’s good at entertaining himself. I promise he won’t be in the way or nothin’. He’s got books and summer work, and he’s learning to play the guitar. He won’t be in the way,” Henry says again. 

“What about school?”

“We only travel during the summer. We’re back in Texas for the school year.” And at that, you finally look back at Joel, and his heart shoots from his belly to his throat, ready to be spit up at your feet. 

You watch him for a long searing moment, and there's such sadness there. He doesn’t know what would have been better, what would have been the correct recourse, how to make that look go away. To give you what you want? To do what he thinks is right or what should be right? He’d never thought, never considered anything like this. It’s all too much too fast, and he feels suddenly lost and childlike in the face of you and all you stand for. 

“They stay,” you say only for Joel. 

Henry lets out a whoop of victory, rushing forward to thank you profusely, but Jesse, who’s standing by the door, blocks his rush forward with a hand to his chest before he can get too close to the new boss. You’re for protecting now, above all else, it’s the unspoken word they all suddenly understand keenly. 

You stare solemnly at Joel for only a second longer, those sleep sloped doe eyes, before you’re turning without another word. 

-

“He never did a very good job of hiding the way he treated you, sweetheart. I couldn’t ever respect a man like that.” 

The cricket song is a symphony of sound around the two of you, and you’re suspended for a second, he sees it come on—a rose hued haze, and then blink-of-an-eye donning a look that spells nothing but disaster. He’s thrown off course by it for a single second, that girl fantasy glow, before you’re launching yourself at him, and then it’s nothing but a soft wet mouth, smoked fruit and fired oak, the slick of your tongue against his bottom lip as you kiss him.

You’re kissing him. 

He’s a frozen solid husk, eyes wide open as he stares down at the look on your face—something like agony. The tiny frown between your eyebrows, concentration, and a single diamond tear caught in the web of your lashes, and he can’t help but notice the soft press of your breasts against his chest, you’re not wearing a bra, before he’s shoving you back by the shoulders, scrambling to get as far away from you as quickly as he can.

His back hits the railing before he can get far enough. “What the fuck are you doing?” He spits, but can’t help but lick his tongue along his bottom lip, tasting where you’ve just been. 

His stomach is suddenly hot.

You swallow convulsively, bleary eyed look turning to hurt, pressing your palm to your belly, twisting your fingers in the fabric of your sweater there. “I don’t— I didn’t—” Your eyelashes flutter shut, closing the hurt, confused look away from him for one blessed second. You press your other palm to your forehead, gripping yourself as if you’re trying to hold your very skin together. 

What do you think you’re doing? He enunciates each word like the lash of a whip, and then licks his lips again to soften those same blows for himself. 

Something is about to go inexplicably wrong here. Something already has. A tragedy worse than the death of a father

“I just thought that—” You blink your eyes open and they’re wet, and he’s about to bark at you to not fucking cry or he’ll lose it completely, but he swallows it or loses the thought to madness. He feels incomprehensibly insane, inconceivably triggered. 

This is like nothing he’d ever imagined, and it tilts him on his axis, skews his vision, headlights blinding you in a dead-on collision. 

What are you doing—thinking?

“I— I watched you grow up. I watched you—” You take an anxious step towards him, some word on your lips he can’t even make out because his hearing has gone out, and now he’s all of a sudden deaf in both ears instead of just one. He hardens his voice further. He makes sure you understand. “This is fucking wrong, and you need to get away from me right now,” reversing his movements, taking a threatening step forward, stomping his heavy boot against the floorboards beneath so that you’re jumping, skittering backwards like a frightened little rabbit. 

And Joel, the beast, crushing her beneath his foot. 

You wrap both of your hands around the delicate column of your throat; he imagines you’re holding in your hurt sounds, and it makes him even angrier. 

“Listen to me—” he starts again. 

But you cut him off, shaking your head, the confused sleep-look being blinked away so that now it’s spitting fire that is awake and angry in your gaze. “But you didn’t,” you say. “You barely know me. We’re almost strangers.” A scoff, and then switching again to soft, to girl-like, to hurt: “And I’m all grown up now, Joel.”

“I don’t know what you reckon is happenin’ here between us. Or what you think— what you—” He looks away, can’t bear the sight of it, you, fuck, he spits, again, fuck. “If I gave you the wrong impression, I’m sorry, but—”

Then in a broken little voice grasping for straws, “But we were born on the same day,” and you say it like a question. Like it should mean more. Like, and he realizes it now, like it means the world. 

He turns back to look at you, and he feels full of everything but mercy—too much regret. “And what? What do you think that means? That we’re connected—meant to be?” His voice sounds full of cruelty. “Don’t be delusional. It’s also the day my daughter died. D’you know that?”

A blink. “What?”

“She died on my thirty-fourth birthday.” 

Again. “But… Wh—at?” Broken up word, and your chin does a little wobbling dance, jutting this way and that, and you have a dimple in your cheek that comes out when you’re happy, but also when you’re sad. When you’re about to cry. He sees it now, and starkly. 

He’s ruining something sacred. 

Joel steels himself. “Whatever it is you’ve made up in your mind about us, it’s a fantasy. Something not real that you need to let go of. Are you hearin’ me?”

“I— I think…” You won’t stop blinking, your hands look like they’re about to strangle you, and he steps forward as if to stop you or save you from yourself. “Why didn’t you ever say?”

But instead of saving, “Why would I? Why would I ever tell you that?” He does not want to hurt you, and yet he cannot help it, and Joel wonders if this is how your father felt every time he failed you—like a lesser man. “Wasn’t for you to know—it doesn’t mean the same thing to us.” That day. He makes himself clear: “Whatever child’s fantasy you’re still holding onto, you need to let it go.” 

-

He rushes out of the bunk after you, a growled, you little shit, at Ellie as he passes her. 

“Man, what’d you fuckin’ do?” She calls after him in that tone that tells him that of course she knows what’s happened. You two’ve never been able to keep a single thing from each other. Asshole! She shouts at his back as he catches up to your slowly retreating form. Your movements are sluggish, exhausted. 

He calls your name and tries to moderate his tone from being as aggressive as he feels right now. “We gotta talk.” He follows after you, hot on your heels and then jumping back like a scared mut when you spin around on your ridiculous boot to face him. 

“Speak.” It’s a high-handed tone, that one. One that says he’s the grunt here, and you the queen, that you’d both forgotten it last night, but the battlelines are clearly drawn now. There’ll be no more forgetting. 

And it’s all his fault. 

“You can’t—” His heart thumps and thumps and thumps like a pitiful thing. “You can’t undermine me in front of the boys like that. There’s a reason I was saying no.”

“Which is?”

“That the kid’ll be in the way.”

And you flinch and Joel prays for a gun to the back of the skull. Fucking Christ, but this is difficult.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he gruffs. “You know what I mean. This is hard work we do here. I don’t want the kid gettin’ hurt, I don’t want to be responsible for that. What goes on here is on me. The people who get hurt, it’s all on me, and I take that responsibility damn serious.”

You tilt your head at him in that queer, inspecting way of yours. The one he’d watched you pull like a weapon against your father so many times. He finds he hates it now, detests it, being wielded against himself. You ignore his words, “What was your arrangement here—with him? How did this work with the ranch?”

There has been that thought always, and obviously, of you as something higher, that symbol of the family or the safe haven this place has been for Joel. The not-respect he had for your father, but surely the understanding—you've always been all wrapped up in that. He's at times felt grateful for your existence, perhaps, in ways. That something as good, as better, as you could exist in the same world Joel exists in. Perhaps he’d admired you in ways, even as a young girl, for your goodness, your sincerity. But he finds now, at this look of disdain you’re wearing against him, that he hates the feeling of being less than you, of not being good enough to even stand in your presence. 

He’s done wrong, marred it all in ugliness. He’s put himself in this position somehow, by hurting you, by confusing you, by wanting—

“I do what I need to, what the ranch needs. Whatever decision I need to make, I call it and it’s on me. Monthly reports to him and that was it. He understood that what happens out here is different to what can be told and sometimes you can’t plan for certain shit. He focused on the business, I focus on the ranch.”

By wanting what?

Bringing the mug to your lips, you take a long sip, humming. It’s all a taunt. Joel realizes, suddenly, and with painful clarity, that this has all been a grave miscalculation on his part.

As uncomfortable as it is for even him to admit, you are, and undeservedly, a person used to not being wanted, used to rejection. Joel understands this with the quick fire blink of an eye. And he has, in his shock, or— or… he doesn't know—instantaneous awakening—unintentionally alienated you, made an enemy. 

I see, you murmur quietly coupled with a bitter cough of laughter that doesn’t sound anything like the sweet sound he’s used to hearing from you. Yes, a very bad mistake has been made indeed. “Well, you’re practically king here, aren’t you then? Quite the partnership the two of you had.” You smile wide, all bright teeth. 

The coffee sloshes in the mug held in your unsteady hand, and he worries there’s something stronger in there too. 

“Not at all. I’m just good at what I do.” He shoves fisted hands into his pockets, trying to keep patient. Trying not to throttle you, check your drink for himself. 

“And is this how you’d like to continue going forward? I mind my own business, and you do as you please?”

He shakes his head slow, grinds the pulverized mint between his molars, “I want whatever you think’s best. You’re the Kelly now, after all.” You get a look on your face like you don’t like the sound of that at all, and he turns to spit the greens between his teeth, coughing roughly. 

“Yeah, I’m sure of that,” you say with teeth bared, and then whipping your head away from him as if you can’t bear the sight of him a second longer. The coffee sloshes the other way, splashing against your wrist. He hopes it’s not burning you. “You know, you’ve got some fucking nerve, Joel. You—” 

The robe—all of a sudden, saturated by the dark liquid, it grabs his attention. It’s in a plaid print, expensive looking, like something you’d see an older man wearing. A man’s robe? He cocks his head, “Whose robe is that?” Cutting your tirade short. 

What? You spit, all sass, his stomach burns, turning to look back at him as if he’s gone idiotic, grown a second head.  He feels a little bit like he’s in the process of doing so—wracked with growing pains. “It’s my ex-boyfriend’s. Can you focus, please? I’m trying to have a fight with you right now.” And you scrunch your nose too adorably for him to find anything besides endearing. Certainly not intimidating. 

He grunts, displeased. 

“I know you don’t want to hear it—”

“Then keep it to yourself.” You turn, continuing on your way up to the house, coffee flies with your spin, boyfriend’s robe whipping out in your wake as he follows like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs. 

A little desperately, like a dog, too. A begging for scraps imitation game he hadn’t intended to play but feels obligated to now, and by his own doing. 

“But I want to say—about last night…”

You turn on your heel out of nowhere again, and he stumbles to not rush head first into you, to not touch you. 

The look on your face is all heartbreak. “Do you remember—when I was away at school—and I fell off the horse? When I came home with that broken arm and couldn’t get back on and you helped me? Do you remember that, Joel? How you reminded me how I was supposed to do it—”

He coughs, uncomfortable, shifting like that same scared dog. “You remember these things different than I do.” The words feel cowardly spilling from his tongue, but he should be honest. Shouldn’t he?

This is what he should be doing, isn’t it?

“I remember that you were kind. That you cared. That’s what I remember.” Your eyes are glossed again, and now it’s Joel that has to look away. 

-

“I didn’t care. It was my job to serve your father. To do as he’d want me to. It was a responsibility.”

It’s happening again. A tale like any other you’ve too often heard. You know he’s not lying, and yet everything he says feels precariously close to it. 

“Why are you being like this?” And you ask it very practically, like you really want to know, like you’ve asked the same sort of question to the same sort of figure before, and so now you’re extremely well practiced, an expert even. 

“You remember these things differently. Wrong—That’s not how I meant any of it—whatever you’re thinkin’. It was just a kindness.”

“No, but I— but you…” That’s the point, you want to say, a kindness, but the words stick. You look away again, colored in shame, can’t bear the sight of him. “Maybe you’re right,” you whisper with that very remembered kindness of your lonely childhood thrown back in your face now. “Maybe I do.”

“Listen to me—I’d like for things between us to be— I’m not… I don’t now what to fuckin’ say to you.”

“Honey—” Dina calls from the porch, your father’s assistant, now yours by inheritance, you suppose. “We gotta go soon—gotta get you ready.”

“I have things to do with Dina. I don’t have time for you—for this. Do what you want, run it how you like,” the ranch, “But the kid stays. That’s final.”

You won’t look at him again, you decide. You’ll learn to want a new thing. You’ll learn to love a new thing. 

If you had it in you, you’d laugh in his face. 

Have you been in love with him? Probably not in any way that could’ve been called mature, it was the girl-fantasy of a neglected child latching on to a man who’d always seemed nothing but steady and kind.

So you’ll learn to grow up now, no choice left in the matter, let the fantasy go.  

-

Despite your desire for debauchery and the three days of bad behavior you’d promised yourself, you’ve got shit to do. 

An hour after your ridiculous non-conversation with the ridiculous man, you and Dina are stepping back  out into the summer sunshine when your phone rings with a call from another ridiculous man for what promises to surely be another even more ridiculous conversation. 

Jacopo.

You’d met through the friend of a friend at the party of someone or another in Monaco. Come from an Italian mother and a French father, you should’ve known he was going to be an arrogant asshole from the get go, but he’d been beautiful and momentarily distracting—things you knew you didn’t really want but told yourself would suffice. Really, all he was, was boring, the same as everyone else, wanting something from you without having to truly return anything in full. 

Jacopo the jockey—sounds like a goddamn cartoon. 

You liked to call him Jack, like he were the same sort of plebeian he saw all Americans as, and which he absolutely loathed with the sort of passion only an uppity French man could possess. 

In the distance, you can see Joel, Frank and Bill propped up against the corral watching as Jesse runs Ellie atop a gorgeous chestnut Quarter. Sometimes she likes to compete, when she can get Joel to stop complaining about it for a second. 

Dina makes her way towards them, “Tell them we’ll take the Ghibli,” you call after her to which she throws a thumbs up. At the sound of your voice he peers over his shoulder, finding your eyes immediately, catching there—fish on a burning hook. And then turns full around, leaning back to rest his elbows on the iron grate as you take French boys call, settling in to watch you. 

“Hi, Jack, sweetie. How’s it hangin’?”

“I do not know what this means.”

Bore. “What do you want, Jacopo? I’m busy.”

“My love, we must speak. I have heard of your father. You should have call me, I will come to be with you now. Tell me where you are.”

“Why the hell would I want you to come be with me? We broke up. Remember?”

Joel watches you as the French idiot prattles on about how he loves you and how you need him and how the two of you belong together, blah blah. Odious man, you don’t know how you ever let him inside of you. 

Across the lawn, he isn’t looking away, and his gaze burns where it touches. You feel—humiliated, hurt, rejected, so angry it’s a physical ache. 

Not surprised. 

Perhaps in some way, his rejection was what you’d wanted, had been looking for. Perhaps, it was your subconscious search for the easy way out. Because, and really, what else had you thought would happen when you’d thrown yourself at him half drunk? That he’d suddenly stop seeing you as the child he’d known you for always, take you as a woman, want you, fuck you right there on your newly dead father’s front deck?

Ridiculous.

You can’t even think about the birthday—about her. It’s a snipped lifeline, a crushed tether. 

“Cherie, I must tell you I am feeling very neglected now by you. You don’t call. You do not love me no longer, or what is the problem?” More nonsense and really, this fuckin’ guy needs a boot in his ass pronto. 

And the one still watching you—something even worse. He’s got his mangy brown cowboy hat pulled low over his brow, the one for the ranch, not the lovely dark one for escorting orphans to the funerals of dead fathers, and his jaw works the mint leaves you know he’s got between his teeth, slow and steady. You should hiss at him. Instead, your tummy smolders with heat and butterflies.

 Stop looking at me, you horrible man, you want to shout. 

Humming and hawing at the annoying voice coming through the phone, you smooth your palm over the silk of your dress. You’d wanted to look nice today, your first Kelly meeting. You wanted to look better than you feel, which is like shit, quite frankly. 

There are tiny green paisleys patterned over the deep blue of the dress, a shock of dark red maroon for the cashmere knit of the cardigan tied over your shoulders, and a little silken kerchief wrapped around your throat, something from your mother’s things you’d gone through last night after Joel had ordered you to bed with your tail tucked between your legs and tears in your throat. 

Twenty four years later, and your father still had all her things preserved in their bedroom as if she’d only stepped out for the afternoon. A veritable mausoleum right there in your house-not-home. 

You’d never even stood a chance. 

-

He watches you begin to pace across the deck, but the look on your face tells him you aren’t quite listening to whatever it is the person on the phone’s saying to you. 

The gold and silver bangles that slide around your fine boned wrists jingle a song of temptation. Siren song, bird song, death march, something he’d follow with blind eyes, recognize deaf. And heavy gold and jeweled rings along your fingers that shine almost as bright as the spilled silk of your hair. Swathed in shades of jewel, you’re all woman, done up and ready to go out and devastate. 

He doesn’t know how any man could ever look at you and not want you. 

He doesn’t know how he’ll ever be the same from here on out. 

“Who’s she talkin’ to?” He asks Dina, tipping his chin over at you. He can hear you raising your voice, something about you fucking French moron, and he doesn’t like the hunch he’s got about who it is.

“Boyfriend,” Dina says while she watches Ellie work the horse with hearts in her eyes. 

“Thought he was an ex.”

She peers up at him suspiciously at that, a queer little smile tipping the corners of her mouth upwards. “Well maybe now that he knows how much she’s worth he’ll be coming back, huh?”

Joel swears all these fuckin’ women are conspiring against him, trying to send him to an early grave. “He steps foot on this ranch, and I’ll shoot him in the goddamn ass.”

She laughs, throwing her head back which inevitably draws Ellie’s attention. “You are literally so dramatic.”

“What’s he bein’ dramatic about now?” Ellie calls from behind, trotting up to the corral edge. 

“Ohhh, nothin’. Just Joel being Joel. Right, old man?” Dina bumps her hip against his and he grunts, refusing to be goaded. He’s not being dramatic, it’s his responsibility to take care of you now, to watch over you. 

That’s all.

“I’m never dramatic,” he tells them very seriously. 

On the porch, the spat reaches a crescendo and they all turn to watch the show. 

Why don’t you shove the whole Eiffel Tower up your ass, you fucking dipshit. And don’t you ever call me again!

“Little girl’s got a mouth on her,” Bill murmurs. 

Ellie lets out a long whistle. Deserved, Dina adds. On the porch, you let out a strangled little screech, stomping the high heel of your boot as if you’ve got half a mind to throw a fit. 

Joel feels hypnotized, speared through the gut.

He wants to know what the ex-boyfriend said. What his name is. Where he’s from and who he is and what he does and how he is and every single thing about him and how it was between the two of you. 

He is suddenly desperate to know everything there is to know about you in a way that makes his throat feel swollen with guilt. In a way he didn’t ever think he’d want from you. 

All the things you keep close, all the small intimacies that make you this person you are now, that’s what he wants. 

You stomp down the steps, making your way towards them, eyes directly on his, and you’re too fucking beautiful for his own good, watching you feels like a sin. 

Makes him feel in danger, like prey. 

“All men should die,” you yell over. 

See. 

“I agree,” Dina says cheerfully.

“You know you can have a baby with the junk in your bones from another woman now,” Ellie adds helpfully.

“The junk in your bones?” Joel says. 

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“Yeah, like really we don’t even need you for shit anymore.”

“They should all be put in a hole in the ground in the middle of Nebraska and only be let out when a girl wants to bone.”

“To bone—Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Ellie.”

“I love that idea,” you say, finally coming to stand right before Joel. He swallows hard, stays silent—feels like the cat’s finally caught his tongue. 

“Why Nebraska?” Franks asks, puzzled.

He’s got to stop looking at you, he’s got to get away from the sight of your eyes, feels like the colors of you seem to pulse brighter, and he feels it all like a touch against his skin. He turns to look at Ellie over his shoulder and with a huge, shit-eating grin she says, “Cause who the fuck knows where fuckin’ Nebraska is, huh?” Her eyes flash to you and then quickly back to Joel, winking, cheeky, knowing. He feels the noose tighten.

They’re definitely conspiring against him. 

The three of you cackle—at his expense. 

“Where’re you two headed?” Bill asks with a frown when the three little hyenas settle. 

“She’s got a meeting in Jackson,” Dina tells him. “First part’ll be quick—she’s just gotta kick some pushy jackass to the curb and tell him we’re not leasing mineral rights to him no matter how hard he begs or how much money he throws at us. Then…” she trails off, throwing you a worried glance, but your eyes are on the far off mountains now, and Joel watches a shaky swallow pass through your throat.

“Then we’ve got the will reading,” you say. 

A sharp ache starts up behind Joel’s left eye, all the easygoing laughter of a few moments ago sucked away with a few words and a single reminder. That you’re not the girl you used to be, laughing and playing with Ellie, that your father is dead, that you have a world of responsibility to face now. 

“You shouldn’t have to go all the way into town. They should be comin’ to you here.”

“I want to get out—see his office.”

“S’only been a few days, honey,” Frank says gently. “You should take it easy.”

“Thanks, Frank,” you reach out to squeeze his arm, flush of emotion across the bridge of your nose. “I’m okay, promise.”

Joel takes you in, in full. You’ve got something shimmery swept across the highs of your cheekbones and glossy lips, the fine grain of your skin—pristine like you're made of sugar and everything good in the world. The silky wisps of baby hair at your temples that look softer than anything he’s probably ever touched in his whole life. And you’re so beautiful it almost hurts the eye to look at you, beautiful in a way that makes men cower at the sight, like you’d be the strongest thing in the whole world. But he sees all the rest too. The delicate curves of your shoulders, the fine swoop of your collarbone and the quick-fire beat of your pulse beneath the fragile skin of your throat. There’s fear all around you in a way, a desperate sort of sadness. 

He wishes there was more he could do for you, that he could bear the burden of all this entirely in your stead, that he could be all you need and want him to be without having to sacrifice his soul to give it to you. 

Your eyes flash back to his, and he worries for a second that you can read his mind. 

Behind you, Jesse pulls up with the sleek black of your father’s favorite car. Of course you’d choose this for today, bets you’ll find a way to turn it into a pretzel before the days end. 

“Take Jesse with you,” he says low at your back as you turn for the car. 

You look over your shoulder at him and his spine throbs. “No.”

Following you around the front of the car, he pulls the door open for you. “You’re not moving around alone anymore. He’s going. Jesse—” he whistles, “You’re going into town with Miss Kelly.”

“Yezzir,” he smiles with the sunny easiness only he possesses.  

“Excuse me,” you turn to frown up at him, stomping your foot again, and you’re a little bit of a brat, he’s realizing. “There’s no room in the car for him. He can’t come.”

“He’ll take a truck,” he says, leaving no room for discussion, but then gentles his voice again, “Things are gonna be different now. You’re the Kelly, you can’t go on all gung ho about your new reality. You need taking care of. Can you not fight me on this, please?”

“What I need—”

“Is to be protected.”

You give a delicate little huff through your nose that he finds to be just about the cutest damn thing he’s ever seen in his whole life. “Then it’ll be my choice how and who.”

“It’s easier if you just do as I say.” Grasping, grasping, praying for patience. 

“You overbearing d—”

“You’ll be okay meeting this jackoff? Don’t need me to come with you?”

You glower at him.

“I’m bein’ serious with you. I know you’re capable,” he puts his hands out, palms up in a conceding gesture, “But this is new, and there’s no shame in asking for support.”

At that, you get a confused little pinch between your brows, softest rose shaped mouth he’s ever seen—felt—all pursed up, and he thinks it’s wrong now, trying to be sweet to you after last night, looking at you this way and seeing the things he’s seeing. He should stay away, go away forever, find a hole in the ground in the middle of nowhere to bury himself in like you’d said, but he worries now, and quite desperately really, that he won’t ever be able to leave your side again after all this. 

“I have Dina.”

“I know, but—”

“Can you please just… not. I think— I think it’s better if we just steer clear of each other. If I need something,” you look away now, hazy look from last night back in your gaze again, like you’re remembering, like you’re wanting something else he’s not willing, not capable of giving, “I’ll ask for it. Otherwise you can focus on what’s important to you.” 

Gut punch. 

He soldiers on, can’t help it.

“You feelin’ alright?” 

Your eyes flit back to him for a fleeting second and there’s honesty in your gaze now, maybe something extremely vulnerable too, and then shuttering again, looking away again. He’d demand your gaze if he had the right, insist you tell him everything there is to know with just your eyes if you were his. 

But really, he’s got no right to ask anything. 

So instead, “Tell me what’s wrong,” he begs, praying you don’t say him. 

What’s wrong? A laugh and—nothing. Like your father isn’t dead, like he hadn’t hurt you as he had last night, like you’re looking for answers etched into the mountains or the sky. You bring your thumb to your right temple and his own aches in response, digging there for some unseen pain to be gouged out. “Tired—was having bad dreams.” Your voice sounds full of air, and you’ve got a huge emerald on your ring finger, an even larger turquoise stone beside it, other hand is covered in a row of opals—you’re a treasure of a girl, all the way inside and out, and it’s like he’s staring at a work of art, knowing that if he were to touch, it’d all be ruined. Your voice full of air floats in his bad ear and booms out the good one full of forlorn want. 

It feels like you’re the only two people left in the whole of Wyoming, standing here together under the sweet sun, maybe the whole world, and he’s ridden in guilt, wants to tell you he’s sorry again, beg or something, and thinks that God should give you the chance to rewind time when you’ve made someone feel this bad without meaning to. 

You whisper at the Tetons, and he’s all but forgotten, “I feel a little bit like I’m the real nightmare.”

“You couldn’t ever be, sweetheart,” he tells you and means it with his whole heart. 

It’s all agony swimming in your eyes, and if you don’t stop him, he’s going to take you into his arms right here in front of everyone. You need more than protecting, it’s clear, you need caring for, you need loving—the sort of something he can tell you’ve never had in your whole life. 

“Ready to go, honey?” Dina calls from the other side of the car, her canoodling with Ellie finally come to a pause. 

You’re snapped out of your reverie, looking down at your feet, impractical boots again, these ones sexy and tall and not for his admiring, blinking away the wash of heat that’s bloomed across the bridge of your freckled little nose. 

“Did she eat?” He asks Dina over your head.

“Ehhhhh, but I brought a smoothie,” she pulls out a thermos from her large bag and smiles all beaming and large. 

“A smoothie ain’t food. Get something else in town.”

“You're so prepared,” Ellie sighs dreamily beside her. 

“You’re annoying me,” you grouch at him, tossing your bag into the backseat, sliding into the luxuriously leathered interior as he shuts the door gently behind you, bending down to brace his palms against the open window. 

“Drive careful. Call me if you need anything.”

“You’re kinda a helicopter mom. You know that, Joel?” Dina tells him with that sweet smile of hers. 

“Do not entertain his nonsense,” you snap. 

“She’s just grumpy because Vogue France posted a piece on her and the funeral—the heiress to watch, they’ve called her.”

“I don’t know who they think I am—Kendall fucking Roy? This isn’t HBO, it’s my goddamn life.”

“It’s fine, drink your smoothie, here,” Dina soothes. 

“I don’t got a clue what any of that means,” Joel says. “And do up your belt,” frowning at you and pulling away just in time when you speed off with half the admonishment still on his tongue 

-

The bar is loud and sweaty and crowded enough there’s room for your spite, which he knows, is all this night out is. 

The day had gone from terrible to horrible to heinous, and he’s officially reached his limit now. You’d returned from your late morning in Jackson toting a gray cloud that’d settled over the entire ranch and everyone in it. All work had come to a slow and grinding halt, the mood morose, knowing that the lady of the manor was grieving and angry. 

And then a few hours into the evening, you, Ellie, and Dina had spun into the bunk, already giggling on drinks he was certain were too sugary and way too strong to end in anything good. Looking to rile up the boys into heading back to Jackson and finding a bar to terrorize. 

And so here he now finds himself, stepping through the door of The Mushroom, ridiculous name for a bar if anyone asked him, eyes searching for the gleam of your hair, that tiny fucking outfit you’d draped yourself in. You were hunting for trouble, to aggravate him, trying to hurt him with your, you’re not invited, Joel—no one wants you to come.

Angry, angry as a spitting fire. 

He’d felt like shit about himself and your upset for a second, and then had thought: Well, are you going to cowboy up, Joel? Or just lay here and bleed?

Now, there’s something sick in him that wants more of it, to take everything you’ve got to give, to see how far you can go, to push you just a little bit further too.

A masochist, is what he reckons he might actually be.

He finds Ellie’s bent head whispering into Dina’s ear, giggling and dragging her fingertips up the other girls bare arm, and he feels a thump of fondness for the two—happier than he can say that they’ve finally worked it all out after months of their will-they-won’t-they struggle.

Making his way over to them, he catches Frank in the distance, dancing to the countryfied Abba cover of Chiquitita the local band’s currently playing while Bill stands nearby, serious and menacing, keeping anyone from getting too close to his partner. 

No sign of you, and the backs of his knees itch and burn. 

“Where is she?” He demands when he reaches Ellie at their place against the bar. 

“Oh, dude. She’s gonna be soooo pissed.”

“Where, Ellie?”

Get you anything to drink, sugar? The bartender calls and Joel shakes her away, panic thumping in his gut the longer he doesn’t have eyes on you.

Dina knocks her head towards the end of the L-shaped bar, closest to the throng of dancing patrons, and there in the last seat and partially obscured by someone’s shoulder and ridiculously feathered hat, you sit. 

“Who the fuck is that?” 

“Can you please just leave her alone. She needs to blow some steam off.”

“Yeah, Joel, we’re watching her,” Dina adds, always the peacekeeper.

Or blow someone, Ellie adds in a snicker, and he gives her a death glare. “You need to quit the asshole act,” she tells him, purposefully thunking her beer hard enough on the bartop that some of it sloshes over the lip of the bottle onto his hand braced against the edge. 

Real mature. 

“Changed my mind,” he tells the bartender when she heads back their way, “Shot of Jameson.” 

Beside him, Jesse appears, beer in hand as he leans against the bar to watch you also. “That might just be the most beautiful girl I’ve seen in my whole life, honest to God,” he sighs wistfully. 

Joel sees red—this is just too much. “Quit fuckin’ lookin’ at her,” he snaps. 

Ellie snickers knowingly, and Frank and Bill join the group, picking up on the topic of conversation. 

“That little girl can drink a grown man under the goddamn table,” Bill says. 

“And looks good as hell doing it too—”

“Eyes off, you little shit,” Joel sends a threatening glance at Jesse again. 

Ellie ignores them both. “He’s a finance bro or some shit—from New York—here to play cowboy dress up with the group he’s with. Nothing I can’t handle, and you need to cool it and leave or have a drink and let her have fun.”

“She’s vulnerable right now, Ellie—”

“Yeah, you would know.”

Joel’s turn to do the ignoring, “And she needs someone to watch her back.”

“I’m fuckin’ watching it, man. You’re so annoying, and I’ll have you know that—” The fucker’s got a thick lock of your long hair trapped between his probably manicured fucking fingers, smoothing it between his thumb and index and then looping it around and around, drawing you in closer.

Joel’s about to start howling.

You’ve done something to him, knocked something askew inside him, and he needs you to set it back to rights. Let him out of this saw trap he’s been caught in. 

The man says something that has you throwing your head back in an overly eager laugh, loud and melodic in the most hypnotizing sort of way, meant to draw the eye or seduce or send his gut to twisting and aching. 

Ellie’s saying something about how you need to have fun, how you need to find yourself, and all Joel can think is that he can be the one to give you that, to help you do all that while still making sure you’re alright, taken care of. 

Over the wannabe cowboy’s shoulder, he sees your eyes land on him, and you give him one of those serenely beautiful smiles he knows means he’s about to lose his fucking mind and cause a scene. 

A provocation of a smile is what it is. 

You cross one long leg over the other, a flash of hot pink his eyes can’t help but flash to beneath the obscene hem of your skirt and lean in to whisper something, glossy lips right at his ear, and a tick starts up below Joel’s left eye. The fuckwit pulls you in closer, and you tip into him, hand on his shoulder—your eyes never leave Joel’s, and then you’re pulling him off the barstool and leading him into the throng of dancing people. He’s desperate to know what the back of your hot pink underwear looks like—string of lace wedged between the cleft of your ass, or silk wrapping around the full cheek like a perfect present? The man pulls you into himself, spinning you around, and you’re made up of blues and purples and pinks, shimmering like something that shouldn’t exist here amongst all the rest of them. Slinky little top made of silk like water and sparkles, your cheeks, flushed with drink or heat, but he’ll tell himself it’s because of him, because you’re still angry at him, thinking of him, and it soothes the tempest that’s brewing in his gut. 

He spins you towards himself, the man Joel’s about to beat senseless, shooting the Jameson without really tasting anything but the insane jealousy souring to irrational fury on his tongue, it pulses in his throat once, twice, and the fucker tugs you into himself again by a handful of your ass in that too short skirt and sticks his tongue in your mouth. Joel slams the glass on the bartop, not seeing red anymore, something like dark spots now, he’s so fucking pissed off. 

Ellie yelps his name, her and Jesse scrambling after him, but they’re too late and he’s there already, pulling you away, and gently because he might be feeling a little bit like a demon right now, but he knows what you are and how to handle you no matter what—and slams his fist into the fuckers nose, the satisfying crunch of broken bone and a pathetic cry sounds as he hits the sticky bar floor. The people around peer over in nothing more than mild curiosity, this is a cowboy bar after all. 

He watches the man for a second, making sure he stays down, and then turns to look at you and isn’t at all surprised when he finds that look of victory on your face. 

“Ready to go?” Voice all sweet innocence. 

You’re going to kill him. 

Spinning around on the toe of your boot, the hem of your little skirt flutters with your movements and he catches a flash of cheek, mystery of your panties still unsolved. 

“You’re a real dumbass, you know that?” Ellie snarks as they pass the group of them. 

He chooses to ignore that observation. “Don’t stay out too late. And let Bill drive back.”

Following you out into the night, he tries to take control of himself, to lie away the heat he feels sitting heavy in his stomach. 

He wishes he had a mint leaf to pulverize between his molars, he wishes he could pull you over his knee and spank your ass for being such a bad girl. And looming behind you, he knows you’re not even a little bit intimidated by his size as you dance and prance across the parking lot towards his truck.

“I know you’re ticked off because of last night and today, but you can’t lash out just because you’re angry with me.” 

All he gets in response is that head-thrown-back wind chime laughter—the real one, which is something. 

“You need to stop misbehaving,” he breathes down your neck.

“Hmm, I don’t think I will,” you singsong. 

“Are you drunk?” Refusing to be distracted, he’s going to stand strictly on business, he promises himself. 

You spin around again—always catching him off guard and pissing him off—hooking yourself on his shirtfront, pulling yourself into him like you’re trying to dance some fucked up dance he doesn’t know the steps to. 

“Not at all.”

“You need to not be touching me right now,” he warns, the threads of his control dangerously close to snapping, walking you backwards without putting his hands on you. Chest to chest, he feels like he could breathe fire if he really set his mind to it. 

“Yes, sir,” you say sweetly, dragging your palms down his chest and belly before letting him go, skipping ahead of him, humming an off-key rendition of whatever kitschy, poor excuse for a country song they’d been playing at the end in there. 

The even poorer excuse for a skirt bounces along the curve of your ass, driving him fucking mad—he’s goig to have a heart attack, he’s middle aged, he can’t handle this shit anymore—you. 

Stop that, he growls.

“God, you don’t like anything—you’re no fun,” you pout. 

Coming to the truck, he yanks the door open for you. “Get in the damn truck.” And he makes sure to turn away and not ogle your ass as you hop in, his palm hovering in the vicinity of your elbow if you need him. 

The prospect of an hour and a half of the dark drive and the scent of your musky sweet perfume and sweat soaked skin has his heart pounding. When he pulls his door open, you’re turned in your seat expectantly waiting for him, folded knees up on the seat and pink triangle right there to taunt him. 

“Sit right—put on your seatbelt.”

“You’re so bossy.” An exaggerated sigh and your voice is so fucking sassy, a tiny bit of a needy whine threaded through it, he feels his patience snap. 

Grabbing hold of your damp cheeks he squeezes hard enough to force your full mouth into a pout and giving your head a little shake he says, “And you need managing, little girl. Put your fucking belt on, or I’ll put it on for you.”

Eyes all pupil and gone blurry, you lick your lips and he can smell the sweet fruit scent of your breath. He groans, pushing you back—mistake, mistake, putting his hands on you at all—and peels out of the parking lot, and he is not hard in his jeans for you. 

“Are you mad at me?” You ask after several moments of forced silence. 

“No.”

“Not even for last night?”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Why not?”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it either.”

“Well, now I’ve changed my mind.”

Jesus, he mutters. “There’s nothing to discuss—already told you what I think and how it’s going to be and that’s final. You need to let it go, you hear me?”

You give a little groaning screech through your clenched teeth, turning away from him, still not wearing your goddamn seatbelt, never doing as he says. 

Toeing your boots off roughly, the little skirt hitches high enough on your thighs he catches a glimpse of the smooth glowing skin of your hip, eyes trying to watch the road and your thighs at the same time. 

“You’re horrible,” you say through a grimace, but your voice cracks a little bit at the end, and you’ve still got your face turned away so that he can’t tell if he’s made you cry or not now. 

“Are you cryin’?” He demands.

“No,” you sniffle, wiping your cheek on a lifted shoulder 

“Yes you are, liar.” Fuck—fuck, fuck.

“Well you’re bein’ mean,” you whine, finally turning to look at him again, and you’re all rose glow, cheeks flushed and eyes glossy, lips red as a cherry. 

No man should be tested like this. It’s wrong—unnatural.

He tries to gentle his voice and steady the pounding of his heart, pressing down on the gas, wishing the road would disappear from beneath the tires of the truck and that he could have you home and away from him already. “Not bein’ mean, sweetheart. Just—just…” He sighs, “Goddamnit, just don’t how how to handle you,” he curses, losing the grasp on his gentleness. 

“See—you are angry with me!” A tear slips down your cheek, and Joel’s mouth waters. 

His heart kicks up another notch, hypnotized, “You make me fuckin’ crazy—is that what you wanna hear?”

“Yes.” You turn full in the seat to face him, bent knees against the center console block his view of the apex of your thighs. Fucking Christ. 

“Sit right. You’re flashing your bits,” he tries and fails to focus on the road. 

“Yeah, that’s ‘cause I want you to see them, stupid.”

Jesus. “How much did you have to drink?” 

“Only one High Noon.”

“The hell is that? And quit lookin’ at me like that.”

“Like what?” Your knees shift against each other, and he’s gripping the steering wheel so tight he feels like he could rip it out of the dash. 

“You fuckin’ know like what.”

“Well if you hadn’t been such a cock block earlier, I’d be looking at someone else like this right now.”

And the teasing is too much. The bare legs and the tiny skirt and the hair and the lips and the sound of your voice, the kiss last night replaying in his mind over and over and over again like some lovesick taunt, the look of hurt he’d put on your face and the idea of you bare and slick, taking some other man that isn’t him. It’s too much. 

He jerks the truck roughly onto the road shoulder and into the grass, wheels spinning and gravel flying. Joel—you squeal, being jostled in your seat so that all he can see are soft thighs and pretty tits bouncing in his peripheral. He puts the truck in park, ripping his seat belt off, reaching over to tug you roughly forward by the nape, his fingers twisting in your hair in a hold he knows is too hard for something so delicate, his other hand grips below the bend of one knee squeezing hard. 

“If you think I’m gonna let you spread your legs for anyone fucking else—” he growls.

“Anyone else?” You laugh in his face, eyes spinning with something a little maniacal.

He thought he’d been worried for his soul, that taking you would be the undoing of everything he’d tried so hard to mend back together after Sarah. And really, he had tried so hard—to be good, to be better, to atone for all he’d not done before her, all he’d done after her. He’d tried to make himself into something that was respectful of her memory and the second chance Kelly had given him. 

But right here, and again because anytime he looks at you, is within a mile of your vicinity, it feels like you’re the only two people on the whole goddamn planet, he doesn’t think he really gives a fuck for being good or atoning or souls at all. Not even a little bit. 

He follows your lead from last night and kisses you, is sure to take your tongue this time. Forcing his thumb and forefinger between the line of your molars, he presses down hard enough to hurt the baby soft skin, spreading your jaw open wide so that he can lick into your mouth deep and wet. He wants to scare you, cow you, intimidate you into behaving with this hunger that seems to swallow him whole—remind you that he’s let you have your fun thus far, but the both of you know who’s playing games and who’s not. 

You let out a shocked little gasp onto his tongue, fingers twisting in the fabric over his shoulder, and he tightens his grip under your knee, tugging you just that little bit further forward, and when he pulls back to look at you, spit slick, swollen mouth and wide eyes, tits about to spill out of your top, you push his face away roughly, dragging your nails down the skin of his cheek with a tiny snarling growl. 

Spoiled little brat.

“Don’t be fuckin’ childish,” he snarls back, and pulls you roughly over the console and into his lap. 

“I can’t stand you,” you pant, settling above him, coming in to kiss him again, and he can’t deny it anymore. He’s hard as fuck for you. 

You moan into his mouth, high and throaty at the same time, girlish little sigh at the end that has him gripping your hip tightly, trying to stop himself from thrusting up against you.

“Can you taste him?” You lick his tongue. “He kinda looked like you, didn’t he? That’s why I chose him.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

He’s going to stop this now, at any moment. He’s going to push you away and tell you this is wrong and that the two of you can’t do this. 

Instead, you wrap your arms around his neck, pressing your tits high against his chest and grinding your lace covered little cunt against his cock. 

He groans into your mouth, pushed straight over the edge and free falling, cupping your ass to lift you off of himself a little bit, he just needs a second, before he takes a breath and presses you back down harder, rolling your hips against his lap. Little animal sounds, an ah, ah, ah and an oh, coupled with his mewled name. Cupping the soft of your ass in the palms of his hands, his calluses scrape against silken skin, and you fit him as if he’d dreamt you up just for himself; perfectly lush curves he can squeeze as hard as he wants because you’re not getting away from him now that he’s caught you in his snare. He drags his fingertips up the roundness of your asscheeks, and the mystery’s solved, it’s a thong. Catching the lace between his fingers he pulls the flimsy string upwards and tight against your pussy, a pained moan when he pulls even harder, making sure the fabric digs against your skin.

He knows if he cups you there you’ll be wet for him, for him, no one else but him. Knows he could bend you face first over the console, pull the soaked lace aside and suck on your wet little clit, make you come in his mouth. 

“Fuck, baby,” he groans. 

Joel, Joel, Joel, you hum in a dream voice. 

He can feel two little dimples at the low of your back, imagines what they’d look like with his thumbs gripped there as your ass takes his cock. 

He can’t say it enough—he feels fucking insane. 

“Touch me,” you beg, sliding and pressing against him, long hair like water slipping all over and against him too. 

Oh my God, he whisper moans when you spread your knees as wide as the seat allows, rocking your hips in short little hitches against the ridge of his cockhead. He knows your little clit is right there, cunt a knot of indescribable heat against him, and you pull your mouth away from his, letting your head fall back, hair a tangled curtain. He drags his nails back down your ass hard enough he hopes he’s leaving marks, leaning forward to lick along the salt tracks of your tears, watching you use him. 

“Do not fucking come,” he orders. He can’t—he can’t watch you do it and not be inside you when it happens, and the two of you absolutely cannot take this that far. 

He pulls your hips up again, forcing your movements still and you huff at him, whining. 

“We gotta stop.”

Noooo. “No, Joel. Please,” you cry, trying to pull yourself towards him—your mouth is so swollen—trying to escape his hold and get what you want for yourself. 

Grasping at the last vestiges of his sanity, “Fuck— No. No more.” He lifts you off his lap and back into your seat, sitting back to press himself against the door and adjusting the throbbing erection in his jeans, so hard it’s making him a little nauseous. If he doesn’t stop, he’s going to stuff his cock inside of you right here and now. He tucks the thick head up under his waistband, trying to find any sort of momentary relief. 

There isn’t enough oxygen in this truck. He needs air, space, to taste you. 

“Fine,” prim little nose in the air. You stretch one leg out across the console to dangle over his groin and let the other drop to the cab floor. “That’s fine—I’ll just take care of it myself then,” you tease provocatively, fingertips dragging up the inside of your thigh.

He shoots forward to stop your movement, gripping your wrist in a vice—baby bird bones beneath his fist, and you moan at his touch like the little wanton he’s coming to realize you are, writhing in your seat. “Don’t you fucking dare. I swear to God I’ll put you over my knee.”

“Jokes on you, I’d like that shit,” you sass back, ripping your wrist out of his hold, little socked foot kicking towards his face. He catches it, holding it in his grip and squeezing. “And I don’t really care if you’re not mad at me because I’m mad at you.”

“I know you are, sweetheart,” and the mood changes, smolders into something more serious, more honest.

-

“Why didn’t you go today? The lawyer asked you to—” You’d wanted to find him as soon as you’d gotten home earlier, demand he give you an explanation. Cowardice had won over that desire, and going out to find a drink and a replacement man had seemed the easier alternative. 

“Wasn’t my place.” Spreading his thighs wider in his seat to accommodate himself, he presses his hips forward, and you can make out the heft of his cock beneath his jeans—your belly twists all full of heat and bubbles. 

“Did you know he was leaving you something?”

He laughs a bitter bark of a laugh. “No—never thought—” the words die in his throat and he stares out the window, lost to the memory of your father. “No, I didn’t think he was leaving me anything before I got the call.”

“It’ll make a good nest egg.” 

“Don’t want it.”

He won’t turn to look at you now, and you know that this conversation in the aftermath of touching you shames him. 

“You’re taking it. You don’t have a choice.” His eyes flash fire at you and then flit away. “He had all your banking information, it’s probably already there.”

Fucking Christ, he spits the murmured curse, bracing his elbow against the curve of the steering wheel, cupping his palm over his mouth as if to keep his anger and frustration in. The bulge of his bicep beneath his dark hoodie distracts you for a moment. 

You’d spent enough time watching him over the years that you’d learned all the things you knew he tried to hide in plain sight. That gentleness, that patience, that heart—that he is an inconceivably good and honest man. Things that are ultimately impossible to hide. 

Your eyes flash to the temple where a gristle of scar tissues is slashed across his skin. The meaning behind a scar like that, coupled with his bad ear and his green eyed photograph—it’s hard to hide. People can always tell when you’ve tried to kill yourself, you know. 

Which all goes to say—and you’re quite certain of this—that yes, the two of you are strangers, in ways, but in others, or in your own way, you know this man. You understand his nature. You know he wouldn’t have ever wanted it—that he does not want it and never will. He isn’t the sort of man who’d ever look a million dollars in the eye and feel moved by them. 

His humanity means more to him than his life, you’d heard Tommy say about him once to your father when you’d been an eavesdropping little girl. You hadn’t understood at the time, but now you do. 

The dark pullover and jeans, incongruously boyish, the scuffed boots—he’s so himself and so fucking hot and you want him so, so badly, and looking at him sitting here now, gorgeous, hair mused by your fingers, and your slick smeared across his jeans—you look down at your own twisted fingers in your lap, a little ashamed now too—and you can’t fathom why or how he’d ever look at you and feel moved by the likes of you either. 

You’re ashamed that you’re even angry at him for it at all, resentful of this gift your father has given him when really it is not only resentment, maybe not even truly that at all. More so, it’s a complicated mixing pot of feelings that these two men seem to have always been twisted up into knots together inside of you. Resentful, not because you don’t want him to have it. You want him to have everything he deserves or could ever think to want and more, but perhaps, because this was the final nail in the coffin scrap of proof that your father had cared about him in a very real way that you’d never experienced—in a way that was entirely Oswald Kelly’s own choice and not because of dead mothers or obligation or legacy. 

“It’s good he left it for you,” you say gently and mean it. 

He looks at you out of the corner of his eyes, looks away, from under the cover of his palm says, “S’not fair to you.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with me. This is about you and you deserving this, and I’m glad he gave you your due. He should’ve left more.”

His eyes flutter shut, sighing deeply and shakes his head. “You’ve made me into something I’m not. You need to see that.”

“You’re not some sort of cautionary tale, Joel.”

“You don’t know a thing about it,” voice like he could he angry but is being very careful to remain not. “You don’t know the things I’ve done, the reasons why I came here. You should look at me and see nothin’ worthwhile.”

“My father saw something,” you argue. “You let my father see that something. And I do too, no matter what you say, no matter what you do or how hard you push me away; I’m used to it, and you won’t change my mind.”

He gives you a look like you’re hurting him, like your truths hurt him. “We’re goin’ home. This is enough,” he gruffs, pulling the truck into drive again and peeling out of the grassy knoll. 

Fight dying in your throat, you feel suddenly exhausted, shivering coldly, belly an ember of unsated lust, your orgasm is tight and wet between your legs and you don’t want to argue or impose yourself on him anymore. You don’t want to feel like you’re imposing yourself now when he’d never made you feel like that before. 

The night is a pitch dark blur falling away behind your glazed over eyes, and huddling into yourself against the door, you hide your face away in your shoulder, belly swooping with nausea. 

“You drive too fast, I’m dizzy,” you mumble, and he  immediately slows, foot easing off the gas.

“You gonna puke?”

“Yes, all over your face.”

“I’m serious, darlin’. Need me to stop?”

“No. I just want to be home,” said in as small a voice as you can manage, hoping he won’t catch your words, and soon he’s turning off into the long drive to the house. 

When he pulls to a stop, you scramble to grab your boots before he can say anything else, but he’s unnaturally quick for such a large man, out the door and around the nose of the truck, pulling your own door open before you can even get a single boot on. He pulls them from your grasp, and then tugs you bodily out of your seat, slinging you over his shoulder as if you were some sack of nuisance prone potatoes. You screech, flailing, trying to knee him in the gut, but he bands a strong arm across the backs of your thighs, pinning you in obedient place. “Quit.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” You howl, hitting him repeatedly on the ass, trying to wriggle and make his life as difficult as you possibly can. 

This man has absolutely no consideration or respect or sense of personal space!

Technically, neither do you—but that’s neither here nor there. 

You scream like a hyena, shrill and long and he pinches your ass hard, right at the inner crease of your thigh and ass cheek, too close to your still wet pussy for comfort. “I said quit.”

“Everything alright out here?” You hear Jesse’s voice call from the direction of the bunk, they must’ve beat you two here while you’d been trying to seduce Joel into making you come. 

The snap of Joel’s fingers and then, “Mind your own fucking business.”

“You are so rude.”

He bumps you on his shoulder, jostling you on the soft of your belly and making your cunt go even tighter. You hate him. “Quiet, you.” 

Letting himself in the dark of your house, he makes his way up the stairs while you hang quietly upside down now, a little astounded, a lot turned on by how strong he is, lugging you all the way upstairs without even a change in his breathing. 

But as soon as he steps foot into your bedroom, now set to rights from yesterday’s disaster, you feel the change come on him. The shift and deepening of his breaths, the expanse of his ribs going wide and winglike as he sucks in a big gulp of air. You press your palm flat to the center of his back, feeling the whistle of his breath go in and out of him until he’s slipping you off his shoulder to bounce gently backwards onto your soft bed. 

He stands above you for a quiet moment, and you take in the broad shape of him backlit by the moonlight of your open drapes. He’s huge and imposing cast in this darkness, something out of a dream.

Literally—out of your own teenage fantasy dreams. 

Has anyone in all the world ever wanted someone as badly as you want him?

You can feel the press of his left knee against the inside of your right one, and you wish he’d put it between your thighs, join you on the bed.

“Can I ask you something?” You reach your fingers out and he tangles his hand with yours and it’s a small victory. 

“Yeah.”

“Would you come to my funeral?”

His fingers jolt— “What?”

“If I died.”

“Don’t say shit like that.”

“Tell me that you would—” You tug him forward and he lets himself come, bending over your prone form, braced on one arm and still holding onto your fingers with the other. “—That I wouldn't be alone even there.”

“You’re not alone.”

“Would you?”

“Makes me angry when you say shit like this—as if you don’t believe I’m going to take care of you.” 

“Please tell me, Joel. Promise me—” and you reach up to gently touch the scar across his temple. 

He goes frozen and understanding. “I’d come,” and you know it costs him something to give in to such an imagining and it makes you all the more grateful for it. 

Fingers sliding back into the curls at his temple, silver speckled, you know, you pull him further towards you until he’s close enough to press a softly hot kiss to his mouth. The two of you hold there for a moment, another, another, you can feel the wash of his heavy breathing through his nose, the flutter of his long lashes tangling with yours—you hope he’s searching for you in the dark—and you lift your knee up onto the bed, bending to open yourself to him. 

He pulls back, hand shooting to your jaw to grip you tightly in place, breath ragged, animal being hunted. 

You smile.

“Not gonna fuck you,” he says low.

“Why not?” It’s what you want, you deserve to have what you want. He squeezes your face once, presses another hard, too quick kiss to your mouth and then flips you over onto your belly, turning your skirt up over your ass to expose you. He tugs once on the string of your thong, drawing his finger along the lace wedged between your ass cheeks and then pulls his hand away for a moment before he’s spanking you hard and quick. 

Owwww, you whine, hitching your rump towards him, wanting more despite the sting. He bends his head and bites you even harder at the inner corner of your asscheek, teeth digging hard and long enough to leave a mark. You whine again, high and mewling, trying to escape his meanness and he smacks you again on the other cheek. 

“Go to bed, little girl. I’ll see you in the mornin’.”

And he’s leaving you, broad shouldered form slipping out your bedroom door and leaving you aching and angry to scream into your pillow.

You’re pretty sure you hear his deep laugh before the slam of the door sounds below, and you’re slipping your greedy fingers into the ruined wet of your panties, petting away the ache he’s left. 

-

The late May night is cool, despite the daytime heat, and Ellie shivers in her Carhartt, watching as Joel slips out the back kitchen door of the big house. 

“The hell is going on with those two?” Jesse says beside her, pulling long on his beer. The litter of yellow cans around them speaks to his mullish whining that he’d not been able to pull tonight. Sometimes he annoys her, but in that sort of endearing little brother way that makes her want to kick his ass and protect him at the same time. 

“Nothin’, they’re fine—just gotta fuck it out.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Naw—just smarter than you, man.”

“They like each other?”

“God, Jesse, you wouldn’t see an obvious thing if it were a tipsy bison barrelin’ towards you full speed in the middle of the day.”

“I don’t know what that means,” he says a little pathetically. Moping men—Ellie really can’t be assed to deal with them all. 

“It’s fine. You don’t need to understand. I do—I see all, I know all. You mere mortals wouldn’t understand.”

“S’kinda weird, no? Them two—him bein’ so much older, her bein’…well, you know— her.”

“Nope. Makes perfect sense—they need each other, you see.”

He shrugs, I guess—“You’re fuckin’ weird, too. You know that?”

She takes a swig of her beer now also, hoping the two idiots she loves most in the world, after Dina of course, figure each other out before the whole ranch has to suffer for it too. 

“Wrong again, Jesse. Wrong again.”

Chapter 3; Little Freak

Netherfeildren’s Masterlist

Updates Blog

[garfunklefield]

Pools and Honey

18+ viewer discretion is advised

fem!reader/Kento Nanami Warnings: reader has a temperature kink, pool .. fondling? outdoor sex but it's in his backyard, creampie, grinding, fondling, intense sexual tension, Nanami is the consent king, praise, dilf!Nanami, there is like a twenty year age gap, Nanami is divorced and also wears glasses again :P, Yuji and Sukuna are his kids, fluff, there is plot to this porn Word count: 4857 DESC: You become the live-in maid and babysitter for the hot dilf Kento Nanami.

I have a Ko-Fi now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm super excited :3 I've already uploaded some content and I'll make sure to get you guys well-fed! And PLEASE send me requests I have no ideas!

You got a match. It had been several days since you had put your resume up on a babysitting website, in hopes of someone swiping yes on you. All you needed was somebody to say “Yes of course watch my child, you stranger!” But it wasn’t looking good. You wanted to give up and continue going to your dead-end job, giving up your dream of raising children in hopes of being a good mother someday. 

But then you got a match. It was a man older than you, about his forties, with two young boys. He was polite in his message, detailing how pay would work even the boys’ temperament. They were twins, ages 7. Ryomen and Yuji. Yuji was a blessing to the world with a habit of forgetting stranger danger, whereas Ryomen seemed to be … spunky as his dad put it. You knew it was another word for a problem child. They looked adorable in their photos, although you found yourself staring more at their father than anything else. 

Kento Nanami… From the way he dressed in that selfie with him and his boys, the background of a few other photos, and the pay he was offering you could tell he was rich. A rich dilf who was offering a higher salary than what you were getting at your current job. It made your mouth water thinking about how all your bills would be paid. 

Then you got to read his message more. It was polite and well-structured, with good grammar. Formal, a bit too formal if you thought about it but you didn’t mind. He was looking for a live-in maid and babysitter, who could watch his children 24/7 without hesitation. 

He wanted you to move in? Well not entirely. He wanted to ease into the live-in maid situation and get the boys accustomed to you. If the first meet-up didn’t work you knew there wouldn’t be any hope for the future. It wasn’t looking too grim, and you were elated at the thought of living in a big house for free with a rich older man. You shot him back a simple reply and soon the date was set to meet the Nanami’s.

It was hard to pick out what to wear and you decided on something more conservative than you’d typically go for. It was about the boys today and you wanted to make sure you didn’t scare off their father either by dressing too scandalously. You wore a big black turtleneck and some loose-fitting jeans, all to cover your figure. 

Walking up the steps of his house it was hard to stare. Ivory walls that shot up off the ground and about three stories from what you could gauge. Who really needed all of that house? No one! Nonetheless, you quickly moved through the driveway and the maze of plants, approaching the front door. It was black with a large gold doorknob. Inside you heard nothing with no sign of life from the outside of the house either. But once you touched the ring doorbell, because of course what rich person doesn’t have that, you saw lights flick on. Not just lights but you heard a loud crash, followed by clambering to get to the door. 

Two boys, you knew it. There was some commotion between the two of them before you heard a man’s deep and soothing voice break their tension, followed by a “Yes Dad” from the boys. God, he looked and sounded hot? You were completely and utterly done for. Dating your boss was a complete no in this field, something you knew from experience. But you couldn't help it! You had a type. Dilfs. 

The door opened and you were met with a man who you soon realized was much taller than you anticipated. He was blonde, hollow cheekbones filled his face, and he stared at you with dead tired eyes. Kento, as you remembered, had on the same pair of thick aviator glasses that were perched upon his thin nose. He wore a simple outfit of a button-up shirt and some slacks, and you noticed a fancy watch on the wrist of the hand he moved to shake yours with. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he spoke politely, not bothering to gaze at you as intensely as you were staring at him. You reminded yourself to blink and you quickly returned his handshake, trying not to grip him too firmly. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you two, Mr. Nanami. I’m very excited to meet Yuji and Ryomen,” you smiled, tilting your head a bit. You mainly did that to see a bit of the inside better, and to gauge where the boys were. 

You heard another loud crash and Kento retracted his hand, turning his head to find where the noise was coming from, “Speak of the devil. Boys,” he warned, his voice edging a faint shout. You heard some scrambling and you saw two of the cutest boys in the world scurry up to their father. 

You could instantly tell who was who, even though they were practically identical. Yuji had wide eyes full of wonder, with a green dinosaur shirt on and pink spiky hair pushed downwards against his forehead. His cheeks were plump and fat, bouncing upwards into a smile when he saw you. Then there was Ryomen. He looked agitated, with his hair spiked upwards and a plain black shirt adorned on his small body. He looked at you for a moment and his eyes widened before he averted his gaze quickly. 

“It’s so nice to meet you,” you turned your attention to the both of them, bending down and resting your hands on your knees to meet their eye level. You spoke your name and then smiled, first at the boy who wasn’t looking at you, “You’re Ryomen, right? I like your hair. My brother likes to make his all messy like that too.” 

The little boy looked back at you with a sheepish expression, before nodding, “S’nothing,” was all he said, looking over to his brother. It was as if he expected Yuji to be the center of attention once you were done talking to him and you felt your heart squeeze. You knew why. Problem children never got looked at the same as well-behaved children, especially if the two were side by side. From the way Ryomen looked at you, he knew you’d become busy with Yuji. He was always cast aside, compared to his brother, probably even ridiculed for it. All he needed was attention. And it didn’t seem Yuji cared if you paid attention to him either way, as he was now busy trying to get his father to pick him up. 

“Yuji, why don’t you say hi to your babysitter?” Kento asked blankly, his voice remaining flat as he spoke. 

Yuji glanced at you and waved, smiling widely, “Hi!” Before turning back to his dad and making grabby hands. 

You smiled and waved back, turning your head to Ryomen again, “Is your favorite color black? Mine’s dark red, it’s kinda similar if you think about it,” you spoke calmly and delicately, in a way you knew he hadn’t experienced very often. 

He nodded, cracking a toothy smile, “Mhm. And green. I like green … cause it’s like leaves,” Ryomen motioned to the plants behind you. 

Kento cleared his throat and you gazed back at him, “Why don’t you come inside? Make yourself comfortable.” You nodded and followed suit, coming inside. 

Yuji and Ryomen played on the floor, wrestling around or using their action figures. You sat on the couch a few feet away from their gorgeous father, who spoke occasionally to you. You thought it would go a bit differently, with more questions on your qualifications or your flexibility. But instead, he seemed to be observing how you acted with his children. The boys seemed instantly comfortable, Yuji it wasn’t surprising, but for Ryomen, you felt slightly surprised. From the way he was described, you were expecting a boy who was too bratty to even look at you respectfully. Instead, he was polite and soft-spoken. Every time he accidentally stepped on your foot or chucked a toy in your direction he’d apologize quickly and go back to doing his activity, nothing malicious about him. 

“They’re cute,” you murmured, getting lost in just watching them be kids. God your ovaries just hurt at the sight of them, it made you wonder why it was taking you so long to find someone to settle down with. Well maybe…

You shook your head. No. You couldn’t date your boss, especially with his kids in the mix. Not to mention, he probably had a wife. This big of a house, and with his looks? There was no way he was single. He had to be married and you let out a sigh as you accepted this dilf was out of reach. 

“They’re very comfortable with you. With the last babysitter, they were too shy,” Kento nodded as he spoke, using his left hand to motion to his kids. You glanced and your heart sped up. He didn’t have a ring. His hand was completely bare aside from the watch. Was he actually single? There was no way in hell he was single. 

“I’m glad. Ryomen’s such a sweetheart and so is Yuji, of course,” a small smile bit on your lips as you watched the two boys wrestle around on the floor without a care in the world. God they were cute and god did your uterus hurt. 

“People don’t typically say that about Ryomen,” he sighed, pressing his index finger against the middle of his glasses to push them up, “I’m glad to hear something different for once.”

It was sad but you knew it was true. Before you could reply, Kento spoke again, “I think I want to hire you right away as a full-time maid, if you’re willing to accept. I have a good feeling about this.”

You quickly learned the status of your boss's romance life after overhearing a few too many phone calls. He was divorced with a wife who had a thing for younger men. They’d often talk on the phone in a way that made your skin crawl. So tense and so passive-aggressive. You picked up the fact that she must’ve cheated or done something to push him over the edge, but none of it was confirmed. 

The boys would spend every weekend with their mother and whatever boyfriend she had then. He didn’t mind being alone with you, he seemed to enjoy it. Kento would speak casually about a book he was reading, or just about something random that had happened to him that day. As if he was a friend or polite coworker, rather than your actual boss. It didn’t help either that your attraction for him grew. Every time his hand would accidentally brush against yours or his eyes would graze against your skin, you felt yourself become as light as a feather. 

You wanted to feel his cold hands rake up and down your body, grabbing you in ways you knew he never would. You wanted to feel him become hard underneath your touch and revel in the fact you could make such a man bend to your will. But you had no hopes of him ever liking you like that. His glances were long, sure, but very PG. You never caught him once staring at your ass or a bit of cleavage through your shirt. His eyes were always on your face, with a polite faint smile ghosting his lips. 

Today was Saturday. The two young boys were gone and it was you and Kento alone, sitting on his long white couch. He was a few feet across from you, legs casually crossed as he read some book you weren’t too familiar with. It was growing increasingly hot in the room and you couldn’t tell if it was your hormones or the fact the AC hadn’t been lowered in a few hours. It was almost summer so the fact it was getting warmer wasn’t too surprising. It was maybe mid-afternoon, with the sun shining through his back screen door. 

You had eyed it for a long time before even asking him about the pool in the back. He didn’t typically use it as you soon learned, instead opting to sit and read. Always read. But it felt different. You tugged at the collar of your shirt and made some comment about how it was becoming too hot to handle. 

Kento’s eyes glanced from one of the pages to your face, before setting down the book on his lap, “You’re hot?” He raised an eyebrow as he spoke. 

You nodded, “I might grab some ice to eat if that’s okay,” you motioned to the kitchen in the other room, separated by a half wall. 

“You can go swimming,” he suggested, nodding his head over to the glass door, “It’ll cool you down.” A different look filled your boss’s eye as he then added, “I’ll join you.”

With that, Kento stood up and headed upstairs to his room. The way he looked at you wasn’t the same as it had always been. You couldn’t tell if it was just a playful glance or perhaps a lustful gleam filling his eyes. You couldn’t tell if he wanted this evening to turn into something more than just a casual swim in his pool. 

You weren’t sure which bathing suit to wear. You had a suit you’d wear in front of your family, it was a red one-piece that practically covered everything. But if it was going where you thought it was going you didn’t want to cover up. Instead, you opted for a pink two-piece with ribbons and bows on the sides. It was cute and innocent, the total opposite of your mind at that moment. God you could just picture his big hands on your ass, grinding you against the bulge in his pants while you two stayed in the water. It turned you on to think of how warm he’d be in contrast to the icy cool water against your skin. And you hoped he’d stare at you with some ounce of perversion in his gaze. Some ounce of pure unbridled lust. 

Once you finished changing and put your hair up into something you considered fashionable, you made your way onto the back patio. It didn’t take you very long to find Kento sitting poolside, with his legs in the water. God just the sight of his back was enough to make the tender spot between your legs melt. He was toned and muscular, practically sculpted by god. You wanted so desperately to run your hands down his back and up his front, just tracing each muscle to feel him squirm. 

“Kento,” you began, closing the screen door behind you. He turned his head and let his dull eyes rake up your body ever so slowly. There was a new kind of tension that wasn’t there the day you first met. It was as if he was looking at you from a whole new lens. It was as if he finally thought he had a chance. 

“I like it. Is it new?” He inquired, motioning with his right hand for you to sit beside him. You followed quietly, making sure to keep a few inches of space in between you two as you perched beside the pool and felt the cold water run up your legs. 

You bit your lip at the sensation of prickling cold and closed your eyes. Who wasn’t into a bit of temperature play, right? You had completely forgotten to answer Nanami, getting lost in the sensation of cold water against your skin. The mixture of that and the fact you could practically feel the warmth radiating off of your boss made you wetter beyond belief. 

He cleared his throat and you looked at him through rows of thick eyelashes, “Hm?” Your head lazily tilted to the side, with a hazy blush forming at the temples of your cheeks. He was godly. His chest was made from the finest of marble and cut just to suit your perverted gaze. It made him seem unnaturally beautiful if that was even possible. 

“I like your bathing suit,” Kento repeated, with his voice turning to a silky low tone. You could practically hear him groaning and moaning in your ear. 

You nodded and turned away, staring down into the blue water. It was so clear you could see the bottom below you, which was painted a stark white. You could also see Kento’s legs, which were (just like his back) completely toned and rippled with muscles. 

“I like yours,” you replied before dipping down into the water. You bit back a moan at the incredibly cold feeling shooting up your back and in between your legs, gripping onto the edge to steady yourself. Now if it just got incredibly hot… god that would be perfect. You looked up at him with a sheepish grin, noting the fact his eyes were completely glued on you. Not your face though. 

Kento hadn’t had a chance to fully take in your form, seeing as you only wore baggy clothes in front of him. And now he had a perfect view of your breasts and it turned you on from how he stared. You could tell he wanted to fondle them and make them his. Bite along the skin and suck your nipples until they are sensitive to the touch. You bit your bottom lip again, feeling a throb pulsate through your swollen clit. Just any sort of friction would’ve been nice at that moment. 

He hopped down into the water a few moments later, keeping his distance. It was as if he stood too close he’d lose all control and do something he’d regret in the morning. But you wanted so badly for him to lose control and fuck you senseless in the water. You wanted him to take your wet pussy and brand it with his cock until he was milked dry. 

“Thank you,” Kento whispered, eyes staring up into the sky which was beginning to turn an orange color in the distance, “The boys really like you. And I really like you… is that odd to you?” He looked back at you with an intense gaze. 

You shook your head, “I like you. It’s not weird. I…” You couldn’t say it. You couldn’t confess that you had been having those thoughts to him. You couldn’t tell your boss you wanted him to fuck you. You couldn’t.

He took one slow step towards you, big hands coming and resting against the small of your back, “Tell me. Does this make you uncomfortable?” His voice was a low purr, with his eyes boring holes into yours. 

You felt your cheeks heat up and prickle a warm shade of pink, “...No.” 

“Can I continue?” The blonde man tilted his head to the side, begging to inch closer to your perfect body. His hands moved from your back to grip onto your side, molding against your love handles and massaging them with a circular motion. 

You couldn’t help yourself and you nodded quickly, bringing your hands to rest on his chest, “Please,” was all you had to whisper, because then his hands moved from your love handles to cradle your ass. One hand rubbed large circles while the other squeezed and prodded at it, just to get a rise out of you. You inhaled sharply and groaned into the sensation, pressing yourself against his stiff body, feeling the tent in his swimsuit press against your front.

“You tease me… walking around with those outfits, to make me wonder what body you have underneath,” Kento cooed, resting his chin against your head, “I could fuck you into apologizing, hm? I could make you sorry for teasing me like that if I was mean…” 

A whimper came tumbling out of your mouth just at his words. God his voice was heavenly. You wanted him to whisper sweet nothings into your ear as he fucked you from behind, forcing your back into an arch and pulling you by your hair. 

“You like that, I’m not surprised,” you could practically hear the smile biting at his lips as he pulled you back by your hips. He stared down at your face before pulling one of his hands from your lower half to touch your cheek, “May I kiss you?”

Your legs melted then and there. What a gentleman. What a fucking gentleman. Every single time he asked, even when he could gauge the answer from the look on your dumbstruck face, he asked. It made you hornier to just think he cared about how you felt in that moment. He cared about you in a way that wasn’t just sexual. I mean he entrusted you with his kids 24/7 of course he cared!

“Kiss me,” you whispered, resting your hand against his own on your face. A nurturing smile formed on his soft mouth and you felt it press against your own. It was chaste and sweet, just to test the waters. But it didn’t stay that way for long. 

He pressed shallow kisses against your lips just to build up the sensation before englonging them ever so slightly. They got longer and longer until his mouth wasn’t moving from yours, but instead molding to become one. He sucked against your bottom lip and kissed you with passion. It was delicate and gentle, but you could tell he wanted to go crazy. You could tell he was holding back and it drove you crazy!

Kento tilted his head and slowly deepened the kiss, bringing your bodies closer together. His hands were underneath your thighs, pulling you up until your feet were no longer touching the bottom of the pool. Instead of bringing you to sit on the edge of the pool as you thought he was going to do, he put his leg in between yours and pressed you against his knee. Friction. 

You moaned into the kiss and began to rock your hips back and forth, anything to get off to elevate the throbbing in your pussy. The man’s hands didn’t stay PG for long, one staying on your ass to prop you up as the other moved to untie your swimsuit top from behind. You needed to cum, it was a primal urge in your gut. You had to cum, you couldn’t stand not being able to anymore. And you needed to cum with Kento, on Kento, anywhere. 

“May I?” Kento asked, looking down at you as he messed with the string of your bikini top. You nodded and moaned out an exacerbated please and he followed suit. 

Your swimsuit top was off within a few seconds and he didn’t take long to attack one of your nipples, sticking your breast inside his mouth. He knew exactly what to do, using his tongue to roll over the nub and his teeth to grade against the sensitive area. You didn’t even realize you liked having your nipples sucked until he just … did it. 

“F-fuck… me m-m..fuck me pl..please,” you breathed out, aching for some form of release. You had never needed it this bad in your entire life. It was starting to hurt from how badly you wanted him to fuck you. You wanted his girthy cock to stretch your holes and pump you with load after a load of his warm cum. 

Kento didn’t have to be told twice. You found yourself now perched on the side of the pool, dazed and horny as he pulled himself out to sit beside you. The concrete ground was hard against your ass but you weren’t on there for long. He grabbed you delicately and picked you up, cradling you close to his chest. It was almost familiar, leaning your head against his pecs as he walked over to one of the many couches on the patio. 

“Out here…?” You murmured as he set you on your stomach, prepping a pillow underneath you beforehand. 

You felt a large and hard hand rub a circle against your ass cheek, “I have a fence,” was all he said as he pulled down your swimsuit bottoms and tossed them to the side. You heard some shuffling then a warm and bulbous head pressed against your slit, “May I?”

“P-please,” you whined, bracing yourself for the stretch. Nanami put both hands on your hips and slowly inserted himself. He was gentle and careful, stopping every few seconds to check in to make sure you weren’t hurting. The way he filled you out made you almost cum then and there.  

“I’ll start slow so you can adjust to th-” He had begun but you promptly cut him off with another whine. 

“No… just go,” you turned your head to look at him with a pout forming on your lips, “I’m beyond ready, Kento.” 

He blinked a few times, and an air of surprise hinted on his face. He hadn’t expected you to be so eager to be railed by his cock, but he shouldn’t have been surprised. Your stares were obvious from the beginning. You bit your lip and stared back at him, just waiting for him to begin. 

Kento sighed and nodded, “Very well,” was all he said. He reached down, one hand on your hip and the other grabbing one of yours, “I’ll start now.”

He patted your hip and then began. You didn’t have time to brace yourself as he started rough. His hips snapped into your cunt and you felt his tip kiss your G-spot within seconds. You tensed and curled your back inwards, feeling the sensation grow with every thrust. Nanami was just a god at everything he did, easily fucking you as if it was second nature. His cock thrust in and out of you in perfect rhythm, plapping against your ass loudly. But you both didn’t seem to care. 

“F-fuck!” You gasped, burying your head against the couch cushion, “A-ah.. I- mm ha- f-f-..fuck.” Not exactly a sentence but it was music to his ears. You couldn’t help it. You’d never been one to be loud typically when you were fucked, but this was different. There wasn’t any build-up and god was it just better. The fact he was going and going and going, without a care for how sensitive you were turned you on beyond belief.

Nanami’s hand brushed against your hip and pressed down at the small of your back, pushing your back from curling inwards to arching back again, “There we go… good girl. I want you to stay arched for me, okay pretty girl?” You whimpered and nodded a few times, looking back to see him intensely staring at your form. He rubbed small circles into your back and held you there, keeping you arched for his big cock. 

He continued to fuck you, ramming his girthy length deep in your cunt, practically asking you to squirt down his shaft. And god you were so close to cumming. You hadn’t even noticed but Kento was getting close. You began to tell from how his thrusts got sloppier, or how his hand pressed deeper into your back, forcing your arch lower and lower. 

“Fuck…” He breathed out, leaning forward to rest his head against your mid back. You felt his ball smack against your cunt, with his body pressing down against yours as you two became one. He could tell you were close, muttering, “You’re going to cum… huh?” 

You let out a loud moan as a response, with your hips jerking up. It felt so good to the point where you couldn’t control your bodily movements anymore. Kento sat back up, groaning and then stiffening. You didn’t realize what was happening until you felt a warm load shoot deep into your pussy, causing you to cum as well. Load after load shot into your walls and coated you in white, milking him completely dry. His hand pressed into your back again, keeping you arched as he rode out his high. 

Kento slowly came to a stop, letting go of your hand to hold your hips delicately. He used his fingers to brush along the skin and rub small circles on the areas he grabbed or pressed too hard, looking you over with an intense gaze. 

“I…” You slowly began, turning your head to glance sheepishly at your boss. He looked down at you, breathing quickly. He blinked a few times, with his expression softening when he began to read the tone of your face. “I should quit, shouldn’t I?” You murmured, eyes fluttering close. 

The blonde let out a sigh followed by a breathless laugh, “I thought that was going differently,” he mused, before clearing his throat and adding, “I don’t mind if you quit as long as you stay in my house … with me.” 

You opened your eyes, “Of course, Kento. Of course.

[eyrieofsynapses]

why Aurora's art is genius

It's break for me, and I've been meaning to sit down and read the Aurora webcomic (https://comicaurora.com/, @comicaurora on Tumblr) for quite a bit. So I did that over the last few days.

And… y'know. I can't actually say "I should've read this earlier," because otherwise I would've been up at 2:30-3am when I had responsibilities in the morning and I couldn't have properly enjoyed it, but. Holy shit guys THIS COMIC.

I intended to just do a generalized "hello this is all the things I love about this story," and I wrote a paragraph or two about art style. …and then another. And another. And I realized I needed to actually reference things so I would stop being too vague. I was reading the comic on my tablet or phone, because I wanted to stay curled up in my chair, but I type at a big monitor and so I saw more details… aaaaaand it turned into its own giant-ass post.

SO. Enjoy a few thousand words of me nerding out about this insanely cool art style and how fucking gorgeous this comic is? (There are screenshots, I promise it isn't just a wall of text.) In my defense, I just spent two semesters in graphic design classes focusing on the Adobe Suite, so… I get to be a nerd about pretty things…???

All positive feedback btw! No downers here. <3

---

I cannot emphasize enough how much I love the beautiful, simple stylistic method of drawing characters and figures. It is absolutely stunning and effortless and utterly graceful—it is so hard to capture the sheer beauty and fluidity of the human form in such a fashion. Even a simple outline of a character feels dynamic! It's gorgeous!

Though I do have a love-hate relationship with this, because my artistic side looks at that lovely simplicity, goes "I CAN DO THAT!" and then I sit down and go to the paper and realize that no, in fact, I cannot do that yet, because that simplicity is born of a hell of a lot of practice and understanding of bodies and actually is really hard to do. It's a very developed style that only looks simple because the artist knows what they're doing. The human body is hard to pull off, and this comic does so beautifully and makes it look effortless.

Also: line weight line weight line weight. It's especially important in simplified shapes and figures like this, and hoo boy is it used excellently. It's especially apparent the newer the pages get—I love watching that improvement over time—but with simpler figures and lines, you get nice light lines to emphasize both smaller details, like in the draping of clothing and the curls of hair—which, hello, yes—and thicker lines to emphasize bigger and more important details and silhouettes. It's the sort of thing that's essential to most illustrations, but I wanted to make a note of it because it's so vital to this art style.

THE USE OF LAYER BLENDING MODES OH MY GODS. (...uhhh, apologies to the people who don't know what that means, it's a digital art program thing? This article explains it for beginners.)

Bear with me, I just finished my second Photoshop course, I spent months and months working on projects with this shit so I see the genius use of Screen and/or its siblings (of which there are many—if I say "Screen" here, assume I mean the entire umbrella of Screen blending modes and possibly Overlay) and go nuts, but seriously it's so clever and also fucking gorgeous:

Firstly: the use of screened-on sound effect words over an action? A "CRACK" written over a branch and then put on Screen in glowy green so that it's subtle enough that it doesn't disrupt the visual flow, but still sticks out enough to make itself heard? Little "scritches" that are transparent where they're laid on without outlines to emphasize the sound without disrupting the underlying image? FUCK YES. I haven't seen this done literally anywhere else—granted, I haven't read a massive amount of comics, but I've read enough—and it is so clever and I adore it. Examples:

Secondly: The beautiful lighting effects. The curling leaves, all the magic, the various glowing eyes, the fog, the way it's all so vividly colored but doesn't burn your eyeballs out—a balance that's way harder to achieve than you'd think—and the soft glows around them, eeeee it's so pretty so pretty SO PRETTY. Not sure if some of these are Outer/Inner Glow/Shadow layer effects or if it's entirely hand-drawn, but major kudos either way; I can see the beautiful use of blending modes and I SALUTE YOUR GENIUS.

I keep looking at some of this stuff and go "is that a layer effect or is it done by hand?" Because you can make some similar things with the Satin layer effect in Photoshop (I don't know if other programs have this? I'm gonna have to find out since I won't have access to PS for much longer ;-;) that resembles some of the swirly inner bits on some of the lit effects, but I'm not sure if it is that or not. Or you could mask over textures? There's... many ways to do it.

If done by hand: oh my gods the patience, how. If done with layer effects: really clever work that knows how to stop said effects from looking wonky, because ugh those things get temperamental. If done with a layer of texture that's been masked over: very, very good masking work. No matter the method, pretty shimmers and swirly bits inside the bigger pretty swirls!

Next: The way color contrast is used! I will never be over the glowy green-on-black Primordial Life vibes when Alinua gets dropped into that… unconscious space?? with Life, for example, and the sharp contrast of vines and crack and branches and leaves against pitch black is just visually stunning. The way the roots sink into the ground and the three-dimensional sensation of it is particularly badass here:

Friggin. How does this imply depth like that. HOW. IT'S SO FREAKING COOL.

A huge point here is also color language and use! Everybody has their own particular shade, generally matching their eyes, magic, and personality, and I adore how this is used to make it clear who's talking or who's doing an action. That was especially apparent to me with Dainix and Falst in the caves—their colors are both fairly warm, but quite distinct, and I love how this clarifies who's doing what in panels with a lot of action from both of them. There is a particular bit that stuck out to me, so I dug up the panels (see this page and the following one https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-30/):

(Gods it looks even prettier now that I put it against a plain background. Also, appreciation to Falst for managing a bridal-carry midair, damn.)

The way that their colors MERGE here! And the immense attention to detail in doing so—Dainix is higher up than Falst is in the first panel, so Dainix's orange fades into Falst's orange at the base. The next panel has gold up top and orange on bottom; we can't really tell in that panel where each of them are, but that's carried over to the next panel—

—where we now see that Falst's position is raised above Dainix's due to the way he's carrying him. (Points for continuity!) And, of course, we see the little "huffs" flowing from orange to yellow over their heads (where Dainix's head is higher than Falst's) to merge the sound of their breathing, which is absurdly clever because it emphasizes to the viewer how we hear two sets of huffing overlaying each other, not one. Absolutely brilliant.

(A few other notes of appreciation to that panel: beautiful glows around them, the sparks, the jagged silhouette of the spider legs, the lovely colors that have no right to make the area around a spider corpse that pretty, the excellent texturing on the cave walls plus perspective, the way Falst's movements imply Dainix's hefty weight, the natural posing of the characters, their on-point expressions that convey exactly how fuckin terrifying everything is right now, the slight glows to their eyes, and also they're just handsome boys <3)

Next up: Rain!!!! So well done! It's subtle enough that it never ever disrupts the impact of the focal point, but evident enough you can tell! And more importantly: THE MIST OFF THE CHARACTERS. Rain does this irl, it has that little vapor that comes off you and makes that little misty effect that plays with lighting, it's so cool-looking and here it's used to such pretty effect!

One of the panel captions says something about it blurring out all the injuries on the characters but like THAT AIN'T TOO BIG OF A PROBLEM when it gets across the environmental vibes, and also that'd be how it would look in real life too so like… outside viewer's angle is the same as the characters', mostly? my point is: that's the environment!!! that's the vibes, that's the feel! It gets it across and it does so in the most pretty way possible!

And another thing re: rain, the use of it to establish perspective, particularly in panels like this—

—where we can tell we're looking down at Tynan due to the perspective on the rain and where it's pointing. Excellent. (Also, kudos for looking down and emphasizing how Tynan's losing his advantage—lovely use of visual storytelling.)

Additionally, the misting here:

We see it most heavily in the leftmost panel, where it's quite foggy as you would expect in a rainstorm, especially in an environment with a lot of heat, but it's also lightly powdered on in the following two panels and tends to follow light sources, which makes complete sense given how light bounces off particles in the air.

A major point of strength in these too is a thorough understanding of lighting, like rim lighting, the various hues and shades, and an intricate understanding of how light bounces off surfaces even when they're in shadow (we'll see a faint glow in spots where characters are half in shadow, but that's how it would work in real life, because of how light bounces around).

Bringing some of these points together: the fluidity of the lines in magic, and the way simple glowing lines are used to emphasize motion and the magic itself, is deeply clever. I'm basically pulling at random from panels and there's definitely even better examples, but here's one (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-16-33/):

First panel, listed in numbers because these build on each other:

The tension of the lines in Tess's magic here. This works on a couple levels: first, the way she's holding her fists, as if she's pulling a rope taut.

The way there's one primary line, emphasizing the rope feeling, accompanied by smaller ones.

The additional lines starbursting around her hands, to indicate the energy crackling in her hands and how she's doing a good bit more than just holding it. (That combined with the fists suggests some tension to the magic, too.) Also the variations in brightness, a feature you'll find in actual lightning. :D Additional kudos for how the lightning sparks and breaks off the metal of the sword.

A handful of miscellaneous notes on the second panel:

The reflection of the flames in Erin's typically dark blue eyes (which bears a remarkable resemblance to Dainix, incidentally—almost a thematic sort of parallel given Erin's using the same magic Dainix specializes in?)

The flowing of fabric in the wind and associated variation in the lineart

The way Erin's tattoos interact with the fire he's pulling to his hand

The way the rain overlays some of the fainter areas of fire (attention! to! detail! hell yeah!)

I could go on. I won't because this is a lot of writing already.

Third panel gets paragraphs, not bullets:

Erin's giant-ass "FWOOM" of fire there, and the way the outline of the word is puffy-edged and gradated to feel almost three-dimensional, plus once again using Screen or a variation on it so that the stars show up in the background. All this against that stunning plume of fire, which ripples and sparks so gorgeously, and the ending "om" of the onomatopoeia is emphasized incredibly brightly against that, adding to the punch of it and making the plume feel even brighter.

Also, once again, rain helping establish perspective, especially in how it's very angular in the left side of the panel and then slowly becomes more like a point to the right to indicate it's falling directly down on the viewer. Add in the bright, beautiful glow effects, fainter but no less important black lines beneath them to emphasize the sky and smoke and the like, and the stunningly beautiful lighting and gradated glows surrounding Erin plus the lightning jagging up at him from below, and you get one hell of an impactful panel right there. (And there is definitely more in there I could break down, this is just a lot already.)

And in general: The colors in this? Incredible. The blues and purples and oranges and golds compliment so well, and it's all so rich.

Like, seriously, just throughout the whole comic, the use of gradients, blending modes, color balance and hues, all the things, all the things, it makes for the most beautiful effects and glows and such a rich environment. There's a very distinct style to this comic in its simplified backgrounds (which I recognize are done partly because it's way easier and also backgrounds are so time-consuming dear gods but lemme say this) and vivid, smoothly drawn characters; the simplicity lets them come to the front and gives room for those beautiful, richly saturated focal points, letting the stylized designs of the magic and characters shine. The use of distinct silhouettes is insanely good. Honestly, complex backgrounds might run the risk of making everything too visually busy in this case. It's just, augh, so GORGEOUS.

Another bit, take a look at this page (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-15-28/):

It's not quite as evident here as it is in the next page, but this one does some other fun things so I'm grabbing it. Points:

Once again, using different colors to represent different character actions. The "WHAM" of Kendal hitting the ground is caused by Dainix's force, so it's orange (and kudos for doubling the word over to add a shake effect). But we see blue layered underneath, which could be an environmental choice, but might also be because it's Kendal, whose color is blue.

And speaking off, take a look at the right-most panel on top, where Kendal grabs the spear: his motion is, again, illustrated in bright blue, versus the atmospheric screened-on orange lines that point toward him around the whole panel (I'm sure these have a name, I think they might be more of a manga thing though and the only experience I have in manga is reading a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist). Those lines emphasize the weight of the spear being shoved at him, and their color tells us Dainix is responsible for it.

One of my all-time favorite effects in this comic is the way cracks manifest across Dainix's body to represent when he starts to lose control; it is utterly gorgeous and wonderfully thematic. These are more evident in the page before and after this one, but you get a decent idea here. I love the way they glow softly, the way the fire juuuust flickers through at the start and then becomes more evident over time, and the cracks feel so realistic, like his skin is made of pottery. Additional points for how fire begins to creep into his hair.

A small detail that's generally consistent across the comic, but which I want to make note of here because you can see it pretty well: Kendal's eyes glow about the same as the jewel in his sword, mirroring his connection to said sword and calling back to how the jewel became Vash's eye temporarily and thus was once Kendal's eye. You can always see this connection (though there might be some spots where this also changes in a symbolic manner; I went through it quickly on the first time around, so I'll pay more attention when I inevitably reread this), where Kendal's always got that little shine of blue in his eyes the same as the jewel. It's a beautiful visual parallel that encourages the reader to subconsciously link them together, especially since the lines used to illustrate character movements typically mirror their eye color. It's an extension of Kendal.

Did I mention how ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL the colors in this are?

Also, the mythological/legend-type scenes are illustrated in familiar style often used for that type of story, a simple and heavily symbolic two-dimensional cave-painting-like look. They are absolutely beautiful on many levels, employing simple, lovely gradients, slightly rougher and thicker lineart that is nonetheless smoothly beautiful, and working with clear silhouettes (a major strength of this art style, but also a strength in the comic overall). But in particular, I wanted to call attention to a particular thing (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-12-4/):

The flowing symbolic lineart surrounding each character. This is actually quite consistent across characters—see also Life's typical lines and how they curl:

What's particularly interesting here is how these symbols are often similar, but not the same. Vash's lines are always smooth, clean curls, often playing off each other and echoing one another like ripples in a pond. You'd think they'd look too similar to Life's—but they don't. Life's curl like vines, and they remain connected; where one curve might echo another but exist entirely detached from each other in Vash's, Life's lines still remain wound together, because vines are continuous and don't float around. :P

Tahraim's are less continuous, often breaking up with significantly smaller bits and pieces floating around like—of course—sparks, and come to sharper points. These are also constants: we see the vines repeated over and over in Alinua's dreams of Life, and the echoing ripples of Vash are consistent wherever we encounter him. Kendal's dream of the ghost citizens of the city of Vash in the last few chapters is filled with these rippling, echoing patterns, to beautiful effect (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-14/):

They ripple and spiral, often in long, sinuous curves, with smooth elegance. It reminds me a great deal of images of space and sine waves and the like. This establishes a definite feel to these different characters and their magic. And the thing is, that's not something that had to be done—the colors are good at emphasizing who's who. But it was done, and it adds a whole other dimension to the story. Whenever you're in a deity's domain, you know whose it is no matter the color.

Regarding that shape language, I wanted to make another note, too—Vash is sometimes described as chaotic and doing what he likes, which is interesting to me, because smooth, elegant curves and the color blue aren't generally associated with chaos. So while Vash might behave like that on the surface, I'm guessing he's got a lot more going on underneath; he's probably much more intentional in his actions than you'd think at a glance, and he is certainly quite caring with his city. The other thing is that this suits Kendal perfectly. He's a paragon character; he is kind, virtuous, and self-sacrificing, and often we see him aiming to calm others and keep them safe. Blue is such a good color for him. There is… probably more to this, but I'm not deep enough in yet to say.

And here's the thing: I'm only scratching the surface. There is so much more here I'm not covering (color palettes! outfits! character design! environment! the deities! so much more!) and a lot more I can't cover, because I don't have the experience; this is me as a hobbyist artist who happened to take a couple design classes because I wanted to. The art style to this comic is so clever and creative and beautiful, though, I just had to go off about it. <3

...brownie points for getting all the way down here? Have a cookie.

[brunette-bitch77]

ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ'ᴛ ᴅʀɪᴠᴇ?! (;° ロ°)

Summary: When the relationship is so well, you tend to forget a lot of things... such as your inability to drive A/N: So... this is inspired by my current predicament 😭 I've put off getting my license for a while now but I'm getting it next week!! You're still welcome to read if you can drive. Pairing: Satoru Gojo, Toji Fushiguro, Kento Nanami, Yami Sukehiro x reader CW: light teasing (reader can't drive obvi), mentions of car accidents, pure fluff, reader is married to Nanami, sexual jokes (Toji)

Kҽɳƚσ Nαɳαɱι

╰┈➤ One of the hottest sights to see was whenever your fiancé, Kento Nanami, put his arm on his seat so he could put the car in reverse and pull out of the parking spot. You didn't know exactly what that did, given the fact that you two rarely had to drive in the middle of Tokyo, but you still appreciated whenever he offered to drive the two of you out on dates.

"Those heels are pretty high, honey, are you sure you won't get too sore?" was something he said whenever you went out on date nights all dressed up for him.

"I like to look cute for you, Kenny," you pouted, putting the final strap of your sandals on.

"Sweetheart, you don't have to wear those ankle killers to look cute for me," he said with a chuckle, the smile breaking his usually calm and stoic expression. "You could wear a pair of flats or sneakers and still look like the most beautiful woman on earth to me."

"Don't get it twisted; I also like to look cute for me," you retorted once more, making him laugh again.

"Have it your way, sweetheart. I have to say: you do look quite cute right now. Now, would you like to take the car, call a cab, or take the metro?"

Right now, the two of you were getting quite serious in your relationship. It was time for you to abandon your 1 bed/1 bath apartments and upgrade to a bigger place for the two of you. It's worth mentioning that you both had different ideas of what the perfect place to live was: you liked living in the heart of the city, and a 2 bedroom apartment in a cosmopolitan area, close to plenty of subway stations and yummy restaurants to try; Nanami liked his peace and quiet, and that usually involved a long commute (much to your dismay). In the end, you settled on a house in a neighborhood that was perfectly close to what was going on and also far enough out that Nanami got some much needed rest and relaxation.

One of the problems of said neighborhood was the faulty subway stations that were frequently in disrepair. Most of the residents in your area drove cars in order to get places which meant that the neighborhood board didn't feel it was necessary to renovate the subway stations. This was bad news for you because you were one of the only people who took it everywhere they went. So, when the one closest to your house was under complete renovation for the week, you were left stranded and had to go wherever Kento went.

What was even more unfortunate was that one day, you had to specifically ask him for a ride to get somewhere. He was currently resting on the couch, having the day off, so you couldn't exactly hitch a ride and get dropped off somewhere close to where you were heading.

"Sure thing," was what he said without a second thought. You breathed a sigh of relief and were glad that the most embarrassing part was over, only for him to ask: "if you don't mind me asking, why did you need to ask me to give you one? Can't you take the car on your own?"

"Um... well," you said, a little nervous by the sudden questions. You then looked up at your boyfriend who now had a questioning look on his face.

"See, I could, but then I'd probably crash it... because I don't know how to drive."

And there it was: the ugly truth baring its fangs at your handsome fiancé. During your three years of dating and your one year of engagement, he'd never figured out why he was always the one driving or why you always took the subway everywhere you went.

"How come?" he asked in a tone that was neither judgmental nor harsh.

"So, you see," you started, trying to make it sound as normal as you possibly could. "I'm... afraid of car accidents. Very afraid of them," you said with a slight frown. "And I'm afraid that I wouldn't be capable enough to handle such a big piece of metal without something bad happening. What if I lost control over the steering wheel or the gas pedal got jammed and I... took another person's life?" You looked at the floor out of embarrassment. "Hah, would you look at that: a 28 year old who can't drive."

Kento looked at you, this time with an apologetic smile on his face. He reached out, cupped your cheek, and brought your gaze back to his. "(Y/N), don't be embarrassed. There are plenty of people who get by and live their day-to-day lives without needing a car. But, you need to understand that knowing how to drive is a very helpful skill in life. What if you were far away from any metropolitan areas and someone you were with got into a bad accident, and you had to drive them to the hospital?"

You looked up at him like a kicked puppy, a shy smile gracing your features. He always knew the best things to say for times like these. "You're right: I should know how to drive. I guess I just never got around to it," you said with a small huff through your nose. "You really are too kind to me, Ken. Anyone else would've turned their nose at me and passed me off as someone incapable."

"Why would I ever turn my nose at you, sweetheart?" He asked, his hand still on your cheek, now rubbing it with his thumb. "You still have plenty of wonderful qualities worth celebrating. And, you're right: you just never got around to it."

He leaned down and pressed a kiss to your forehead. "Why don't I teach you how to drive? I've been told I'm a great driver by people very close to me," he offered, making you giggle.

"You're simply the best fiancé, Ken. You'd really do that for me?"

"For you? I'd do anything. Now, let's fill out a permit form and get you that license."

"Alright, first thing's first: let's get out of this parking spot," Kento said, his hand steady and guiding yours as he gave you a demonstration. "Turn the steering wheel left, and the car will back up in that same direction, and vice versa for turning right."

"Okay," you said, determined to get out of that spot.

You began to reverse, only for him to stop you: "stop, stop, stop the car." You freaked out and looked at him, abruptly pressing the brake pedal. "Honey, you can't just reverse without looking behind you; there could've been a child!"

Speaking of the devil: there was a child walking behind the car.

"Shit... sorry," you said, biting your lip out of worry. He just sighed and shook his head.

"Make sure to use the backup camera; although on the actual test itself, you won't be able to use it, so it's best that you use your head to turn for now. Here, this is what you do when you reverse." He grabbed the steering wheel with one hand and turned his head in the opposite direction, and you almost got distracted by the veins on his forearms when he said: "eyes on me, sweetheart."

"Sorry, babe." You smiled at him bashfully before mimicking the action, reversing just as he'd directed you.

"That's it, honey, you're already doing so well," he said encouragingly, reaching out to press a kiss to your forehead.

Praise always made your stomach flip, even in non-sexual situations.

"Keep it up, and you'll be better than me in no time."

Sαƚσɾυ Gσʝσ

╰┈➤ Satoru Gojo was good at everything, and you knew that even before you got into a relationship with the powerful sorcerer. You'd always heard stories from both his friends and strangers about how he could accomplish anything very quickly with only a single demonstration given on how to do it. This man could do everything: play soccer, ballroom dance, speak 30 languages (according to him), and he was even good at chemistry! If you weren't the man's pride and joy--the man's girlfriend--then it would've been really annoying to put up with such nonchalant skill.

He still made sure to tease you from time to time, saying that he could do whatever you could do but with tenfold skill (he really could; he just didn't want you to grow resentful of him (not that you would)). These claims were usually never backed up because at the end of the day, he knew that he was just joking with you.

One of the best things about having Satoru Gojo as your boyfriend was him being your personal chauffeur who could drive you anywhere he wanted in the least amount of time with the most amount of efficiency possible. He was even good at riding motorcycles which you usually weren't too fond of, given how dangerous they were.

But, oh, how his teasing tongue was just so irritating whenever he decided to use it. The man was an amazing boyfriend and an even more amazing best friend, but he could also be really cocky at times and for good reason.

"Satoruuu, I wanna go shopping," you drawled out, your arms landing around his broad shoulders and pulling his attention from the stack of papers on his desk to you. "Mind taking me?" You knew the man couldn't possibly resist because of his love for shopping which was greater than yours (seriously, how was it possible that someone loved shopping more than you?)

Satoru chuckled and gave you his trademark cocky grin. "You're asking me for a ride like I'm your personal chauffeur, eh?"

"Is that not what you are?" you quipped back, making him feign hurt.

"I'm hurt; my girlfriend's been using me this entire time for rides!" he said sarcastically, putting his hand on his forehead for added effect.

"Like you don't love going shopping more than I do," you scoffed, taking your hands off his shoulders and putting them back on your hips. "C'mon; you and I both know you can't resist a good shopping trip."

"Never said I was trying to," he said, standing up from the chair and stretching his long legs out. "I've been needing an excuse to escape these papers, anyway. Always so stupidly menial and boring."

"You're the one who wanted to be a teacher."

"Yeah, so I could raise a couple nice generations of kids; not so I could raise my blood pressure with these papers that need grading!"

"Be glad you only have, like, 10 kids to worry about--some teachers have 30 per class. And even then, it's basically 9 kids to grade, since Yuji's papers are never that hard to grade."

"That's true," he acquiesced with a snicker, shaking his head at the boy's... delayed learning.

"Anyway, I'll grab my purse, and you grab your sunglasses," you said, walking away to get said purse from your closet. Once you did, you returned to find Satoru waiting outside, perched against the car nonchalantly.

"Ready to spend my money?"

"You know it, baby," you giggled, making him shake his head. Once in the car, he did his thing and reversed out of the space, driving to the mall with the skill of an F1 racer.

Along the way, his tongue was just itching to say something to you, though: "Y'know, princess, I find it funny how you're always needing me to drive places. You're like my little passenger princess," he crooned, patting your head, only to be met with your swatting hands. "It's like you can't even drive."

That little quip, while it may have had innocent intentions, made you freeze up for a moment.

That's right: Satoru didn't know about your lack of driving ability.

"Cat got your tongue?" he asked, looking over at you while his hands effortlessly rotated the steering wheel for a turn.

"More like my license," you muttered, making his teasing smile drop.

"Huh?"

"Are you as clueless as you are tall?" you asked, looking up from your phone at him, face scrunched up like an angry kitten. "I'm saying I can't drive."

That confession almost made Satoru hit the brakes in the middle of a busy road. "You can't drive?!"

"No!" you said, a little angrier and louder than you'd meant it to be. It was clear that he'd hit a sore spot, so he cooled off the accusations and the teasing. "I can't drive... I never learned how to. I was supposed to learn it when I was younger, but I... y'know, just forgot to! It slipped my mind, was all." Satoru let the weight of your words sink in, realizing that this was a big insecurity for you, judging by the defensive tone.

"Baby, I'm sorry for provoking you like that," he said. He only ever used the pet name "baby" for when you were either mad at him or in just a plain bad mood. "I had no idea."

"How could you have? I never told you," you scoffed.

"Well, that part is true... still, I should've known something was up. You always love car rides--you get to blast your music at full volume--but you never actually wanna drive yourself," he chuckled, trying to lighten up the mood.

"It's always been an insecurity for me." You leaned forward, your elbows resting on the dashboard temporarily. "My friends--our friends don't give two shits about that kinda stuff unless they don't get gas money, but whenever old-heads find that out they make it seem like you have stage 4 breast cancer. 'Oh, you can't drive? However will you get around places?' Uh, I dunno, the metro?" Your little joke about geriatric seniors not minding their businesses made him laugh.

"You tell 'em."

"I was gonna learn, I even promised myself I would... but then I met you, and I started dating you, and you were just such a good driver that I felt it wasn't necessary to learn..." He was about to say something when you decided to continue: "... but it's wrong for me to rely on you for everything. I'm an adult; I should be able to do stuff on my own, even if I have a boyfriend who makes everything easier for me."

Satoru's face relaxed into a soft smile, and he glanced over at you while still driving. "That's true--that's all very true. You are an adult, even if you're still my princess," he said while ruffling your hair. "Tell you what: in order to repay me all those car rides I've given you, you have to let me teach you how to drive."

You looked over at him, your smile replaced by a soft look of shock with your lips slightly parted. "Really? You'd do that for me?"

"What kind of a man would I be if I let my girl struggle to learn with some old hag who barks at their students?" he asked with a toothy, cocky grin. "It's just like you said: I'm the best driver you know, so why not train with the best?"

"Satoru..." you leaned in suddenly, pressing a big kiss to his cheek. "You're the best! Thank you so much!"

"I know, I know," he chuckled, his pale cheeks slightly red from the praise. You then whacked him upside the head, making him let out an "ow!"

"Cocky bastard," you said under your breath.

"Alright, don't forget to use your turn signals, baby," he said, reaching out to turn it on.

"Right," you said with an apologetic smile. He was just like a mother hen when he taught you how to do stuff. Seriously, how could Yuji have been such a bad student? You were currently on your sixth driving lesson with your boyfriend, and you were already a better driver than most people you knew (except for him, of course).

"And keep your eyes on the road- watch out!" You were about to cross an intersection when an elderly lady was crossing the street. She barked some curses at you in Japanese before continuing on her way.

"Sorry!" You said to both him and the old lady.

"It's alright, you're still doing great," he said with a proud smile on his face. "See that sign up there? It says 'yield to pedestrians' which means you have to slow down and let any and all pedestrians cross before continuing. It's not your fault 100%; that lady was quite slow and small, but still, you have to keep your focus on the road at all times. No daydreaming or zoning off, no matter how hot your driving instructor is." He flashed you one of his cocky Satoru smiles before you whacked him upside the head again. "Ow! ... anyway, let's spin the block once more before calling it a day, yeah? I'll cut the lesson short since you've been doing so good."

"Can we get frozen yogurt after?" you asked, making sure your focus was still on the road.

"We can get anything as long as it satisfies my sweet tooth and doesn't break the bank."

As if his bank account wasn't literally limitless.

As you spun around the block once more, making sure not to hit any little old ladies or small children, you muttered an "I love you" under your breath.

"What was that, baby?" he asked, turning his ear to face you, "I don't think I caught what you said."

"I said I love you," you said, rolling your eyes out of how needy he was.

"That's the spirit." He smiled at you before relaxing into the seat, still keeping his focus for the two of you. "Y'know, maybe later, you can repay your gratitude to your super awesome and amazing and sexy boyfriend for being such an amazing teacher."

"In your dreams, snow leopard," you jested sarcastically.

Satoru merely chuckled and changed the song on the radio to something he liked better.

"Yeah, I sure as hell will be dreaming of it."

Tσʝι Fυʂԋιɠυɾσ

╰┈➤ Your man, Toji Fushiguro, radiated dilf energy from every fiber of his being. Even though you and him had yet to marry--let alone have kids, you knew that, one day, he was gonna be an amazing (and super sexy) father to your children. You already had baby names picked out for said future children, even though you'd still like to enjoy your youth before having them; you didn't wanna waste your youth on diapers when you could be getting turnt.

One of the things that made Toji so dilf-y in your eyes was the way he drove. You know that specific way that fathers drive the family van at a moderately-fast but not illegal speed & how they look so good doing it? Like they were built to be Nascar drivers? Yeah, that's how Toji drove, with his sexy girlfriend in the passenger seat to boot. A small part of him loved it when guys driving in the next lane over could see a beautiful chick & gained the slightest bit of hope that they could get your number before the light turned green... only to have their dreams crushed by the sight of the oh-so hot and oh-so intimidating man who was driving said car, his thick forearms on display and his veins popping while he had his hands on the steering wheel. They couldn't see his eyes through the sunglasses he wore, but they could tell that he was all but sneering at them. They'd look like little boys next to him, after all.

He also especially loved it when you two pulled over at the nearest secluded parking lot, horny out of your fucking minds and unable to resist each other's touch, and he especially loved it when you sucked his dick in the backseat and then rode his cock like your life depended on it (in that same backseat, of course).

Yeah, you guess you could say you loved it when Toji drove the two of you places. "Just sit back and let your boyfriend be your chauffeur, doll," was his tagline whenever you two hopped into the car.

You wouldn't deny him the opportunity to drive you around, especially since you couldn't drive.

Those little moments in the car would be put on hold, however, when Toji's arm got severely wounded while fighting a particularly pesky target. Not only that, but it was his good driving arm that he couldn't drive without!

It should've been fine, since he had superhuman healing powers and therefore only had to wear an arm-cast for a day or two. He had the day off, and he'd be damned if some stupid injury got in the way of enjoying his day off with his favorite girl. You'd also just be the one driving around, he presumed.

"Hey, sweetheart," his gruff voice said into your ear, making you jump out of surprise. "Sorry for spookin' ya," he said with a laugh, ruffling your hair with the hand that wasn't broken.

"Don't scare me like that; you know how silent you can be."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm just too good of an assassin," he quipped, his laughter piping down. "Why don't the two of us go out and get somethin' to eat, and maybe get a dessert afterwards? You know I love something sweet to eat." You raised your eyebrows when he mentioned dessert, knowing damn well that his idea of "dessert" eating your ass. "Nah, nah, not that kinda dessert; I'm in the mood for a parfait or two. I've recently developed a sweet tooth because of your sweet ass."

"Or two?" you asked mockingly, raising your eyebrow.

"Big boys gotta eat big meals, am I right?" he asked, that classic Toji smirk never leaving his face. "C'mon, I'll even pay for it."

"Sure, sure, where do you wanna eat?"

Toji shrugged. "Doesn't make a difference to me as long as the restaurant's good."

"Alright, lemme just get my suica card."

"Don't you wanna drive instead? I know damn well you ain't walkin' in those heels, baby," he said, looking down at the 4-inch heels you were wearing. "Plus, I don't wanna ride the subway when I've got this big-ass cast on."

"O-Oh, um," you started stammering a little, not wanting to let him know that you couldn't drive while also not trying to argue with him.

Toji, however, in his infinite perceptiveness, saw you stammering, and that little smirk faltered a little. He looked at you with question, wondering why you were at a loss for words when it came to driving you two to the restaurant. "Somethin' wrong, baby? What's got you stuttering?"

"Um... well, the reason is because I can't drive."

Toji stared at you for a few seconds, letting the information sink in. "Doll, you can't drive?"

"N-No, I can't drive! I... never got my license," you said, your voice gradually diminishing in size. "I just didn't get one when I was younger, okay? Don't judge me for it!" you added defensively, crossing your arms over your pink top.

"Calm down, baby, I'm not judging you for anything," Toji said, raising his one hand to calm you down. "It's alright if you can't drive; if anything, it's cute."

"Cute?" you repeated back.

He chuckled for a few seconds and explained his reasoning. "Yeah: it's cute as hell that you need me to drive you around everywhere. You're like a cute little kitten: all defensive and hissy, but still dependent on me." He stepped closer and ruffled your hair for a few seconds to which you didn't swat his hand away. When he finally removed his hand and put it on his hip, he reached to take his phone out of his pocket. "So, should we take an Uber?"

"Yeah, if you want to," you sighed, rubbing your forehead and squeezing your cheeks together out of worry.

"Hey, hey, don't be so strung up, doll," he said, trying to relieve some of the tension in your body. "Once I get all patched up and take this stupid cast off my arm, you'll be back to being my passenger princess." He flashed you a crooked grin, trying to alleviate your mood.

"I know you will, but what if it's a more serious injury? What if you couldn't use your arm for a month or two--what if you lost your arm?" you asked, furrowing your brow in stress and pouting as well.

Toji sighed, giving you an apologetic smile. "You're right. Plus, driving's a good skill that could come in handy someday. I know we've got great transit in Tokyo, but if we were to live somewhere smaller with less public transit, what'd we do if we couldn't drive?"

"As if I'd live anywhere with less shopping," you scoffed, making him chuckle.

"I'm just saying: we can't just rely on public transit alone."

You took a deep breath, calming yourself down and getting rid of the attitude. "You're right, you're right, I just got a little tense. Driving is a necessary skill which could come in handy one day."

"Damn straight, doll," he agreed with a chuckle. "Right now, let's just take that Uber and get somethin' to eat, 'kay? We'll figure out all that driving shit later."

"Alright, doll, keep your eyes on the road and not on your man's arms," he instructed you, making you snap out of the trance that his arms had unintentionally put you in.

"Maybe don't have arms worth drooling over," you sassed, making him chuckle.

"Hey, I'm just tryin' to give my girl somethin' sturdy to hold onto when she wants it," he retorted, putting his hands up in defense, still keeping that smirk on his face. "Anyway, just look straight ahead, and nothing should get in the- shit, watch out!"

Out of nowhere, a red car sped through the street, rounding the corner very sharply and almost hitting your car as it did so. You immediately hit the brakes, startled beyond all belief with the hair on your arms standing up. "Sorry, sorry," you mumbled. "I didn't see that car."

"I know you didn't. Don't worry 's not your fault; it's their fault, if anything. Fuckin' assholes don't know how to control their fuckin' cars," he spat, rubbing your shoulder as the red car sped off. "But, that's why it's important to keep your eyes on the road: you can keep watch and make sure that some shitty ass driver doesn't hit you and get you into an accident."

You nodded, keeping that fact in mind. "Alright: keep my eyes on the road." You took a deep breath, making sure that there weren't any out-of-control drivers headed your way.

"So cute when you focus," he muttered under his breath. He watched as you changed lanes, rounded corners smoothly, and stopped perfectly at the red lights. "Good job, good job!" he praised enthusiastically, clapping just to add effect. "You're already doing such an amazing job!"

You smiled and looked away bashfully, still keeping your focus on the road. "Thank you, thank you," you giggled, accepting any and all praise.

"No; thank you for being a great student and not giving me a fucking heart attack," he chuckled, relaxing into his seat. "Alright, now: drive a few more blocks, and then we can go home and watch whatever chick flick you wanna watch. Maybe afterwards, I can feed you some dessert?"

"Yeah, that sounds-" you stopped talking when you realized what you meant by dessert. "Toji, you pervert!"

He laughed loudly at your reaction and shook his head.

"As if you could resist my desserts; your sweet tooth's just too damn strong for your own good."

Yαɱι Sυƙҽԋιɾσ (modern AU)

╰┈➤ If there was one thing that got Yami Sukehiro's dick hard, it was a strong woman--a woman who didn't take shit from anybody; didn't need to rely on others or be babied; and who most certainly wasn't incapable of handling themselves. Everyone should be able to handle themselves when they're adults because it was what made one an adult!

One of the things that he believed made an adult an adult was getting around on their own, whether it be by car, metro, or even by helicopter (if you had the budget). Your boyfriend and you had different modes of transportation: you chose to take the metro, and Yami liked to drive his car, even if he had terrible road rage and hated traffic (Tokyo's traffic could be terrible on certain days).

"Come on! Hurry your asses up already!!" Yami barked from the driver's seat, honking the horn as loudly as he could. "Shut the hell up, you bastard!!" he barked again when the person behind him honked the horn. Naturally, his first reaction was to honk back ten times harder. "Wish I could teleport or somethin'..."

Regardless of your preferred mode of transportation, he just wanted you to get where you were going efficiently.

One day, after he'd refused forgotten to pay one too many parking tickets, he sadly had his license revoked. He believed that losing your license over tickets was a myth and that you could only lose it over DUIs, but when the police took that little piece of paper away from him, he now knew that it wasn't a myth.

"Hey, honey," his deep and raspy voice said into your ear one morning, "do you think you could give me a ride to work today?" Just to convince you further, he wrapped his big, muscular arms around you and pulled you close to him.

"What do you need a ride for?"

"Um, well... got my license revoked," he mumbled into your ear.

"Hm?"

"I said I got my license revoked," he said louder this time, his arms instinctively tightening around you. He buried his face into your shoulder and avoided your gaze, not wanting to see the judgment on it.

"Suke, why did you get your license revoked?" you asked him, brows furrowing together out of confusion. You turned around in his embrace and grabbed his cheeks, making him look at you.

"I forgot to pay a parking ticket," he mumbled, sighing deeply. His charcoal eyes met yours, and he looked like a kicked puppy.

"Baby, you know I could've helped you with that."

"No," he refuted firmly, shaking his head in response to your offer. "I don't want my girl doing anything I can do with my own two hands; I wouldn't be a man if I let that happen."

You gave him an remorseful smile and now it was your turn to sigh. "You and your chivalry..."

He let out the tiniest whine and hid his face in your hair. "Shut up," he mumbled, "can you just gimme a ride? Please? I'll give you gas money if you need it."

"I can get you a suica if you need one," you offered, shoulders shrugging in his arms.

"Ugh, not the metro--I don't wanna take the metro. Too many things can happen and it'll fuck my timing up if I do." By timing he meant the amount of time he can cuddle with you on the couch before going off to work. "And there's too many people--I just don't like taking it. Can't you take the car instead? Just this once? I know you hate traffic and all, but it'll just be until I get my license back."

All of a sudden, you went quiet, looking off to the side (quite embarrassedly so).

"What're the tight lips for, baby?" he asked, cocking his head to the side out of his obliviousness. "Hey, you know I don't like it when you go silent on me."

"Suke, I can't... I can't drive."

"What do you mean you can't drive? Didn't you get your license when you turned 18?"

"No, I didn't!" you exclaimed, making his brow furrow further. Once he realized that you were serious and not joking around with him, his confused expression turned into a remorseful frown.

"Well, you're an adult! You have to know how to drive!"

"Shut up already!!" you snapped back in response, embarrassed from that same fact that he brought up. He sighed and released you, letting you walk away and cool down for a sec.

"Honey..." he looked down at the floor and then up at you again, his frown still there. "I'm sorry for making you so upset, I just- I've just never met an adult who doesn't know how to drive, so I didn't know how to react."

"That's 'cus you're a blue collar worker who needs to know how to operate a car," you sassed, making him "tch."

"Well, I guess you're right," he conceded with a chuckle. His eyes followed you and, once he saw that you were cooled down, he came closer to you. "C'mere, hon," he coaxed with his arms outstretched, beckoning you to come closer and give him a hug. You didn't say anything and did as he wanted, letting him encircle his arms around you. "I'm sorry for getting you riled up, I really am. I've been trying to control my temper lately, and I slipped up."

"Hell yeah, you did," you mumbled into his thick chest, his pecs making your words come out muffled. "Control that shit if you want cuddles."

He chuckled and shook his head. "For your cuddles, I'll do anything."

"Could you teach me how to drive?" You asked softly, looking up at Yami and offering him the best puppy eyes you could possibly muster up. "I don't wanna be embarrassed the next time someone asks me for a ride."

"Baby, you already gave me enough reason with those puppy eyes," he reassured you, running his calloused fingers through your hair and smiling at you. "Alright, since you asked so nicely, I'll teach you how to drive a car. But fair warning: my road rage isn't to be messed with."

"I know, I know--I've seen said road rage firsthand many times."

He just laughed and rested his chin atop your head again. "So, how many minutes do we have for cuddles before I have to take the metro?"

"Enough to satisfy your little heart."

"Perfect," he sighed, already leading you to the couch for said cuddles.

Later, he'd face-time you for a half hour while angrily trying to figure out how the stupid train lines work, making several people look at him out of fear. "What're you looking at, you little punk?! I'll kick your ass!" he shouted at a rather short man who'd accidentally looked at him the wrong way.

"Yami Sukehiro, don't beat up the other riders!" you scolded him over the phone.

"Hey, eyes on the road at all times!" he barked a little too loudly, making you flinch while keeping your hands steadily on the steering wheel. "And don't you dare take your hands off the steering wheel!" he also said rather loudly.

"I know, I know! Stop shouting and just let me drive!" you shouted back, making his blood vessel pop in his forehead.

He sighed and rubbed his forehead, trying to calm down. "Sorry, sorry, honey; I'm just a little stressed whenever I'm on the road."

"A little?" you asked, almost in disbelief that he could be stressed out "just a little" bit.

"Well, don't give me that look! Driving's dangerous and you can get hurt if you're not focused."

"And who said I wasn't focused?"

"You were staring at my biceps earlier when we were supposed to change lanes." You didn't say anything back, instead looking at the road again with a deep blush on your face. You zeroed in on the road this time, bringing a tiny smile to his face. "I hope you know it doesn't mean anything if I get mad at you; unless we get into an accident, of course. I just care a lot about you, and I don't want some shitty driver getting my honey into a car accident."

"Right, because who would give your big ass all the cuddles you want later?" you asked with a snicker.

"Hey! The correct term is beefy," he retorted, flexing his rather thick arm just to prove a point. You shook your head and managed to keep your eyes on the road, making his smile widen. "Speaking of cuddles, would it be too much to ask if we could cuddle later tonight? Been missing your touch..."

"We cuddled right before this, Suke."

"It's not enough. Did y'know one of my three favorite things is cuddling? This big man right here needs some love and affection from time to time."

"I thought your three favorite things were gambling, beer and sleeping?" You asked, making him pout in a way too cute way. He crossed his arms over his chest and instead turned his eyes back to the road along with you.

"FYI: I quit gambling for you..."

"So, what's this new third favorite thing?" Your question made him chuckle, and he looked at you again.

"You, of course. Now, drive us home so that I can get those cuddles in."

YAMI BRAINROT IS TOO REAL I NEED TO MARRY HIM move over Charlotte

© ʙʀᴜɴᴇᴛᴛᴇ-ʙɪᴛᴄʜ77 on tumblr - get your own shit bitches | ca. 6/21/2024

[cherry-leclerc]

method acting ☆ cl16

genre: series - humor, strangers to friends/roommates

word count: 4.6k

*can you guess what film it's based off of? where the title originates from?

ch. one ch. two ch. three ch. four ch. five ch. six

Chapter 2

Life, as you fear, is falling apart as you're confronted with a serious case of writer's block that puts your career on the line. As a solution, you're roommate helps you plan a solo trip to the Amalfi Coast for a much needed break but it doesn't take long for you to meet a certain Monegasque who lays passed out on the beach.

“You got lost, didn’t you?” 

Sticking your tongue out at Charles, you take a seat next to his broad figure as you start applying coconut sunscreen. “Would it kill you to not gloat?” You narrow your unusually soft eyes like weapons. 

He playfully shudders. “Ooooh. My blood ran cold.”

Throwing the bottle over at his lap, he chuckles before lathering his tan body with the white goo. You try to not make it obvious, the way you steal glances at him. Everything makes sense all of a sudden; his odd obsession with anything that could cover his handsome features, the mysterious Ferrari, how he could go from making you laugh to keeping his mouth shut and looking down whenever anyone was around. 

He had kept this from you for a reason, that much is clear, but you would still give him a chance to open up. Sliding on a pair of sunglasses, you twist your body to sit cross cross. You fold your hands over your lap. “Truth or dare?”

The brunette tilts his head with hesitance. “Y-you don’t want to take a dip?” 

“Let’s lay out for a bit.” You poke him with your toe. “C’mon. Play with me.”

He sighs, pushing his hat downwards. “Dare.”

“Hmm…I dare you to…read me your last text message.”

“Easy.” Pulling out his phone, he scrolls for a bit before showing it to you. 

You’re walking the opposite way. I said near the fruit stand. 

Burning up, you push it down. “I don’t count.”

“You never specified.”

He wasn’t going to play easy and part of you respected that. Clicking your tongue, you extend your shiny legs. He gulps. Truth or dare? “Dare.” 

“Call the last person you spoke to.”

Growing nauseous at his request, you shake your head. “I can’t do that.” 

“Why not?”

You stutter. “M-my boss called to check up on me. Wanted to make sure I was a-actually on my deathbed and not just faking it, I can’t do that.” The Monegasque squinted his eyes teasingly before leaning back against the gray rocks.

“Fine. You get a pass.” You let out a breath of relief. “But I get one of those as well.”

You felt as if you were making a deal with the devil with the way he was watching you, waiting for an answer. He might use it against your benefit, but you had no choice. “Deal.”

“Good.” Flickering his green eyes towards the crystal blue tides, he chews on the inside of his cheek. “It's your turn.”

Be smart, don’t blow it. Deep down, you wanted to ask about the simpler things. Your favorite color? What was your childhood like? Was it better than mine? But that couldn’t matter more than what information you actually needed. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

You groan. How were you supposed to get all the juicy details out of him if he kept playing it safe? Nonchalantly, he waits. “I dare you to stop picking dares.” His face pales. You feel bad for putting him in that position, but he quickly snaps out of it.

“Truth or dare?”

Swallowing a thick layer or saliva, you purse your lips. “Truth.” 

“Why did you lie to your boss?”

You gape at his question as you think of a way to avoid it. All he knows is that you have a month off and chose Italy as your destination thanks to your amazing friends. He didn’t know anything about the sleepless nights of zero ideas that had you on the brink of being fired, the reason you needed this article to work. Not only would it set your career, but it would also give you the respect you so desperately looked for in everyone who looked down on you.

“She would never let me come to Italy if I told her I need a break from all the pressure, y’know?”

Waves crash noisily as he frowns. “Mhm.”

“My turn. What’s your occupation?”

“I already told you,” he laughs, brown curls flowing against the summer breeze. “I work with cars.” A gist of hope zaps your heart as you wait for the rest. “I’m a mechanic.”

He wasn’t going to tell you - he didn’t trust you. Melancholy register across your face as you rise up carefully. “I’m in the mood to swim now.”

-

Life for the Scuderia Ferrari driver moves at a  fast pace, always on the go and traveling all around the world. At just 26 years old, the Monegasque has collected 5 wins and an impressive number of podiums, all while maintaining the longest Scuderia contract in history. 

But do we really know Charles Leclerc in his everyday life? A man without any responsibilities? 

Fortunately for us, I was able to sit down and speak to Il Predestinato as he he walks us through his routine for when he’s not on track-

“What are you working on? Seeing you be so quiet is bone-chilling.”

Poking your tongue out like a slithering snake, you feverishly slam your computer shut as you flip him off. “Catching up with friends. What can I say? The people love me.” The 26 year old rolls his eyes before picking up on his scribbles. Tippy toeing closer to him, you try to inspect the messy writing. “What is that?”

“Fuck, you scared me, you little gnome.” Hiding his small journal, you immediately push out your bottom lip.

“Show me! Show me! Show me!”

Clumsily, he opens it. “Grocery list.” But it's more than that. His letter isn’t easy to read, but it'll get you there. Diary entries. Blinking up at your roommate, you wiggle your brows. What’s it say? “Nothing important.” You don’t press him on it, but that doesn’t stop the curiosity from stirring inside of you. He stiffens. “Let’s go before they close.”

Pebbles crunch underneath your ballet flats as you sing softly. He smiles, content with the serene atmosphere. What song is that? Your jaw drops, stopping dead in your tracks. It takes him a while to realize you're not skipping next to him anymore. “Tell me you’re joking…”

“I’m joking.”

“Charles!” you wail as you fling your arms. “Beyond the Sea? Bobby Darin?” His face doesn’t change as he bats his eyes blankly. You gasp. “We’ll meet, I know we’ll meet beyond the shore. We’ll kiss just as before-.” 

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

Playfully, you shiver, clutching your heart. “It isn’t good to be uncultured, Charlie.” The way you spit out his new nickname has him grasping how much he loves it - so long it's coming from you. Pulling out your phone from your back pocket, you wave your finger like some principal. “I’ll play it for you.”

The Monegasque shakes his head. “No, just sing it to me like you were.”

You sincerely don’t have a single clue where all this unknown courage comes from, but you oblige. All the way to the local farmers market, he’s grinning ear to ear. From your voice sounding angelic, to it cracking as you would try to intimidate Darin, he feels fortunate to see this side of you. 

Entering the sliding doors, you grab a basket as you drag him, shoes squeaking from the sudden pull. “We’re not here for snacks, we’re here for food. Y’know - vegetables, rice, chicken-”

“I need something sweet!” you complain as your doe eyes glimmer at the sight of the Italian desserts. “If I don’t get it in my system I will die. Do you want me to die?” 

“At this moment, it doesn’t sound half bad.” You gawk at his dark humor. Taking the tiny basket from you, he makes his way to the produce section. “Grab whatever you need. I’ll be right back.”

Once his back faces you, you feel your phone vibrating. “Amelia!” Your cheery friend waves excitedly. Where have you been? I haven’t heard from you for days! Wincing, you place your phone on top of a box of cookies. “I’ve been gone for five days, please relax. Plus, I’m fine. Enjoying my time off.”

Your friend snickers. “I still need updates to make sure you aren’t dead in a ditch.” Making an exaggerated face, you nod and the blonde giggles. “Don’t make me fly out there. Unlike you, I will demand a year off if needed.” 

“Oh, I believe you,” you murmur, hand reaching for a box of Baci Pergunia. “How are you guys surviving without your third wheel?”

“Stop it, you,” she hisses. “Instead, why don’t you fill me in - any cute tourists?” You freeze midair, already angling your body to grab bonelle jellys. 

“I’m not too focused on any of that..” 

“Of course not because you’re too busy daydreaming about Grayson,” she teases. “Honey! She’s missing him, I told you!” Bullshit, Roman yells back from the kitchen.

“Will you two stop it?” you grit. 

“Yes, darling,” Roman talks gingerly. “Will you please stop planning a wedding?” Your jaw drops while your friend nervously giggles. He’s joking. 

“Enough about me, what are you two doing? What’s on the menu?” 

The brunette’s eyes crinkle, showing off his blurry screen. “Sicilian meatball soup.” 

“Lucky!” you groan. “You’re messed up for cooking your grandma’s recipe while I’m not there.” He shrugs. 

“We miss you so we both decided to make an Italian dish.” She emphasizes her words as he smiles bitterly. “It’s like you’re here with us.”

“She cried for an hour or so. It was the only way I could calm her down.” Amelia bites the air at her boyfriend. He leaps back, returning to stirring the sauce. “I cook because I love you, stop that.”

You throw your head back with laughter. “Again, not dead, but I’m touched.” Hearing a bag crinkle, you look down the aisle and spot Charles making his way over. “Gotta go! Call you as soon as I can!”

“Wow, you’ve managed to grab all the snacks in the entire store,” Charles teases as he points to your stack. “Got you chips, too.”

“You’re not helping,” you grunt as you take it from him. He hands you your own basket for your treats. Cramming them all in, he examines you before clearing his throat awkwardly.

“So, Grayson’s the boyfriend?” 

“Ha! I wish. He’s my boss’ son. Way out of my league.”

His jaw clenches. “Don’t think like that. Anyone would be lucky to have you.” Then, he walks away, leaving you to follow after him like a lost puppy. You’re wary around him after that encounter, so you make sure to stand a few steps behind, waiting for him to finish paying. “What are you doing?”

“Che cosa?”

Sauntering over, he reaches down to take your things. Your breath gets caught in your throat from the sudden proximity. “I got it.” 

Bewildered, you start retreating all the sweets. “You don’t need to do that, you’re already paying for the other things. This one’s on me.” He scrunches his nose.

“That’s endearing, but I can’t. I’m on a diet.”

“Why?” You’re genuinely confused, and can’t tell whether he’s joking or not. “You look perfectly fine to me.”

He smirks. “Really?”

“I m-mean I think so,” you stammer. “But how would I know, I’ve never been on a diet.” Charles' watercolor eyes trickle all the way down before dancing back up. Butterflies flutter inside of you. 

“You don’t need it, trust me.” A pause. “I’ll pay for your things, it’s really no problem. Though I do ask you not to blame me when your teeth rot.” 

“Jerk!” you quip when he walks away, laughing loudly. You smile at the sound.

-

“You need to stop gobbling up all that crap, if not you’re not going to eat any of what I’m cooking,” his voice warns you. Setting the bag of gummies down, you kick your bare feet against the cabinets. 

Has it been an hour? Two? You can’t remember but it sure did smell good. He had asked you to just sit still and fix up a playlist while he prepared dinner, so there really wasn’t much to do. Are you almost done? Focused on cutting up a piece of onion, he shakes his head. A minute passes by before asking again. Not done, wait. 

As soon as your stomach grumbles, he wiggles his eyebrows teasingly. You chuck a carrot at him as he cackles. “Ta-da!” Inspecting the nicely done dish, you throw a thumbs up. Grabbing a spoon, you’re about to dive in before he slides the plate away. Your lips form a thin line. “Take your time. Really enjoy it - it’s flavor, it’s scent-”

“Jesus, fine. Give it before I bite your cheek off,” you growl. Glaring at him, you dip your utensil in slowly. He applauds before pulling out his phone and pressing record. “Is that really necessary?”

“You might not realize it, but this is a monumental moment.” Bowing his head, he urges you to try it. You shrug once, wrapping your lips around the spoon and let's just say - you’ve always had a killer poker face.

“Delicious, chef!” 

“Putain oui!” He puts his phone away. “What did you like about it? The pepper helped, didn't it?”

You grimace. “I want my two hours back.” His smile dies down. Seriously? Yanking the spoon from your grip, he tries the colorful soup and winces at the saltiness. 

“I followed step by step, why does this shit keep happening?” 

The Monegaque truly does seem bummed out as his shoulders sag, glasses sliding down his pointy nose. Scooting closer, you pat his shoulder awkwardly. “You need some serious help.” He shoots a deadpan look as you giggle. “I’m kidding! It’s not that bad.” Jumping off the counter, you tug the nearest apron. “Let me try.”

It takes another two hours, but you figure it out eventually. Standing tall, you place your hands behind your back. The Monegasque eyes the food. “Now, I want you to take your time. Really enjoy it, it’s flavor-”

“Stop it,” he grumbles before diving in. His eyes open wide as you wiggle against your heels excitedly. “You can’t be real.”

“Is it good?”

He nods enthusiastically, brown hair jumping up and down. “H-how did you…” Polishing your nails, you fake a bored expression. By praying. It’s looks as if he’s deeply considering your advice for a second but when you howl out, he flushes. 

“Don’t be so gullible, Charlie. Roman’s grandma taught me. I spent Christmas with him and Amelia.”

His face softens up. “What about your parents?” 

“We’re not close like that.” You confess so unbothered that it has him fluttering his eyes for a while. “Don’t feel bad - I do just fine. They call me on my birthday.” Metal clinks against the porcelain plate as he huffs, firm chest rising up before deflating.

“That’s the fucking standard.” You raise a brow. Why are you upset with me? “I’m not. It’s just that it’s not fair that they treat you like garbage just because you didn’t fulfill their wish. Or that you let others trample over you like a piece of shit.” You flinch. “Y-you know what I mean…”

“Sure,” you whisper, forcing a smile. “Enjoy the food, Charles.”

-

He feels guilty for making you feel bad, but he wasn’t lying. It bugged the crap out of him that you floated through life thinking everything was okay. He’s never met Amelia or Roman, but he felt a strong gratitude towards the couple for treating you with genuine care. But you had filled him in on the rest; they way others would look down on you - all while you wore a miserable smile. I’m used to it by now. Doesn’t even bother me. 

Charles was always in the limelight - always probably will be - but he also knows he signed up for it. He knew fake smiles like the back of his hand. Whether it was a pretty girl trying to get money out of him or sponsors trying to get close to him just for fame. If it weren’t for his friends back home, he definitely would have lost faith in humanity. 

And then there was you. Someone so kind, who puts others' needs before yourself. You didn’t have to check up on him that day at the beach, you didn’t have to help him or give him shelter but you did. He thought you would be some crazy fan but when you blinked up at him like a curious expression, he could tell you didn’t know who he was. 

The Monegasque felt relieved that you treated him without any special treatment, that you saw him for who he really was, not just some F1 driver. He owes it to you to make things right and apologize.

He finds you eating a pint of gelato as you stare blankly at the eggshell wall. “Did you save me some?” You jump at the sound of his deep voice. Halfway done, you respond red-faced. You can have the rest. Leaning against the table, he shakes his head. “Let’s just share.”

You’re sure you can hear Amelia and Roman bickering from how quiet it is, but don’t dare to utter a single word. It’s bad enough that he knows that his words got to you, how can you look him in the eye? 

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” Peeking over at the brunette, you admire his side profile before humming. He continues. “But at the same time I don’t regret it.”

You laugh dryly. “Wow, this is some apology.”

Clearing his throat, he cages your body against the wooden furniture. “I’m serious - I don’t.” Avoiding eye contact, you stare at the sides of your bare thighs where his large hands lay. Suddenly the room feels suffocating. “You do need to stop letting others decide what to think about yourself. You need to stop pleasing everyone around you. Your parents, Eleanor, shit, even me.”

The green eyed boy begins to get blurry as your eyes foolishly well up. “I don’t do th-”

“Yes, yes you do, do that.” His accent comes out stronger than intended. You let out a shaky breath, then beam up at him. Okay, I’ll stop. He grinds his teeth together. “No. Don’t agree just because I’m telling you - do it for yourself because you want to.”

“I want to,” you whisper meekly. 

His heart breaks at the sight of you answering untruthfully but does say anything else. Instead, he hauls you off the table, planting you onto your feet. “Grab a sweater and meet me by the door in five minutes.”

-

He’s for sure going to murder you, Amelia was right after all. Shit, you mutter underneath your breath as he pulls onto the hills. The view was great - for sure a nice way to go if that’s the last thing you’ll ever see. 

Following him out, you pinch down on your denim shorts. Was it too late to run away? He left the key in the engine, maybe you could leave him stranded? 

“I’m not going to kill you, you can relax.”

Blood rushes to the tip of your ears. “What are we doing here at…” You check your phone. “Two in the morning?”

“Yell.”

You quirk your head curiously. “I’m sorry, say that one more time.”

He extends his arms out, enjoying the cool breeze. “Just do it. No one’s going to hear you.”

“That sounds like something a killer would say. Can I get a ten minute head start?”

He rolls his green eyes. “Trust me, it helps a lot. My trainer has me do it all the time.” You raise your brows. “I- uh- box during my free time. My boxing trainer has me do it when I’m too stressed.”

Ignoring his slip up, you shake your head. “I can���t scream, that’s weird.” His pink lips turn downwards. “You’re going to judge me!”

“I won’t!” Covering his ears, he signals at you. “Not a thing.”

You bite down on your sweater before shaking your buzzing hands. Once and he’ll drop it. Ahh, you let out weakly before smiling brightly. “You’re right. That was great!” Turning on your heels, you begin to skip away before he tugs on your sweater, flinging you back. 

“Not even the crickets heard you. Try again.”

“I did do it, you just didn’t like it.” 

“I’m not letting you leave until you do it the right way.” Crossing his arms over his chest, he peacefully shuts his eyes, enjoying nature's lullaby. He seems to let his guard down because before he knows it, he hears the Ferrari engine loud and clear. “Don’t you dare leave,” he warns as he runs up to his car. 

“Get home safe, Charlie!” you squeal as you step on the gas. Chasing after you, he ends up standing in front of the car as you shriek. As quickly as you can, you step off the break but the tip still manages to hit the Monegasque. You scream at the brutal sight. 

Scurrying out of the car, you drop down next to him as you flip him onto his back. His pretty eyes remain closed as he lays still. Wake up Charles, I’m too young to go to jail! Do you know how hard it is to prove your innocence when you’re a foreigner? You delicately tap his cheek but his head only rolls back. You yell out in panic as you let go of his heavy body. 

“Oh God, oh God, holy shit, holy fuck,” you whimper as you pace back into the red car. Squeezing your eyes tightly, you place your hands over the steering wheel as you think about what just happened. Amelia was going to kill you. Eleanor would personally write a whole article about you. 

“You were seriously going to leave me for dead?” a voice interrupts your thoughts as you scream. You face Charles and he yells back at the sudden ring. 

“What the shi- You’re alive!” Jumping over the console, you hug him, barely giving him room to breathe. Groaning in pain, he pushes you back. You hop off as you grab his left hand and raise up four fingers. “How many am I holding up?”

“Fingers? I have ten.”

Your heartbeat travels to your throat as you squirm. “I broke him.” Images of you behind bars enter your mind as you plead Charles to drop the charges. Amelia and Roman would travel to visit you in jail but only to demand their money back. You’d be in complete debt for the rest of your life and oh God what if the Italinas had a thing for the electric chair-

“I’m teasing,” he laughs as he rubs his head. “It hurts like a motherfucker, though, but hey, at least you let it all out.” Wacking his arm, you glare sternly.

“You did that on purpose?”

Grunting, he inches away. “I did not, are you crazy? But it helped you! How do you feel?”

You narrow your fiery eyes. “Angry…mad.” That's the same thing, he points out as you scowl. Nevermind. “I feel good.”

All smug, he leans against the passenger's seat. “I told you it would help.”

“Huh,” you let out in astonishment. 

-

It started out with a simple argument - pesto or tomato sauce. You were leaning more towards the green paste but he held onto his end stubbornly. Honeymoon phase is over? Spinning to face a little boy with whipped cream all over his cheeks, he quirks his head. My dad always likes to say - happy wife, happy life. Walking away, you’re both left with your mouths hung open as you put the ingredients down. 

“Did we just get scolded by a some little fucker?” 

Gasping at his words, you smack the side of his head. He yelps. “No Charles, he basically called us old! We’re ancient!”

“Nonsense. He’s just being dumb.”

Glaring, you put your hands on your hips as you pace the aisle. “What if he’s right? What if we are on the verge of death?” He laughs. All because he thought we were married? Closing in to his tall figure, you pinch your face up. “A married couple spend their life together - growing old. He called us old!” You walk fast down the supermarket as you run wild hands through your hectic hair.

Hurrying after you, he pants. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to find him.” He comes to a sudden stop. And do what exactly? Tossing your head back, you groan in frustration. “I don’t know! Whoop him or something like that.”

The Monegasque lets out a snicker. Your face twists up. “Let’s just calm down.” I am calm, you grunt. He clicks his tongue. 

“We need to do something,” you declare. He sighs. Forgetting all about your errands, you drag him out of the store. Bright eyes flicker across the busy streets as you huff. Then you spot it. “We’re going.”

The brunette squints his eyes as he reads the small print. Amalfi Club. Theme: Halloween costumes. He scoffs. “But it isn’t even October.”

But your mind is set. “It’s perfect.” Bumping against his shoulder, you beam. “Looks like we can turn back time after all.”

-

Ballerina for me, you cheer. And Stormtrooper for you? You narrow your eyes in confusion. “I’m sorry, how do you even know Star Wars exists? Aren’t you French?”

“Monegasque,” he corrects you before frowning. “Stars Wars is a global success. Being from Monaco doesn’t mean we don’t know anything, thank you very much.” 

You shrug. “Be a tiny bit more grateful that I found our costumes on such short notice.” Yeah, yeah, he yawns. “I’m so excited!” you squeal as you finish tying your pink ribbon. You would for sure have a terrible headache by the end of the day. “Won’t you sweat with a helmet all night?”

“I think I’ll be able to handle it.”

It’s so crowded - packed - that your roommate has to practically shove you in as you yelp, arm swatting your tutu down. A cheap looking Tinkerbell gives you the death glare when you step on her foot. I can’t fucking breath! The Stroomtopper mask tilts as he brings his gloved hands to your shoulder. Do you want to leave?

“No!” A beat. “Let me just go get us a drink.”

Zipping past him, you can hear him calling after you but you choose to ignore since you knew he would drag you back to the shared Airbnb. Just water, you chime in as the bartender nods, eyeing your perky tits. Frowning, you pout somberly. “Ignore him,” a deep voice rips you away from your thoughts as you face them. 

Is everyone just okay with melting their face off? The towering man wears a red jumpsuit with the infamous Dali mask. “I like your costume. I binge watched all of Casa De Papel in a singular night.” Your cheeks flush when you realize you’re rambling. He chuckles richly.

“Thought I’d look cool.

There’s an award silence as you wait. Nibbling on your bottom lip, you scrunch your nose in disgust. “You must be sweaty beneath all that,” you ponder, fingers signals to the white mask. He sighs, wide shoulders rolling back. I’m thinking I might faint. A bright giggle slips past your lips and he grins from underneath, even if can’t see. “You remind me of my friend. He would rather die than take his helmet off. He’s a Strormtrooper,” you add. 

Large hands come up as he pushes the hoodie off, messy brown locks coming into view. Stubborn, aren’t we? You nod, thanking the man who comes back with your glass of water. “I should go find him…”

A heavy pant flows from the mysterious man. You’re leaving? He coughs to cover up his neediness. His accent makes your cheek burn up. “I sort of left him,” you respond sheepishly. He chuckles, finally taking his mask off, beads of thin sweat painingting his large nose. You breath hitches, waves of recognition hitting you all at once.

“Valid.” He extends his tan hand towards you. “I’m Carlos, by the way.”

taglist: @blueflorals @starmanv @coolio2195 @lovrsm

[certainlynotasimp]

Just A Bite.

(Miguel O' Hara x Female! Reader)

A/N: Hello~ I got another Miggy and Sunny post for my beloved readers, and I think you'll like it. I'm still working on the request too, but I had this idea and I had to write it. Also if you want to be notified about this series, please leave a comment on this post, and if you wanna read more then check out my master list.

Also thank you guys for 100 followers! I really appreciate you guys so much and I hope you all stay with me on this journey!

Warnings: Grumpy x Sunshine, Barley any use of (Y/N) ((Sunny is a nickname, not her name)), Female pronouns, Miguel being a teasing mf, Gwen being a snoopy spider, Establish Relationship?, Fluff, a little break in canon, and Google translate Spanish ((please give me critique if you guys are fluent in Spanish because I don't know how to speak it.))

Still haven't seen the movie yet so excuse any inaccuracies.

“So are they?” Jessica stops picking at her salad as the younger SpiderWoman peers over her shoulder.

Turning her head slightly, it didn’t take her long to discover what the young protégé’s attention is focused on. 

The signature blue costume hugged the tall Spiderman as he stood several feet away from them. His normally dangerous talons were hidden by the two trays of food in each hand. His eyes were narrowed in annoyance as he seems to be hyperlinked on something. It didn’t take long before Jessica figured out who she needed to spot as the source of Miguel’s irritation. 

The black and white costume of the tiny spider caught her eyes first before she realizes that Peter B. Parker had enamored her attention away from Miguel.

 Well, not so much him, but the one-month-old Mayday Parker had the Spider Society's sunshine orbiting around her. Her little hand grasps around the digit of an older woman as Sunny cooes. A look of awe and sadness filled her eyes as the whole world seemed to disappear around her.

“Are they what?” Jessica asks as she turns her attention back to her lunch, mildly groaning as her little bug certainly didn’t appreciate the diet their daddy put them on. 

“Is Miguel and (Y/N) together?” Gwen repeats her question as she analyzes Miguel’s body language.

It was odd to Gwen as Miguel appeared to be annoyed that he had to hold their plates while waiting on her, but he didn’t make a move to say to rush along the tiny spider. In fact, Gwen nearly choked on her drink as she sees the longing gaze in his garnet eyes.

“To be honest…” Jessica catches Gwen’s attention again as she starts packing away her now empty tray with trash. “I’ve been a part of the Society for a long time, but Sunny was here before I was. Her and Miguel are kinda a packaged deal, but I have no idea if they are together.” Gwen tilts her head with a confused look on her face. She knew the older Spiderwoman was one of the first members of the Society when Miguel created it, but she didn’t know the cheery spider was here longer than Jess. 

“She was here before you?”

“She was here before all of us.” Peter interrupts as he plops in the seat next to Gwen. The infant was now quietly sleeping against her father’s chest with webbing holding her up. Peter steals one of Gwen’s french fries off of her tray as Gwen looked annoyed by him. “Miss Sunshine was the first spider Miguel recruited from what I heard, and I should know.” He plops the fry into his mouth as he chats. “I was the second.”

Jessica chuckles at Gwen’s shocked face at the realization as to how long the futuristic spider man has had his cheery companion. “Little bit wants to know if the big guy and Sunny are a thing or not?” Peter raises an eyebrow as he teases Gwen, “Why? You got a crush on one of them?”

“Ew, no. They are old and I’m 16. It's just they are always together and they seem like a couple, but they don’t do normal couple things.” Gwen whines as her face burns in embarrassment.

“First off, they are not old.” Peter scoffs as he runs a hand through his own graying hair. “Miguel is 28 and Sunny just turned 27.”

Jessica giggles as a memory pops into her mind. The look on Miguel’s face when his smaller companion brought him a cake she made for his birthday will forever be Jessica’s favorite moment since joining this team. Well, the second greatest moment. The slight teary-eyed look the leader gave to the bouncing spider as he had to endure her butchering the birthday song was also very funny. At least she can cook better than she can sing.

“And adult relationships aren’t like the ones you’ve seen in high school.” Peter sighs as he remembers the regretful decisions he made in high school. “They aren’t gonna make out in the hallways or tell each other that they love each other every five minutes.” “So they are together?” Gwen slaps Peter’s hand away from her fries, which causes the baby to stir. Peter hastily bounces the baby as he throws Gwen a glare.

“Oh, I have no idea,” Peter answers honestly as Gwen plops her head on the table. “Why don’t you ask them?”

Jessica smiles fondly as Mayday stares at Peter as he finally starts eating his own food. Her hand wanders to the growing baby bump as she looks into Gwen’s frustrated gaze. “Never hurts to ask. But I suggest asking Sunny because Miguel will deny everything.”

~~~~

“Miss. (Y/N), are you dating Spiderman?” Gwen rehearses to herself as she wanders down the corridor, trying to find her cheery colleague. Gwen groans as rubs her face in frustration, hating all the ideas she came up with sounded childish. How do you ask a grown woman if she is dating her boss? Especially if you’re mutant superheroes who travel to different dimensions and fight anomalies in bright spider costumes.

Just as Gwen rounds a corner, a series of grunts fall into her ears as she draws closer to the combat simulator. One of Lyla’s ideas for the HQ was to include a training room with the ability to use advanced AIs to simulate how fighting in different dimensions. She also thought it would be a fun idea to make it a level system so Miguel can review their abilities and hand out missions appropriate for the skill sets. Gwen attempted to fight in there several times, but she always gets her ass handed to her once she reaches level 3. 

Reaching the door, she peers into the window and sees a disheveled Miguel as he stood in his spider suit in a barely lit simulation. His back to her, she can see his shoulders heave as he pants for a breath of relief in this difficult setting. Despite his lack of spidey sense, Gwen knew he was pretty agile and was one of the strongest Spidermen they had. His talons emerge as his mask disintegrates. His fangs shine in the dim lighting as he looks around the room, looking for something. 

Hunting for something.

She ducks when Miguel looks her way before peeking her head back up. Before she can realize what’s going on, a flash of white gets whipped at the menacing spider, causing him to shred the opposing webbing to bits. Miguel focuses on the direction the attack came from as a smirk rolls onto his face as he approaches his invisible prey. His eyes a dangerous red as his mischief and hunger grows at the anticipation.

“¿Dónde estás, mi pequeña araña?” The predator purrs as his gaze locks on a particular corner. Gwen could barely hear it, but a faint sound of panting, of his prey trying to catch her breath. “No me dejarías esperando demasiado, ¿verdad? Extraño desesperadamente tu dulce rostro, querida.”

Miguel saunters slowly towards the faint sound, a glint of victory shining in his eyes as the smell of her perfume floats into his nose. His smirk turns into a deviously sweet smile as he cracks the bones in his hand. “Especialmente cuando estás gimiendo tan dulcemente debajo de mí…” He mumbles as he finally lunges toward the corner. Gwen puts a hand in her mouth to hide the gasp as he pounces but tilts her head in confusion as his hunt turns sour.

Miguel looks equally stunned for a moment when he realizes that nothing was in his grasp. He pats around the corner to make sure before his hand gets caught on something. He growls as he tries to free his hand upon realizing that it was a trap. A flash of white traps the other hand to the wall above the other as the air rings with giggles. 

“Caught you, Miggy!~” A voice cheers from above as both Miguel and Gwen look up to the ceiling. In a faint glow of green, the victorious smile of the small jumping spider appears out of thin air. Unexpectedly, Miguel meets her smile with a warm chuckle as the hints of a smile appear on his face. “You certainly did, little one.” He sighs as the woman hops down and lands in a crouch position in front of him. Gwen smiles at the adorable display until the older woman leaned over to Miguel’s shoulder. Miguel flinches slightly with a flush of red covering his face as Gwen realizes what just happened.

‘Did she just bite him?!’ Gwen thought as she stared at the smiling duo in bewilderment. 

“Think its going to leave a mark?” He commented as he watches in amusement as his sunshine glares at him.

“It better! Yours are gonna take forever to heal.” She huffs as she stands up. Miguel rolls his eyes and chuckles at her attempt to appear annoyed. 

“It's not that bad…” “NOT THAT BAD?!” Sunny blurts out, interrupting the amused man.

The top part of her costume disintegrates, exposing her tank top underneath as Gwen had to stop herself from shouting in shock. Littering the small spider’s frame were 5 large bruising bite marks, each featuring two distinct puncture wounds. Gwen looks up at the panel beside the door and sees they are on level 6 of 1v1 combat simulation. The realization dawns on the teenager as her face turns an unflattering shade of red. Before she can witness anymore, Gwen teleports out of the corridor as the duo sees the flash of orange. 

“What was that?”

“I don’t know, but whoever it was is gonna be on trash duty for a month”

~~~~~

“So you ever asked her about if she and Miguel are-”

“No, and I’ll never try to figure that out again.”

~~~~~~

A/N: Please please let me know what else you guys wanna see or throw me some critiques. I love hearing from you all!!

~~~~~~

Taglist:

@ameliadraws 

@tojisrightnut

@whyareyoubored

@silly-lovestruck-em

@luvil1y

@chims-kookies

@himesuedi

@22carolina08