#and now i feel like being with me is just shameful

[bratbarzal]

for ur valentines blurb pretty please these prompts with quinn hughes ☺️😘

¹⁾ “you really planned this?! remind me how you’re single, again?”

⁴⁾ “c’mon, like i need an excuse to spend time with you.”

⁵⁾ “i can’t help but think that this is a little more effort than someone would normally put in for their friend.”

✩‧₊˚ bratbarzal's valentines event!˚₊‧✩

idk why I give prompts and then continue to go off script but I honestly think I have a problem with being told what to do lmao. something about scripted sentence cuts a creative wire in my brain. THE SENTIMENT OF WHAT I WROTE IS THE SAME!!!!! I promise. also I like this one lmao!! I hope you like it too thanks for requesting!! and stacking the prompts is very cool gave me a nice little story to follow I love it!!! I wrote this whole thing and realised I didn't mention valentines once, but it's belated, so..... we're going to pretend it's okay I've decided on your behalf thanks love you

this ended up at 3.4k words lol - warnings for fade to black type smut, slightly angsty

Quinn: you coming over tonight?

A text from him has never filled you with anxiety like this.

But then again, for as long as the two of you have been friends, you've never actively avoided Quinn until now.

Monday had been one word answers, Tuesday had been emojis, Wednesday had been reactions, and Thursday had been radio silence, because he hadn't texted you, anyway.

It's not that you're mad at him. You wish you could be mad - wish you had any reason other than your own shame to be turning down all attempts at contact. But instead, all you can think when you see his name is how much you had fucked everything up the last time you saw him.

You: idk

And only because you feel instantly bad about how short that is, you immediately follow up with:

You: work has kicked my ass this week

You see the little dots keep popping up, and you're only torturing yourself to watch them come and go as he figures out what to say - how to salvage what you'd so carelessly made a gigantic mess of only last weekend.

You should really just say yes, you think - be the bigger person. Fridays have been your thing, all season. The day of the week he most frequently has the night off, and an end to your usually-hectic work-week, it has just made sense for the two of you to hang out, to make a routine of doing so.

Bailing on him is harsh, you know that. And with such a weak excuse too - you've had much worse times in your job, and it's never come between the two of you before.

And you know that he knows what you're doing. It's obvious. It's just whether he's in any mood to try and recover whatever scraps of your friendship still remain. Whether he even cares, anymore.

Quinn: please?

The two minutes it took for him to type just one word dragged longer than they ever have in your life, and you blink at your phone screen as you see the dots jump up again.

You chew nervously at your lip and wait, tapping your foot against the side of your desk and watching this time as it stays.

Quinn: I've already bought enough to cook for us both

He's such a guilt tripper.

You sigh, typing back and sending an immediate response, figuring a week of the bare minimum is punishment enough without blanking him or making him wait.

You: okay

A heart pops up below your message almost immediately, the reaction only worsening your anxiety at the thought of how hard keeping your distance is.

You: I'm finishing later than usual, should be there around 8

Quinn: ok I'll have dinner ready for then!

--

You knock on Quinn's door a little after 8pm - still in your work clothes, although that is usually how you come over, in your defence. Quinn loans you something comfy, and you usually change, but changing means staying over, and you're kind of trying to avoid all that again.

So when he welcomes you in, you awkwardly pat at his back as he tries to embrace you, before hovering around the kitchen instead of making your way back to his room.

He frowns a little as he watches you - he's in a hoodie and sweats, settled in now for the night with no intentions of getting back up once the two of you have eventually sunk down into the couch together - and waits a second to see if you're just on a delay, if you're just beat from work, like you said.

"I left a change of clothes for you on my bed," he says once he realises you aren't shifting, glancing quickly at you before he starts to busy himself with dishing up dinner.

"I'm good," you tell him, short, with a tight lipped smile sent his way when his eyes meet yours, narrowed in curiosity.

You're wearing a skirt and heels, for Christ's sake, and a blouse that's a little too restrictive around your shoulders. You've been in them all day, too. Of course you aren't good, and of course he knows that, but he drops it, a resigned nod and an awkward shift of his gaze back to the task at hand, spooning an assortment of green vegetables beside the rice on your plate.

You chance a good look at him while he's distracted - his hair soft, pushed back messily in a way that makes it flop straight back into place, and he looks a little tired, but he's had a long week, too. Back in training, pushing himself, dealing with a best friend who isn't reciprocating his energy. He's probably exhausted.

His jaw is clenched as he finishes the meal off, clattering utensils a little louder the longer you're quiet, and letting out heavy sighs when he's clearly growing more frustrated with how little you're giving back.

"How was work?" he tries, reaching into the draw and retrieving a knife and fork for the two of you.

"Long," you sigh, offering a small smile when he looks over to let him know that this particular instance of a short response isn't personal. You are genuinely exhausted - you'd worked an extra long day, just to get a major project finished, and, if you're honest, you're just ready for bed. "Glad it's the weekend, I'm probably gonna hit my pillow tonight and not see tomorrow."

The initial spark that lit up in his eyes when you started speaking a full sentence to him dulled immediately when he realised that you had all intentions of going home.

"You're not staying over?"

"I can hardly sleep here until Sunday, Quinn, that would be insane." Like you haven't spent consecutive days around his apartment, before. Like you haven't spent weeks with him back at his lake house in Michigan in the summer. Like the two of you didn't isolate together when you both got covid, probably from each other.

He nods, brief and sharp, jaw tensing again as he mutters out a bitter, "Right."

God, this is hard.

"Do you want me to carry anything?" You ask, trying to be helpful, just to make yourself feel better.

He wordlessly hands over the cutlery before turning to grab both plates on his own, nodding for you to make your way out of the kitchen for him to follow.

You do as he asks, holding the door for him so he doesn't struggle, stepping nervously behind him as he guides you through to where he's set the dining table up.

His curtains are drawn, a picturesque view of the nightlife of downtown Vancouver, twinkling city lights and the distant flash of vehicles passing by below stands as the most perfect backdrop to his set-up - the table candle-lit, a vase of fresh flowers in the middle, wine glasses and a salad bowl situated around the nice placemats you'd made him buy the last time the two of you went shopping together.

You hesitate when you get a little closer, eyeing up the setting reluctantly as Quinn places the plates in your retrospective places.

He's usually neat when it comes to his dinner table - usually likes to set things up so that they look nice, placemats, coasters. cutlery and napkins - but it's never like this.

"What's all this?" You ask, meeting his eye as he leans across the table to place down the knives and forks you hand to him.

"You said you had a bad week," he shrugs, "Wanted to do something nice."

He shuffles around you, the light placement of his hand on your hip as he does so jolting you toward the table, head swivelling to watch him disappear back toward the kitchen.

"You planned this?" you call after him, turning to look down at everything - a meal that he cooked, something nutritious and filling, knowing you wouldn't have the energy to make as much yourself, pretty flowers, and a calm, ambient atmosphere flooding the room. Your fingers poke softly at the petals on the flowers, lifting them a little to get a better look, mindful of the roses in the arrangement, careful not to be pricked by their thorns. "And you said you didn't think you'd be a good boyfriend,"

The latter sentence is muttered to yourself more than anything, a remembrance of something he'd said a while ago now - something that had always been in the back of your mind when you considered anything more - but your heart drops when you hear him chuckle from not too far behind, spinning on your heels to look at him, wide-eyed and apologetic. "I didnt-,"

“It’s fine,” he assures you, dipping his head but still keeping his gaze on yours, “Wine?”

He holds the bottle up in one hand, and your mouth goes a little dry at the sight of the label, mind going straight back to this time last week, when you had shared a few glasses with him. When things had gone too far.

Quinn's hands were holding you in place on his lap, soft fingers slipping under the hem of his sweatshirt that you wore, sliding up to press into the warm skin of your back, rocking you on his lap as his tongue swiped languidly against your own.

You couldn't quite tell whose mouth the taste of plummy Malbec sat within, but at that point, you didn't care - you'd both drunk enough of it to find yourselves in such a situation, you were at equal fault.

Not that any of it felt wrong in the moment, his hips bucking up as you straddled his thighs, your fingers clutching where his hair grew thick at the back of his neck. Quinn was humming soft, delicious groans straight between your lips, his own closing around your tongue as he sucked on it - all other bodily movements frantic and stuttered until he was repositioning the two of you, laying you back on the couch and gripping the elastic waist of your sweatpants.

It can't have been wrong - not with how easy it all unfolded, your hips lifting until he slid your bottoms off, his fingertips sneaking their beneath the hem of your panties - too drunk to care how sexy they might have been, never expecting to have to even consider such a thing around Quinn - all the while his mouth pressing firm, bruising kisses to your own.

"I shouldn't, I'm driving," you mumble, a soft shake of your head supposed to let him down easy, and to bring your senses back to the present, but his frown just deepens, the crease between his eyebrows now almost a fold.

"You can stay, you know," he tells you, pouring his own glass. "I don't care if you sleep until Sunday, it's not like you haven't spent the weekend before."

"I don't know," You sit cautiously in your seat, watching as he lowers into his own, face morphing into a hard scowl before he lets out a heavy sigh. "What?"

"It's like you've been making excuses not to hang out."

"Or maybe you've been making excuses to hang out," you retort, cringing yourself at how stupid it sounds, looking down into your lap as you place your napkin there so that he can't see the visible curl of your features.

"That doesn't even make sense," you know that, obviously, but you've been avoiding him for a reason - you don't want to have this conversation. You're not ready. "I don't need an excuse, we're friends, it's what friends do."

And God, you wish he'd just stop saying it. It's getting annoying now, your jaw tensing as you huff a short breath out, still keeping your head down to avoid him reading you like an open book - a book that may as well be pictures, at this point, or written for children with the most basic reading comprehension, one sentence per page and clear as day.

"What friends do," you mutter, in disbelief. He's one to talk about what friends do.

Friends don't do what you did last week.

Quinn's body had pretty much completely flopped onto yours, his chest rising and falling in heavy pants, but still careful enough not to bare all his weight on you so that yours could do the same.

Your skin felt clammy all over, baby hairs sticking to the back of your neck and your forehead, your neck slick from where his lips had been pressing all into it, sucking and nipping and you swear you'd even felt the glorious scratch of teeth at one point, and the heat of him above you was doing little to remedy the feeling.

You brought a hand up, almost absent-mindedly, to scratch softly at the back of his head as he came down, an overwhelming dizziness gripping at your eyelids, pulling you down as you felt him follow.

"You're making me feel like I'm going crazy," you sigh, "You can't seriously set all this up and not realise that it's way more effort than anyone would normally put in for someone that's just a friend,"

"You're not just anything," he counters, "When did I say you were just anything?"

He looks annoyed, that much is obvious - and yeah, you've technically been avoiding him, just like he assumes, but he was the one who made you feel like you had to.

A soft, sleepy groan was the first sound that brought you into consciousness the next morning - raspy and thick, and so close to your ear that the feeling of it buzzed the whole way down to your toes.

Then came unassuming movements, a twist of his torso, a shuffle of his hips, the stretch of his legs, all of which had been pressed right against all the same parts of your body - the sticky warmth of him catching your skin and rousing you fully from your sleep.

His arms tightened their hold around you before you really thought he knew what he was doing - a lethargic sigh huffing from his nostrils as he got comfortable again - and you had maybe a solid minute in his embrace until he fully came to.

The two of you were naked, one of the throws from the back of the couch draped lazily over your modesty, but that didn't really matter when you could feel the heavy press of him all over - your chest, your stomach, your hips, your thighs.

His fingers tightened, pressing a little into your waist before his touch disappeared completely. Before he was retreating, untangling himself from your body and sitting up. You felt the couch move as he shuffled around doing God-knows-what - felt the soft drape of the throw back over your body, and the whoosh of cold that followed and refused to leave.

When you dared to open your eyes, he was sat on the other side, leaning over, head in his hands after shrugging his boxers back on.

"Quinn?" you asked, your own voice thick with sleep, straightening to face him properly and rubbing at your eyes until they focused. "What's going on?"

"How much did we have to drink last night?"

Your heart dropped at the question, but your eyes floated over to the coffee table, two empty bottles standing on the other side. "A lot, I guess."

"Shit," he cursed, pushing himself up and pacing in front of the couch, refusing to look at you. "Fuck."

"Q, you're making me dizzy."

"I just," he stopped in place and scratched at the back of his neck, eyes lowering down your body in a way that made heat creep back up your neck, and your shoulders practically fold in on themselves consciously. "I didn't mean for it to go that far."

Your lips parted, although you didn't really know what to say to that. All you could do was nod, stuttered and slow, your gaze shifting too until it landed on the carpeted rug in front of him, focusing too hard on the pattern. "It's fine."

You could feel the weight of his stormy stare, but you couldn't look up - too afraid of rejection, too afraid of regret.

"We're friends, you know, you're-,"

"I know," you confirmed, not needing to hear how he didn't ever intend to be anything more. "We were drunk, Q, it's fine."

Your attempt at a reassuring smile probably looked a little more like a grimace, but you were saved probably by the fact that the two of you had had a lot to drink, and you were honestly a little queasy.

And maybe it had been the cold hard slap of rejection you woke up to that made you feel that way - after years of wanting more with Quinn - but he didn't need to know that. Not if he was already 10 toes deep into a regret spiral so soon after opening his eyes.

"We're friends."

"You said it last Saturday," you frown, "Saturday morning."

"No, you said we were drunk. I said we were friends, but you cut me off-,"

"Yeah, 'cause I didn't really want the first thing you said to me that morning to be that you made a mistake!"

"And here you are again, cutting me off!" his voice is a little raised now - so unlike the soft-spoken Quinn you're used to - easy going and well natured. "I can't win with you, you're either avoiding me like the plague, or you're not letting me speak, either way, I can't clear all this up!"

"What's there to clear up?" you scoff, "I don't need you to hold my hand and give me the full speech, okay, I get it, you don't want to be anything more than-," your body is jolted quickly by the sudden scrape of your chair across the floor, Quinn's grip firm on the leg as he pulls, "Hey, what are you-,"

And he's at the perfect height, then, to meet your lips once you're close enough, his hand leaving the chair to grip at your face - hold you in place so that you can't protest, can't cut him off in this, too, like you have been doing with every other way he's tried to communicate his feelings for you.

His kiss feels familiar, achingly so, the swipe of his tongue soft at the parting of your lips, his own mouth closing in a soft pressure against yours, over and over at a disorienting intensity - all thoughts melting away at his endeavour.

When he pulls away, he keeps his hands in place, watching intently as your eyes flutter open, and you slowly sink back into consciousness, pupils blown when they meet his, intense in their focus on you.

"You're really important to me."

You frown, because your brain will only allow you to process that as the start of rejection - followed by, which is why we can't go further - but that's not the direction Quinn is taking this.

"I wanted to do all of this right. That's why I freaked out last week. I didn't want you to think it was a drunken mistake."

Oh.

You're still a little dazed from the kiss, if you're honest, and so you find yourself blinking slowly back at him, mouth bopping open and closed while you figure out what to say.

"What?" Is all that comes out when you find your voice, watching as he rolls his eyes - part exasperated, part amused.

"Now you have nothing to say?" He scoffs, thumb swiping gently at your cheek as if to show you he's kidding. "I like you. I have for a while, and I want to be more than friends. I want you to stay at my place whenever you come over, and wear my clothes, and eat my food, and drink my wine," he lists, dipping his head closer and closer until you're face to face, a mere inch or two from him kissing you again. "And I want you to sleep here until Sunday. Maybe even after."

"Okay." you respond - the kind of one word answer you've been throwing his way to avoid getting hurt all week. And because you feel guilty, you add, "I want all that, too."

He breathes out a sigh of relief, closing his eyes and smiling slowly - an infectious kind of smile, that has you doing it right back, noses just brushing before you kiss him, again.

Stone cold sober, no longer looking to avoid your feelings, with the intention of being so much more than his friend.

[christinescupofcoffee]

Multis. Although… I do enjoy the stray one shot every now and again.

A bit of both, and i’ve found that I’m most relaxed when I write without a plan (or at the very least having an idea as to where it’s going but not really having a destination. All my fics the last couple of years have been like this).

I take my time with chapters now���last few times I’ve gone on ao3 for any reason, the damned thing crashes (really, I’m worried about that place. I can’t expect it to last for the next four years the way it freaks out every couple of days). I worry about things like censorship, too: so getting my fics saved onto my laptop, I’m free to write and continue these stories at my own pace. My laptop is offline, too, i.e., no distractions. Sure, I can’t share anything, it’s a hassle, but… I kind of like it. It’s giving me all the 2016-2018 vibes when I was in the dark, away from the world, living in my own world alone. Everyone was screaming and yelling and carrying on about the political landscape and I just tucked myself away into my own imagination. I kind of want to do it again, if I’m honest.

I feel so raw saying this, raw and vulnerable, but… I have always been in love. I have always found myself crushing on someone. I have always written from the heart.

Honestly? *looks around* not really. It can be very useful, helpful, inspiring even. But… I approach this the same way I approach the culinary world and art: I bake a cake or make a drawing the same way I write a long fic, and I simply cannot divorce my heart from my work. People like to gripe about this sort of thing until the cows come home… no one has no idea how it makes me feel. Yes, I know my grammar can be complete shit at times, and yes, I am very verbose, but that’s how I roll. No need to shame me and make it seem like I just committed a mortal sin by accidentally omitting a word.

Nope. No beta, we die like Titans of Creation.

It has to “speak to me”, if you will. Seasons Grey works with third-person perspective because you don’t know everything about Christine and Alex is a mystery. Blood & Chocolate and After the Gold Rush work with first-person perspective because it’s intimate. Xenon Dreams works with the alternating first-person because all five men have different experiences, and it’s intimate; conversely, All That Glitters has the alternating third-person because it’s more adventurous. Now it’s Dark and Dark Months of April and May use first-person because it’s unreliable. Quarter After Twelve has the what I call “2 whole eggs, 3 yolks” perspective (Andy and Zero’s arcs are first-person; Richie, Tina, and Allison are third-person), as Andy is traumatized, Zero is stuck in one place, Richie and Tina are both still waters, and Allison is a broken man and therefore detached.

Beginning (what I get for being an Aries 😅)

I try to—and you know, I would be a lot more adept at it if people didn’t bitch about it ad infinitum. I was thinking about this the other night when SNL50 was going, too: fandom has changed drastically just in the last few years alone, in a sense that fans not only treat it like it’s business but they spend more time whining about the most trivial things (lack of comments, getting criticism, this weird unhinged approach to fandom as a whole) than doing anything useful or creative, god forbid.

“Meanwhile, once she had come downstairs, Alex had already showed up outside of her apartment in a snug dark gray shirt and low-slung black long shorts. His shoulder-length black hair was almost smooth and nicely combed back: there was a slight curl right over his shoulders, and his skin looked as smooth as porcelain. He looked a bit fuller, rounder, and softer right then, especially with the shade cast down from the building upon the crown of his head and his shoulders. He lifted his sunglasses up from his face to show her his eyes.” (latest chapter of Dark Roots of Earth, book two of Seasons Grey)

Genuinely don’t want to do that because… you know. ao3 is more mental than me the week before my period starts. But… With Strings Attached, the Beatles fic that inspired pretty much everything long from me. There’s a Light, the Pearl Jam/grunge fic that I still think about even 8 years after its completion. My friend Amanda wrote a two-parter that inspired Midnight Oil (drawing a blank on the title). You Know Your Rights on Wattpad (can’t remember the author’s name), probably the best “Hole-vana” fic I can think of. The entire Gojira tag on ao3. There’s a couple of Alan Partridge fics on ao3 that got a good laugh out of me. Love in Exile and a couple of Alice In Chains fics that wake up the kinkster in me. FOOLS GOLD (from Cazio).

I have a complicated relationship with feedback. I welcome it forever, but because I had to go through English and writing classes, peer reviews, teachers who ran on assumption that I knew what I was doing, the whole thing about me writing from the heart, and the fact that I tend to attract negative attention (I’ve often felt that people have an inexplicable pathological hatred of me), I never expect accolades. In fact, I fully expect everyone to hate it.

Be descriptive. I like bending this one and injecting poetry into things, even if it doesn’t seem to make sense.

This has been a learned skill on my part because when I first got into fiction writing, it was hard to not get melodramatic with things. I’m an emotional person and the other thing that’s worked for me is a cause and effect situation as well as pulling from my own scars: in Seasons Grey, Christine lost her best friend at a young age and sort of buried it. I wonder how everyone is going to react to this tidbit of her life, especially Alex—especially since he reminds her of Chris. In stories like All That Glitters and After the Gold Rush, I just sit and think of angst. What would happen if Jed and Octavius suffered an irreversible falling out. Where would Phileas go if he just started thinking and realized what was happening, both with Monique and Passepartout and back home in England. I feel like I made those three more human with this, too.

My smut is so wordy that even I can’t believe it. I have to set the mood as well as be spontaneous with it. It’s genuinely isolating when I look at smut in other places, too, like I can’t just do 1200 words, I have to lead into things and I have to be real with it all, too.

A bunch 😅 As the Seasons Grey. I started writing it in early 2023 after doing kinkmas during a blizzard: it basically just grew out of this fantasy I have about being a source of comfort for the man.

Exercise. Draw. Read. Garden. Bake and/or cook. Watch a movie or TV.

I think there was a couple where I came up with the title after I started writing simply because anything else I came up with sucked (fever in, fever out was an example of this; so was Have Your Cake and Eat It). Like with perspectives, titles usually speak to me, and they’ll come in song form or in sayings. “xenon dreams” is a weird one, though: xenon is a byproduct of radioactive iodine, which is found in fallout. That whole fic had this dreamy, blue color scheme whenever I thought about it; xenon is blue/indigo when electrolyzed.

“Alternate Universe”

A love of food. A feeling of heart throughout. This overreaching feeling of vulnerability within, a tenderness. Writing because I have a crush and no one knows how to react to it. Lately, I’ve been throwing in little call backs to my other wips in my wips, like it’s a spiderweb.

Yes, but I don’t see it happening any time soon, though.

Second-person perspective. Done to fucking death at this point and something about it just irritates me to no end, like it ruins my immersion right from the beginning.

Write when you can (instead of “write every day”, because sometimes you just can’t write every day, damn it).

“Avoid overused words” (look no further than “said”. Why. Why would I avoid “said”.) “Use active voice” (I’ve found a lot of power in being a little passive or submissive, if you can believe it. Conversely, I have had the most complaints from my active voice).

now it’s dark. My last adventure before the pandemic. Joey himself even loved it!

fever. Homeboy was 1.1 million words!

Most favorite: just seeing my internal worlds come to life. Least favorite: sharing it with everyone.

2-3k is considered a good day to me. 4-5k is “I got snowed in/it’s too fucking hot out to do anything” word lengths.

Ha, you really don’t want to know.

Yes.

Characters. Maybe that’s another reason why my fics tend to be entrenched in heart?

Amanda. Aviva Rothschild (author of With Strings Attached, i had to look her up really quick). Drawing a blank on the name of the person who wrote Love in Exile.

Of course!

Hopefully not like my homeskillet Oscar Wilde.

Their darkness exists in all of us to some degree.

Nervously with a pit in my stomach, a devastating feeling of existentialism, and a side of ginger ale.

Yet another thing that speaks to me.

Yes… but I don’t have the best experience with them, though. I tried to get commissions with my art years ago, and… there’s a reason why you aren’t seeing them.

(see above)

bro, if you make fanart of Alex and Eric on the lawn outside the apartment complex at sunrise, of Erik and Dragon talking, of Isaac flipping out on Richie, of James and Richard at breakfast, of Phileas napping, of Octavius and Ahkmenrah getting slack jawed drunk, of Jane and Vanessa with their braids… I’ll be happy.

If I really like something, I’ll read it several times.

The last fic I left kudos on ao3 was a compilation of Strawberry Shortcake one shots: underrated fandom and it was snowing outside, so I was in a cozy mood. The last fic I bookmarked was a one shot from Ideal Home: it was erotic and very tender.

The latter. I really only put them through pain to ground them.

I have no beta but I omit words all the time.

I want to make you laugh then break your heart, and then vice versa—such is the Steve Coogan school of writing.

Emotionally charged idyllic action

2. Any more than that and I’ll drive myself crazy.

🤷🏻‍♀️

All the time and I don’t deal with them.

1.1 million, AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

4.9 million, I think?

I want to. Believe me, I want to. I’m way more responsive on instagram, though, mainly because I can see you on my lockscreen. There’s none of that nerve-racking “oh, shit, what is it now” that comes with getting an inbox notification.

Definitely a writer. When I read, I go way outside of the fandom (like Strawberry Shortcake, old Top Gear, lesser known literature and theater, anything Steve touches). I’m not afraid to go into unknown territory, too, like Around the World in 80 Days with Steve and Skinwalker Ranch. Maybe that’s why Bandom writers can’t stand me?

Really, just writing the thing.

Hands down, Alex. He’s the love of my life. I just found him on a whim, in a bad part of history, and I was drawn to his plume of silver and his intellect. He brings out the sensuality in me, too, more than Joey or Lars.

🤷🏻‍♀️

Wait until it’s finished. Again, I’ll drive myself crazy.

Writing without question.

No, and yes, I would. My mom wrote fics way back in the era of message boards and mailing lists, back in 2001-2002, so she gets it.

Can’t say I have.

I like doing it and… referring back to fandom changing for the worse, is it just me or do fics, especially rpf fics, seem kind of mean-spirited now. Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I read some rpf where it felt like the author actually likes the guy involved, aside from the thing Amanda wrote. There has to be some heart here.

Painful but my god, do they keep you engaged.

“Coming inside” someone. Screaming. “Good girl.” Tight pussies—bitch, no one’s pussy is that tight. Weird euphemisms for body parts, too. When you’re reading about your kink and something happens that turns off the whole mood or doesn’t gel with your approach. The author claims to be sex-positive but there’s something off about the whole thing, like there’s no way that they are. Goes without saying I don’t like a ton of smut.

“Good boy.” Foreplay. Tension, like… you’re anticipating it and you don’t know if it’s going to happen or not.

Bringing it to life. Cozying up all snug next to Alex, Eric, Joey, Lars, Krist, Richard, James, Steve, all my boys under the warm sun away from the world…

I don’t think about it anymore.

Independent ideas. I guess this is the other reason why I hate kinktober other than feeling rawer than a frozen chicken?

Everything.

Black Diamonds. I got called “disgusting” for that, if you can believe it.

Totally embarrassed. I’m enthusiastic but every time, I’m faced with stupid reactions that it makes me uncomfortable.

…I’m not sure?

Chronological. I kinda have to.

It’s just weird.

probably the writing style.

Get to know your fic writer!

Do you prefer writing one-shots or multi-chaptered fics?

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Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

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Cltr+f "blinks" on your WIP & copy paste the first sentence/paragraph that comes up

Link your three favorite fics right now

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Share a snippet from a WIP

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[authorhjk1]

Lewd thoughts on aespa getting caught by their partner playing by themselves instead of waiting for them 👁️

Karina

Karina's eyes are wide open when she sees you standing in the door. The pillow she has been grinding on shows off a visible wet spot, suggesting that she isn't wearing panties under her skirt.

"This-This isn't what it looks like."

She feels shame colouring her cheeks as you look at her exposed tits, her top bunched up above them.

"I was only gone for 10 minutes and you couldn't help yourself?"

"S-Sorry, I've just been so...so needy lately."

Karina bites her lip as she glances at your crotch.

"That explains why you were grinding on me last night when I woke up."

Once more, Karina sinks her head in shame. But when she looks up at you, she catches your teasing smirk, which makes her regain her confidence.

"This pillow isn't really doing it for me."

She gets on all fours and crawls to the edge of the bed.

"Maybe I can ride something else?"

Giselle

You wanted to surprise your girlfriend for Valentine's day with a bouquet of roses, chocolate and some jewelry. But you couldn't help yourself, you wanted to give her a jump scare when she'd come back home. That's why you hid inside her closet. And when she did come home, you were about to jump out. But before you could, you saw Giselle opening a drawer of her nightstand. She asked you to not look inside of it and you respected her wish, that's why you're now so curious to see what's in it.

To your surprise, Giselle takes out what seems to be a dildo. You didn't expect that. You watch how she lies down on her stomach on top of her mattress. She placed the dildo in front of her. You expected her to pleasure herself with it, but Giselle is starting to suck the dildo off. You know that she loves giving head, but you didn't expect her being this into it. Your cock is completely hard by now as you hear Giselle slightly choking as she tries to fit most of the dildo inside her mouth.

Giselle yelps in surprise when you finally open the door. She's stunned, embarrassed, speechless. You see her glancing at your face, your crotch, the gifts in your hand and back to your face.

"I-"

Instead of giving her time to explain, you put the gifts to the side and undo your pants. Giselle's confusion quickly turns into lust as you pull off your boxers as well. You expect her to just wait for you to come closer, but instead, Giselle moves to the edge of the bed and turns around. She's now lying on her back and as she lets her head hang off the edge, you know what she has in mind.

"Happy Valentine's Day, baby."

Winter

"Alright, thank you"

You hang up and walk back to the bedroom. You were about to go down on a half naked Winter when you got a phone call. At first you considered letting it go to voicemail, but you knew it was important.

As you now step into the room, you're surprised by what you see. Your relationship with Winter is still quite fresh and the two of you haven't had that much sex yet. And the sex you had was always on the softer side.

But now Winter is lying on your bed, her tight body on full display. The fingers of her right hand are knuckles deep inside her pussy, while her left hand is squeezing her small tits.

"Ruin me, daddy. Make me a slut."

She moans and you can hear how wet her pussy is.

You haven't seen this side of Winter before. And she never called you daddy either. Her eyes are closed though, so you doubt she knows you're watching her.

"I'm such a bad girl. I'm addicted to your cock like a whore, daddy."

Her words are dripping with lust and you hold your breath, not wanting her to stop.

"Everytime you fuck me you're rearranging my insides. My body is too small for your cock, but it just feels so good when you break me, daddy!"

Winter's voice is getting louder and you can see her arching her back off the mattress.

You silently walk towards her, unable to hold back any longer. When you reach the bed, you must have made a sound, because Winter's eyes suddenly shoot open. Surprise, shame, embarrassment, her face displays all kinds of emotions as she looks up at you.

You lean over her, placing your left hand over hers, which makes her fingers slip in deeper into her pussy. Your other hand supports your weight as you place it right next to her head.

"What a bad girl you are. Touching yourself while I'm on the phone."

Her embarrassment is now fully replaced by a look of shock. Winter's mouth is slightly open and she's just waiting for your next move.

"Is this how bad you need my cock? Daddy is going to fuck and punish you like the slut you are."

Winter whimpers, her eyes wide open, but she can't say anything as her juices start to stain the sheets underneath her.

Ningning

"You couldn't wait 5 minutes, could you?"

Ningning shakes her head. She is biting her lip, one strap of her dress is already half way off her shoulder, her heels only dangling on her toes. She's lying in bed, her delicate hand playing with her clit.

The two of you haven't been on a date in ages and so it seems like your wife really enjoyed the night. After you just made sure your children are sleeping, you join her on the bed.

"The next time you tease me like that, I won't wait until we're home."

You whisper into her neck as your hands glide along every curve of her body. Throughout the whole dinner Ningning used one of her naked feet to touch your legs and at one point flat out rubbed your cock through your pants under the table.

"Is that a promise?"

Her breath hitches when your lips move from her neck down to her collarbone.

[nanamisgirly]

cw smut, cheating, toji is almost 50, reader's in college.

sorry not sorry but toji is a total asshole, fucking with no remorse the tight cunt of his son's girlfriend.

"you little brat, this is what you were waiting for" he says, one rough large palm landing on your lower back, forcing you into a meaner arch.

megumi was out to buy some ice cream for the night. He suggested you stay home since he'd be quick anyway. And who were you to refuse when toji was here too?

"walkin' around all day with those slutty little clothes—" his cock was buried sooo deep inside you, splitting you open, making you feel full. "a short, barely coverin' your pussy" he slams his hips harder, grinning when your ass jiggles. "brushin' against my cock when you passed by—" a sharp spank lands on your cheek, making you gasp. "just admit, you stayed here hopin' i'd fill up that needy slut cunt of yours."

toji might be a grumpy old man pushing 50, but the man was still in condition, built like a goddamn machine. his stamina put boys around your age to shame and his cock as thick and hard as a rock when you were around.

"t-toji," you pleaded "huh, don't talk" he growls, slamming into you mercilessly. one hand pressed your face against the cool kitchen counter, keeping you firmly in place. "wanna hear those loud noises my girl is makin' down here" he grins, pupils dilated at the sight of your soaked cunt. you could feel his cock throbbing inside you, stretching you open with every relentless thrust. "bet the little boy doesn't make that pussy as wet as i do," he says, voice thick with arrogance. the slick mess between your thighs dripped down, your walls clenching around his length— milking every inch. "best fuckin' pussy i've ever had, so fuckin' tight" he groaned, making his pace even filthier. you could feel his veiny dick deep in your tummy, it was no joke. toji was ruining your inside, he was so fast— imposing a brutal rhythm. you could barely keep up. the kitchen was filled of wet noises, each obscene squelch only fueling his hunger. "meh, listen to her, think she likes being fucked like a whore."

He pulled out, only his tip remained inside. parted your legs wider. angled his hips. slammed back in. and here he was deeper.

your breath hitched, a helpless, pornographic moan spilling past your lips." it's- aghn, d-daddy, mh," too cock drunk. your mind was blank, his cock reaching spots you didn't even know existed. toji chuckles "daddy, huh?" he mocked, that almost turned him into a beast— his cock only grew impossibly harder inside you.

"daddy's gonna destroy that poor pussy of yours," he says in an guttural voice "take it like a good slut". he slipped out, completely, using his flushed glistening brown tip to slap quickly against your swollen clit. "c'mon, brat. make a mess for me so i can fuck it right back into you." he was dragging his dick back and forth on your slick folds, his fat tip creating friction with your stimulated clit each time.

a sharp cry escaping you as you came, your body doing as he said before you realized it. muscles tensed, thighs quivering at the overwhelming pleasure. but toji gave you no time to recover, the second you hit your peak, he was right back inside, his heavy balls smacking against your swollen lips. "here, let's fuck for real now" toji lets out as his grip tightened on your hips, pulling you back onto his cock, balls drenched in your arousal.

And that's when megumi comes back from the store.

"what the hell are those noises," megumi asks, pushing the door. wet slaps echoing in the hallway. "toji did you put some porn or-" megumi stays still. eyes widened taking in the sight before him.

His girlfriend being fucked out by his dad.

toji doesn't give a fucking damn. doesn't even stop ramming into you. He locks eyes with his child as he picks up the pace, balls deep in you. as if he had all the right, as if he owns you. as if you weren't his son's girlfriend. "tsk, look at that kid," he smirks, amused by the situation. he grabs your hair, forcing you to arch back onto his chest, your breasts bouncing widely as his hips meet yours. "she got a needy hole, i thought i could help" he bites your ear. "her pussy tight's like a damn virgin" he adds. a large hand circling your throat. squeezing.

your vision blurred, eyes rolling back in ecstasy. you weren't even trying to muffle your moans, you couldn't. you were so aroused megumi could see his dad's cock glistening from where he stands, his fists clenching at his side. taking you boyfriend's dad's cock in front of him and having so much pleasure from it— oh that's what you liked. the room was filled of your sounds, shameless, raw, filthy. your walls molded perfectly around the older man's dick. a deep growl coming from toji as he thrusted harder against you. your skins slapping against each other.

"look at that, son" he says in a pant, going in and out so fast it was inhuman. megumi had full view on your bouncing tits and your moist cunt. "pussy's tryin' to suck me in- fuck" toji couldn't stop his pace. his thighs flexing with the effort.

you were a total whimpering mess. megumi could feel his blood rushing to his length. 'why was it so exciting' toji hips rolled, hitting your g-spot perfectly. "oh, d-don't s-stop" and meg' let out a groan at your shaky voice.

"d-daddy, p-please— mghn" your boyfriend flinches at the nick name.

"yeahh, that's right slut, show the kid how needy you are of my cock" and you skirted. you didn't even realized how you did, your mind was spinning, searching for your breath through toji's chock.

"oh, saw that? she's gettin' messier" toji smirks, proud of himself. he was just too good. his mouth goes to your ear and he says loud enough for his son to hear through your noisy moans and slick, indecent pussy's noises "maybe I should let megumi cleans the mess when I'm done splitting you open, huh?" and that's when you finally, finally, lifted your eyes only to be met with a flustered gumi.

and a boner picking through his pant.

૮₍˶ •. •⑅₎ა♡

[sofiatarot]

💌: A letter from Aphrodite

TIP JAR - FREE READINGS - PAID READINGS

1//2

3//4

Take a deep breath and allow yourself to choose the painting that resonates with you the most. When you do, you’ll find yourself receiving a heartfelt letter from Aphrodite💖

Group 1:

My dearest,

You stand at the crossroads of dreams and reality, lost between illusions and the truths your heart longs to embrace. I see the weight of hesitation in your soul, the doubts that whisper sweet temptations yet leave you restless. Do not fear the unknown, for love is a path walked by the bold, not the uncertain. You guard your heart as though it were a fortress, yet love does not seek to conquer, only to be let in.

Let go of the past, for it holds no promise of the future. What was once golden now dims in the light of what may come. Open your heart, not just to the idea of love but to its raw, unpredictable nature. Someone moves toward you, offering tenderness, but even the sweetest promise can turn sour if you remain chained to memories that no longer serve you.

Love is a force of nature, an unrelenting tide that washes away fear if you allow it. Have courage, my dear, for life is fleeting, and love—true, unguarded love—is the most beautiful experience of all. Trust in yourself, and in the rhythm of your own heart. Do not be afraid to dream, but more importantly, do not be afraid to act on those dreams. The universe conspires in favor of those who dare to believe in love.

You've been navigating a challenging path, caught in moments of hesitation, and I can sense the depth of your longing for something genuine. It's okay to acknowledge those feelings; there's absolutely no shame in being vulnerable or hoping for a deeper connection. Embrace what speaks to your heart, for love is patient and waits for those who are ready to take a step forward. You're not alone in this journey, and it's perfectly alright to reach for what you truly desire.

With all my grace,

Aphrodite.

Group 2:

My beloved,

Your soul is weary, burdened by trials that seem endless. Love, too, has felt like an uphill battle, a weight upon your shoulders rather than a balm for your heart. But even in darkness, the sun waits to rise. The storms of yesterday do not dictate the joys of tomorrow. The pain you have known does not mean you are unworthy of something pure, something bright.

You have been strong for so long, guarding your heart with sharp edges and cold reason. But love does not flourish in the realm of control—it dances in freedom, in passion, in surrender. Allow yourself to hope again, to believe that joy is not an illusion. A choice is before you: to remain in the familiar suffering or to step toward the light of possibility. Choose love, my dear. It has always chosen you.

I see the burdens you carry, the doubts that creep into your mind when you dare to wish for something more. But listen to me now—love is not always easy, nor is it without risk. Yet, it is always worth it. Let the fire of your soul burn away hesitation and welcome the warmth of love, of connection, of something greater than solitude. You are not meant to walk alone.

Let your heart soften, let your mind clear, and embrace the love that seeks you. You are more than your hardships, more than your past wounds. The light within you is strong enough to guide you through the darkest night.

With warmth eternal,

Aphrodite.

Group 3:

My cherished one,

You are a fire that flickers between restraint and wild abandon, caught between revelry and responsibility. Your heart longs for adventure, for passion, for something that makes you feel alive. And yet, a part of you clings to what is safe, what is known. But love, true love, does not thrive in the confines of hesitation.

Do not fear the unknown, for within it lies the freedom you seek. Be wary, though, of chasing fleeting pleasures at the cost of something deeper, something lasting. You are meant for more than momentary sparks—you are meant for an inferno that burns through the ages. There is a choice before you: to grasp at illusions or to claim something real. Choose wisely, for love does not wait for the uncertain.

I know the world tempts you with distractions, with indulgences that seem fulfilling in the moment but leave you yearning for something greater. What you seek is not just passion—it is meaning. Do not settle for surface emotions when your heart is capable of depths unknown. Be brave enough to dive deep, to explore what love can truly be when it is given the chance to flourish.

You have danced at the edge of true connection, always retreating before the moment takes hold. But love is not meant to be feared. It is a force that will carry you if you allow it. Embrace it, and let it transform you.

With all the passion of the gods,

Aphrodite.

Group 4:

My wounded star,

You have known disappointment, the sting of betrayal, and the emptiness of unfulfilled desires. Your heart, once open and radiant, now hides behind walls built from sorrow. You search for meaning, for love that does not falter, yet fear has woven itself into the fabric of your soul. But love, my dear, is not meant to be feared—it is meant to be lived, felt, embraced in all its chaos and wonder.

Do not let past wounds define your future. The path ahead may seem barren, but it is not. There is warmth waiting to embrace you and passion that longs to reignite your spirit. However, you must take the first step. Do not dwell on the past, for it holds only memories of what once was. Look forward to the love that is meant for you. You are more than your scars; you are divine.

I see the loneliness you do not speak of, the wishes left unspoken, the dreams you have convinced yourself are too far out of reach. They are not. Love is not reserved for those untouched by pain. It belongs to the wounded, the dreamers, the ones who dare to hope despite the darkness they have faced. Let yourself believe again, even if it is just a whisper at first.

There is a love that is meant for you, one that will not waver in the face of hardship. But you must believe in it, reach for it, and let it find you. You are not forgotten. You are not lost. You are loved.

With endless devotion,

Aphrodite.

-xoxo💌✨️

[sadfransisko]

Not to sound like a raging SJW but fascism and general oppression of the masses is at its "best" when the masses are self-policing, doing much of the oppressors' work for them. It's not just the soul-crushing response to being ridiculed and shamed and picked apart by thousands of other, just as imperfect people when caught being "different" (straying from the status quo) in any way.

It's also a matter of safety. This has already been an issue what with stuff like doxxing, but this trend/behavior feels dangerously close to being used to get people in trouble. Particularly minorities. These photos and videos of people can so easily be used against them in legal situations as well as domestic ones.

I can't think of any specific examples, but can easily imagine how this public-driven surveillance can worsen issues like stalking, hate crimes, domestic abuse, and potentially getting in legal trouble. Celebrities have been dealing with this shit forever, but now it's expanded to affect everyone, including you and me.

Filming/photographing strangers and posting them online is absolutely sadistic and is a violation on so many levels.

[drdemonprince]

What do people do about dom guilt/shame after engaging with “hard” kinks? I just tried knife play for the first time last night and I had a really good time toying with my sub and just seeing this other side of him that really wants to get cut up. I’m worried I crossed some kind of invisible line and I’m evil now even though we both liked it.

We’re both inexperienced with engaging with “hard” kinks and we have some mutual friends and I’m unsure what they’d think of me if they knew. So that adds to the stress a little. At the same time though, I love that he trusted me enough to ask for that and the look he got in his eyes was incredible.

aftercare! Doms need aftercare! especially after doing darker or more serious scenes. One Dom that I know has his subs message him the day after a particularly intense scene to check in and reassure him that he is not a bad person, that they actively wanted everything that he did, and that they are doing well (or if they are struggling in some way, he wants them to tell him so that they can work through it and he can offer support). so much of the focus gets put on the needs of the sub in these matters, and on protecting the sub from harm, but it is equally important to make sure that the Dom is given space to self-regulate, reassurance, comfort, or whatever it else it is that they need to process this stuff.

you'll come to know a lot better with the more practice that you have. some people are really fired up energetically after a big Dommy see and what they really need is to eat a meal and take a walk and cool down a bit. other people like the conventional cuddling while watching a movie and eating sweet snacks form of aftercare that comes most readily to people's minds. but psychologically the impact of being a Dom is quite different from that of submitting, and so you may need things like seeing your sub exercise agency, having somebody else take care of you and making decisions, a lot of detailed feedback on how the scene went from the subs perspective, everybody to switch out of role and to act relatively normal and jokey, or some combination of these things.

for now, continue talking it through with your partner, ask them for support and care, and maybe journal a little bit on how you're feeling in the days after a scene. It is completely normal to experience a drop and to feel tired, disgusted, ashamed, we're like you're a bad person, and you can learn to anticipate this and work with it to minimize how much it bothers you and prevent a lot of larger meltdowns from occurring. but the only way we figure this stuff out is from learning! feeling a little bit bad or even a lot bad it's not a sign that you've screwed up here. it's just data. and so it's all very worthwhile to get.

[naughtyneganjdm]

Christmas in Jackson - Chapter 9

Summary: After their date, Joel and Y/N talk about their relationship and the possible obstacles that they will have to face together. They finally put a label on things before getting naughty together.

Characters: Joel Miller, the reader (OC), Tommy, etc.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61159651/chapters/161912770

Warnings: 18+, Fluff, Swearing, Smut, Unprotected P in V, Rough Sex, Dominant Joel, Sub Reader, Spanking, Bound Wrists, Daddy Kink, Sir Kink, Overstimulation, Dirty Talking Joel, Romantic Joel, Food Play, etc.

Notes: There is some fluff in this chapter, but this is a very dirty, smutty chapter. I think that should be known. Sorry it has taken a while for me to update this. It's just about me taking time to actually edit what I already have written. I promise to update this as soon as I can. If you'd like to read previous chapters, check them out here.

Life made it hard for Joel to be able to care for others. Caring about someone meant there was a possibility that he could lose that person and that scared the hell out of him. So he learned to be cold. To turn certain feelings and emotions off. And for a while? It worked. The tender caress of another was not something that he thought he yearned for anymore. Now that he had it? He realized how much he had been missing and he couldn’t get enough of it.

Waking up this morning, he was so comfortable that he didn’t want to open his eyes just yet. Last night after they had gone on their date with taking a sleigh ride through town, Joel had brought Y/N back to his home. They were both so tired that they just crawled into his bed where he cuddled up beside her, resting his head on her inner hip. For a while they talked, but it was hard to fight the feeling of wanting to fall asleep with her stroking her fingers affectionately through his hair. What she was capable of doing was relaxing him to a point that he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

When he finally woke up, he felt the same tender caress at the back of his neck. The touch alone lulled him back into cuddling closer to her. By the way she touched him, he knew that she cared for him. And he loved the way it felt to have her fingers caressing at the back of his neck while playing with the small curls of hair that were there. Everything in that moment felt natural. Like they had been doing this for a lifetime. Things came with such an ease that this felt more like a long-term relationship, not something he shared with someone he only just met almost a week ago.

How much he loved this surprised him. The comfort she was able to bring him was something he didn’t know he was capable of. Truthfully? He couldn’t remember feeling this safe and relaxed with anyone in his life. Having her gentle touch? He never wanted it to end.

It wasn’t until he felt extensive movement when he started to stir. Fluttering his dark eyes to a slow open, Joel smirked when he saw that she was taking photos of him on her cell phone. A warmth flooded into his face with him turning his head slightly to bury it in against her lower abdomen.

“I’m sorry, I had to take a photo. You were just too cute laying there,” she snickered, dropping her phone down beside her on the bed. Returning the sweep of her fingers over the side of his face made him exhale loudly. “I apologize.”

“You’re fine,” Joel chuckled, rubbing his cheek in against her palm. Closing his eyes, he actually found himself charmed with the fact that she was so in awe of him. For as long as he could remember, people were pretty nervous about being near him. Then again, he was aware that he didn’t give off the best impression. He wanted people to leave him alone, but there was something about her that enamored him. “I’m not used to people taking photos of me. I mean, I’m used to the occasional forced family photo that Tommy likes to do, but…”

“Well that’s a shame,” she frowned, brushing her fingers through his hair to get it out of his face. “You’re too handsome to keep that face hidden.”

“Oh, I like you,” Joel snickered, reaching for her hand to start peppering kisses at the center of it. When she said certain things, it would have a warmth growing in his chest. A feeling that felt like happiness and it felt nice. “You’re good for my ego.”

“I’m only speaking the truth,” she insisted, her eyelids heavy with affection toward the man that she managed to get incredibly close to over the last couple of days.

“It shouldn’t be you giving me all these compliments, it should be the other way around,” Joel countered, lifting up enough to crawl in over her to cage her beneath him. Lowering down just enough, he teased his lips in over hers and gave her a tiny smile. “You’re the one that is phenomenal. I’ve never met someone like you.”

“Someone crazy and impulsive?” she teased him, her hands palming up over the center of his chest toward his shoulders. Hooking her arms loosely around the back of his neck allowed her to get comfortable beneath him. Giving him a cheesy smile had him rolling his eyes, but he still smirked which told her he found her charming. “I’m a mess. We’ve already both agreed to that.”

“Well your mess is perfection for me,” he hushed her, nuzzling his nose in against hers. Finally giving her a sweet, tender kiss led her to sigh loudly when they separated. “I’m fascinated with you and what you do to me.”

“Oh, I’m fascinated with what I do to you too,” her gazed dropped down between them eliciting a snort from Joel’s throat at her bluntness. “It’s really nice to see that I can get you like that.”

“Nice,” his nose wrinkled when he balanced his weight on his right arm over her and used his left hand to reach out to palm in over the side of her face. Getting her to look at him, he shook his head and couldn’t help taking all of her in. “I really do mean what I say. I’m hooked on you. I don’t wanna be away from you.”

“I feel the same way about you,” she assured him, brushing her fingers through his thick, dark hair once more. Having his brown eyes locked on her like they were took her breath away. “If you would have told me a week ago I would have been feeling this way about someone by now? I wouldn’t have believed you.”

“If you would have told me the first night I met you that we’d be here? I would have called you nuts,” he snickered, lowering in just enough to playfully pepper kisses at the side of her face evoking her to laugh at the way his facial hair scratched at her face. “I spent twenty-four hours with you and I fell fast.”

“Oh, you fell?” she repeated what he said, her throat tensing up at Joel’s confession. Truthfully? She appreciated that he was the one saying these things because she originally felt foolish at the feelings she was experiencing for Joel. They hadn’t even known each other a week yet and she was smitten with him. Everything about him made her happy and she couldn’t explain it. Especially after he had been such an asshole to her that first night. But now? She felt like she had an understanding why Joel was the way that he was.

“I did,” he didn’t seem afraid to admit it with his eyebrows furrowing. “I wouldn’t have done what I did last night for anyone. I’m not what you would call a romantic. In fact, when it has come to emotions, after what happened with my ex-wife and a few things I’ve gone through, I haven’t exactly been the most emotional lover. I’m usually tone deaf when it comes to romance.”

“Oh?” her eyebrow arched, impressed that he was opening up a little bit more with her about his past. Right now she wasn’t going to draw the attention off of him because she liked the idea of getting to learn more about him.

“I’ve had two serious relationships in my life,” Joel informed her, his rough fingertips tracing over her features. Thinking back on things, he didn’t know if it was for the best to be honest with her, but for some reason he felt like he should be. “There was my ex-wife. We got together when we were kids. And then there was…someone in Boston. And because of the way I was, I don’t think I ever truly made her feel loved.”

“How long were you together?” she wondered, sweeping her fingers in over his jawline with him shifting over her. Swallowing down hard, Joel had to look away from her and she shook her head. The last thing she wanted was him shutting down because she was asking him further questions. “You don’t have to talk about it.”

“A long time,” Joel was honest, shaking his head when he gave her an answer. “We got together not long after something really bad happened to me. I just liked having the company. I liked the feeling of not being alone. I just never really allowed myself to open up to anyone. And our relationship was never really good because of that.”

Discomfort flooded his veins because there was a silence that was filling the air. Regret started to flood through him when he could see that she was considering what he had told her, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you that.”

“It doesn’t change the way that I feel about you,” she alerted him, surprising him with that response. He was afraid that what he told her about his last relationship would have soured her thoughts of him. “Here’s the thing. We’ve talked about this already. You’ve explained to me that the Joel you were in Texas and Boston is not the one you want me to know you for. I can accept that. You want me to know the Joel you are now. That doesn’t mean I’m not willing to listen to things when you want to open up to me because I would love to listen to you.”

Lifting up just enough, she placed a loving kiss at his lips and it sent chills throughout him with how genuinely understanding she was about his past, “I appreciate that you trusted me this much to be able to tell me what you did. But this doesn’t change how you make me feel.”

“Really?” he confirmed with her, his heart skipping a beat. There was a strong sense of worry that had flooded through him after what he had said, worried that it would push her away. Instead she only seemed to embrace him further.

“Really,” she repeated with a smile, palming in over the side of his neck. “You’ve had two serious relationships in your life. I’ve have my fair share, way more than you have. I would be a fool to let something from your past ruin what we have. I know how I feel about you and nothing that I learn is going to change that.”

“You say that now,” he began, pausing with his brown eyes looking away from her. There seemed to be something he wanted to say, something that he was scared to say, but she didn’t want hm to focus on that. Urging him to look back up at her, she curled her finger in underneath his chin and hushed him. “There are things you might learn about me…”

“And I don’t care,” she interrupted, reaching up to place her fingers in over his lips to keep him quiet. “It’s part of you. It made you who you are now and I like him. No matter how grumpy he can get.”

With a tip of his head, a tiny smirk tugged at his lips and he sighed loudly, “I care about what you’ve gone through. And if that day comes where you want to talk about it, I promise you—nothing will change.”

Hearing a promise like that meant everything to him, but he didn’t know if she could deliver. And yet? He was pulled in by her. Lowering down, he stole a kiss from her lips. Desperation overcame him with the need to kiss her and be near her. By how emotional that kiss was, she could tell that her response touched him. It was important for him to hear that and he taken by her.

“What would you call this?” he whispered, his words vibrating against her lips making her purr.

“Kissing?” she chuckled, pressing another faint kiss at his bottom lip getting him to groan.

“I mean us. What we have going on here,” Joel tipped his head back enough to drag his thumb across her bottom lip causing her to shudder. His eyelids were heavy with want. Just the sight of him like that had chills flooding down her spine.

“I don’t know,” she nibbled at his bottom lip, provoking him to groan out at the sensation. “What would you call this?”

“Would you consider it dating?” he hummed, dragging the tip of his tongue out across the inside of her bottom lip. It had her sucking in a sharp breath of air when he pulled his head back.

“Do you want to consider it dating?” she wasn’t really giving him an answer which had him chuckling out with his eyebrows bouncing up.

“Yes, yes I would,” he stated with a firm nod of his head. Hearing that had her heart skipping a beat and she bit down on her bottom lip. “It makes it official. Let’s me know that you really are mine.”

“Alright then,” she caressed between his shoulders and down over his lower back. “Then we’re dating.”

“And you don’t have a problem with that?” he confirmed wanting to be happy about things, but there was a part of him that was exceedingly nervous that this was too good. “I would understand if you didn’t want to date someone with only being around them for such a short amount of time.”

“Do you want me to take my answer back?” she joked with a small laugh, brushing her fingers through his messy hair.

“No,” Joel shook his head, swallowing down hard and sighing loudly. “I really don’t.”

“Then don’t worry about it,” she hushed him, bringing them together enough to nuzzle her nose in against his. “I wouldn’t have agreed to it if I didn’t want to.”

With a nervous nod of his head, Joel started peppering kisses against her lips expressing to her through the gesture how excited he was to hear that they agreed to this together. Starting to tease kisses against her jawline and toward her neck had her laughing when he was purposely trying to focus on the sensitive areas he had learned.

“I guess we have some things we should talk about,” he acknowledged, swallowing down hard when he got comfortable above her again. His fingers swept over the side of her face with his chocolate brown eyes locking with hers. “What are we going to do about us?”

“What do you mean?” she reached up to place her hand in over his and he smiled at the way her thumb swept over the back of his hand.

“I mean with the fact your permanent residence is in New York City and mine is here,” he thought aloud frowning at the idea of her being so far away. Working with that distance was going to be rough. Especially since he was so addicted to being near her. “You’re horrified of heights and getting you on a plane is probably going to be hard.”

“You’re worth it,” she hushed him, sweeping his hair out of his eyes. Hearing that answer had his lips parting with his breathing growing louder. That took his breath away and caused his heart to skip a beat. “My fear of heights is nothing compared to the way I feel about you.”

“Do you think will stay like this?” he whispered, his eyebrows furrowing when he lowered in to press another tender kiss at her bottom lip. “This is all so perfect. I’m scared that you won’t feel this way after a while. I know I’m hard to care for.”

“And yet I’m still here,” she reminded him, drawing her thumb across his plump bottom lip having him press a kiss at the tip of it. “There were a few times I could have taken off, but I don’t want to. There something about you that draws me to you. And I think you’re worth it.”

“Jesus,” he scoffed, dropping his forehead to press his against hers. The warmth of his breath over her lips caused her to shudder. “You make me want to say things that I don’t say easily. Things I never thought I’d want to say again.”

Without saying it, she understood what he was hinting. It just led to the two of them kissing for a while until he got relaxed in over her and cuddled his head in against the side of her neck.

“So I guess it would be too much for me to hope that you would decide that you hated New York and you wanted to live here instead?” Joel wondered, his words vibrating against her flesh eliciting a tiny smirk to tug at her lips when he tipped his head back to stare down at her. “You have to admit there is a certain charm to Jackson.”

“You’ve never even been to New York City,” she reminded him drawing out a grunt when he wrinkled his nose at the idea of her home. “You should really give it a chance.”

“I know I’m not going to want to live there,” he stated with a huff realizing that their different lifestyles were going to be a big deal for them at some point. “I’m a simple man. I like the simple life. New York is a life that I’m just not made for.”

“Would you be willing to make time for both places?” she offered having him tense up over her, but instead of saying no he tipped his head from side to side. “I’m not saying no to things, but I think…I know it would be hard for me to separate with the brownstone. Especially since that’s the last remaining thing I feel connected to with my parents.”

There were a lot of thoughts Joel had on that, but instead he just nodded his head and lowered his stare from hers. For him, letting go of the things that hurt the most was his way of dealing with things, but he knew they were different in that way.

“I guess we will have to figure all of that out,” Joel commented, finally breaking the silence between them. Pushing up on his hands, he nodded toward the bedroom door and gave a weak smile. “How about we go make something to eat for breakfast? And we can talk about things.”

Giving him a nod told him it was okay to get up from the bed. Holding his hand out to her, Joel smiled when she accepted the gesture and allowed him to pull her up into his arms. With a laugh she fell in against his chest with him nuzzling his nose against the side of her neck. Leaning back enough, he managed to steal another kiss from her lips that had her clinging to him.

“I feel like a teenager again,” he informed her, bringing her hand up to have her place it in over the center of his chest. Placing his hand in over hers, he gave her a weak smile and shook his head. “You brought back a warmth here that I didn’t think was possible. And I can’t wait to tell my brother that we are dating. Mostly because he’s the only person I talk to…”

A deep rumble of a laugh fell from his throat with him lowering his forehead to hers again, “I’m glad you had a stranger pick your flight. And I’m glad you let a stranger pick where you were staying. Because it brought you here…”

“Me too,” she whispered, hooking her fingers with his as he started to lead her downstairs. When they got to the kitchen, Joel immediately went to the coffee machine and it made her smile knowing that he admitted to her how much he loved coffee. “So what were we thinking for breakfast? I know orange juice and pancakes are off the table. How do we feel about French toast?”

“Uh…” Joel motioned her to wait after getting the coffee prepared. Opening the breadbox, he made sure that the bread was still good before giving her a thumbs up. “I can do French toast. I think I have some fresh fruit in there that we can use if you’d like.”

Pointing toward his refrigerator had her turning toward it to open it up to take a look at the things that were inside. Gathering what they would need, she set them out on the counter while Joel gathered the rest of what they would need to cook.  

“Let’s do this,” he moved in beside her, tapping his hands on the counter while he gazed over what she had grabbed. Reaching for the can of whipped cream made him smile when he wiggled it about. “You have a sweet tooth, huh?”

“I didn’t know if you were a butter, maple syrup or fruit and whipped cream person,” she alerted him with a smile getting him to chuckle at her confession. “I didn’t want to assume.”

“None of them sound bad,” he answered, popping the lid off of the whipped cream. Tipping his head back, Joel held the can in over his mouth and sprayed some into it. Swallowing it down, he gave her a big cheesy smile and felt that warmth that she had given him spreading throughout his body with her smiling. Motioning her to tip her head back, Joel started squirting some of the sweet treat into her mouth as well. At the last second, he pulled it away covering some of her face with the whipped cream. The offended breath she let out caused him to snort which only had the both of them bursting out in laughter. “Jesus.”

“Was that a snort?” she wiped at her face with the back of her hand noticing the red that flooded into Joel’s face. “I’m dating a little piglet.”

“A very attractive piglet, right?” Joel hooked his arm around her waist, pulling her in closer to him. With an amused sound, she placed her hand in over the center of his chest and nodded her head once.

“Oh, absolutely,” she emphasized her words with him lowering his head to rest it against the center of her chest. His embarrassed laughter was adorable to her with her stroking her fingers at the back of his neck. Setting the bottle of whipped cream on the counter, his hands slid in over her hips where he grasped them tightly.  

Hovering his lips over hers, Joel’s eyelids grew heavy with want as he closed the distance between them, “You bring out the best in me.”

“A little bit of the naughty too,” she responded, lazily pulling apart one of the buttons in his shirt making him drop his head down to watch her. One by one she plopped open the buttons having his breathing growing louder. Starting at his lower abdomen, she flattened her palms out against his flesh starting to slide them up unhurriedly over his torso. “You drive me crazy.”

“In the best of ways,” he insisted with a smirk, his long eyelashes fluttering when she managed to push her fingers up over his shoulders under the material of his shirt to work it from his body. Allowing it to drop to the kitchen floor, he hummed out when his mouth covered her shoulder starting to press hot, wet kisses there. She returned the gesture, kissing at his freckle covered skin. Sliding his hands in over her bottom, Joel squeezed at her ass and moaned when she nipped at his flesh. “I can’t keep my hands off of you.”

“In the best of ways,” she repeated what he had said, drawing out an entertained rumble from him. The sensation of his fingers sliding up under the back of her shirt made her smile with his rough fingertips coming in contact with her skin. Nuzzling his nose in against hers, Joel started to ball the material of her shirt up toward the middle of her back. Letting her lean back, he smiled and shook his head when he managed to get her to lift her arms up to help him get her shirt off. “I thought you wanted breakfast.”

“We can make it brunch. I’m hungry for something else,” he growled, hungrily stealing kiss after kiss from her lips after he dropped her shirt down with his. Extending his hand out, he reached for one of the berries that she had pulled out. Licking his lips, he dragged the berry across her bottom lip leaving a wet trail behind when he did it. Dragging his tongue out across her lip caused her to whimper and it sent a chill throughout his body. “It’s sweet, but not as sweet as you.”

“So smooth,” she chuckled, bringing their lips together in another kiss. Taking the berry from his fingers had him sucking in a sharp breath when she dragged it down over the side of his neck toward the center of his chest. Circling it around his nipple made him inhale loudly before she took the berry into her mouth. Starting to leave kisses along the trail she made with the berry had Joel bracing his hands on the counter. When her tongue circled his nipple he let out a moan and soon after she nipped at his flesh. “You know, I wasn’t thinking naughty things about food until you started it.”

“Bullshit, you’re a naughty little thing,” he growled against her lips, leading her over toward the table. Outstretching his fingers, he worked her bra from her body and dropped it down at their feet. Shoving whatever was on top of the table to the ground, he motioned her to lay back against the table helping to make sure that she was safe. Taking a moment to stare down at her stretched out before him had the desire he had for her growing inside of him. Dropping his hands down to his belt, Joel started to work to undo it. Once it was pulled apart, he unhooked it from the loops and leaned over her. Reaching for her wrists, he managed to wrap his belt around her wrists to bound them together. Pushing her hands up over her head had her stretching out her torso. The sight had his heart rate growing faster and he was in awe of this woman. “Be a good girl.”

“Yes sir,” she breathed unevenly, her lips parting when Joel smirked down at her. Grabbing the berries, Joel set them on the table beside her. Reaching for the can of whipped cream, he licked his lips as he gazed upon the lengths of her naked torso. Drawing out the shape of a heart over her abdomen, he set the can down and slowly lowered himself over her. Kissing in over the area below her belly button had her breathing growing louder. Inch by inch his kisses rose until he dragged his tongue out along the shape of the heart licking away the whipped cream from her body. Grabbing one of the berries, his eyes lifted to see that she was trembling beneath him provoking a smirk to tug at his handsome features. Drawing the berry out over her nipple had her back arching up toward him. Humming out, his mouth replaced the berry with the warmth of his tongue circling her nipple. Suckling at the flesh had her cooing out, her heart hammering inside of her chest. “Joel.”

“Good girl,” he praised her, kissing across her chest toward her other breast to pamper her breast with the same movements as he had done the other. Reaching up with his right hand, he palmed at her other breast before pulling away with a wet sound. Taking a berry into his mouth, he considered his next move as he dragged his thumb across her bottom lip. It had her eyes fluttering to a close, the tip of her tongue dragging out against the pad. With a growl, he pulled his hands away and reached to start undoing her pants. Tugging them firmly down her body, he dropped them beside them on the floor. Swiftly moving for her panties, his fingers hooked into the material and he took his time getting those down her body. “You are so gorgeous.”

Hooking his arms under her knees, he pulled her right to the edge of the table and lowered down. Starting to press kisses in at the inside of her knee had her breathing loud enough for him to hear and it made him smile. It had been so long since he shared anything like this with someone, he actually forgot how much he enjoy being able to bring pleasure to someone else.

Every kiss he placed over her thigh had her shaking. Squeezing at her flesh, he dragged a line with his tongue further up over her inner thigh. Tipping his head back, he stared up at her with his dark eyes and licked his lips before leaning in to press a kiss against her core. Unhurriedly, he dragged his tongue out drawing a line with it from her clit down to her entrance and back. Repeating the movement caused her to moan out.

Hearing her panting his name was like a drug to him. Something he grew more addicted to with every caress his tongue made over her body. Slurping faintly at her sensitive folds had her hips rocking up against him and he hummed against her flesh. Pleasuring her had undoubtedly become one of his favorite things. Listening to the sounds she made turned him on more than he could ever imagine. Burying his head further between her thighs, the wet sounds his mouth made over her body grew louder. Dragging the length of his tongue at her sex repeatedly had a fire building up inside of him.

What brought him the most excitement was getting her to come. There was something special about how easily she fell apart because of him. He was addicted to the way she sounded. How she would cry out and the way her body reacted. Gradually, each movement grew stronger with him working with both his mouth and tongue in meticulous movements.

With a slurping sound, he pulled back and away from her body. Licking his wet lips had him groaning out as he reached up with his right hand to circle her sensitive bundle of nerves with his thumb. It had her arching into the movement, her eyelids heavy with want while he spent his time focusing on her. Humming out, he started to trace shapes over the length of her sex before teasing at her entrance. Sinking a finger inside of her had her purring out and he smile when he pressed the second in as well.

Not wanting to rush things, he took his time plunging his thick digits into her warmth. Watching her made this all the better. Her reactions told him he was doing something right and she was in awe of him just as much as he was her.

Leaning back in, his mouth focused on her clit. Lapping at her sensitive body while his fingers worked at her g-spot. Sucking at her flesh occasionally would have her crying out, her body trembling as he continued to suckle at her clit.

“Joel,” she whined with her hips shaking when he quickly worked up a warmth inside of the pit of her belly. A flood rush went right to her head and there was an ache that grew. Resting her head back, she wished that he hadn’t had bound her wrists. More than anything she wanted to sink her fingers into his hair and touch him, but he was having his way with her body and by the sounds he was making, he obviously enjoyed it just as much as she did. Squeezing her eyes shut, she cried out his name with a liquid rush flooding to her core when he brought her to an orgasm. What impressed her was how fast Joel picked up on her body, knowing what to do and when. She prided herself on knowing how to pleasure someone, but Joel matched her just as well. Instead of stopping, Joel just growled and kept up at what he had started. “Fuck…Joel…”

“It’s okay,” he slurred against her flesh, loving the way the tight walls of her pussy felt contracting around his fingers while he continued to rub at just the right areas inside of her. What he was doing had her breathless, her body tremoring toward his mouth and fingers while they overstimulated her in the best of ways. By the sounds she made he knew whether to quicken what he was doing or slow down. He was working to draw things out and it was successful. By the second time he brought her to another orgasm, he let out an arrogant sound showing that he was proud. Getting up carefully from his knees, he pressed his left hand in over the table to brace himself when he leaned over her. Sliding his palm up between her thighs had her cooing out and she was still so sensitive. “Do you like being mine?”

“Yes,” she was quick to answer eliciting an amused sound from him. Dipping down, he teased his lips in over hers. Lifting up from the table she was desperate to have him kiss her, but he taunted her. Just slightly dragging his bottom lip in over hers. Dragging his tongue out across the inside of her bottom lip caused her to moan in a way that sent a fire throughout his body. What followed was her faintly sucking at his tongue. An uncomfortable breath escaped him with the tight denim that clung to his body with him being incredibly hard. It hurt, but he liked focusing on her. Giving her what she wanted, he brought their lips together in a passionate sweep. Each caress grew stronger with his tongue brushing in against hers leaving her with the taste of her still against his tongue. “I want to touch you.”

“Not yet,” he slurred reaching for her wrists that were still bound by his belt that he had wrapped around them. Tugging at them had her gasping out when he urged her up onto her feet. Leading her over to one of the chairs he made sure to carefully get her to lower down onto it. Her legs were still trembling from what he had done to her and when she tipped her head back he could see that her pupils were dilated with a longing for him. Dragging his thumb across her bottom lip collected the wetness that was there and it made him hum. “Now be a good girl and do as I tell you…”

“Yes sir,” she smiled up at him when he started to work open the button in his pants.

Pulling apart his jeans, he was lazy in the way he unzipped them before reaching inside to grab a hold of his erection. With a grunt, he pulled it free from behind the material and saw her eyes fall to it. Curling his fingers firmly around his thick shaft had her wetting her lips. Taking his time, he caressed at his distended flesh enjoying the sight of her yearning for him. Stepping in closer to her had her breathing growing louder. Pressing forward, he brought the swollen tip of his manhood to her wet lips. Looking up at him with big eyes had his heart hammering inside of his chest.

“Open your mouth,” he instructed, leading his cock between her parted lips and into the warmth of her mouth. With a deep rumble of a moan, his head tipped back and the veins at the side of his neck became more prominent. The gentle sweep of her tongue around his cock had his thighs tensing up and he reached to grab a hold of her shoulder to help brace himself. “That’s it.”

Giving her time, he watched her with a longing that had chills running down his spine. She knew what she liked and she was being slow varying between sucking faintly at his cock to sweeping the warmth of her tongue along the length of his girthy shaft. Watching her pleasuring him was something he didn’t want to soon forget. The wet sounds her mouth made over him was driving him crazy.

“If you’re at all uncomfortable, let me know,” he stressed to her, starting to thrust his hips forward and sink his manhood further down her throat. The sound he made was delicious and she moaned against his body getting him to shake before her with it vibrating against his sensitive flesh. Carefully pulling his hips back had the wet sound of his cock leaving her mouth filling the air. Stroking his fingers at the back of her head, Joel kept his other hand firmly wrapped around the base of his thick shaft. Bringing her back to him, he helped the movements her head made over his length. Closing her eyes, she remained focused allowing him to fuck her throat. This was naughty, but she liked it. With every thrust his hips made, she made sure to drag her tongue along the velvety smooth skin with every pull back of his hips. Stepping back when things started to feel just a little too good had a wet popping sound surrounding them. Her lips were wet, her eyes big with her staring up at him. Stroking at his saliva covered length, Joel grabbed a tight hold of her and got her to stand up. Forcing her to bend over the table, he pressed slightly at the back of her neck. The strength had her cheek pressing in against the cool wood. Humming out, he couldn’t stop himself from wanting this. They had sex and they had sex a lot by this point. But for some reason? The idea of this turned him on more than he could ever imagine. “You are so fucking pretty.”

Stepping back, he took a minute to admire her before him. Bound and willing to do whatever he wanted in that moment. Reaching out with his left hand, he squeezed at her full bottom hearing the moan she let out when he did it. His cock twitched with excitement, an ache growing inside of him. Testing the flesh of her ass in his grasp, he smirked when he brought his hand in over her bottom. The sound of the smack surrounded them with her hips bouncing forward toward the table.

“God, you are perfect,” he smacked at her bottom once more. Gasping out, she moaned at the stinging sensation with that one being slightly stronger than the last. “There isn’t one thing about you that I’m not addicted to.”

Bracing himself over her, he allowed the warmth of his body to cover hers. The skin-to-skin contact had her tremoring beneath him. Pressing faint kisses at the back of her neck caused her breathing to become broken. Her hips involuntarily bounced back toward his groin drawing out a loud, raspy groan from deep within his throat. Peppering kisses over her shoulders and then down over her spine had her panting. By the time he reached her lower back, his hands had settled at her hips giving them a firm squeeze.

Standing up, he kept a firm hold of her hip with his left hand and reached between them with his right to lead the swollen tip of his cock to her entrance. It had her hips rocking back, desperate to have him fill her. Smirking, he drew a line down her sex not quite giving her what she wanted yet. By the way she was shaking, he knew that she wanted him and she wanted him bad. Gasps fell from her lips with him tapping his cock against her clit. It had her pressing up onto her toes, her hips bouncing back against him wanting more of that stimulation.

“You have the prettiest little pussy, y’know that?” his southern drawl grew deeper when he allowed just the tip to sink into her. Together they moaned in unison at the feeling. Pulling his hips back had her whining with him still teasing her. Repeatedly he did the same thing having her shaking beneath him by the time he finally sank into her. And he did it slow, enjoying the way her warmth surrounded him and took him in. Watching his cock disappear into her body as he stretched her had him groaning out. “It feels like you were made for me.”

Filling her completely had her pressing up on her toes drawing out just the smallest amount of him from her body, but he led her back toward him. Experiencing the way her body clenched around his cock made him smile and he remained still inside of her knowing that it would leave her with an ache and a yearning, “But now you are mine. Aren’t you?”

“I am,” she whimpered, her head turning to the side with her fingers stretching out wishing that she could touch him, but in that moment she was completely his to do what he wanted. “I’m yours.”

“Yes you are,” he grunted, pulling his hips back only so far before smacking forward again. It had her wincing, but a moan followed when he did it several more times. Sucking in a sharp breath of air, he grabbed a firm hold of her hips and started to lead them back over his length again and again. Loud smacks of their flesh filled the kitchen with him fucking her. This was naughty and not entirely too romantic, but by the sounds she was making, he knew that she loved it. Her body was already sensitive from what he had been doing before and he had grown pretty accustomed to what he could do to have her reacting in the best of ways. “I wish you could see this. I love watching your wet little pussy taking my big cock. Does it feel good?”

“So good,” she replied, looking back over her shoulder feeling his fingers digging further into her hips. Watching him fucking her only drew out the sensations for her. It was a complicated position to be in, but she didn’t hate it. Joel’s jaw flexed, his head tipping back with a muted moan falling from his throat. The deep plunges of his cock inside of her had his testicles smacking up against her clit and it felt amazing. “Please…”

“Are you gonna come for daddy?” he rumbled, moaning out when he watched her squirm beneath him when he started to slow down. Trying to rock back against him had him chuckling before he started thrusting firmly against her from behind. Each movement forward had her bouncing upwards on the table before falling back in against him again. There was a pressure building up inside of her with her fingers squeezing tighter together where they were bound. Soon he was pounding into her leaving her wondering if the table could take what they were doing with the way it was shaking. Crying out, she felt a rush throughout her whole body when Joel groaned out from behind her with his cock pulling out of her. The ache of the empty feeling he left her with was awful, but her body was still reacting to what he had done to her. It felt like she was spinning and she closed her eyes shut tightly. “You are something else.”

Taking his time to move back, Joel was completely enamored with the fact that he could make her squirt. Working to undo his belt from her wrists, he dropped the belt down on the ground and then managed to pick her up in his arms. Carrying her into the living room, he laid her down on the couch and crawled in over her. Her body was spent and he knew that. Still she was breathing loudly, her body weak from the orgasm he brought forth.

“I want you to put me back inside of you,” he ordered, his mouth hovering in over hers when he got himself comfortable between her thighs. Bracing himself on his arms, he waited for her to reach down to grab a hold of his erection leading the tip back to her welcoming entrance. Pushing his hips forward had him sinking into her, his moan vibrating warm against her throat where he started to pamper her flesh with kisses. This time he was unhurriedly rolling his hips against hers. Adjusting his weight, he locked eyes with her and smiled. “I am addicted to you.”

“And I you,” she whispered, her fingertips tracing a line down over his back until she cupped at his bottom giving it a firm squeeze. Feeling the flesh flexing and relaxing beneath her touch with every thrust had her heart pounding harder inside of her chest. Cuddling his head in against hers, Joel moaned out with his lips parting. The full, stretching feeling of him inside of her felt amazing and her body yearned for Joel. More than it had anyone before.

“You’re the best Christmas gift I’ve gotten in a long time,” his movements grew steadier with her other hand sinking into his messy hair. Nuzzling his nose in against hers, he appreciated that his comment made her desperately want to kiss him and he allowed that. Hell, kissing her was one of his favorite things.

Firmly curling his arm around her waist, he pulled up onto his knees with her bracing her weight against the arm of the couch on her palm. Allowing her to roll her hips over his length had him moaning out with his palm caressing up and over her back before down again. Her other hand curled around the back of his neck with their bodies moving together in unison. Over and over again they kissed, not wanting to break from one another with his breathing growing uneven.

Panting, he dropped his head and buried it against the center of her chest. Their movements grew sloppier and more desperate. Taking her breast into his mouth, he suckled at her flesh before tipping his head back with a moan. There was a fire building up inside of him. And she picked up easily on it knowing that he was nearing his release.

“That’s it daddy,” she whispered in his ear causing him to moan louder than either one of them expected. Bouncing his hips up toward hers, his hands were everywhere wanting to touch her and be near her. With the first sign of his release inside of her, she continued to roll her hips harder over him. The throbbing of his cock inside of her felt amazing while he filled her with his release, his hips slowing down to a halt by the time he was panting against the side of her neck. Leaning her back, he kissed at her jawline and bit faintly at her chin. “I’m finding new ways of how good this feels every time we’re together.”

Together, their breathing was labored with them kissing each other as their bodies came down from their high. Joel liked the way she was touching him and it still felt incredible inside of her.

The sound of something knocking over was heard making the both of them tense up. Looking to the side Joel saw Tommy near the entrance of the living room holding a tray of coffees in his hand. His big brown eyes were shocked with Joel cussing out. Reaching for the throw blanket that was over the back of the couch, Joel was quick to cover her before pulling out of her with a groan. Adjusting himself beneath her, he pulled her legs in over his hips as he panted.

“Tommy, what the hell?” Joel snapped at his little brother who remained frozen where he was standing. “What are you doing?”

“I was just coming with coffee and…” Tommy finally realized what was happening and he turned around to face the other way. “I am so sorry. I just…”

“What did you see?” Joel demanded to know hearing the uncomfortable breath from Tommy in return.

“Everything,” she blurt out, covering her face with her hand in embarrassment having Joel’s face flood over with heat from being angry with Tommy.

“Not everything,” Tommy defended himself, still remaining in the living room even though Joel wished he would leave. “Just the end. I froze. I didn’t want to stop you because you were enjoying yourselves, but I reckon at the same time I wanted to die in that very moment too.”

“Tommy!” Joel snarled, slicking his damp hair back hating that his brother kept doing this to him. “We are really gonna need to talk about you knocking. Or ringing the damn bell.”

“I’m sorry, I’m just not used to this,” Tommy announced turning toward them again having her tense up, but Tommy’s free hand was covering his eyes while he stumbled a bit attempting to blindly find his way to the kitchen.

“Tommy, you should be headed out the door, not further into my house,” Joel’s voice raised with him pointing toward the door realizing that Tommy wouldn’t see with him covering his eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Setting the coffee down because I want to talk to you both,” Tommy alerted them from inside of the kitchen. Surprisingly Tommy was in there for a while before they heard him calling out to them. “I was gonna suggest we have breakfast together, but with how this kitchen looks I’m scared to touch anything.”

“Tommy!” Joel yelled out in frustration, not wanting to move because it could reveal their naked bodies if he did. Returning to the entrance of the living room, Tommy looked like a child that was getting in trouble. Joel was red and there was color in Y/N’s face as well when he stared out at them. “I mean, you’re both covered by the blanket at this point so I don’t know why you’re so angry.”

“I could kill you,” Joel warned him with a snarl causing Tommy to throw his hands up in the air. “I’ve never done nothin’ like this to you and Maria. Hell, I wouldn’t want to.”

“You do realize we’re naked under this blanket, right?” she confirmed with Tommy who smirked and let out an uneasy breath.

“Trust me, I saw,” Tommy responded making Joel drop his head back and groan out in frustration. Dragging his hand down in over the front of his face, Joel’s dark eyes glared out at Tommy once his hand dropped down. “I’m just gonna blurt this out so I don’t forget. I’m guessing you’re gonna stay here through Christmas, right?”

“That’s the plan,” she laughed noticing the apologetic look over Joel’s features when she interacted with Tommy.

“Well Maria and I were talkin’,” Tommy announced, stepping further into the living room and it had her clinging to the blanket. This was entirely too awkward to be having this conversation for her since she was still very much naked under the blanket. There was a warmth sliding down her inner thigh and it had her closing her eyes not wanting to focus on it. “We were hoping you would want to spend both Christmas day and the day after with us. Y’see on Christmas Eve, Maria and I have been doing something alone together for a while now. That would leave you time to spend with Joel. Christmas day we usually get together, the three of us and just hang out. Make a nice meal. Well, the four of us now if you join. And the day after we kind of get together with our closest friends along with Maria’s family and celebrate too.”

“If Joel is fine with it, that’s fine with me,” she stressed, her hand reaching out to place in over Joel’s realizing that he was mortified with this whole thing. “Although, I do have to ask, why was this question so important that you had to ask it with us both naked under here?”

“I uh…” Tommy considered her question and let out a tight laugh before throwing his hands up in the air. “I don’t know.”

“You think you can turn around and let me run in there to get my clothes on?” she asked of Tommy who for the first time seemed embarrassed. The color left his face and he nodded, turning on his heel to face the other direction. Uneasily getting up, Joel allowed her to take the blanket with her and he reached for the pillow to pull it in over his lap. Once she was inside of the kitchen, Tommy gazed back at Joel who was still furious.

“Well,” Tommy rocked back and forth on his feet, a nervous smile tugging at his lips. “Congrats on the sex? It looks like you two were really enjoying one another.”

“Sometimes I wonder if mom and dad dropped you on your head when I wasn’t around,” Joel kept his hand firmly in over the pillow, his other hand throwing up in the air since his brother didn’t seem to think when it came to these kind of situations. Instead of being offended, Tommy just laughed. “I mean it Tommy, what are you thinking?”

“I’m just used to walking into your home Joel, I forget she’s here,” Tommy defended himself, his eyes dropping down toward the pillow covering Joel’s lap. “Were the two of you just doing the horizontal tango with no protection? Were you raw dogging it?”

“I’m not even gonna justify you with an answer,” Joel snarled, his eyebrows furrowing as Tommy made a disgusted face.

“I sit on that couch Joel,” Tommy grumbled under his breath, shakily brushing his fingers through his long hair. “Now I’m gonna think about your spunk all over the couch when I go to sit on it.”

With a glare, Joel’s eyes narrowed. His chest was still rising and falling heavily with Tommy throwing his hands up in the air, ���You’re on my shit list Tommy. If you weren’t my little brother, I’d knock you on your ass.”

“Thanks, I think?” Tommy snickered under his breath hearing movement in the kitchen and he went to look before Joel snapped his fingers to get Tommy’s attention back on him again. “Y’know, I still expect you to work tonight.”

“Come again?” Joel breathed out, shifting on the couch again wishing that his little brother was some sense of normal.

“Your sex-pocalypse doesn’t change the fact we have no one for the night shift. I won’t be there and Maria won’t be either,” Tommy reminded Joel of how he was supposed to work at the inn tonight. “Sure, we’re covered for every day after for a while, but I need you working registration.”

“Hey,” Y/N entered the room right as Joel was about to rip into his little brother. Heading over toward Joel she held his jeans out for him and his shirt they had managed to get off earlier. Accepting the clothes, Joel started to work the pants up his legs before standing up to pull them up over his hips. Sitting on the edge of the couch, Y/N rubbed her hands in over her thighs and gave her attention to Tommy. “Tommy, I like you. A lot. But as Joel’s girlfriend, there a few things I need to let you know I’m not comfortable with. And what happened today? That’s one of them.”

“Girlfriend?” Tommy looked to Joel to confirm what he just heard. Pulling his shirt in over his arms, Joel adjusted the material before giving Tommy a nod. Hearing that she was now Joel’s girlfriend seemed to excite Tommy more than it did either of them. Which said something. Taking a moment to calm down, Tommy nodded his head once and let out a proud sound. “Dually noted. And I will try to listen to what my brother said and learn to knock. Now that I know that Joel has a woman in his life, I’m gonna have to learn to work on my manners. I promise.”

“I’m also going to need you to keep this between us,” she stressed to Tommy who gave her a slow nod. “I’m serious Tommy, I don’t need Maria and the whole town knowing that you walked in on me and your brother sleeping together. You have the habit of mouth vomiting.”

“And suddenly you are starting to see why he drives me crazy,” Joel lowered down beside her glad that she was taking this so well considering. “There are definitely some rules we’re gonna have to lay down Tommy. And I hope you listen.”

---

Tags: @jdmorganz @carolineesnell @ayumi-wolf @dilfsandmartinis @christinamadsen

@brittmb115 @thegirlwiththemostcake3 @ashleyfilm

[killerlittlerejects]

Why I No Longer Support Anton Morrow Or Blessed Be The Wicked

Okay, we're finally doing this. As always: Do NOT harass anyone involved. This is not what this post is for.

So, this has been a long time coming. I know I keep repeatedly saying that I don’t wanna cause drama but at this point? It’s not even a drama anymore. There’s a glaring issue that’s been circulating the fandom for a while, and up until now, people have either been ignoring it completely or are too scared to say anything at all — which is understandable. I’m frankly scared to be finally making this post. But with most of the fandom beginning to speak up on this, now is a better time than ever. 

You’ve all most likely seen my latest, very angry, Jeff rant post, and some of you might have already put together as to who it was about: Anton Morrow, the creator of Blessed be the Wicked.

If any of you remember the whole “mistype” situation that happened in 2024 revolving around BBTW, you already know I have gotten into a bit of a spat with him before. Then it was all cleared up, and we were chill. But now, with all that’s been happening, I’m starting to question that situation as well.

When it comes to creepypasta, you gotta acknowledge and respect both sides of the fandom, because more often than not, they tie together. Anton, however, doesn’t do this at all, creating a space where people feel unsafe and uncomfortable like they have to walk on eggshells. 

We are not mad at the fact that you are trying to make BBTW horrifying, grotesque, and realistic. In fact, a LOT of people were hyped for your project. No, we’re mad that you have to be an asshole about it. Shaming anything that doesn’t fit into your view of what a character SHOULD be, hating on the fandom way more than you claim to love it, villainizing characters that should not be villainized, like Jane, who’s a VICTIM of Jeff, not doing proper research (apparently not knowing that Clockwork was an SA victim despite her being your “favorite character”), being a fucking hypocrite (hating shock value yet using it in your work as well), and most of all, claiming to be bringing back the old roots of Creepypasta when you don’t even understand or know what those roots are. 

This fandom has ALWAYS been cringy, weird, and unrealistic. I mean, we have a tall faceless man in the woods, a magical black and white clown, and a guy whose skin turned completely white because of BLEACH. This fandom was never realistic! 

You can only use the “I mistyped” or “you all misunderstood me” excuse so many times.

Are you telling me you didn’t mean ANY of this?

Like, if I recall, David Near’s, MBK’s, Pastra’s, AND Ekatlani’s Jeff’s are NOT soft boys at all. But you refuse to acknowledge that, don’t you? Because even if they are closer to what you claim to be looking for within a Jeff rewrite, you still hate them because they weren’t what YOU THINK the character could be. 

But somehow, that’s not even the worst part. No, the worst thing has to be what you’ve done to Leech. Characters change, I understand that. My personal gripe with her not being the character I initially was excited for anymore is just my personal bias. What’s NOT, however, is the relationship you’ve put her in with Tyrant. 

Now, I’m all for toxic relationships. I’ve written them myself, but this? This is straight-up fucking grooming. It’s non-consensual, and you straight-up called Tyrant PREDATORY. 

And the fact that you tried to edit your post to hide what you said first tells me all I need to know.

Not to mention, you continuously like to bring up how much YOUNGER she is than the other two (Context: She's in a poly relationship with Tyrant and a character named Marc)

This goes past a toxic relationship, this is straight up fucking CREEPY. You admit that Tyrant is using his VICTIM, cause that’s what she fucking is, as a way to feel like he’s not all the negative, that “he deserves love.” No. Just no. 

I’m disappointed. Tired, angry, and disappointed. I thought you were a cool guy, Anton. I thought all of you were cool. I was genuinely excited for Blessed Be The Wicked, as I’m sure a lot of the fandom was. But you showed your true colors the moment your project began to get popular. 

Not so politely, fuck you. And if all you can do is complain about is the fandom having fun, fuck off. 

[short-honey-badger]

yo can you do Shamrock x Maid! reader? I feel like they would be supporting each other even if Sham is an asshole sometimes. Can be fluff or smut or whatever you want

Ohhh anon. This one got a little angsty cause I'm terrible but also a lovely dose of hurt/comfort and soft Shamrock

Always

Pairings! Figarland Shamrock x Female Reader

Warnings! Some angst and attempted SA

Masterlist for Shamrock and Shanks-> HERE

You want to run, want to go and find the one man who will save you from this terrible luck that has trapped you. Saint Garling had invited another royal family over, and while you had done your best to stay out of the way like Shamrock had told you to do, there was little you could do against the young man who held your wrists now. You would be punished if you struck out or tried to fight against the son of the Royal Noble, and you could feel hot tears of shame well up and escape down your cheeks.

"You are such a pretty little slave," the young man crooned, his voice nasally and thick with lust. He had followed after you once you'd finished cleaning the room he was staying in, lecherous grin on his face, "I think I'll take you with me when I leave. Wouldn't you like that, dear?"

"I-I belong to the Figarland household, sir," you say, voice a soft protest, and suck in a gasp when his free hand strikes you across the face, lip splitting and blood smearing across your chin when he shakes you.

"Who told you to speak, slave? If I want you, then I will have you. Or would you rather I take you now?" He hissed, and you found yourself being pressed up against the wall, those nasty, wondering hands hiking up your skirt. You thrash in his hold, eyes wide as you shake your head.

"No, no!" Your voice is terrified and high-pitched. You shake in his hold, feeling weak against his bigger frame as he presses his front to your back. His breath is hot on the back of your neck, and you squeeze your eyes shut, wishing for your dear redhead.

And just like that, your prayers are answered. The body that presses you into the wall is suddenly gone, and you suck in heavy breaths of relief, whipping around to see none other than Shamrock, holding the other noble aloft, hand wrapped tight around his throat and a murderous expression on his handsome face.

"How dare you touch what belongs to me," Shamrock snarls and slams the younger man against the wall, haki lashing wildly and causing the walls to shudder around the three of you. You watch with wide eyes as your lover tightens his grip, his victim's face turning an ugly puce from lack of oxygen, "I should tear your hands off and feed them to your father."

Either stupid or brave, you suspect the former, the young man begins to stutter, "She's just a slave! She is nothing compared to us, why-."

He is cut off when Shamrock slams him against the wall, the wood cracking under his might as he leans in, lips pulled into a nasty look, "She is mine, and that is all that matters. Now get the hell out of here."

With that, he drops the noble, and the two of you watch him take off down the hall, a look of fear on his face, gone to no doubt, tell his father about what happened.

Before you can so much as breathe, Shamrock is there, those powerful hands gentle as he cups your jaw and turns you this way and that. You relax in his hold, though tears still bubble up and slide down your face, your shoulders shaking from the ordeal. Gloved thumbs rise and gently wipe them away before you are carefully pulled into a solid chest.

"Oh, my sweet girl," Shamrock murmurs and bends, scooping his free arm under you and picking you up with ease. He cradles you close as he struts down the hall to his own room, where he shuts and locks the door behind the two of you. He goes straight to the bathroom, where he sits you on the edge of the tub and leaves for just a second to fetch a washcloth that he wets with warm water.

You watch him, feeling small and suddenly exhausted, tilting your face up when he comes back to your side and pressing your face into his hold. Shamrock is gentle as he dabs away the blood, though his face is set in a monstrous scowl that makes a shiver run up your spine.

"I'm sorry, Sham."

Your voice is small, meek, and wet from tears. You feel disgusting, and suddenly want a hot bath to wash off the feel of those hands that had tried to take what didn't belong to him.

"Don't be, my love," Shamrock murmurs quietly and lifts your face so that he can catch your eyes with his own. He leans in, pressing his lips to your brow before he pulls away, "I saw the way he watched you. I should have told you to stay in my rooms."

He feels furious with himself, especially when he could have prevented this from happening to you. He sighs heavily and forces the raging need to go and find that noble and gut him in front of the household to show everyone that no one was to touch you without consequences.

You reach up and cup his hand with your own, fingers tight against the soft leather of his glove, "You saved me before anything could happen, Sham. Thank you."

Your chest explodes with affection for this harsh man when his free hand joins the other to hold you so gently. His eyes are alight with a fire that makes your stomach burn with love, his voice low with a frantic edge to it.

"I will always, always save you, my love."

@mit-suri @sanjisleggy @nocturnalrorobin @forever-a-night-owl @mfreedomstuff @sordidmusings

[vryfmi]

[major book spoilers]

my favourite concept that i barely see in l&co fandom being talked about is Lucy grieving Skull. whether you see their relationship as platonic or ship skullyle, it's stupid to deny the fact that Lucy grew to care about Skull, her actions in epilogue being the heartbreaking glimpse into the new reality for her and her friends after the events of TEG:

“I don’t know why you insist on having it with us for each meal.” (Holly) “It’s that horrid charcoaled skull Lucy insists on carrying around with her.” (Holly) I’d wrapped it up and taken it home, and kept it with me ever since, just in case.

here i want to say that im not a fan of idea of Skull eventually "coming back", re-materialising. it defeats the moral of Lockwood & Co and the growth that Skull underwent. past is meant to stay the past, living can only learn from it while dead will forever exist there. no one should disturb the dead, the past, it needs to be left at rest and let it hold its memory.

Skull wanted and longed for freedom, at first defined by breaking out of silver-glass prison, but later, very clearly defined by the peace of mind. he was scared of death as much as Bickerstaff was, that's why Skull turned his back on the other side, he chose to stay here, in the world of the living. i always read his decision to save both Lucy and Lockwood as him admitting that he could never be a part of the living world (cough could never compete with what lockwood, alive boy, could give lucy cough), so he pushed the two away as he stayed in the room with Marissa, Penelope and Ezekiel.

to me, the best ending to Skull's story is him passing on his terms, not the explosion destroying his connection with the source, but contemplating what he sees himself doing after Lucy suggested him staying with L&Co. Skull declines her offer. and chooses freedom.

obviously, that's my reading and how i prefer to interpret L&Co's ending. (it's also the reason i can't accept that christmas special as canon, im sorry, i hate happiness).

but that leaves Lucy and her newfound need of keeping skull near her at all times since Fittes HQ explosion, her wishful thinking that he'd come back. and i want to see her go through painful acceptance of losing Skull. losing a someone that she never got to know closer. losing a chance to get to know him as a friend, to admitting to have found a friend in Skull, a kindred spirit. losing someone who understood her and knew her deepest fears because these two deeply traumatised teens were so alike. losing something that she chose to define herself and her worth by. Lucy would have to come to terms with how much of a support system she had in Skull. and now, she'd have to navigate without it.

Lucy makes a remark that i can't stop thinking about.

Whenever I put my fingers on it, I got no psychic charge. The bone was dry and cold.

i could go on a rampage theorising why Lucy can't feel anything despite a) her having a strong Touch b) objects that are not sources are still able to hold strong psychic echoes. but i feel like Stroud was trying to wrap up the story and didn't want to introduce a whole new storyline of Lucy picking up fragments of Skull's past. which is a shame. i would kill for such story to be told. (please hit me up if you do.)

but say she really can't pick up anything, Skull is gone and there's not a psychic trace left of him. where does Lucy find herself then? constantly checking the skull with all her senses, wishing to see a green spark dance around the (former) source, to hear a whispery insult in her ear, to feel just anything with her touch. but it's all gone. there's nothing left. no one left. everyone else is moving on, hurries Lucy to get rid of that horrid old bone, but how can she? how can she bring herself to get rid of the only thing left? the only thing left on earth to remember a nameless boy by? the boy who could've been her friend, but she failed to trust him? failed to say thank you?

with each passing day Lucy’d feel worse because she knows how she looks to her friends, to agents, to the ones saving London from violent visitors every night, putting their lives on the line. and here she sits, wishing a ghost to appear in her attic room when she's the most vulnerable at heart.

bonus points for Lucy picking up a pencil and trying to recreate the boy she saw on the other side on paper while the memory is still fresh, while she still remembers. (but also, if we view books as Lucy's memoirs, it would make Skull's bare-bone description even more sad because that would mean older Lucy forgot the details).

what im trying to incoherently say is, Lucy would grieve. and having read almost all of the books Stroud wrote, i see that he has a very intimate relationship with grief and mourning the loss of someone dear to the point where he explores different sides and intensities of it, how each of his characters goes through it, in every single book of his. (i believe, i have three more books of his to read).

p.s. i don't want to be a hypocrite so here are fics about lucy grieving skull that i love to bits:

- i'm still painting flowers for you by terryh

- echoes by menina123

- it isn’t the same (but it is enough) by bluejay_07

- don't wanna go, but it's time to leave by fourohfourerror

[sunflower1experiment]

Tape #1

“Risk”

Leith stares at you, then at Harley, then to Stella who was begrudgingly standing beside the two. There is no way Harley actually won your bleeding heart!? You! The scientist psychologist who doesn’t even know half the truth!?

Goodness it was too much, so he nods to Harley then you both lock eyes. “Good to see you again Mz.”

“The pleasure is all mine.” You stride past him to your office, Stella goes after you, next he was watching you both talk, then you both begin to enjoy some carbonated soda from the shop down the street. This was you, the person that somehow got Harley to stop sneering with snark in his tone of words? What exactly was it? Was it the way you talked, your simple answers or simple actions.

Leith didn’t envy Harley, he was simply astonished someone would lower their guard around this man, that narcissistic, arrogant, apathetic with no regard for others: Harley Sawyer.

“You’ve been quiet for a while Leith.”

“…..Just surprised someone is willing to put up with you, was it a facade? Or maybe you…”

Leith looks at Harley, then to you. His eyes say a lot, as a businessman Leith always knew how to read customers but not someone like, Sawyer.

His eyes were, focused, filled with a certainty that would assure he was right about his own work ahead. It made Leith uneasy, especially when he gave you those flowers, a Tuberose. Surely you knew the meaning, you always ranted about them, so why…

“…..They represent love, sensuality, dangerous love and innocence..” He says while you place a yellow Tulip in his vase; the man wasn’t really phased, more of annoyed at your friendly demeanor.

“What has you smiling ear to ear?”

“This is my resting face Pierre, plus I’m setting up a food festival for the children. With my own budget.” He blinks at your forwardness, every punctuation and word that left your lips made the man wanna deadpan but also ask more. Festival, food, what food?

Did Harley know of this? Of course not, you’re his partner not his pet or experiment…

“Good luck then.” He says curtly, you pass by him with a nod while your shoes clink on the floor out the door.

The man went to see you afterwards, watching you feed these children, care for their needs. Giving them water while they take some, and share. There was one moment that made him slightly smile, a child grabbing a bowl of fruit, then he went and grabbed two extras. Leith watches this child give the two bowls including the first one to three other children before he had his own.

You gave the child a big embrace while patting his hair down, it was…beautiful.

Elliot was right about you, when it came to children your heart was practically open and on the sleeve. Something Harley dismissed, now here he is, dating you.

Honestly it made Pierre feel nauseous at the idea of Harley even creating a family with you.

By the stars why did he think that way.

It was things like this that made him notice different dynamics in people, the way Harley would manipulate you, or he’d talk to you while you worked. Even going as far to interrupt your conversation with Stella, that was until he found you staring at the children with a longing gaze.

“Are you alright?”

“Mhm, just thinking about Quinn.”

Quinn, right that boy who you were planning to adopt, he was quiet but super obedient and always clinging to your side. “I wanted to adopt him.”

“Well it’s not too late.” He replies curtly, you hug your stomach with shame after he says that. “……Your words…hurt.”

Leith sighs then gets ready to leave, he simply couldn’t bear your words. But then you continue, “But they made me realize something, that you’re just as bad as I am….don’t get me wrong Pierre, you can claim to be a good man. But you’re greedy, eager for money. Like a typical corporate Ceo….he has a friend who cares for the children but you, it’s money signs. Yet you still show signs of being caring.”

The man was quiet ever since you said that, how could you even say that so easily. Was he that easy to read? Well not really, you were there with Elliot, and you were listening. In some occasions there was a few words of the in tune semblance you shared with Ludwig. One day you pull him aside, holding your stomach with sad eyes as unshed tears rise, only to get blinked away.

“I’m pregnant. Pierre.”

His breathing halts for a second and he felt embarrassed, scared, angry. “Why!? What did….are you serious!?”

You look away and speak once more, “You never told me he killed Quinn.” Pierre covers his face, of course he didn’t. Not when Harley would throw a fit, but you already knew about the experiments so why did this affect you so much!?

“I’ve been feeding them, loving them, nurturing them. Wanting to adopt some of them and someday make a home to raise them at. Only to find out I was the gentle voice that they’ll grow to hate…” The more you describe playing apart to their agonizing futures the more it irritates his soul, you were having Harley’s child! Yet you still show the attentive passion for these orphans.

“After all of that, you still care for them?”

“Why wouldn’t I? Just because you have the luxury to play god with orphans doesn’t mean I’d be happy to work this so called “miracle” you deluded yourself to believe. I was an orphan too, did you intend to force me to be a toy?” You exclaim through your own tears, he could only stare while the room went silent from the intense emotions that spurred within. “…..I never knew.”

“Of course not, after all, I’m his “favorite” experiment….Leith I’m scared. I so badly wanted to adopt him and have a child. Raise this child into a beautiful flower, but to find out your own partner, hah not find out. I knew and fell in love with a facade.”

You sit down, hugging yourself again, “Two months pregnant. I once asked him about the idea of children, it was foolish. Sometimes I was debating on….quitting, but then I changed my mind for these children…”

Now sitting beside you the man was carefully speaking, “Look, you’re a brave person. But you can’t just tell me and not tell him, how do you think he’ll feel?”

“He already knows, Harley is a fool but he is not naive…”

You knew so much about him and nothing at all, it was so tragic, hearing you blame yourself while he probably knew and had every intention to potentially keep you away from the bigger truth. “I’m going further down, to the prison.”

Pierre was quiet as he nods at your statement with no room to argue, getting up again he watches you stay on the couch. “…..Leith, if I do end up having this child…do you mind if I bring the baby into work?”

“Why…?”

“You don’t intend to help the children, do you? The least I can do is care for them, Feed them properly.”

When Leith left, he was stuck in deep thought about you. After all the things he said towards and about you; the willingness to tolerate him or even talk with Stella. It was impressive how you kept such professionalism with the three of them, but nothing irks his soul more than hearing Harley’s rants about you.

“We lost the child, now everything is ruined…Why didn’t you simply stop this from happening!?”

“Sawyer you’re out of line, you both were together! You had every chance to change for them, but you’re to stuck with the idea of control and recognition from your lover and others.”

Harley sneers, “Oh get real Leith, we all know why you didn’t stop my partner. Did it bother you knowing that someone actually saw me beyond what you all paint me as?”

This made him snap, Harley really was so foolish and arrogant. “Not at all, as of matter of fact nothing I’m very much unbothered by the fact that: you can so easily etch your way into someone’s life, infiltrate that person’s house, then not only get your partner pregnant but then to turn the child you both knew about and the one your “dear” so badly wanted to adopt into a bigger body. None of that bothers me one bit, sure it made us money but how will we get obedient children..?”

He jabs at Harley with a snark in his tone, “If you decide to date the only person who can easily give them hope, that false hope calms the children. Now because of this your dear partner will most likely feed and nurture them into rebellious children who may fight back or when they become toys use their obedience as ways to catch us off guard. Who knows….but hey, least that miscarriage made them less likely to disobey you…”

Pierre stares Harley down, the man sucks in his breath before he just curses under his breath. Pushing his coworker aside he slams the door, Leith sits down. “……That was cruel…”

It was cruel to use your child as some leverage against him…

Leith once again sat beside you in silence, “I’m sorry..”

“…….you don’t have to apologize. I’m done wallowing in self pity, you were right…I was foolish like him and in love with a facade. Politeness, and curiosity…”

“You still love him.” Pierre accuses you lightly, you nod curtly.

Of course, of course you still love him.

Especially after he had the order to have him shot, you loved him simply because it’s in your nature to love and care for others. Including Pierre….

Maybe that’s why you warned him about your plan to release the toys, because in someway you had hoped he’d be better…naive.

Always naive…

The tape ends, the worker stares at the tv. Hearing Leith’s narrative and recount of everything. They felt sorry for you, grabbing more tapes the worker stops before a couple notes…

Grabbing them there was a confession and an apology.

‘Mz…you were someone I resented, because you had that beautiful heart, that smart perception of everyone. Stella and I loved you for that, sometimes I wish you were the head of the project…sometimes I wish we could’ve all been friends, maybe in another universe. You could’ve adopted Quinn, Marie, Matthew, Kevin, Theo, and the other children…whatever happens I hope Harley doesn’t hurt you. Maybe I’m too late on that factor however, he hurt you mentally, and we were both too late to stop it.’

[haikyu-mp4]

who are my favourite characters in Haikyu and why? hear me out, in no particular order.

I love Bokuto for being so vulnerable with his emotions and shamelessly communicating his needs while also tending to others and giving as much as he takes in his relationships. Then there's the contrast of him feeling better in tight spaces when he's down, out of the public eye despite his love for attention because he wouldn't want to burden anyone, but then growing into a confident professional player who knows he can only do his best.

I love Tendo for how he plays the sport exactly the way he likes, trusting his own process even if it’s not the ‘perfect’ way to do it. He trusts himself and doesn’t see the value of being forced to follow a certain standard even if being bullied could have made him try and adapt to others. And he isn't even afraid when leaving the only stage where he has stood on equal ground with those around him. It was his paradise, but now he will find a new one and still stay true to himself.

I love Kageyama for never considering defeat and being so pure of heart while struggling with his guilt and the image others have of him. Even after his team abandoned him for taking it too far and Oikawa (who Tobio probably thought was his 'someone better') refused to help him and basically declared him his enemy (not saying I don’t sympathise with Oikawa) he still walked straight up to that Karasuno gym with his application. Because he wanted to try again, to have a second chance.

I love Hoshiumi for working hard to reach his full potential yet understanding that Hirugami shouldn't play if he doesn’t want to, instead of shaming him for not loving the sport just because he’s practically made for volleyball. And then he sees Hinata as an equal because they're both great in different ways despite their similar disadvantage.

I love Kuroo because he idolises Nekomata for lowering the net and showing him that motivation might need a little push sometimes. In his own way, he dedicates his year as captain and then essentially the rest of his life to sharing that same sentiment with others and lowering the net for anyone who might want to experience the joy of volleyball.

I love Hinata for his huge heart. He yells at Kageyama when he's angry, cries in his room when he's sad and declares his accomplishments for all to hear when he's happy. He's an open book, and we see people repeatedly take a stab at the pages but he keeps going. He keeps making new unexpected plotlines so that he can reach the goal, no matter how difficult the journey will be.

I love Atsumu for being one of the most sought-after players but still feeling devastated that he couldn't play with his brother. What is talent to him when he can’t play with his other half? Maybe he was scared he wouldn’t have anyone to run beside him when his biggest blessing wasn’t there, but he learnt to do it, to stand on that stage without Osamu.

I love Suna, he's hot af.

[seitmai]

Ahh many thoughts

For Rooster losing that close contact with you felt wrong, almost painful. Your warmth in his arms had been so good, feeling the way you pressed your back against his chest was so right and the way your head tilted a little to the side to make room for his face in the crook of your neck so he could indulge in the sweet kisses he pressed to your skin made his heart soar. Fuck even the fact that the arm that you had rested on was still numb was perfect.

🥹🥹🥹

And then he hears your laughter, making him turn back to you with a smile on his lips as bright as the sun. Seeing you last night had left him feeling powerless and defeated, unable to really help you or make you feel better. To know that at least for now you were doing better meant the world to him.

Urgh I get that, after the night before everything is better 🫶🏻

Wow indeed. Rooster looked drop-dead gorgeous with that muscle shirt and the grey sweatpants sitting low on his hips. How the fucking hell could you have missed that in the almost 7 years you worked with the man?

Yeah, wow indeed 😮‍💨

"You want me to tell you what happened last night?", he hates to disturb the comfortable silence between you but he can see in your eyes that even though you act relaxed, there is a part of you that cannot let go and maybe getting more puzzle pieces could help you with that. You didn't ask because you feared you'd destroy the magic of the moment, but with Bradshaw offering, you realised how occupied your brain was with that question so you just nodded.

He is so thoughtful 🥺

"Probably got herself another set of tags when I decided to get you home" You instantly feel bad. Hook up or not, Rooster had ditched someone else to get you to safety, staying the entire fucking night by your side and doing whatever you asked of him. "I'm sorry about that" "Don't, be Nike. It was for the better. She had a pretty weird idea about consent", he's shaking his head and you tilt yours a little to the side and arch your brow in confusion. "She took your distress for a fucking couple. I don't want someone like that in my bed", the scowl on his pretty features hits you to the core. You had always taken Rooster for one of the truly good guys and there was a part of you that couldn't help but feel glad that you had been right about him.

Truly a testament to his good guy-ness🫡

It was a shame fucking shame you couldn't remember... and then you realised what he just actually said. "You picked me up? God Rooster, you could have hurt yourself", you start chastising him and he looks up from the bacon and eggs on his plate with a raised brow.

God I get the discomfort Nike must feel, first not knowing what happend and then being told and just another unconformable thing🥴

"Nike I get my paycheck for being in top shape. I handled weights that are more than you... ", he starts and when his eyes find yours, it hits him. This is not about you not trusting him. It was about you thinking you were... "Listen Nike. I don't know who made you believe otherwise, but let me tell you one thing. You are a goddess", he sees how you are shaking your head while blinking away the tears that are shimmering in your eyes.

Nike just focus on the words that man says!

"So you think we named you after a Greek goddess for shits and giggles?", you see him in the corner of your eye and feel the warmth that is radiating from the hand that is holding yours. God you wanted to believe him. You wanted to believe him so bad but decades of mocking and harassment had left scars that weren't so easy to ignore.

💔💔💔

The closer he gets to your apartment complex the more fidgety you are. It gets so bad that he just takes your hand to give you something to hold onto but your eyes are darting around, searching for something or rather someone.

🥺🥺🥺

"With all due disrespect. Your father is an asshole who knows jack shit about you or life for that matter" His eyes are glued to your reflection in the window and seeing the tears that stream down your face makes his heartache and the fury return to his veins. No one deserved such a treatment, least of all you. "Nike look at me", he leans forward and turns your face with his hands, using his thumbs to wipe away your tears. "You are one of the strongest people I know. Your entire career is rooted in your wish to fix things. You bring people home safe and sound and I doubt it gets much more hardcore than being with the US Navy"

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

"I don't serve", your voice is small and choked up from the tears and it makes him livid. A part of him hopes your father will show his sorry ass because heaven knows he'd love to drill some things into that thick skull of his. "You have your own office, you got a callsign. Fuck if the Admiral knew you'd use it you'd have your own parking lot" "I am a contractor", he sees how the tears he just wiped away are replaced by new ones and there is a desperation bubbling up in his chest. He needed you to see that you were more than what your father made you believe you are and it feels like he's failing you right now.

Oh and we all know if Bradley has his mind to something, he will get it done

"Nike. You are the woman who 6 years 8 months and 14 days ago on her first fucking day on base marched into a briefing and told Cyclone to his face in front of the entire base leadership that his idea was bullshit", your eyes widen in shock and your gaze finally meets his. You had been told whatever was spoken in that room would never leave it. "How do you know?" "Are you kidding me? You became a legend that day. I have that day marked on my calendar. Fuck everyone on base marked that on their calendar. It was your first day on the job and you grilled him in front of everyone and lived to tell the tale", your eyes are wandering over his face, not sure what he was aiming at.

He not only has it marked in his calender, but also knows exactly how many days since than, thas next level

"That's what he hired me for. To make sure that the missions are successful while minimising the risks for all personnel involved" "I doubt that he expected you to do it that blunt in front of everyone", there is a chuckle falling from his lips and mischief twinkles in his eyes.

Fair haha🤭

You had worked for years on base by this point and never once did you think you overstepped. Simpson sure as hell never told you so but now that you heard Roosters perspective it dawned on you. You weren't military so the chain of command wasn't drilled into you from day one. You had always viewed the Admiral as an equal, someone you work with on eye level to fulfil the mission and keep the people safe. It had never once occurred to you that the difference in position was so stark... "Don't worry about it. If he wouldn't respect you for that move he would have stopped working with you that day. I mean if any of us were scared of driving he would tell us to fucking walk home and for you, he's taking a detour to play shuttle"

And for Admiral Simpson this says a LOT

He should have kept his mouth shut. Considering your reaction Simpson didn't want you to know that, but now that it was out there, he couldn't take it back.

Honestly so cute that he doesn't want her to know 🤭

"Fuck... and all I do is bring him muffins..." "I'd drive cross country for those muffins, no questions asked. They are worth their weight in gold" "How would you know that?" "He called me into his office for a meeting and they were on a plate on the desk" "You didn't..." "Yep. I totally did. Also for the record. Totally worth the 300 push-ups" "300?!?!" "I ate two"

Damn that must be some good muffins

“Sorry about this. I just never saw the necessity to…”, you begin and when your eyes meet his the pain you see knocks the air from your lungs. “Nike...”, he begins, making his way over to you to put his hands on your cheeks, wanting to pull you flush against his chest and kiss you. To show you that you didn’t need to live in a state that was more vegetative than anything else.

That coming especially from Bradley, whose sense of home is probably messed up too due to the loss of his parents, is very telling🥺

From the moment he lays eyes on him Rooster hates this man with everything that he is. In about a minute he had shown him more than enough and the mere thought you had lived your entire life like this. Always waiting for him to barge in and yell at you, never feeling safe anywhere, never really being home. How were you supposed to have a normal childhood if all you've ever known was fear? Fear of failing his expectations and fear of his anger. He couldn't even begin to imagine how fucking exhausting that had to be.

💔💔💔

The silence in the place grew and the weight on you was unbearable. You knew you had to manage this, to keep the fallout minimal but with Rooster here, you couldn’t fall back into the default protocol. He was a variable you never had to calculate with in a situation like this and that made the unease even worse.

Oh no I feel so bad for her 😭

“This is my place. I co-signed the lease. It's the only reason why she's even having a roof over her head” “How generous of you to hold what every halfway decent father would do for his child over her head as if she fucking owes you for that”

Period 👏🏻

Rooster never had a chance to spend much time with his dad and growing up he envied whoever got that privilege but right now he realised for some people growing up without your father was a kinder fate.

🥺🫶🏻

“My relationship with my daughter is none of your business” “It became my business the second you treated one of my friends like a piece of trash” “Friend?”, the laughter was harsh, “She doesn't have friends” “Maybe it should give you a fucking pause if your own daughter decides to keep things like that a secret”, he barks back, his patience running very thin right now.

Omg I just love how he stands up for her 🥹👏🏻

You hear a knocking and when your eyes wander from your father to the open door you cannot believe who you see. Your father turns around too, eyes wandering over the group of people standing there. “Sorry for being late to the party. We miss somethin'?”, Hangman asks, his usual cocky features darkened and brows furrowed. Right next to him was Phoenix and then on either side of them Javy and Bob "And who do you think you are?" "For you, we'll be the four horsemen of the apocalypse", the threat in Phoenix's voice is obvious if her face wasn't enough of a tell already.

The four horsemen of the apocalypse, I died! This is so perfect, especially Phoenix saying it, chefs kiss

"She'd be stupid to ride into Mordor alone", your eyes shoot over to Phoenix, eyes wide and surprise written all over your features. You had no idea she heard you back then when she tried to catch up with Rooster. "You take a companion. You bring an army, but you never go alone", Bob adds and gives you a gentle smile that makes a fresh set of tears run down your cheeks.

🥹🥹🥹

"More like the greek goddess of victory", Bob chimed in, turning to you with a small smile while you were digging your finger into Rooster's arm to have something to hold on to. "Goddess of victory? Her? As fucking if" You see the way your father looks between them, unable to hide his confusion before he follows their eyes to you, standing right next to Rooster who wrapped an arm around you to pull you even closer into his side.

They are her bodyguarda and biggest cheerleaders at the same time 🫶🏻

"She's the best IC North Island ever had", Hangman gave you that signature smirk and a wink. To hear those words from him of all people made your heart swell.

🥰🥰🥰

"You might not be aware of it, but you have a treasure for a daughter and considering that you treat her like the dirt under your heel I would suggest you reevaluate your coping strategy, Sir", even while he is angry, Bob stays as perfectly polite as ever, pushing his glasses a little up his nose.

He is just perfect

"But you don't have to take the word of the people whose lives she's responsible for", Phoenix makes a theatrical gesture out of checking her watch before she looks back to your father, "He might get a bit grumpy if we annoy him on a Saturday morning, but I am sure that nevertheless, Admiral Simpson would have no qualms about confirming Nike's spotless mission record"

Lmao imagine them calling Cyclone, the speech Nike's dad would have to endure 💀

Never Alone

paring: Bradley Bradshaw x female!IC!reader (callsign Nike )

wordcount: ca. 6,7k

synopsis: When you wake up on Saturday morning you feel surprisingly well-rested and calm considering what happened at the restaurant last night. That is until you realise that you are in a stranger's bed wearing clothes that are not your own and you are pulled into someone's chest. What the fuck actually happened last night?

note: Here we go. Part two is finally here and it's longer than the first one. I hope people are still enjoying my Rooster debut. It's self-indulgent AF and I had a great time writing it. So far I've planned the outline for part three to finish off their story nicely. But until then, much fun with Part 2.

And you know that navy inaccuracies are a given with my stuff, but this time I went a bit more ham than usual. The role of IC (Incident Commander) is existing in crisis and natural disaster management but fuck if I know if some work for the Navy. I made all of that up for the sake of the plot. Don't like that, please skip this one. And last but not least, yes this is yet again very self-indulgent stuff and it will get only worse with the next part, so if you don't like it, click off 😘

A huge thanks again to @mynameismckenziemae for the nudge into Rooster's direction for this plot and thank you to @vermillionwinter for listening to my rambling and giving me feedback. Without her, this would still be rotting away in my drafts.

Trigger Warning(If I forgot something or you want me to add to the list, my inbox is wide open. You are responsible for your media consumption, so proceed with caution, you know the drill): plus-size!reader, military/navy inaccuracies, non-canon (not even sure if this is canon compliant so, take that as you will), self-deprecation, cursing, verbal abuse (not from Rooster); mental health talk ( trauma; dissociative episode; suicidal ideation), written by a non-native speaker

|| Masterlist ||

Part 1 || Part 3

divider by @sweetmelodygraphics banner by @firefly-graphics gif by @theartofimagining13

!!!Minors do not interact! I block blank blogs/without age/Minors!!!

When you wake up the next morning you feel... well-rested and oddly comfortable. You haven't slept this well in forever, a warmth filling your body and a comforting weight that pressed you into the mattress. Closing your eyes once more you try to drift back to sleep. Waking up meant that he would surely knock on your door again and you just didn't have it in you to deal with him. After last night you are not even sure if you could deal with him ever again. His booming voice is still ringing in your ear. One would think there is a day when you get used to it, but sadly for you, that day never came. "Lay still, beautiful. It's too early to wake up", you hear a raspy voice whisper in your ear before a face presses into your neck and you feel something scratching over your skin and a leg being thrown over yours.

What the fuck happened last night? You remembered getting up and storming out of the restaurant. You still hear his voice echoing in your head but after that, it was blank, no matter how hard you tried to remember. You had assumed you went home, got into bed and... Your breath quickened as you looked down your body. You wore a jersey you had never seen before and had your fingers entangled with a large, strong hand that rested on your stomach. Brother in Christ what had you done?

Breathing through your nose you try to make each breath a little longer in the hopes to calm your hammering heart that threatened to break free from your ribcage. You feel the way his hand is squeezing yours as his lips press a kiss to your shoulder. "I hear you thinking, Nike", he whispered and now that the person behind you seemed a little more awake, voice less husky and more normal, you finally realised who was lying behind you. Bradley fucking Rooster Bradshaw. You were in bed with one of the Lieutenants that you worked with on the regular. Wonderful. Congratulations for fucking up even more spectacularly than you ever did before. This warrants a fucking award.

Even with the man practically wrapped around you, you turn around, his hand still holding yours when you are searching his face for any indicator of what happened last night. His eyes are closed, his hair messy and his skin shimmering golden in the morning sun. You had never quite realised what a beautiful man Lieutenant Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw is. Closing your eyes to clear your head you take another deep breath before you finally find the bravery to talk. "How did I end up in your bed, Bradshaw?"

His eyes are suddenly open wide when he hears your question. You didn't remember? He was pretty sure that you weren't drunk, so whatever you experienced had to be bad enough for your brain to shut down. "I found you in front of the Hard Deck. You were in really bad shape and asked me for a place to stay", his soft brown eyes are searching yours, lifting the hand you are still holding up to his chest. You are nodding slowly. In your state, your brain had apparently classified the Hard Deck as a safer space than your own home. Considering that he had keys to your place, probably not the worst idea you ever had. "You were terrified to be alone...", if someone would ask him, he'd mark up the fact that he presses a soft kiss to your palm to still being caught in a sleepy haze. "Makes sense", you murmur, brain wrecking to fill in the blanks that you had, but there was just an endless void.

He wants to ask you what happened but he worries the question would open the Pandora's box anew and pull you back into the abyss. So he decided to wait, knowing that if you deemed him trustworthy enough, you would tell him. Pulling your hand from him you sit up in the bed, your eyes are taking in the room for the first time and you cannot help the chuckle falling from your lips when your eyes land on the boxer-clad bedside lamp.

For Rooster losing that close contact with you felt wrong, almost painful. Your warmth in his arms had been so good, feeling the way you pressed your back against his chest was so right and the way your head tilted a little to the side to make room for his face in the crook of your neck so he could indulge in the sweet kisses he pressed to your skin made his heart soar. Fuck even the fact that the arm that you had rested on was still numb was perfect. When he hears you chuckle his heart skips a beat, eyes following your gaze, a pink hue spreading over his cheek and neck when he saw what he had used to dim down the light last night. "Oh fuck" And then he hears your laughter, making him turn back to you with a smile on his lips as bright as the sun. Seeing you last night had left him feeling powerless and defeated, unable to really help you or make you feel better. To know that at least for now you were doing better meant the world to him. "The bathroom is..." "Right through that door. Your dress is in there too, but I'm sure I'll find some shorts around for you to wear" There is a short flicker in your eyes before you look down at your hands. "Don't sweat it, Rooster", you get up from the bed and walk straight through the door without looking back at him.

The moment you got out of his bed he had to force himself not to stare at your ass that was barely covered by his jersey. It had to be some primal part of his brain but to see you wear his clothing turned the warmth in his chest into a fucking wildfire. Shaking his head he searched for a pair of sweatpants he placed on the dresser for you before he left for the kitchen. He had to do something, anything really to distract his mind from the images that it was conjuring up. You in his jersey, getting under the shower. Fuck he had to get his mind out of the gutter and fast. And if there was one thing he was good at to compensate for these carnal kinds of cravings, it was cooking.

Rooster made good on his promise and actually found a pair of sweatpants that were probably more than oversized on him but clung to your thighs and ass like a second skin. You had stared at your body in his bathroom mirror for a solid 5 minutes trying to decide whether the jersey was sufficiently covering the mess or if you had to ditch the comfy stuff for your dress. The mere idea to get back into the corset made your stomach churn so you just hoped he wouldn't mind your less-than-flattering outfit. At least he didn't say anything when you entered the kitchen, the table already filled with all kinds of delicious things. Pancakes, biscuits, scrambled eggs and toast.

"Wow", is all you can say and when he turns back at you with a smile on his face and pan in hand, the bacon still sizzling in the cast iron he makes you stop in his tracks. Wow indeed. Rooster looked drop-dead gorgeous with that muscle shirt and the grey sweatpants sitting low on his hips. How the fucking hell could you have missed that in the almost 7 years you worked with the man? "Perfect timing. Bacon is ready" He walks around the counter and puts the pan in the middle of the table next to the eggs before he pulls out the chair for you. "Thanks, Rooster" "My pleasure, Nike"

Sitting around the kitchen table with Rooster felt weirdly domestic and you couldn't even really remember when it had been the last time you did something as mundane as this. Just sit there and eat with someone and talk. No critisising, no yelling. Just an enjoyable conversation with the occasional laughter or a chuckle here and there but as pleasant as it was, last night was not really letting you go and as much as Bradley wanted to distract you and give you a chance to focus on something lighter and more enjoyable, he knew that your brain worked 24/7 and it wouldn't let something as big as an incident that caused a dissociative episode slide.

"You want me to tell you what happened last night?", he hates to disturb the comfortable silence between you but he can see in your eyes that even though you act relaxed, there is a part of you that cannot let go and maybe getting more puzzle pieces could help you with that. You didn't ask because you feared you'd destroy the magic of the moment, but with Bradshaw offering, you realised how occupied your brain was with that question so you just nodded. "I was about to leave the Hard Deck with someone when I heard you cry" "What happened to your date?" "Wasn't a date. Just a tag chaser." "What happened to her?" "Probably got herself another set of tags when I decided to get you home" You instantly feel bad. Hook up or not, Rooster had ditched someone else to get you to safety, staying the entire fucking night by your side and doing whatever you asked of him. "I'm sorry about that" "Don't, be Nike. It was for the better. She had a pretty weird idea about consent", he's shaking his head and you tilt yours a little to the side and arch your brow in confusion. "She took your distress for a fucking couple. I don't want someone like that in my bed", the scowl on his pretty features hits you to the core. You had always taken Rooster for one of the truly good guys and there was a part of you that couldn't help but feel glad that you had been right about him. "Once she was back inside I picked you up and carried you to the Bronco", the moment the words were out of his mouth your skin heated up. It was a shame fucking shame you couldn't remember... and then you realised what he just actually said. "You picked me up? God Rooster, you could have hurt yourself", you start chastising him and he looks up from the bacon and eggs on his plate with a raised brow. Did you really just question his strength and capability while he was sitting in front of you in a muscle shirt showing off his biceps and shoulders? "Nike I get my paycheck for being in top shape. I handled weights that are more than you... ", he starts and when his eyes find yours, it hits him. This is not about you not trusting him. It was about you thinking you were...

"You get your paycheck for flying a multimillion-dollar navy asset, Bradshaw", you correct him and his mind struggles to catch up to the conversation for a moment. "Semantics. If I fly that jet I have to be in perfect shape, so no. Carrying you to my car is no big deal and neither was carrying you from my car to the bedroom... ", he adds seeing your eyes widen in shock before you avert your gaze and bite down on your lower lip as if that could stop the wobbling before you let out a heavy sigh and whispered. "I'm so sorry you had to" There is so much shame on your face and that made the fury he had felt last night come back. Apparently, he had to add the person who made you believe that you weren't absolutely fucking perfect to his shit list, right after the person who sent you straight into an anxiety attack.

"Listen Nike. I don't know who made you believe otherwise, but let me tell you one thing. You are a goddess", he sees how you are shaking your head while blinking away the tears that are shimmering in your eyes. "You don't have to be nice, Rooster", you whisper and the pain he hears makes him wanna snap. Not at you, oh no, but those little dipshits who gave you as much as an impression that something was wrong with you. He's usually not one for a bar brawl but for you, he'd be fine with breaking a nose or two. Right now though all he can do is make you see how perfect you are. So he's leaning over the kitchen table and places his hand gently over yours. "So you think we named you after a Greek goddess for shits and giggles?", you see him in the corner of your eye and feel the warmth that is radiating from the hand that is holding yours. God you wanted to believe him. You wanted to believe him so bad but decades of mocking and harassment had left scars that weren't so easy to ignore. But there was a sincerity to the way he spoke. It wasn't like he was getting anything out of lying to you. Rooster had opened his home for you, gave you a place to stay when you needed it most and he had been nothing but supportive and kind the entire time.

You turn a little to the side and you see the way the corner of his mouth is raising and his chocolate-coloured eyes twinkle with mirth. You cannot help but smile back at him and the moment he sees it, he feels like he just won one of his greatest victories. "There she is", you kick him playfully under the table for his teasing, making both of you laugh.

"I can drop you off at your place, whenever you want" The words hit you out of the blue while you were standing right next to Rooster as you finished drying the dishes he had washed. Of course, he wanted you out of his place. It had been very generous that he offered you breakfast after he shared his bed with you, but now his hospitality was running out. "Yeah right. I am pretty sure that you have better things to do with your Saturday", there is a somberness to your words that makes him feel like he got punched in the gut. He never wanted to give you the feeling that you were unwelcome or that he had other stuff to do or places to be. All he wanted was for you to know that he was there for you, that he wouldn't just call you an Uber and call it a day. "That's not what I meant...", he starts, reaching out to take one of your hands into his. Yours were so tiny and wrapping his fingers around yours felt so right. "I just wanted you to know that I'll come with you to your apartment" "You really don't have to, Rooster. I'm a big girl, tying my own boots and all. I'll manage" "A very wise woman once told me that you never ride into Mordor alone. You can take a companion or a whole army, but under no circumstance do you go on your own" Your eyes were shooting up wide in shock as your gaze met his. "Did she now?", you asked, taking a step closer, head tilted to the side as your eyes focused on his as if you were trying to solve one of your strategic puzzles. "Yep. And you know what's the annoying part about that lady?”, now it's Rooster taking a step towards you, his finger slowly interlacing with yours and a smitten smile spreading on his lips. All he wants to do is lean down and kiss you and he had no fucking clue when it happened or why but Bradley Bradshaw cannot help but feel the pull towards you. "She has a tendency to be right about that kind of shit" Rooster wants to protect you. He wants to protect your heart if only you'd let him.

The closer he gets to your apartment complex the more fidgety you are. It gets so bad that he just takes your hand to give you something to hold onto but your eyes are darting around, searching for something or rather someone. He didn't want to push you to tell him things you didn't want to share, but he couldn't help but let his eyes roam too, wondering if he'd know who it was once he'd seen them. Pulling up right in front of the house he puts the Bronco in park, watching you as your eyes are darting around. "Hey, Nike", he tries to pull you back, gently squeezing your hand.

"Thank you for bringing me. I'll take it from here", you didn't want him to leave, the way you were still holding his hand said as much, but you were worried. You didn't see his car, but you were pretty sure he'd show his face sooner rather than later and you wanted Rooster as far away as humanly possible from that disaster zone... "I will not leave you alone while you are about to spiral into another anxiety attack", he's sliding a bit closer to you on the seats, hoping that his presence could bring you comfort the way it did last night. "I don't want you to get dragged into this Rooster. It's enough of a shit show as is..." "You do realise I am a naval aviator, right? I get paid to do risky as fuck shit at Mach 1.6 while a beautiful woman yells into my ears to stick to her plan", he's smiling at you, hoping to pull you back closer to him with the joke. "I doubt that there is anything that could happen I've never seen a worse version of" "You never met my father" "Who?" "My father...", you repeat, closing your eyes as you bite down on your lower lip to stave off the tears.

You knew it was stupid and childish. You worked in disaster management for a living and still, nothing ever terrified you as much as the thought of being in the same room as him. "When I moved here he got me my flat and whenever he's in the city he insists on having dinner..." "Your father?", Rooster repeated surprised, shocked even. He had fully expected that it was something like a psychotic ex but your dad? "Yeah, he... he's got an anger management problem and..." "Did he hurt you?" "No... I mean he's not the kind of guy to hit you, but he always yelled a lot, still does to this very day...", you heave a sigh, unsure how to put this into words without sounding like a pathetic, whiny brat while piling even more bullshit on Rooster than you already had. "He snaps his finger and it doesn't matter how you feel, you have to function. Whatever he demands, you have to do it that very second or he starts yelling at you. Privacy is a concept he does not know, at least when it comes to others. There is no good or ok in his vocabulary. It's either perfect or wrong and god forbid that you have a different opinion from him on any topic, no matter how big or small because he will remind you of his superiority, even if it means that he ignores every argument you have, no matter how valid and yells until you yield, if out of fear or exhaustion doesn't matter", you are turning to the side and staring out of the window of the Bronco in a weak attempt to hide your tears. "And because he knows everything better he revels in watching you fail. It doesn't matter if it's something tiny or monumental. He remembers every mistake you ever made, every character flaw, every weakness or what he perceives as such. One of his personal favourites is my time at university. Before I went into disaster management I had a different major and I changed after I handed in my bachelor's thesis and with only two semesters left to finish. He's always having a fucking field day telling me what a waste of time, money and energy I am..." You press your hand to your stomach, using the resistance to have something to focus on while you breathe to calm down your heart that threatens to break free from your ribcage. "For him, all it would have taken is to stop being such a pussy and man up. What he loves to ignore is when every time you stand on a balcony or you look out of a window or you walk over a bridge and you cannot help but look down and estimate if it's high enough... it's long past the time when you should have called it quits", your voice is quiet and you close your eyes once more attempting to hold your tears back.

"With all due disrespect. Your father is an asshole who knows jack shit about you or life for that matter" His eyes are glued to your reflection in the window and seeing the tears that stream down your face makes his heartache and the fury return to his veins. No one deserved such a treatment, least of all you. "Nike look at me", he leans forward and turns your face with his hands, using his thumbs to wipe away your tears. "You are one of the strongest people I know. Your entire career is rooted in your wish to fix things. You bring people home safe and sound and I doubt it gets much more hardcore than being with the US Navy" "I don't serve", your voice is small and choked up from the tears and it makes him livid. A part of him hopes your father will show his sorry ass because heaven knows he'd love to drill some things into that thick skull of his. "You have your own office, you got a callsign. Fuck if the Admiral knew you'd use it you'd have your own parking lot" "I am a contractor", he sees how the tears he just wiped away are replaced by new ones and there is a desperation bubbling up in his chest. He needed you to see that you were more than what your father made you believe you are and it feels like he's failing you right now.

"Nike. You are the woman who 6 years 8 months and 14 days ago on her first fucking day on base marched into a briefing and told Cyclone to his face in front of the entire base leadership that his idea was bullshit", your eyes widen in shock and your gaze finally meets his. You had been told whatever was spoken in that room would never leave it. "How do you know?" "Are you kidding me? You became a legend that day. I have that day marked on my calendar. Fuck everyone on base marked that on their calendar. It was your first day on the job and you grilled him in front of everyone and lived to tell the tale", your eyes are wandering over his face, not sure what he was aiming at. You had done your job, nothing more and nothing less and he acted like you had brokered world peace or something. "That's what he hired me for. To make sure that the missions are successful while minimising the risks for all personnel involved" "I doubt that he expected you to do it that blunt in front of everyone", there is a chuckle falling from his lips and mischief twinkles in his eyes.

You had worked for years on base by this point and never once did you think you overstepped. Simpson sure as hell never told you so but now that you heard Roosters perspective it dawned on you. You weren't military so the chain of command wasn't drilled into you from day one. You had always viewed the Admiral as an equal, someone you work with on eye level to fulfil the mission and keep the people safe. It had never once occurred to you that the difference in position was so stark... "Don't worry about it. If he wouldn't respect you for that move he would have stopped working with you that day. I mean if any of us were scared of driving he would tell us to fucking walk home and for you, he's taking a detour to play shuttle" "He does what?" He should have kept his mouth shut. Considering your reaction Simpson didn't want you to know that, but now that it was out there, he couldn't take it back. "He promised my apartment was on the way..." "More like a 50-minute detour" "Fuck... and all I do is bring him muffins..." "I'd drive cross country for those muffins, no questions asked. They are worth their weight in gold" "How would you know that?" "He called me into his office for a meeting and they were on a plate on the desk" "You didn't..." "Yep. I totally did. Also for the record. Totally worth the 300 push-ups" "300?!?!" "I ate two"

When you finally manage to unlock the door to your apartment Rooster is startled at how clinical and empty it looks. There are no pictures on the wall. It’s all stark white contrasting with the darker floors. Your kitchen looks pretty unused and if he were a betting man he'd say that all he'll find in that fridge are some frozen meals at best. There was a tiny bookshelf in a corner that held only specialized literature about crisis and disaster management and the small couch and TV combo was barely enough for one person let alone to welcome friends over. Then his eyes fall over to the stacked moving boxes in the bay and that’s when it hits him. This is not a home, it’s a place to sleep. A place where you do not feel safe. You are ready to run at any given time. You’ve lived here for almost 7 years and you still expected the other shoe to drop.

“Sorry about this. I just never saw the necessity to…”, you begin and when your eyes meet his the pain you see knocks the air from your lungs. “Nike...”, he begins, making his way over to you to put his hands on your cheeks, wanting to pull you flush against his chest and kiss you. To show you that you didn’t need to live in a state that was more vegetative than anything else. But then he sees the shift in your body, eyes wide with panic and shortly thereafter the door flies open. No knocking, nothing. And in the doorway stands a man, about 5ft8, early to mid-sixties, with grey hair and beard.

“You finally done with hiding like a bratty child?”, he yells, stopping in his tracks when his eyes land on a man he'd never seen before standing right next to you in the living room. “And who would you be?” Your father knew you. You didn’t have friends let alone a boyfriend and no protective hand on your waist or furious glare would convince him otherwise. In three decades you hadn't managed to get a grip on your life and he had long given up hope that you'd finally get your shit together. It's not like your university escapades had been embarrassing enough or the fact you wasted 6 months in a clinic because you lost control. Even now when you have a job, he's still the one who has to tell his co-workers that his daughter hasn't managed to convince a man to stay, let alone start a family. No, you were still single and lived in a flat your father had been forced to help you find because you couldn’t manage on your own. Again.

From the moment he lays eyes on him Rooster hates this man with everything that he is. In about a minute he had shown him more than enough and the mere thought you had lived your entire life like this. Always waiting for him to barge in and yell at you, never feeling safe anywhere, never really being home. How were you supposed to have a normal childhood if all you've ever known was fear? Fear of failing his expectations and fear of his anger. He couldn't even begin to imagine how fucking exhausting that had to be. “Lieutenant Bradshaw. United States Navy”, he moves his body in between you and your father, a movement of instinct more than anything else.

Your father is taken by surprise. He knows you work in crisis management and that you’ve been hired by the Navy but he expected you to do paperwork, write base evacuation plans or coordinate shipments. A glorified secretary with a master's degree.

The silence in the place grew and the weight on you was unbearable. You knew you had to manage this, to keep the fallout minimal but with Rooster here, you couldn’t fall back into the default protocol. He was a variable you never had to calculate with in a situation like this and that made the unease even worse.

“And who are you to just barge into someone’s place without even the most basic courtesy of knocking on the door?” Rooster knew who he was and your father knew that he knew. “I am the father of the woman who’s hiding behind you like she's fucking five”, the disapproval and almost disdain for you in his voice is cutting. Of course, he would use this as yet another chance to tell you how weak and pathetic you were. It would have been a day to mark in the calendar if it weren’t so.

“And that justifies just slamming the door open and marching in like a fucking SWAT team?” The fury burned hotter in his veins with every second spent in your father's presence, every word, every breath pulling up the memories from last night. The way he found you in front of the Hard Deck, how terrified you were. You cried so bad your make-up was a mess and your mind had shut off to a degree you couldn't remember what happened the next morning. And still, that bastard stands there like it's the most normal thing in the world. Like he has every right on planet earth to make you feel like that, to force you to relive your trauma again and again and again. Your hand grabbed Rooster’s wrist in an attempt to pull him back and out of the confrontation. This would end badly if he kept going and you didn’t want that for him. He had done so much for you already, he didn’t need to get roped into that bullshit too, but Rooster did not budge. Quite contrary he even made another step closer to your father.

“This is my place. I co-signed the lease. It's the only reason why she's even having a roof over her head” “How generous of you to hold what every halfway decent father would do for his child over her head as if she fucking owes you for that” Rooster never had a chance to spend much time with his dad and growing up he envied whoever got that privilege but right now he realised for some people growing up without your father was a kinder fate. Your father raised his brow. Almost like he didn’t understand how someone could have the audacity to talk to him like that. “My relationship with my daughter is none of your business” “It became my business the second you treated one of my friends like a piece of trash” “Friend?”, the laughter was harsh, “She doesn't have friends” “Maybe it should give you a fucking pause if your own daughter decides to keep things like that a secret”, he barks back, his patience running very thin right now.

Rooster's fists are itching. He wants the beat that sarcastic smirk off your father’s face right here right now, but your hand is still wrapped around his wrist and he knows you didn’t want that, no matter how satisfying it might feel in the moment. You were too fucking kind for your own good. “Here I thought you were a soldier, but you sound like a shrink" “You don’t need to have a degree in psychology to get that your idea of family is fucked up. Why else would you push your suicidal daughter to keep on doing the thing that made her suicidal in the first place?" “Bradley”, you can see it in your father’s eyes. So far, he's been civil for his standards, but he was close to snapping and you feared what he’d do if Rooster kept on provoking him. Your father had never been physically violent towards you but you always backed down. “You have no fucking idea what you are talking about” “I know more than fucking enough”

You hear a knocking and when your eyes wander from your father to the open door you cannot believe who you see. Your father turns around too, eyes wandering over the group of people standing there. “Sorry for being late to the party. We miss somethin'?”, Hangman asks, his usual cocky features darkened and brows furrowed. Right next to him was Phoenix and then on either side of them Javy and Bob "And who do you think you are?" "For you, we'll be the four horsemen of the apocalypse", the threat in Phoenix's voice is obvious if her face wasn't enough of a tell already.

You stared up at Rooster who had a smug smirk on his face and when he looked down at you his features softened. “I thought just in case a companion is not enough and we do need the army”, he winks at you and it makes you choke up. It’s not just him who came through for you. It’s all of them, the entire squad even though you never talked much outside of mission briefings and when you yelled at them to stick to the plan. Even if you’d been brave enough to ask for help you would have never expected them to show. Especially so early on a Saturday morning.

Your father is perplexed too. This is a first for him. People who stand up to him and don't just back down and relent the second he gets loud and nasty. It means he’s shoved on unknown terrain and like a lot of people with anger issues, he’s getting the most vile when he’s insecure. "So that's how far you've fallen. You don't even bother with trying these days. No, instead of fighting your own wars you are hiding like a coward behind the people you send in to fix the fuckups of your own creation." The words hit you, bringing back the images from the restaurant. Everybody had been staring at you, no wonder considering the noise he made.

'A coward is what you are. Always looking for the easy way out. Always running away instead of manning up and fighting head-on'

"She'd be stupid to ride into Mordor alone", your eyes shoot over to Phoenix, eyes wide and surprise written all over your features. You had no idea she heard you back then when she tried to catch up with Rooster. "You take a companion. You bring an army, but you never go alone", Bob adds and gives you a gentle smile that makes a fresh set of tears run down your cheeks. "And who says shit like that?" "Nike", Javy deadpans. "Nike?" "Yeah, Nike. Your daughter's callsign", Javy cannot hide the irritation in his voice. This was absurd. That man was supposed to be your father and he didn't even know that much about you? "Like the fucking shoe brand?!?!" "More like the greek goddess of victory", Bob chimed in, turning to you with a small smile while you were digging your finger into Rooster's arm to have something to hold on to. "Goddess of victory? Her? As fucking if" You see the way your father looks between them, unable to hide his confusion before he follows their eyes to you, standing right next to Rooster who wrapped an arm around you to pull you even closer into his side.

"She's the best IC North Island ever had", Hangman gave you that signature smirk and a wink. To hear those words from him of all people made your heart swell. "You might not be aware of it, but you have a treasure for a daughter and considering that you treat her like the dirt under your heel I would suggest you reevaluate your coping strategy, Sir", even while he is angry, Bob stays as perfectly polite as ever, pushing his glasses a little up his nose. "But you don't have to take the word of the people whose lives she's responsible for", Phoenix makes a theatrical gesture out of checking her watch before she looks back to your father, "He might get a bit grumpy if we annoy him on a Saturday morning, but I am sure that nevertheless, Admiral Simpson would have no qualms about confirming Nike's spotless mission record"

Rooster feels how you are holding on tighter to him and he can see the confusion shimmering in your eyes as you watch the scene in front of you unfold. He knows that you have no idea what you meant to the people on base, the people you worked with. What you meant to him, even before he found you last night and it's beautiful to witness how the realisation slowly settles in that you are cherished, that there are people who respect you, your achievements and your hard work. People who care.

"I'm gonna make this very simple for you now", Rooster's voice is low and has an animalistic ring to it as he stares down your father, knowing that at a moment's notice, the rest of the dagger squad would be right there by his side. "You will turn around and carry your sorry ass out of this apartment. If I or any of my friends see you near Nike again, you will regret it. If you contact her in any shape or form, you will wish you'd never been born", his voice was cutting and calm, a storm raging right beneath his skin, almost hoping for him to talk back so he could finally give him the beating he deserved. "Are you threatening..." "No, we are not. We never would...", Phoenix has a sardonic smile playing on her lips as she walks around your father and positions herself to Rooster's left. "We are making a promise. Not that a man like you would know the difference", she's cocking her head a little and for the first time in your entire life, you see something like fear flittering over your father's features.

Coyote and Hangman step to the side to clear the way for him and you can see that he's livid, biting down on his lower lip so hard you wonder if he'd draw blood, but he stays quiet as he turns around and walks towards the door only to be stopped by Hangman's hand on his shoulder. "And remember. Even if we should be deployed there are thousands more where we came from who will step up gladly to put you in your place", he gives your father one of those blinding smiles that makes the women swoon but something is hiding in his eyes. A promise that if your father would do as much as breathe funny, he would gladly show him what skills you acquired in the Navy. And with that, your father leaves, not even muttering an insult under his breath the way he usually does as he steps out of the apartment.

The moment he rounds the corner you feel Rooster's arms wrap around you, pulling you into his chest and pressing his lips to the crown of your head. "We are all here for you. I am here for you. You are safe, beautiful"

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[sparklystarrrr]

Hopelessly Devoted to You

Synopsis: Riddle thinks you're cheating on him and decides to confront you.

Contains: Hurt to comfort and lotssss of fluffiness (Riddle crying makes me cry), Riddle x Fem!Reader, this is kinda long so beware!!

⊰᯽⊱┈─❊✙❊─┈⊰᯽⊱

It had been a particularly stressful day in Heartslabyul. With the Adeuce duo running around causing mayhem and the dorm members simply just being pains to deal with, plus Floyd finding him somehow in every hallway possible making Riddle run around all day, the poor boy was stressed to the heavens. After this long day of torture he was very excited to come back to his dorm, have a good book, and spend his free time with you. Oh, how he missed his girl, his rose. After this long day, all he needed was you.

Once he arrived back at his dorm he looked aimlessly through the large bookshelf on his wall. He's read basically every book in his shelf already so finding a new one would be a bit of a struggle. Luckily for him, he was up to the challenge. His grey eyes scanned up and down until he noticed a book that had not been there before. It was a white leather book with thin gold writing that spelled out "Diary". Hm... how curious. He flipped open to the first page and saw that your name was written on it. (Y/n) (L/n)... His eyes softened and a gentle smile formed on his face as his fingers traced your name in red ink on the lined page. This would certainly be a book he would be interested in reading.

He sat at his desk and set his blazer to hang on his chair. He got himself comfortable there to read all the thoughts his sweet lover had. Although now that he thought about it, maybe he should ask you first? Well, he couldn't possibly ask you now since you're in a lecture currently. You wouldn't mind... he's sure of it, or maybe that's just the temptation he has to read this book that's all about you and what goes on in that mind of yours. It felt wrong, but his hands flipped to the next page, then the page after that, and the one after, and then slowly but surely he'd made his way through the book.

He felt a sharp pain in his chest. In the book you had written about your time at school and with your friends but not one page had been about him.... A large majority of said book had been all about some other man...

According to your diary, this man was tall, he had "pretty eyes", he had some mood swings but you seemed to love them, and a warm embrace. You wrote about him every day. About how his eyes shined whenever he saw you. About how he was such a gentleman and protected you at any cost. How his mood swings were easy to calm with a hug or kiss. You knew how stressed this man was and on the daily and did everything you could to help him relax like making his favorite foods and spoil him with cuddles whenever you weren't too busy. His heart hurt terribly.

The girl he loved the most in this twisted world was sharing her affection with this mysterious man while being with him? You did all of this with him, made him feel like the most special man in the world, just for you to go and do the same thing for some boy. His throat began to feel tight like there was some force suffocating him. There was a heaviness in his chest that began to feel painful. The book was shut with force that couldn't be described as anger, but only hurt.

He was so lost in thoughts running wildly through his mind that he didn't hear the heels walking towards his door that belonged to none other than you. While opening the door, you heard the screeching of a chair being dragged across the floor with force. You looked in, concerned about what was going on with Riddle."Riddle? What's wro-" Before your sentence could finish, he pointed an accusing finger at you. "You... You've cheated! After all we've been through? I loved you to my hearts content (Y/n)! I changed for you, all for you to destroy me behind my back and leave me with nothing. Have you no shame?!" He yelled as if it was word vomit. His chest heaved and his hands shook, his face quickly turning that angry red.

Your startled form quickly stiffened at the sudden screaming and you shut the door. "Riddle, what nonsense is that?!" You yelled back in shock of the accusation." Tears nearly pricked your eyes. This wouldn't be the end of you two, right? This is all a misunderstanding, you've been devoted to the man you love, Riddle, for the longest time. You'd never cheat on such a lovely man. You held out your phone. "Check anything you'd like, even my mail, I can assure you that I've not cheated Riddle!" It was a plea for him to believe your word. Out of anyone in this situation he simply had to believe you. You two have known each other for years and this couldn't all end because of a misunderstanding.

He brushed off looking at your phone or mail for that matter. "That doesn't matter one bit! What are you going to say about what I found over there?!" He quickly pointed to the bookshelf. You immediately knew what he was insinuating. The diary you kept in the bookshelf of his room. It was only there because you enjoyed writing things in his room, it felt like a great place to focus and write your feelings out. Most entries were about Riddle and some school matters. It seemed as though he went through it, thinking all the entries that had been devoted to him were about some other boy..?

"Riddle, had you gone through my diary? The white book I keep on that shelf?" You weren't particularly mad or anything, just a bit confused. He turned to his desk and aggressively grabbed the book. It was indeed your diary. "Of course I did, what other way was I supposed to catch you in this affair?" His voice cracked a bit and his fingers clawed into the leather of the book. You sighed. 'He is aware my heart belongs to him, right?' You thought."Dear, what other boy would I be writing about?" Responding as gently as possible without showing how shaken up you were about this whole situation.

Riddle paused for a moment seeming to be lost in thought. "Floyd... possibly?"He responded, tone turning somewhat unsure. Now that he heard it out loud, it really didn't make much sense to him. "Riddle, did you read all the entries about me professing my love to a man I'm deeply in love with? Is that what this is about?" You made your way towards him and to flip through the pages to see what he was looking at. He nodded his head in response, keeping his eyes straight ahead to avoid eye contact with you. "Every single one..."

Once you reached him and looked over his shoulder, there was a page laid out that you knew all too well. It was a page you wrote while Riddle had been asleep in your lap after a long day of dealing with unruly students, confessing all the fleeting things you truly felt about him. You smiled gently against his shoulder while reading the entry back to yourself, knowing you truly meant it all. You looked up at him with a delicate smile and shining (e/c) eyes. "These are about you, Dear..."You slowly hugged his side, hoping to cheer him up.

Riddle felt a pang of shame wash over him once he heard your words. It was then he realized the huge misunderstanding; accusing you of cheating on him though he should've known better. He sighed and leaned into your touch, eyes shutting,"...I'm sorry.. I didn't even stop to think- I'm so deeply sorry..." He mumbled out while looking away in shame. "... No need to apologize, I understand that my entries were not clear, but in my defense I didn't expect you to read them. Had I known, I would've written your name in bold, red ink." You let his head rest on your shoulder and held it there gently, playing with his soft red hair.

He relaxed into your touch and hooked an arm around your waist, the sound of your voice and the feeling of your hand in his hair being soothing after the stressful events that occurred during this long day. He exhaled softly before speaking,"I should've asked you first... Instead of just going through your diary. That was completely out of line..." His deflated voice spoke. "Yes, maybe you should've, but I don't mind. What's mine is yours and the other way around. We don't need to hide anything from each other. But please do tell me next time so we discuss it properly." You grabbed the book out of his hands and tossed it onto the ground, then holding him closer.

Riddle sighed, burying his face into the crook of your neck. Your words and actions slowly began to ease his worries. "Yes, I suppose that would be best." He replied quietly, his grip on your waist was firm yet gentle. He could feel the tension in his body slowly melt away, replaced by a sense of comfort and security in your embrace. "But... I can't help but be afraid... that one day, you'll grow tired of me.. and leave me for someone else.."

You heard that crack in his voice once more, you knew how much it hurt him to believe that your devotion had gone to some mysterious man. You would make sure that that thought would never cross his mind again. "Riddle, my love... I will never leave you. That's a promise I will never go back on. I've been left by many people and I've left a couple of people too, but you and I will never be separated. I will always be here." You kissed the top of his head and rubbed your fingers in circles on his back.

He tightened his hold on you as a wave of overwhelming emotions washed over him. He never knew how much he needed to hear those words, to know that he was truly loved and wanted by someone, and that someone being you. For the first time he felt a sense of security. His chest felt heavy again, but not with hurt, with true love. "You... you promise that you'll never leave me?" He asked. His voice coming out small and vulnerable. He needed to hear you say it again, to know that he was not just something temporary to you. "I promise that... I will never leave your side." You said with confidence and kissed the top of his head once more.

Small sniffles were heard from the red haired boy as he held on as tight as he could. You slowly helped him walk over to sit on the edge of his plush bed. His hands still held onto you as if you'd disappear if he didn't. His head rested against your chest, calming himself to the sound of your heart beating. He hated how he was acting and how vulnerable he was in this moment, but he couldn't help it. He needed you like he needed oxygen. He needed to feel your touch, your warmth, your comfort, to know that you were really there with him, that you weren't going to leave him alone. It was his first time really feeling truly loved and cared for and he couldn't just let you slip from his hands.

"Hey Riddle, wanna know something?" You said with a cheeky smile, thinking of a little idea to cheer him up. He looked up from your chest curiously with his sparkly eyes slightly red and puffy. His brow arched in confusion and he hummed a small "Hm?" while looking up at you.

You pressed a soft, warm kiss onto his forehead, cheeks, nose and lastly his lips, leaving small red lipstick marks where you kissed him. "I love you." His cheeks and the tips of his ears turned a bright pink and he seemed to be getting a bit shy at the sudden warm affection. His straight laced lips curled into a smile, his eyes glistening a little more too. "I love you too, my rose." And with that, a soft kiss on the lips was shared between the two of you, preparing for an evening full of warm and reassuring affection.<33

⊰᯽⊱┈─❊✙❊─┈⊰᯽⊱

Sorry for how long it is, I love Riddle I wanna protect him with my life(or squeeze him until he pops)<3

[another-whump-sideblog]

Hey, your “Whumper with mind powers” bit? God, yes, please. Exactly. I feel that so deeply, and I know so many other people do too. I would throw real money at you to continue that story, I’m imagining carewhumper taking care of their new pet for the first time since whumpee didn’t have the spoons to take care of themselves and basic stuff like a shower and eating properly fell to the wayside.

Original post

Thank you, I'm so glad you liked it! Hopefully this is to your liking

Just as Whumper said, Whumpee wakes up feeling alert and well-rested, without the pain they've gotten so used to.

"How do you feel?" Whumper smiles warmly.

"I feel great-- thank you, thank you, what can I do to repay you?"

"Let's not worry about that just yet." Whumper undoes Whumpee's restraints. "You haven't had a proper meal in far too long."

Whumpee hops to their feet. They feel so good. They could do anything. Things they've wanted to do but not had the energy for pop into their mind-- they could audition for a play. They could clean out their bathroom drawers. They could join a club, learn a new language, anything!

Whumper sits them down at a table and comes back a few minutes later with food. "I made cucumber sandwiches."

Whumpee grimaces. Being polite doesn't occur to them-- they can be honest with Whumper. They need to be honest with Whumper, to tell them everything. "I don't like that."

"I know. But guess what? I can make you like them. I can make eating them trigger as much pleasure as eating ice cream. Do you want to see?"

They do, so they take a sandwich and begin eating it.

It's so good. It's the best thing they've ever eaten. "It works!"

Whumper laughs. "You don't need to sound so surprised. Try not to eat too fast, I don't want you to choke."

Whumpee's always been a fast eater, but with Whumper's order it becomes easy to take small bites at a time and savor their meal. When they finish, they feel pleasantly full.

Whumper pets their hair, and for a moment Whumpee wants to pull away, but that's quickly replaced by bliss.

"I wouldn't touch you if you didn't want it." Whumper murmurs. "But you do. You're just also ashamed of wanting it, so I turned that off. Isn't it nice, to enjoy physical contact without shame?"

"Yes, Whumper. It's so nice..."

Whumper pets Whumpee's hair for a bit longer before stopping. "Let's get you cleaned up. Follow me."

Whumper takes Whumpee to a bathroom and directs them to take a shower, which they gladly do. It's so easy, everything is so easy with Whumper.

When they're done with their shower, Whumper dresses them in a familiar uniform. They've seen Whumper's other victims helpers wearing these.

Whumper's hand is back in their hair, and Whumpee feels so good they hardly think. They're full and clean and loved.

"Now, let's talk about the repayment you mentioned earlier."