#before you say no one asked.... someone asked!!

[lovemomhatepolice]

what brought back that smile? - lando norris

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pairing: lando norris x fem! reader

warnings: kinda established relationship, fresh relationship, curious muppets!, English is my second language!

type: fluff, pure fluff

word count: 3,5k

summary: 5 times when someone asked the reason for Lando's sudden surge of happiness, but he preferred to keep his sweet secrets to himself

more content: f1 masterlist, lando norris masterlist, birthday one-shot

Since Lando Norris broke up with his then-girlfriend Luishina in 2022, no one has seen him this happy since. Of course, there have been moments where Lando walked around smiling - for example, when he won his first race in Miami or partying with friends in Ibiza. On more than one occasion, fans saw him joking and laughing until his stomach hurt with other drivers, but further down the line, everyone knew that the old Lando was gone. The one who laughed through love. The one foolishly in love, who proved it at every turn. Since his former relationship, Lando hasn't bonded with anyone - there were only rumors of fleeting romances or PR relationships. Until recently. In fact, no one knows when it took place. And since when Lando felt like a foolishly infatuated boy again.

THE FIRST TIME: Oscar Piastri When Oscar noticed changes in Lando's behavior, it was not much before the Japanese race. Or at least it wasn't so visible before. Norris was walking around smiling from ear to ear, constantly forgetting what he should do or who he should talk to about the changes in the car. No one paid much attention to it, and Oscar initially tried to ignore it as well, and winning in Miami a month later further eclipsed the spy's thoughts. After all, Lando had won his first race after so long in Formula One and so many times standing on the podium. The Mclaren drivers weren't the best of friends on the grid, but Oscar knew it wasn't because of winning the race. Or at least not just because of that.

Oscar was curious, even if he said very little about his life, the Lando case drilled him from the bottom up. And it started off small.

One morning 2 weeks after the Miami race, Lando showed up for a meeting with a goofy smile on his face. His attention was focused on everything during the strategy discussion, his mind was clearly elsewhere.

“Are you okay?” asked Oscar, poking his teammate under the table. As if awakened from his trance, Lando stopped tapping his fingers against his thigh and turned his head toward the Australian, smiling that silly grin again. “Yeah, all good, mate. “ he asked, tilting his head to the side. Oh, how foolishly charmed he was. “Why do you ask?”

Oscar shrugged. “I dunno. You just seem... happier these days. What brought back that smile?”

The question hung in the air for a long moment. Lando hung his head and laughed quietly under his breath, as if he was thinking whether he wanted to say it or rather not. And that was the option he chose, keeping his new infatuation to himself.

“Well, you know, buddy, I won a race recently. A chance to celebrate, huh?”

Oscar laughed, but couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else behind that smile, and that Lando was lying right in his eyes. Something - or someone - had brought back that trademark Lando smile. But Oscar decided to let it go for now.

Meanwhile, Lando was smiling to himself. Was it really that noticeable? Could everyone now know his sweet secret?

Such questions were cluttering his mind, but he tried not to worry about them. They were quickly superseded by thoughts of [Y.N]. It was wild how fast she had slipped into his life. What had started as a chance meeting turned into hours of effortless conversation, late-night phone calls, and a connection that had somehow brought him back to life. He hadn't felt this way since…. well, he couldn't remember the last time. And that was the point of it all.

MUPPETS: Carlos Sainz Jr Carlos had known Lando since 2019, so this year was their 5th anniversary of knowing each other. From the very beginning, the men, despite the age difference, got along great. And they soon became friends, too, supporting each other in worse and better moments. You could say they knew each other like the back of their hand, so while Lando was drifting away more and more each possible time during their conversations, the Spaniard had no more questions or thoughts. He was well aware that his younger friend's head was occupied by not something, but someone.

The sun beat down on the lush green of the golf course, the Spanish heat was unrelenting even in the early hours of the day. Carlos set up for his shot, squinting against the blinding glare, while Lando stood to the side, waiting his turn. It was a rare moment of calm before the chaos of the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, and Carlos was glad to be spending it with his best friend.

Until he saw Lando miss every time, which hadn't happened all that often before. Well, okay, Lando was worse than Carlos at golf, but to that extent?

And those constant glances at the phone, which he was so reluctant to leave in the golf cart.

“Ay, muppet. What the hell is wrong with you?” rang out Carlos' voice as he hit the ball.

Of course it flew cleanly where it was supposed to fly. But what's the pleasure of playing as your friend drills a hole in the grass with his club, his other hand constantly checking his phone screen?

"Huh?" Lando snapped out of his trance. This had been happening to him more and more often lately, nay, it had been happening to him for more than three months now.

“You’ve been smiling like an idiot all day,” Carlos teased, though his tone was softer, more curious than mocking. “Actually, you’ve been like this for weeks like not months now. So, tell me—who is she?”

Lando’s cheeks flushed pink, and he quickly turned his attention to the golf ball at his feet, fiddling with his club. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered, but there was a grin he couldn’t quite suppress. And in fact, I don't think he wanted to get rid of it.

Carlos laughed, poking Lando playfully on the shoulder. “Come on, cabrón. I know you too well and it's been a long time since you've been this happy. So who's the lucky girl? Who brought back that smile?”

Lando sighed under his breath - he knew he could trust Carlos, he was his best friend. He just liked the fact that he and [Y.N] were in a closed bubble of happiness that they had made for themselves in three months. Of course it was still fresh and nothing was certain yet, but Lando gave in. To whom as to whom, but to Carlos he already had to tell. It was drilling him from the inside.

“It's … nothing serious,” Lando finally said, shrugging his shoulders as if it was no big deal. “It's just… I'm meeting someone. I'm trying to keep it discreet.”

Carlos raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. “Dude, I've known you long enough to know when you're serious about someone,” he said, and his voice became softer. “And if she makes you smile like that, I'd say it's more than a casual.”

Lando bit his lip, trying to hide the smile that threatened to break through. The truth was that [Y.N] had quickly become the best part of his days.

“Maybe,” he admitted, finally meeting Carlos' gaze. “But for now it's just … between us, sure?

Carlos clapped Lando on the back, a broad grin on his face. “I’m happy for you, hermano. And don’t worry—I won’t tell anyone. But I have to say, it’s good to see you like this again.”

They both laughed and Lando already knew he was lost. Together, with Carlos, were like the biggest gossips, so he quickly unlocked his phone, even jumping up and down with happiness, wanting to show Carlos some pictures of them together. What luck befell him when he found out that [Y.N] also loves to take pictures.

Carlos leaned closer, curious. Lando pulled out a photo from a few weeks ago - from his once-in-a-lifetime date with [Y.N]. They were sitting on a blanket in a meadow somewhere by the water, the golden sunset casting a warm glow over them. The girl's head was tilted toward him and resting on his shoulder, her eyes were crinkling with laughter, and Lando looked happier than Carlos had seen him in a long time. His hand was on the girl's shoulders, visibly embracing her closer to him.

“I want her to be the one, you know?” muttered Lando, smiling even wider when he saw the notification from her.

LUCKY CHARM: Lando's parents Lando was able to hide his fresh relationship from his friends, from his fans and from the rest of the world. But he definitely couldn't hide it from his parents and siblings. Not even a month of knowing [Y.N] had passed when he vividly talked about how much he had fallen in love and how he hoped she was the one and last woman in his life. His loved ones were damn happy to finally see the most sincere smile of his entire life on the face of this little Lando Norris.

The air around Silverstone was charged with electricity, and the energy of the home crowd gave Lando joy like no other race on the calendar. Walking through the bustling paddock, he felt lighter than he had in years. It wasn't just the thrill of racing on his own track - it was the realization that somewhere among the sea of faces there was [Y.N], watching him.

Fortunately, he managed to smuggle her into a private hospitality suite, away from prying cameras, journalists and fans. They had been seeing each other for almost four months, in truth they were not a couple, but everything was going for it. Lando wasn't the only one who was foolishly infatuated with the relationship; the girl, like him, walked around with her head in the clouds, as her university colleagues or friends seemed to notice more than once. But in her case it was easier to hide, after all, she didn't have a million eyes on her like Lando did.

When Lando entered his private area in the Mclaren garage, he immediately noticed his parents, sisters and brother, who were smiling at him from ear to ear. The entire Norris family had a close relationship with each other, so of course everyone knew about Lando's new sweetheart, whom he had been dating with for four months.

“And there's our smiling boy!” laughed Lando's mother, hugging her son tightly. The driver laughed under his breath, hugging his family one by one, fortunately in a place where the eyes of others did not reach and they could have a moment of peace. “I'm glad you're all here,” Lando said, stroking his younger sister Flo's hair.

“How could we not be here?” asked Oliver, Lando's brother, laughing under his breath.

The atmosphere was great, however, everyone knew this question would come sooner than perhaps it should?

“Well, you know what, tell us where she is,” said Lando's dad, poking him lightly on the shoulder. “You're laughing so hard, I won't believe she's not here.”

“Yes! Show us finally what brought back that smile,” said his mom, echoing her husband.

Lando felt his face heat up, but he couldn’t keep the grin from spreading. “You two don’t miss a thing, do you?” he said, shaking his head.

“We just want to meet her,” his mum said softly, eyes twinkling with warmth. “We’ve heard so much about her, and if she’s the reason our son’s been so happy lately, we’d love to say hello.”

After a moment's thought, Lando nodded. “All right. I'll bring her - but behave,” he said with nervous but excited energy.

Lando slipped stealthily out of the garage and headed for his room, which only he and a few Mclaren people had access to. Although it was a rather hidden place, [Y.N] did not complain. She could wait out the time until the race in peace, just as she could go out to Mclaren's garage and watch it there. Lando made her as comfortable as possible.

When the girl saw him, she raised her eyes and smiled warmly in his direction. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yes, everything is fine,” he assured her, taking her hand in his. At the same time, he forced her to get up from the soft couch. “But… there is someone who wants to meet you. My family is even dying to meet the woman of my heart.”

The girl took a deep breath and smiled. “I'd love to meet them.”

Holding hands, they returned to the hospitality. When they went inside, Lando's mother sighed quietly and immediately crossed the room to hug [Y.N]. “Oh, how nice to finally meet you,” she said, and her voice was filled with sincere warmth.

“She's beautiful,” Cisca whispered, looking at Lando. The boy only whispered a quiet “I know” and laughed under his breath.

Immediately the whole family greeted the girl, hugging her tightly and bestowing kind words on her, including telling her how happy they were that she was making Lando so happy again. And everything was somehow better. His parents and siblings were talking to the girl he'd had in his heart for several months, and everything was going smoothly. Lando was just standing off to the side, keeping his hand on her back and giving her a little kiss to make her feel better. But he was probably the most stressed one there.

Lando checked his watch, feeling the familiar pre-start jitters begin to overwhelm him. But today he felt a little better than usual.

“I have to go now,” he said reluctantly, turning to face the girl. His parents moved away to give them a moment of privacy.

“You can do it, you're amazing on the track,” she purred, placing her hands on his shoulders and gently correcting his suit.

Lando merely smiled in her direction and without hesitation placed his hand on her cheek and leaned in, pressing their lips together in a quick but tender kiss. This was not how they had imagined their first kiss, but in that moment it was their best memory and the time this kiss could have happened. Lando pulled away from [Y.N], their eyes met and they both smiled at each other, giggling under their breath.

Lando checked his watch, feeling the familiar pre-race jitters starting to creep in.

“I’ve got to go,” he said reluctantly, turning to her. His parents stepped back to give them a moment of privacy.

“Good luck out there,” she whispered, her eyes shining with pride. “You’re going to do amazing.”

Lando smiled, but there was a flicker of nerves in his eyes. “I hope so. This one’s important,” he said softly.

[Y.N] reached up, cupping his cheek with her hand. “You’ve got this, Lando. I believe in you.”

Without thinking, Lando leaned in, pressing his lips to hers in a swift, impulsive kiss. It wasn’t planned, but in that moment, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. He pulled back, their eyes locking, and they both smiled.

“For good luck,” he whispered, his voice low enough that only she could hear.

And even if he came in third place after the race, it didn't bother him much. He won something better and it was an amazing woman.

HI IBIZA: Max Fewtrell stream Max knew Lando since they were kids. Both could not imagine life without the other person, they were inseparable. Even if it didn't work out for them to be Formula One drivers by their side, it didn't change anything. They were always side by side, and as soon as Max heard about Lando's new crush, he knew this was the one. Norris had never talked so seriously and eagerly about any girl before. And Max liked to tease him about it. But at the same time, he was damn happy.

The warm glow of sunset in Ibiza paints everything with a golden sheen. Lando Norris, Max Fewtrell and their group of friends held a casual live stream at their bungalow, which they rented for the whole group of friends. This stream was definitely different from their typical ones, where they played games on two different sides of the screen, but that was good too.

Everyone was more muted than at times when they were playing and shouting at each other. However, the biggest difference could be felt in Lando. He was more subdued, gently but sincerely smiling, and his eyes shone with such happiness that you could envy him.

The stream had been going on for about an hour, and the fans didn't run out of questions. They were inundated with the same questions as always, but today they had more opportunity to answer them because they weren't stressed by the background game. Lando kept getting questions about the Championship, the races, the competition and some side silliness. Until Max caught one significant comment among thousands of others. And of course he had to ask them.

Fan comment: "Lando, what brought back that smile? It's been a long time since we've seen you so happy, and of course that's great, but what's your secret?"

Max looks at Lando with a smile and winks. "Good question," he says, leaning back in his chair. "So, man, what's been making you so happy lately?"

"Oh, you know. Life has been better lately. Beautiful weather, sunshine, we have a beach house. The break from racing is good for me too, my head isn't as busy," Lando replied, playing with his hair and smiling under his breath.

Oh how he lied, how he lied to keep his bubble of happiness calm even longer.

"Really? Gee, I guess I agree with that comment, you're somehow happier lately," said Max, glancing at Lando with a teasing look. He remembered well how Lando had talked down his relationship on the stream, but he wasn't going to do the same to him. "Or maybe you've found a hobby other than Formula One?"

"Maybe," he laughed lightly under his breath, feeling the warmth inside his body. "I guess I just got old and I'm not that rebellious 20-year-old anymore "

"Oh, it's definitely old age, you name it" Max laughed and went back to looking for interesting comments, leaving the matter of Lando's happiness. He wanted his friend to still have peace from prying eyes.

After the stream was over, everyone went their separate ways. Some decided to have a bonfire, but Lando felt he needed the solitude. He walked out to the beach, which they had right outside the gate of their cottage, and felt the cooler evening wind brush his face. He smiled under his breath when he saw [Y.N] by the shore. It wasn't a smile that the cameras could see; he reserved this one for her alone.

The girl was wearing a white loose dress that swayed gently in the wind, and her hair was tousled by the wind. It wasn't a moment before she heard him and gently turned toward him, giving him a beautiful smile. "Have you finished the stream yet?"

"It's been a while now," Lando stepped closer, feeling the sand under his feet surround him pleasantly. "I had to get away from the chaos. And the fans are getting curious, they asked what secret I have"

Girl raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "Secret? What secret?"

Lando smiles mischievously and walks closer. "That I'm the happiest I've been in years." - he says in a quiet but sincere voice.

[Y.N] smiles, her eyes sparkling in the moonlight. Without another word, she steps into his arms, and Lando doesn't hesitate to wrap his arms around her, pulling her close. They stand there for a moment, just the two of them, the sound of the waves crashing in the background. Lando takes a deep breath and places a kiss on her hair, pulling her even closer to him. It was the peace he had needed for a long time

FIRST CHRISMTAS: [Y.N] Lando and [Y.N] had been together for almost half a year. Their lives were filled with happiness that neither of them had ever experienced before. From the first day, they understood each other like two peas in a pod, and that's how it stayed. That's why she was surprised by how happy Lando was.

The couple in love are together in the kitchen, with the countertop in front of them strewn with flour and other ingredients for making gingerbread cookies. [Y.N] is wearing one of Lando's voluminous sweaters and humming a Christmas carol, pacing next to the countertop. Lando, on the other hand, dressed in his loose Mclaren T-shirt and Christmas pajama pants, is trying to roll out the dough, but it's not going well. His hands are covered in flour and the dough keeps sticking to the rolling pin. Well, it's easier to say that his whole body is covered in flour.

"Do you need help, chef?" - asks [Y.N], leaning against the countertop and looking at him with an amused smile.

Lando raises his gaze, feigning impatience. "It's harder than it looks, sure?" - He laughs, combing his flour-dusted hair with his hand. "I thought baking was supposed to be easy."

"It's easy, you just have some manual problems," the girl laughs and moves to his side, gently taking the rolling pin from his hands. "Here, let me," she says, guiding him to the side. Their fingers brush as she takes over, a soft, tender moment.

"Sure, my baking queen," the boy laughs, looking at her with adoration.

"You could do the icing." the girl says, pointing to the already made gingerbread cookies.

Lando's eyes brighten, his smile widening. "Icing, huh? That's sounds better." He grabs a piping bag and starts filling it, but as he attempts to pipe a simple design, it all goes horribly wrong.

“Lando!” she laughs, her eyes crinkling with amusement. The icing has spilled everywhere.

He looks down at his hands, dripping with icing. “Well, that’s not what I had in mind…” He shrugs sheepishly.

“You’re adorable when you try, you know that?” She leans in and wipes a bit of icing from his cheek, her thumb brushing against his skin.

“And you’re just adorable,” he says, moving closer to her.

Lando’s hands quickly find their place on her waist, and his face is twisted into a genuine big smile. They both giggle, putting the matter of the cookies aside.

“What brought that smile again, huh?” the girl asks, touching his lips, which is also dirty with icing.

“You,” he says simply, and his voice carries a quiet sincerity that makes her heart skip a beat. "It was always you"

For a moment, they both stand in silence, the hum of the Christmas music in the background, the quiet crackling of the small fire in the corner of the livingroom adding to the coziness of the apartment. It’s a peaceful stillness, the kind that only exists between two people who’ve found something real.

A/N: i know it's no nut november and this should be smut but i swear when i had a vision i had to write this. i hope you like it because i won't lie, i fucking love it!

please do not copy and translate my works! in case of any issues related to this - I invite you to discuss privately :)

[rafesweetie]

in which you’re forced into having a talk with your ex-boyfriend, rafe cameron, on the boat ride to morocco.

being a pogue and rafe cameron’s ex was not easy. although you dated shortly before he killed peterkin, and you were sure he barely even remembered your favourite colour, seeing him blatanly disrespect you and his friends, and go down a path you tried so hard to prevent him from, was hard to watch. but now he’s picked himself up since ward died. you thought you had another chance to at least be on good terms. sending flowers and a card to tanneyhill when ward died, smiling at him when you’d see him around. it didn’t work, he still hated you and your friends.

fortunately, he redeemed himself ever so slightly by volunteering to take the pogues to morocco. rafe had to find chandler groff, you guys wanted the blue crown. it was perfect.

until jj punched him, that is. he knocked him out cold. with a scolding “jj!” coming from majority of the pogues, including you, jj carries him down into the downstairs washroom and ties his wrists to a pole. they don’t trust him, which is fair. you don’t either — you shouldn’t, anyway.

rafe was down there quietly for a mere half hour until he woke up with a groan from his head hitting the ground earlier, followed up with yelling once he realizes he was stuck down there.

all touching your noses and saying ‘not it’ the minute pope suggests someone going down there to check on him, you’re the unlucky one who said it last. shutting up your protests, john b gently coaxes you downstairs, saying things like, “you used to mack on him”, “this is good, you know him”, “he won’t hurt you,” john b leaves you downstairs once you make it to the door of the bathroom. knocking gently, you timidly ask, “can i come in?”

there’s no answer. you can picture him. wrists tied, brows furrowed, eyes closed tightly as his head leans against the wall and towards the ceiling. his gorgeous stressed face. you slowly open the door, peeking your head in. “hi,” you say gently, timid around the scary and aggressive man you have the curse of calling your ex.

“…hey,” rafe says, voice rough as he shuts his eyes tight.

unsure what to say, you awkwardly stand there and stare down at him. “um, i brought asprin,”

“right, right, like i can fuckin’ swallow it. what, you gonna throw it in my mouth like a.. seal or something?” sassy, his upper lip lifts a bit as he thinks about it and isn’t very fond of the idea.

a second of silence as you figure out what to say. “…um, ill just set it down here,” you say, putting the container down beside him. “sorry about your head.”

“yeah, uh, your little boyfriend can’t control his fists, huh?”

“…not my boyfriend,” you correct softly, though you’re not sure why you feel the need to tell him that. “but no one really.. trusts you, rafe, so you kind of brought this on yourself—“

he quickly interrupts you. “bullshit. you know why that’s bullshit? because i was helping. who got you this boat, huh? me. i did. rafe. i’m the reason that you guys aren’t swimming, or some shit, to north africa. i’m being helpful and understanding, and this is what i get. you think that’s fair?” when you’re stood there in silence at his sudden raised voice, he repeats, “you think that’s fucking fair, y/n!?” he kicks a can in anger.

it’s like you’re his girlfriend again as you sit down next to him instantly instead of running. you get deja vu to the time three years ago when he was high on coke and got kicked out of the house. everyone ignored him except for you. “..um, okay, i’m gonna give you some asprin,” you say softly. “help your head. open,” you tell him, grabbing a pill as he gives you a look but opens his mouth. you pop it in his mouth and he dry swallows. “there.”

you two share a look. you don’t think it’s a bad look by any means. he looks frustrated still, but there’s an underlying gentleness in his eyes, as if he registers you’re still the same girl you were when you two were together. “…and, um, for the record, i don’t think it’s fair that you’re down here. you helped us, thats.. nice.”

the word ‘us’ when referring to you and the pogues makes him feel weird. “i don’t get why you hang out with them,” he mutters as he looks at the ground. “tried so fucking hard to keep you away from them when we were.. together.”

“i know,” you whisper, your gaze dropping as well, to his tied wrists. you feel awful. “trust me, your warnings still play in my head when i’m with them sometimes,”

“you remind me of sarah.” he says. you’re not sure what that means.

“you hate sarah,”

“nah, nah— i don’t hate her. hate who she’s turned into,” he adjusts himself. “she makes me sad. i’m sad for her, alright? she had so much potential.“ he shrugs. “but there’s no saving her. she’s in too deep,” he looks back up at you again. “i think there’s saving you, though,”

“…this is weird, rafe,”

“how?” he asks.

“because in the years we’ve been broken up, you’ve never talked to me about this. feels like it’s a… trick or something,”

“it’s not a trick,” he assures, voice still rough. “look, i’m out half a mill, i’m tied up in a bathroom, i’m probably gonna.. die or something. i got nothing to lose, may as well tell you my concern,”

“um, i appreciate it,” you say gently, unsure how to respond. “and i’m gonna go back upstairs.”

“hey— no, woah, woah, woah,” he stops you quickly. “stay. okay?”

“i should go up and help with dinner, though—“

“no, stay. i— i want you to stay, okay? i don’t wanna be down here alone, and i want you away from the pogues,”

he doesn’t wanna be alone. you feel bad for him all over again, nodding gently as you sit back down beside him. you always were so good for rafe.

you’re not sure how long you’ll be down here with him. maybe until it’s late at night and he’s asleep. so gently, after about five minutes of silence, to ease some of the tension and pass the time, you murmur a, “truth or dare?”

rafe just smiles.

[moonstruckme]

Hey angel!! hope ur doing well!!

i was wondering if I could request roommate!marauders where they have crushes on reader buttt she already has a bf but he's just a total jerk.... and u sorta get the idea?? (if u haven't done one like this already)

much love!!! <3333

Thank you for requesting lovely <3

cw: douchebag boyfriend, marauders fancy reader but don't genuinely want her to cheat or end her relationship for them

(poly)roommate!marauders x fem!reader ♡ 1.1k words

It’s heartbreaking how lovely you look first thing in the morning. Sweet, rumpled pajamas, plodding gait, sunlight stretching over features still soft with sleep. You raise your hand to cover a yawn as you enter the kitchen, eyelashes still drooping like they’ve weights sewn into them. 

“Morning,” you say on the tail end. 

“Morning.” James opens one arm to you. You step into the hug automatically, and he drops a kiss to your head, his own private indulgence. You’re eyeing the omelet he’s frying up with his other hand. “Want one?” 

“Mm, wish I could,” your voice is a somnolent mumble, “but Dale’s taking me to breakfast in a bit.” 

James tries not to react, but his hold on you stiffens some. From the living room, he hears Sirius scoff. “Oh.” 

“I’m sure your omelet would be better.” You pat his side, moving out from under his arm to go to the coffee pot. “We’re going to this cafe he likes, and they never have anything I want. Still, I can hardly show up full.” 

James feels himself frown. Typical of your boyfriend to take you somewhere you don’t even like. Perhaps he’s a tad biased, but James thinks you should eat one of his omelets and show up full just to teach him a lesson. 

He plates up the one he’s just finished. You tail him into the living room as he delivers it to Sirius, curling your feet up underneath you on the couch. Remus is sitting in the armchair reading the paper. He and James have already had their breakfasts, but you and Sirius are always the last up on weekends.

“Are you finished with the funnies?” you ask Remus. 

He looks up at you with a tenderness James doesn’t know how you can’t see. “Yeah,” he says, shaking out a page. “Here.” 

Sirius snickers at your choice of reading material as you reach across him for it. You nudge his thigh with your knee. “Bite me.” 

“Anywhere you’d like me to, babe.” He winks. 

You roll your eyes and fold the page to read, well used to Sirius’ flirting. Similarly to how he’d done with Remus, Sirius’ ill-advised tactic for winning you over involves alternating between taunting you relentlessly and acting like his affection for you is all one big joke. It only barely worked on Remus—James’ interference had been required there, and that was before he’d admitted to himself his own feelings for either of the two boys—so James doesn’t understand why Sirius would give it another go with you. 

“Oh.” Remus closes his paper, seeming to remember something. “I was wondering if you might have time to go with me to the farmer’s market this morning. We’re out of eggs, but I can’t haggle with the woman like you do.” 

You give him a sorry sort of smile. “I would, but Dale’s meant to pick me up at ten.”

“Oh, well.” Sirius rolls his eyes, chewing malignantly on a bite of omelet. “If Dale said he’ll be here at ten, then surely that’s what’s happening.” 

You bump his thigh again good naturedly. “Be nice.” 

James bites his tongue, and even Remus reopens his newspaper with a tad more vigor than necessary. Sirius is by far the most vocal with you about your boyfriend’s flaws, but your roommates all hate him. The guy’s a prick. James would never in a million years try to convince you to leave your partner for them—and despite Sirius’ joking, he knows neither of the other boys would want that either—but if you broke up with Dale, he would be very tempted to throw a party. 

James really doesn’t understand how someone like you could end up with someone so holistically unpleasant as your boyfriend. He’s rude, inconsiderate, he doesn’t express any gratitude for the sweet things you do for him, and he is never where he says he’s going to be when he says he’s going to be there. He shows so little regard for anyone but himself. If he told you he was going to pick you up at ten in the morning, he’s just as likely to arrive at three in the afternoon. Even for your half-hearted defense of him, it’s nearly ten and you’ve made no move to change out of your pajamas or get ready, because you know he won’t be here on time. It irks your roommates to no end to see you tolerate such poor treatment. 

“Maybe you can go with Remus to the farmer’s market,” you tell Sirius. “You seem like you could negotiate.” 

“Sirius doesn’t know how much eggs are supposed to cost,” Remus says idly. 

“Oi!” Sirius objects through a mouthful of omelet. “I do so.” 

James smiles at him. “Really. How much do you think eggs cost, love?” 

Sirius manages to take another bite while James is asking, so his mouth is conveniently too full to answer. 

“I can manage it on my own,” Remus says with indulgent fondness. “Dove, do me one favor, though?” 

You lift your coffee. “Sure.” 

“Don’t let him summon you outside with his horn again.” 

There’s a brief but thick silence while you finish swallowing your coffee and all three boys try not to look too obviously judgmental (Sirius trying the least, naturally). The purse of your lips reveals some embarrassment. 

Still, your voice comes out unconcerned. “It’s not a big deal to me. It’s not like we’re in school and I need him to come to the door and meet my parents. It’s a time saver.” 

“It’s rude,” says Remus gently. “You deserve someone who will come to the door for you.” 

James’ thoughts exactly. 

“Sure you don’t want some toast or something while you wait?” James asks, partly to dispel the tension and partly because he really does think you should eat something if Dale isn’t likely to be here until the afternoon. “You could call it an appetizer.” 

You stand with your emptied coffee mug, passing an affectionate hand over James’ hair as you move between his legs and the coffee table. “Thanks,” you say genuinely, “but I’m alright. I’m going to go get ready.” 

However eager James is to avoid the tension that comes from insulting (or, really, just speaking frankly about) your boyfriend, Sirius has no such concerns. “While we’re telling Dale things,” he says after you, “be sure to remind him that our flat has a three-strike roommate tears policy. Next time you come home crying, Jamie and I get to make a house call.” 

Your laughter echoes down the hallway. “Sure, I’ll let him know.” 

Sirius looks at James, perplexed. “Did I sound like I was joking? I was not using my joking voice.” 

James pats his leg consolingly.

[pathologicalreid]

falling flat | s.r.

in which you call Spencer for help with a flat tire, and he comes to help with you car troubles - and then some

margovember

who? spencer reid x fem!reader category: fluff content warnings: allusions to the reaper, car trouble, blood, tetanus vaccine, kindergarten teacher!reader, flirting, protective!spencer, takes place following 5x22 "the internet is forever", hastily edited word count: 1.87k a/n: rahhhh an old prompt from may 2024 that ended up working for a margovember request rahhh.

The absolute last place you wanted to be was on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere Virginia, with a flat tire. You weren’t entirely helpless until your tire jack broke, sending metal flying everywhere and cutting your hand open.

You slumped down next to your car, pulling your phone from your pocket before calling the first people you could think of. Every single one of them ended up going to voicemail. Some of them didn’t even let it get past the first ring before declining your call—traitors.

With your thumb hovering over the call button, you thought of Spencer. He had a PhD in engineering, but you weren’t entirely sure that would come in handy in this instance. It was late, almost midnight, and you weren’t even sure he’d answer.

At this point, what choice did you have?

As the phone rang, part of you hoped he wouldn’t answer. When he asked you about it the next time you saw him, you’d wave it off as a butt dial and he’d be none the wiser.

“Hello,” he said through the phone, leaving your plans quashed.

This was awkward, you had been on four dates with the guy over the span of two months, and now you were calling him in the middle of the night. “This isn’t a booty call,” You blurted, cringing inwardly and banging your head back on the passenger door of your car.

Spencer laughed lightly, “I didn’t think it was, what’s going on?”

“I didn’t wake you up, did I?” You asked, his job had a lot of long hours, and you didn’t want to bother him if he was catching up on sleep. If he was even home, “Wait, where are you?”

There was a rustling on his end of the call, “No, I wasn’t asleep, I’m at work. We just got off of a case.”

You let out a sigh of relief, at least you weren’t being a total nuisance. “Sorry, I don’t mean to bother you. I just… my tire blew out on the highway and my jack broke and no one else is answering their phone,” you told him, verging on rambling.

“You’re kind of cutting out, where are you?” He asked, he sounded concerned, and if there was a moment where you weren’t sure you still had feelings for him, it was fleeting.

Looking to either side of you for a mile marker, you stood up, looking at the ground so you didn’t step on any metal, “I don’t really know. There aren’t any signs, I’m somewhere on 28, I think?”

Spencer cleared his throat, “Do you have your location on your phone?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think I have enough service to check it,” you said, all you could see were trees.

You could hear him talking to someone, holding the receiver away from his mouth, “That’s fine, I’ll have someone look, just stay on the phone.”

It would seem that dating someone in the FBI does have its perks, “Oh, cool.” You overheard Spencer explaining your situation to someone, hearing the other person in the room say something about Reid’s girlfriend and you couldn’t help but smile. The two of you were very unofficially official.

“Hey, I’ll be there in half an hour,” An elevator dinged in the background. “Is that alright?”

You hummed, leaning your hip against the front of your car. “I mean, I’m not planning on going anywhere.”

Another ding of the elevator, “Will you do me a favor?”

In exchange for this? You’d do just about anything within the realm of legality, “Name it.”

“Get in your car and lock the doors,” he responded. “Turn your hazards on because right now you’re a sitting duck. If someone doesn’t see your car, they could hit you.”

As a favor, he was asking you to make sure you’re safe, “Okay, I’m getting in now, should I leave the car running?”

You heard the sound of a car lock disengaging through the phone, “As long as the cooling system on your car is in good shape, it shouldn’t be a problem to leave it running while you wait. Just remember what I told you about the hazards.”

Nodding despite the fact that he can’t see you, you got in the car, turning the key in the ignition before pushing the button for your hazard lights, “Okay, I’m in the car.”

“I can’t drive and be on the phone at the same time, but I’ll be there soon. Don’t unlock the doors for anyone except for me,” he told you, and you thanked him for his help before hanging up and settling yourself in your driver’s seat.

You pulled the hoodie you kept stashed in your car over your head, your school mascot—a panther—proudly displayed in the front, and made sure your car doors were locked. If you said you weren’t a little unnerved, you’d be lying to yourself.

Spencer had a worrisome job; it was something you were aware of before he ever asked you on that first date. It became alarmingly obvious to you when he revealed that he’d been shot a few months prior, which was an appropriate second-date conversation with an FBI agent. It made sense to you that he’d be concerned about you, in your idle car, on the side of the road, but you wondered if there was a case that he was thinking of. Someone with a flat tire who had met an untimely demise.

Shuddering, you turned up the heat in your car, flipping through radio stations until someone knocked on your window. You jumped at the noise, hitting your head against the roof of the car before looking outside to see Spencer. Sighing in relief, you unlocked your car door, and he opened it for you, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Is your head alright?”

You peered up at him, casually leaning over your car door. “You cut your hair,” you observed. You’d seen him just last week, where his hair still touched his shoulders, and now it was considerably shorter.

Self-consciously, he reached up a hand and thumbed one of the tendrils, “Yeah, it just got too long—and heavy.”

Resisting the urge to ruffle his hair, your head bobbed, “I like it. Did you do it yourself?”

“You can tell?” He asked, following you around the back of your car to your busted tire. Spencer sets his tire jack down before looking back at you, putting his hands on his hips.

Grinning at him, you shrugged, “I teach kindergarten, I’m basically a professional at noticing DIY haircuts.”

On a towel that you had previously set out, the two of you sat along the side of your car, and you tried to ignore the fact that Spencer still had his weapon holstered. It made sense, he’d come straight from work, but you wondered if there was a reason he didn’t leave it in his car. “Where’s your lug wrench?”

“I can change it myself,” you insisted, “I just needed a different car jack.” You gestured to the pieces of yours that were now all over the side of the road.

Alarm flashed on Spencer’s face, “Nothing fell on you, right?”

You shook your head, “No, just a cut from the metal.”

Holding out your hand, you let Spencer take a look at the cut on your palm. “When was your last tetanus shot?”

Blinking rapidly, you frowned at him, “Uh, when I was in college?”

“That might need stitches,” he responded, letting you take your hand back. “I’ll change your tire, I don’t want you using that hand for anything,” he informed you, pushing the hydraulic jack beneath your car.

Butterflies swarmed in your stomach as you watched him take your old tire off, muttering under his breath about how your old jack was practically an artifact, seeing how it literally fell apart under pressure. “How was your case?” You asked softly, fully aware that you were likely opening a can of worms by asking about work.

Spencer’s movements faltered slightly at your question, “It’s closed. We were in Boise,” he answered tactfully, leaving out any case details and cluing you into the fact that he didn’t want to talk about it. “What are you doing out here?”

You sighed, leaning back on your hands and watching him work, “I had a meeting with the other schools in our conference. It’s annual, and this year they happened to pick the school furthest away from mine.”

“Well, I suppose it worked out well that your tire blew out so close to me, then,” Spencer said, swapping out the busted tire for the donut and looking over at you. There was something nervous in his eyes, and you didn’t know if it was related to work or you.

Humming, you tried to watch the tire rather than just watching him, “Is there something bothering you?”

He was tightening the lug nuts on the spare tire, “Are you driving home after this?”

You furrowed your brows, “Yeah, where else could I be going?”

“It’s almost a two-hour drive to your place from here,” he reminded you, his tone laced with concern. “You won’t get home until almost one in the morning,” the displeasure in his voice was plain, but you don’t have anywhere else to go. “Plus, you really shouldn’t travel that far on a spare tire, they’re not made to travel far distances.”

Crossing your arms in front of your stomach, you let your shoulders slump forward, “So, what do you suggest I do? Get a hotel?”

Spencer mumbled something inaudibly, trying to finish tightening the bolts on the tire before sighing, “You can stay with me,” he blushes, a swipe of pink across his cheeks.

Your lips parted in surprise, “Uh, I don’t… I’m not…” you faltered. Utterly failing to come up with a good enough reason to tell him no, “I don’t want you to feel inclined. This isn’t what I was looking for when I called you for help.”

He let the car down, staying quiet while the two of you cleaned up, and Spencer swatted your hand away when you tried to pick things up. “So, you can come back to my place tonight. My work-issued first-aid kit has your name all over it,” he told you, eyes flickering down to the cut on your hand.

“Okay,” you breathed, unable to conjure a reason to refuse his hospitality.

He was grinning at you, hair just barely brushing his eyebrows, “So tomorrow, maybe we can get coffee and drop your car off to get a new tire?”

You smiled back at him, “That sounds great, date number five.”

“You know where you’re going, right?”

“Yeah,” you’d been to his place once to pick him up, “Hey, Spence?”

He turned around, fishing his car keys from his pocket. He looked ready to respond to you, but you pressed your lips to his before he had a chance to speak.

You kissed him softly, whispering against his mouth, “Thank you for coming.”

He chuckled lightly, gently resting a hand on your waist, “Thank you for calling.” 

[alnilaem]

coyote head and the body of a man — (e)

ghost/fem reader There's a killer on the loose. But your logging town is small and quaint and doesn't even appear on maps, so you know you're safe. That all changes when a gruff, big, taciturn man shows up at your workplace one day. Or; Simon is a fugitive serial killer, and you're the housekeeping girl that caught his eye.

cw for explicit content, graphic violence, possessive behaviour, size difference, cunnilingus, stalking

pinterest board | ao3 | for @spidehpig <3

Sometimes, you believe you were born in the centre of a dying star. 

Born on the crest of death and fated for a bleak life. Dead, before you even had a chance.

The universe sweeps before you. Infinite. Expansive. Hungry. You float at the mouth of the galaxy and it swallows you whole, but doesn’t seem to like the taste of you—too bland, too trite—so it spits you back out and sends you tailspinning. 

You land with a lack of courtesy. Tossed between trees and dropped in a basin. You find yourself in nowhere, Oregon. In a town flecked by a lake inlet and a clement fjord, where the moose population outnumbers the people population. It has a maritime allure but strangely enough, isn’t commercial enough to be a tourist hub. It’s too hidden in the thicket. Too deep in a borehole.

Every day here is the same. It's an abyss that yawns before you with no end in sight, lacking undue entertainment and vividness and excitement. There’s no light pollution so far off the beaten track, so oftentimes, you’ll wish upon shooting stars for someone to come for your deliverance. 

There’s a reason they say be careful what you wish for.

The day isn’t even halfway over and your bone tips already ache with hard work. 

It isn’t to say your workplace is busy. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. A cut-rate motel with more vacancies than residents found far-removed from the highway, taking only cash, no card, which is good for deterring paper trails and welcoming the transient but is bad for providing records when the police come knocking. 

You’ll get the occasional trucker, the sparse backpacker. In any case, folks stay here when they don’t want to be bothered. They’ll drive past the splintery welcome sign and stop at the diner for earthy, full-bodied coffee and a slice of famous rhubarb pie. They’ll recuperate in the motel and leave before sunrise, and you’ll be there to clean up what they leave behind, scrubbing the memory out of the fibreglass bathtub for whoever’s next. 

It’s a place where time fleets away. Hallucinatory. Where people pay their due and you hang your head because after all, you’re nothing more than the housekeeping girl. Cottony pinafore and a black dress. Mary Jane flats. Fingers desquamating from years of bleach and vinegar stuck in your nail beds. You get handed dog-eared tips and in return, you don’t ask questions. But maybe you should have.

You’re sliding the window cleaner back into its compartment on the cleaning cart just as your boss scales the veranda. He’s grinning and sporting sweat stains across his armpits. A patchy beard. A loose tie. 

Your nerves lock up tight when he grasps your shoulders. His razorous fingers and the pinchbeck of his wedding band saws under your skin. The dregs of his afternoon drinking knocks into you, and you try not to let your body betray you. Despite that, your eyes water and your nose crinkles. You white-knuckle your dress and almost pop the fabric of your pinafore. 

“How’s my favourite employee?” he grins. “Is she workin’ hard?”

There’s an irreverent innuendo somewhere in his smile. You ignore it and opt for a stale smile.

“I’m working,” you eke out. “I've got to restock the bathroom, then I’m done.”

“That’s good, peach. Real good,” he watches you collect toiletry essentials, then tacks on, “there’s a man in the lobby.”

You falter. The travel-sized shampoo bottle almost slips between your forefinger and thumb. 

“An outsider.”

It’s an observation, not a question. If the man in the lobby were a local, Phillip would have given you a name because in this town, everybody knows everybody. The fact that a name was bereft tells you your new guest came from elsewhere. Maybe he’s cutting through the main road on his way to Yachats for your town’s cascade mountains and bigleaf maple, or for the diner’s famous rhubarb pie. In any case, he's in need of a rest stop. 

“Mh. I’m gonna check him in. Just wanted to let you know I’m givin’ him this room, so try to hurry it up, okay peach?”

You blink slowly. This motel holds twelve rooms—there’s never been a need for any more—and currently, nine of those are occupied. That leaves three. There’s no reason for your boss to put up the new guest in Room 11, especially when you’re still cleaning it.

Phillip reads the question in the bend of your eyebrow. He smiles knowingly and pats your head. “He requested a room on the higher level. Room 9’s aircon is busted and Room 6 shares a wall with the Pettie’s. They’re loud.”

You sigh. “Ah.”

“Sorry peach,” he smiles like he’s apologetic, but you don’t think that’s the case. “Just get it done, alright? And add some extra coffee packets."

You furrow your lips. Displeasure flutters over you but you wash it away with a smile, refusing to irk him. You nod and pivot, bones bending against your skin for an escape as his hand whispers against your bum in an encouraging caress.

Anger simmers in your marrow. Phillip simply chuckles, disparaging.

“That’s a sweet peach.”

His voice gets muted by the tinny, rattling radiator as you make it to the bathroom. You stock it up dutifully—perhaps taking extra long to ensure he's not waiting outside for you—and spritz air freshener around the room when you finish. It’s a flaky, expired bottle of Platinum Ice which barely masks the town’s deep-seated smell of old-growth forest, petrichor and woody debris. You hope the new guest doesn’t have a sharp nose. 

You make sure to stuff the coffee station with extra packets before stepping out of the room. Off the mysteriously stained carpet, onto the veranda. You putter around with your large keyring, thumbing through the nickel-brass since you also have a key to the elementary school, post office, and city hall (aptly titled shitty hall by locals, since this town isn’t much of a city and the building’s roof is held together by nothing but rusty rivets and tassels of sprig collected in the corners). You’ve got so many keys because again, everybody knows everybody, and it isn’t rare to see the housekeeping girl at the motor lodge supplementing her income as a part-time teaching aid. 

Finally, you find the master key. You lock the room and roll the cleaning cart into the utility room before locking that too. Your wrist drags across your forehead, wiping away sweat, and you tug on your dress because perspiration has pasted it onto the pert curve of your breasts, the squish of your thighs. You furtively glance down your bodice and watch how the sweat pocks your skin, knotting your nipples against your cheap bra. Lament catches you in regards to your shower after work—it’s going to be freezing since the heating system here is so fickle—and in the paroxysm of your grief, the sound of heavy breathing eludes you. 

You don’t hear his footsteps. He’s an ambush predator. Stalking and shadowing in the tall grass, waiting for the moment your hackles melt to bite into your neck like an unripe stone fruit. You don’t see him, but you feel him. His breath tickling down your neck. The erogenous zone behind your ear. 

A gasp parts your lips and you whip around, coming face-to-face with a paunchy chest plated by moth-eaten flannel. You heft your head up, exercising the hinge in your neck. Paling at the sight that greets you.

He has a Cabela’s cap on. It’s pulled over his eyes, but a few blonde curls peek out from under the crown of his hat. He has a damaged, blistered face. A cauliflower ear. Nicks on his cheeks that distend from his skin and have turned pallid with time, rippling like seafoam petticoats on waves as he flickers his jaw. He wears jeans and mud-clogged boots and holds a duffel bag. 

His gaze unties you. You slowly find words, fitting them in an orderly queue in your mind as you avert your gaze and stare at the floor. Squirming. Preening. Sweltering.

“Welcome to Sockeye Inn, mister…” 

Silence. He lets your words awkwardly trail off. Doesn’t do anything to belay the discomfort in your belly. The man simply stares at you with brown eyes. 

Humiliation crawls up your spine and settles on your cheeks. It burns through your skin, withering you away, to which you fidget with your fingers and baldly nod towards the door.

“Your room is ready,” you murmur. “Enjoy your stay, sir. Uh– if you need anything just give us a shout. Phone’s on the bedside table.” 

Foolishly, you wait for a response again. Nothing. He towers over you, owlishly blinking, one slower than the other because he seems to have a lazy eye. You clench your skirt and softly shoulder past him, heading for the stairs as you hear him putter with the keyhole. 

You’ve halfway scaled it when a rasp distorted by what seems to be years of cigarettes stops you dead in your tracks. 

“Bring me a BLT and root beer.” 

You burn up at the muscle in his voice. The drag. Just as you’re about to reply, his room door slams shut and rocks across the veranda. 

Your dress is stickier than it was before. Perhaps an ice cold shower isn’t so bad after all.

The end of your shift slowly arrogates. 

After delivering food to Simon Riley—you glinted at the logbook while waiting for his order, reading his name—you left his room as soon as possible. You set the food down and found yourself plugging your nose. The Platinum Ice you sprayed before didn’t accost you— instead, it was pomade. Lucky Strike cigarettes. Decaying heartwood. Bleach. 

You pointedly breathed through your mouth. It didn’t actually help though, since you could taste it then. The ethanol in the air drizzled over your pockmarked tongue and glided down your throat. Collected in your stomach. 

You almost retched it back up at the sight of him.

Through the foggy shower wall, the colour of his hazy contour was striking. It seemed to be a tight fit for him, hemming in his lumberjack build. The shampoo bottle looked like a damn accessory in his large hands and his chased shoulder blades pressed soap against the glass pane, sudsy. 

Your curiosity pulled your gaze lower. Down to the heavy mass between his thighs, thick and fat. Bulbous. 

His spine suddenly went erect, straightening like a chary animal. As if by the agitated pappus of his skin, his chin lifted in your direction, and that’s when the earth collapsed under your feet and you beetled for the door. 

You distract yourself in the kitchen. Emptying the dishwasher. Taking the garbage to the bear-proof receptacles. Putting the oven on steam clean. Kate, the kitchen supervisor, stares at you oddly under her hairnet but she isn’t going to reject a set of helping hands. 

You scrub at a pan hoping it will erase the image burned into your mind. Hoping that the steel wool will have the same effect on your temporal lobe as it does on the pan. You don’t realize your hands are chafing and the pan is flaking, not until Kate is passionately complaining beside you, her spit dashing onto the side of your face.

“—fuckin’ freeloaders. They drain our taxes but can’t even do their damn jobs. Wait until one of their family gets butchered, you’ll see, that’s when they’ll start taking this seriously.”

She waves a newspaper in your face. The paper stack fans in front of you, blowing you with cool air. You’re just barely able to read the big, blocky headline. 

Connection Made Between Ventura, Gilroy and Eugene Serial Killer — Aptly Coined the Ghost.

“Eugene!” Kate slaps the newspaper, frazzled. “Not even three hours from us!”

You scarcely listen to her, her voice ripening into white noise as you scrutinize the police sketch on the newspaper’s margin. The offender is drawn with an overripe balaclava and probing eyes. Dark brown, as if his corneal opacity has laid claim before death. His eyelids have no tension, but a furl of crow's feet gather at the corners. It’s uncanny. Eerie. And even though he’s pressed on paper, you can’t help the unease welling inside you. 

A part of you waits for the other shoe to drop. For him to manifest and crawl out of the paper, dripping ink and viscous tar, ruining your Mary Jane flats and the floor you’d just mopped.

Hemlock hits the back of your throat. Lemony, sedgy. Your eyes fixate on the information detailing his crimes. Spines broken and necks snapped with inhumane strength. Pieces of flesh carved with the precision of either a surgeon or a butcher. Rigour mortis locking the victims in a scream, nail beds caked with skin which implies a struggle, but leads nowhere since the Ghost’s DNA hasn’t been found on any database.

(He’s as elusive as his name suggests. Investigators say he could be foreign, or that he has a clean record. The latter seems unlikely for the violent calibre of his crimes.)

There’s also his modus operandi—slicing off his victim’s ring finger, taking it with him. A cruel reward. 

“They say he’s taking Route 101,” Kate tacks on. “That he’s a long-hauler. How the hell will they catch a long-hauler?”

You shake your head, shrugging. Your tongue is too heavy and your gums rub against the round of your cheeks when you try speaking. The sentence gets snagged on your molars, and all that comes out are sparse words, lamely falling to the floor with how out of breath you are. 

“…They’ll catch him.”

“They better,” she shortly huffs. “I don’t want this town making the paper for all the wrong reasons.” 

Death comes to you in a cornfield. 

You’re sprinting through the crop, barefoot and scantily clad and pricked by thorns. Your clothing catches on thistle and corn husk, slowing you down, but the quick-footed trampling at your tail keeps your pace steady and stable.

Your lungs burn. Your bones rasp. Your eyes well up with how fast you’re moving, with how your retinas strain to see more in the pitch black than just reflective corn silk and the crescent moon. 

The midnight sky is close to swallowing you whole, but at this point that would be an act of mercy. The whistle of his cleaver slicing through the air and the stomp of his boots are promptly catching up, heckling you, barely whispering against the flowy cotton of your dress.

By a cruel twist of fate your foot catches on a tiller and sends you flying. Your nose softens the impact, the crack of cartilage reverberating through your skull, glutinous red spurting down your chin as you try scrambling to your feet.

But true to his name, Ghost, he slips through matter and suddenly, he’s standing in front of you.

Black, sweaty tank top. Freshly sharpened meat cleaver. Stout arms. Predatory eyes. Rotting balaclava—which at this point, you’re starting to believe was grafted onto his face, fitting him like skin. 

You raise your hands for mercy. 

But you should know dead stars have exhausted all their luminosity—that after death, they hold no power. That space is a graveyard. That’s why the Ghost poises his cleaver behind him. That’s why the last thing you see is his cleaver handle swinging towards you, about to collide with and shatter your cheekbone into a million pieces—

—but daylight strikes you with no clear trajectory. 

It’s your alarm that rings, waking you up from a nightmare, telling you to brush your teeth and scrub yourself down and pop your supplements before biking to work. You do so sluggishly, standing under the shower spray as you massage your cheekbone. Burning your toast as you scour the news for developing details on the Ghost case. Ordering a cup of coffee from the local diner and gulping it down behind the motel lest Phillip catches you.  

Your nightmare—omen, prophecy, portent of death?—pursues you like the persistent stench of fish on an angler’s hands all morning. You flinch at the slightest noise while scrubbing toilets, you constantly look over your shoulder while sweeping floors.

Malaise builds in your blood vessels like creosote. It doesn’t thin into fluid, flowing in and out of your appendages and around your sex until you situate yourself in front of Room 11. Fluffing up your skirt and puffing out your chest.

You announce your presence and rap the door with your Mary Jane flat because your hands are occupied with new bed sheets. Your knuckles blanch around the linen, quivering, struggling to keep it in your grip. The sheets almost flutter to your feet when a voice penetrates the door, abrasive and husky. Rough. Grating against your spine and shaving down the vertebrae. 

“Door’s open.”

You wait a few seconds before contorting yourself against the threshold. You try the handle and lo and behold, it’s unlocked, swinging open when you press your weight onto it. 

You step inside and toe off your flats. Next to Simon’s boots, they look fit for a doll, and a dizzy spell ricochets through you at the size difference. At the stark reminder that he’s as big and packed as a thick tree stump.

You walk inside and heed the CRT television playing the news. 

It does nothing to soften the scream that rips out of you as you round the corner.

Simon is in bed, pulling on a cigarette. His pudgy tummy and bristly chest are bared, the steel wool of his happy trail disappearing into the bed sheets furled around his hips. The flat sheet is thin enough to outline something stirring. Something thick and pressed against his inner thigh. 

He stares at you, eyes of Argus. It’s so intense you’re sure he can sense the slick running down your back. The dew that settles in the gusset of your panties. 

You stutter. “I can come back later.”

Simon sits up with a groan. It rattles you. His joints must be fettered with age, or hard work, but in any case your head goes cottony with the picture of him splitting wood and hauling heavy bovine flanks. 

You swallow thick as he shakes his head. “It’s no problem, sugar. I’m not even here.”

The pet name makes you squirm. You sure do feel like it—sugar, that is—with the way you could melt on his tongue, wedge yourself between his teeth. Turn syrupy and sappy at the back of his throat.  

He takes another drag of his cigarette. You watch raptly as his jaw feathers around it, lips proffering another plume of smoke. 

He blinks. “Well?”

You eke out an apology and fiddle with your hands. 

“I’ll have to, um, change your bedsheets first.”

Simon shakes his head. He taps the ashy casualties off the tip of his cigarette and you watch as it sinks onto the bed sheet, almost burning through the floral motif. “No need.”

“Well,” you cough, forcing your eyes away from him, “if I don’t, my boss…”

Simon pricks up. The hind of his spine straightens the same way a dog would sit straight and plumb after hearing rustling in a bush. His muscles tighten, thick, and his face twists into a sneer. The bed sheet around him falls and you lock up tight lest it bare his pubic bone. 

“Is he a minger?”

“I’m sorry?”

He huffs. “‘s he a bully?”

“Oh, no,” you blandly laugh. “Mister Graves isn’t a bully. He just…”

“Makes you uncomfortable?”

There’s a lapse between acknowledging his question and spitting out an answer that makes you kick yourself. Simon already looks dubious. You hug the sheets closer to your chest and smile, your cheeks feathering like beeswax.

“He’s a kind man.”

“Not wha’ I asked,” he says. The bed creaks as he leans forward, the sheets slipping lower, scarcely covering his sex. “I asked if he does stuff he shouldn’t be doin’.”

Your heartbeat quickens. Briefly, you wonder if he can hear it. He probably can, albeit softly, due to his lumpy cauliflower ear.

“He’s a married man,” you mumble. “He doesn’t touch me if that’s what you mean. Not like that.”

“There’s only one way to touch someone,” Simon grunts. His chest starts churning a little, as if he’s agitated. “Does he put his hands on you?”

Your skin burns, remembering. A phantom scar runs through you, long and creeping, mapping all the places in which Phillip’s pinchbeck wedding ring has burned you. The suture of your spine, the pappy flesh of your neck, the rise of your hips where his palm has melted through your dress and smarted your skin.  

Your silence makes Simon grunt. 

Panic surges up your throat. You feel the need to defend Phillip, in some approximation of gratitude and fear since you’re on his payroll and you don’t want to reap the consequences should you rat on him and he find out. 

“No!” you hurry. “Mister Graves isn’t like that. He’s a good man. Honest.”

Simon’s eyes push against your skin. He scrutinizes you, tests you. Waits to see if you’ll fidget too much and flake away and sink into the carpet. 

He growls. “You fancy him, is tha’ it?”

Answering yes is the only way to shake him off your leg. You do so archly, so it seems as though the thought of your boss has you flushing when really it’s Simon. He’s fully upright, and now you can see the girthy base of his cock. Stirring, twitching. You suppress a moan.

“Yeah…” you murmur. You can feel your makeup turning blotchy, running down your cheeks. “It’s just a bit…embarrassing, is all.”

He lapses into it again. Staring at you. Razoring his way into your head and thumbing through your consciousness, searching for an Achilles’ heel. A crack he can break into a hole because he has the size for it—barrel-chested, stupidly thick fingers. 

Simon slips out of bed and disturbs the coiled aches of the mattress. He holds a washcloth over his crotch. It’s crusty and keeps shape and covers almost nothing, confirming your inkling. 

His bulbous cockhead winks at you from under the hem. It’s heavy. Leaky. Dripping precum that laves down his legs and gets caught in the wiry hair of his thigh. 

Anxiety pools in your armpits and around your groin. Or maybe that’s just arousal. Brackish and sticky, rubbing your pussy lips together, hugging your clit. 

Simon pulls on his cigarette once more and then folds it into the bedside table. You should scold him. You should tell him that he’ll have to pay for damages even though the wood is already degraded and mouldy. You should scuttle out of the room and call for Phillip, but that would be a crueler fate. Instead you stay fixed to the carpet as Simon steps forward. Cock swinging between his legs, tummy jiggling. 

You don’t know whether he’s going to pull you in for a kiss or rip off your dress or—and you’re unsure why you think of this—take you by your skull and smash it against the television stand. He has the muscle to, surely, but somehow you know he won’t. And the thought of that makes your skin hot.

You’re at his mercy.

You gird yourself for his lips or for your dress to be torn off, but your preparations flux away as Simon steps close and crowds you against the television stand. The stench of Lucky Strike cigarettes and gamey meat impair you, as he reaches behind you and increases the television volume. You want to say something but cotton fills your mouth and the news report floods your ears. It’s fragmentary—you can only heed oddments of the news anchor’s latest updates. 

The Ghost is still at large. Corpses keep popping up around California and Oregon, each with their ring fingers sliced off. The tipline has been leading investigators nowhere, shepherding them to the end of the earth and over the edge, floating, where they’ll move through molasses and will never be able to catch him. 

White male. 6’4”. 196 centimetres. Brown eyes. Heavyset. Likely military background. Likely a surgeon, or a butcher. A dangerous, ruthless individual. 

If spotted, do not approach. 

Simon’s breath fans against your neck, rousing the bristles of your warm cheeks. He turns off the television and steps back. An ether opens up in the pit of your stomach as your gaze falls on his bulging pelvis, on the purplish veins and webbing muscle, sitting like a tuft under his navel, disappearing behind the washcloth where his cock stirs. 

Simon tuts. “World’s goin’ to shite.”

You nod.

“You shouldn’t be out here anyway,” he tacks on. “Should be at home takin’ care of your man’s house. Keepin’ safe.”

You flash your naked ring finger embarrassingly fast. “I-It’s just me…and my cat.”

His eyes darken. His head tilts down at you. He purrs. 

“Better get started on mine then,” he breathes. “Put yourself to good use.”

You shyly get to cleaning his room. 

You try to ignore his hand disappearing behind the washcloth, pumping his cock. You can’t ignore the silk ruining your panties. Scarcely, you manage to ignore the caution creeping up your back. Your lower instinct that screams at you as you feel his stare tracking you across the room, burning. Smouldering. Warning. 

Daylight scissors into you.

It melts the sleep in the corners of your eyes. It clears the haze in your head. It interrupts the sultry dream you were having. Your flesh is still pocked and your clit is still peaked, as you rehash the contents of it. 

You can still feel Simon’s weight on top of you, sweat compressioning you, the sheets gathering under your slick back. Your underwear had dangled from one of your ankles, flapping and swaying as Simon pounded into you. Your head bobbed over the lip of the mattress. Your tits bounced, nipples caught between his gnashers. Your slick ran down your cunt and over your asshole, pooling onto the floral bed sheets. You just quit your job. You didn’t care about the sheets. Or the Pettie’s down the veranda. Phillip was on the other side of the door too, and he could hear everything. Your moans. Simon’s balls dragging over your furled hole. His groans—

—And the sudden tearing of cartilage and skin stretching, rubbery, as Simon shifted into something else above you. Something larger. Deadlier. His drool dripped onto your chest, and his cock was suddenly too big for your pussy, popping back out until only his tip managed to squeeze inside your puffy hole. He snarled down at you, but it got covered by a creeping balaclava. You still reached your orgasm, quivering around his cockhead. Watching him go spotty and graphite-like in your vision, as if he were a composite sketch.

You get out of bed and wash the absurd dream away under the shower. The nozzle hits your clit weakly, and you never reach your high. You show up to work pigeon-toed and sweaty. Pent-up. You scrub harder at bathtubs and almost snap at Phillip when he swats your bum. Almost. Simon is watching from the dining hall, and he makes you skittish.

The day rolls by sluggishly. There’s a Do Not Disturb sign dangling from Simon’s door, so you don’t get the chance to see him in his room. You huff and puff at the Pettie’s and give Kate attitude. It’s the peak of afternoon when you’re sent home, shoulders stiff because Phillip squeezed them and tacked on, ”I can always help out if you’re stressed, peach,” before shepherding you out the door.  

You bike into town. Indulge in the diner’s famous rhubarb pie because the motel’s cherry pie is nowhere near as good, though you’ll never tell Kate that. You polish off your treat then ride to the beach (which is more of a graveyard for birds and braided, washed ashore sea meadow), and prop your bike against the wooden bollards.

The beach is familiar with you. It sees you when you're overwhelmed by the monotonous colour of your life. You never worry about meddling kids or loud teenagers or anything, because the stench of fish usually keeps them away anyway. It's your own Shangri-La. Your little Eden. Albeit overcast and greyscale, with an ocean spray that gets into your hair and dries out your mouth.

You slip out of your Mary Jane flats and wade through the sand dunes, breathing in salt and sulfur and tasting it on your lips. You maneuver around seawrack and driftwood and eventually find yourself seated behind a tussock of seaoats, watching as the waves lazily beat against the shore.

It's easy for you to lie down and get comfortable among the scent of iodine and the feel of pillowy granules. It's also easy to let your eyes flutter shut, lulled into limbo by the ebbing tide and murmuring waves.

You stir awake with flaccid lungs.

Presentiment hangs in the air, thick, like a blanket of smog. It interrupts your breathing pattern and makes you light-headed. Vertiginous. Makes you see things that aren't there…

…Such as the off-white scleras and twists of dilated blood vessels that stare at you from the foreshore.

They approach you eerily. Two pieces of driftwood floating over the waves, jolting slightly as it hits the sand, splintery and mossy and heavy.

The man feathers toward you from the blue glow of the beach. You squint through the darkness, because maybe it's the sheriff, but you know he walks with a drunken gait and he…strides like a bear on its hind legs.

The way he lurches for you says otherwise. Perhaps he's rather a panther or a coyote, or some crude backyard breed of all three.

A large palm splits itself over your mouth. An arm lays beside you and secretes a musk of sweat and iron. A knee digs into the plush of your cunt, agitating your clit, as a warm breath fans over your pulse point.

"Waited for me, didn't you?" he rasps against your neck.

In your stupor, you brace your hands against his shoulders. A sticky substance coats his skin, too viscous to be sweat.

Nausea knots in your throat. Tremors wash over your body. You dig your nails into his flesh, and when your hands don't fall through it like you hoped, you gravely realize he's made of muscle and skin instead of your drunken, sleep-inspired imagination.

You experience a cruel loss of equilibruim. If you weren't already lying down, you'd collapse to the ground. You go limp in the sand, thawing into his hands which you unwillingly notice are caked with that sticky substance too.

"There's dangerous folk 'round here," he grunts. "What if someone else followed you? A big, bad man?"

A chord of recognition stirs in your brain at his voice. That brash accent.

"Simon…?"

He chuckles. "It's me, sugar."

You squeeze your thighs together but it's abortive. He pries them apart anyway, and cups your pussy through your panties.

He rubs you through the gauze, knuckling your soft lips. Through the darkness you barely see the misshapen silhouette of his mouth. That snarl, curling off him as if he suffers from some chronic wasting disease, slowly atrophying and turning into some vestigal cadaver.

He kisses down your sternum. Grips your hand and forces it over his crotch. Your fingers brush over the solid mass. It's hard due to both stiffened denim and his thickening cock.

"All for you," he mumbles. "Take it out, sugar."

You fumble with the metal teeth of his zipper. You pull him out with both hands and your mouth goes dry. Tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth. Deadly nightshade hitting the back of your throat. Despite you, your thighs squish together, and a rumbling chuckle slips through the seam of his lips.

He's huge. Fat and heavy, so much so you need both fingers to wrap around him.

"Give it a kiss, yeah?" he coos. "Like a sweet girl."

You spread your lips against his cockhead. You pull away and a string of precum chases you, but Simon is pushing your head back down and bucking his bristly pubic bone into to your nose.

"There it is," he grumbles. "Such a big girl, aren't you?"

You look up at him with wide, wet eyes.

The stiffs of hair on his pubic bone tickle your nose. You smell sweat and iron, but you can't tilt your head away, because the stout muscle of his arms keep you in place.

Fighting is futile. His cockhead hits the back of your throat like oleander and he holds your jaw in place, dimpling your cheeks with his rough fingers, letting his balls slap against your chin.

Just as you're getting used to his size, he pulls out, breaking the strands of saliva and precum between you.

"Take off y'panties, sugar."

You pull them off and squirm at the way the gusset clings to your pussy lips a little while longer. Simon takes it against his nose and sniffs it, running his fingers through your pussy, spreading your slick.

You don't get a warning before he's curling one of his fingers into you. Massaging your walls. Scissoring you open. Thumbing your clit.

He adds another and twists them deeper—meaner—into you. He swallows your whimpers but spits them back into your mouth when he empties his saliva down your throat. He keeps stroking the inside of your pussy, your sticky walls, and rubbing your clit.

He squeezes your cheeks together and gives you a big kiss. He coos condescendingly into your lips, and licks away your fresh track of tears. "It's supposed to hurt, baby. Don't be mad, alright? It'll feel good soon."

He gets deeper and deeper. Knuckle-deep, when he curls his fingers inside you. You lock up tight and thrust your hips through the bulk of your orgasm, trembling and quivering around him.

Your lips quiver around a plea when he pulls his fingers out. It's a lapse of judgement on your part—you know it—but you can't help it anymore.

"Please what?" He grins. It's ugly. Like a truss of stitching falling off his face, mangled and chewed up.

"Can you g-go…" you squirm when he rolls his tumb over your clit, agonizingly slow. "Can you go–"

"C'mon baby," he whispers against your lips, "spit it out. Big girls use their words."

"Canyougodownonme?" you gasp and grip onto him, bucking your cunt into his palm.

He chuckles against your mouth. He kisses down your chest. He crinkles his nose against the husk of your pussy. He deeply inhales and vibrates at your scent. He darts his tongue out and flattens it against your dewy folds, licking a stripe up your slit.

You writhe but he holds you in place with those big, thickened hands of his. They're wet but at this point you can't tell if it's your arousal or that mysterious substance on him. You can't even think about it, not with your thoughts melting away, escaping you like the humming waves.

Simon's a bit too aggressive in how he eats you out. It doesn't come from a juvenile attempt influenced by sex-on-screen with undue emphasis, but rather his tongue spelling devotion into the fat of your cunt.

Your fingers flex into his blonde head of hair. It's closely cropped, but you still manage to pull him closer, grinding yourself down on the bumpy bridge his nose. You pull on his hair and he growls and sends a quake up your spine. He wraps his lips around your clit and swirls his tongue further into you, softly suckling your juices out.

The waves fold over each other, beating against the shore. They crest and crash and just as they race up the sand dune, teasing your flexing toes, your second orgasm crashes into you too. You twist and twirl Simon's hair in your grip and almost miss the feel of something cold being slipped onto your finger.

You're shaking, trembling, as you raise your hand. You're hazy and the moonlight is shrouded by clouds. It makes the mystery object look smeared across your vision, blotchy and spotty.

You hold it a little closer to your face, examining the twinkle as Simon massages your thighs to ease the quiver.

You turn your hand over and whisper your thumb over its curve.

You bristle when you realize what it is. It hangs off you a little loosely, burning your knuckle.

A pinchbeck wedding ring.

Stained with red, and still warm from the body it was pulled from.

Bile gathers in your throat and burns your mouth. Tears gather in your eyes. A small gasp parts your lips, billowing out of you like the mushroom-head of a flare just as realization fully commits itself to you.

You shiver. Both through realization, and your orgasm. "…What did you do to him?"

"Took care of him," Simon grunts, caressing your hair. "I'm supposed to handle the monsters under your bed, ain't I?"

You spare him a glance. You heed the white of his teeth and a smudge of—you know it's blood—across his cheek. His eyes, hidden in the shadowy canopy. His nose, bent out of shape and speckled with blood.

"You're not going to hurt me."

He brushes your hair back. "No."

You pant into him when he captures you for a kiss. "…Why?"

"I'm supposed to take care of ya," he grunts. "That's what couples do, no?"

He pushes something in your grasp—a folding knife. Your thumb slips over the two initials engraved into the handle—your initials.

"How do y'feel about Kate?" he asks.

Your coworker flashes into your mind. "I like her"

Simon—the Ghost—grunts. "And what about that bloke at the diner? What's his name?"

"I– Franklin?"

"Hn. Does he bother you?"

You thumb through your memory. Perhaps what you say is an embellishment, giddy of what Simon's going for.

"He did steal my bike once…" you mumble.

Simon pricks up. His chest puffs out and squishes against your arm. "He married?"

"Yeah, um," you swallow, "for about ten years."

"You want his pretty ring? Or his wife's?" Simon asks, then kisses you. "Anythin' you want."

Your lips stretch into a smile.

Simon cups your cheek, blood rubbing off on you. For the first time ever, you feel exhilarated at the thought of the future. At the thought of being taken care of. Doted on.

Suddenly the town doesn't feel so cold anymore. It doesn't feel like an invisible barricade is hemming you in. Simon is your ticket out of here, and a ticket to your new life.

You can abandon your pinafore and Mary Jane flats and maybe he'll spoil you with frilly socks and a cute sundress. Maybe he'll fuck you in his truck or in gas station bathrooms as the corpse of a man who wronged you rots in the truckbed. Maybe you'll get caught but at least you'll be together and at least your name will finally be known.

Not as the housekeeper girl, but Mrs Riley.

[ellecdc]

The Bolter

Sirius Black x fem!reader who meet again [5.5k words]

prompt: poly!wolfstar or just Sirius x reader in which they were friends with benefits but it was obvious they loved each other even though they acted like they weren’t. Then, reader finds out shes pregnant and before telling them, they do something stupid. so reader runs away for a few months. When she comes back (only bc she had to for some reason) shes like 6-7 months pregnant

CW: secret pregnancy, angst, FWB to strangers to lovers, second chance fic, post war trauma, both Sirius and reader are meeesssssssssssyyyyy in this! I don't approve of what they've done but I understand it

“So…she’s coming back?” Sirius asked cautiously, focusing more on the condensation pooling on the coaster underneath his pint than the concerned gazes of his two best friends. 

“Well, I don’t know if she’s coming back, but she’ll be here for Harry’s birthday.” James mollified, sharing a nervous look with Remus.

“Right.” Sirius murmured around a swallow; throat tight and dry though neither the pint nor the pitcher of water in front of him looked as though they’d be able to help him with the matter. 

“Are you going to be alright?” Remus queried, and Sirius offered him the most arrogant scoff he could muster; he missed by a long shot.

“Of course I’m going to be alright.” He huffed. “Why? Can’t two friends see each other after five and a half months of silence?” 

“Sirius-” James started, but Sirius carried on. 

“She’s the only one who’s been silent, you know?” Though he knew that they did indeed both know. “I’ve tried. I’ve tried reaching out.” 

“Pads.” Remus offered consolingly, looking frustratingly like he was going to reach a hand out to Sirius as if he were some over tired toddler on the brink of a meltdown.

“Stop, no I- I’m fine, honest.” He insisted as he took a steadying breath. “I- you… talked to her, then?”

James and Remus shared another look before James allowed the segue. 

“Mostly by owl, but she has spoken on the phone with Lily a few times.” 

Sirius nodded as he considered this; considered the number of owls Sirius had sent that had gone unanswered - perhaps even unopened if the silence meant anything at all.

“She’s…okay?” 

Remus let out a sigh as he shot Sirius a tight smile that looked more like a grimace. “She’s…vague.”

“She doesn’t share a whole lot.” James agreed. “Says she’s fine, things are good. Mostly asks about…all of us, Harry.” 

“She’s still staying with that great aunt,” Remus added, “helping her with the property.” 

“She seeing anyone?” There was no point in pretending that wasn’t the most pressing matter in Sirius’ mind; of course it was. And as angry and bitter as the idea made Sirius, it would have been his own fault, his own doing. He had no one to blame but himself. 

And he’d have to live the rest of his life knowing he was the one who let you slip away - pushed you away - right into the arms of someone else. 

“Not that she’s mentioned.” Remus responded honestly; he couldn’t say for sure that you weren’t, but if you were, you clearly hadn’t said anything about it. 

“Right.” Sirius offered shortly. 

“Pads, I…we would understand if it's too hard for you to see her. If you can’t come-”

“Don’t be daft.” Sirius scoffed deploringly. “I’m not going to miss my godson’s birthday. If anyone should be missing it, it should be her; I’ve been here for the past four and a half months, she’s the one who fucked off for good.”

“Sirius-”

“I don’t understand why you had to invite her!” Sirius shouted then, startling even himself when he realised how breathless he sounded all of a sudden. 

James smiled at him sadly; Sirius wished he’d stop doing that. “We wanted all of Harry’s uncles and his aunt to be there, Sirius…it’s important, yeah? We…we almost didn’t get this chance.”

Sirius could feel a wicked migraine coming on; between talking about you, the close calls and the fact that the group of you were all alive following the war by nothing but chance, and the fact that the person Sirius was most angry with was himself, he downed the rest of his pint and flagged the server in favour of having to look at the pitiful gazes being shot at him by Remus and James.

Sirius couldn’t tell if he was eager for Harry’s second birthday or dreading it. But like it or not, Sirius was going to be seeing you again. 

It had felt like a good idea at the time.

It felt beyond foolish now, but it had felt like a good idea at the time. 

*ೃ༄.ೃ࿐

“Sirius, we just won. We just won, why do you have to leave now?” You practically begged as you followed Sirius through his flat. 

“Because if I don’t get out now, I’m going to be stuck here for eternity.” He all but spat at you as he shoved articles of clothing into his duffle rather haphazardly. You felt like grabbing the bag from him and folding them properly if the act wouldn’t leave you feeling like you were aiding and abetting his abandoning you.

“But what about James? And Remus? What about Harry? You fought this war for them, and they for you - we just got them back!”

“And they’ll be here when I’m ready to come home!” Sirius shouted; turning to look at you with wild, red rimmed eyes. 

“What about me?” You asked quietly, hating how small you sounded.

“What about you?” He asked; face falling painfully neutral. If you didn’t know better, you would have thought he was occluding. 

“I…I don’t know.” You started awkwardly, shrugging one shoulder. “I thought…maybe we’d have a chance now. To try?.”

“Y/N.” Sirius sighed as he rubbed harshly at his eyes; entire being oozed exhaustion at having to have this conversation with you. “Have I not been entirely clear about what this was between us?” 

“Right.” You agreed quickly, biting roughly on your lip and looking anywhere but at him as he let his hand fall away from his face. 

“It’s…it’s not you, doll-” but even your humourless scoff didn’t derail him “I’m not the kind to settle down and be content I- I wouldn’t be enough for you.”

“I’m not asking you for any more than what we have, Sirius-”

“Yes you are.”

“-I just want you to stay.”

“That’s too much for me.” He stated; his voice never raised though he may as well have screamed it at you. “I cannot sit here and play house, I cannot be that guy for you.”

“Cannot or will not?” You asked quietly, regretting the question the second it came out of your mouth and he looked at you with nothing but pity in his eyes. 

“Y/N…”

“I’m sorry I asked.” You let out with a chuckle as you harshly wiped tears from under your eyes. 

“It’s…it’s not forever, yeah? I just…I can’t see myself being happy here…not right now, at least; not for a while.” 

“Where will you go?” Your voice grated painfully as it came out, but you tried to keep an air of nonchalance about you. You wouldn’t look at him, but you could see his shoulders shrug helplessly. 

“I don’t know…everywhere. Anywhere.”

Anywhere was better than stuck here with you, apparently. 

“I hope it’s nice, wherever it is.” You offered, and you found that you meant it. As much as it hurt to say, you really, really meant it. Sirius had been fighting and running his entire life, and he finally won. If he wanted to celebrate his victory by taking off to be that rich, vague uncle who popped by with lavish gifts every so often, who were you to deny him? 

You loved him.

You were in love with him.

You loved him enough to let him go. 

*ೃ༄.ೃ࿐

He had sent James a postcard a few weeks later. Turns out he started in the South of France; his family had a home there that had been left untouched by the war, and Sirius was going to start by figuring out what to do with the property. 

And you? Well, you found out you were pregnant. 

You suppose it was a small mercy that Sirius wasn’t here to know; you’re sure it would have hurt more hearing him tell you he was leaving if there were two of you he couldn’t find it in him to love. You would have hated it even more if he felt trapped into staying with you just for this.

But all this meant was that you couldn’t stay, either. 

You supposed that was alright, though; the life you wanted to build here was with Sirius. You loved your friends, but you had a little one to think about now, too. 

You made up a story about a great aunt needing help tending to her property and wishing to be closer to your relatives now that you could be, now that it was safe. No one questioned it, likely because Remus had done the same following the war; moving back home to help his dad and ailing mother tend the property in whatever ways he could. 

You found yourself a little cottage, you wrote to the boys and had the occasional phone call with Lily, and you grew.

It had felt like a good idea at the time. 

But now you were almost six months pregnant and returning home for the first time since you moved to celebrate your nephew’s birthday with all of your closest friends, the love of your life whose child you were carrying, and none of them knew. 

You wondered if you should even go, but the thought of missing out on sweet Harry’s second birthday that the lot of you almost never got the chance to see made your throat constrict with tears you refused to shed since the war. 

You wondered if you should tell everyone before you arrived, but the thought of them all discussing you and your pregnancy without you being there left you feeling small and ashamed. 

You wondered if you should tell Sirius, but you looked over at the stack of unopened letters he had sent to you in the past four months - the first thin, perhaps a postcard, the second and third were thicker, the fourth was by far the thickest (like he had drafted an autobiography that he wanted you to proofread for him), the fifth was similar to the second, whilst the sixth (the last) couldn’t be more than one page - and wondered how the hell you’d even start that conversation after all this time.

Hey, remember me? Yeah, the bird who caught feelings during our friends with benefits situation that we both agreed would remain platonic amidst a battle for survival and then begged you to stay with no success? Well, whilst you’ve been off probably shagging every beautiful woman across the British Isles, I’ve been pregnant. Right, with your child. How was France, by the way? 

You swallowed around your gag reflex and groaned at your image in the mirror. You put on a pair of gingham pants with the baggiest band-tee you could find, planned on sucking in the best you could if anyone (when everyone) insisted on a hug and hoped to every deity that they all just assumed you’d been eating really well since the end of the war. 

You smoothed the fabric over your bump one last time before you left - looking at the proof that, if nothing else, you were protecting more than just yourself, and you let that be enough - before you grabbed Harry’s birthday present and called for Potter Manor, throwing a fistfull of floo powder into your fireplace and travelling by way of the flames. 

You could hear Harry squealing in delight in one of the adjacent rooms as you stepped into the floo reception room at Potter Manor; a smile taking over your face uninhibitedly at the sounds of the people you loved more than life itself, happy and celebrating.

How could you have gone so long without this? 

“Y/N!” Lily shrieked as she made for you, and you sucked in before returning her hug. “Merlin, you're glowing! Where’s your aunt's place again?” 

“Erm. Killarney.” You offered; not entirely untrue - you did have an aunt in Killarney. 

“Well,” she let out with a breath, eyes turning a touch glassy as they darted across your face, “it seems that Irish air’s been for you.” 

You smiled back at your friend before pulling her back in for another hug. “I’ve missed you, Lils.”

“Don’t let it go so long next time, yeah? We can come to you, too; I’m teaching James how to be a muggle, and Harry’s only had the odd burst of accidental magic yet. We could play the part in front of your aunt.” 

“I’d love that, Lily.” You responded earnestly. 

“Y/N!” James hollered then before you were being bodily tackled by the former quidditch chaser, a brief flash of anxiety at his hold around your stomach abating only when he relinquished his hold on you. “Where in the sodding hell have you been!?”

“Killarney.” Lily answered for you. 

“I love Killarney!” 

“Have you ever been to Killarney, Prongs?” Remus asked then, appearing in the door as he leaned against the archway. 

“No! But I love it there! I just know it!” 

“Hey Moony.” You greeted, quickly accepting his open arms and breathing him in.

“We’ve missed you.” He murmured into your hair, and you couldn’t help the traitorous hitch in your heart that he might’ve meant-

“Uncle Pafoo!” Harry squealed, suddenly standing right underneath you. 

“That’s right, Haz!” The voice that haunts your dreams called out. “Auntie is here!”

“Hullo, Harry!” You cheered as you picked him up, sucking in before settling on your hip. “Happy birthday, little dude.” 

“Am two!” He announced as he held up four fingers. 

“You are two! Way to go!” You laughed. “Is everyone here?” You asked the room, shooting Sirius a tight smile so you couldn’t be accused of hostility when your heart stuttered for an entirely different reason. 

He looked tired - a bone deep tired that no amount of sleep could rectify - and the bags under his eyes seemed to be chronic. But he was still so beautiful; his hair had grown slightly longer since the last time you’d seen it, the last time you’d run your fingers through it, the last time you’d brought sheers to it, and he donned more than a few new tattoos if the few you could see were enough to go by. 

You had to look away.

“Reg’s going to be by after work; his part-time student called in sick so he needed to be there to close the shop himself. Thankfully, they’re only open in the morning on Sunday’s.” Remus explained kindly.

“Good, it’ll be nice to see him.” You offered, and the room fell slightly awkward.

“Uncle Pafoo, aeroplane?” Harry asked then, and whatever exhaustion seemed to be plaguing Sirius vanished as he beamed at his godson. 

“Absolutely, little man!” He agreed, holding his arms out and taking Harry’s weight from you.

“Do you want something to drink, Y/N? Wine? Beer, Cider? Juice? Water?” James rapid fire, causing Lily to groan. 

“We just got her back, Potter. Do try to control yourself.” 

“Water would be great, Jamie. Thank you.” You laughed, following the group into the open concept kitchen-to-living room. 

Save the fact that you and Sirius seemed to be doing acrobatics to avoid each other, you were almost stunned at how easy and natural being back here felt. Regulus returned and the two of you shared friendly jibes, Lily caught you up on all of the drama at the Ministry, James strong armed you into agreeing to join them for their next pub quiz night, and Remus said that your old professors all wished you well. 

You loved your cottage - the home you’d built for yourself and your little one - but you found yourself feeling homesick for here, and you hadn’t even left yet.

You were leaning on your elbows against the kitchen island, watching Sirius and Regulus pretend to be knights in shining armour as they fought off a fire breathing dragon (Harry) to save the princess (James) when Remus appeared beside you and mirrored your stance. 

“It’s not the same without you, you know?” He murmured then. 

“But they seem to be alright.” You responded simply, and Remus allowed the two of you to fall into silence for a few beats.

“How far along are you?” 

You stood up straight and turned to stare at him in horror, only to see him smiling kindly at you. 

“How do you-”

“Lycanthropy - I could smell it on you.” He said with an embarrassed wrinkle of his nose. “I knew Lily was pregnant before she did.”

You shushed him and looked over your shoulder to ensure no one else could hear you.

“Come.” He said with a sigh, gently taking you by the elbow and ushering you out of the sliding doors to the back yard and closing it behind the two of you. 

“Remus-”

“Is it his?” He cut you off; his face held no judgement though perhaps just a touch of concern. For you or his best friend/virtual brother-in-law, you weren’t sure.

“Yes.” You whispered, not bothering to clarify who he was talking about; you both knew. 

Remus simply nodded as he looked you over. “Is that why you left?”

“He left first.” You hissed petulantly.

“He left you, but you left all of us.” Remus countered somewhat sternly. “Besides, I didn’t ask about him; is this why you left?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” 

“Because, Remus!” You shouted, tears flooding your vision as you turned to look at him. “Because he didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want this, he didn’t want me. I wasn’t going to force him to come back just because… just because.” 

“Don’t you think he should have been able to make that choice for himself?” Remus asked gently.

“He chose! He did choose! He told me he couldn’t play house, he told me he couldn’t be this person for me. I loved him enough to accept that. I loved him enough to let him go.”

“Loved?” Remus asked with a tilt of his head. “Past tense?” 

“Remus.” You groaned. “Please.”

“He came back for you, you know.” Remus pointed out. “He left you, you left us, but he came back for you.” 

“Stop it.”

“It’s true, Y/N.”

“And so what if it is?” You nearly sobbed. “So what if he did, Remus? What can I do? I can’t go back in time and change my mind, I can’t go back and fix this. He made choices, I made choices, and here we are.” 

Remus heaved a sigh and looked at you sadly. “I don't think either of you realise that your choices don’t have to remain permanent; there can be an expiration date on them.” 

You were catching your breath from your mini temper tantrum when you heard the glass door slide open, both you and Remus turning to see Sirius standing there almost shy - far shier than you’d ever seen him before.  

“Just talk to him? Okay? You..don’t have to tell him now, just…talk to him.” Remus whispered before heading towards the door, clapping Sirius on the back before disappearing back into the house. 

“Hey.” Sirius offered cautiously after a few beats of silence, coming to stand beside you as the two of you looked over the railing of the patio to the rest of the manor grounds. 

“Hey.” You returned dumbly, clearing your throat before continuing. “You…you look good, Sirius.”

Sirius scoffed, and you could feel your shoulder rising before you saw him smirk at you - if not somewhat sadly - cutting you a playful glare from the corner of his eye. “Did you take up lying there in Ireland?” 

You let out a breathy half-laugh. “I’m not lying.” 

“Then you need glasses. I look like shite.”

“You look tired.” You amended. 

“I’m exhausted.” He agreed, and the two of you lapsed into silence. 

“You look good, though.” He continued. “Healthy.”

You hummed in agreement. “Funny what not having to run on rations and broken hours of sleep on military cots does for a person.”

“Why haven’t I heard from you, Y/N?” He blurted then, turning his entire body to face you. 

“Sirius, I-”

“Everyone else has. You’ve spoken to Lily on the phone. James and Remus have gotten letters. Even Reg got a postcard for his birthday.” 

“I’m sorry.” Was all you could manage to say.

“I wrote to you.” He continued. “Letters, a lot. Did you get them?”

You nodded your head yes shamefully.

“Did you read them?”

You felt your heart splinter at how hopeful and heartbroken he sounded over it. You felt like scum of the earth when you shook your head no, and he let out a sigh.

“I guess that makes me feel a little bit better, then.” He said as he lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. 

You found yourself taking a step away from him when you asked “why does that make you feel better?”

He let out a humourless laugh that forced smoke from his lips. “At least now I know that my begging for a second chance, begging you to come home, professing my love for you isn’t what kept you away.”

“Sirius-”

“I messed up, Y/N.” He declared earnestly. “I…I was fucking scared, terrified. I’d spent so much of my life living with one foot on the threshold of hell that after the war, I didn’t know how to live amongst the undead.”

He took a moment to catch his breath as if he’d run all the way here just to tell you something. “And I ran. I bolted, I…”

“You left.” You finished for him. 

“I left.” He agreed. “I… I didn’t know, Y/N.”

“Didn’t know what?” You asked as you choked back tears.

“Didn’t know what I had, or what I wanted. Or that I had everything that I wanted.”

“And you do, now? You know what you want?” You asked, and a look of determination painted his features as he met your gaze head on.

“For my entire life, I had never known what family meant, so I wasn’t even aware that I’d created my own with all of you until I’d risked it all. I was so sure I didn’t want to be like my parents that I never realised I may actually…want to be a parent someday. I was so sure I didn’t want to be my father that I never realised I actually did want to be a partner someday. I was so certain I’d never know what true love felt like that I didn’t even realise I had it right here all along with you.” 

“Sirius-”

“I messed up. I left. But what I don’t understand is why you did. Or why you stayed away.” He took a step towards you with his cigarette long forgotten in one of his hands, the ash threatening to burn his fingers before you plucked it and stubbed it out on the stone railing. He barely flinched. “Why’d you go?”

“I didn’t want to sit around and wait for you, Sirius. I- it hurt, I was hurt. And then-”

“I’m sorry.” He offered quickly, but you shook your head.

“I’m not telling you this for you to be sorry, I just-”

“I came back for you.”

“But it wasn’t just about me anymore, Sirius!” You shouted then, and you watched his brows furrow before his face fell in horror. 

“You’re seeing someone.” He asked, though he phrased it as more of a statement; like he’d been expecting it.

“I’m not seeing anyone, Sirius.” You sighed.

“Then why’d you leave? Why’d you stay away?”

“Because I’m pregnant.” You blurted, and Sirius fell silent. “I’m almost six months pregnant.”

“Six-” He started, eyes falling to your stomach still hidden behind the baggy article of clothing before you smoothed the fabric over your ever rounding bump. “Six months. Six…”

You let him do the maths in the head as he stared hard at your stomach like he was sitting in divination and it was a crystal ball that might just give him the answers if only he stared at it long enough.

“It’s mine?” He finally concluded.

“Yes.” You whispered.

“It’s mine. You’re pregnant, it’s mine.” He murmured, before his eyes met yours again. “You’re pregnant with my child?”

“Right.” You agreed, and he crumpled to a heap on the floor. 

“Sirius Orion Black,” Sirius heard Remus hiss, clearly hovering somewhere over him, “I swear to Godric if you do not wake up and eat some of this godsdamned vanilla cake you bought, your brother is going to skin you alive.” 

“It’s true.” James agreed from somewhere on Sirius’ other side. “He actually ran to the store when he found out you bought vanilla because he knew Remus wouldn’t eat any of it. Remus is going to get his chocolate cake, and you’re going to get egged.” 

“Shut up.” Sirius hissed as he scrunched his eyes closed. “Fuck.”

“How do you feel, mate?” James asked rather jovially as he clapped him roughy on the shoulder.

“Like hell.”

“Why’s that?” Remus joined in.

“Because I was in the middle of a dream and you sods woke me up going on about cake.” He muttered as he opened his eyes, realising then that he’d been propped up on a number of cushions in one of Lily and James’ spare rooms.

“S’he awake?” Lily whispered, and Sirius craned his neck to see you and Lily poke your heads into the room.

“Oh my gods.” Sirius breathed as he sat up, likely far too fast for someone who fell unconscious mere moments ago. “Oh my gods, you’re actually here?” 

“Did you hit your head, mate?” James asked as he prodded at Sirius’ head, causing Sirius to swat his arms away as he shifted towards the edge of the bed.

“You’re here.” He whispered as you slowly made your way into the room.

“I’m here.” You offered cautiously, eyes darting around at your oldest friends like there might be some secret threat lurking in the room.

“You’re pregnant…” He tried then, punching the air right out of Lily and James who both spun to stare at you in shock.

You smoothed the fabric of your shirt over your midsection again to expose a very obvious (now that everyone could actually see it) baby bump. 

“Oh my gods!” Lily and James chorused, causing Remus to snort.

“You knew, didn’t you!?” Lily accused Remus who held his hands up in surrender. 

“Only when she walked in, and not a second sooner.” 

“With my child.” Sirius continued, and you nodded at him. 

“Y/N.” Lily winced. “You-”

“You sodding scared me!” You shrilled then, grabbing one of the throw pillows James had dumped onto the ground to make room for Sirius and swinging it at him.

“I scared you!?” Sirius shrieked right back, much to the delight of Harry who started banging on the throw pillow that had landed beside him. 

“I thought I killed you!”

“Oh, well I’m terribly sorry that finding out the woman I’ve been in love with for years and pining hopelessly over for months - who was missing for all intents and purposes, may I remind you - is pregnant with my child happened to be a little shocking.” Sirius sneered sarcastically. 

“Well I only went ‘missing’ because the man I’ve been hopelessly in love with for years and pining hopelessly over for months took off an-” The abrupt end of your statement nearly gave the room whiplash as you cut yourself off mid sentence and stared at Sirius like you’d never seen him before. 

“What…what just happened?” James whispered carefully.

“Years?” You whispered then, and Sirius hated every version of himself that deigned to let you go without knowing just how loved you were.

“Probably when we were still just cosmic dust.” Sirius smiled sadly. “I’m sorry I didn’t always realise, I’m sorry I didn’t make sure that you knew.”

“I take it to guess there isn’t an aunt in Killarney?” Lily offered then, smiling kindly at you when you turned your attention towards her.

“No, I- I think there actually is an aunt in Killarney, I just don’t live with her.”

“Where do you live?” Sirius asked eagerly, wondering if you could hear it in his voice or even see on his face just how desperate he was to know everything about you.

“Near Tintagel.” You offered abashedly as Remus slapped his hand on his thigh.

“You minx!” He scolded you. “You lived basically across the channel from me this whole time!”

“I hope it’s nice, wherever it is” You offered him then, smiling through your tears as Sirius swallowed around his bile threatening its way up his oesophagus.

“I hope it’s nice.” Sirius blurted suddenly, and Sirius thanked the heavens for Remus John Lupin who seemed to understand that the conversation delved beyond the need of an audience, scooping Harry up and closing the door behind Lily, James, and himself to give you two some privacy. 

“It’s nice.” You offered wetly. “It’s quiet.”

Sirius hummed in acknowledgement. “In Tintagel, near Merlin’s cave?”

You laughed, which saw Sirius smiling. “I’m not right in Tintagel, just outside. My neighbours are mostly sheep.” 

“Does it have a picket fence?”

“To keep the sheep out of my garden.” You nodded with a smile.

“Flowers; lots of them.” Sirius deduced, you nodded again though Sirius watched your smile falter.

“You’d probably hate it.”

“Are you there?” He asked quickly.

“Well, usually, yes.” You offered, and Sirius shrugged easily.

“Sounds as though it might be my favourite place in the world, then.” 

The next breath that left you shuddered on its way out, and Sirius finally stood and met you in the middle of the room; close enough to touch but not daring to. He hadn’t earned that right yet. 

“Take me with you?” He all but begged then, and your face crumpled in misery.

“Sirius, I don’t want you to follow me because you have to, I-”

“I don’t have to though, I know I don’t; I know you’d never make me.” He assured you then, lifting a hand but pausing to wait for you to nod at him before he placed it on your upper arm. “The letters, Y/N, I- I’ve been looking for you for months.”

A sob tore through you as you lowered your head, and Sirius allowed himself to catch it in his free hand. 

“I don’t want you to feel bad; I’m not telling you so that you feel bad, love.” The endearment falling off his tongue so easily now that he had you in his arms. “But I need you to know that I want you - any of you, all of you - and have for a very long time.” 

“It’s just…you said-” and Sirius knew exactly what he said; he had played that conversation over and over and over in his mind until he found himself sick over it more than once. But we waited for you to tell him anyhow; he’d always wait for you. “You couldn’t settle down and be content, you couldn’t play house; you weren’t that kind of guy.” 

“I know, doll. I know.” He whispered. “I…I didn’t think I was capable of it. I didn’t think I deserved everything I wanted and I knew that you deserved better. That you deserve better.”

“But?”

“But I’d be happy to spend the rest of my life trying to prove you otherwise; trying to give you everything you deserve.”

“Sirius…” You sighed, and Sirius could see your walls cracking. “I…I’m-”

“Take me home? Please?” He begged then, words interrupted by a sob of his own. “To Tintagel, to Killarney, to bloody fucking Azkaban or the bottom of the sodding ocean, I don’t care where it is just as long as it’s with you, please. Please.”

Your hands landed on Sirius’ chest and he was sure you could feel his hummingbird heart beating under your fingertips. He only hoped you knew how it beat for you. 

“Please bring me home?”

James didn’t know if he could consider this a success or not. 

His motivation was not singular; it was a ‘hit two fairies with one gobstone’ sort of scenario, so to speak. Was his son turning two? Indeed he was! Was James throwing a party for said son’s birthday? You’re damned right he was. But was it also a really good excuse to force two of his idiot best friends into the same room again? Absolutely.

Except James seems to have gotten slightly more than he bargained for; Sirius falling unconscious in his childhood backyard, you sobbing into Lily’s shoulder out in the hallway as he and Remus tried to bring him back from the dead, Remus sneering at a slice of birthday cake like it personally offended him and Regulus threatening to defend his boyfriend’s honour, and - apparently - a new niece or nephew coming in the next three-ish months. 

But when he looked over to see you and Sirius emerging from the spare room - both of your faces tear stained and puffy from the grief and torment you no doubt put yourselves through - hands intertwined between your bodies and your hand resting protectively over your growing bump, and a spark in Sirius’ eyes James had thought he lost in the war but now realised he only lost when he lost you…

…yeah, James figured he could probably consider this a success.

[xinganhao]

🫂 older brother!mingyu vs. boyfriend!wonwoo.

anon → "could you please maybe do a text au of older brother! Mingyu and brother's best friend - and boyfriend - Wonwoo?"

‧₊˚✩彡 includes: cussing, sibling dynamics, wonwoo and mingyu are best friends! best read in order + headcanons under the cut.

🫂 the three times mingyu almost caught you (and the one time he did) .ᐟ

(1)

wonwoo likes to think he's a pretty rational guy. he follows rules. he does everything by the book. he treats people well, and he's a good friend. mingyu could attest. they've been best friends for years, after all. except— well, there might be one rule that wonwoo has bended just a teensy, tiny bit.

he's breaking it now as the two of you hold hands underneath the café table. you're doing your own thing with your free hand, but the other remains firmly grasped by wonwoo's. he never thought he'd be the clingy type, honestly. it just felt so out of character for somebody like him. and yet here he is, pouting ever so slightly whenever you try to pull away.

"i need to turn the page, baby," you say exasperatedly, gesturing to the book balanced precariously in front of you.

"i'll turn it for you," he says immediately, reaching out to do exactly that. "just let me know when you need me to."

"you're insane."

he pouts harder. you sigh.

minutes later, though, you're wrenching your hand away like wonwoo's touch has burned you. his whine of babyyy is on the tip of his tongue, but he chokes on the word when he sees the reason for your sudden distance: mingyu, bounding in to the café.

"there you are!" he cries to wonwoo. "watchu doin' with this bighead?"

you flip your older brother off. "tutoring," you say without missing a beat. "because unlike you, wonwoo has more than one functioning brain cell."

as the two of you bicker a bit more, wonwoo tries to rearrange his expression into something more neutral. it's all he can do to hide the way he's already missing the feeling of your fingers slotted in the spaces of his.

(2)

if somebody told a younger wonwoo that he would one day be using emoticons and emojis for someone, that younger wonwoo would've laughed his ass off. today's wonwoo can only hang his head in slight shame.

it came easily, but it also came in part because you used to ask 'are you mad at me? 🥺' when he would use his usual textspeak on you. wonwoo was more than happy to start adapting to your typing habits in a bid to ease your mind.

he's on safari, looking up the appropriate emoticon to send as a reaction to your latest selfie— he's torn between (ღ˘⌣˘ღ) and ヽ(♡‿♡)ノ, which may look the same, but he swears there are nuances— when he hears mingyu's amused voice mumble, "what the hell?"

"jesus christ!"

wonwoo's exclamation is paired with the most over-the-top reaction in the world: tossing his phone halfway across the room. mingyu doubles over in laughter as wonwoo glares up at his best friend, who'd been looking over his shoulder.

"yah, don't sneak up on me like that," wonwoo hisses, the tips of his ears going red.

"alright, mr. japanese kaomojis dot com," mingyu teases. he begins laughing harder at his own joke.

wonwoo smacks mingyu upside on the head before going to retrieve his phone. the screen protector has the ghost of a crack on it, but it's a small price to pay.

at least mingyu hadn't peeked the selfie of you making a kissy face for wonwoo.

(3)

"you should probably go soon," you say delicately, nudging wonwoo's head with the heel of your palm.

he lets out a low whine of protest. despite being significantly bigger than you, he's the one draped over you; his face buried in your chest, his arms wrapped around your waist.

the two of you are lounging on your living room couch. your parents— and your pesky older brother— all had plans elsewhere, giving you and wonwoo some freedom.

"you hate me," your boyfriend groans against the front of your shirt.

"they'll be here any minute."

"so i'll stay for thirty seconds more, then."

it's never just seconds more with wonwoo, but you've never been one to deny him. the thirty seconds spin in to three minutes, then seven, then—

the unmistakable sound of a car pulling into the driveway has wonwoo's head snapping up.

"shit," you both say at the same time.

wonwoo scrambles to disentangle from you. "is it—"

"mingyu," you confirm, having grown accustomed to the different sounds that would indicate who was coming home. your eyes are frantic as you wave wonwoo off. "go, go, go!"

he stumbles forward, then backward, like he's not sure where to go.

"my bedroom window!" you hiss, and wonwoo practically bolts up the stairs two steps at a time. just as he gets to the landing of the second floor, mingyu saunters in through the front door.

"were you talking to someone?" your brother asks.

"yeah," you say, schooling your reaction into one of nonchalance. "myself."

"get some help, weirdo."

"how about you—"

your biting retort is cut short by the distant sound of a distant crash. both you and mingyu look towards the general direction of the interruption.

"the hell?" mingyu grouses. you feel like your heart is in your throat as your brother heads for the front door to check.

a frazzled looking wonwoo is out on the porch.

"hey," wonwoo breathes to mingyu. "i, uh, came to see you. knocked over one of your pots while i was walking up, though."

mingyu's eyebrows raise. "why? forgot your glasses or something?"

your eyes catch on wonwoo's spectacles, resting at the foot of the couch. while mingyu's back is still turned, you grab them and shove them into your pocket.

"yeah, forgot 'em at home," wonwoo lies. he's not even looking at you as mingyu lets him in.

"you're in luck," a none the wiser mingyu says. "i literally just got home. otherwise, you would've needed to kill time with the world's biggest loser."

right, you think. like that isn't exactly what wonwoo had just been doing.

(4)

mingyu hadn't meant to find out. really. he was just going to be an annoying older brother— barge into your room, stand there for absolutely no reason, then leave the door open behind him. except when he goes to check, you're already asleep.

he notices that you've crashed atop your covers. that draws a derisive snort of laughter from him. "dumbass," he mumbles to himself. he's known you for all your life, and you're the type to complain about some phantom fever if you didn't have a blanket in your sleep.

he goes to pull your comforter over you, only to freeze midway.

your phone is angled at you, propped up against the wall. it seems like you'd fallen asleep on video call.

and, on the other end of the line is none other than wonwoo.

wonwoo is fast asleep, too. mingyu recognizes the other man's bedroom, sees the way that wonwoo is already dressed for bed. everything just seems to click, then. because everything else is excusable, negligible. but this? the intimacy of this, the sheer familiarity it entails?

mingyu feels like he's intruding. he probably is.

briefly, he considers screaming in your ear until both you and wonwoo are awake. he wants to see what kind of explanation the two of you can come up with on the spot. it'd be pretty funny, he thinks.

instead, he tucks your blanket over your shoulders, taking extra care to not wake you. he'll let you pretend for one more day, he decides with a slight shake of his head.

on his way out of your bedroom, mingyu closes the door for once.

[vintagebuckybarnes]

In Vino Veritas

Pairing → Avenger! Bucky Barnes x Lab Assistant! Female! Reader

Total Wordcount → 3.5K

Summary → It all started when you and the Avengers enjoyed drinks during the afterparty back at the Avengers Tower. There, Tony revealed one of your deepest secrets, and even though you wish it had never come to light at first, you’re glad it did when the man you love stands on your doorstep, ready to start the rest of your life together.

Tags & Warnings → Semi-canon compliant, Avenger! Bucky Barnes, Female! Reader, Tony’s Lab Assistant! Reader, Bucky’s past as TWS is mentioned, emotional hurt/comfort, mutual pining, some cursing, and explicit sexual content.

Tags: Smut → Grinding, begging, some dirty talk, praise, teasing Bucky, protected sex, cowgirl position.

Story Rating → Explicit

Author’s Note → This story is beta'd by the wonderful @late-to-the-party-81, and I cannot thank you enough for that. I hope you'll all enjoy my story, which is filled with some angst, lots of fluff, and some smut to top it all off! 💜

Writing Prompts @fandom-free-bingo Bug Edition → “There is no us.” | Riding | In vino veritas | “Touch me.” @fandom-free-bingo Medical Edition → Crush at first sight @julybreakbingo Post-JBB → Being confronted about their feelings for another

Tags List → If you’d like to be tagged in my stories, you can add yourself to my tag list here.

The evening starts fine, good, even. But it all takes an unexpected turn when the man you work for - Tony Stark - reveals your secret. A secret that you’d only recently revealed to him.

Earlier that day, you’d spotted Bucky as he was working out and from that moment on your mind has been with him instead of your usual work and tasks.

“Hello, Y/N? Anyone home in there?” Tony asks as he lays a hand on your shoulder, making you jump. You look up at him with a worried look while he smiles back at you with a kind expression. A soft sigh escapes your lips as the thoughts in your head wander off again, specifically how his back looked underneath the tank top he wore in the gym while doing squats. Not only that, but you also can’t stop thinking about the way his ass looked in the sweatpants he wore. In a word, magnificent.

“Is everything okay with you? You’ve been a bit off your game today.” As Tony sits next to you, you put down the screwdriver you were holding - the one he asked you three times to pass to him - before turning to face him, your gaze focusing somewhere on the wall behind him. For a moment, there’s a silence between you as you gather the courage to tell him what’s been on your mind.

“Well, uhm- There’s something, or someone, that I can’t stop thinking about, and it’s taking over my mind every second of every day. It- It’s Bucky,” you say almost in a whisper. For a few seconds, Tony is completely silent as he lets the thought of you having a crush on one of his fellow Avengers sit in his mind. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, he reaches out for your hand and takes it between his warm ones.

“You know that I’ll always support you in everything, right? I supported you when you expressed your desire to halt your life as an Avenger and retrain as my lab technician, and I supported you when you moved out of Avengers Tower to have your own home with more peace. This is not going to be any different. All I’m hoping for is that he will make you the happiest and best version of you, as you deserve nothing less.”

Tears brim at your waterline as Tony tells you this, and even though you deeply appreciate him, his words, and everything he has done for you, you can’t help but still feel a bit… odd about the fact you told him you’re having a crush on Bucky. That you have a crush on the man who was once the most feared assassin in the world under the hands of HYDRA.

“Now, can you hand me that screwdriver before your thoughts wander off to him again?” your boss asks in a teasing tone, making you smile as you grab it and hand it to him. Somehow, he always seems to know the right thing to say, and it's exactly why you enjoy spending time by his side while learning everything there is to know about his lab and what's going on in there.

Just as you’re about to get comfortable with another drink in your hand, you meet the gaze of the man you’re crushing on, and you feel heat coursing through your veins. The lines around his deep blue eyes intensify as he smiles at you, his attention making every last thought in your brain disappear. You’re so captivated by how Bucky looks at you that you miss your seat as you sit down. However, before you fall, you’re caught by a pair of solid arms that prevent you from hitting the floor.

“Careful there, Little One,” Thor says in his deep voice, his accent always making the butterflies in your stomach go wild. Even though you’d known Thor since you were young, you couldn’t help but get a little flustered by the nickname, and he smiled at you as you were finally sitting on the chair you intended to use.

“Thank you, Thor,” you whisper before sipping your cocktail. Around you, the conversations are starting to become a little blurry as you focus on Bucky and everything he has to say, his lips forming around the words effortlessly. When you suddenly feel a little shove against your arm, you yelp, making everyone go silent as they look at you.

“What did you do that for?!” you ask Thor in a low voice, but all he does is point to Tony, who obviously has something to say as he’s waving for everyone’s attention. There are moments when you enjoy the fact that alcohol can bring out people’s true feelings or thoughts, also known as in vino veritas, but not now. Oh no, now you wish you could disappear as you listen to the words coming out of Tony’s mouth.

“Guys, you really shouldn’t say this to Bucky or Y/N, but they’re having a massive crush on one another!” Tony says in a loud whispering tone, but what he fails to notice in his inebriated state is that you two are sitting right across from one another, enjoying the afterparty just like everyone else. Or at least, you were enjoying the afterparty until your secret got out.

The glass you were holding falls out of your hand before shattering into pieces on the floor, and your feet carry you as fast as they can away from the party and away from your worst nightmare come true. The music behind you fades away as you turn one corner after another, tears burning in your eyes as the event repeatedly replays in your mind. Your lungs start to burn as you keep running, the stinging feeling in your side increasing as you run out of the Avengers Tower into the night.

Meanwhile, Bucky’s world feels like it has taken a 180-degree turn. Mere minutes ago, he could only fantasize that you could have feelings for him, but now? A wave of disbelief washes over the super soldier, his expression showing pure surprise as he takes the moment in. For him, it was a crush at first sight from the momentyou walked into the training room on your first day. Over the years, his feelings have intensified, although he has only told Steve about his crush - or rather his now deep-rooted love - for you.

And yet, now that the pair of you have been confronted about your feelings for one another, he doesn’t know what to do. He has replayed the moment he’d confess his feelings to you more times than he can count in his mind, and in none of those versions, this is one of the scenarios that had appeared. It’s only when Steve grabs his arm and pulls him away that he seemingly comes back to reality again.

“Bucky, how does Tony know about your crush on Y/N? I mean, I’m, of course, fine with you sharing it, but-”

“I don’t know, Steve, I don’t know, and it kills me,” Bucky says as he runs his fingers through his cropped hair.“Fuck- I was planning on telling her this week but… but now it’s ruined, and I didn’t even get the chance to talk to her, and-” It’s all Bucky can say as he fights the urge to punch the wall with his metal fist, both hands clenched by his side as he tries to regulate his breathing. Without warning, Steve pulls him into a hug, and Bucky’s arms snake around his best friend's waist as his fingers clutch at the fabric of his shirt.

“It’s going to be okay, I promise,” Steve whispers, though he’s not entirely sure that’s true because he knows as well as anyone that things don’t always go back to how they were before. Still, Bucky decides to believe him as they stand there for a little while longer, and he soaks in every bit of comfort he can get for now. Lord knows he’s going to need it.

The past few days have been strange, to say the least. You haven’t been to the Avengers Tower since Tony revealed your now not-so-secret crush on the super soldier. You’re afraid of what will happen if you do. This also means you haven’t seen Bucky in a few days, and you miss him. You miss hearing his laugh, and you miss seeing how his mouth turns slightly upward as you hand him one of your baked goods, but most of all, you miss how his arms feel when he pulls you in for a hug.

Just as you’re about to make yourself a cup of tea, you get pulled from your thoughts by a soft but familiar knock on the door; only one thing can make that sound: Bucky’s metal hand knocking against the wood. For a moment, you contemplate your actions, but decide to give him at least a chance to talk, especially as it wasn’t him who laid out your feelings in front of everyone.

“Bucky, hi,” you say softly as you take in his appearance, your heart sinking as you do. It’s evident he hasn’t slept at all the past few days. There are dark circles under his eyes, and he doesn’t look as healthy as usual—more disheveled. The struggles he’s facing are apparent in his entire demeanor, and all you want to do is wrap him up in a warm blanket and cuddle him until the end of time.

“Hi,” he says hoarsely, and you step aside, allowing him to enter your apartment. He’s been here a few times already, and usually there’s a warmth radiating from you and every inch of the little place you call home, but ever since the party, it hasn’t been the same. It isn’t just the apartment, either. You feel different.

“Would you like some tea before we talk?” you ask to break the tension. “I was about to make some.”

He nods at you before wandering further into your apartment, and you head to the kitchen, picking out another mug for Bucky to use. Once he’s caught sight of your couch, he immediately takes a seat, a soft groan audible as he does. There aren’t many places more comfortable than the large couch that’s standing right here in your living room.

When you emerge a few minutes later with two steaming mugs of tea and a plate filled with chocolate chip cookies you baked fresh this morning, Bucky can’t help but smile at you. He gladly takes the tea with one of the cookies, as they’re his favorite, and when you sit down next to him, it feels just like it always has, as if nothing has changed. But you both know it has, and that’s why the super soldier’s now in your living room.

“So…” you start, unsure what to say now that he’s sitting on your couch. Bucky’s eyes are trained on the steaming tea in his hands, his thoughts going a mile a minute as he’s thinking about what he wants to say - other than confessing his love for you.

“So… uhm, we missed seeing you around the Tower,” Bucky starts, though you both know it’s mostly him who has missed seeing you there. You have always been a staple there during his mornings as you make him a cup of coffee, and during movie nights, you were always the one he could sit next to and enjoy the movie, but now that you’re not there, it’s like a piece of soul has left the Tower with you.

“I mean, yeah. It’s been a bit awkward for me to go back after what happened a few days ago,” you tell him, and a shudder of horror runs down your spine at the thought of having to face Tony again. A smile tugs at the corners of Bucky’s lips as he thinks back to what happened that night, a happy memory of your first meeting resurfacing in the back of his mind as he does.

“Good morning, Sergeant Barnes. I’ve made some chocolate chip cookies, if you want some. However, I should warn you, Tony’s been on the prowl since I took them out of the oven, so I’ll advise you to be quick,” you say with a glare towards Tony, who has been eyeing them up since he walked into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. For the first time in a long time, Bucky showed something akin to a smile, and everyone looked at each other to ensure they saw it, too.

“Thank you,” he says lowly, grabbing one of the smaller ones on the plate, followed by a cup of coffee, before swiftly leaving the kitchen to spend more time in his room. Before Bucky even left the kitchen, Tony was on the cookies as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks, and this time you let him.

“Can I- Is it okay if I tell you something? Because if I don’t say it now, I don’t know if I ever will,” Bucky says softly, and you nod before repositioning yourself so that you’re facing him. His gaze is still trained on his mug as he thinks carefully about his next words, afraid he might accidentally say the wrong thing.

“Tony was right. He is right, actually. When he said, we’re crushing on each other. I’ve been crushing on you since you offered me those chocolate chip cookies when Tony threatened to eat them all before anyone else had a chance to get them. It was like a switch flipped inside me back then, and I haven’t been the same since,” Bucky says, his mouth now in a line as he tells you about his feelings.

“Each time I look at you, it’s like I’m seeing an angel, and every time I hear your voice, it’s like a little piece of my soul is healing, too. I find myself drawn to you in every room and wonder what life has in store for us. But deep down inside, I know there is no ‘us’ yet. But I want there to be us. I want you, Y/N. I want you to be mine, in whatever capacity you’ll have me. If you want to stay friends, that’s okay with me, but if you want more, I’ll happily accept every bit of love you’re willing to offer me.”

Once Bucky’s done, you’re unsure what to say. What to think. What to do. You want to say that the feelings between you are mutual, that you’re in love with him and that you want nothing more than to be his, but something inside you is stopping you. So, instead of saying anything, you place your hand over his flesh limb, and his eyes slip shut at the feeling of your soft fingers against his rough hand.

“Bucky.” His name is a whisper on your lips, but it’s enough to make him look at you, to meet your gaze.

“I’m in love with you, too.”

As soon as the words leave your lips, Bucky carefully put his tea on the coffee table before hauling you onto his lap, his hands digging into the soft flesh of your waist as your lips interlock in a passionate dance. He can’t get enough of your soft mouth slotting together with his and the way his tongue fights for dominance with yours as your fingers dig into his neck. It’s been a long time since you’ve felt a strong connection with someone, and you’re happy to explore it with Bucky.

Your hips grind over his growing length of their own volition,your body looking for any bit of friction it can get. Without warning, one of Bucky’s hands slides lower until he’s cupping your ass, making you gasp into his mouth as a result. Bucky can’t help but smile into the kiss as he pulls you impossibly closer, your legs spreading just a bit further as you sink against his muscular body.

“Hmm, I’ve been wanting this - you - for so long,” he says between the kisses trailing your jaw towards your ear, his teeth nipping on your earlobe as your head lolls to the side. With every passing second, your thoughts are melting away more and more, and all that’s left inside your mind is Bucky. Soon, his other hand joins the first as he helps you grind onto him, a groan falling from his lips as he sets a perfect pace for you both.

“B-Bucky—" his name sounds more like a whine than anything else. “I—I want you.”

“But you already have me, pretty girl, ‘m right here,” he says with a teasing lilt to his voice, his hands continuing to help you grind until you’re a complete mess for him. Your shorts are ruined, your arousal soaking through them and onto the bulge in his black jeans, much to Bucky’s joy. He was wondering what it would take to get you to this point, and it turns out it won’t take much.

He smiles against the skin of your neck, where he’s taking his time to mark you with hickeys and small bitemarks, all of which leave you a bit more of a moaning, begging mess on his lap, much to his pride. When one of your hands moves away from his neck and down his torso, he quickly catches on to what you’re doing. “Someone’s a little impatient today, huh?”

“Yes, oh god, yes! I need you to touch me, Bucky. I want to feel you inside me as you make me fall apart on your cock, and I need you to fuck me like there’s no tomorrow!” Your voice sounds more breathy than usual, but every care you thought you had has gone out the window. All you want is Bucky and his cock to ride, until you’re orgasming so hard and long you can’t remember your name.

“Okay, I will. Don’t you worry about anything, okay? Let me take care of you, and I’ll give you everything you need and more,” he reassures you in a shushing voice. You nod before kissing him again, which immediately deepens before he gently helps you get up, allowing you to take off your panties and shorts, and he can take off his pants and boxershorts, too. As soon as you’re both freed from your last pieces of clothing, you hand him a condom you retrieved from the side table drawer while he took the time to undress himself.

“Hmmm, looks so thick,” you tell him as you look at it with wide eyes, wondering how he’s going to fit inside you as you’re positioning yourself on his lap once more, your legs bracketing his thicks thighs as you get comfortable.

“I know, but I’m gonna go slow. Wouldn’t want to hurt you and your perfect, sweet little pussy.” He smiles as he holds his cock in place, your pliant body sinking onto him slowly as your fingers dig into his shoulders to steady yourself. Your hiss of pleasure is audible and your face contorts at the slight sting of him stretching you, but just like he promised, Bucky is taking it slow to ensure you’ll both have the most amazing first time.

As soon as you’re fully seated on his lap, your body goes limp against him, your face tucked in the crook of his neck as you adjust to his girth, and Bucky places soft kisses on your head while praising you through it all. “You’re doing so well for me, baby. Such a good girl for me, letting me take the lead and giving you exactly what you need.”

A small smile appears on your face as you look up at him with big, doe-like eyes, and he can’t help but smile back as the back of his fingers gently caress your cheek. He may have thought you were beautiful before, but nothing compares to this moment. 

“I love you, Y/N, and I promise to take care of you with every fiber of my being,” he whispers, his lips sealing his promise against your cheek. Your eyes fall shut at his words, and his hand moves down your side until it’s on your hip again, ready for you to let him know when you’re good to go. Your bodies work in complete sync with one another with every rise and fall of your chest, and his hands guide you beautifully as you slowly sink and rise on his length.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” he groans, and it doesn’t take long for both of you to find your highs for the first time, and they’re serving as a promise of everything else that’s still to come in this lifetime. A few days ago, you and Bucky didn’t even know you felt the same about one another, but now you’re sharing the start of the rest of your lives, and it’s all thanks to Tony. Because without him, you wouldn’t have been able to tell the man of your dreams how much you love him.

Masterlist → Bucky Barnes

GIF: Source → All the other graphics you see are made by @vintagebuckybarnes

[cinnamorollcrybaby]

heyyy so like you are the only creator i fllw that can maybe write this...uhm like sukuna and insecure!reader that start making out and it gets heated and then sukuna takes readers shirt off and then his but when he wants to pull down her pants she stops him bcz she is insecure of her stretch marks but then he reassures her and they do it😭 I hope you will maybe write this and didn't have a stroke trying to understand this request 💓

- love anoo (i LOOVEE your work)

Unwavering

Tags: Sukuna x fem!Reader, insecure!reader, soft!Sukuna, trueform!sukuna, fluff, smut, unprotected sex, slight breeding kink, mdni, NO PROOFREAD SORRY IM TIRED.

An: I think this is a stupid cute idea 🥹 Thank you for trusting me and requesting anoo!! I really appreciate it 🫂

Sukuna’s a patient man. He had waited over a thousand years to execute a failing plan to take over the world. Now that he’s lost, he’s decided to take up other avenues in his life.

Learning to simply… live was hard. Sukuna’s a determined man. He needs to have a goal in mind in order to function. Whatever meaningless hobby he took up, he tried being the best at.

With his newfound free time, he also decided to try to live the slow life. He took meaningless trips to coffee shops, and he tried not to think about murder when everyone screamed and ran away from him. Maybe it was his 7’3 stature… maybe it was the extra set of arms… maybe it was the tattoos.

Everyday he was reminded of why he didn’t live this life in the first place. Humans do not accept him. They do not want him in their society. He was willing to bet that they’d almost rather him play the villain… Then, they could all shamelessly hate him.

Though, there was one human who didn’t run. The nervous barista gave him a shaky smile, and she politely asked for his name.

Sukuna was taken aback. This tiny mortal wants to know his name? Knowing someone’s name in the heien era was a privilege — not a right. He grew up and lived in a time before social media and phones. If you wanted to know someone’s name, you had to ask them for it, and they had to be willing to oblige you in an answer.

With your cute demeanor, Sukuna was willing to oblige you with his name. “It’s Suk-“ He stopped himself. That was a name that struck fear into people’s hearts. He didn’t want to be associated with that fear anymore, and the thought of frightening you actually brought him no joy. “Ryomen.”

You gave another shaky smile before you carefully etched his name into the side of a cup. For you, this interaction was terrifying, but you couldn’t afford to quit in this economy. So, you were serving a monster. No big deal.

“I like that name.” You complimented. It’s often a compliment you give patrons when you’re nervous… or when you’re trying your hand at flirting. Either way, you look back up at him, trying not to focus on the extra set of eyes. “What can I get you?”

Sukuna felt a weird shiver going up his back when you complimented him. Perhaps this was your cursed technique? Were you a sorcerer pretending to be a barista, so you could spy on him? The shiver wasn’t necessarily unpleasant… just unfamiliar. He didn’t hear much compliments from anyone besides Uraume, and Uraume’s doesn’t count. They compliment him for everything, including the way he breathes. He finds it annoying.

“It’s custom to give your own name when someone else has graced you with theirs.” He grunted, coming off much more gruff than he intended. He just wanted to know your name.

“Oh…” Your voice was soft, and you gaze away from the behemoth in your lobby. Was this some sort of trick? Some old myths and legends say that a name holds power. Would he be able to kill you if he knew your name?? You glance back over at him, noting his large muscled and incredibly toned chest that his kimono didn’t bother hiding. He was so fucking big. Your thoughts were completely baseless. If he wanted to kill you, he simply just could — regardless of knowing your name. “It’s yn.” You finally answer.

Sukuna nodded. “That’s a good name.” He realized that his compliment didn’t sound as personable as yours. It’s his first time though… He’s sure that he’ll figure it out.

“Thank you..” You respond as you started to contemplate what exactly your life had come to. You were having a semi-pleasant interaction with a monster at your job… Do you get paid enough to deal with this? “So… Ryomen, what can I get for you?”

Sukuna felt another shiver. He liked hearing your voice say his name. He wanted to hear it again and again. He wanted his name to fall from your lips like a mantra as he made love to you.

Shaking away those pestering thoughts, he finally gets to the task at hand. “Yes.. what is this.. coffee that you mortals speak of..?”

Oh boy.

*** *** ***

After explaining to the very skeptical monster what coffee was, you served him a cup with very little milk and sugar. Sukuna was delighted by the taste, and he was delighted with your company.

He made it apart of his routine. He woke up, took care of himself, got dressed in whatever Uraume had picked out from his closet, and he set forth to your coffee shop, where he’d hang around for hours — scaring away every potential customer.

He asked you all sorts of things, and you two got to know each other better. It was an unlikely bond.

It took him forever to finally kiss you. Scared of running off his one and only human companion — his first chance of living the slow life, he wanted to make sure you absolutely were ready and wanted that sort of relationship with him.

It led to some rather funny moments of you trying to kiss him, him getting confused and flustered, leaving you to feel rejected.

But when he finally did kiss you, Sukuna felt a sort of hunger that he hadn’t felt in his years of living. Sure, he has had sex before, mostly out of sheer boredom. Immortality isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.

But this, this was different. This was lust, longing, yearning. He wanted to make you feel good. He needed to show you how… happy you make him.

He had you sat upon his lap as he chased your lips with feverish kisses. Today would be the day. He’s going to finally indulge himself in your warm embrace and allow himself to enjoy on of the most human of pleasures: connection.

His hands were slowly rubbing your hips — trailing them up and down, feeling the beautiful curvature of your body. He loved every ditch and mound. He loved how you just fit against him.

His hands finally take a chance, and he slips them underneath your shirt. The skin-on-skin contact is nearly dizzying, and he feels almost embarrassed for letting a little bit of steamy foreplay get him so riled up. He can’t help it though, not when your lips taste so sweet.

Your shirt is promptly slipped up over your head, and he discards it to the side. His oversized palms slide up your tummy to your chest where he carefully grasped at your breast, groaning into your mouth as he feels the fullness and weight in his hand.

Though, despite his lust clouded brain, he didn’t miss the way your stomach flexed and tensed under his touch. Assuming you were just a big ticklish, he decided to ignore it.

His lips trail down to your neck, where he’s making mark after mark on you. Every mortal who dared to step foot in that coffee shop should know you’re not on the menu.

“Ryo.” You gasp his name so sweetly while your jaw tilts back ever so slightly. He’s never been a witness to something so pretty and pure.

His teeth go to nip at your neck, and his hands slide to your back, so he can free you from this contraption that dares to keep your beautiful breasts from his reach.

After a moment of trial and error (and a small giggle from you), Sukuna finally unclasps your bra, and his mouth waters when he’s graced with the sight.

He doesn’t take a moment for granted. Living the slow life would need to wait for a moment while he chases this euphoric feeling you give him.

His hand rests underneath the globe, and he flicks his tongue out over your nipple. For a moment, he wonders if his ministrations are more for you or him. His answer comes to him in the form of a breathy whine from you.

Clasping his mouth over the swollen bud, he uses his hand to toy with your other one. Your hands are entangled in his hair, weakly tugging as you let out those frantic whines.

He switches sides, paying an equal amount of attention to your other breast. He’s subtly experimenting with your body, trying to determine which of his tongue movements do you like the best based off the sounds that fall from your lips.

Licking and gentle sucks seem to be the winner. Personally, Sukuna would like to try biting, but you had let out this pained hiss when he tried. He quickly went back to his more gentle, loving licks.

By this time, his cocks were throbbing in agony. He can’t remember a time where he’s been this hard and hadn’t already decided to promptly handle it himself.

His hands fall to the waistband of your legging that hug around your hips, and he notices you tensing and arching away from his touch once more. He pulls away from your nipple with an obscene ‘pop’.

“Do you have a secret wound that you are not telling me about?” He finally prompts you, hands moving to your back where you seem more comfortable with him touching.

You shift just a bit in his lap from the sudden discomfort of the conversation. You figured this would come up at some point, but you didn’t know how he was going to handle it. Debating on lying to him and saying you are wounded, you actually end up deciding to tell the truth.

“It’s not that. I just…” Your eyes try to find anything else in the room other than him to focus on. “… don’t know if I am ready for you to see me like this.”

Sukuna’s face relaxes, and he sits up to eye you. “That’s an interesting choice of words, princess.” He casually notes before his hands go back to idly rubbing on your waist. “If you’d like to stop, you can just come out and say that. I think I can surprise you with my patience.”

You give him a small appreciative smile. Despite the coldness of his sharp facial features, Sukuna can say somethings that just instantly warm you to him. “It’s not that I don’t want this because I really do… Can we.. just maybe turn the light off when we…?”

His eyebrows furrow. If you wanted this, why did you seem so cautious. Then, it hits him. It must be his face and extra appendages. With the lights off, you can pretend that he’s another mortal man… that is very large and muscular.

“I don’t think dimming the lights will erase an extra set of eyes and arms, but I will do it to ease your worries, princess.”

Your eyes widen, realizing Sukuna had taken your request the entirely wrong way. “What-? Nononono- I don’t want to hide you.” You quickly scramble to get the words out, and Sukuna seems surprised when you cup his jaw so lovingly. “You’re perfect. I’m trying to hide myself from you.”

Sukuna blinks a few times, taken aback by your admission. “Why would you punish me that way?” He asks, not able to fathom why you would hide the most perfect thing he’s ever seen from him.

You’re rendered completely silent. Truthfully, you know why you don’t want him seeing you naked. You’ve seen the sight before… the purple and blue stretch marks that litter your lower tummy and inner thighs. You don’t want to tell him what’s making you so shy to the idea because then he’ll only notice it more. Plus, anytime you’re honest with yourself about the insecure thoughts, it feels like you’re one of those girls who fish for compliments.

Sukuna, while not very emotionally intelligent, is able to see the emotional turmoil you’re going through. His hands slowly move from your hips to your cheeks, and he holds your face to maintain eye contact with you.

“Do you know how long I’ve been alive?” He asks. His tone is warm and even. His red ochre eyes resting upon yours.

“No, I don’t.” You answer truthfully. You knew he was immortal, and he had lived a long life already. You just didn’t know how long that was.

His thumb tenderly strokes your cheek as he admires you. “I’m older than soap.” He quietly laughs. “I promise you… I have seen some things that you couldn’t fathom. Across all my time on this horrible planet, I have been with curses and mortals alike, and trust me mortal women put curses to shame when it comes to what’s downstairs.”

You let out an appreciative laugh, easing up in his lap. His lips crack into a small smile — glad he’s able to provide you with some comfort.

His hands engulf your cheeks. “You are the prettiest thing these hands have ever touched. Nothing about you could turn my gaze away. You have my word.”

“Besides, I think you may be a bit more put off by what my clothes are hiding.” He adds, piquing your curiosity.

“Oh? Is that right?” You ask with a cheeky smile that makes Sukuna’s chest feel all warm.

“If you’d like..” His voice feels like velvet across your skin. He speaks in a purr. “I can show you.”

Your mind goes completely blank, but you nod slowly, encouraged by his words. His lips reconnect with your neck, kissing right below your ear, and he moves his hands to your hips, guiding your movements to slowly grind against him.

You’re able to feel just how well endowed he is through the thin fabric of your leggings and panties. Every inch slides against you — rubbing and bumping against you in just the right way.

It quickly derails into another needy makeout session — as if you two are horny teenagers chasing each other’s lips.

This time, Sukuna undoes his own robes first. His philosophy is that once you see that he has two cocks instead of one, you’ll feel comfortable enough showing whatever you’re so afraid of.

Your eyes widen, and your head tilts a bit, causing Sukuna to chuckle. “Told ya I would win.” He smirked proudly.

“How am I…?” Your voice trailed off, not even knowing what to say — too embarrassed to ask how you’re suppose to take all that.

“Slowly and with a lot of prep.” He gives you a toothy grin, showing off his fangs. “Now…” His hands slowly dipped back down to your hips and the waistband of your leggings.

You tense up involuntarily, but you nod slowly, giving him permission. Sukuna lifts you off his lap, and he carefully lies you on your back against his bed — treating you like you’re fragile.

Once your leggings are discarded, your eyes avoid his — too scared of what he’d might think. You don’t even look down to see what you look like in this position, knowing you’d just end up turning yourself off if you saw the marks on your thighs and tummy.

Sukuna’s eyes rest upon your pretty cotton panties that are soaked and sticking to your cunt. His mouth waters from the sight, and he tests his luck, slowly removing your panties from your body.

Your pussy looks even more delicious than he could’ve imagined. His cock literally twitches from the sight before he gets on his knees at the edge of the bed, and he pulls you by your hips down to where he can get a good smell of your arousal.

He groans from your scent, imagining just what you’re going to taste like on his tongue. He wonders if you’re more of a moaner or a crier, but he snaps his thoughts back to your earlier hesitancy.

“What was there to be nervous about, princess?” He asks as his fingers can’t resist touching you. He teases your clit gently as he waits for an answer.

“I-“ You stifle a small whimper as you feel his fingers graze against you gently. After a beat of silence, you finally speak back up again. “It’s just… the stretch marks.” You mumble quietly.

Sukuna furrows his brow, and he looks down to where your inner thighs are, and he looks at your tummy. “What about them?” He bluntly asks.

You shift uncomfortably, wishing you could wipe his memory of it entirely. “I just don’t like how they look is all.”

Sukuna’s thumb slowly applies pressure to your clit, and he starts to rub in loose circles. “That’s stupid. Everyone has them.” He replies bluntly, his more rough around the edges nature coming out as he listened to you.

A small muffled whine comes from your lips, and you arch your back as you feel his ministrations. “What?” You ask, not able to grasp what he’s saying.

Sukuna smirks as he sees you start to lose track of the conversation. He leans into your cunt before letting out a warm puff of air from his mouth. He loves watching how your entrance tries to clench around nothing. It’s cute seeing how your soaking wet pussy thinks it’ ready for him.

“I said that’s dumb. Everyone had stretch marks. It’s a part of growth.” He reasserts as he looks back up at you.

“You clearly haven’t seen girls on the internet.” You mutter, but your attitude is quickly dispelled whenever Sukuna lightly spanks your cunt, causing for a wet slapping noise.

“No. I haven’t. I have no interest in looking at something fake.” His eyes glare at you before he leans in and gives your swollen clit a kiss. His tongue darts out, and he laps at your puffy folds. A groan escapes from his mouth from your taste, gently vibrating against your cunt before pulling away and returning his thumb to your clit. “There’s no reason to be embarrassed over such trivial things. The marks just show that you have grown, and everyone grows. That’s it.”

You try to think of a rebuttal, but your mind is so cloudy with lust that you can’t think of one. Your hips lift from the bed with a small whine — no longer wishing to focus on your insecurities. You even look down, not caring if you’re going to see the stretch marks. Your eyes meet his, and you give him a pitiful gaze.

Sukuna instantly chuckles as he knows what you’re wanting. “We’ll come back to this, princess.” He hums before he dives back in, gently kissing and suckling on your clit. If his eyes weren’t closed, he’s sure they’d roll back into his head from how sweet you taste.

When he feels your hands grabbing onto his hair, he lets out a small smug laugh before lapping at your cunt with his tongue. The wet sticky noises fill the room along with your moans and whines.

Sukuna begins to wish that he was blessed with two tongues like he was given two of every thing else, and that’s when he remembers…

His mouth is focused on your clit, licking, swirling his tongue around, gently kissing. He brings his hand below his jaw, and he presses it against your opening.

You’re briefly confused, but you don’t question him since he’s making you feel this damn good with his mouth. Your confusion is quickly whisked away when you feel a second tongue delving deep inside you.

“Fuck-!” You moan before quickly jerking your hips up, but his other set of hands holds your waist down while he enjoys his meal.

Sukuna’s such a genius. With this technique, he can make you feel twice as good, which means you get twice as wet.

His tongues work together, lapping and plunging to drink the most nectar from you. Your poor thighs are already shaking, and you’re a squirmy thing when you’re getting close.

Sukuna doesn’t seem to mind though. He’s so lost in your perfect cunt that anything besides the word “stop” would fly right over his head.

“K-Kuna… mmnnf! I’m gonna…. ah, gonna cum.” You warn, feeling that pit tightening in your stomach. He pulls you down onto his mouths harder, frantically devouring you as he hasn’t had his fill yet.

“Cum for me.” His words are deep and raw with desire. He pulses his hand tongue in and out of you quickly until he feels the way your sloppy walls constrict around him, making small squelching noises as you find your orgasm.

“Fuck-! Shiiiit~” You whine as your hips try to lift up, trying to escape all of the stimulation.

“Thaaat’s it.” He purrs as he watches his hand mouth do all the work. His chin is absolutely covered in your juices but he doesn’t seem to mind.

When your body relaxes, and you’re panting against his bed, Sukuna promptly removes his hand mouth before plunging two fingers deep inside your wet heat.

His fingers are so thick and long. He’s literally a monster. Taking two of his fingers is like taking four of your own. The stretch burns but in the best way possible.

“Ah-! W-wait.. too much!” You whimper, leaning your head back with a quiet hiss.

“Really? I think you can handle it.” Sukuna taunts with a small smirk before carefully pumping his fingers in and out. Your pussy is still so soaked, fluttering around his fingers to cause wet mushy noises. “I’d say she’s enjoying it.” He adds with a smug grin, referring to how noisy your cunt is.

You squeeze your eyes shut as you try to cope with how sensitive you are right after finishing so hard on his hand and mouth, but your eyes snap right back open when you feel his oversized palm grab onto your chin.

“Ah, ah, I want you to look at me, pretty girl.” He teases with a toothy grin. “Look at who you’re letting get you off.”

“Fuck..” You whimper as you try to lean up to kiss him, but Sukuna leans back and rejects you. He’s still such an asshole.

“You’re not getting out of looking at me.” His fingers start to piston harder, curling upwards until his bumps against that special spot that makes you see stars.

Your eyes cross as you grab at the sheets. No one had ever made you feel this good, not even you could when you touch yourself.

Sukuna’s just content drawing orgasm after orgasm. He loves watching you let go of all that worry you had, letting you focus on some of your most primal desires, and it does things to him knowing that you’re comfortable to do this with him — comfortable letting him see this side of you.

His cocks are still rock hard, pressed against his stomach as he feels how tight you are wrapped around his fingers. “You’re going to feel so good wrapped around my cock.” His voice is a low growl, fingering you harder as he thinks about what it’s going to be like to finally fuck you.

Your pussy is sobbing all over his fingers, damn near coating his hand in your arousal. He’s bullying your g-spot again and again, fucking directly into it to make you whine and cry out in pleasure.

“Yeah? You like that idea? How badly do you want me to fuck you?” He taunts, feeling the way your walls are constricting around his fingers. He can tell you’re getting close again.

“F-fuck!” You gasp, throwing your head back against the mattress. Your skin feels like it’s vibrating as your pleasure starts to build once more.

“That’s not an answer.” Sukuna’s other hand swats at your bottom, causing for a slapping noise to echo in rhe room.

“Badly! B-badly… please fuck me. Please!” You whine as you’re on the brink of an orgasm.

Sukuna’s fast. He removes his fingers, but before you have time to react, one of his cocks is sliding in, replacing that empty feeling.

Even with all that prep, it’s a tight squeeze, making even Sukuna growl. “Fuck. How can you be this tight?” His hands grab onto your hips as he buries himself to the hilt.

Your back is arching off the bed, letting out silent screams that come out as whiny mewls. The stretch is unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. Your spongy walls start to clench around him, pulsing as another orgasm is pulled from you.

Sukuna’s stuck in an awkward position as he’s too tall to fuck like this, besides he doesn’t want to move to ruin your orgasm, so he stays leaning over you as your body comes undone beneath him.

“Beautiful.” He groans, admiring your raw beauty as you cum on his cock. He’s truly never seen anything like it. You’re such a beautiful mess.

Your breath is shaky as you slowly come down. Sukuna sits patiently waiting for you to calm. His hips are beckoning to move, but he sits still, letting you get use to the feeling of being so full.

“Ah… hah.. fuck.. s’kuna..” Your voice is breathy, filled with utter need that makes his cock twitch inside you.

“Up you go.” He murmurs as he wraps his monstrous arms around you, lifting your body with absolute ease. He’s able to maintain full control over your body as he eases you down onto his cock carefully.

Your body is shaky, and covered in a sheen of sweat as you wrap your arms around his neck, hugging his body to yours closely. You two are connected in every way.

His lips press sweet kisses to your cheek and neck, gently nipping at your skin to give him something to focus on so he doesn’t absolutely ruin your cunt immediately.

It doesn’t take long before you’re squirming in his arms, trying to get whatever friction you can out of him. He chuckles lowly, “Careful princess. Don’t hurt yourself.” He purrs directly into your ear, breath brushing against you.

He slowly picks you up, until just his tip remained inside, plugging your tight cunt before he lowers you back down onto him like you weigh nothing.

“Mmm fuck… such a perfect cunt.” He growls before picking you up once more and lowering you back down. He loves the way your soft body feels against his, and you’re so warm. It’s unlike anything he’s ever experienced before.

“Goood girl..” He praises in a soft whisper. He’s not use to giving out compliments still… but he’s getting better. He’s been learning by watching your reactions, and this is by far the one that makes you blush the most.

“Mmph~ Kuna… so deep..” You whimper into his neck. He continues to move you up and down his cock, using you like a perfect little fleshlight.

The sound of wet squelches and clapping stays consistent throughout the room, and his other cock throbs from neglect - a pearl of pre-cum leaking out.

“Gotta give both of them attention, baby. I’m greedy.” He growls before slides all the way out of you, and he pushes his other cock inside instead.

They feel almost identical, except with different curvature. He was a little more forceful now, jerking your body up and down his length aggressively.

Your clit rubs against his pelvis, creating for the perfect friction. You grip at his shoulders, squeezing your eyes shut as it’s all just so much.

Your thighs were trembling, and you let out every cry of pleasure that bubbled in your throat. No way to try to gain any control in this situation — you’re forced to just take it and cope with the stimulation.

Sukuna grunts and growls with each thrust. One of his other hands that aren’t holding you up reaches up to grasp your hair, and he pulls it back — forcing you to look him in the eye while he fills you so full again and again.

Your mewls and cries only fuel the more primal side to him. His mind is cloudy — chasing that high, wanting to spill himself so deep inside you that you feel him for days to come.

He yanks your hips up, and he takes a moment before he carefully sinks you back down on both his cocks. Both of them are slick from your arousal, but you’re still so tight.

“S’kuna~! Wait- nnngh… fuck I can’t!” You cry out, holding his gaze with bleary eyes from overstimulated tears.

“Shhh.. you can take it.” He mumbles lowly. “You wanna make me proud, don’t you? Take it…”

It feels like he’s splitting you apart while he tries to push deeper. Your entire body is trembling against him, let out pained whimpers as well as pleasurable cries because the stretch feels so good.

He gives your poor cunt just a moment to adjust before he starts bouncing you along both his cocks. The way your drooling cunt clenches around him, smushing his cocks together while he ruts upwards into you, making him grunt with pleasure.

You’re a whimpering mess in his arms, already embarrassingly close to your third orgasm while both his cocks are kissing your cervix so deeply — both leaking with an unnatural amount of pre-cum to make sure your pussy stays nice and lubricated for them.

His hand pulls your hair again, forcing your eyes back up at him. “Look at me.” He growls in a demanding tone, “Look at me while I breed this cunt.”

All 5 of his red eyes focus on you — completely enamored by your beauty. Lost in the haze and heat, only a couple words could fall from his lips. “So pretty…”

As if on cue, he feels your gummy walls squeeze around him, and tears fall from your eyes as your brought into another soul-crashing orgasm. His hands continue to bounce you up and down, riding you through your orgasm before he pushes himself in so deep. He swears he can feel your womb.

Both of his cocks pulse inside you, pumping your abused cunt so full of cum that it seeps from the edges of your entrance while he’s still plugging you.

“Oh gods-! F-fuck…” You whimper as it’s so hot. Like, it’s genuinely so warm in your pussy — you’re almost worried. “Why..” You manage to pant out, trying to ask him why it feels like that.

“Shh.. shh.. I have no explanation for you, princess. It just feels that way.” He speaks lowly as he slowly sits on the bed, still holding your body in his lap.

He presses a tender kiss to your forehead, and he feels your heart beat against his flesh. As he holds you to him, he wonders that if he had a heart, would it be in sync with yours? Would you two beat as one?

[cherrygirlfriend]

do your job right pairing: assistant!reader x ceo!rafe synopsis: assistant!reader forgets to mail important documents; the diligent mr. cameron makes sure it doesn't happen again. warnings: smut, spanking, degradation, praise MDNI - wc: 1.1k this is the first day of my birthday-week fics! honestly i had a blast working on all of these and i hope people enjoy them. ᯓᡣ𐭩

rafe had always been a hardworking man, especially when it came to his business, and he couldn't stand it when his employees didn't do their jobs right. people say that you can either choose to be feared, or respected, and rafe cameron was the kind of man who'd rather be feared.

so, the fact that he refused to fire the ditzy, airheaded girl who'd been hired as his assistant was nothing short of a miracle in the eyes of his other employees. what they didn't know, they couldn't ruin.

you were shaking as you walked towards his office, wobbly on your kitten heels, the tone that rafe used with you still fresh in your mind.

"come into my fucking office. right now." he had barked into your phone, before shutting the call. you chewed on your lower lip, not knowing what you had done this time for him to be cross with you. still, you lifted your hand, softly knocking on the door with the golden nameplate reading 'r. cameron'.

"come in."

you took a deep breath before pulling the door open, revealing your boss leaning against his desk, the sleeves of his button-up rolled up to his elbows, crossed in front of his chest, a harsh look on his face, his eyes as cold as ice.

"lock the door."

hesitantly, you did as you were told, chewing on your lower lip, looking at him through your eyelashes. "w-what did i do this time?" you asked with a shaky voice.

rafe let out a small chuckle, entirely devoid of any positive emotion before clearing his throat, picking up a small stack of papers off his desk, and when you realized what they were, you felt all the blood drain from your face. "look familiar, hm?"

"mr. cameron, i'm sorry, i swear i was going to-"

"but you didn't." rafe interrupted you, tutting as he shook his head, one of his hands going to scratch his chin in thought, "you know, i'm starting to think you keep doing this on purpose. that you like it when i get mad at you, when i punish you. 'cause i don't know how someone could be so... dumb to keep making these mistakes."

"i'm sorry, i'll send it over right now, please-"

"no. that's not how this works." he pushed himself away from his desk, slowly striding over to you. looking at you up and down, rafe lifted your head up from your chin, making you look up at him. "you know the drill. desk. bend over."

"mr. cam-"

"now."

the air of finality in his voice caused a shiver to run down your spine as your wobbly legs took you to his desk, and you hesitantly bent yourself over his desk, the desk cold against your arms.

"you know what to do." rafe said, his hand resting over your ass that felt bare under his touch even with the fabric of your pencil skirt that was separating your skin from his, a rush of heat in your lower stomach. "count for me."

slowly, he pushed up the fabric of your skirt, revealing your bare ass, rafe letting out a small chuckle, "i see you decided not to wear panties, like i've asked. looks like my dumb little secretary can actually listen. you know what they say about broken clocks."

he grabbed at the flesh of your ass, massaging it slightly as he tutted, "five. you ready?"

"y-yes..." you mumbled weakly, squeezing your eyes shut and biting down on you're lower lip, preparing yourself for the impact.

a loud smacking sound echoed around his office before you could even register the sting on your ass, a small squeal unwillingly escaping your lips as your body was jolted forward by the impact.

"o-one." you counted, rafe's palm massaging at the buttock he had just slapped, before slowly pulling it away.

"you know, if you weren't such a dumb, forgetful slut, i wouldn't have to be doing this."

before you could even process what he had said, his rafe's palm landed another slap on your ass, your body jolting forward once again. this time, he didn't even take the time to massage your buttock before he pulled his hand away, delivering another slap to your ass almost immediately, one that made you let out a noise that was something between a moan and a squeal even though you were biting down on your lower lip so harshly you could taste blood.

"count."

you took in a deep breath as he massaged your ass, trying to stabilize yourself, your breathing erratic, feeling your heartbeat in your throat. "t-two, and, uh... three."

"i'm surprised," rafe cooed mockingly, "that a dumb little thing like you can even do simple maths."

rafe pulled his hand away, and you intertwined your own fingers together as a way to calm yourself down, your eyes stinging with tears threatening to fall, and once you felt his palm hitting your ass once again, a tear rolled down your cheek, your entire face feeling warm as you managed to pitifully let out the word "four." and although you were hurting, you also couldn't deny the arousal starting to gather between your legs.

"i mean, you'd think that you'd understand how important my work is. you could lose me thousands for forgetting to mail those papers." he tutted, pulling his hand away, "so, what are you gonna do from now on?"

"i-i'm gonna remember it, mr. cameron, i promise."

"that's my girl." rafe said, and once again, you felt his palm connect with your ass, a small yelp leaving your lips.

"five..." you babbled almost incoherently, a panting mess, certain that by now your asscheeks were red in the shape of rafe's large hands, a sigh of relief leaving your lips when you realized that your punishment was over, a small hiss escaping your lips when the pained skin of your ass was met with the biting air of rafe's office.

"you did so well..." rafe said quietly, softly massaging your asscheeks before slowly sliding your skirt back down, smoothing it out. he helped you stand up, his bulge obvious in his trousers as he turned you around to face him, cupping your chin to once again lift your head up to look at him, "go home for the rest of the day, okay? take a warm bath and rest, hm?"

you nodded your head, looking up at him with your vision blurred by tears, rafe wiping the blood off your lower lip, "you did really well. i'm proud of you." he said, bringing his lips down to meet yours in a gentle kiss, his hand cupping your cheek so affectionately it was hard for you to tell if the man holding onto you was really the same man that had just punished you.

when he pulled away, rafe looked down at you with a sweet smile, "i'll come by later, alright?"

"alright." you nodded with a similar smile, leaning into his touch. when rafe pulled away from you, you smoothed down your skirt, slowly making your way to his office door.

maybe he knew, or maybe he didn't, but you'd never tell him that your little accident was anything but that. that they never were accidents.

[mirandawright]

The first fantasy I had of you...

(oh Internet, hold my beer. I am so good at objectifying Spencer)

You are walking towards me, intently rolling up the sleeves of your dress shirt as you keep your gaze focused only on me. The folds are neat and crisp, using your starched cuff as the guide, your deft fingers working the fabric perfectly despite never looking down at your work. After the folding is done you push it up your arm so it rests neatly at your elbow. One.. then the other. It shouldn't be this sexual to watch someone roll up their sleeves, but here I am, trapped like a deer in headlights. Holy hell.

Your gait is determined, predatory, even. I take a step back as you advance and swallow hard, my breathing becoming rapid as I realize I'm your target. I take another step back. You're much closer despite my feeble attempt to retreat and I can feel my brain get fuzzy as I am drawn into your liquid amber eyes. I blink so slowly at you, physically unable to look away. Shit.

With the distance between us ever-shrinking, I reach a hand out behind me, daring another shaky step. I take in everything. Especially, you. You're freshly shaved. Your shirt is precisely tailored to your lithe frame. You matched your belt to your shoes. Your pants are my favorite office slim-fit mid-rise that do absolutely nothing to hide your cock as it thickens as your long and purposeful stride continues for me. You're chewing gum. Shit, shit, shit...

My frantic hand touches the cool wall behind me and I realize I'm not breathing. I plaster my back against it as you take your last step and finally close the gap. Your left arm shoots out, and you splay your large hand on the wall next to my ear; your right-hand retreats to your pocket to stroke your hardened cock. Your entire body looms over me, and suddenly, I'm aware of myself.

I'm wearing flats, you're towering over me. My dress is barely office appropriate as my full tits sit high on my chest, perfect for you to look down upon. The hemline of my skirt brushes the middle of my thighs, but as the heat from your eyes bores into me, it feels so much shorter. My hair is down, tosseleld from playing with it as I write and work my cases. I have my reading glasses on and I am not wearing a stitch of makeup. With no makeup to hide behind, I can feel my face flush with desire as I pray I don't turn the same shade of garnet as my dress. I'm fucked.

Instinctively I arch my back against the wall, pulling my left leg up so my foot sits flat against it, taking considerable length from my skirt. The harder I arch into you, the closer you are to my offered breasts, threatening to spill from their cups. All it would take is a single finger to pull my dress down and free them. The weight of gravity under your gaze has tripled, and I am astounded that I haven't dropped to my knees before you. I finally manage a breath, and my chest heaves, and instantly, you read everything my needy body is saying.

A coy smile tugs at the corner of your mouth as the flustered sight of me pleases you. But you're not going to acknowledge that now; the only thing you're going to give me is total fucking dominance, and that's exactly what I want from you. You lean in so that our faces are inches apart. "Hey, girl," you say, lifting your chin, and the smell of your spearmint gum washes over me. "Hey, Spencer," I manage, barely audible as the heat between our bodies is a nearly unbearable force against my chest. I slide my leg down the wall so I can squeeze my thighs together to help soothe my throbbing clit.

Nothing gets past you. Your eyes give me the up and the down and I know you're enjoying this. My brain is betraying me by shutting off with each passing second. Soon the desperate cum slut will be in control and I might end up on my knees after all. "Where's your lunch?" I hear myself ask. Nailed it. Was that the most interesting thing I could have said? Why didn't I ask what you were having? How was that going to keep you here longer? I'm an absolute embarrassment and I've undoubtedly ruined this perfect moment at the...where the fuck are we? The printer. You have me up against the wall next to the fucking printer at work. Where anyone could see us. The thought of getting caught is thrilling, it's like pouring gasoline on a fire.

I peer up at you while I bite my bottom lip, and give my thighs an extra squeeze. I'm making an absolute mess of my panties, and if I can't keep my legs closed, my arousal will run down them for sure. To my amazement, your beautiful eyes grow wide at my question and a hungry smile cracks your face. You remove your hand from the wall and place it firmly on my hip to steady me, taking your foot to sweep my legs open so that I can no longer protect my throbbing center.

I let out a little moan, knowing that if I'm too loud we're fucked. Those glorious light gray dress pants are showing me every fucking inch of you how you're feeling, all 8 of them, to be exact. Another whimper as I see how far down your leg your cock goes, the fire in me raging. Knowing that if we're interrupted I'd rip someone's head off. Bringing your right hand out of your pocket, two of your lovely, slender finders expertly find their way between my pussy lips, pushing my panties below them right before you enter me. I'm going to hyperventilate. Don't you dare fucking stop.

"You're wearing it," you say, looking me dead in the eye as you slide your fingers in, then back and deep. My hands are off the wall, running down your chest as I curl around you. You suck a surprised breath through your teeth as you discover just how soaking wet I am. You deliberately pump your fingers several times, and your grip on my hip has become a vice. You close your eyes and clench your jaw as you finally withdraw from me and I make the most pathetic sound in the world. We both know we can't keep going, but I would rather get hit by a bus than have you stop.

Still in total disbelief, I watch as your hand leaves the comfort of my core and you bring your fingers to my mouth. Eagerly I open, sticking out my tongue as you offer me your middle finger and I don't hesitate to suck it clean. Before I can stop you or protest, you quickly snatch your hand away, preventing me from continuing to your index finger as you bring it to your mouth and suck. Holy fucking shit, Spencer. I'm a quivering mess and I look down at your cock and notice that precum has leaked out and has left a wet spot on your pants. You follow my gaze and say, "Nailed it," to which we both burst out laughing.

The printer finished God knows how long ago and I'm hoping we were able to use most of the noise to cover up my involuntarily reaction to your touch. You grab the stack of documents from the printer and hold them down to hide your massive erection and growing stain. All you say to me before you turn and go is, "Meet me on the patio in 5 minutes; we're taking your car". I'm reeling but I scramble back to my desk to get ready to head out. I begin searching my desk, where the fuck did it go? All I need to do before lunch is drop a copy of my crime report on my boss's desk. How did I lose something I just got up to.....print. Fuck. Spencer!

objectifying spencer is my full time job at this point

[moonstruckme]

HI MAE so i didnt send the shy remus x reader ask but i saw that u wanted ideas and i had one. what about reader who's very cocky and like confident and stuff and remus is intimidated by her usually but then theyre at a party or smth and shes all drunk and shes all over him telling him stuff like how shes got the biggest crush on him or like how hes genuinely one of the most attractive people shes ever met and shy remus is js like 😳 while also taking care of her bc shes so drunk and simultaneously trying not to combust

Hi my love, thank you so much for your request!

cw: alcohol

shy!Remus x fem!reader ♡ 1.1k words

Really, it should be Sirius’ responsibility to look after you. It is his party, after all. But Sirius has a love for delegating unwanted tasks and also a love for meddling (which Remus theorizes he got at least partly from James). So, naturally, you’re in Remus’ lap. 

“You guys are so nice,” you croon, words strung together like cursive and fingers toying with a loose thread of Remus’ sweater. He’s resigned himself to letting you unravel the whole thing without complaint. “All of you, all your friends are the nicest…the warmest people I ever knew. How’d you do that?” 

Remus smiles down at you. “I think James has always been good at bringing out the best in people.” 

He’s not entirely sure how you came to be lying on your back on the couch, your head on Remus’ thigh and your hands reaching for the dangling thread above you like a cat enjoying some lazy play. If he asked you, Remus doesn’t think you’d know, either. It makes a lovely view for him, your eyes uptilted in his direction and features relaxed and unguarded as a result of the series of tequila shots Sirius had cajoled you into not realizing you’d already had a few drinks. Remus very much enjoys having you this close and being able to look at you so casually, even if your brassy, larger-than-life demeanor often terrifies as much as impresses him. Even if your head on his thigh makes his face feel like a fire hazard. 

“Don’t think he had to work very hard with you. You’re such a sweetheart already.” You say it so simply, an obvious truth, and Remus finds himself staying perfectly still like a rabbit in the woods that thinks it might yet escape your notice. His heartbeat pitters in everywhere from his cheeks to his fingertips. He worries he’s going to have to make a response, but your eyes widen suddenly. “Oh! Sit still.” 

No problems there. Remus moves only his eyes as you sit up from his lap, tucking your feet underneath you and reaching for him with your lip trapped between your teeth in concentration. You touch a fingertip to his cheek and smile victoriously. 

“Got it.” You turn your finger, showing him. “You had an eyelash.” You blow it off your fingertip and onto Sirius’ rug. Remus marvels at the unthinking loveliness of you. “Have I talked to you about your eyes before?” you ask conversationally. 

Remus blinks, ceasing his tracking of the eyelash to look at you. “I don’t think so,” he ventures, though he knows you haven’t. He remembers most exchanges you’ve had, and he definitely would have remembered that. 

“Oh.” Your brows purse softly. “Must’ve been with someone else,” you murmur, almost to yourself. “Anyway, it’s important to me that you know, they’re really beautiful.” 

Remus startles, partly at the compliment but mostly at the touch you lay on his cheek, your fingers cool and gentle, like you’re steadying his face for your perusal. You look into his eyes attentively. 

“They’re brown,” Remus says in a soft voice. 

Your lips tilt like he’s said something funny. “Nobody’s eyes are just brown, Remus. There are so many different kinds.” Your index finger draws a short line across his cheekbone. Remus can’t tell you mean for it to or not. “Yours are sort of like a…like a gradient. They get lighter farther down.” 

Remus decides to study your eyes as you study his, and he sees what you mean. The shadow of your lashes makes your irises look darker at the tops. It’s difficult to tell, though, with your pupils eclipsing so much of them. 

“They’re, like, a warmish brown,” you’re saying, gaze unwavering. “Like the color you want your tea to be. You know, there’s some fact or study or something that says brown eyes make people feel safe. Did you know that?” 

“I didn’t,” Remus says. The weight of your attention is taking its toll on him, his body aching to sink into the couch cushions. He wants to ask if brown eyes have that effect on you, but he doesn’t have the nerve. “Is that so?” he asks instead.

You shrug. “I dunno. Works on me.” 

The breath stalls in Remus’ lungs. You’re looking at him like you haven’t said anything out of the ordinary, expression wide open and somewhat unfocused. 

You yawn, removing your hand from his face to half cover your mouth. It’s an awfully endearing show, and over too fast. “I guess that’s probably why—” You cut yourself off with a hiccup. Your eyes flare like you weren’t expecting it, hand jumping back up in front of your mouth. Remus grins before he can stop himself. 

“Oh.” Your smile is an afterthought, a response to his. “Sorry.” 

“It’s okay.” Remus isn’t even certain what you’re apologizing for. 

Your eyes have that sweet, attentive look again. “I really like when you smile.” 

Remus feels heat spread up to the tips of his ears. It’s official. He’s got more in common with a live flame than a human anymore. “What were you saying?” he prompts. 

You bite your lip as though you’ve forgotten. “Oh!” Your eyes light. “Just, I guess that’s probably why I have such a giant crush on you.” 

Remus’ heart thuds. He breathes, “What?” 

“Yeah.” You roll your eyes, grinning at yourself. “It’s relentless.” Hiccup. “Super embarrassing. But—but you’ve got those eyes, and your freckles, and that sweetheart face…” You shrug again, helpless. Ride out another hiccup. “What am I supposed to do?” 

Remus stares at you. It seems impossible. You have a crush on him? It’s out of the natural order. The world’s gone to chaos. It’s supposed to be the other way around! Remus pines silently after you, you eventually find some big, cocksure bloke who can match you, and Remus continues to pine whilst you go on with your brilliant, dazzling life. That’s the way it’s meant to be. 

“I would…” Remus finds his mouth forming around words he doesn’t recognize until they come out. “I’d know a thing or two about a crush like that.” 

Your lips part, but you don’t look offended. “Well, yeah. I’d hope you knew I fancied you, I’ve only been seeking you out ever since we met.” 

Not what he meant. Remus did not, in fact, know that. 

“I didn’t notice you were,” he admits. 

Your head tilts. “Really?” There’s an obvious follow up question—then what did you mean just now?—but for one reason or another, you don’t ask it. You only lean onto his shoulder, your head slipping a few inches down his arm.

Remus channels all his bravery into an arm around your waist to keep you from slumping further. He vows to himself to tell you tomorrow.

[classyrbf]

CAN U PLZ DO BABY DADDY SUKUNA AND SURUGU TOO?? (i love u)

THAT'S JUST MY BABY DADDY! #3 — GETO + SUKUNA

SYNOPSIS...geto and sukuna being annoying baby daddies that still make their way into your pants

INFO...sukuna x fem!reader, geto x fem!reader, p in v, sloppy kisses, baby daddy drama (yk the drill), jealousy, alcohol mentioned, possessiveness, choking, spanking

OTHER...likes and reblogs are appreciated

thanks for the request anon (i love you too)

part 1 part 2

SUKUNA

you finally got your daughter down to sleep, placing her stuffie beside her, shutting her light off and walking out her room. Just as you were getting ready to wash the dishes, your doorbell rang, an annoyed sigh leaving your lips. “Who the hell is ringing my doorbell so late?” You stomp over to the door. “Who is it?” You call out.

“Ryo!” No one other than your baby daddy. As if you weren’t already annoyed, you roll your eyes and open the door to see him standing there. His eyes rake over your body as if he didn’t see you just an hour ago when he dropped his daughter off. “I left her blanket at my place. Thought I bring it back.” He stepped into your house without hesitation.

“Damn, well come on in,” you scoff, shutting the door behind him. He tosses the blanket on the couch. “She’s sleeping, so don’t wake her.” You walk towards the sink, turning it on.

He hums in response, walking around your house, seeing how tidy you keep it, remembering all the moments you two shared before breaking up. He ever so carefully walks up behind you, leaning against the counter. He just looks at you, smirking to himself. “I can feel you staring, weirdo.” You glance over your shoulder.

He laughs, throwing his hands up in defeat. “Can you blame me?” He exhales, stepping closer and closer until he’s inches away from you. His hands reach out and snake around your waist, startling you. “How’ve you been?” He asks, his sultry tone sending chills down your spine.

You shake your head at his weak attempt to get in your pants. “Leave me alone, Ryomen.” You nudge him with your elbow.

“Come on! I know you’re not getting good dick anywhere else. When was the last time we did it, huh? A month?” He questions. You groan in annoyance, turning the sink off and drying your hands on the towel.

“That was the final time.” You stare at him. “We promised no more after that.”

“You really think I meant it? Think a promise is gonna keep me away from you?” He cages you in between him and the counter.

“I’m not just some girl you’re gonna fuck when you wanna get your dick wet.” You push him away from you and walk over to the couch to grab your daughter’s blanket. “Find someone else.”

He laughs at your stubbornness, trailing behind you. “You know no one tastes or feels as good as you. Why do you think I keep coming back, hm?” He narrows his eyes at you.

“Ryomen, I’m not doing this shit with you tonight. Get your dick wet somewhere else,” you say, annoyance in your tone. His warm hands find your waist once again and he’s pulling you closer to him. His soft lips kiss down your neck and back up towards your jaw.

“Just once more. I swear that’ll be the last time,” he whispers. And you don’t know if he casted some type of spell on you or something because within the next five minutes he was in your bed.

Your knees were pushed to your chest, a long whine leaving your lips every time he hit your g-spot, sending waves of pleasure through your body. “Feel so fucking good around me,” he grunts, pressing his forehead against yours. “That’s right, lemme look into those eyes, show me how good I make you feel.”

You’re clinging onto his biceps, nails leaving crescent marks in his skin the harder and faster he goes. God, you hate to admit how good it feels. How good he feels. “Mmmm, Ryo. Fuck!” You moan, your jaw slack as pushes his cock deeper.

“Can feel this pussy squeezing me. You gonna cum, baby? Yeah? Yeah?” He coos, a smug smile on his face as he pushes your legs farther. “There you go, baby. Yes, cum all on my dick. Goddamn.” He watches your eyes roll back, a soft cry leaving your lips, your body shaking.

“This…this is the last time!” You manage to speak, looking up at him through your lashes.

“Shut up.” He kisses you sloppily, swiping his tongue against yours, continuing to pound your poor cunt. He knows this won’t be the last just as much as you know. You’re only saying it to make yourself feel better about cumming on his dick so easily.

GETO

after a stressful week, you were finally able to go out and have fun with your best friend, Shoko, while Utahime offered to watch your daughter for the night. It felt good to get out, drinking, dancing, a change of scenery compared to being cooped up in the house all day. You’re swaying your hips to the music, taking shots and you can already feel the regret coming next morning.

“Hey!” Shoko shouts. “I think Suguru is here!” She looks in the direction where he’s sitting.

“What?” You lean in closer towards her.

“Suguru! He’s here!” She points towards the crowd and to where the seating area is. You follow to where to points and see Suguru talking to some random girl on his lap, laughing his way into some mediocre sex.

“So what?!” You shout back, shrugging your shoulders. “He probably doesn’t even know I’m here! Fuck it!” You smile at Shoko, grabbing her to dance.

“I’m gonna go grab another drink!” She lets go of your hand and walks towards the bar.

You’re too tipsy to even care, in your own little world, dancing and eyeing all the handsome men around you. “Excuse me?” You feel hands on your waist and turn to see a tall, muscular man looking right at you. “Sorry, I just wanted to say you’re beautiful. I saw you dancing from over there!” He points to his seating lounge. “Wanna come sit?”

“Thank you!” You smile, placing your hand on his broad chest. “I’m here with my friend. Can we wait for her—oh there she is. Shoko!” You wave her over and she hurries through the crowd. “He invited us to sit with him, come on.”

“Fuck it, I’m down.” She sips from her drink.

The man grabs your hand and leads you through the crowd of people. It felt good to sit after standing in heels all night. After settling down you could finally get a better look at the man, noticing his sharp features and the scar on the corner of his lip. How handsome he was. What you didn’t notice was how closely Suguru was watching you, eyeing your every move. He took notice of the way your hand ended up on that guys thigh, how easily you laughed at his jokes.

“I’ll be back, gonna grab us some shots.” The girl got up from off his lap.

“Yeah, you do that.” He said without moving an inch, so fixated on you and you only. He couldn’t deny how good you looked tonight. Hands and toes freshly did, your hair in a style he’s never seen, and that dress that hugged your body so tight, showing off every curve you had. Without hesitation, he got up from his seat and walked over.

Shoko looked behind her just in time, eyes wide before immediately turning to face you. “He’s coming over.” She tapped your leg.

“Huh?” Your brows creased.

“Suguru!” She yelled in a whisper. “He’s walking over—heyyyy!” She smiled up at him.

“Hey, Shoko. Hey, y/n.” He greeted you.

You ignored him, sipping from your glass, hugging against the man who you knew as Toji, his arm wrapped around your waist. There was an awkward tension in the air, Shoko clearing her throat as she smiled.

“Y/n, can I talk to you really quick?” He stood in front of you now. “We’ll just be five minutes.” He looked at Toji, grabbing you away from him.

“Ugh, what do you want? Do you have to ruin every fun thing I do?” You follow him into the bathroom. He locks the door, standing before you, looking into your eyes. “What, Suguru?” You fold your arms over your chest.

He knows he’s tipsy, and so are you but he can’t deny what he’s feeling right now and from the looks of it, he can tell you’re feeling the same exact way. “You piss me off. But fuck, you look good doing it. Hugging up on that random ass guy, touching him.” He grits his teeth.

“Don’t be a hypocrite. I saw your little girlfriend sitting on your lap earlier. Where is she now?” You raise a brow.

“She’s a random girl. Don’t even know her name. Why? You jealous?” He walks closer towards you, closing the gap.

“Are you?” You retort, never breaking eye contact with him. There’s several seconds of silence besides the blaring music in the background, until his lips are suddenly on yours, stealing every breath.

Minutes later, you’re bent over the bathroom sink, your skirt bunched up at your waist while he pounds into you. His hand is wrapped around your throat as you grip the sink, feeling like your legs were about to give out any second. “Sugu…fuck!” You whimper. His hips slam against yours, your body jolting forward.

“That’s right, pretty. This is my pussy. Look at how well she’s taking me,” he chuckles, looking down at the way his cock disappears inside of you so effortlessly. “My god.” He lands a few harsh slaps on your ass.

You’re reaching out, pushing back on his stomach in attempts to get him to slow down, feeling like you were going to crumble beneath him. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” You cry. “You’re so fucking deep!” You gasp.

“Yeah?” He pulls you flush against his chest, nibbling on your earlobe. “That’s just how you like it. Deep and slow, hard and fast. I know all the ways to make you cum,” he whispers. He grips your throat tighter. Plap! Plap! Plap! “Better hope your new boyfriend doesn’t realize how long you’ve been gone. Don’t want him to get suspicious.”

Your body convulses as a harsh orgasm takes over you. “Ah! I’m cumming!” You whine before your jaw drops. Geto can feel your pussy fluttering around his cock, making it hard for him not to cum inside. But, now that he thinks about it…that wouldn’t be all too bad.

[ktownshizzle]

Love & Lullabies | Part 1 of 2

Pairing: Min Yoongi x female Reader

Summary: What begins as a simple favor for your best friend Namjoon soon pulls you into the rhythms of Yoongi’s life—afternoons spent caring for his son, late nights filled with candid conversations, and a connection neither of you thought you needed. You’re just fresh out of a long-term relationship with an ex who didn’t want a family with you, so did you really just stumble into a life you’ve always dreamed of? (Thank god Namjoon isn’t the only one who’s clumsy.)

Alternatively: It’s 2025 and BTS is prepping for their comeback. All members seem to have gained muscle weight from their time at camp. But Min Yoongi has gained a different kind of weight—an 8-pound baby and a fuck-load of responsibility. (Thank god you’re there to help him.)

Genre: Fluff, Angst, Smut, idol!au, Acquaintances to Lovers, Reader is Namjoon’s bestie

Warnings: Yoongi is a DILF (!!!) That’s it.

Chapter warnings: A lot of mood and scene setting—just vibe with it, MC is in her sad girl era, hints of depression and anxiety, masturbation, Yoongi is a new dad y’all he is tireddd af

Word count: almost 6k

Posting date: November 12, 2024

Notes: This is inspired by an ask/prompt sent by @yoongznme. Enjoy, my lovelies~ 💕🫶🏼

Part One | Part Two | Masterlist

Namjoon leans back in his seat, sporting an all-too-familiar, slightly conspiratorial glint in his eyes. Hmm. You know that look. 

It's the same one he had when he "casually" set you up to tutor one of his trainee friends in English—the one you let slip was kinda cute. Or when he signed you up to perform with one of his rapper friends in that underground club in Hongdae. Sure, you knew every word of the chorus to eminem’s Stan, but you were not a fucking singer. 

You still did it, though. Both times. 

Namjoon’s especially notorious for volunteering you to do things he insists are "right up your alley." There’s a fire in his eyes when he starts talking about one of his ideas, and before you know it, you're swept up in his vision, already picturing yourself right there beside him, doing something you’d never consider on your own.

Namjoon has been your best friend since forever and for reasons you can’t explain, saying no to him has always been impossible.

Right. It’s definitely that. It’s definitely not because in those two prior instances mentioned, both friends of his are actually the same guy. The one you had an almost crippling crush on over a decade ago. (You’re sooo over it, though. Trust.)

When Namjoon leaned in, you were already bracing yourself.

“So, you know Yoongi, right?”

You blink, pause, and slowly shake your head. It has taken years, but today is the day you tell him, “No.”

“The fuck? What do you mean no?” He replies, already looking hella amused. “I haven’t even said anything.”

Your face feels like a furnace, but you grit and steady your voice. “Whatever it is, the answer is no.”

He lets out a hum, shifting in his seat, and you get the sense he’s working up to something. 

You sip your coffee, keeping your eyes on him. He gives you an exaggerated shrug, dimples deepening as he lets his shoulder sag. 

God you’re literally already about to break. 

“Fuck. Joon. Spit it out.”

He nods triumphantly, “Ok, there’s something I thought I’d run by you first, before he hears about it.”

The words hang in the air, and you raise an eyebrow. “Joon. What are you getting me into?”

Namjoon chuckles softly as he folds his hands on the table. “So… Yoongi has a son. A baby, actually.” He pauses, watching for your reaction. 

Woah. Someone has fuckboi Min Yoongi all locked down?! Huh. You never saw that coming.

You let that sink in, surprise filling the quiet space between you. “I… didn’t know he had a kid.”

“Not many people do,” Namjoon admits. “Only those close to him know. Yoongi’s a great dad, but his caretaker recently left, and now he’s scrambling to balance his schedule and take care of his son.”

“And his wife?”

Namjoon sighs, gives you a look that means he’s about to say something confidential. “There’s no wife.”

“Baby mama?”

“Out of the picture.”

You let out a small breath, absorbing everything you just heard. You already had an idea of where this is leading up to, but you want it said explicitly. “So what exactly are you asking me?”

Namjoon nods, eyes hopeful. “Look, I know this is a big ask. I’m putting this out there because you’re one of the best with kids I know. And Yoongi—well, he’s pretty wary about letting new people get close to his son.”

You take another sip of your latte as he prattles on.

“While you’re still getting your bearings back, maybe you could take over the caretaker job, even part time?” Namjoon scratches the back of his neck, grinning sheepishly as he says your name. “I just thought you might consider it. You’d be doing us both a favor. Yoongi really needs help, and I’d trust you more than anyone with this.”

You sit back, letting Namjoon’s words settle. Namjoon knows exactly what he’s asking—knows exactly how hard it is for you to refuse when he gives you that puppy dog look, especially when he’s throwing Yoongi into the mix. Honestly, you hate how you're apparently still soft for him even after all these years.

Namjoon also knows your current situation. Does he not realize it’s a bit unfair to ask this of you right now? Not when you're still picking up the pieces after your breakup with your long-term boyfriend. Not when you need time to heal. Not when you literally uprooted your life and just moved back to Seoul a month ago.

But somehow, you can’t shake the curiosity. What would it even be like to see Yoongi as a dad? To get a glimpse of this whole other life he’s got now?

It’s probably a terrible idea. 

Yeah, no. You don’t need this right now. Money isn’t tight. And you need to focus on… 

You take a slow breath, mentally tracing the edges of this mess. There are a hundred reasons to say no, and only one reason you’d even consider saying yes. And because it’s for Yoongi… damn, maybe that’s reason enough.

The next time you see Yoongi, it’s at HYBE’s massive rehearsal space. Namjoon had invited you to watch the group practice—innocent enough, though you know it’s also his way of nudging you toward the job. Joon thinks he’s subtle, but you know his plans are, more often than not, clunky as hell.

You settle in one corner, holding on to your half-finished iced Americano. A few staff are scattered around the studio, there was another girl (maybe a member’s girlfriend, you’re not sure), but it’s mostly empty. The boys are warming up, stretching or chatting, and you wave to Jungkook and Taehyung before finding yourself glancing toward Yoongi.

Wearing an all black outfit and a baseball cap, he’s standing off to the side, arms full with a fussy baby, and a bassinet stroller in front of him. The boy can’t be more than a few months shy of his first birthday. He’s close to tears, twisting and squirming, while Yoongi, visibly flustered, tries to hand him a toy, then a bottle, then anything he can find. Nothing works. Soon, the baby’s fuss turns into a full-on tantrum.

Oh, damn. Poor Yoongi. 

He drops the bottle, spilling milk across the floor just as the stroller, half-locked, rolls a few feet away. He lunges for it, fumbling as the baby’s wailing intensifies, tiny fists flailing in frustration. Yoongi’s eyes dart around, panicked, while a couple of female staff start toward him, hands outstretched. But he waves them off, his face set in a mix of fierce determination and mild desperation as he rocks and hushes the baby.

It honestly hurts to watch the scene unfold. You almost want to do something.

Namjoon starts clearing people out, Jimin dims the studio lights, and Seokjin picks up the spilled bottle, wiping down the floor. Hobi taps a white noise track on his phone, placing it near the stroller. Your heart warms at how effortlessly everyone pitches in, their movements so practiced it’s obvious they’ve done this before. But it makes you wonder just how many rehearsals have paused for these moments. It’s probably why Namjoon wants to help find a solution, a.k.a you.

You meet your best friend’s gaze and he cocks his head toward the door, signaling for you to file out with the others, but your feet take you somewhere else entirely.

“Is he okay?” you ask, approaching Yoongi.

Yoongi doesn’t hear you at first, too focused on calming his son. His face is etched with exhaustion and something fragile, an uncharacteristic crack in his calm. He finally glances up, half-exasperated. To your mild relief, a look of recognition crosses his face, before he replies, “Yeah, he’s—he’s usually not this fussy.”

You watch him struggle for a bit, then, before you can second-guess, you step forward. “Do you mind if I try?”

Yoongi hesitates, studying you like he’s weighing the decision to trust you with his son. His eyes flick towards Namjoon who was standing by the door, before it goes back to you. After a tense pause, he nods, handing the baby over.

You hold the little boy, shifting him gently away from the mirrors and bright lights, rocking him slowly and humming an old lullaby you used to sing for your preschoolers. Gradually, his cries quiet down, his tiny head resting against your shoulder as he begins to relax, fingers curling around the fabric of your shirt. Within minutes, he’s fast asleep.

When you glance up, Yoongi is watching, his face unreadable. There’s relief, yes, but also a quiet wonder, an almost surprised gratitude. 

“I owe you,” he murmurs, a softness in his voice you hadn’t expected.

“‘S ok,” you say, quietly, careful not to wake the baby.

The two of you stand there, his eyes on you for just a beat too long, and if you didn’t have the baby to ground you, you feel like you just might float.

“Thank you,” he says, tone soft and sincere.

From across the room, Namjoon watches, his eyes mirroring the same gratitude.

The call from Yoongi comes unexpectedly one evening, just after dinner. You don’t recognize the number, then again you don’t have a lot of +82s yet since you just moved back after many years of being in the States. The last thing you expect is to hear Yoongi’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Hey, it’s…Min Yoongi,” he starts, voice a little rough.

“Oh, hi.”

There’s a short silence, and then he clears his throat. “Namjoonie mentioned you uh might… be interested in helping with my son.”

You feel a strange flutter, both at the fact that Yoongi is talking to you, and at the fact that he’s asking something so personal. “Uh, yeah. I can help out.”

The pause is long enough that you imagine him somewhere, shifting uncomfortably. “I know it’s a lot to ask,” he finally says, sounding almost apologetic. “I don’t want to… impose or anything. But it would help. A lot.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you,” You hear Yoongi release a sigh of relief. Then he says the next phrase in a rush, “I know you are overqualified for this, so uh please let me compensate you with your salary as a teacher in America.”

You feel your face flush. Thank god this was not a video call. Seems you’re as uncomfortable as he is talking about money, though it is a necessary evil. “Oh, no, please Yoongi. You don’t have to. Joonie’s my bestfriend and you’re his brother. I can just help until you can find a more permanent solution.”

Thankfully, he doesn’t argue with you on this. You hear a puff of breath before he says. “Alright. Thank you.”

And just like that, you’re set. He gives you the address, and you’re left wondering for the rest of the night how you’ll manage this strange new gig.

The first day you arrive at Yoongi’s apartment in Hannam-dong, you’re a bundle of nerves, unsure what to expect. 

After you ring the bell, the door opens to reveal Yoongi with his usual reserved expression, a piece of muslin cloth draped on one shoulder.

“Hi,” he says simply, stepping aside to let you in.

You offer him a smile. “Hey.”

He closes the door behind you as you step inside. You look around, taking everything in.

The apartment is spacious but cozy, with a warmth that speaks of careful design—minimalistic furniture in muted colors, shelves lined with books and vinyl records, a few baby toys strewn around the living room. Homey.

This is the first time you get to really see Yoongi. The brief encounter at the rehearsal studio didn’t afford you the chance to appreciate how time has treated him. 

Seeing him after six years, he’s both the same and somehow different. He has always had that calm confidence—a steady, grounded energy that feels both nostalgic and new. His usually colorful hair, now in its natural hue, casually frames his face. He wears a simple white tee and you can tell the noodle arms are gone. His shoulders are much broader, arms stronger than how you remember him. The silver earrings are still there, subtle reminders of his edginess, softened by time.

But beneath it all, there’s a layer of, hmm… exhaustion, you guess? A shadow under his eyes, faint lines hinting at the weight of sleepless nights. His lips are chapped, there’s a tiny red bump on his chin. He’s a new dad, he hasn’t prioritized himself for a while. Still, his face carries a tenderness in the fatigue, like he’s tired, but happy.

“He’s napping right now,” Yoongi clears his throat, motioning toward a small crib by the window, where his son is sleeping peacefully, bundled in soft blankets. 

“You haven’t told me his name.”

“Haneul.”

“That’s beautiful,” you reply, and Yoongi nods, almost shy.

He hesitates, glancing down as if gathering his thoughts. Then he says your name. “I… um, I didn’t know how this would go. His last caretaker was actually my aunt, but she got sick and had to go back home.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that.”

He nods, “But after seeing how he calmed down with you… I think he’ll be alright.”

He gives you a tour of his apartment, the baby monitor clipped in his jean pocket. His place is modern, spacious, baby-proofed. There are pictures that line the walls of the hallway linking the nursery, his studio, guest room, guest bath, and the masters.

You spend some time going through Haneul’s things—familiarizing yourself with the layout of the nursery. He shows you where the baby food and snacks are. Talks about his favorite toys and activities. 

While he downloads the 101 on Haneul, the one thing you were curious to know was, where is his birth mom? You obviously don’t want to be a prick so you swallow the question down. Maybe you’ll find out in the future. But for now, you just need to know where the baby wipes are.

For the first few days that you come over, Yoongi keeps close, hovering just within earshot as you ease into the cadence of his son’s needs. He’s there with his arms folded, watching as you handle Haneul, a cautious yet respectful distance. You get it though. You’re a virtual stranger he just let into his home and his son’s life. Who wouldn’t be guarded?

You quickly notice that Haneul has a sweet temperament, but has a bit of a sensitive side. He doesn’t take to loud sounds, so you keep your voice low and movements gentle, singing him lullabies and nursery rhymes under your breath while Yoongi quietly observes, even if he pretends to be engrossed with something else.

On your third day, Yoongi has to leave to attend an important meeting at HYBE. He’s been pacing by the door, making sure his son is settled before he goes, even though you’re right there, holding the baby with practiced ease.

“Are you sure you’re… good with this?” he asks, his brow furrowed, as if still convincing himself to leave.

You give him a reassuring smile. “Go. I got him. He’ll be fine.”

He hesitates one last time, eyes fixed on you, and then he finally gives a small nod. “Okay. I’ll be back soon.”

As soon as the door closes, you’re left with the quiet hum of the apartment and a very awake, very curious baby in your arms. You spend the next hour rocking him and singing songs, amazed at how easily he settles, almost as if he’s known you longer than a few days.

After his nap, you take a video of the babbling Haneul enjoying his yogurt gems and send it to Yoongi. He replies almost immediately with a smiley emoji and a curt: cute.

Yoongi returns around dinnertime right as you’ve settled the baby down in his bed. He steps inside the nursery quietly, watching as you tuck the blanket around his son. When you look up, he’s standing there, holding two cups of steaming liquid.

“I, uh… thought you might want some tea,” he says, looking slightly awkward but endearing.

“Always.” You take the mug with a grateful smile. “How was your meeting?”

“Could’ve been an email,” He shrugs and stuffs the empty hand inside his pocket.

You grin as you take a sip, remembering how you’ve always enjoyed his dry sense of humor, in the rare occasions you hung out in the past. Ooh, this tea is… your favorite.

“Silver moon?” you asked.

He nodded, “There’s a TWG shop that just opened near the office. Namjoonie might have mentioned it was your favorite, so.”

Your ears warm up just as well as your throat as you savor another drink.

“How was Haneul? Did he give you a hard time?”

“Not at all,” you shake your head, looking over to the little angel. “I’ve had a lot of practice, you know.”

“I can’t imagine handling a whole classroom full of them,” he says, looking at you with a mix of admiration and amusement. “One’s hard enough.”

“You’re lucky to have him,” you reply wistfully, suddenly feeling a tug at your heartstrings. ‘What I would give…’ you almost utter out loud.

The thing is, you actually do, without realizing it. Unbeknownst to you, Yoongi files the thought away, a subject he might bring up one day—when the time comes that he thinks you trust him, too.

The days blur into a steady rhythm. You arrive in some afternoons, not really everyday, only when Yoongi needs the extra hand at home or if he needs to leave the house for a day of rehearsals. You both establish that this is merely a favor so he doesn’t treat you like you’re at his every beck and call. Usually it starts with a short message in Kakao, and if you’re free, he would send a car to pick you up. Your meals are always ready, delivered on the dot. Conveniences are always within your reach—your favorite tea, extra clothes in case there are food or poop blow-outs, etc. The cleaning lady that goes thrice a week, Mrs. Kwon sometimes keeps you company and assists you with anything.

As you help take care of his baby, you feel that he’s looked out for you, too. Which is nice.

On days that he is working from home, Yoongi brings his work into the living room, just to be nearby during playtime with you and Haneul. 

One evening, when his son falls asleep in your arms after a particularly fussy day, Yoongi glances up from his laptop and leans back in his chair, a tired but grateful smile breaking through.

“He’s really taken to you,” he observes, sounding almost as if he’s admitting it to himself.

You smile, feeling a strange warmth at his words. “I think he’s just a really sweet kid, Yoongi. He’s easy to love.”

The smile he gives you after that is probably the gummiest one you’ve ever seen. 

A few weeks pass, and a subtle partnership has started forming between you, like you’re both slowly finding a rhythm in the chaos of caring for Haneul.

Bath time becomes a kind of unspoken relay: you gather the towel and clothes, while Yoongi preps the tub, testing the water with careful fingers. There’s a brief exchange of glances—no need for words, just a nod as you pass off Haneul, who’s already giggling happily.

Snack time turns into a ritualized watch party. You set out the applesauce and crackers for Haneul, and Yoongi brings a bag of chips and his laptop over to the living room, joining you and Haneul for yet another episode of Miss Rachel. Occasionally, he’ll mutter a sarcastic comment under his breath, trying (and failing) to disguise the fact that he’s memorized the songs, too. (And in English, no less!)

There was one particular afternoon that you walk in on the father and son having a heartwarming exchange.

Haneul, who’s wobbling on his unsteady little legs, is reaching eagerly for a stuffed tiger Yoongi is holding just out of reach.

“Oh, no, no, no—you gotta work for this,” Yoongi teases, eyebrows raised dramatically. He moves the tiger side to side, adding a low, exaggerated growl that makes Haneul squeal with laughter. Yoongi leans fully into the act, growling and making faces, finally swooping Haneul up with a playful roar, both of them dissolving into laughter.

You can’t help but laugh along with them, your heart catching slightly at the sight. The way his eyes crinkle in genuine amusement, his mouth relaxed into a wide gummy grin. And you’re startled by how… soft he looks, how fucking attractive he is when he’s like this. When his usual quiet intensity is replaced by this playfulness, by this open warmth. It hits you somewhere deep, a warm, fuzzy feeling in your chest that you can’t quite ignore.

Yoongi catches you watching, his smile faltering for a moment, but he holds your gaze. His expression shifts, something curious reflecting in his eyes as if he’s wondering what you’re thinking, but he doesn’t ask. Instead, he swallows a lump in his throat, cheeks dusting a faint pink as he looks down, bashful.

You force yourself to glance away, feeling warmth creep up your neck. For the first time, you’re struck by an awareness of him that wasn’t there before, and it lingers, even as you turn back to whatever it was you were supposed to be doing. The image of his smile, his laughter—it all stays with you, stirring something you can’t quite put a name to.

And just like that, you’re settling into this role in the life of the Min men—something you know is temporary, but is infinitely meaningful.

When you’re not in Yoongi’s apartment, your own place feels strangely foreign.

God, you hate it here. You can’t even bring yourself to call it home—it’s just a room with white walls, half-opened moving boxes, a stack of unread books Joonie gave you, a mattress on the floor, and a fridge with a single egg. It’s quiet. Too quiet. You could fix the place up—it’s not like you can’t afford a bed frame or groceries—but for some reason, you’re punishing yourself. Like this is the way someone like you—unwanted and rejected—ought to live.

Nothing in this flat tethers you to it, and maybe that’s why you prefer being out.

You’re afraid your heart is stuck somewhere in limbo, somewhere between Seoul and LA. Maybe it’s still floating above the clouds on that flight back. You don’t know when it’ll come down, but you hope it’s soon.

Tonight, you’re restless, tossing and turning in your makeshift bed, replaying fragments of your old life—a love that once felt solid, a future that had once felt certain. Your mind drifts to those last conversations with Jiyong, your ex, the ones where he shut down every hope you had for a family, making you wonder if wanting more was somehow wrong.

You probably deserve it, though. You want a family, but you can barely cook for yourself. What do you hope to feed a child—takeout? Junk food? It’s laughable. You can’t even make a home feel like one. Jiyong probably got tired of you because you’re useless at it.

Stop. You close your eyes, focus on your breathing, try to still your mind. 1, 2, 3…

Some nights, you especially hate yourself. Tonight is one of them.

You need to call Namjoon. He can usually talk you down, ease the self-loathing. You ring him three times, but each time, you get his voicemail. Fuck. Maybe he’s out, maybe he’s getting laid. Good for him, honestly.

But that might actually work. You rummage through one of your boxes and find the one purple bullet that’s gotten you through plenty of spirals. With a flick, the vibrator buzzes to life, and you slip it beneath your panties, pressing it right against your clit. You’re not in the mood to drag this out—you want release, quick and easy, something to take the edge off.

At first, your limbs relax as that familiar tingle begins, little sparks shooting from your core, teasing you with hints of pleasure. You keep at it, determined, but after a few minutes, the sensations stall. It’s like your body’s stuck, lingering on the edge without tipping over, leaving you stranded and more frustrated than when you started. You decide to cut your losses.

Maybe a shower. Maybe you can pop by the GS25 down the block for a bottle of soju.

But then your phone pings. It’s Yoongi.

Your tummy suddenly feels funny.

You immediately swipe up and read the string of messages that has popped on your Kakao.

Yoongi: Hey so I found this in Haneul’s crib Yoongi: image.jpg  Yoongi: u got this for him? he is lowkey obsessed. Yoongi: But WTF is it? 

You cackle. Loud and hearty. A sound you didn’t think you were capable of on a shitty night like this.

You: A capybara! Look it up! Yoongi: Oh Yoongi: never heard of it You: They’re cute Yoongi: ? You: Don't be mean You: Haneul and I love bora Yoongi: ?? You: thats her name Yoongi: noted

That night, the Kakao thread becomes your lifeline. Yoongi asks about your next visit, what you had for dinner, and when you say goodnight he sends back a grainy selca of him and a sleeping Haneul with Bora. The photo brings unexpected joy, something to remind you that you aren’t as alone as it sometimes feels. Finally, you succumb to slumber, clutching your phone to your chest, thoughts of Yoongi and Haneul floating in your dreams.

After that, you become more and more aware that Yoongi’s place has become a sanctuary. There’s Haneul’s bright laughter, the way his tiny fingers curl around yours, and the sound of Yoongi’s soft, steady voice, creating a background that somehow starts to feel comforting. With them, you’re too busy to dwell on the past or the ache left behind by someone else’s rejection. Instead, you’re present, stable.

And it’s in those moments—when you’re reading Haneul a story or soothing him to sleep—that you feel a glimmer of something you’d thought you’d lost: hope. The simple act of holding him, soothing him through his small struggles… It’s healing in a way you can’t quite put into words, as if this little boy is slowly fusing pieces of your heart you’d almost forgotten were broken.

And Yoongi—he’s part of it, too. His presence, his quiet strength, the way he’s trusted you with something so precious. 

You know this is just a phase, that this isn’t your life, but a part of you can’t help but imagine what it would be like if it were. To be here, day after day, with this little family that’s somehow found its way into your heart.

You’re still healing, still putting yourself back together, but this—this feels like the start of something you could believe in again.

What you couldn’t believe though was the email from your building administrator with an acknowledgment receipt for next quarter’s rent payment—all settled. You haven’t made the deposit yet, how come it’s saying it’s been paid for already?

You pace your room staring at the email from your phone as if it holds all the answers. 

What is happening? Who paid for this? You didn’t sign up for some sugar baby service… 

Wait. Something clicks in your brain. Suga. Baby.

Your first instinct is to call Namjoon, meddler extrordinaire. He picks up on the second ring, sounding annoyingly chipper.

“‘Sup, buttercup?” he asks.

“Don’t act cute, Joonie,” you warn. “Did you know about this?”

There’s a pause. “About what, exactly?”

“Yoongi,” you say, practically hissing his name. “He paid my rent, didn’t he? Three months’ worth. How did he even know where I live?”

Namjoon lets out a hum, his tone maddeningly calm. “Ah. That.”

“Yes. That. Care to explain?”

“Look,” Namjoon says, unbothered. “Yoongi asked, so I gave him your address. He said you refused his offer, but still he wanted to pay you back somehow.”

“But Joon! It’s too much—” You pause, scrambling for the right words. “How did he even get a hold of the landlord and settle all this without my knowledge?”

Namjoon chuckles, which only makes you more annoyed. “Yoongi hyung is an influential guy, you know. If he wants something, he’ll fuckin’ find a way. Just take it, okay? You’re helping him, he’s helping you. It’s fair.”

You huff, still not convinced. “It’s just… a lot, Joon. I don’t need anyone swooping in and paying my bills. And you could’ve at least warned me.”

“I get it. But you’re helping him with something really important. This is his way of saying thank you.”

You sink back into your chair, the irritation draining out of you. “Fine,” you mutter. “But if he pulls something like this again, I’m coming for your ass.”

Namjoon laughs. “Aishh. Why the hell is it my fault?”

“You’re a smart man. Figure it out.” You hang up.

You spend that afternoon at Yoongi's. He was in a rush, dashing out for some shoot as you arrive. You hear him return around seven, just as you're finishing putting Haneul to sleep. Once the baby is settled, you tiptoe out of the nursery with the baby monitor on hand, following the sounds of soft clinking and the rich aroma wafting from the kitchen.

“Hey, Yoongi,” you call out, stepping into view. “Haneul’s all tucked in. I was just gonna—”

“Stay for dinner?” Yoongi’s eyes light up, his voice gentle but hopeful as he turns, holding a pot in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other. It looks like he came straight from his shoot, his hair still styled in soft, precise waves that swoop perfectly across his cheekbones. He’s wearing the softest, oversized yellow sweater layered over a crisp white shirt, and his jeans hug him just right. But it’s his smile that really draws you in—light radiates from him, his face glowing not just from a bit of skincare, but from something more.

Goddamn. The man is looking fine as hell.

You’d planned to meet up with Namjoon tonight, but one look at Yoongi—whose eyes are too shy to hold yours as he ladles red sauce into a ceramic bowl—and you know you are absolutely staying put. Joon will understand.

“Ok, yeah, that looks really good,” you say.

“It is.” Yoongi smirks, just barely, and gestures to the fridge. “I’ll plate this up if you can grab some drinks?”

You procure a couple of beers from the chiller and set them on the dining table, shooting off a quick text to Joon afterwards.

You: Hey, raincheck? Yoongi made dinner and it looks good ngl

His response is instant.

Namjoon: You blowing me off to play house with hyung. K. I see how it is.

This asshole.

You’re about to call and give him a piece of your mind when Yoongi’s voice pulls you back. “Everything okay?”

Your gaze shifts to the plates of spaghetti he’s just set down, the aroma working wonders to sway your thoughts. “Yeah, just Joon being a pain in my ass as usual.”

“Sit.” Yoongi gestures to your chair as he settles into his.

“Wait.” You grab the baby monitor from the kitchen counter, setting it between you and Yoongi. The screen shows Haneul fast asleep, Bora tucked securely under his arm.

“There. Now we can eat.”

Yoongi nods, and the two of you dig in.

It hits you that this is actually the first time the two of you have shared a quiet dinner together like this. You were expecting Yoongi to let the silence linger, but he starts a conversation mid-way.

“I, uh, was surprised to see you back here,” he says casually, twirling a forkful of pasta.

“Me too. It was… kind of abrupt.”

He nods, not pressing, just listening. You don’t think you’re ready to talk about that so you try a joke.

“Didn’t think you’d ever see the girl who carried your performance of Stan?” you add, smirking. “I basically launched your career.”

“Carried?” He raises an eyebrow, clearly amused. “Nah, you were choking.”

“Hell no.”

“Uh-huh.” He laughs softly, shoulders bobbing. “Rewriting history….”

“Fine. I sucked. Joon totally went behind my back with that one. Not that he’s the only one who likes going behind my back,” you add pointedly, of course alluding to the matter of your paid-off rent.

Yoongi scratches the back of his neck, looking almost guilty. “Sorry for overstepping.”

“Just don’t start paying my utilities behind my back, too. Because—”

He shifts awkwardly, avoiding your gaze.

“Yoongi?”

He clears his throat. “Just your electricity. I… may have asked the landlord to include it this month.”

“Oh my god.”

“And water,” he adds quickly, eyes widening like a kid who just got caught.

“Add my Netflix subscription while you’re at it.”

“Done.”

“NO!!! You’re actually worse than Joonie,” you groan, though a smile quirks at your lips. “But, thank you:”

He nods, briefly pausing before he speaks up again, a little too flippantly. “So… you and Namjoonie—what’s the deal there?”

You blink, caught off guard. “What do you mean?”

He shrugs, looking somewhere over your shoulder. “You know what we all think? That he’s playing some kind of long game with you.”

You wrinkle your nose, laughing. “Oh god, no. Y’all are waayyy off. Namjoon’s like my brother, that’s it.”

Yoongi nods slowly, the smallest hint of a smile on his lips as he watches you.

“Everyone thinks that, huh?” you ask, leaning in, a little bolder than usual.

“Mhmm.” Yoongi gives a slow nod, as he nibbles his lower lip.

“All the members?”

“Yeah,” he says, watching you carefully.

“Including you?”

He shrugs, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips, though something shifts in his expression, like he’s trying to piece together a puzzle he didn’t know existed.

“Interesting,” you murmur, swirling your glass.

“Why?” he narrows his eyes on you, wheels turning in his head.

Maybe it’s the beer loosening you up, bubbles lifting your usual filters. You’ve always been a lightweight.

“You never wondered why Joonie suddenly set you up for English tutoring with me—just you—even though your company had a professional hired to teach everyone?”

He blinks, eyes narrowing a bit more.

“Or why I ended up singing with you at that damn club?” You laugh, leaning back.

His lips mold into a small pout, processing, but you’re already laughing.

“Joonie’s been throwing me into your orbit, Yoongi,” you say, giggling, the alcohol hitting you hard now. “And you’re telling me you never noticed?”

He looks like he’s having a full conversation with himself, his mouth opening and closing like a stunned goldfish inside a gallon bottle. All he manages is an eloquent: “shit.”

“Well, for the record,” you pause, “I thought you were cute, but it was obvious you weren’t interested. Don’t worry, though,” you say lightly, glancing down on your almost empty plate. “I’m a big girl now. It’s all in the past.”

As you stab the last meatball, you miss the way Yoongi’s gaze softens.

You have no way of knowing what’s going through his head. But if you did, you would find that he’s thinking:

If he could go back in time, he’d kick his younger self straight in the balls for not noticing, and tell him to get his head out of his ass long enough to realize this one shocking truth: 

You were not Namjoon’s girl.

And he actually had a chance with you.

Because maybe you’re right. Back then everything was about the dream—y’know, big house, big cars, big rings, and all that shit. So yeah, maybe, he wasn’t ready then.

But that doesn’t mean he isn’t now.

Notes: Oh-KKKAYYY!! How are we feeling? Anything you liked in particular in this chapter? Where is the baby mama? Do we even care atp?!

Part 2 is where things get more flirty, spicy, and all that good stuff.

Tell me your thoughts and theories. See you in the comments! <333

Thank you for reading, you lovely, beautiful, human 💕🫶🏼

Taglist:

@yoongznme @nnybtitts08 @rinkud @nbjch05 @perfectiondazesworld

@marnz1990 @mxrauds @queenbloody @jadestonedaeho7 @futuristicenemychaos

@direnediane @glossdebut @maryhopemei @theresstardustinmyblood @mggv97

@wobblewobble822 @kam9404 @supernoonanyc @damn-u-min-yoongi @ot72025

@busanbby-jjk @granataepfelchen @jajabro @tarahardcore @marihoneywk

@ryryvna @tea4sykes @mar-lo-pap @lilkittenjenjen

@captainchrisstan @thelittlecatonthecake @flaneuseonthestreets @sexytholland @diamonddia-mond

@yronathaniel @as-hs-blog @amarssfanfic @mafersame @amarawayne

@eurydiceofterabithia

Sorry if I'm unable to tag you. Did my best to include everyone who commented and asked!

[aventurineswife]

hello~ I was hoping I could make a teensy (hopefully it stays teensy request XP) Dan Heng, Aventurine, Dr Ratio, Jing yuan, Jiaoqiu and AE!Sunday with a s/o or spouse who gets cold very easily but they remain quiet and dont complain abt it out loud to avoid being a bother XPc 🍮♠

Unspoken Warmth

Summary: Your partner notices your quiet endurance of the cold and offers warmth in their unique way, despite your reluctance to show weakness.

Tags: Dan Heng x Reader, Aventurine x Reader, Dr. Ratio x Reader, Jing Yuan x Reader, Jiaoqiu x Reader, Sunday x Reader, Fluff, Comfort, Quiet Intimacy, Cold Weather Care, Protective Characters, Emotional Support, Silent Love, Soft Moments

You never complained about the cold. Not once. The chill of the wind outside the Astral Express had crept into your bones, and while most would have found the drop in temperature unbearable, you kept your discomfort to yourself. Dan Heng, however, was not one to miss the subtle shiver that ran through your body as you sat near the windows, gazing out into the vast, starry void.

He had noticed it before. How you would curl into yourself just a little tighter when the cold crept in, how you would sit with your shoulders drawn in, silently enduring the icy air without a single word of complaint. It wasn’t like you to ask for anything—Dan Heng knew that much. He respected it, perhaps more than you realized.

But that didn’t mean he was blind to it.

One evening, as the train hummed steadily through the vastness of space, he sat beside you, his sharp gaze flicking over the space around you. It had gotten colder, the sort of bite in the air that left no room for doubt. Yet you remained still, your posture ever so slight in your discomfort.

Without saying anything, he stood up and moved toward the cabin's storage. You heard the faint rustle of fabric, and then he returned, holding a thick, dark cloak draped over his arm.

“This should help,” he murmured, his voice soft but firm, as he carefully wrapped the cloak around your shoulders.

The warmth that radiated from the fabric immediately enveloped you, a small relief from the chill that had been gnawing at your skin. You opened your mouth to thank him but caught yourself. He was already back in his seat, his spear resting against the wall beside him. His demeanor hadn't shifted—stoic, calm, as always.

But then, you noticed the subtle change in his expression. His gaze, soft yet insistent, met yours for the briefest of moments. It wasn’t pity, but understanding. You weren’t the only one who carried silent burdens.

“I’ve got your back,” he added quietly, as though reading your thoughts.

And you knew, without needing to say a word, that he would always be there, silently offering warmth when you least expected it.

The cold had arrived swiftly, settling in with the smooth precision of a well-played hand in a game of cards. But unlike the calculated nature of your partner, this sudden chill seemed to have caught you off guard. Your body shivered slightly as the evening air settled over Aventurine’s apartment, the cold creeping into your bones.

You didn’t complain. You never did. Despite the discomfort of your quiet shivers, you simply curled your arms around yourself, hoping the warmth of your own body would be enough to stave off the cold.

But Aventurine—always observant, always attuned to the smallest details—had noticed. His sharp eyes flicked toward you, noting the way you hugged your arms tighter to your chest. He did not ask, he did not speak aloud, but within moments, you felt his presence beside you.

He draped his coat over your shoulders, the fur lining warm against your skin. You blinked in surprise, raising your head to meet his amused, yet tender, smile.

“Never thought I’d see someone like you let the cold win,” he teased gently, though his tone carried no malice.

You couldn’t help but smile in return, though you still said nothing. Aventurine’s smile deepened, as if he understood your reluctance to voice your discomfort.

“Stay warm, my dear.” he whispered, his hand brushing your hair back with a softness that felt almost too tender for the flamboyant strategist.

As he moved to sit down beside you, his cloak still wrapped around your shoulders, you leaned into him, letting the warmth from both his coat and his presence soothe the cold. No words were needed. With Aventurine, you had learned that sometimes, silence was the most profound way to express affection.

The cold was biting, a stark contrast to the usual warmth of the laboratory. You hadn’t said a word about it, of course. You never did. Your pride was too strong, your desire to not be a burden too ingrained in you. But that didn’t stop the creeping chill from seeping into your skin.

Ratio, ever perceptive despite his sharp and often dismissive nature, had noticed the subtle way your shoulders hunched as you worked alongside him. The shivering that danced along your arms hadn’t escaped his sharp eyes.

He did not comment. There was no question in his tone when he moved from the desk to the shelves, his fingers brushing over vials and medical instruments with precise ease. He returned a moment later with a heated compress, offering it to you without so much as a word.

“Place it here.” he instructed, gesturing to your hands.

You blinked at him, surprise momentarily breaking your usual calm demeanor. You hadn’t expected him to notice, much less to care.

Ratio’s eyes met yours—intense, unwavering, yet there was a flicker of something softer behind them. A quiet acknowledgment of your discomfort.

“It’s not weakness,” he added in a rare moment of tenderness. “Sometimes, even the strongest need a little help.”

You didn’t need to speak, but you gave him a small, grateful nod, the warmth from the compress beginning to seep into your body, making the cold feel a little less sharp.

It had become a routine. The cold would set in, and you would remain silent about it. You never asked for his attention, never begged for warmth, but Jing Yuan—calm, calculating, always two steps ahead—had noticed.

The evening had grown cold, and though you tried to remain composed, Jing Yuan’s sharp eyes caught the subtle way you tucked your arms around yourself, the faint shiver that ran through your form.

He didn’t speak a word at first, content to observe from a distance as you tried to maintain your stoic composure. But after a few moments, he stood, slowly walking toward you with the same deliberate pace he always maintained, his golden eyes softening with a quiet understanding.

Without asking, he wrapped a thick blanket around you, his hands brushing over your shoulders as he adjusted it for maximum comfort. His actions were practical, yet there was a gentleness in his touch that spoke volumes.

“You should have said something,” he murmured quietly, his voice carrying no reproach, only a subtle note of care.

You offered a faint smile, though you still didn’t speak, content to let the warmth of the blanket and his presence surround you. Jing Yuan simply nodded, his gaze distant but kind.

“I’m here,” he added softly, his usual authority giving way to something more personal. “Next time, let me know if you’re cold.”

And with that, you knew—without a word—that he would always be there to offer warmth, whether spoken or unspoken.

The cold came as it often did, unannounced and relentless. You tried to ignore it, as you always did, curling up with your thoughts and your work, pretending the biting chill didn’t bother you.

But Jiaoqiu, perceptive as always, saw through your act. His gentle eyes studied you from across the room as he prepared his alchemical concoctions, his hands steady and graceful. When he noticed the subtle tremble of your body, he moved toward you, his expression calm but his intent clear.

Without a word, he produced a thick, soft blanket from one of his cabinets and carefully draped it around your shoulders, ensuring you were warm but not overwhelmed.

“I know you don’t like to ask for help,” he said, his voice low and comforting, “but you don’t need to suffer in silence.”

You met his gaze, and for a moment, the weight of unspoken words hung between you. You hadn’t needed to say anything, yet Jiaoqiu knew exactly what you needed. The warmth from the blanket and his thoughtful gesture melted some of the cold, but it was the warmth of his care that truly made the difference.

And for the first time that day, you let yourself relax, allowing Jiaoqiu’s presence to be the healing you didn’t know you needed.

The cold had always been a silent companion. You never complained about it. You never showed weakness. It wasn’t that you didn’t mind the chill—it was simply a matter of pride. You would endure it silently.

But Sunday, ever the observant leader, had noticed. He saw the way your movements became just a bit stiffer, how your usual calm demeanor seemed to falter as the temperature dropped.

One evening, as you stood near the window of your shared quarters aboard the Astral Express, lost in thought, he approached without a word. You felt the weight of his presence before you heard his soft voice.

“You should’ve said something,” he murmured, his words carrying the authority of a leader, but with the gentleness of someone who truly cared.

Before you could respond, Sunday wrapped his long, elegant coat around you, pulling you gently into his embrace. The warmth of his body, combined with the softness of the fabric, melted the chill in your bones.

“You are not a burden,” he whispered, the quiet conviction in his tone breaking through your usual restraint. “I would have done this sooner if you had let me.”

For the first time, you didn’t feel the need to hide your discomfort. Sunday’s embrace, his warmth, was enough to make you forget the cold, not just around you, but inside as well.

[cheyisagirlkisser]

—Charity Girl—

Jackson Ellie x Fem! reader one-shot

Content: Slightly enemies to lovers, Ellie’s an asshole, AFAB reader, mentions of death and slightly graphic description, smut, nipple play, oral sex (r! receiving), making out, Ellie isn’t very cannon so if that peeves you don’t read this, mentions of weed, set in TLOU 2 universe, Joel is alive!!, this is unedited so lmk if there is any typos

Word Count: 5k

Description: You love Jackson, and you like helping people out. From farm chores to playing chess with the elderly, you’re liked around Jackson for being a charitable girl. You think everyone deserves some kindness. Everyone except Ellie, who can’t seem to find it in her to be nice to the one person who doesn’t deserve a harsh word.

God, you hated Ellie Williams.

You didn't want to say you hated her. You were a friendly person and you tried to be respectful to everyone. You even tolerated Seth, who was one of Jackson's conservative-minded guys. You rightfully disliked him, but you still remained civil when it came to professional matters.

However, it was just so hard to remain that way with Ellie. You didn't even know how truly irritating she was just seeing her around town, glancing over at her before she left for patrols with usually Jesse, Dina, Tommy, or Joel. She seemed pretty likable, at least from what you had heard. She moved to Jackson a while ago, before you even arrived at the settlement. You had never really needed to talk or had any interest in becoming friends.

You were a kind girl, and everyone in Jackson knew that. You liked helping out even if patrols weren't your strong suit. You felt insecure in that category being a bit less into scavenging and the dangers that lurked outside the town, so you decided to at least make yourself a bit useful. You made it a habit to use your love of baking to bring cupcakes to the playground for all of the children to eat. Sometimes it made you a bit sad to think about how little they had growing up in a post-apocalyptic world, but that wasn't a thought you could dwell on. You also made sure to keep the few senior citizens company because most people just didn't have the time to spend with them. Not that you didn't understand that, but you didn't sign up for patrols voluntarily unless someone else was ill and needed you to cover for them, or Maria needed an extra person. But it was just heart warming to know you made an impact since many of the old folks in towns didn't have family to keep them company. You'd spend hours playing board games with them, baking those little pastries they all complimented, asking them about their days. You were an angel amongst Jackson.

You were also extremely known for helping with food related jobs, such as gardening and farming. It was rewarding, since even though currency was quite useless in the world nowadays, you had the income of being able to take home vegetables, milk, butter, and even eggs when the chickens were active.

You mostly got along with anyone, and you tried to be a humble person. You just wanted to make the most of what you had. However, Ellie was..well, she was something. You'd soon be learning that.

It was summer, and everything was going fine for you. The sunlight hit Jackson in the most divine way and birds were flying over the settlement. You finished up with collecting eggs from one of the henhouses, so you grabbed a few as payment and headed to the diner to drop off a few. Everything was relatively normal. You glanced over at the gate and noticed that Jesse and Ellie had just gotten back from a patrol. Jesse was laughing about something and Ellie looked amusingly irritated. You couldn't help but think to yourself about how she was a pretty girl. She always wore her hair in a low messy bun, bangs framing her freckled face. You always were curious about her, but you just wrote your thoughts off as simple appreciation for her.

After you distributed the eggs to the diner and the supply building, you headed home. It was a short walk since Jackson wasn't a majorly huge place. Your house was small since you moved there alone, but it still home. You opened the front door and stepped inside. You still smelled the candles you'd lit from the previous night when you had been watching movies on DVDs found outside of Jackson on your small television. It was always the same movies. 10 Things I hate about you, Forest Gump, Scream, the Blair Witch Project(which had scared you so badly you were afraid to go patrolling in the forest for 3 months straight; you pathetically begged Maria not to make you do patrols), and E.T. It was just a random assortment of movies you had found in an abandoned house in a town outside of Jackson, but entertainment was entertainment. Who were you to complain?

You opened your fridge and stored the eggs inside, and then spent the next few minutes internally debating what you could do with your free-time. You still had a few books on your shelf that were mainly unread, but you hated staying indoors and reading like a hermit. Well, it was a nice day. You shuffled over to your shelf and picked up a book you'd borrowed from Cat a while ago and never read: Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu. Apparently, it was a classic a few centuries ago. With the book in hand, you left your house to find the well-used bench outside of the Tipsy Bison. It was where you loved to just sit and socialize with people or read when you wanted to breathe in fresh air.

One thing about you was that you enjoyed nature. While you did hate patrols, the idea of having to fend for yourself being unappealing, you loved the beautiful parts of it. Some debated that the infection was a part of nature, and you knew that, too. But still, you preferred being in the safety of a settlement. You knew what it was like to spend time in the outside world and it wasn't pretty. You enjoyed inhaling the air, watching as people lived their lives. Mortality was so precious right now, and maybe that's why you tried so hard to get along with everyone. You thought everyone deserved kindness.

Still, this life you led was mundane and boring at times. You were slightly envious of the patrollers. People in the current world were often restless, and as much as you’d think Jackson’s residents would love a mundane life with safety, they craved the survival. Maybe it was from their own personal trauma, but you weren’t able get that same lapse in routine everyone else got. It made you crave something extra from life, always feeling as if something was missing. Life this way, spent working and your free-time devoted to simple things, felt too easy. It felt like a deal in which you didn’t know the conditions of, and you subconsciously believed every good thing in the world had a cost. This easy lifestyle had to have a price.

For the next 15 minutes, you began your reading on that small bench. That was, until you heard someone sit down next to you. You glanced over to see Ellie there, alone next to you without any of her companions. Not that she was incapable of being alone, of course, but Ellie was the type of person to be reserved to her select group. Not a social butterfly like you, but well liked in an ironic way. She was so effortlessly able to get people to like her while not caring about whether or not people liked her. You gave her a warm smile and quickly doggy-eared the page you were reading, closing the book and setting it down into your lap.

"Can I help you with something?" You asked, remaining polite. You knew you probably seemed short with her, but if you were being truthful, the girl made you a tad bit nervous. Really, she had a positive impression on your brain. Before you really got to know her, at least.

She shrugged, feigning indifference, and answered you in a voice that was slightly teasing, her voice lacking the type of friendly amusement you'd expect from her. "Just wanted to say hi. Why is it that you sit out here everyday? Do you not have anything else to do?"

You were a bit shocked by that reply to say the least. You didn't ever expect Ellie to be even slightly rude. However, you were trying to be friendly. You'd kill this with some kindness. "Well, it's a nice day. I like the fresh air, you know?" You answered, trying to not sound too defensive.

The girl simply gave you a look you couldn't identify. Slight disapproval, and something you couldn't read. "You like fresh air? I thought you hated being outside. You know, since you never volunteer to go outside the walls and contribute?"

Now, that started to peeve you. Ellie was gorgeous, but even your little crush on her that you didn't realize you even had would save her now. Still..you tried to be friendly. Kindness is a virtue, you reminded yourself. "Everyone has their preferences. I personally like helping with the animals and harvesting crops." Once again, you tried to not sound too defensive. Something about Ellie's demeanor, the way she was looking at you intently, it made you feel as if she was trying to tease you to get a reaction out of you.

"Well, suit yourself then. But people risk their lives for you. The least you could do is return the favor. That's all I had to say." And with that last comment, she just stood up and waved at you before walking off.

It was so hard not to catch up to her and ask her what her deal was, but that would cause more problems than it would solve for you. You sat on the bench, confused and frustrated.

The next few weeks, these little comments Ellie made to you continued. It was either some slight judgment about the book you were reading or that you spent too much time trying to look sweet that you were actually just useless. It was always with a tone that was so rude yet seemed teasing. You wondered if she meant any of it. You always tried to defend yourself, but you were starting to really despise Ellie. You considered talking to someone like Maria, Tommy, or Joel about it, but would they even believe you? Ellie was usually not so rude from the conversations you had overheard. She seemed like a normal girl. It was frustrating having nobody to tell this to. Your friends always laughed you off, saying that Ellie was probably just joking with you to be friendly and that you were misunderstanding her. Everyone in Jackson loved Ellie, and she seemed to get along with everyone just fine except for you. Still, you tried to be sweet. You would simply brush her off, pretend like she was just some old person who made subtle criticisms and not anything serious. It was just really starting to get to you, though. You wondered how long you could manage.

Turns out, you would have to manage a patrol with her. Someone did in fact become ill and had to turn down a patrol, so you volunteered. Only then did Maria seem to mention that your partner was Ellie. You wanted to beg to swap with someone else, but you didn't want to inconvenience anyone, so you accepted the fate. It was a foot patrol among the south trails. 8 hours of pure torture.

Foot patrols were entirely different matters than what usual patrols entail. For starters, usual patrols require horses and cover more distance. They’re less dangerous. Being on foot also requires you to trust your partner more, which you struggle to do with your current partner. You have to trust that they’ll cooperate with you and have your back if things get tough. However, foot patrols do not require patrollers to hit up the main buildings or hot spots. You only check into the small places around the area, such as the office downtown or the gun store a mile from the grocery store. You’re less likely to get ambushed by a horde of clickers that way.

The fact that it was a summer patrol instead of winter made it slightly better. You imagined what it’d be like if you and Ellie got trapped in a snowstorm and were locked into some grocery store together. Annoyingly enough, the idea of having to share body heat with her made your heart flutter more than you’d like to admit. Summer patrols meant you’d probably have to take a lot of rests so neither of you would overheat, however.v

The cork board outside of the supply station mocked you in a way with your name being beside Ellie’s. You truly began to wonder if you could handle being alone with the girl who subtly tormented you for weeks straight without finally snapping. You didn’t want to know what would happen if you snapped at her. Would she yell back, or maybe even report you to Maria? You just knew that your usual patience was wearing thin.

You went home and collapsed onto your bed, hoping that a good night’s sleep would somehow save you from the situation you’d be facing tomorrow. As if Ellie would suddenly leave you be if you got enough sleep—you were just truly desperate.

Night didn’t last forever, and you woke to the sight of light streaming through your curtains in small patches. You groaned and forced yourself to get out of bed. The alarm clock read “6 A.M.” Much too early to have to deal with Ellie Williams.

You took a quick shower just to freshen up and got ready for the day, messily tying your hair back and putting on a pair of tan cargo pants, a light button-up, and a pair of combat boots. Simple, but safe. You packed a bag with some emergency medical supplies including gauze, alcohol pads, and a bottle of ibuprofen. You knew that you'd be given a care package from the supply crew, but you liked to be safe.

You would always grab a shotgun and a pistol from the weaponry building. Most people would choose to take the rifles, but you found it easier to shoot a light pistol and shotguns were easier to aim with. You knew the more trained people, Ellie included, would bring knives or machetes to clear infected with. You didn't trust yourself to get so close to the infected, at least not without something like a gun. Extra ammo, and extra MREs. You always felt a bit more safe bringing just a few extra things in case of emergencies.

You remember when you arrived at Jackson, and you were assigned your very first patrol at 17. You spent hours before patrol preparing with extra equipment, and it soon became a habit to overthink the experience. Your partners would ask about it, maybe give you an odd look, but most people just got used to it after a while. Everyone assumed it was because of your life before Jackson, and they'd guessed right.

The children that were raised in Jackson were unfortunate to have even been born in such a dangerous world that can snatch away the people you care for most, but they at least grew up into safety. You were nomadic, moving from settlement to settlement, group to group, or even just setting up camp in the middle of a forest or abandoned city. It was a dangerous life, and it left you constantly losing sleep, waking up and wondering if your father who you traveled with would be able to protect you if something truly happened. If the two of you had the misfortune of stumbling upon a horde of infected or run into a slaver group. It was often that you'd sleep so lightly, even the sound of a mouse scurrying across an abandoned office floor would wake you. You were terrified with the thought of being eaten alive in your sleep or worse, bitten, and left to slowly lose your humanity.

The day your father was killed off wasn't much different than any other, and that resulted in your current state. Always being overprepared because maybe you could prevent sudden death. Just maybe if you brought one extra gauze strip, you'd somehow prevent past you from watching your father be torn apart from a clicker. Jackson was supposed to be a fresh start for you, so you always found yourself repeating the same phrase.

"Make the best of what you have, and don't dwell on what you've lost."

Sometimes you break your own rules, though.

It was around 6:45 when you arrived at the gates. The sun wasn't up yet, and that meant flashlights would probably be necessary. One downside to summer patrol was that the sun set late, but the sun rose late, too. You anticipated the hues of orange and pink that would paint the sky and give you light.

You were snapped out of your thoughts when Ellie cleared her throat, signaling she was here and ready to go. You stole a glance at her and your heart fell into your stomach.

She looked messy and somehow so gorgeous that it hurt. She had a slightly masculine energy to her with a pair of brown leathers boots and boot-cut dark jeans that still found a way to hug her thighs so deliciously. She wore a short-sleeve t-shirt you'd seen on her before and her low bun had strands falling out of it, strands you secretly wanted to tuck behind her ears.

You scratched those thoughts out of your head when she opened her mouth.

"Are you conscious? We need to get moving." She had a slightly scolding tone that made you want to bite back with something just as condescending, but you held back.

Instead, you simply nodded, and Ellie probably could've sworn that you had veins popping out of your forehead. Who could've blamed you? Ellie was such an asshole to you.

Ellie's mind was an extremely complicated place. Her thoughts were quick, and she felt the need to always be on task. However, one difference between the two of you was that she got into trouble at times. It was quite inevitable though, especially when she was friends with Dina and Jesse.

Incidents like getting high off her ass on patrol, messing around with a squeaky toy and accidently attracting a group of walkers, losing her temper and pissing off a group of stragglers, or when her and Jesse abused the walkie-talkies.

She was naturally in need of routine breaks, and maybe that's why she teased you so much. She felt a little envious. You were this perfect girl, sweet as they come, who cared for the people in town who didn't usually have company. You didn't do patrols and you were still an incredibly hard worker in ways Ellie felt lacking, because there were so many people around town who kissed your ass for doing something as simple as milking the cows.

That wasn't all Ellie's thoughts about you were based around, though. Something about how boring your life was somehow appealed to her, and she hated herself for even thinking about you. She also shouldn't have been obsessing over a girl who was probably straight, like most girls in Jackson, of course. But something about you really made her want to break you and see you snap. Maybe that's why she spent so much time trying to get a reaction out of you. She knew she was being a dickhead to you, but she still just needed to see that snap. She'd finally be able to know that you were more than just some nice girl, then.

Truth was, Ellie was probably in love with you with the amount she thought about you. Insulting you was so easy, though. It was so easy to pretend that she didn't like you than to make an effort to impress you and be herself. She was scared of letting you know who she actually was because you may reject her forreal, and she couldn't handle that.

So it was best to pretend like she enjoyed being extremely condescending to you.

The first two hours of patrol was spent walking in close proximity on the trails south of the creek. You could practically smell the water, and you could feel the slight breeze that gave you some relief the extreme heat. Every now and then you'd take a sip of water and look around cautiously. Caution was something you couldn't live without, and Ellie seemed to take a notice to that. It was just your lucky day that she was in the mood to be an asshole to you again.

She'd make small remarks to you, sometimes questioning the way your hands trembled anxiously, or asking you why you didn't bring any good weapons. When it was lunch time, she laughed at the ridiculous amount of rations in your backpack. Slowly, you felt peeved. Why was Ellie such a bitch to you? You knew she didn't actually care about these things, yet she loved to point them out in the most grating voice she could muster up. After one particular comment that was something along the lines of "You know, it's embarrassing that someone else had to get sick for you do take a patrol shift" that finally made you snap.

You halted along the trail and turned to face her, a sudden irrational wave of anger flooding your system. "What the fuck is your problem?! Are you just mad because you hate me? Is that it? I don't understand what I did to deserve you constantly criticizing me!" You snapped, voice clear with anger. You stepped forward and you wanted to slap her across the face, hardly holding back from doing so. Ellie sensed this and maybe she felt a twinge of fear and something else you didn't even notice. This was odd seeing as she could easily kick your ass. Her back hit a large tree, her eyes widened as if she couldn't have possibly predicted this reaction. This only made you more irritated.

You stepped forward, your body close enough to hears that you could hear her inhale and exhale, and it was a shaky sound that you would've questioned if it weren't for your anger serving as a distraction. "Answer me, asshole! Why do you hate me so much?! Just fucking-" And you were cut off with a kiss.

Her hands desperately grasped at your face, pulling you closer as she kissed you. It wasn't the standard type of sweet kiss in which two people would brush up against each other's lips. She was practically devouring you with her need. At first, you couldn't process what was happening. Ellie was kissing you so hard you felt almost lightheaded. But for some reason, all of the anger you felt was flushed away as you began to kiss her back.

Ellie took some initiative and flipped you around so that you were backed up against the tree, the rough bark digging into your back. However, you couldn't focus on any discomfort present in your body. All you could feel was the numbing swell of your lips as Ellie's practically bruised yours. You felt her teeth bite on your bottom lip, and you let out a pathetic moan. Her hands were somehow everywhere, from your face to the sides of your body as if she was trying to pull the warmth from your body.

She tasted so fucking good, it was hard to stop. You could faintly taste copper from where she bit down onto your lip, but you could also taste her in such an intimate way, it was more emotional than it seemed. A mix of her toothpaste, and an Earthiness you'd imagined she'd contain. The two of you were lost in each other that patrol was all but forgotten.

You finally had to pull away to breathe, but she needed more. Her hands trailed across your chest, palming at your tits through your shirt. You tilted your head back against the tree, and she took the opportunity to leave hungry kisses on your pulse point, probably sucking hard enough on your skin to leave hickey's you'd lecture her about later. But for now, you didn't care.

It was all a blur, her pulling at your clothes and the both of you left naked against the tree not long after. She tugged at your hair while lapping at your tits, and this made you breathless. "Ellie, please.." You didn't even know what you were begging for.

She let out a soft noise and released the latch she had on one of your tits. “Fuck, I like this version of you so much better than the other one..” She said, her voice riddled with an obvious sense of need that made your thigh involuntarily clench. She moved upwards, her tongue meeting your collarbone and then up to your jaw. She kissed down the side of your neck, the heat of her mouth and the wetness of her tongue enveloping you. You tilted your head back, your breathing coming out in soft pants. You didn’t understand how you could hate her moments before and somehow be a mess for her now. You really wanted to hate how good it felt, but you really couldn’t even find an ounce of fight left in you to try and push her away. You didn’t want to push her away. 

Her hands moved to your tits, kneading them softly, pinching your nipples while she mouthed at the sensitive spot between your shoulder and neck. It felt like heaven the way her lips caressed your skin. 

She moved much too slowly down your body, kissing both of your stiff nipples before sliding her tongue down your navel. Her hands pulled at your waist and you couldn’t help but arch your back slightly to meet her mouth as it moved against your thighs. She tried to tease you as best she could while being so horny as well, but soon she gave up on the idea altogether. 

“Fuck, you’re so wet..” Was the last thing she muttered before the heat of her mouth finally pressed up against your cunt making you clench around nothing. She parted your thighs gently and you struggled to stay standing against the tree. Your hands tangled into her hand to find purchase as her tongue lapped at your clit like you were dinner. Not like rations or canned soup you’d typically find lying around in an old grocery store, but a michelin star meal. You were far too expensive for her budget and she was taking advantage of the sample she got. She imagined what it’d be like to have you everyday, to be able to bring you please like this for hours on end. But she was too far gone to really dwell on the thought long before she was wrapping her soft lips around your clit and giving it a suck, making you tug on her roots and rocking your hips against her mouth, grinding your wet cunt against her mouth. She was so warm and you were soaking for her, and it was absolutely perfect.

Sometimes, you had overheard philosophical drunken conversions at the Tipsy Bison. People with flushed cheeks would talk of hatred. That was nothing new; hatred was always common in the world, even before the infection. But hearing someone talk about how hatred is just a negative type of love, now that part stuck with you. You could feel hatred for Ellie while she worked at your cunt, you told yourself. You repeated into your head that hate was unglorified love. Maybe it was desire, too. 

But you struggled to keep that notion in your head as her tongue swirled around you teasingly before not holding back one bit. And before you knew it, you were a goner. Your breaths grew shorter as your climax finally took over, your knees nearly buckling as you let out a loud cry against the release you were feeling. You were violently tugging at her auburn strands, making her moan in return, only sending more shocks through your body as you felt her send warm vibrations through your pussy. 

You nearly forgot how to speak. 

Eventually, you went limp against the tree, and she stood up to hold you close. Your breaths were ragged for a while and the two of you remained silent until she broke it with a soft sigh. 

“I am sorry for being a jerk..I don’t even know what’s wrong with me.” She whispered softly, her breath hitting your neck. 

Finally, you found your voice again, though it was unsteady and quiet. “I just didn’t understand..I still don’t. I thought you hated me.” 

She frowned at that and hugged your tightly, which showed to you that this moment was much more than sexual desire shared between the two of you. “No, I don’t hate you. I’m just an idiot, okay? I was jealous, and I sort of liked you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you ever.”

That made your heart beat just a little faster. “You…like me back?” You asked, needing her to say it just one more time. 

“Yes. I like you too. I swear, I think I’m in love with you the way I’m so obsessed with you. You were always taking up space in my mind..it was driving me insane.” She admitted, and it caused you to lean forward to plant a soft kiss on her lips. Both of your lips were still kiss-swollen and your body was shaking with the after-glow of your orgasm, but this kiss was much more gentle than the previous. It was soft and made you even more weak than her tongue did. Which was saying a lot.

She hugged you tightly, her hands finding purchase at your waist. You thought about getting dressed and going on with patrol, but none of it felt right now. The situation gave you that lapse in routine you needed, and you knew you were probably addicted to the feeling of Ellie’s presence now. Somehow, you couldn’t care less. That was a first.