#best women half socks

[sunlightmurdock]

Hey, Neighbour! | DBF!Jake Seresin x Reader (18+)

Synopsis: Jake’s been having a problem recently, and when the power goes out next door, everything quickly comes to a head.

Warnings: dad’s best friend trope. Age gap. Reader is in her mid-20s, Jake’s around 40. Obviously unbalanced power dynamic. No use of Y/N. Reader’s dad has a name. Mention of reader having a piercing. Smut. Pure filth and pining. Smut. Oral (f receiving). Unprotected pinv. Creampie. Jake has no respect for his best friend’s furniture. Choking briefly. Please comment / Reblog, it’s greatly appreciated. Wc: 8.5k. Minors dni, you will be blocked.

…

Jake clicks the television off and pushes himself up from the couch, joined by his shadow of a German shepherd called Ace. They walk together to the sound of the meek little knock at his front door, Jake’s gym socks padding along his dark wood floors along the way.

It’s late. Too late for whoever is at his front door to be bearing good news. He twists the door handle and pulls it open, rolling back his aching shoulders. This late at night, he has a good idea of who’s going to be standing on his porch.

As expected, standing there and shivering in your dad’s coat and a pair of slippers, is exactly the last person that Jake was hoping to see.

You see, Jake has had a bit of a problem since he moved in to this neighbourhood.

Quite a substantial one, in the grand scheme of things, and one that seems to just be getting worse by the minute.

Suburbia was meant to be Jake’s reprieve from his bachelor lifestyle. His escapades have been worrying his mother to death for going on two decades now, and it came time that even Jake agreed that it was time to wisen up about his love life. With all of the deployments, and all of the time away from home, it had been beyond easy to never fall into anything serious. By the time he was twenty-nine, Jake’s longest ever relationship was two and a half months, which was alarming given the number of women he had encountered by then.

Two things happened that sent Jake here, to this cute little cul-de-sac in suburban San Diego, one — Jake’s job became more secure, and guaranteed that he would spend at least ninety percent of his remaining career here on the west coast. Second, he proposed to a woman. A beautiful woman, that he was so sure he was going to spend the rest of his life with.

She liked his house, it looked like the one her parents had raised her in. So, he bought the house and he bought a dog, and swore that he was going to try to settle down. Six months later, it was just him and the dog. Payton apologised profusely, and she’d apologise even more if he ever ran into her again, he just wasn’t right for her.

Things weren’t so bad though. Jake and Ace liked the peace and quiet, and the guy next door was actually pretty cool. Jack, the airline pilot with a mean golf swing and a great nose for the best sports bars in town. He’s a little older than Jake, with a hell of a lot more to show for it, including three grown up kids.

It’s been a couple of years now, and Jake’s practically part of the family. He knows everything there is to know. He’s there on birthdays, holidays, emergencies — he loves this family. But he has a problem.

His problem was manageable at first. So, Jack’s youngest daughter might have caught Jake’s attention at first. You were visiting home from college and you had stepped out of the car in a tight little pair of shorts and a tank top, and Jake just happened to be standing in Jack’s garage, helping him with a little project, when he first saw you.

And you were funny. Right away cracking some joke about Jake’s less than adept approach to projects around the house. Jake had laughed out loud without even meaning to, and then you’d turned your head and hit him with that mega-watt smile. Bringing new meaning to the term beaming.

God, that pretty fucking smile.

Your humour dances lightly on the nerves of others, like Jake’s, but sweeter. You’re well behaved and back then you had had a dreamy boyfriend who was in pre-med. Perfect in every way.

Even more reason for Jake to keep his hands to himself.

You were Jack’s kid. Jake wouldn’t ever cross that line. It’s just that sometimes… he had to remind himself of this boundary.

He hadn’t ever been close friends with someone where that was even a concern, and truthfully, he had been unprepared for meeting you. In all of the stories Jack told him, you were this cute little kid. Standing before him, you didn’t quite match the image he had of you in his head. This was truly uncharted territory.

Truth be told, there were times when Jake wasn’t so sure you wanted him to hang back. Even when you were still bringing that boyfriend of yours around, Jake caught the way you looked at him.

The way you tug those glossed lips between your teeth and grin around the straw of your drink.

If he was a better friend, or a stronger man, he might have been able to nip his little problem in the bud right away. He had tried, and you were living away from home then, so it was easier. But last month, you had moved back in with your parents and Jake’s life has been nothing but stress ever since.

On occasion, Jake thinks of how he would have to plead his case if someone discovered how he felt. You just don’t know what it’s like when she’s looking at me, man. I swear, I tried to stay away from her, I did.

It’s not his fault that Jack asked him to watch you while your folks were away on that cruise.

Jake’s gaze finally flickers back up to your wounded, hurt baby bunny, expression.

“What’s the matter, cutie? — You alright?” He reaches for you with one hand, gently grabbing at the crook of your elbow and guiding you towards him. That sad little look on your face tugs at his heart strings every time.

“Yeah, I just — I plugged in my phone charger and all the lights went out. I think I tripped a fuse,” All exasperated and frustrated at once, you push your hair back off of your face and frown at him. “Could you come take a look at it for me?”

Jake’s throat grows thick. Under your dad’s heavy work coat, Jake can see the thin white tank top you’re wearing and the blue checkered, boxer style pyjama shorts. But Jack asked him to take care of you.

“Yeah. Of course I can,” Jake nods his head and reaches down to tug at Ace’s black woven collar. “Come in a sec. I just need some shoes.”

There haven’t been too many occasions where you have been inside Jake’s place. Your dad comes here a lot and you’ve been sent over to collect him before dinner on occasion, or to deliver Jake some leftovers.

It’s warm inside, and it smells like woodsmoke and leather. He’s been burning the candle that you got him for his last birthday. You inhale softly, shrugging the coat closer to your body.

In the times that you have been over here, you’re always surprised by how tidy he keeps the place. It’s not what you would have expected of a single guy living all alone.

Jake pulls some sneakers from a tidy shoe organizer disguised to look like an end table and crouches down to put them on his feet. Leaning over, something catches his eye between the heavy fleece of your dad’s unzipped work jacket.

“Did you get your bellybutton pierced?”

The question startles you, drawing attention to the fact that you had been craning your neck and trying to get a look into Jake’s living room. You turn your head, blinking as Jake straightens up and takes a step towards you.

He reaches out and before you know it, his warm fingers are stretching out across your chilled, just exposed navel. His thumb brushes over your soft skin, brows drawing together as he examines the dainty jewelry pushed through your skin.

Swiftly, you take a step back and his hand drops away from your body. “I’ve had it for years.”

There’s a silence between the two of you. Jake’s going to be kicking himself for that for weeks to come. He shouldn’t have reached out and touched you like that. He shouldn’t be commenting on things your father wouldn’t approve of. You’re too grown up for that.

“Huh,” He clicks his tongue, reaching just past your side to grab his house keys from the dish by the door. “C’mon, kid. Let’s go take a look at those lights.”

The shuffle of your slippers cuts through the awkward silence as you cross Jake’s front yard and into yours. It’s late November, and a cold night in particular too. Standing in just a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, the evening chill makes Jake’s arm hair stand on end. As you walk ahead, your back to him, Jake wonders if it has the same effect on you.

Thinking about his best friend’s daughter’s tits. He wishes the shame alone was enough to knock the thought out of his head. He wishes you hadn’t moved home. He wishes you weren’t leading him into your dark, empty house right now.

The entire house is pitch black, but Jake tests the hallway lightswitch in passing anyway. He notes the dubious look you shoot him back over your shoulder. Then, he passes by you as you stop to take off that big coat. It’s not something he wants to hang by and watch.

It’s cold as his shoulder brushes yours, and not just because it’s November. You swallow thickly, staring after him until he disappears into the dark. Your feelings towards Jake are complicated.

Well, they’re not. Your crush on him isn’t the innocent middle school crush that you used to have on an older figure, like a teacher. No, this is far from doodling his name in your journal. This man, and his thick, ridged abs and golden chest hair, is working his way into your dreams.

After the break-up, you had sworn off men for a while — and that was the right decision for you. But, it left certain parts of you yearning. And Jake’s right next door. From your bedroom window, you’ve got the perfect view into his backyard. The same backyard where he’ll work out in the blazing heat, sweat glistening along his tanned skin, along the ridges and valleys of his muscles.

No, this crush is far from innocent. It crossed the border into indecent weeks ago, the first time that you touched yourself thinking about him. It wasn’t your fault; he was tempting you.

You had returned home from work to find Jake hanging out in the living room with your father, not unusual, and you had joined the two of them. Your dad had started with a playful comment about Jake. Jake had returned the favour with a witty remark about your dad. You were just joining in on the fun, poking playfully at Jake’s age.

All too suddenly, he had turned sharply to you and pinched the soft skin between your ribs and hip, leaning dangerously close with a smirk on his face that made your head spin. In fact, you still remember the way your mouth had hung open as Jake had breathed out a chuckle and shot you that playfully warning look.

“You think you’re funny, huh?” He’d challenged, that eager look in those wild green eyes, his cheeks dimpling just slightly, fingers pressing into your side.

Since then, you can’t help but think of him closer, and closer.

“Jake, wait!” You call, dropping the coat onto a hook and kicking off your slippers, starting to rush after him. Jake cranes his neck to look back at you over his shoulder. “You should probably show me what you’re doing. Y’know, in case it happens again.”

“Sure. Come here,” Jake jerks his head for you to join him, extending his hand for you in the dark of the utility room. You swat around until your fingers graze his, falling silent at the brash way he grabs hold of your hand and drags you closer. Your ass briefly brushes his thigh as he guides you in front of him. Jake steps back, clearing his throat. The little red dot on the fuse box illuminates his fingertips as he reaches past you. “This is the switch you want, don’t mess with anything else or your dad’ll kill you.”

The corners of your lips twitch. There are plenty of things your dad would be furious with, if he knew you had done them.

Jake’s fingers curl around the switch. His cologne fills your nose. His massive bicep is inches from your cheek, and everything feels like electric as his other hand comes to rest on the bare space between your shirt and your shorts. You’re trapped between him and the wall in front. If you would push your hips back just an inch or two…

“So, you flip the switch off to reset it,” Jake’s voice is all gravel from yelling at the young pilots he instructs, and shouting over the top of loud music in bars. It drifts past your ears and makes you want to shiver as his fingers curl around the plush of your hip. “And then you flip it back on for the power.”

Suddenly, the lights come back on in the hall outside of the utility room. Jake’s got you cornered against the fuse box really, and with the washer and dryer to your side, the only escape would be to rush out into the hall. You’re not quite ready to make that move. You can hear the amusement in his voice. He can feel the way you’re burning with awkward embarrassment in front of him.

“Oh.” You say quietly. Jake chuckles from behind you, his hand trailing about an inch higher, taking some of the fabric from your tank top with it, pinching playfully at your newly exposed waist.

“Happy to help, kid.” He’s already drawing back, his hand pulling away from your electrified skin, the sound of his shoe hitting the floor and alerting you to the fact that he’ll be leaving before you even know it.

“Could I ask you for one more favour?” You turn to face him, biting sheepishly on your bottom lip.

“Sure. What is it?” He’d retile your entire bathroom for you if you asked him to. That’s what makes him wish he was a better friend.

There’s an art to the way you bat your lashes at him, knowing better than to get too close or put your hands on him. Just that deep, pleading look in your eyes is more than enough. “Will you finish watching my scary movie with me? — Kinda… freaked me out a little bit when the lights went out, is all.”

“… Yeah. Yeah, I guess I can hang out for a little.” You’re a good kid, and it’s just a movie. He can’t leave you over here all by yourself, scared out of your mind, now, can he?

Jake wonders if this is what your father had in mind when he had asked his most trusted friend to just be there for his daughter while they were away.

That same, trusted best friend, sitting on the couch with his chin propped up against his palm, and that daughter’s head resting against his shoulder. You could have sat over on the other end of the couch, or even in your dad’s armchair, but that defeats the purpose of asking Jake to stay.

“Fill me in. What am I missing here?” Jake asks, mostly to fill the silence. His arm stretches along the back of your couch, his knees parted obnoxiously and his neck awkwardly straight to minimise risk of him laying his head against yours.

Your hand comes to rest against his middle, eyes focused calmly on the screen. “So there are two timelines. The present, and flashbacks to like��� maybe ten years ago. Ten years ago, the family bought this mirror, and…”

Jake’s fingers inch their way into your hair, trailing softly over your scalp. Your fingers brush over his middle as he massages your scalp. He listens to you explain the plot of the movie like he isn’t thinking about the way your nipples are pressing through the white fabric of your tank top.

“Freaky mirror…” Jake muses over the concept of the plot, squinting his eyes at the screen, his fingers slowing to a halt in your hair as he turns his head to look at you. “You gonna be able to sleep okay tonight if we watch this?”

You meet him back with a sheepish grin and an innocent shrug of your shoulders. “Well, I already started, so I need to see that it ends okay, or I’ll be freaked out.”

“Alright. Just making sure you’re not gonna try crawling into my bed tonight after you have a nightmare.” Jake teases, pushing his knees further apart and sinking down into the comfort of the grey fabric couch he helped the movers bring in here last August.

He didn’t push you away when you sat right next to him and curled against his side. He reached out himself and stroked his fingers along your stomach.

Confidence surges through you like a wave, swelling big enough for you to giggle and press closer to him. “Come on, would that be such a bad thing?”

“What did you say?”

The swell has passed and the wave crashes just like all the others do, breaking over an otherwise calm sea. You swallow softly, growing exceptionally still.

“I was just kidding—“

Jake’s fingers leave your hair and curl instead around the nape of your neck. He turns his head, attempting to get a look at your face. “No, no. Say it again. What did you say?”

You shake your head, pressing it closer against his toned stomach. “I was just joking. You wouldn’t mind it that much if I had a bad dream and had to come sleep in your bed.”

He’s quiet for a moment and the movie draws tense. The main character is creeping around in the dark, the music is building, and Jake’s far too quiet for your liking.

“Don’t joke about that.” Jake says quietly.

“Okay. I’m sorry.” You answer him, hugging your cheek into the dark fabric of his t-shirt. That way, there’s no chance of him seeing the shame on your face. Going after your dad’s best friend— you should be ashamed of yourself.

Jake rubs a palm over the stubble on his jaw, trying to focus on the screen in front of him. This movie can’t possibly take much longer.

He knows he has upset you. You’re uncharacteristically quiet, and he can feel you trying to sit still. He shifts his hips a little, reaching out and resting his palm against your waist.

Your brows draw together as the main character bites into the apple she was eating and glass shards drop to the floor in front of her. Jake feels your fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt. Sweat beads on the nape of his neck.

His thumb swipes back and forth over the inch of bare skin on your hip.

Jake glances down at you. Laying against his middle like this. It feels all too natural. He isn’t even paying attention to the movie. Truthfully, the only thing on Jake’s mind is how soft your skin feels against the pad of his thumb.

Imagining how soft your body would feel in his palms, every inch of your skin in his capable hands.

You gasp as the camera pans to the main character’s bleeding mouth, and the shattered lightbulb in your hands, twisting your head and burying your face in Jake’s shirt.

Jake flinches, his attention drawn back to the screen as his fingers curl into your skin. His face twists in distaste, groaning at the gore on the screen.

“Shit, you weren’t kidding about this being freaky.” Jake mutters with a soft shake of his head, shifting uncomfortably as his fingers massage at the pillowy skin of your waist. He swallows thickly, eyes dropping down to the way you’re nestled just above his waistband. He tries a weak chuckle, mind racing for something to lighten the mood. “What am I meant to do if I’m up all night after this, huh?”

You laugh softly against his stomach, pressing closer to the warmth of his rigid torso. Jake stares at the screen as he feels your open palm brush over his abdomen, fingertips grazing the waistband of his sweats by mere millimeters. He strokes your skin, setting his knees further apart by an inch.

Even with the score of the movie in front of you, everything feels so quiet. Even with the floor lamp to your right and the table lamp to your left, it all feels so dark. It all feels so slow. Truthfully, you imagine this is as close as you’ll get to understanding what it feels like to tightrope across Niagara Falls.

One misstep, a strong gust, the loss of balance in any capacity and its all over. The best friendship that your father has ever had, thrown away because you made a pass at a man far too old for you to begin with.

Then, Jake’s fingers break their almost surgically precise pattern. The tips stretch just slightly under the fabric of your tank top, reaching for the silken skin of your stomach. It’s brief, before they retreat to the safety of circling the skin that you’ve chosen to expose. You drop your gaze, watching all five of his digits follow their intricate pattern, and stretch under the cotton white of your top once again.

Maybe Jake notices that you’re watching him, or maybe he finally notices it himself, but he stops all at once. Fingers pulling back to rest platonically against your hip, green eyes trained seriously on the television, his lips stretched into a flat line.

“It’s okay,” You whisper without turning your gaze away from the screen. Jake doesn’t look at you. He feels your fingers brush across the top of his, curling through the digits, linking them together. “It’s okay, Jake. You can. I won’t say anything.”

Your parents aren’t going to be home for another eleven days. What’s Jake supposed to do until then, ignore your existence? — Avoid you entirely?

He wants this, and you’re on to him, giving him permission.

“Honey,” It’s caught somewhere between a sigh and a groan, an exhale of restraint and desperation all at once. He wishes he could at least pretend he’s half interested in this movie. “Don’t talk like that.”

Your brows draw together, eyes going wide as a child in the movie creeps through the house, headed for the master bedroom. Bloody sheets on the bed. A smashed plate on the floor. Jake’s hand gripping your hip. The child inches forwards, the music swells, a chill rushes down your back. In frame, the little girl rounds the edge of the bed and someone leaps out, bloodied and frenzied. Jake hasn’t been paying enough attention to gather who.

Neither one of you will care in a few moments.

The surprise makes you jolt, leaping up from your spot against Jake’s stomach, sitting upright all of a sudden, grabbing onto his forearm for support.

“It’s alright, cutie,” Jake breathes out in soft amusement, rubbing a heavy circle on your back. That’s the first thing he called you. When he’d seen you struggling to lift the icebox in the garage. Let me get that for you, cutie. And now, he has the nerve to pretend like it’s just you that has led the two of you here. “Maybe we should turn it off now, huh?”

Your heartbeat is already thudding in your ears and there’s no way you’ll be able to sleep after any of this. Fuck it. You turn, brace your palm against his shoulder, and take the dive.

Jake has thought about what those pretty lips feel like. Every time they stretch upwards into those pretty smiles, each time you sink your teeth into the bottom one. He should be prepared, in theory. Is there any way to prepare for something like this?

“Sweetheart…” Jake mutters against your lips, eyes screwed shut, hands reaching out for your hips. Pained, he gives a slow shake of his head. “Come on, we can’t do this.”

“But do you want to?” Your lips graze his. He feels the way you arch your back, knocking your chest into his, angling yourself in a way that just begs him to grab hold of your waist and drag you into his lap. You close your mouth, pecking softly at his still lips once more. “If you didn’t know my dad… you would. Right?”

Yes. Of course he would. He would be insane not to. He’s driving himself insane trying not to.

“But I do, and… and he trusts me.” Jake turns his head just slightly, but his hands reach for you. His big hands find your hips and grab onto them tight, hard. He just holds you right there. There’s got to be some kind of way he can regain some of the power here.

“I trust you.” You tell him, kissing his jaw tentatively. Delicate fingertips skim along the throbbing vein on the left side of Jake’s throat, reaching for the nape of his neck. Soft, slow kisses lead a trail to his earlobe, passing plains of stubble and angled bone. “I know you won’t hurt me, and I know you want me. It’s okay, Jake, I want you too.

“Fuck.” Jake swears, dropping his head forwards to rest against the curve of your shoulder. His fingers dig into your hips harder and harder. By the time Jake drags you forwards, his grip is so tight that you would have no choice but to follow. You fall into his lap, lips parted and eyes wide as Jake’s deep pine coloured eyes study your face.

You wait for him to speak again, but he doesn’t. Not for a long time. His fingers stretch up from your hips, reaching under the fabric of your tank top, extending across your bare abdomen. He stretches the brushed cotton further, taking it up with a gentle touch.

“Your father would kill me.” Jake muses as his fingertips graze the underside of your breasts, his eyes solely on your face. You smile back at him, only partly because your father is an airline pilot who couldn’t bench half of what Jake does on a good day.

“I won’t tell him if you don’t.”

Jake grits his teeth. It has started to rain outside now. That storm that channel four had promised is starting to roll in. The movie will be over soon. The rain will be the only sound on this entire street. This house is completely empty, beside the two of you. He exhales through his nose and pushes his hips up. He’s half-hard under you, and giving you another disapproving shake of his head.

“Little fuckin’ minx…” Jake curses you, his words fanning out across the span of your exposed neck, hot and cold all at once. “You get off on teasing me like this, or something?”

A smile works its way across those pretty lips. Jake could see more of that smile than he sees sunsets and he would still be pretty damn content. Your nails rake softly through the almost buzzed fade at the back of his head as you give a shake of your head.

“Well, it’s not teasing if we take care of it,” Your shoulders rise and fall in a soft shrug as Jake’s fingers trail further upwards, taking your tank top with them and exposing your breasts to the cool autumn air. The rattle of the air conditioning unit that your dad tells you not to mess with reminds you of the real culprit as your nipples harden and perk with the exposure. You lean back, bracing each of your hands on Jake’s knees, arching your chest out, letting Jake see the newly exposed skin. “If you’ll let me.”

His eyes are pretty when he smiles. When he’s staring at your tits, they’re hooded and hungry, a shade of green that threatens to draw you in and hold you captive. What a happy captive you would be. His hands grab at both of them at once, squeezing roughly at the supple flesh.

All at once, his mouth is on yours too. He’s sucking at your bottom lip, growling into your mouth. He smells of smoked wood and he tastes of scotch. It paints half of a picture. A lonely man sitting in his home alone on a Saturday night, burning a candle given to him by a girl half his age and drinking liquor older than he is himself.

You’re straddling his hips now, your bare thighs squeezing into the fabric of his grey sweatpants, pulling yourself closer with each hungry kiss. Jake’s touch is experienced, expert; he pinches softly at your nipple, anticipates the way your mouth will draw open in a soft gasp, and licks into your mouth the second that it does. He sucks softly at the tip of your tongue, revelling in the feeling of your soft breasts in his hands.

“Arms up.”

You’re such a good girl. The way that you comply with a wordless grin and bite at your lip once the tank top hits the floor has Jake in even more trouble than he was before. He kisses softly at the space between your tits, pushing them together in his hands, opening his mouth and pressing his tongue into your skin.

Men like boobs. Big boobs, small boobs — your shared gossip sessions with friends in college always led to the same conclusion, men don’t care. They bite, suck, grab regardless of size. It shouldn’t be anything new. But then Jake reaches your left nipple. His right hand palms at the underside as his tongue swipes in a circular motion, just before his lips clasp around the sensitive bud.

You know he’s watching you through those esurient green eyes, but you find yourself playing right into his capable hands anyway. Any leverage you may have had in seeming like his charms don’t work on you are washed away with the dulcet tone of your first moan. It spills from your lips, your nails pressing into the nape of his neck as Jake sucks expertly at the sensitive skin.

He pulls away with another ravenous exhale, something between a sigh and a groan. His hands feel heavy on your body as they paw at your chest with a capability you’ve never encountered before. His cologne is expensive and mature, a smokey blend that has you intoxicated and enthralled. His mouth is wet and eager, but oh, so slow as it explores the areas of you he has dreamt about.

The rain outside is growing heavier, like it’s learning to mimic the deepness of each of your breaths. The movie must have finished by now. Neither one of you is going to check.

His stubble prickles, rough and masculine, abrasive compared to the adept caress of his tongue. His right hand grabs forcibly at the nape of your neck, drawing the sweetest little squeak from your already open lips. You knew he would be better than the guys you’ve been with before, but not like this. He hasn’t even touched you yet.

Jake’s lips seem to pinpoint each and every nerve ending in your chest, sucking and licking at your skin through feverish kisses. The tenderness seeping away each time a breathy moan falls from your mouth, fanning out against his clothed shoulder. He pulls away from the top of your breast with his teeth, already knowing, in his years of experience, that that’s going to bruise.

Jake lifts his head, letting his eyes drift shut as you lean forwards and press your mouth to his neck. He can feel your nerves in your trembling fingertips, in the way your chest shivers when it brushes his, in the way your lips suck at his pulse point. But you’re doing so well. Dragging your lips along the length of his neck, biting softly at the skin just above his collarbone, feeling him shiver at the sensation.

“Off.” You demand, grabbing at the bottom of his t-shirt, feeling him grin against your jaw. He complies wordlessly, grabbing at the back of his shirt and yanking it over his head.

You’ve seen Jake shirtless plenty of times, wandering around his property or opening the front door without shame. You’ve always wondered what those muscles, that dusting of golden chest hair, would feel like up close. Forgetting that you’re being watched, your hands explore his toned torso. The line down the middle of his stomach, the sharp divide of his collarbones, the swell of his pecs.

“What’re you thinking?” Jake asks, brushing your hair back from your face tenderly, concern coating his features.

A bashful smile spreads across your cheeks as you watch your fingers ghost along the thick muscle of his shoulder. “That you’re really hot.”

Jake breathes out a chuckle, reaching up and grabbing at the back of your neck to cradle you against him as he pushes up from the couch and turns quickly, planting you on your back and covering your body with his.

“That smile is gonna get me in big trouble, sweetheart,” Jake wastes no time in pressing his mouth to your stomach, holding you by your waist as he sucks filthy kisses into your skin to mark his path downward. “You know that?”

“I know.” You answer back, just to tease him this time. Jake stops at your waistband as you giggle, looking up at you through hooded eyes with a devilish grin on his face. He drags his teeth across your hip, hooking his fingers into the sides of your shorts and tugging them down your legs.

“God, honey, you weren’t wearing panties this entire time?” Jake exhales, eye-level with the most intimate part of you and completely unashamed. Your mind fumbles for an answer, lips getting into position to finally respond when he leans forwards and licks a stripe through your soaked core. Then, he moans. His hands grab fistfuls of your soft waist and he goes in again, lapping hungrily at your excitement, groaning against your sensitive skin.

“O-Oh… Jake.” Your voice trembles, knees trying to press shut around Jake’s broad shoulders. He grabs firmly at your thigh, closing his lips loosely around your clit, flicking his tongue over the sensitive bud and making you jolt against him.

“Yeah, honey?”

“That feels really fucking good.” You tell him, closing your eyes finally.

“Attagirl. Just hold on, girlie, I’m gonna get you there.” He promises without once diverting from his apparent mission. If he’s as devoted to the Navy as he is to making you cum at this exact moment in time, the military is lucky to have him. You’re soaked, excitement pooling between your legs. Jake already knows he’s going to spend tomorrow cleaning this couch, and he wishes he cared enough to make better decisions.

“Look at this,” Jake breathes out as his gaze falls back down to rest between your legs. He couldn’t care less about the fucking couch. You swallow hard, practically aching for his touch. You’ve waited so long already. His index finger dips between your folds, his brows raise as he gathers your excitement on the tip of it. “Making such a fuckin’ mess for your old man’s best friend. Dirty fucking girl.”

He can’t see the way his words make you grin, but he can feel the way you reach for his hair and tug softly at those blonde roots, begging for more. He’s more than happy to give it to you. Jake groans against you, working his tongue in soft circles around the throbbing bundle of nerves. His eyes are still on you. Your eyes are closed — if you look him in the eyes then you’re going to get all embarrassed, and you’ll be damned before you let someone ruin how good this feels. Especially not yourself.

Jake’s hand trails up your naked torso, pawing at your rising and falling tits as you pant into the chilled air, sweat beading on your skin.

He’s gentle between your legs. More gentle than he could be. Pressing his stubbled mouth firmly against your core and working his tongue against you, each languid movement making you keen into him. The tip of his nose bumps your clit periodically. It feels like your head is spinning.

Dragging his mouth back up to your sensitive, throbbing clit, his free hand slides between your legs, he dips the tip of his index finger into you, then slides it in up to the knuckle and curls. Just testing the waters. It’s enough to earn him a moan, enough to have you grab a fistful of his short blonde hair, ensuring that he doesn’t get ahead of himself and lose pace with his mouth.

He slips his ring finger into you alongside his middle whilst his tongue works confidently along your core and back up to your clit. He lets go of your thigh and rests his forearm across your stomach, keeping you nice and still for him. Maybe he should feel ashamed of himself for how much he’s enjoying this.

All of those times he enjoyed the sound of your laugh, and sat with the afterthought of how much he’d enjoy the sound of your moans. It’s hard to be ashamed when it turns out he was right.

He scissors his fingers inside of you, making you gasp louder this time, pulling against him. You tug at his roots, he moans against your clit. You both shiver, and not because of that now thundering storm. Jake’s tongue flattens as he drags it along your core. He pulls his fingers from you and puts them immediately to work, taking over the pace on your clit, burying his face between your legs, curling his tongue into you.

Jake growls against you, his cock growing now uncomfortably hard in the confines of his sweats and his fingers and mouth switch places once again. After all the time he has waited, he doesn’t deny himself the pleasure of looking up at you, writhing at the feeling of him between your legs. All that does is make his sweats feel even tighter again. His fingers fuck into you mercilessly, curling and twisting, making you keen into his touch and arch your back and gasp all at once.

You cum with his name on your tongue and your fingers in his hair. The comedown feels like weightlessness. Jake doesn’t bother to ask if that’s the first time a man has made you feel like that, the adoration in your eyes as he comes in to kiss your mouth tells him everything he needs to know.

His mouth tastes like you, his chin is wet with your slick and his cock is straining against the grey cotton of his sweats, pressing in to your stomach. Jake’s fingers brush your hair back softly from your forehead, a sudden calmness in the green of his eyes as he studies the peaceful euphoric smile on your face.

“We don’t have to go any further—“

“Stop trying to be a gentleman.” You huff, lifting your head and kissing him hard, hooking your legs around his waist. Drawing him closer, you’re both painfully aware that the only thing stopping him from touching you is his sweats. “I want you.”

Jake pauses for a moment. Rain slams against the windows, and the television goes dark as it passes into standby mode. His hands squeeze softly at your waist, eyes darting downward at your naked body under his. He would be a damn idiot to say no to everything he has been fantasising about.

“You keep condoms here?” He breathes out.

Your eyes light up before him, gleaming with mischief. You give a confident nod of your head as a cunning little smirk spreads across your lips.

“There are some in my parents’ bathroom,” You can tell right away that he doesn’t like that idea, but that’s okay, option two was by far your favourite anyway. “Or, you could just cum in me. I won’t tell.”

“Jesus Christ.” Jake drops his head forwards to rest against your naked chest, panting out a dry laugh. His fingers bruise into your middle as he starts to consider the choices that have led him here. Once he feels composed enough to look you in the eye again, he lifts his head and squints seriously. “You did not just say that.”

“I want you to. I’m on birth control anyway.” Long gone is the nervous girl standing on his porch and asking him to fix her lights. There’s a devious, lustful look in your eye and Jake’s pretty damn sure there’s magic in that look. All he knows is that it could make him do just about anything you asked of him. “Please?”

Jake swipes his thumb along the curve of your jaw, studying the depths of your irises for just a moment. He leans forwards and kisses your bottom lip, sucking at the plush skin, pulling away with his teeth. You swallow as he sits back, pushes his sweats down his legs and frees his swollen cock. From under him, you’ve got the perfect view.

Every ridge and valley in those impossible abs, each follicle of hair that lines his tanned chest, trailing down below his navel and sitting neatly around his pubic bone, trimmed just as neatly as his navy-standard hair cut. His cock is a good size, considerable even when he’s got one of his large hands wrapped around its base. Wide too, throbbing red at the tip, bending just slightly to the left.

Just looking has your mouth running dry.

Fisting his cock, Jake sits back on his heels and lets his gaze fall down to your glistening core once again. He looks down at your pretty face, then lowers himself between your legs, pressing his chest into yours, kissing you dizzyingly hard.

“You want it?” Jake asks one last time.

“I want it.” You answer him, smiling softly back at him, squeezing your thighs around his hips.

You’re looking up at him with such trust in your eyes that Jake can barely stand it. His heart thuds in his chest as he guides the tip of his cock between your folds, hesitating just briefly. There’s already no coming back from this. There’s no way to make up for the things he has already done. You’re so special, and he wants this so bad.

Your mouth sucks softly at his throat, quiet, pleased sounds spilling from your lips as he grinds the tip of his cock against your sensitive clit. Jake kisses your shoulder softly, then lowers his head to rest there as he drags his cock down to your warm entrance. You gasp softly as he presses into you, pushing forwards until he’s buried and stretching you open completely.

“Oh,” You whimper against his earlobe, pressing your nails into the swell of his shoulder blade. “You feel really fucking big.”

“So fuckin tight.” Jake grunts, his throat thick with desire as he stills inside of you, thumbs bruising into your hips. “Sweet fucking girl. Feel like you’re made just for me.”

This makes you smile into the curve of his jaw, humming in soft agreement as he starts to slowly rock his hips. Lightning flashes outside of the window, and it doesn’t matter one bit. The rest of the world is a million miles away. In here, it’s just the two of you.

“Oh fuck,” Jake shivers, eclipsing your throat with his hand, pulling you in for a heavy kiss, licking into your mouth as he drags his hips back until it’s just the tip. You gasp sharply against him as he snaps his hips forwards until he’s buried into you completely once. “Fuck. You like that?”

“Yeah. I want it like that.” You whimper into his skin, hugging your legs tight around his hips. You moan eagerly against his lips, the sound catching in your throat as he squeezes at the sides of your neck and drives his hips forwards sharply, drawing an excited squeak from your parted lips.

Jake grunts, rocking himself into you hard and fast. He’s waited so long for this, and so have you. The way you’re clawing at his back makes him want to give it all to you. Leaving feverish kisses along your collarbones, he fills you over and over. You curl both legs tighter around his waist, leaning your head back as far as you can against the couch cushion to give his lips better access to your throat.

The living room is filled with the sounds of your sex. Your desperate moans, panting and hard. Jake’s pleasured grunts, muffled softly by the curve of your shoulder. His skin slapping yours. It smells like him, smoky and mature. Sweat beads along his back and his forehead as he keeps up that merciless pace, fucking you so hard that you couldn’t tell him your own name anymore.

Jake pulls back just enough to grab the backs of your thighs and pin them to your chest, hooking your knees over his shoulders, filling you even deeper than before, making you cry out.

“Jake!” You beg, babbling incoherently into the curve of his shoulder as he goes right back to the pace he set before. Fucking you hard and fast, scrambling your brain to the point that the only thing on your mind is the ravenous way he’s staring down at you.

Your walls are squeezing around him perfectly and the sounds you’re making are just driving him insane. It’s been a long time since Jake felt as crazy about someone as he feels about you. He pants into the crook of your neck as his fingers tug at your hair, making you moan out even louder.

“I’m gonna cum — fuck, honey,” Jake grunts out like he’s been punched, his eyes screwing shut as he reaches between your bodies and rubs uniformed circles around your clit. “Are you close? — Can you cum one more time for me?”

“Yeah,” You breathe out, already trembling as you squeeze your thighs tighter around him. “Just—“ You don’t have the words, so you just reach out and grab his hand. Jake swallows hard as you wrap his open hand around the column of your throat and look up at him with that big, trusting look in your eyes again.

He grits his teeth as he squeezes at the sides of your throat, watching your sweet face contort in pleasure. Your hand dips between your legs and replaces where Jake’s had been, rubbing feverish patterns on your clit. Your stomach tightens in knots, your breathing grows heavy and Jake’s cock drives into you at just about the perfect angle each time. You open his mouth to warn him, but it’s already too late. You couldn’t find the words if you tried.

All you can do is grab onto those thick shoulders and cry out his name against the salty skin of his neck. Jake slows just slightly, offering you some reprieve through your sensitivity. Trying to be a gentleman once again. The brain fog starts to clear, you lift your head and press your lips to your earlobe.

“Cum in me,” You pant out, grabbing his shoulder to steady yourself. Jake groans against your chest, nodding his head feverishly. “Just like that, Jake, please.”

He’s relentless, fucking your through the sensitivity of your post-orgasm haze hard enough that grabbing onto those broad shoulders is the only thing that keeps you down to earth with him. Jake groans desperately. He wraps an arm under your back and pulls you as tight against him as physics will allow. You gasp softly, taking your lip between your teeth as he fills you, his cock throbbing against your walls. He seeks out your lips and kisses you hard, somehow more desperate now.

“Fuck, honey…” Jake breathes out, pressing a lazy kiss to the curve of your jaw. He makes no effort to move at first. “You alright?”

“Better than alright.” You answer contentedly, a soft smile toying at your lips as lightning flashes outside once again. Jake chuckles tiredly, lifting his head and kissing your lips.

He sighs, moving slow as he slips out of you and looks down at his cum dripping from between your legs.

“Oh, shit!” You realize, sitting up quickly and trying to reach around Jake for something to clean it with. He hooks an arm around your waist and pulls you tight against him. Truthfully, from the moment that you had laid your head on Jake’s abs, you hadn’t thought once about the consequences of fucking him right here in this spot.

“Forget it, I’ll — I’ll fix this,” He tells you calmly, already regretting that he’s going to have to live with what he has done on this couch. “Come on, cutie. Let’s go take a shower.”

It’s clear that this is foreign territory for you. Not the sex, but what comes after. He didn’t get up and leave. He didn’t run away with regret for what he did. He ran soap across your body and found your pyjamas for you.

You swallow softly, walking to sit on the edge of your bed. Jake runs a hand along his stubbled jaw as he lingers in the doorway to you room. You can’t help but notice that he got dressed again. Including his shoes. He looks you over, sitting there in fresh pyjamas, staring at him with that worried little look on your face.

He hasn’t ever seen your room here. It’s probably the one room in the house he has never been in. He’s been wondering what it’s like.

But that isn’t why he’s standing there. He sighs softly and crosses his arms over his chest.

“I should go — I mean, Ace is over there by himself.” Jake says quietly. You nod at him. You should probably say something too, but truthfully, not all of your words seem to have come back into your mind yet. “Are you coming with me?”

“Huh?”

“Well, I don’t wanna leave you over here by yourself after that weird ass movie.” Jake answers you with a shrug of his shoulders. “I figured you could just spend the night. If you want.”

Your mouth twitches at the corners as you push yourself up from the edge of your bed, nodding eagerly at him. You’ve got eleven days until your parents get back in town, and Jake permitting, you’re planning on making the most of that.

…

[roanofarcc]

THE OLD FASHIONED WAY

pairing. trevor lefkowtiz x alive!reader

summary. You had always regarded your ability to see ghosts as odd, until you met Sam and her eclectic group of ghosts.  

warnings. kind of/kind of not happy ending, ig? sad trevor :( angsty and a little flirty. reader gets stood up.

word count. 3.8K || masterlist

a/n. alive!reader HURTS but in the best way

trevor tag list. @marcos-scorpion , @youngdumbamericanteen

“I have one last, fun, interview question,” Sam said and you inwardly cringed. You had sat through so many job interviews that you knew a ‘fun’ question was normally anything but. Nevertheless, you smiled politely and nodded at her to continue asking. “What are your thoughts on ghosts?” 

You laughed, against your will. It was a reflexive response that you immediately regretted. “Sorry!” you rushed out. 

She didn’t seem put off by your laughing. “I know, it’s a ridiculous question. But the last guy that worked here…uh, this place may, potentially, be haunted. Not that I know, but there’s speculation. I just want to know how you feel about ghosts. Do you believe in them? Do you think it's all a bunch of mumbo-jumbo?” That was probably one of the oddest interview questions you’d ever been asked, but it was better than explaining how your weaknesses were really strengths. It also felt pointed. 

You didn’t know Sam and she didn’t know you, but the question made it sound like she knew your weird talent. And for some reason, you didn’t feel the embarrassment you normally did when someone brought up the concept of ghosts. There was something about Sam that compelled you to tell the truth, even against your better judgment. 

“Actually, that’s kind of a funny story-” you started, but were cut off.

“Samatha, when you are done, your assistance is needed in the television room. Someone believes it is his turn to watch another horrible film of space nonsense, but I distinctly recall it being my turn to watch those horrible women pick out whorish dresses for their weddings.” A woman appeared at the threshold of the entryway and the living room, dressed in a gown not from that century with her red locks pinned up in a curious updo. You were taken back, confused when your eyes fell on the man that stood beside her, dressed formally on top but lacking anything but socks and shoes on his bottom half. 

“First of all, Star Wars is not ‘space nonsense’ it's one of the biggest movies, like, ever,” the man started. “And second of all, you just got to watch your pick two days ago.” 

Sam cleared her throat, ignoring the two with a tight-lipped smile. You looked between the two, which seemed to confuse them. “I’m so sorry, will you excuse me for one second? I’ve got to take care of something really fast.” 

“Yeah, of course. Take your time. I don’t mess around when it comes to Star Wars either,” you said. 

The two people overlapped in with a ‘what?’ and an ‘excuse me?’ Sam stared at you wide-eyed, mouth slightly agape as she looked between the two figures behind her and you. “Hold on, can you see them?” 

It took a moment for you to understand why that was odd, which was too long if you were being honest. Obviously, no one was walking around in a gown like that or pantsless for no reason. You weren’t looking at cooky guests, but rather ghosts. Did nowhere not have any spirits lingering? It seemed like every job you worked or applied to had ghosts haunting the building. Though, you supposed out of all of the places, it did make the most sense for the old mansion to be haunted. 

But Sam wasn’t a ghost, but she seemed to be able to at least hear the ones in the threshold. “Can you see them?” you asked. 

“Y-Yeah. I can.” 

“Me too.” You have been able to see ghosts since you were little. As a child, most of your friends were the collection of ghosts that inhabited your childhood home. You thought you’d eventually outgrown it, but you never did. Now, nearly everywhere you ventured, you encountered dead people. It was interesting, a little obnoxious at times, and often made you feel like a freak of nature. But the woman in front of you could see them too; that was a first. 

Sam sat speechless for a moment before she said, “You’re hired.” 

--

You weren’t sure what to expect, working in the haunted mansion. In your lifetime, you’d encountered just about every kind of ghost, so you prepared yourself for anything when Sam introduced you. The Woodstone ghosts were an eclectic bunch, comprised of ghosts spanning nearly every decade. They were interesting, to say the least. But even if they had ended up being terrible, you were just happy to be around someone who shared your ability to see them. 

Sam and Jay had set you up at the front desk, putting you in charge of checking in guests. And when it was slow, the Woodstone ghosts often found their way to you if Sam was busy. 

One ghost in particular liked to hang around you, Trevor. He was the definition of an overgrown frat brother, with a lazy smirk and incessant flirtatious attitude. Every time he sauntered up to the front desk, calling your name, you made a habit of rolling your eyes. 

“Good morning,” you greeted, tone flat as you clicked away on the computer. 

Trevor leaned against the desk, his gaze burning into the side of your face. “How you doin’?” he said, and you sighed. 

“Watching Friends again, I see?” 

He blew air from his cheeks, deflating just slightly. “I’m a little rusty, okay?” 

“Rusty? At what?” 

“This,” he pointed between you and him. “Flirting.” 

You laughed and shook your head. “Is that what’s happening?” 

“Well, yeah. My flirting with Sam is useless because she and Jay are annoyingly sweet together. But you…” Trevor trailed on, a smirk on his lips and a certain cocky attitude wrapped up in his voice. 

“I hate to burst your bubble, no-pants, but we’re not exactly… compatible.” 

He raised his brows. “Because I’m dead?” You winced slightly. You didn’t want to be the one to say it; some ghosts were really sensitive to that, but Trevor didn’t seem too bothered. He shrugged like he saw it as no big deal. “I see that as a minor roadblock.” 

As much as you wanted to roll your eyes once more and shut him down, you were impressed at his relentlessness. 

-- 

You thought after a couple of weeks of working at Woodstone, Trevor’s ploy to win you over would fade alongside his attention. But he started to hang around you even more than when you first started, and you two had created a weird but kind of nice rapport of his continued flirting, peppered with more authentic conversations sprinkled in. He told you stories of his college days and the assholes he befriended before they ended up killing him in that every house. You told him about your own school days and how you were currently floating through the motions of young adulthood, trying to figure things out. 

“Scoring a job here was nice,” you said, comfortably resting your elbows on the front desk as Trevor stood across from you, listening intently. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Sam and Jay are pretty cool.” He paused, toying with the end of his tie. “So, you think you’ll stick around?” 

A small smile fell across your lips. “I think so. Things are pretty interesting around here.” 

“Well, if you ever want them to be more interesting, let me know.”

“Oh, yeah?” you asked, raising your brows. 

“Oh yeah. I could rile up the basement ghosts, convince Thor minivans are enemy warships, you name it.” 

You laughed, shaking your head. “You are something else.” 

“Careful,” he teased. “That almost sounded like a compliment.” 

“It was supposed to,” you replied, not missing a beat. 

Trevor’s eyes widened just slightly, the smirk wiped right off his face and was replaced by something that resembled confusion with a slight fluster. Clearing his throat, he managed to say, “Oh.” You didn’t know ghosts could blush until that moment, even with their lack of blood, because Trevor’s cheeks tinted a light shade of pink as he made up some excuse to leave, mumbling something about helping Sass before he hurried away. 

You chuckled, resuming your work as another guest popped in. 

--

To say your dating life was pathetic would be a polite understatement. It was almost nonexistent, which is why when an attractive-looking person popped up on the dating app you forced yourself to get, you got your hopes up a little too high. Sam had encouraged you to go out on a date with them, excitingly helping you get ready and everything. 

You had been excited, believing it was a fresh start for you. First a new job and then a new romantic interest. Unfortunately, after waiting at the restaurant, alone, for a solid hour, you realized your dating life had quickly circled back around to being pathetic. Embarrassment didn’t quite cover how you felt as you left the restaurant and headed back home to wallow. 

The following day at work, the second you stepped inside the mansion, Sam was there with an excited energy, ready to hear all about your date. She grabbed your hand and dragged you into the kitchen before you could protest. She had made tea and had left off sweets Jay had made for the guests yesterday. The other ghosts lounged around the kitchen too, and you felt even more embarrassed to talk about your total bust of a date around all of them. 

But you slouched down in the one empty seat and let Sam push a mug of tea in front of you. 

“Tell me everything!” she insisted. 

You smiled politely but it didn’t stay on your face long before it morphed into a frown. “There’s not much to tell,” you sighed. “They stood me up.” 

“Wait, seriously?” Trevor said, seated beside you, brows furrowed. 

“No call, no apology, nothing. I sat there for an hour, like an idiot.” You rubbed your forehead, a scratchy feeling in your throat. There was no way you were going to cry in front of your boss and the ghosts. You tried to swallow down your emotions as you stared at the steam curling up from your tea. 

Sam’s frown deepened. “I’m so sorry.” 

“That is why you should meet suitors the old-fashioned way; not on the web,” Hetty said. 

“People meet online all of the time,” Sam said. “Bad dates happen, but you’ll find someone.” 

“At this rate, I’ll die alone,” you muttered before realizing your audience. “Sorry.” 

“Dying alone not so bad,” Thor said, in his own odd way to cheer you up. “Die here!”

“Thor,” Sam sighed but you laughed lightly. “I’d prefer no one else to die in the house.” 

The Viking shrugged. “Just suggestion.” 

You picked at your fingernails, the same pit that’s been in your stomach since your ruined dinner last night turned. 

Someone called from the entryway, the newest guest at the mansion. You moved to stand, but Sam waved you off. “I got it. You stay here, finish your tea.” You started to object, but she left before you could. With a huff, you sank back down in the chair. 

“You’re young, you got plenty of time. If I learned anything from being alive, dating in your twenties is usually a, what’s that phrase Jay uses?” 

Flower piped up, “A shit-show!” 

Alberta nodded. “Yeah, a shit-show. Brush it off and get back out there, while you’re still young and hot.” 

You smiled. “I’ll try. But you might be right, Hetty.” Maybe dating apps weren’t the way you were going to find someone. Old-fashioned dating sounded a little bit like a nightmare, but you figured it’d pay off more than mindless swiping through apps until another asshole stands you up. 

“I normally am,” Hetty said. 

The ghosts dispersed, going about their day-to-day while you lingered in the kitchen. Trevor stayed with you, quietly drumming his fingers against his bare knees. “At least you didn’t get catfished by a dead dude.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“I did that once,” he said. “Catfished Jay’s sister, actually. I didn’t know she was Jay’s sister at first, obviously. But, uh, yeah. It was a whole mess. I tried to possess her friend’s body, but he ended up almost dying, so it was a total bust. Then Sam started putting the iPad in the drawer.” 

You laughed, that pit in your stomach easing just a little. “That’s insane,” you said. “A ghost on a dating app. For all know that’s why my date stood me up.” That sounded a little better than them just not being interested in meeting up with you in person. “But I doubt it.” 

Trevor shrugged. “It’s possible.” 

“I think it might just be me. I’ve never been great at the whole ‘dating’ thing.” 

“I find that hard to believe,” Trevor said. “Looking like that, I’m surprised you don’t have every weekend booked.” 

You shook your head, a little flattered and a little exasperated. “Definitely not. But by the sounds of it, you did.” 

He smirked, throwing his hands up in a ‘what can I say’ gesture. “I got around, if that’s what you’re implying.”

It was odd, being around ghosts. To you, it never felt super different than hanging around livings. Besides the ability to touch them, the ghosts were every bit as real as Sam and Jay. You had started to forget that the Woodstone ghosts were just that, until they did something that knocked you back to reality. Trevor, being the most recent death, made it even harder to tell the difference. You could almost convince yourself he was living. 

“Did you ever have a serious relationship before you died?” you asked, curious. 

Trevor thought for a moment before he shook his head. “Nah. I was having too much fun being a bachelor and screwing around with my buddies to care about anything serious.” He paused, his smug attitude slipping away a little. “I didn’t know I was gonna end up dying before I could, though. I guess I would have liked to.” 

“You guess?” 

He looked a little zoned out, staring at something across the kitchen with his brows slightly knitted together. “I don’t know, I didn’t think much about it until I died.” 

Sympathy fell hard against your shoulders, and you itched to reach out to Trevor and offer some kind of comfort but you couldn’t. Instead, you said, “I’m sorry.” 

He tried to brush it off, regaining his normal composure but it didn’t shine in his eyes like it usually did. “It’s whatever. I don’t ever have to worry about going on a first date again, which is nice; those were always awful. And getting your heart broken probably sucks, so at least I’ll miss out on that.” 

“You never had your heart broken?” you asked, impressed. Even though you’ve never had a super-serious relationship, you had a tendency to fall for your crushes hard, which usually resulted in a broken heart. 

“Nope.” 

“That’s pretty lucky,” you said. If you could go the rest of your life without a broken heart, you thought that’d be nice. 

--

“It’s an interesting choice for a bachelor party, don’t you think?” Alberta said, but you had to ignore her because of the group of men you were checking in. You did agree though. The B&B was perfect for weddings and romantic weekend getaways. It was the kind of place you brought a family or your parents, not a bachelor party. But the men didn’t look like the kind to get too rowdy. The groom, in your small talk, had said they were just looking for a quiet weekend to unwind before the wedding chaos. They wanted to play video games and board games, drink whiskey, and catch whatever game was on TV. It was rather sweet, you thought. 

“You’re all set. Is there anything else I can do for you?” The groom said no before thanking you and leading his small group of friends up the stairs. They weren’t up there for long though. After they carried in their bags and settled in, the group was back in the entryway, waiting for a car to take them into town, where they planned to bar-hop for the evening. 

One of the groomsmen found himself at the front counter, handsome and smiley as he met your gaze. 

“Do you have any bar recommendations? So far, our ‘bar-crawl’ only consists of two bars,” the groomsman asked. 

You hummed in thought before replying, “The Black Dog is nice. It’s right on Main Street, if you’re heading downtown.” 

“Do you hang out there often?” 

“Sometimes.” 

“So it has pretty company then, huh?” Your eyes widened and a flustered laugh fell from your lips.

From a couple of feet away, some of the ghosts had gathered to observe the new guests. A loud scoff sounded from Trevor before he said, “Seriously?” 

You ignored him in favor of not looking crazy in front of the guests. “Oh, uh, no-” 

“Oh, come on,” the groomsman said. “I’d say you’re pretty, really pretty, actually.” 

Your face felt hot, and you tried to focus on the man in front of you, but the ghosts refused to stop talking. 

“Get a load of this guy,” Trevor huffed. 

“He’s got game, I’ll give him that,” Alberta said, to which Trevor scoffed once more. “What? Look at him.” 

“Thank you,” you said. 

The groomsman tilted his head to the side, pausing for a beat before he said, “Would it be too much to ask when you get off work?” 

“A little.” 

He held his hands up and chuckled. “Fair enough.” 

“This can’t seriously be working on you?” Trevor said. “Look at this guy! He’s got khakis and a polo on!” 

“At least he is wearing pants,” said Hetty. 

“Unbelievable.” Trevor got closer to the counter, much to your disdain. It was hard enough trying to look sane in front of the guests when the ghosts were talking to each other, let alone you. “You’re clearly out of his league-”

“Enough!” you said, raising your voice regrettably so. 

The groomsman looked at you oddly. “Whoa, sorry I-” 

“No!” you quickly cut him off. “Not you! I was, um, I-” 

“Dude, let’s go! The car’s here!” the groom shouted from the front door, beckoning the groomsman over. 

He shot you one last smile, dipping his head in goodbye as he followed his friends out of the mansion. The door closed loudly behind them before the house was drenched in cold silence. The ghosts all stood quietly as you glared. “How many times have you asked you guys not to talk to me when I’m helping guests?” 

“I don’t know if that counted as helping-” Sass started but shut his mouth when you shifted your glare onto him. 

You mumbled under your breath before you left the front counter and bee-lined for the kitchen. Sam and Jay were out for the evening, leaving the mansion in your hands. 

You only got a singular second to yourself before Trevor appeared in the room with you. Rubbing your fingers against your forehead, you asked him. “What was that?” 

He pressed his lips into a thin line for a moment before he shrugged and said, “He was flirting with you, clearly, and was out of your league like I said.” 

You stared at him, the way he fiddled with his tie and avoided your eyes. Then it hit you. “Are you jealous?” 

He blinked. “W-What? No…” By the way, his voice trailed off, you felt a terrible knot tangle in your stomach. 

“Trevor…” 

“Don’t,” he quickly said, shaking his head. “Don’t do that. I don’t…I don’t need that,” he gestured to the very clear glaze of pity in your eyes, but you couldn’t help it. You felt bad, really, terribly bad. 

A heavy breath slipped from your lips as you walked toward him, placing yourself right in front of him. His lips tugged downward in a still sadness that made your heart ache. “I’m really sorry.” 

Trevor sighed, “Don’t be. It’s…ugh.” He pressed his hands against his eyes, laughing bitterly at himself. “I’m dead,” he said. “You’re not.” 

“Yeah,” you breathed out, unsure of what else to say. Maybe if you had met him in a different life, one where you both were either alive or dead, you’d take his flirting more to heart. But that wasn’t your current situation. You existed in different realms, untouchable but on each other’s paths. You’d never described your ability as cruel until that moment. 

“And I’m an idiot,” he added. 

“No, you’re not. If things were different…” Even saying the words aloud, they felt bitter on your tongue, doing more harm than good. You could tell by the wince that twitched in Trevor’s face. 

He smiled sadly, recovering from just the implication of your unfinished sentence. “But they’re not.” He let out a breathy sigh before he nodded his head toward the kitchen door. “I’m gonna go,” he said, slipping away before you could say anything else. 

-- 

The next couple of days passed uncomfortably inside the mansion. Trevor barely showed his face, and you felt worse and worse by the hour. Hetty and Issac kept you company at the front desk, making light conversation between their reassurance that Trevor would be okay. But your guilt weighed on you. You didn’t know how to make it better; you feared you wouldn’t be able to. 

But things came to a turn on the last day the bachelor party was there. The handsome groomsman had left his number on a slip of paper that you crumbled and shoved in your pocket, heavy on your side. You watched as they pulled out of the driveway and when you were alone, you unrolled the paper with his number, staring at it so intently you missed a presence appear beside you. 

“You should call him.” Trevor’s voice started you. You yelped and clutched your heart, which brought a small smile to his lips. 

“What?”

He sighed, shifting in his shoes and looking a little unsure of himself. “That’s his number, right?” You nodded. “You should call him.” 

“Oh, no-” 

Trevor cut you off. “Why not?” Because you felt bad, but you didn’t need to say that for Trevor to understand. “Don’t not call him because of me. Seriously, I…I lied when I said I’ve never had my heart broken.” 

You peered at him, confused. “Why?” 

“Because it sounded a little pathetic to say I crush hard. I liked my recess teacher so much that I cried like a baby when I had to move to fourth grade. In high school, my girlfriend of two weeks broke up with me because she was moving schools and I faked sick for three days because I was so, embarrassingly heartbroken. It’s just how I am,” he admitted, much to your surprise. “But I’ll get over it. It’s like not it would have worked out with me being dead and all. It was stupid.” 

“It wasn’t stupid,” you said. “And you’re not pathetic. It’s sweet, actually. Really sweet.” 

Trevor shrugged. “I’m glad someone thinks so.” He pointed a finger at the paper in your hands. “Call him, okay? You deserve a good date, the old-fashioned way.” 

And so you did, the old-fashioned way.

[woso-dreamzzz]

Playing Favourites III

Arsenal Women x Child!Reader

Summary: The annual Arsenal Christmas video

"Hi everyone," Leah says to the camera," I'm Leah Williamson and I just want to say, sorry, Mum. I know you told me not to let her do this before Christmas day, but I'm here with the youngest member of our squad and...What are we doing today, bean?"

You sit in the middle of a little half-circle of the Arsenal girls with a little sack in front of you. There's a Santa hat on your head and you're holding the sack like you're scared it will float away.

"Presents!" You cheer. "I'm like Santa!"

"You are like Santa," Leah says, smiling at the camera," So we've got our own Santa here at Arsenal and she's going to close her eyes, spin around and give everyone their Christmas gifts. Ready, bean?"

"Ready!"

You close your eyes nice and tight, spin around and aimlessly wander to your left. Arms clamp around your waist and you open your eyes to see Teyah and Lessi.

You beam and reach into your sack. "For you!" You give them both their gifts.

"Top trumps!" Teyah says triumphantly as Lessi pries her Michael Jordan Funko Pop out of the package.

"I'm gonna put this in my locker."

You close your eyes again, squeezing them tight as Lessi helps you spin. You go straight this time and fall into the laps of Noelle and Cloe.

Cloe ends up with the 100 pics riddle game and Noelle gets a fondue thing. They both seem especially happy and Noelle ruffles your hair.

"I'll have to bring you round for fondue, bean."

You don't know what fondue is but you think it's food so you're happy to go.

Next up is Lina and Stina - who catches you when you stumble - and they get a little teddy bear and a tree ornament of Stina kissing the trophy.

"You gotta put it on the tree," You say to her as she laughs at the picture," Because that's what it's for." You turn to Lina. "And have to give your bear cuddles. Teddies die without cuddles."

Caitlin and Vic are next and you get a picture on Vic's new camera with the three of you and Caitlin wearing her new Arsenal beanie.

You fall onto Viv on the next round and giggle hysterically as your favourite Lia moves to tickle you. You give her her gift first which ends up being big plastic things to pick up leaves with. Frida gets a special ornament with a picture of her scoring.

Viv gets a nice jumper with her and Beth on.

"You gotta wear it to the next game!" You say.

Viv laughs. "Maybe I will."

Gio and Kim follow them and you sit in Kim's lap as Gio unwraps the blue Arsenal bag that's meant to sit on her hips. Kim laughs in embarrassment as she gets a mug that proclaims her as the best captain ever and has an arrow that points at her when she drinks from it.

Laura catches you on the next round when you misstep on Kathrine's ankle.

Laia lets you have some of the Spanish gift she gets. It's kind of like nougat but it's got nuts in it and you're not too sure that you like the texture.

Kathrine gets socks (you always end up with socks in your stocking) and Laura gets a snow globe with a picture of her only goal in it.

Laia and Kathrine both help you do your spins and the next person you fall into is your sister.

She hugs you tight around the waist as you balance on her lap while digging through the bag. Her gift is one of the longer ones and it takes you a little bit to get it out of your sack.

You sit down properly when she leans forward to open it, bursting into laughter when it's revealed to be a keyboard.

"I'll teach you, bean," She says, pressing a few of the keys," Won't that be fun?"

"I don't have to do everything you do," You say a bit condescendingly but you're smiling so Leah knows how you really feel, pinching at your cheek.

"Off you go, bean," She says," You've got more presents to give out."

She spins you around so much that you basically crash into Jen and Beth.

Jen ends up with a book of Christmas carols for the guitar while Beth gets the same jumper as Viv just in a different colour.

"That's you and Viv," You tell her.

"Yeah, bean! That's me and Vivi!"

Naomi gets her gift next, a book of very unfunny dad jokes that you only laugh at so she doesn't feel sad that she's not funny at all.

Manu, Kyra and Steph come next.

Manu gets a picture of the goalkeeper union while Kyra gets a packet of Tim Tams that she lets you eat two from.

"It's a jumper for Calvin!" You exclaim when Steph unwraps her own present.

She looks ecstatic and she swears that she'll send a picture of Calvin wearing it to Leah's phone for you to see.

The last person to get her gift is Katie. She looks confused for a moment as she unwraps it before a smile splits her face.

"It's a luxury cat advent calendar," She says.

"For Cooper!" You say.

"That is class. He's gonna love that."

She pulls you in for a hug before letting you plop yourself back on your sister's lap.

She covers your eyes for the last time as someone places the last gift on your lap.

You rip open the packaging and squeal when you reveal an Arsenal jersey. It's got your favourite number on the back and instead of Williamson like all of Leah's jerseys, it's got the words 'The Boss' on the back.

You pull it over your head with help from your sister and she nudges you up to wave and smile at the cameras.

"Do you remember what to say?" She prompts you.

"Merry Christmas, Gunners!"

[delirious-donna]

There’s No Better Love [Higuruma Hiromi]

an: entirely inspired by this absolutely amazing art of Hiromi with a soft little tum (link to twitter here). I ADORE soft bellies, and I am here to spread the agenda to normalise this in both men, women and they/them. They are beautiful and I will nuzzle those pooches just like they deserve.

pairing: Higuruma Hiromi x female reader

warnings: none really, soft fluff, domestic vibes, body positivity throughout, suggestive at best, reader loves her husband unconditionally (as she should)

Masterlist

Higuruma enjoys a nice long soak, a fact that you’ve come to appreciate even more than when you found him all those years ago submerged whilst fully suited on that dimly lit stage. That was the day that your life changed forever, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Since then, he tends to stick to more traditional bathing practices, though he has been known to drag you kicking and screaming into the shower when you are both still fully dressed. You had to admit, there was something weirdly satisfying about the experience, almost cathartic, but you continued to bristle when he chuckled and gave you that knowing look. The one where he is certain he’s won and you’re not sure whether you want to smack him or kiss him. No prizes for guessing which option usually wins out…

In lieu of fully clothed bathing, Hiromi takes to visiting a bathhouse on his way home from work once every few weeks. Usually on a Friday, and especially during those weeks where he feels like his workload will never end.

You can always tell when he’s done exactly that, acutely aware of the zen-like hum that radiates from him as soon as he steps through the door. His smile is lax—dopey and carefree. His normally dark, calculating eyes have grown warm and shiny, still just as tired but less sore. A blush decorates his cheeks and the tips of his ears, and of course, his hair is still damp because he never takes the time to dry it fully before tripping his way home to you on a cloud of relaxation.

Many things have changed since that first fateful encounter, so many that it would take an age to list them all out, but right now, your focus falls to that of his stomach. Half undressed, Hiromi stands by the sliding wardrobes with his shirt hanging open. His trousers spill messily from the laundry hamper, leaving him in his underwear and black socks. His stomach forms a soft pooch, a beautiful curve that has you capturing your lip between sharp teeth.

Decorated with black downy hair from navel to the band of his shorts, you reminisce of the days when that subtle tum was simply flat. No real meat to his abdomen to speak of, although he was still strong and was even more so today. A fact he revels in proving by hoisting you onto the nearest surface to have his wicked way with you. Back then though, taking care of himself had always fallen low on his list of priorities, and if that meant he skipped a meal or two to catch up on his emails, then so be it and his physique bore the evidence of his focus.

The evidence of his shifting priorities warmed your heart, a sentimental smile tugging at your lips and it brought you to the edge of the bed. His eyes caught yours in the reflection of the mirror, eyebrows crinkling in question whilst you simply held out a hand for him, which he took without thought.

“Something wrong?” He asked. His other hand found your cheek, palm cupping gently whilst his thumb stroked lovingly across your soft skin.

You hummed. “Far from it. Have I told you lately how much I love this little tummy?” Leaning forward, your nose nuzzled against the small pooch, the coarse hairs tickling at your cheek, until he tensed and tried to suck it in.

“Hey! Don’t do that,” you chastised, glancing up from beneath your lashes with a snort of annoyance exhaled through your nose. Hiromi rubbed at his neck, embarrassed perhaps, but you weren’t having any of that. Not when he so openly worshipped your body. It was his turn to be on the receiving end for once.

“You’ve been over feeding me,” he grumbled with his bottom lip jutting out in a mock pout.

Hiromi let out a yelp as your teeth nipped at his stomach, head snapping down to meet your fiery eyes and he had the decency to look away sheepishly. “I think you’ll find, that I have simply been feeding you. And anyways…” You murmured, drawing a little loveheart next to the pink mark from your bite. “It’s cute. Makes me feel like you’re truly comfortable with me, with us and our life.”

“An understatement, darling.” His hand moved to the back of your head, fingers tangling into your hair. “Now, why don’t you come up here and kiss me where I can return the favour, hm?”

Moving to your knees, you wound an arm around his neck and claimed his lips just as he asked. There was no urgency, no fumbling or groping hands divesting you of clothes, only that sweet connection of two people so in love that they couldn’t bear to be parted. And yet, part you must. The need for oxygen an irksome necessity when you would much rather breathe in your husband until your lungs seized up entirely.

“Mm, I can smell the oils from the bathhouse on you,” you murmured, moving your lips to his jaw, down his neck and across his clavicle, leaving wet little kisses along the way. “Did you have a nice soak?”

Hiromi sighed in contentment, letting his body relax and return to its normal stature. He felt his small but obvious belly sag, brushing against your own and he tipped his head in wonder.

“Mhm. Feels nice to lie back and let the stresses of the week slough off. Do you… do you really like it?” He asked, hands settled at your waist and tracing his thumbs in slow circles over the cushion of belly. It was ridiculous to be self-conscious about something like this, but the feeling existed nonetheless. Hiromi knew that had the situations been reversed, with you being the one asking such a silly question, he would waste not a second in proving just how much he loved every inch of you—both with verbose enthusiasm and physical reinforcement of his words.

“Hiro.”

Your fingers skimmed his shoulders, pulling free the shirt that resided on his back. You explored the structure of him; the ridges of bones, the strength of lithe muscles, skin dappled in dark hairs and marked by a small number of scars. Every freckle deserved attention and you followed the path your fingers traversed with your mouth, listening to his breathing grow irratic and stuttered.

“I love the very bones of you. The sinew and tendons. The blood pumping through your heart and moving…” you paused, glancing down deliberately. “To every organ and limb. This stomach proves to me that you’re happy, and whether it stays like this or grows bigger, I will continue to love it, and you.”

He let out a sigh when your lips trailed lower and your tongue peeked out to lick at his happy trail. Hiromi cupped your jaw, waiting until your gaze lifted to gift you a smile that reached his eyes and twinkled with the mischief you were accustomed to. With soft fingers you kneaded his hips and around to his backside to give a squeeze.

“I think you’ve made your point, you little minx,” he hissed, though he couldn’t prevent the breathless giggle that accompanied the words.

“Y’know… I don’t think I have, but let me remedy that,” you purred, reaching for the waistband of his underwear and forcing him one step closer. “We’ve got the rest of our lives, after all…”

[ebongawk]

number 5 for the meme

5. A firm kiss

They were friends.

Best friends, actually.

Like, the best of friends.

And Eddie had never been so goddamn remiss about something in his entire life.

Don't get him wrong, he loved being Chrissy's best friend. She was smart and funny and brave and drop-dead gorgeous.

He also just kinda loved Chrissy, so. Y'know. There was that.

And yeah, okay, so maybe he'd been carrying this little torch for nigh on fifteen years now. So, like, over half his life at this point. And, yeah, alright, sue him, he'd never told her that, but what was he gonna do, drop to his knees and profess his love? Squash the friendship they've worked so hard to build when she laughed in his face?

Nah. Fuck that.

They'd only reconnected post-high school in the last few years. And so what if Eddie hadn't, like, looked at another girl since Chrissy unexpectedly stumbled back into his life in fucking Philadelphia, of all places? So what if he spent his free time away from the studio with her, watching movies and cooking meals and doing all the cutesy date shit he'd seen other couples doing without actually dating her? So what if the guys ribbed him constantly for being a rocker on the verge of stardom who was whipped by a girl he'd never even kissed?

So fucking what?

He would probably move on someday. Once Chrissy ended her years-long dry spell and found some nice guy to settle down with, solidifying the inevitable depths of their friendship that he hadn't quite come to terms with yet. Then he could dive headfirst into the women who were constantly hovered around him like bees around some extra-pollinated flower without feeling this insane sense of guilt for cheating on the gorgeous, eternally-out-of-his-league girl he wasn't even dating.

Someday.

Maybe today?

They'd just played a fucking phenomenal show. Put their entire souls into it, actually, because Jeff had on good authority that the label they'd just signed with had some bigwigs in the crowd to observe them. Find out just how much potential the band had so they could promote them properly.

There was a girl in the crowd that kept making eyes at him. Pretty enough, he supposed, with dark makeup and dark hair. Tall. Standing on the edge of the stage with a little smirk designed to hide the type of unspoken promises that had his gut curling.

And, y'know, not with guilt. Of fucking course not.

He and Chrissy were the best of friends. And, he reminded himself as he slipped his way backstage, if something was gonna happen, it would've happened by now.

This girl just happening to be Chrissy's polar opposite in every conceivable way was meaningless.

They packed up their gear into the van over whoops and hollers. Talking at length about how fucking incredible they just were, because vanity had no jurisdiction amidst their accomplishment. Once that was loaded up, Eddie bid the guys farewell with every intention of going to find that girl.

When he got back inside, however, he felt like he got socked in the fucking gut. In the bad way.

Chrissy was there. Sitting at the bar, sipping on a drink. Legs crossed under a little pink skirt that made him lose his fucking mind as she leaned toward the person sitting next to her.

The guy sitting next to her.

What the fuck. What the fuck? He hadn't even known she was coming tonight. And who was this fucking clown looking at her like she was the most charming person to ever grace his presence? She was, of course, but who fucking gave him the right to look at her like that?

Taking a deep, slow breath, Eddie reminded himself through a little mantra that she wasn't his. She was just his friend. And she was allowed to sip her drinks and bat her lashes at whoever the fuck she wanted.

Even if the thought made steam blow out of his ears.

"Hey," someone called over his shoulder. Eddie whipped around to see the girl from the crowd there. Sauntering up to him with swaying hips and that same smirk that made his uncomfortable stomach roil. "You're the guitarist, right?"

Fuck. Fuck.

"Yeah," Eddie responded. Puffing out a breath and pulling his best nonchalant grin out of his ass, he said again, "Yeah. That's me, honey."

He leaned up against the nearest table, putting Chrissy in his periphery. Watching her from the corner of his eye as she laughed at probably the worst joke known to humankind, as told by a clown.

The new girl looked him up and down, appreciation obvious, and her grin grew. Showing off sharp canines and a knowing glint in her eye.

"You guys played really good tonight," she continued. "Though I've been to a few shows now, and you're always pretty fantastic."

"Oh yeah?" Eddie responded, crossing his arms and popping his eyebrows. "What, you consider yourself a bonafide fan, then?"

She giggled, introducing herself with a name Eddie immediately forgot. Glancing over right as Chrissy looked at him, finally seeming to register his presence.

Was it just him, or did something in her face drop all at once?

The girl continued talking to him, but Eddie could not reiterate their conversation if someone held a gun to his head. Instead, he watched curiously as Chrissy left her half-finished drink on the bar and said something to Bozo before getting up and bolting out the front door.

Huh. What the fuck was that?

"So," the girl said, tilting her head to one side and catching his attention. "Are you gonna buy me a drink? Or should we just get out of here?"

"Yeah, uh, gonna have to pin that shit right here, actually," Eddie responded as he jumped to his feet. When did this girl get so close to him? No wonder he felt claustrophobic and a little nauseous. "Sorry, kid."

"Another time?" she asked, pouting a little. The snort Eddie stifled came out as a cough.

"Uh, yeah, sure," Eddie said before giving a meager salute and taking off after Chrissy. He heard the girl shout something at him, maybe trying to entice him back, but Eddie's ears were no longer open to the voices of anyone else in existence.

Chrissy was a full block away already. Brisk pace making her little skirt swish back and forth in time with the rapid beating of his heart.

"Chrissy," he called as he jogged after her. Watching her shoulders freeze, her gait coming to an unexpected halt. She didn't turn around, her body curling away from him as he caught up to her. "Hey! What, uh. What're you doing here?"

Why'd you run away?

"Hi, Eddie," she replied, her voice soft. "I, um. I just came to see you guys. Jeff said it was supposed to be a big show."

Ducking down, Eddie tried to catch her gaze. Something caught in his throat when she resolutely turned away from him.

Swallowing it heavily down, he stood up straight again. Fully taking a step back.

"Yeah? What'd you think?"

"You guys played really well," she said, though not with the enthusiasm with which she normally praised the band. "You, um. You really blew the roof off that place."

God. He'd never heard her sound so... lifeless. Why the fuck was she so upset?

"Yeah, uh, thanks, sweetness." She didn't respond outside of a brusque nod, and Eddie cleared his throat. Grasping at straws without understanding why he was reaching for nothing when conversation had never been so stilted between them. "I wish you'd've told me you were coming out. Coulda, like, I dunno, made a night of it or something."

"Seems like you had your night pretty well figured out," Chrissy shot back, something dark and viscous replacing the absence of emotion in her voice.

"Uh?"

"Why did you even come after me, Eddie?" Chrissy spat, finally, finally reeling on him. Anger blazed brightly in her eyes, taking Eddie aback so fully he flinched. The abrupt change in her demeanor had him so goddamn confused his mind whited out for a second. "Like, what's the point? Why are you here?"

"Why are you here?" he volleyed back, unconsciously matching her tone. "Huh? Why didn't you tell me you were coming? Or did you even come to see us?"

"What the hell does that mean?"

Eddie scoffed. "I saw you with that fucking clown in there."

"What does that matter?"

"What do my evening plans matter?"

"Because you were flirting with that girl!"

"So were you!" Eddie fired, fully stepping into Chrissy's personal space. "You were acting all coquettish and shit, I saw you! And it doesn't even fucking matter if I was flirting with her, because I fucked off as soon as I saw you run out! Which is so damn stupid on my part, because you don't even want me!"

"Of course I want you, you moron!" she practically screamed in his face. Bringing him entirely up short, all of the upset she still displayed draining out of his bones. "That guy in there? I was playing you up for him! He's with your freaking studio! I've wanted no one but you for years! You just don't even see me!"

That brought the anger right back. Completely disregarding her admission of trying to cozy up to the bigwig Jeff had mentioned. "Are you fucking kidding me?" Cupping her cheeks in his hands, Eddie pressed closer. Forcing her to grab the lapels of his jacket to hold her balance. "I don't see anything else, Chrissy. You live in the back of my brain, hovering around with your pretty pink nails sunk into the membrane. Every–– Every time I close my eyes, every time I blink, it's with your imprint behind my eyelids. And then I go to bed at night and fucking dream about you and me and all the shit I fucking wished we had and––"

He didn't get to finish.

She pushed up onto her dainty little toes and cut him off with a kiss.

It was firm. Warm. A little hard, still stuck on the leftover vestiges of her anger. The slight click of teeth, but Eddie was already holding her. It took nothing, nothing at all, for him to kiss her back. To hold her in place and fucking devour her with every piece of himself she already held in her palms. All of the soft, gooey pieces of him she could smush into the fucking concrete beneath their feet if she so chose.

She didn't do that, though.

Instead, she threw him straight into the void of space. His body coming to rest across a bed of stars that fizzled and popped across his skin. Bursting on contact, the sparking pieces embedded themselves into his skin. Burrowing beneath flesh and muscle and wrapping like vines around his bones.

The buzz of his starry new veins didn't fade until she slowly lowered herself back to the ground, then ignited anew when Eddie chased her lips. Slowing the desperation of their kiss until she was the soft, gooey pieces he had no choice but to hold aloft.

As though he ever wanted anything else touching his hands.

Finally, after an eternity in the stars, he pulled back to let her breathe. Resting his forehead against hers so she was nothing but a blur of flushed cheeks and stormy blue eyes.

"I've wanted to do that," he began around a stuttered exhale, "for so goddamn long."

He watched her eyes flick back and forth between his. Felt the expanse and collapse of her chest as she took another slow, deep breath.

"I was afraid," she admitted after a moment. "I was terrified, actually. That you'd... That you didn't want me the way I wanted you. And that, if I told you how I felt––"

"It'd ruin us," Eddie finished. Chrissy nodded.

"But I've wanted that, too," she said. "I've wanted you, Eddie."

The next kiss was a slow evolution. A soft, exploratory expanse of new beginnings hidden in the uncharted depths science couldn't possibly discover alone.

"You have me, sweetness. You have me."

kiss roulette!

[dontloooknow]

hungry, lonely, violent

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: Days, months, years you spent hungry, yearning. How can a simple two weeks change what's been your life since the outbreak happened? How can one man mend the shattered pieces you never thought could be put back together? How can Joel Miller be that man?

Tags: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Caregiving, Recovery, Healing, Trauma, Oral Sex, Creampie, Size Kink, Size Difference, Older Man/Younger Woman, Hurt/Comfort, Porn with Feelings, No use of y/n, Protective Joel

Word count: 22k

Read on ao3

The sunset is a blaze of orange over Jackson, Wyoming.

You’ve been all over the country at this point, a nomad by choice, who escaped the Atlanta QZ as soon as you had the ability and supplies to do so. There have been rumors of a safe place, a town out west where people live in a harmonious peace behind sealed walls. No infected breaking in, no raiders to rob you or do worse. No corrupt FEDRA agents to gun you down for looking at them funny.

As it turns out, it’s a lot fucking harder to find a place like that, than it is to imagine it. 

You know you’re close; you saw the Welcome to Wyoming sign days ago. Your best guideline is an out of date map that you’d killed a handsy FEDRA guard for. It’s gotten you this far though, so you can’t be too frustrated. 

Of course, it’d be nice if it wasn’t the dead of fucking winter, but you’ve never really had the best luck. 

You know you don’t have long before you need to give up on this insane venture. No one ever actually believed the talk about somewhere safe hidden in the mountains; somewhere that life was meant to be lived and not merely endured. Somewhere that a person could feel like a person again, by way of basic dignity and small decencies.

You can almost feel it now, if you close your eyes and let yourself imagine. The steam of a hot shower; water beating down on sore muscles, wet hair plastered down your back as soap bubbles cascade across slick skin. A mug of coffee, or tea, hell you’d even take hot chocolate at this point. Something to soothe the coldness of your palms; something to warm your throat and belly. The crackle of a fireplace underneath a mantle; hardwood floors, a rug nestled underneath a sofa. 

You were so young when the outbreak happened that you’ve never really gotten to experience these things. But you know them well. Stories from your parents, wishful tales of a life once lived in comfort and peace. An expanse of opportunity, safety to explore, create, enjoy. 

In a world like that, there’s room for all sorts of things you haven’t been able to have. What’s always been a quick meal of ration blocks scarfed down in a hurry, could be a slow-cooking stew, complete with fluffy bread and a glass of clean water with ice. Maybe even a wedge of lemon for flavor, if you’re lucky. A slice of hot pie for dessert, an unneeded expense of greed and hunger, nothing beneficial for your health really except to make you happy. Socks without holes, pants without inner thighs so worn you can feel your cold skin chafing between them. 

In a world like that, there’s room for things like delicacies. Things like…romance.

You have no illusions that this could ever be your future. Since you lost your family, things like safety and stability have been mere fantasy. You can’t remember what a home cooked meal might taste like, or a hug from someone who genuinely cares about you. The men and women you’ve been with have all been quick, dirty fucks, going through the motions to make eachother cum and breathe hollow noises of pleasure that are more for show than anything. 

In a different world, maybe it could all mean something.

You take quick stock of your rations. A half-empty water bottle with a screw-on filter that’s quickly becoming unusable from strain. A can of green beans. A small pack of bandages that have lost most of their adhesive strength from time. One pair of underwear that’s hanging off your pack, wet from a wash in the creek. There’s nothing worse than going commando in sub-zero temperatures, but it’s a necessary evil for hygiene. 

From your place currently hiding out in an abandoned gas station nestled in the mountains of what surely used to be some sort of thriving backwoods community, any hope of that fantastical world really does feel out of reach. For most of your life it felt that if dreams were enough to keep you alive, you’d surely be immortal. But lately, that negligent bit of hope is starting to seem like the flicker of a candle about to blow out. 

And it’s funny, for someone who claims to have given up hope, how quickly you jump into gear when you hear heavy footsteps behind you. Your hands fumble; cold and nearly frozen from the frigid temperatures outside, clasping the grip on your gun. You only have a half-mag left, and with your hands as shaky as they are from the weather, you aren’t feeling confident about your ability to aim as well as needed to make that half-mag worthwhile. 

Still, you have little other choice. In your condition, a hand-to-hand fight would be your undoing. 

“I hear someone in there, breathing,” a gruff voice says. It’s low and careful, a slow southern drawl that you recognize as Texan, most likely. You met a few of them in the Atlanta QZ, and they all had this gentle drawl to them, the same way this man does.

It would be almost a calm, reassuring sound, if his proximity didn’t surely mean imminent death for you.

“A runner?” another voice asks, this one is younger. A man, or a boy maybe, a teenager. 

Fuck. You’re outnumbered, even if these are the only two out here. You’re outnumbered by two men. You’re hungry, and half-frozen, and struggling to think of what to do next. It’s like your brain isn’t functioning at full capacity. Who could blame it, with the months of neglect on the road? When was the last time you even had fucking protein?

You try to listen, try to hone your ears to follow the footsteps of the man coming toward you. Surely he knows where you’re hiding, if he heard you breathing and assumed you were an ill infected. You must really sound like shit. You sort of knew that your lungs had a rattle from the cold and your nose was sniffly, but clearly it's worse than you thought. 

Okay, okay, think. What can I-

Your train of thought is immediately interrupted by a large, thick arm circling around your neck from behind. You gasp as your body is wrenched into the air, a sturdy mountain of a man behind you. In your panic, you drop your gun and reach for his massive forearm, trying to pry it off your neck as your vision begins to go fuzzy.

Holy fuck, you’re going to die at the hands of some random Texas giant in this abandoned gas station. 

“Shit, Joel, she’s not infected!” 

“Wh- Christ!”

In a flat second, you’re on the floor, coughing and gasping as you clutch at your neck, trying to fill your icy lungs with desperate air. The floor is more like concrete, and with the layer of ice spread across it, there’s damn near no cushion for your fall.

The large man reaches out, you can hear his jacket shuffle and his body move, but you scramble away, reaching frantically for your gun. 

The other one, the younger boy, comes into focus and reaches out to pluck up your gun before you can even make an honest grab for it. 

“Hey, we aren’t gonna hurt you,” the boy says, looking down at you earnestly. It’s big talk from the teenager holding a revolver on you, but his eyes are genuine enough. “I’m sorry we scared you. We thought-”

Your vision whites out as you feel a large hand grab your arm. The big man, the giant Texan has grabbed your bicep and is trying to pull you up. Pure instinct takes over; reflex causing you to lash out with your free arm. 

Your knife makes a decent slash in the skin of his hand, and he pulls back with a shouted curse of pain. 

“Whoa whoa!” the boy tries again for a calming tone, still attempting some sort of diplomacy.

Ignoring his pathetic excuse for a ceasefire, you launch yourself at the large man, wielding your knife like it’s your last chance. 

With him momentarily disoriented, it’s easy to hop on his back, effectively putting his body between yours and the boy with the gun as a human shield. And a gigantic one, at that. His shoulders are stocky, easy handholds for you as you settle your legs around his large waist. You press the tip of your knife against his throat, feeling the vibrations of his grunted breaths against your thumb bone. 

This close, you can smell a soft aroma of lemon soap wafting off his wavy hair. It’s dark with streaks of silver dancing down through the ends, matching a well-groomed beard on his jaw. His jacket is thick brown leather, it looks heavy and surely adds bulk to an already impressively large man. 

“Walk out, now!” You warn the boy with the gun, still pressing the blade into the man’s throat. “I won’t kill him if you leave me alone.”

You think it’s a pretty fucking generous offer, considering this giant just tried to choke you out.

The boy glances at the man, sighing. He shakes his head, holstering his gun. “Joel, just be gentle.”

Frowning, you look between them in confusion.

The man, whose name must be Joel, chuckles dryly. It’s a nice sound, a steady reverberation through his chest. In another circumstance, you think it might be a soothing noise. One of those laughs from a person who seems like they know the answer to every question, who's figured everything out. Someone who’d take care of you.

Then, he grabs your wrist so hard you feel bone press into flesh, wrenches the knife away from his throat as if you’re no more than a pesky mosquito, and flips your body over his shoulder. 

Being effectively yeeted into a frozen concrete floor by a man three times your size would most certainly be a death sentence. 

You feel the wind rush out of your lungs, the world spin upside down, and you’re preparing to hear a deafening crack of your skull against the hard ground. 

Before the impact radiates through your body though, you realize he’s slowed your momentum by sliding an arm around your lower back, stopping you just before your body would’ve crashed into the floor. He kneels forward, holding you just above the ice, and you get a good look at his face.

It doesn’t feel like the right time to be thinking this, and you hate yourself a tiny bit, but he’s really fucking handsome. His nose is large and stately, his eyes framed by thick, dark lashes that brush his cheekbones, eyebrows pulled together so his forehead scrunches up. There are lines of age on his face, flecks of gray in his beard, yet the flush to his tanned skin and the light in his gaze tells you he’s in tiptop shape. This is a man who eats well, eats often, and probably isn’t sleeping on the hard ground every night as you’ve been for weeks.

Considering he just tossed you over his shoulder like a tiny bag of flour, this isn’t particularly surprising. 

“If you’d quit tryin’ to kill me, little miss, then maybe we can have a conversation.”

With a growl of anger, you swing your fist. He catches your wrist in his hand so easily it’s humiliating, and gives you a disapproving look. 

“We ain’t gonna hurt ya’,” he continues, “stop swingin’ on me.”

“We should take her back to town,” the boy says, still standing beside the two of you a little awkwardly, “she’s not well.”

At that, you pause, something icy running into your veins. You’ve run into more than enough fucked up little “towns” on your trip west. They always ended up trying to kill you or indoctrinate you into some demented cult ideals. You’ve fought your way out of more than enough situations like this to know that if you don’t escape now, it’s not going to end well.

You’re unarmed, you’re starved, you’re half-frozen, and the man above you is so large you swear you could strap a pair of reins to his shoulders and have him pull a carriage. 

In so many words, you’re fucked.

“Get the fuck off me!” you snarl, wriggling in his grasp and trying to free yourself.

“Alright.” The man releases you and you hit the cold ground, a surprised noise of pain slipping from your mouth as your head smashes into the ice.

“Jesus Joel,” the boy says.

“She told me to!”

This is your chance. You just need to get to your feet and run. Fuck the gun and the knife, you’ll find new ones. You’ve been without your supplies before. You can figure it out. You just have to get up.

An attempt to move into a sitting position proves futile, as your vision begins to swim and your head throbs. Your hands fumble weakly for purchase at your sides, but the ice is too slick to find a solid grasp.

“I think she’s gotta concussion,” the man, Joel, muses nonchalantly.

“I think she’s got a lot going on,” the boy replies, “should we put her on a horse? Seems like she wants to be left alone.”

“Ain’t the policy that we bring back injured travelers?” Joel asks.

 “Yeah, but normally they don’t…resist this much, right?”

Joel hums thoughtfully. “Normally they ain’t women all by themselves surrounded by two strange men.”

“I guess not.” 

“Let’s get her on a horse. Once she realizes she’s safe, maybe she’ll quit the murderin’ shit.”

“What if she comes to and tries to kill you again?” the boy worries.

At this, Joel chuckles again. “If she manages to kill me on the back of a horse with no weapon, then I goddamn deserve it, kid.”

“Is this how all patrols are?” 

“Nah. They usually ain’t this exciting.” Joel leans over you then, and you smell the lemon soap and a faint whiff of pine oil. “Hey there, you with us?”

“No,” you groan, though you’re not actually sure what you’re responding to.

“Listen, m’gonna have to pick you up and put you on a horse. Try not to gouge my eyes out. Think you can manage that?”

“No,” you repeat sourly.

“Excellent. You ever been on a horse before?”

“No.”

He exhales. “You say anything else?”

“No.”

“Alright then. When we get you up, just hold on to my waist, don’t let go or you’re gonna go flyin’ and that won’t be good for neither of us. You hear? No ain’t an option.”

You narrow your eyes which does nothing to help your already blurry vision. You feel your consciousness slowly starting to slip away on a delicate string, at a great danger of snapping and disappearing in the distance. 

“I think she bonked her head,” the boy says when you don’t reply.

“Good observation, son.” With that, Joel reaches for you. You tell your muscles to resist, to fight back, but they frustratingly don’t move.

He slides his arms underneath your prone form and lifts as if you weigh no more than a backpack. Surprisingly, his touch is gentle rather than rough as you’d expected. He moves slowly, gradually pulling your body into a sitting position. Your head spins and you let out an involuntary noise of pain.

“M’sorry honey,” he murmurs, “you got your bell rung, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t carry a bell,” you manage a weak reply.

He chuckles again, and you feel yourself being hoisted up. After a moment of adjusting, you’re lying in his arms bridal style, thick forearms underneath your body. He grips your thighs to keep you in place, shifting you upward to preserve the momentum as he gets back to his feet with a slight huff of effort. 

“Do you need help?” the boy asks, hovering.

“Nah, she don’t weigh more than one of them kitchen chairs in the mess hall. Just grab her stuff, m’sure she’ll be askin’ after it when she’s up and running.”

“Okay, okay got it. You want me to lead?”

“Yeah, go ahead. Thanks Jesse.”

“Sure thing.”

You’re moving then, you think. The world shifts around you, and your head lulls to the side, pressing into a coat. You shudder once, and find yourself transfixed on the even breathing of the man holding you.

“Cold?” he asks gruffly, and then sighs as if that’s a stupid question. “Jesse?”

“Yeah?” 

“Help me with this.” 

There’s movement, and your body is shuffled a bit, before someone drapes a thick weight over you, wrapping you up like a burrito in what appears to be a giant leather jacket. It smells of lemon and pine oil, the scent wafting off it with each movement. 

You’re confused, disoriented and overwhelmed. The weight of the jacket around you is enough to soothe the cold for now, even as you feel shuffling and adjusting and find your legs slung around the thick flank of a horse. 

“Hold on tight,” says Joel. 

What other choice do you have? 

———-

Somewhere between the gas station and here, you passed out. 

It shouldn’t surprise you, given the state you were in. It only makes sense your body would give up in some way. Obviously you wish it hadn’t been while you were pressed up against the large, broad back of a grouchy old Texan, but as you said you’ve never had the best luck. 

When you come to, you’re supine on a couch. It’s odd though, because from first glance, the thing isn’t musty and dusty like they usually are. It’s soft, squishy, and smells clean. There’s a blanket draped over you, some sort of fuzzy wool that keeps your limbs warm. It’s heavy too, the weight of it soothing. A crackling sound alerts your gaze to a mantle with a fireplace underneath, heat flickering off the orange licks of flames, well contained in the brick casing. Atop the mantle are framed photos, a girl with choppy hair and freckles on a horse, the man, Joel, at her side, smiling. 

It’s an odd expression on him, you think. Although handsome, it’s surprising to see the gruff man look so at ease, so happy. From your brief interaction in the gas station, you’d come to gather he’s a no-nonsense, quick-to-choke asshole.

Not unlike yourself, really.

And if there are photos of him and what looks to be his daughter, or a teenaged relative maybe, on this mantle, that means you’re in his house. That means you’re in grave danger.

Though...you are seemingly fine, wrapped in a blanket by the fireplace, clothing intact on your body. Beside you on an end table is a lamp, a glass of tepid water, and a few leaves of unfamiliar greens. 

You move to sit up, pressing your hands against your thighs in search of any of your weapons. Nothing. Your pack is gone too. 

As you adjust, you find that your mouth feels like it’s full of cotton, tongue swollen and dry. Your throat is aching, desperate for water. You run your fingers along the arm of the sofa, eyeing the glass of water longingly.

What if he’s done something to it? 

Before you can decide if it’s worth the risk, footsteps pad in behind you, and you whip around to see him entering the room. You stumble off the couch, legs wobbling, knees threatening to give out as you try to stand your ground.

“Easy,” Joel says in that slow drawl, “you’re alright, little miss. You’re safe.”

Your hands clench into fists. As if you’re stupid enough to believe him. 

“You know where you are?” he asks, like he thinks you won’t know. 

For a moment, you fumble. Where...are you? You know it’s snowing outside the windows of this little, quiet house. You know you came from Atlanta. You know you found yourself a little turned around in the backwoods of somewhere in Wyoming.

“Wyoming,” you say, forcing the word to come out assuredly, even as your voice cracks around it like a frail twig under a boot.

He nods once. “Good. You’re in Jackson. You hit your head and it seemed like you haven’t had a real meal in a while. We brought you back to get you feelin’ better. You passed out on the way.”

Blinking, you take stock of the room around you. You’re in Joel’s house, in Jackson. Can it really be true? Have you really found it? The place where life can be lived peacefully amidst the horrors outside the wall? 

“It’s real?” you find yourself asking. The crackling fireplace and framed photos seem evidence enough of a more content lifestyle than anywhere you’ve ever lived.

Again, he nods. “You’ve heard of it?”

“Just stories,” you admit, “didn’t believe them.”

“It’d be hard to,” he agrees gruffly. 

You allow yourself a moment to look him over. Here in his home, he’s shed his winter layers in favor of a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt with an unbuttoned flannel over the top. His hair is tousled from the wind, gray-lined dark curls framing his face. His shoulders, just as big as you remember noticing, fill out the fabric of his flannel so well it’s a little hard to look away. A quick scan of his body does little to reassure you of any chance you have to fight back if this goes sour. He’s large; his chest thick, thighs sturdy in his jeans, a faint outline of a comfortable belly underneath his shirt. You can see a cropping of dark hair just poking out of his shirt collar and the ends of his sleeves. He’s rugged in every sense of the word. Rugged, and huge. 

“I left you some water there,” he gestures vaguely to the end table, “some mint leaves to chew on, sometimes they help when I gotta headache. I dunno. Just in case. They didn’t have anywhere to put you yet, and the infirmary was pretty overrun so they-”

“What are you going to do to me?” you find yourself asking, hating the hollow note of fear in your words. 

Joel pauses, hands on his hips, eyebrows screwed together. “Do to you?”

In lieu of a reply, you just nod warily. 

It takes him a moment, you think, to register what you’re implying. When it hits him, his shoulders deflate, and his expression heaves into one of displeasure. He clenches and unclenches his fists before he speaks.

“You’re safe,” he says again, voice even and composed despite the clear discomfort on his face. “I ain’t gonna hurt you. Once they find somewhere else to put you, we’ll get you comfortable. But for now, if it’ll make you feel better.” He moves toward you, reaching for the waistband of his jeans.

Reflexively, you stumble backward, putting distance between the two of you. Your legs betray you, and you find yourself leaning against a table by the window with little wood carvings to stay upright. He halts instantly, expression neutral. 

“I was just gonna give you this.” He removes your gun from his waistband, presenting it matter-of-factly. “Loaded the mag for you. Don’t shoot me.”

With that, he sets it on the end table by the couch, halfway between the two of you, and steps back. 

“You got no reason to kill me,” he says, “I got no reason to hurt you. I wouldn’t. Ever. So take it. But I’d prefer not to have any extra holes by the time you leave.” 

You swallow noisily, eyes tracing the line toward the gun. It rests neatly beside the water and mint leaves, his gifts to you, comfort and safety all in one little package on the end table. 

Unsure of what to say, you slowly move toward the end table, picking up the gun. Hesitantly, you pull back the slide and see a round in the chamber. Then, you pop the mag out and see that he wasn’t lying. It’s fully loaded. 

You eye him warily as you tuck the gun into your own waistband, safety on. “Thanks?”

“Don’t shoot me,” he repeats sternly.

“Don’t give me a reason to,” you warn him.

At this, he scoffs. “Lady, if I wanted to kill you, I woulda done it with my arm around your neck.”

Your eyes narrow. “I never said you wanted to kill me.”

His nose wrinkles at that, eyes going dark. “You don’t have to worry about that. Listen, I’ll stay outta your hair. But they want me to get you healthy before you get set up on your own here. So-”

“Wait, before what?”

Another sigh, like he’s exasperated. “You’ll get assigned a house and eventually work duties and patrol schedules. They’ll go over all that with you. I’m just the middle man here.”

You’re shaking your head before he’s even done speaking. “Who fucking decided that for me?”

His eyebrow arches. “Ain’t that why you’re out here?”

Torn, you struggle to think of a reply. It actually is exactly why you’re out here, but you’re confused and suspicious at the easy welcome and acceptance of another mouth to feed, another burden on the resources. You don’t even know if he’s telling the truth. Maybe you’re not even in Jackson. Maybe this is some fucked up murder cabin and he’s playing you like a fiddle.

“How do I know you’re not lying?” You demand, fingers itching to reach for the gun now that it’s safely holstered away. 

Joel gestures to the front door. “Be my fuckin’ guest.”

Reluctantly taking your eyes off of him, you push off the table and move for the front entryway. You brush by him briskly, annoyed when he doesn’t move out of the way. Your shoulder nudges into his arm, and you’re struck by how thick and immovable he feels beside your feeble frame. 

You hate it. It would be so effortless to overpower you.

You dislike having him in your rearview, but you move toward the line of windows that overlook the front lawn. 

Your eyes take in a sight you could’ve only ever imagined. Snow-lined streets, little shops and markets with pleasant looking customers milling about. People with horses, waving to each other. Children running in the street and laughing loudly while gentle adults corral them back onto shoveled sidewalks. No FEDRA guards shouting about work duty or drills, no bomb warning sirens, no distant roar of infected outside the gates.

No weapons, no shouting or robbery, no children sobbing in the snow from hunger. Everything that had ever felt unattainable, apparently just outside your window. 

In utter disbelief, you slowly turn back to Joel, who’s watching you with mild interest. 

“Wow,” is all you can manage. 

“Yeah, you found the promised land and all that.” He shrugs. “Now they said they oughta have somewhere for you to stay on your own by end of week, provided you’re physically up for it. You’d better start with some water, kid.”

You glance at the glass on the end table, ruminating on the possibility of it being laced with something. 

“For Christ's sake.” Joel marches toward the glass, takes a few huge gulps, and then holds it out to you. “Where the fuck would I even get somethin’ like that?”

He has to know that these days finding drugs to crush up and ingest is infinitely easier than finding food. Or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe living here has made a soft, ignorant man of him. Maybe he always has been. 

You’re suddenly so angry. All of the years you’ve suffered, your family dying, FEDRA raids and Firefly bombings and attacks from hordes of infected. 

And here he is. Sitting by the fire, framed photographs smiling back at him, mint leaves between his teeth for a mild ailment. 

It’s so unfair. 

“You guys are pretty selfish, you know.” You ignore his outstretched hand with the water. “Keeping all this a secret. Keeping it for yourselves while the rest of us struggle.”

Joel rolls his eyes, and the flippant gesture is enough to make your teeth grind together. “Ah. We’re doin’ this? You wanna leave, go. Ain’t nobody holding you hostage.”

What are you doing? Your brain is screaming at you desperately. This is what you wanted. This is why you came. You’ve found it. 

You hadn’t realized what it would mean, actually seeing this oasis. Actually feeling the warmth of a fireplace and the soft fabric of a clean couch. Having mint leaves and bullets a plenty. How could you have ever expected the gaping hole it would punch through your chest, seeing what you could’ve had all these years, laid out in front of you like a decadent buffet. What your family could’ve had. 

What this man, Joel, is trying to offer you. 

“It isn’t fair,” you manage weakly, talking to no one in particular, eyes searching around the organized decor. “It isn’t fair.”

“I know,” is all you get in reply. 

You move away from the window, not exactly sure where you plan to go, but overwhelmed. Finally, your weak knees do give out, and you pitch forward.

Your arms shoot out to catch yourself, but as it turns out, you don’t need them to. Strong hands grip you under the armpits, pulling upward until your legs straighten out. You stumble into a big, warm chest, and Joel grumbles something you don’t catch under his breath. 

“Easy,” he murmurs, “gonna get you back to the couch.”

You’re too overcome to argue, though it is your first instinct. You allow him to lead your trembling body toward the sofa, jellylike legs carrying you only as his strength pulls them along. 

He slots you between two couch cushions, and you sink down in the fabric. Then, he picks up the water he’d set down in his hurry to catch you, and holds it out. 

“This would be a start,” he says earnestly. 

In shaky hands, you bring the glass to your lips, sipping delicately. The water is room temperature, somewhat warmed by the heat of the fire. It goes down your throat, soothing the ache there with much needed droplets of hydration. You finish the glass in record time, and before you can blink, Joel’s taken it from you. Your arm reaches forward pathetically, a plea to keep the glass as if you could suck the remaining moisture out from the bottom. 

“Hold on,” he says, but there’s no note of impatience or annoyance in the words. He leaves the room and returns a moment later with a glass full to the brim. 

Eagerly, you take it from his hands, too lost in the euphoria of fresh, clean water to consider the possibility of the first one being a trick. He’s got you comfortable. Now, he can do whatever he wants. 

You hadn’t realized how thirsty you were until the pain was soothed. 

It’s a funny thing, longing. You get so used to it that you start to grow numb. You yearn for something long enough, eventually you don’t feel like yourself without it. Hunger, thirst, pining, it’s all a part of who you are. Fulfilled, sated, you wouldn’t know who to be or how to move forward. 

Still, you finish the glass as quickly as the first. 

“Better?” Joel asks, his voice lacking warmth but not particularly unpleasant. 

You nod hesitantly. 

“How’s your head?”

You touch your fingers to the back of your head, roving the pads across your tangled hair. You feel no bump, no cuts, nothing more than a rats nest of unbrushed locks. 

“Fine,” you say, though it does hurt. You’re sure it’s nothing serious, but you definitely gave it a good bump. 

“You feel like eatin’?” He asks, and the prospect of food is enough to make your chapped lips feel wet with salivation. 

“You have food,” you tell him, more of a statement than a question. 

Quizzically, he nods. “Uh, yeah.”

“Real food?”

“I got some venison in the freezer,” he says, “and some broccoli.”

“In a can?”

His expression softens marginally. “No.”

Fuck. Real fresh vegetables? 

“Tell you what.” Joel cracks his knuckles loudly. “You go on up and take a shower, get yourself sorted. I’ll get started on some grub. ‘Bout dinner time anyway. Then maybe we can get you healthy enough to get outta my hair. How’s that sound?”

“Okay,” is all you can think to say, surprisingly amicable. In your defense, it’s been a while since someone offered you a hot meal and a shower. And you do have your gun...just in case.

Joel holds a hand out, and despite every instinct in your body begging you not to take it, you slip your palm into his. His hand is warm, calloused from exposure and rough on the pads of his palm, but there’s something familiar about his hold. It’s oddly comforting. It feels like a hand that knows hard work, not unlike your own, which you’re sure are twice as rough right now.

He offers you a small, barely perceptible smile before he releases your hand and says, “second door on the right.”

Then, he heads into the kitchen. 

If you wanted to, you could quietly sneak in behind him, gun drawn, and put a bullet in his head. Right now, it would be so easy. He’s foolishly left you to your own devices in his home with a loaded gun. Who could blame you for second-guessing his motives and intentions? 

But he’s also offering you a meal, a hot shower, the prospect of a life. And you’d come a very long way to find him. To find this, you mean. 

You lean down and grab a mint leaf, sticking it between your teeth to chew as you ascend the stairs with a careful hand on the railing. It’s surprisingly tasty, the leaf, though it has a bite of burn that stings your tongue in an unfamiliar way. You press it between your teeth and tongue, feeling the sharp sting of the mint and breathing in the relief. You aren’t sure why, maybe it’s all in your head, but it feels like it is soothing your pain. 

Your fingers trail along the wooden banister. It’s clean, well dusted, organized. There’s traces of life here, in the haphazard way his boots are strewn by the door, in the crumple of towels on the floor in the corner of the laundry room you pass by, in the photographs on walls and more tables. That girl with the freckles and choppy hair is all over his life, alongside a man with a beard and scrappy bun. A brother maybe? You can’t tell, but what’s clear in the multitude of photos is that Joel likes to keep his loved ones close. He likes tangible memories, reminders of those he cares for. 

You find yourself in a large bathroom standing in front of a shower with a pastel yellow curtain. You grip the material in your fingers, pulling back on the curtain, enamored with the way it glides back and forth on the rod. The closest thing you had to this in the QZ was water boiled and poured into a tub for bathing. On the road, it was a nice cold creek when you could find it.

Curiously, you slide your fingers down the wall until they bump into a strange knob, delicate rounded designs poking out of the glossy finish. To the right, a little blue circle, to the left a little red one. You deduce they indicate the temperature of the water, and twist the knob until it’s halfway in between. 

The water shoots forward out of a head at the top of the wall, spraying you in the face. You splutter, pulling back and coughing water out of your nose and throat. It’s a powerful stream, the droplets hitting your face with a velocity you hadn’t expected. You know the currents of lakes, oceans and creeks can be unpredictable. Waves are something otherworldly, a force to be reckoned with, never tempted. 

You had no idea something so small could be so powerful.

You check once more that the door is locked, then you peel off your tattered jacket and undershirt. Your bra is barely held together by a stitch you keep doing and undoing in the back. The clasp broke a year ago. You slide your old jeans down your legs, face blooming red when you remember that your underwear was hooked onto the back of your bag to dry after a wash.

Where is it? Did they leave it in the gas station? It was your only pair. 

Somehow worse...does Joel...have it?

Hesitantly, you step over the ledge of the tub into the stream of water, surprised at the feeling of the droplets crashing into your skin. It hurts a little, the pressure at which the water shoots out at you. 

For a moment, you languish under the stream of water, feeling dirt and muck slide off your skin. It feels like you’ve been encased in a layer of grime for so long, you’ve almost forgotten what clean feels like. Though, you’ve never been clean like this.

You see a little sponge in a rack on the wall, and grab for it. There’s a bar of soap beside it, and you take that too, sudsing up the sponge as much as possible. It smells like lemon, the same faint aroma you’d noticed on Joel.

Then, it strikes you that this must be the sponge he washes his own body with.

You hesitate. Surely this violates some sort of acceptable hygiene norm. But also, your hand’s not gonna do the job. And you’d only be dirtying up his soap if you used that on its own.

In a confused moment of transfixion, you squeeze the sponge between your fingers, running the pad of your thumb over its gristly base. It wafts lemon, that enticing smell that Joel carries with him from a good wash in the morning. 

You know it’s odd, and certainly not the time to be having these thoughts, but it’s a little distracting that this is his sponge. The same one he rubs all over himself when he’s naked, when the water is drizzling down his thick body, his sturdy chest and his soft stomach and the unmovable width of his thighs. You imagine he must like the way it feels after a long day, hot water sizzling on his skin, the sharp edge of a sponge cutting through dirt on his body, the smell of lemon in his nose and lingering on him.

You douse the sponge in lemon soup, and carefully slide it down your arm. The feeling makes you shudder; the rough texture of the sponge grating down your filthy skin. The sponge that Joel rubs on himself. The sponge that’s nestled itself between the bulging muscles of his chest, down the lines of his abdomen, all over his large arms. Down further...between his legs, maybe. 

It’s been so long since you thought about a man this way; since you thought about anyone this way. On the road, there was no time for luxuries like sexual fantasy. 

But now, safe and comfortable beneath a thick and steady steam of hot water, you allow your mind to wander a bit.

How thorough must Joel be, when he washes himself with this rough little sponge? To smell as good as he does even in the midst of a fight, even with adrenaline pumping, testosterone brewing, sweat surely slickening his underarms and legs. Still, he wafts pleasant aromas, the kind that make you lean into him, rather than pull away.

He must touch himself often, in depth. He must scrub the soap in between places on his large body that only he can see, only he can touch. Dripping little droplets of sweet-scented soap on to parts of him that would be so difficult to get to, unless he were naked in front of you. 

Your fist clenches tightly around the sponge, expelling a myriad of soapy bubbles that drip down your legs into the drain. You blink, shaking your head, trying to come back down from those inappropriate thoughts.

Jesus. It’s really been too long. You’re gonna have to figure out something to do about that before you find yourself biting into this lemon-scented sponge.

Get a grip, you tell yourself. You have one hot shower and all of a sudden you’re ready and willing for the first person who will have you?

You’re sure it won’t be Joel, gruff and solitary as he seems, but maybe someone in this little safe haven is interested in relieving this ache.

Though, you’re no stranger to longing. It’s not as if you can’t take care of yourself.

Right now, you focus on washing. You scrub every inch of your body, including between your toes and in your belly button. You fight the layers of grime and grit until your skin is rubbed raw and red. Then, you take the syrupy bottle of liquid that’s labeled in marker “shampoo” and drench the crown of your head with it.

Scrubbing your hair takes more energy than you can expend. By the time the bubbles are rinsing down your back, your vision is swimming and you’re seeing black spots at the corner of your eyes. Your legs wobble, and you press a hand flat against the wall to steady yourself.

How long have you been in here?

Instead of tipping over and falling out onto the bathroom floor like an idiot, you slowly lower yourself to the shower floor. The tile is hot underneath your legs, and you realize you’ve turned the water all the way to the little red circle. 

It burns, droplets of acid shooting into your skin like knives. It’s so hot, hotter water than you’ve ever felt cascading over your body. It burns nicely, melting away the road like you’re shedding skin to grow anew. The steam fills your nostrils, and you take a big breath, your lungs still rattly and weak from the cold outside, but soothed slightly by the thick warmth in here.

You lose track of everything on the shower floor. The water is so hot, the smell is so sweet, the confines of the tub feel safe and secluded. The door has a lock, the shower has a curtain, each sliver of a barrier between you and everyone else feels like more security than you’ve had in months. Or maybe ever.

Your knees press against the sides of the tub, knobby and thin, too sickly for anyone to desire. You don’t like the body you’re in, don’t like that you were mistaken for an infected today, don’t like that you’re more survival than person at this point. 

And you can’t help but wonder, Jackson, Joel, this life here, would it be enough to change that? He says he can get you healthy, you can get your own place, a home. If you do as he says, follow his lead, can he really make that happen?

A place where you could lock the doors whenever you want. A place where you didn’t have to keep a loaded gun on you to feel safe. A place where you could drink the water without worrying it’s been spiked or it’s unsuitable. A life, a home, something meaningful.

All you have to do is get off the floor and go downstairs to it. 

With a huff of effort, you shove your body forward, bracing yourself on the side of the tub for momentum. You clumsily yank on the knob and crank it until the water stops flowing. There's a fresh towel on a rack by the shower, and you reach for it feebly.

You avoid your reflection in the mirror as much as possible; your skin is a mapping of cuts, bruises, scars. A lifetime of suffering delicately traced into lines on your body. There’s no hiding what you’ve been through, it plays out across your limbs like the scenes of a movie. Each moment of misery, each near-death experience, each trauma, a little piece of it left within you and etched into your physicality for everyone to see. 

Some people are born whole and become broken. Some are born whole and never lose enough pieces to say they aren’t complete anymore. 

You were born with missing parts, already deficient in a world that ensured it would hack every last bit of you away. You don’t know how you stand, how you breathe, how you live, without lungs to fill your throat with air or a heart to pump your blood. Your chest is a cavern, all your missing pieces scattered across the trails you’ve walked, and mirrored in your scarred flesh.

Reminders. Everything is fleeting, everything is futile, and contentment is an undeserved fantasy. 

Body wrapped in a towel, the cold air dimpling your flesh with goosebumps, you reach for your tattered clothes. They’re filthy, murky and bloodstained. You suspect Joel is going to need to thoroughly disinfect the couch you were lying on. 

You don’t want to put them on. You don’t want to slide your clean, scrubbed raw skin into the folds of clothing littered with horror. 

All you have is the cleanliness of your skin, and the mint leaf ground up between your teeth. Your first taste of comfort in...well, forever.

Reluctantly, you scoop up the pile of clothes and peer out into the hallway. You’re struck with a delightful smell; not the lemon soap, but something more tantalizing. Cooking meat, vegetables, the sizzle of smoke on a stovetop. You lean forward almost in a trance, your stomach growling ravenously, as you begin to descend the stairs. 

Your footsteps are featherlight on the stairs, toes carefully pressing forward down the cold hardwood. It squeaks underneath the pad of your foot, but you ignore it, moving languidly toward the enticing smell. 

He’s there, Joel, standing at the stove with his large back to you. He’s shrugged out of the flannel, leaving him clad in only his black t-shirt. The thin confines of the material give you more insight into the shape of him, the large, hulking physique of the man cooking vegetables. 

He doesn’t seem to notice your entrance, either too enthralled in his task, or you’ve been in the shower so long he’s forgotten you’re here. 

Carefully, you edge your way in a wide circle until you think you’re in his peripherals. He glances sideways, eyebrows shooting up as he observes you standing in his kitchen, only a towel around your body. 

“Do you have my underwear?” You ask, before something less humiliating can come to mind. 

Joel falters, something between embarrassment and amusement dancing across his expression before it smooths out. “Uh, yeah. I threw ‘em in the wash with some other stuff. Hope that’s okay.”

“Oh. Yeah it’s okay. Thanks.”

“I can take those too?” He jerks his chin toward the bundle of tattered clothes in your arms. 

“I have nothing else to wear,” you admit. 

At that, the corner of his lips twitch sideways. “I got somethin’ for ya’.”

He sets the pan down on the stove and gestures for you to follow him. You trail behind as he makes his way down the hall toward the laundry room you’d passed by earlier. He pauses in the doorway, looking around thoughtfully, before he spots a big tub in the back corner and reaches for it. It’s labeled with the same marker his shampoo was.

Ellie Winter Clothes

Joel brings the tub out into the living room and cracks open the lid, waving a hand for you to come in and examine the options.

You peer into the tub, surprised to find several neat stacks of folded up clothing. Jackets, pants, long-sleeved shirts and flannels. You look at Joel curiously.

“My kid,” he explains, “she just left last week to go on this tour of the west coast with her girlfriend. They just turned eighteen, all about gettin’ that freedom.”

You stare at him blankly. “You let your eighteen year old daughter leave on her own?”

Joel smiles wryly. “You ain't met Ellie. Anyway, she’ll be back at the end of next month. Just don’t lose nothin’ and I figure she won’t mind.”

You pick up one of the shirts. It’s soft fleece, navy blue, thick and warm to the touch. You purse your lips, doubtful it’ll fit you if it’s something a teenage girl’s wearing.

“I think it’ll fit just fine,” Joel tells you carefully, “‘least until we get some food in ya’.”

Warily, you slide the navy fleece over your head, keeping the towel upright with one hand and rolling the shirt down over the front of it. With dismay, you find the shirt fits nicely. It’s barely even snug.

And it’s so unfair that you almost cry in his living room. Because a girl ten years your junior shouldn’t be wearing the same size clothes as you. You bite the inside of your cheek to keep the emotions from swelling to the surface, blinking rapidly. 

Joel clears his throat. “Hey, why don’t you throw them clothes on, and meet me in the kitchen? Grub’s almost up.”

You’re quick to nod, scooping up a pair of leggings and socks before you shuffle across the floor into the downstairs bathroom beside the kitchen. You allow yourself a moment to let the tears race down your cheeks as you dress in the teenage girl’s clothes, sniffling while wiping at your red eyes. You hadn’t realized, alone on the road all those months, how much you’ve shrunk in on yourself. You’ve never been as big as you should be, stunted by lack of food. But at least in the QZ you had ration blocks. It’s been a lean few months of scavenging. 

You feel like something inhuman, something wrong, something unworthy. You don’t belong in this well-decorated, well-loved home. In this safe little town. 

Finally, you wipe the last of the liquid from your eyes and exit the bathroom, heading into the kitchen. Your footsteps are careful, cautious, each one placed with delicate intention.

Joel’s just finishing up as he sets a plate down on his circular kitchen table. There are two settings, each with glistening silver utensils and a mason jar full of liquid beside them. 

Joel spots you entering, and smiles hesitantly. He pulls out one of the chairs, which you assume is your cue to sit. You place your bottom in the chair, surprised when he pushes it in for you. He sits in the other chair and begins to eat unceremoniously.

Taking in the sights on your plate, you find a well cooked slab of meat, seared delightfully. The broccoli is steamed to a crisp, but not burnt, and there’s a slice of fluffy bread sliced beside it. You even see Joel dip a knife into a slab of light yellow paste and spread it over his slice.

“Is that...” your voice trails off in disbelief.

“That’s right,” he replies, “want some?”

You nod eagerly and hold out your bread. He smooths some butter over the top. He takes a sip from the mason jar beside his plate, and you can’t tell exactly what’s in it but, from the smell you think it’s alcohol.

You glance down at your own jar curiously, picking it up with a delicate hand. It’s a faded orange-ish brown color, but smells sweet when you bring it to your nose to inhale. No traces of booze, you don’t think. You’ve never been much of a drinker.

Tentatively, you bring the liquid to your mouth for a sip, eyelashes fluttering with surprise. It’s sweet to the taste, tangy and thin as it drenches over your tongue. The flavor is familiar, though you’re certain you’ve never had this drink. It’s tart and sweet all at once. 

“You ever had apple juice before?” Joel asks, watching you make love to the mason jar as you eagerly sip more.

Frowning, you shake your head. “Maybe when I was a kid, before the outbreak. I don’t remember it though.”

“You like it?”

Nodding, you tip the glass back and finish it off, exhaling with pleasure. Then, you get to work on the meal.

It’s been so long since you used silverware you’ve almost forgotten how to properly position the fork and knife to cut into the meat. It’s tender though, and easy to slice into. You spear a piece with your fork and take it between your lips, eyes going wide at the burst of flavor breaking in under your teeth. 

It’s like nothing you’ve ever had before. Juicy, tender, flavorful. It fills your mouth, satiates the hunger radiating through your teeth, goes down your throat in a smooth gulp. It settles in your empty stomach, a small portion of relief restored within you. 

It’s as if a switch has flipped. Once you get a bite of the meat, you think you need to have more or you might die. It’ll be impossible to stop. 

You start cutting into the meat like your life depends on it, ravenously shoving pieces into your mouth in a manner you’re sure Joel finds unladylike. You supplement it with bites of well-seasoned broccoli and soft, buttery bread.

Joel refills your apple juice and you wash down bites with it, practically moaning at the taste. When your bread disappears another is set on your plate, buttered and soft, ready to go. 

You barely look up to breathe before the plate is clean, the glass is drained for the second time, and Joel is still working on his first helping of it all. 

He smiles at you when you meet his eyes, suddenly feeling something like shame wash over you. You don’t remember much of what your parents taught you about manners, but you’re pretty sure coming into a stranger's house and eating their food like a feral dog doesn’t fall under the umbrella of polite dining.

“Um...m’sorry,” is all you can think to say.

Joel arches an eyebrow, taking a hefty bite of his own and chewing thoroughly before he asks, “sorry for what?”

“It was really good,” you reply hesitantly. 

At that, his smile grows, and he looks down at the plate to smooth his expression over. He nods once. “Good. M’glad. Glad you liked it. How’re you feelin’?”

“Like I want more,” you admit, though your voice is sheepish, “is that bad?”

He clears his throat, readjusting in his seat, and your face falls. Oh dear god. You’re humiliated. Clearly he’s uncomfortable with your gluttony and your request, you’ve made this weirder than it already was. Further proof of your fears; you aren’t made for a place like this. You’re wrong, broken, not-

“I’m real glad to hear that, darlin’,” Joel says, “maybe give it a few minutes. I bet you ain’t eaten that much in a while.”

Your face feels warm at the casual use of darlin’, but you ignore that and ask, “wait for what?”

“For it all to settle, make sure you still feel okay.” He shrugs, taking another bite of the meat on his plate, which you’re now noticing is much larger than the one you’d had. “Goin’ from as hungry as you look, to eatin’ like we do here...s’gonna take some time.”

It’s an interesting concept, the idea that there could be too much to eat, when all you’ve ever known is the opposite. You struggle to see how that could be a problem, but it’s his house, and his food, and you don’t want to make a scene.

“Okay,” you agree quietly.

Joel chews on his bottom lip thoughtfully, eyeing you as you wrap your arms around yourself, feeling as though your mere presence alone takes up too much valuable oxygen.

“Here.” He hands you another slice of buttered bread, holding it out in his large hand like a peace offering. “Can’t let you sit at my table hungry, darlin’. Just, take it easy, or you ain’t gonna feel too hot.”

Tamping down the glee that springs into your chest at the opportunity for more food, you accept the bread from his outstretched hand with a quiet thanks. You eat quickly, greedily, closing your eyes and letting out a small moan of  delight at the taste. 

Something funny happens as you eat that bread, a change in the way your stomach feels, a change in the way your body feels. A warmth, pooling in your belly, swelling through you up into your chest, softening your throat and relaxing your shoulders.

You’re full. For the first time in you don’t even know how long, the emptiness doesn’t persist. 

“Wow, that’s a sight,” Joel says, and you look over at his face to find a surprising expression of amusement there.

“What?” you demand, voice going sour.

He shakes his head, rueful. “You, smilin’ like that. Didn’t take you for the type.”

A scowl immediately overtakes your features, and your jaw clenches. “I’d have plenty to smile about if-”

His low, dry chuckle cuts off your train of thought. Your eyes narrow, and he shakes his head again, looking a little too amused by all of this for your taste.

“Will you settle down?” Joel teases lightly. “It’s just nice, is all. Glad to see you lookin’ happy about somethin’. We’ve made a lotta progress from you holding a knife to my throat earlier.”

You regard him with cautious eyes. “And you trying to choke me to death.”

“Ah. Yeah.” Sheepishly, he rubs the back of his neck. “M’sorry about that. I didn’t realize you weren’t...”

“A disgusting mushroom monster?” you fill in, lips twitching.

“I wasn’t gonna say that.” He frowns. 

“It’s fine. I know I look like shit. It’s been a rough couple of months.”

“I wasn’t gonna say that neither,” Joel replies dryly. “What I do wanna ask is…well, how’d you end up out there on your own? Ain’t you gotta family? Young woman like you-“

“I’m not young,” you bite back immediately. And it’s true. In this world, at your age, you’re considered lucky to still be here

“Alright,” he concedes, “woman like yourself, alone. How’d that happen?” 

“Everybody’s got dead people,” you reply, running your finger along the thin glass around the empty mason jar. It’s cool against your skin, sticky with juice remnants. It gives you something to focus on besides Joel’s scrutinizing expression. 

You don’t want to do this; pry open this bleeding wound in your empty chest and claw at the flesh until the pain subsumes you. Your family is dead, you’ve never had anything close to a  friend, you’ve never been safe enough to slow down in the way you’d need to fall in love. What is the point of rehashing this? What is the point of saying aloud all the scars he can see written plainly on your body?

“Where is your daughter’s mom?” you ask, hoping desperately to shift the subject off of yourself.

Joel clears his throat, sitting up a bit in his chair. “She’s dead. I actually adopted Ellie.”

“Oh, you aren’t her biological father?”

“No. I uh...I was though. My older daughter. Sarah.”

You look at him, the plains of his face, the aged lines around his deep eyes, the flecks of gray in his beard. His use of the word “was” needs no further elaboration. It’s clear, probably should’ve been since even before he showed you Ellie’s winter clothes, this man is someone’s father. 

You suddenly realize you’ve left your loaded handgun in the bathroom upstairs, abandoned with your discarded clothing. You suddenly realize, that’s alright. 

“I’m sorry,” is all you can muster in reply to such a harrowing admission. 

Joel nods once, a brief acknowledgement of your condolence. “Thanks. Was a long time ago. M’alright, these days. Life’s good.”

“Everybody’s got dead people,” you offer up again, a limp shrug to your shoulders. 

Arching an eyebrow, Joel replies, “that’s true. Your parents, then?”

“Mhm. Yours?”

He chuckles. “Long before the outbreak, honey.”

“How old are you, anyway?”

“Old. Yourself?”

“Not old. Not young, either.”

Nodding, Joel’s eyes dart up to meet yours. It’s quiet then, the sort of quiet that lingers between two people when they aren’t sure what the next move is. When they aren’t sure where to go from here, what the future holds, what they are to each other.

“How are you feelin’?” He breaks the silence, of course, with a concerned glance at your empty plate.

You hesitate. How are you feeling? It’s been so long since someone asked you that question. 

Yesterday, the answer would’ve been something as simple as an eye roll and a gesture to your ruined body. How are you feeling? Fucking bad. Is there any other way to feel in a world like this one?

Good feels like a stretch. Your head hurts from where you banged it on the floor, your stomach is so full now it’s starting to feel uncomfortable, your body aches and groans with each movement, and your mind is a torrent of uncertainty and confusion. 

But...you’ve certainly felt worse, haven't you? 

There’s food in you, and something delightful called apple juice. There’s a fire in the living room. There’s utensils, and plates, and warm clothes, and a shower with-

You suddenly remember something you forgot to tell Joel. 

“I used your sponge,” you say abruptly.

Joel blinks. Once, twice, then his brow furrows. “Pardon me?”

“Y-your sponge,” you splutter like an idiot as you realize this was not an appropriate time to bring up the sponge. “In the shower. I’m sorry I didn’t…it was the only one, so- ” 

“Oh.” Understanding passes over his face, and he looks taken aback for only a split second before he speaks again. “Oh, no. S’alright. I didn’t think about that before I sent you up there. Sorry. You’re good.”

“I rinsed it clean,” you tell him. 

He laughs a little breathlessly, and you think you see the tips of his ears hueing a bit red. Clearing his throat, he swipes his used silverware onto his empty plate and stands. The chair squeals across the floor with his sudden movement. 

“I ain’t worried about it,” he says, and moves to deposit his dishes in the sink.

Urgently, you scramble to your feet, collecting your own plate and following him. It’s your immediate instinct to take over and begin scrubbing the dishes; so long living on your own that every responsibility fell to you. 

You’re stopped by his gentle arm brushing yours, and he shakes his head. “I got the dishwasher workin’ last month. No need.”

“Dishwasher?” you ask, confused.

Joel gestures to a large white door embedded into the cabinets. He reaches down, smooths his large fingers over the material, and pulls. The door draws down, opening to reveal peculiar little rows of racks and baskets. 

“Whoa,” you breathe, kneeling down beside it with fascination, “that’s what these things do?”

“You were young when the outbreak hit,” Joel notes, not a question, but more of an observatory reminder. “I’ll bet there’s a lotta shit we used to have that you don’t remember.”

“We had one of these in the QZ,” you say, still transfixed by the inner workings of this dish washer, “but I didn’t know it opened. I thought it was just a weird design thing.”

At this, he bursts out laughing. It’s a bit more vivacious than the dry chuckle he’s been giving you all day, a genuine, pealing laugh that comes from deep within his belly. It’s nice, rumbling in your ears and soothing to your tense shoulders. The timbre of his pleased noises does something odd to you, something calming.

“It takes running water to use,” he explains once his laughter has died down, “that’s why yours never worked. If your QZ was like ours, that is.”

“You were in a QZ?” you look up at him, struck with how massive he seems standing above your kneeling frame.

“Boston.” 

“Atlanta.”

“Heard that one ain’t a cakewalk.”

You shake your head. “No, we didn’t have cake.”

His lips twitch. “You don’t know what-”

“I’m fucking with you.” Rolling your eyes, you get to your feet and cross your arms. “I’ve heard of expressions before.”

“Just not dishwashers.”

Annoyed, your hand flies to your waistband, an instinct. You remember your gun is upstairs. 

Joel follows the movement of your arm with a disbelieving noise of contempt. “You’re a violent little thing, ain’t you?”

“I didn’t-“

“Where’s the gun you were just reaching for?” 

“I left it upstairs,” you admit. 

Joel nods approvingly. “I’ll call that progress. Let me load the dishwasher here and I’ll take you up to your room.”

“My room?” 

Your room, indeed.

After the dishes have been loaded into this bizarre machine, Joel walks you up the stairs, past the bathroom you used, into a spare bedroom. It’s nice and clean the way the rest of the place is, neat lines and vacuumed rugs. There’s a dresser, and a bed with four posts, a colorful quilt, photos of horses on the walls. It smells like pine. 

You haven’t slept in a bed in a very long time.

You tell him as much, stroking the quilt beneath your palm as you approach the bed. It’s sort of itchy, the kind of fabric that has grit to it, but thick enough to keep you warm. 

Joel watches you as you investigate the room, perched in the doorway with his ankles crossed and his arms pressed into the frame. “So you made it all the way from Atlanta, to here, on your own?”

“Mhm.” You vault yourself up experimentally on the bed, feeling the mattress dip beneath your slight weight. It’s aged, squeaky springs and lumpy spots here and there. The quilt scratches your raw skin and you pull back slightly.

But it’s a bed.

“Must’a been hard,” Joel notes.

You nod in agreement. It was hard. Now it’s over. No use rehashing it.

“Well, m’sure you’re exhausted.” He clears his throat and backs off the doorframe, nodding in your direction. “I’ll be just down the hall if you need...if there’s anythin’ at all...just, I’m here, alright?”

“Thanks.” You offer him a small, unsure smile. 

He returns it with ease. “That’s two.”

“Huh?”

Holding up two fingers, he moves from the doorway. “Two smiles. Bet I can get three outta you tomorrow.”

With a scoff, you walk up behind him and place your hand on the door. “Good thing there’s no money for you to lose.”

He grins at this, crooked jaw and curled lip all wicked and teasing. There’s something mischievous about this expression, something so out of character for this stern, fatherly presence that it almost takes your breath away. You can picture him, twenty years younger, a rough-and-tumble young man with a teasing sense of humor and a sharp wit. It’s no surprise at all that someone loved him enough to give him a child, someone loved him enough to make him a father. 

Joel is confusing, but he’s also quite simple. 

He’s a man who cares, fiercely, for those he loves. He cooks, he cleans, he folds his daughter’s clothes up in a neat little bin in the laundry room. He scrubs with lemon soap and stokes a soothing fire in the mantle. He chews mint leaves when his head hurts, he washes dirty undergarments without being asked. 

He also laughs, teases, chokes and leaves you to your own devices if you get on his nerves. Though, his patience seems admirable. He loaded your gun, handed it to you with a live round, even after you’d held a knife to his throat. He’d cooked you dinner, caught you when you fell, walked you to the bedroom so you could get proper rest. 

You guess, if you were gonna end up getting choked out by some strange man, you’re glad it was Joel. Joel...huh.

“Hey,” you stop him before he can make for the staircase.

“What?” he asks.

“What’s your last name?”

Joel regards you curiously. “Miller. Joel Miller. What’s yours?”

You tell him your name, and he nods. It takes a quick beat of silence for you to continue, “it’s nice to meet you, Joel Miller.”

He smiles again, softer this time, more genuine. “Likewise, darlin’. Get some sleep.”

With that, he turns his back on you and descends the staircase.

______________________________________________________________________

The days go like this.

You wake up in a bed, scratchy quilt wrapped around your sore, aching body. You hadn’t realized how badly you hurt until you stopped pushing forward. 

You climb out of the bed, and pad downstairs in the cold morning brisk of Joel’s house. He’s always up before you. He has a fire going in the mornings, heat wafting off the flicker of orange beneath the mantle, and you curl up beside it with the quilt dragging behind you. He’s out of coffee beans for now, but he makes the both of you a mug of hot tea with roots infused into it, and it’s close enough.

You hold the steaming mug to your chest, itchy quilt pulled up around your body like a coat of armor, and watch the fire. Joel asks why you sit on the floor when there’s a perfectly good couch right behind you.

You tell him you want to be warm. You’ve been cold for so long. He seems to understand. 

You help him make breakfast, mystified by the seemingly endless supply of fresh produce he has available. He likes breakfast, says it’s his favorite of the day. 

You watch as he cracks fresh eggs into a buttered pan; hear the sizzle of heat against runny yolk and whites, watch as the pools of liquid become firm and strong under the duress. Something soft and pliant, made durable through the forges of fire. 

It’s so silly, but you relate to those tough little eggs. 

You eat at his kitchen table some days, sometimes on the porch in the cold morning, waving to Jackson residents as they begin their work shifts. It seems like fair trades, a barter system built on community where everyone is taken care of in some way or another. It’s bizarre, unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. Joel’s brother lives here too, with his wife Maria who runs the council. It’s all very quaint, picturesque. 

Joel says it works. He explains patrols, explains the work shift rotation, explains the mess hall and the greenhouses and the bountiful supply of food from gardening and hunting. He likes it here, you can tell, and why wouldn’t he? 

He tells you about his life before, little bits at a time delivered while passing you a plate or tucking the corner of your sheet back down on your mattress. The damn thing insists on whipping up everytime he sits on the end of it to talk with you. He tells you about Ellie, how they came together, how she healed his broken parts.

You’re envious. Not of their relationship, but of the fact that his missing pieces somehow came back when you know your own are doomed to be lost forever. You don’t tell him about your past.

You eat. You eat like you’ve never eaten before. Eggs and bacon in the morning, fresh fruit and squeezed juices. Sandwiches for lunch; chicken and lettuce and tomato between thick slabs of bread that Joel makes in his oven. Cold, tart lemonade that tingles on your tongue and smooths down your throat. Hearty, tender meat with potatoes and veggies and soft baked bread.

 Joel watches you eat with this look on his face that you can’t quite decipher. It’s an interesting mix between what you think is some sort of pride, tangled up with another confusing emotion that makes him watch you carefully. He eyes the fork as it slides between your lips, watches you sigh in pleasure, adjusts in his seat when you ask for seconds. You aren’t sure if it’s discomfort with you eating all his food or...something more confusing. Though, he says there’s no rush to get into your own place. The council will check in soon and see if you’re ready. But he says there’s no rush.

Either way, you’re full every day now, so full and satiated that you’re starting to forget what hunger feels like.

Well...not completely.

Days turn into a week, and a week to two, and it’s on this two week marker that you walk into the bathroom without knocking.

It’s your fault. The door isn’t locked, but why would it be? Joel’s been living on his own since Ellie moved to her little shed apartment in the backyard. Your presence is a recent one, two weeks not enough time to get out of a routine of comfortability in his own home. 

And you, so many months alone on the road, any semblance of privacy was a lost venture. You’ve peed behind trees, bathed in streams, found yourself naked by the fire on late summer evenings while your clothes air-dried. Knocking on doors has taken some time to get used to.

So when you push it open haphazardly, not expecting to see the fully naked man stepping out of the shower, it’s a slight surprise.

Joel freezes, hand on the towel he’s reaching for, body dripping with warm water. It’s a split second, just a moment before you fumble out a frantic apology and slam the door shut.

But not quick enough that you didn’t see everything. Everything. 

You stand outside the door, hand on the knob, eyes wide, chest heaving. You try to clear your head of these thoughts, but there’s only one thing you can really focus on.

Joel. 

Naked. Droplets slowly dancing down his weathered skin; clinging to the dark hair on his chest, the slope of his full belly, gliding down toward his pelvis. His thick legs, muscled and bulging, arms the same. All of him, wet, breathing hard, and...and not just breathing hard. 

God, you’ve never seen one so big before. 

Everything about Joel is big. He’s a massive presence. His shoulders are broad, hips wide, thighs sturdy. His neck is thick and lined with veins, same as his wrists and hands. His stature towers over you, and his form exceeds yours in every possible sense. 

But...well, you’ve never seen one so big. 

It had been too quick, to really be able to tell if he was truly sporting a post-shower boner. You think, maybe a little. But you also think...maybe it’s just that big. 

The hair was well groomed, you noted that, though you aren’t sure why. It makes you feel...feral. You haven’t had a shave in months, legs thick with coarse down, the slope of your pelvis protected by a soft bush of hair. Razors were hard enough to get in the QZ. On the road? Non starter. You’re a fuzzy decoration of body hair. Joel’s not exactly smooth, but he looked...groomed. 

Why are you self conscious? Why do you care what he might think of the haphazard way you look naked? Why are you comparing your road-torn body to his strong, healthy one? 

Why are you imagining what his might feel like against yours? How the scruffy beard on his jaw might scratch and tickle yours like that stupid quilt. How his hands, thick and massive, would cradle your flesh, the pads of his rough thumbs leaving lines of desire down each tendon. How his voice, low and gruff, a buttery drawl, would whisper in your ear. Tell you you’re beautiful, tell you he likes having you here, tell you this is permanent. 

That’s enough to snap you out of your stupor. You release the door handle like you’ve been burned, stumbling back away from it. Your breath hitches, eyes feeling warm and wet. 

Before you can make a hasty exit, the door opens, and Joel appears under the arch. He’s fully dressed now; dark washed jeans and an olive green t-shirt that clings to his large chest and arms in a way that’s almost unbearable. 

For a beat, there’s this silence between the two of you that feels almost tangible. Your throat sticks with it, clogging up any pathetic attempts at breaking the tension. You look at him, fumbling for something to say, something to do, fuck to even move.

“M’sorry,” he begins, averting his eyes, “uh, I-”

“My fault,” is all you can squeak out.

“I shoulda locked the-”

“My fault!” you repeat, like a real eloquent genius. You force a laugh out of your lips, but it sounds more like a manic cry than anything. 

Joel’s brow creases, his eyes settling on you with clear concern. “No, s’okay. M Sorry, again. Are you...alright?”

Another manic laugh. “Joel, you’re not that special, I’ve seen naked men before.”

His jaw tenses. “You look upset.”

This is too much. This is all too fucking much. He’s got you all twisted up, all confused. Eating his food, using his sponge, sharing tea with him in the mornings and a leaf of mint at night. Letting him worm his way into your mind, make you feel safe and secure. 

This is how pieces go missing; get hacked off. This is how a person becomes whole, and then utterly incomplete.

“I’m… fine,” you manage, “gonna… actually, was just going to tell you. I’m gonna talk to Maria today. Let her know I’m ready to be on my own.”

And it shouldn’t affect you, the way his face falls completely at these words. The way his shoulders deflate, his eyes go soft, his lips draw down and his eyebrows flatten. 

You’ve hurt him, you’re hurting him. You don’t know why or how, but this hurts him. Despite the quick composure he sweeps over his expression into one of neutrality, you know. And you shouldn't care. It’s two weeks of nothing. You’ve been on your own most of your life.

“Alright,” Joel says, voice rough. 

And it shouldn’t hurt you, the way he easily accepts this. The way he doesn’t fight. You don’t own him, he doesn’t own you, you don’t belong to each other. 

Two weeks of meals, late night talks, healing. It’s nothing. To either of you, clearly.

But it does hurt. And that’s exactly why you have to leave.

“Okay,” you reply, swallowing hard.

“Council’s closed today, Sunday,” he explains dryly. 

“Then I’ll do it tomorrow,” you snap back, voice going a little defensive. “I can find somewhere to sleep for tonight.”

At that, he rears back like you’ve hit him. “What?”

“To get out of your hair,” you explain, gesturing vaguely. 

Joel rolls his eyes, crosses those big arms over his chest, and looks down at you disapprovingly. You shrink a little under his stern gaze, hating yourself for doing it. 

“You ain’t in my hair,” he snarls, “I told you there’s no rush. Talk to her tomorrow. Sleep in your bed tonight.”

“It’s not my bed.” You don’t even know why you say it, why you’re arguing. You’re just afraid, angry, at yourself more than anything. 

His eyes darken. “Do whatever you want, then.”

He brushes past you and heads down the stairs, not bothering to look back up.

__________________________________________

You do in fact, sleep in your bed that night.

The quilt is scratchier than ever, an incessant discomfort that has you tossing and turning all night. It’s never stopped you from sleeping before, but for some reason, tonight is unbearable. You roll on your side, roll on your stomach, bury your face in the pillow and try not to scream.

You’d skipped dinner tonight, for the first time in two weeks. You didn’t want to see Joel, even when he knocked on the bedroom door to tell you it was ready. Even when you said you weren’t hungry, and his worried voice came through the wood.

“Look, you gotta eat, alright?”

“Not hungry, Joel. Thank you though. Really.”

“Is this about-”

“No, I swear.”

“Please?” 

It had been hard to say no to that one.

Now, you lie in a suffocating mess of pillows, stomach growling, feeling utterly pathetic and weak. You used to go days with this feeling, gnawing, desperate hunger in your belly, and you persevered. Now, you’re so fucking spoiled you can’t even go to bed without dinner. 

You don’t recognize this person you’re becoming. She’s a stranger, a woman of luxury, of contentment, dare you say happiness. She is not you, but some foreign intruder who’s taken over your body in an attempt to finally rid you of your last intact pieces until you’re nothing. Floating in essence, vanquished into an eternity of emptiness.  

You rely on him, you depend on him. He feeds you, worries about you, watches you from the corner of his eye to make sure you’re alright. And you don’t know what to do with that. It makes you feel small, futile, like a burden. You know how to take care of yourself. It’s all you know. 

So, you toss and turn.

When sleep comes, it brings with it dreams. Haunting memories, things you’ve tried to keep buried deep inside that small little cavern of your brain where bad things go. 

The men come, late at night, in a group of six. You’re young, twelve you think. The outbreak has been going on for four years, and you think you’ve got it all figured out now. You’re going to get to this quarantine zone in Georgia, since your own fell. It’s all gonna be fine. Mom and Dad and your big brother Andrew, they’re here and it’s okay. 

You’re trying to sleep, burrowed and shivering cold in your thin sleeping bag. Andrew is sitting beside you, one hand on your upper back, shushing your whimpers quietly. His sixteenth birthday was last week. Mom and Dad couldn’t do much on the road, not like you all used to when there was cake and candles and Spiderman gift wrap. Still, he seems older somehow, the last four years have aged him far more quickly than regular life did before the outbreak. 

You’re close to the border, your parents say nearly out of South Carolina. It’s southern here, supposed to be warm, but the nights are brutal and unforgiving in the winter. You’re so used to the cold now you’d think you wouldn’t mind, but it aches your bones, freezes your limbs into a stunted position curled around yourself. You hate the cold, always have. 

“You’re okay,” Andrew murmurs quietly, trying not to wake Mom and Dad. It’s his turn to watch. They’ve done rotating shifts for days now, until he put his foot down and demanded they both sleep substantially. 

“M’cold,” you whine. You know you’re being a crybaby, and maybe once upon a time he would've teased you for it, but not now. You’re bundled up in your layers and sleeping bag while he sits upright against a tree, his thin windbreaker the only barrier between him and the cold. His gun is laid on his thigh, safety on, facing the opposite direction. Guns are a permanent part of your family’s accessorizing these days.

“I know,” he whispers in reply, “it’ll be warm in Atlanta. Just try to sleep.”

“I’m afraid,” you say, even though you’re embarrassed to admit it.

“Me too,” Andrew says, “but we’re all gonna be fine. We’ve made it this far, hm?”

You nod half-heartedly. “Yeah.”

“As long as we’re together, we’ll be okay. Alright?”

“Okay, yeah.”

“Get some sleep.”

“Okay.” 

That’s the last thing you ever said to him. 

They appeared from the trees, too quiet, too well hidden for Andrew to spot them in time. By the time one of the men got close enough to reach out and yank your sleeping bag up with you in it, he was out of time.

Andrew shot, blindly. He nailed the man who’d scooped you up, and you both fell to the ground. He cried your name, rushing toward you, and then another shot rang out. Andrew hit the dirt with a spurt of red liquid that splattered across your face.

 You remember screaming. You remember your parents waking up, frantic. You remember fumbling around on the ground and grabbing Andrew’s gun, only to feel a vice grip on your arm. One of the men grabbed you, while your parents shot and fought off the others. Your mother screamed, and a body hit the ground. You struggled against the man’s hold as his greedy, chapped hands combed your adolescent body to see what of value you had.

“Nothin’ on this one!” he’d shouted, tossing you to the ground like you weighed nothing. Your head hit the hard dirt, and you found yourself even with Andrew’s face. Well, what was left of it. 

“The lady had some ammo, there’s some stuff in these packs,” another man replied. 

“What do we do with this one?” asked the man who grabbed you.

“Eh, she’ll die out here on her own anyway. Might as well put her out of her misery.”

That was the moment you knew you were going to die. 

“Hold it,” another man said, “she’s a fucking kid, just leave her. We got what we needed.”

“Yeah she ain’t worth the bullet,” chimed in another man.

“I’ll choke her out,” one suggested.

“Just leave her,” a more commanding voice ordered, “grab this shit and let’s get going.”

You remember lying there in the darkness, watching the bits of chunky red substance leak from Andrew’s eye socket, waiting for someone to tell you what to do. Waiting for your parents to sit up and give you an order. 

The night grew colder. You weren't strong enough to bury them, even move them on your own. For a long time, you just lay there, staring at Andrew. The image burned into your brain forever. 

By the time the sun rose, your bones were so cold, lips blue, eyelashes stiff, you felt like you’d died right with them. Four corpses lying unceremoniously on a campsite. Rigor mortis set in early for you, a paralyzing terror of the next steps rendering you utterly immovable.

After a while, you got hungry. 

Isn’t it funny, how that’s what motivated you to push your small body away from your brother’s hollowed face? Your own selfish need, your own emptiness, always threatening to swallow you whole.

The walk to Georgia left you breathless a lot. You stumbled, more than walked. Drank from streams the way your parents taught you, foraged for food as best as you could with no weapon besides the little knife holstered in your sock. You hid from infected and more raiders, using your small body to your advantage as much as possible. 

When you finally made it to the giant cement wall of the QZ, it felt like you’d lost your breath forever. Your lungs rattled, air came in short, quick bursts, your throat ached from dehydration. Your legs didn’t work, not how they were supposed to.

You remember the FEDRA guards holding guns at you, a scanner to your neck, shoving you through the gates roughly. You remember telling them your family was gone. You remember lasting a week in the orphanage before you ran away, doing odd jobs for older QZ residents in exchange for places to stay. 

Mostly, you remember Andrew’s face. You remember the biting cold contrasted with the warm splatter of blood on your face, you remember his insides leaking out, you remember wishing you could scream, but not having enough power in your lungs.

As long as we’re together, we’ll be okay.

You remember knowing that you would never be okay again.

The remembering hurts, restricts your lungs into a tiny little ball in your chest. You struggle to inhale, struggle to fill your sternum with necessary oxygen. It burns, the hunger for air with no satisfaction. The emptiness consumes you. 

You gasp, you see Andrew’s face, it hurts, everything hurts. 

Alone on a campsite, alone in the woods, alone in the QZ, alone on a cross-country trek, alone in a cold gas station.

A warm fire, mint on your tongue, tart lemonade down your throat, food in your belly. A dry chuckle in your ears, a steadying hand on your back, a comforting presence beside you. 

Alone. Afraid. Broken. A burden. Couldn’t save your family, could barely save yourself-

A burden.

Alone. 

Broken. 

“Hey.”

A voice, low and urgent. Familiar, gentle but concerned. 

You gasp.

Alone. 

Burden.

Broken. 

“Hey,” more insistent this time, “hey, wake up honey.”

You gasp, your body freed from its rigor mortis as you bolt upright, air circulating through your lungs like a broken fan blade. Your hands fly out, a desperate attempt to shield your face from whoever is currently saying your name. 

“...breathe, breathe,” he’s saying to you, a little frantic, “s’okay, you’re okay, breathe.”

“Please,” you wheeze, but you don’t know what you’re begging for. There are tears in your voice, a fragile broken blossom of desperation. 

“I know, I know baby, s’okay,” he’s touching you now, delicate fingers tracing up and down the protruding knobs of your spine. “Listen to my voice, darlin’. Take a deep breath for me, s’gonna be okay, I promise.”

You try to follow his example, try to steady your breathing to an even pace. He’s doing it for you, showing you how, patiently inhaling in a slow motion and letting it go in one soft exhale. 

“I-I can’t,” you gasp, feeling hopeless, helpless, pathetic and like a burden in every sense of the word. 

“Shh, yes you can honey. In, with me now, in.” 

He inhales, slow, lowering himself to look up at your trembling frame perched on the bed. The sheet’s come up, the fading cream color of the mattress almost too bright in the dark room. Pale moonlight illuminates Joel’s face, scruffy beard, wrinkles around his gentle eyes, broad nose. His lips part, and he breathes in, keeping gaze with you. 

You follow suit, inhaling in a choppy, half-hearted attempt at the smooth breath he’d accomplished.

“That’s good darlin’,” he nods at you, even though you know it wasn’t good. “You’re doin’ so good. Breathe out.”

You exhale in a stunted whoosh.

“Good girl,” he murmurs, “keep goin’.”

With his hand on your back, rubbing slowly, delicately, you fight to steady your breaths. Your eyes are wet, your lips trembling, his voice soothing in your ears. He’s saying all these things, all these nice, lovely, wonderful things that people don’t say to you. 

“Attagirl, good job.”

“S’okay honey, you’re doin’ good, just breathe.”

“You’re okay, you’re safe, promise, I ain’t gonna let nothin’ hurt ya.”

Mercifully, you come back into your body, chest expanding the way it’s supposed to. Your fingers unclench from the tangled up sheets, aching from how tightly you’d been gripping. 

Through a curtain of hair, you draw your eyes to him. He’s still there, rubbing your back, murmuring sweet nothings, keeping his own breathing steady. 

Still there. He’s still there. You aren’t alone.

“Joel,” you gasp, and he moves toward you in an instant.

Large, warm arms pull you in. His chest, thick through his t-shirt, the steady thrum of his heartbeat a rhythm in your ear. His chin at the crown of your head, his breath in your ears. You curl up like that useless little girl in a sleeping bag, and cling to his shirt. 

“M’here,” he whispers, “you’re okay, honey. Was just a dream.”

He’s here. He’s warm. He’s here and you’re safe and not alone. Four walls around you, a quilt underneath your cold legs, a kitchen full of food just down the stairs.

Panic leaks into your veins, memories of the road, cold and lonely and frightening. 

As long as we’re together, we’ll be okay.

You want to tell him you’re afraid. You want to admit it; be forthcoming about just how damaged you are. You want to tell him just how heavily you’ve come to rely on his steadying presence, his warm food, his laugh, the way his eyes crinkle up and his teeth show when you make him happy.

You’re so, so scared. So alone, so petrified, not at all as tough as you’d like him to think. 

But the last time you admitted you were afraid, you lost everything in the blink of an eye. Your own weakness, always your undoing.

“You’re okay,” Joel says into your hair, not realizing he’s speaking empty words into a hollow recipient, “I gotcha. You’re safe. I’m here.”

You can’t tell him how badly you want him to stay. That will only make him leave. 

“Joel,” you repeat, breathless, unsure of what else to say.

“M’here honey.” He reaches down with one hand, cups your face in the rough of his palm, strokes his thumb over the delicate line of your cheekbone. And you feel safe. 

Desperately, you lift your own trembling hands, taking his cheeks in them. He seems surprised, but doesn’t pull back, allowing you to explore with your own frail fingers. You trace the bridge of his large nose, the slope of his full lips, the broad jaw and stern forehead. His eyelashes flutter, and you move yourself closer, cradled in his arms, faces only inches apart.

“M’here,” is all he says. And you must be tired of hearing it, surely you must, but you can’t find that anywhere within yourself. All you feel is safe. 

You don’t know exactly how it happens. Your face moves, his does too, hurried breaths and warmed air between you. His lips press into yours, soft and lush and tender. You don’t know who leaned in first, but you feel his caution, his carefulness as you deepen the kiss from something superficial to something that has meaning.

He allows you to part his mouth with your tongue, falling into one another as your noses bump. His grip tightens around you, and you’re awash in the smell of lemon soap and mint, the itch of the quilt beneath you, the squeak of a mattress underneath your combined weight. 

After a few seconds, your lips part. Your noses touch, the frame of your foreheads making a heart against the shadows of moonlight through your window. His hands cup your face, rough and calloused, yet unbelievably gentle all at once. It’s as though his grasp is a shield, impenetrable and solid. You’ve never felt so safe, so cared for, so protected. 

And so, so scared. 

Now that you’re here, safe and cocooned in this warm house, this gentle society, the arms of this incredible man… 

How can you ever let yourself love something that would hurt so badly if it were lost? You’ve done it before. You can’t do it again.

“D’you wanna talk about it?” Joel rasps, thumb still soothing small lines over your cheek.

You shake your head quickly, but the words spill out as if in spite of your body’s intentions. “Just… mm. My parents. My brother. Just-that’s all.”

“Oh,” he murmurs, “what…can I ask what-”

“Raiders. I was twelve.”

At this, he looks down at your face, brows furrowed. “You saw it?”

“Yeah, I got away. They let me go, I mean. After some debate.” You clear your throat, breathing settled and eyes drying with each word. You’re feeling grounded enough to be utterly humiliated. “Um, I’m really sor-”

“I know you ain’t about to apologize for havin’ a nightmare,” he interjects dryly.

“More for what happened afterward,” you mutter.

Joel’s fingertips tuck a lock of hair back behind your ear, even though it falls right back out again. “Now why on earth are you apologizin’ for that?”

Because I can’t stay.  

Limply, you shrug.

He laughs, that low, dry sound. It smooths from his chest like a bass drum, reverberating in your ears. And you smile in spite of yourself, a small, gentle pull of your lips. You love making him laugh. 

“Sorry I barged in,” Joel says, even though he’s still holding you in his lap like a stray dog.

“S’okay. Thanks for…thank you.”

“Don’t gotta thank me.”

“Be kinda rude if I didn’t.”

His lips twitch. “Can I ask you somethin’?”

“Okay.”

“Did you do that just now…kiss me…’cause you wanted to, or ‘cause you were upset?”

Swallowing thickly, you reply, “can it be both?”

“If it’s both, it’s both.” 

“That’s fucking vague,” you grouse.

“Pot, meet kettle.” He smirks down at you.

“I’m sorry I kissed you,” you say.

“Don’t be,” he responds, “I’m not.”

You have nothing to say to that.

“You oughta get some rest.” Joel squeezes you once, then moves like he’s going to get up and leave.

Your fingers dart out to clench his shirt, gripping the soft cotton in vice like digits. Wild-eyed, you look up at him, terrified of being alone, terrified of seeing Andrew’s face again all night.

“Hey, easy.” Joel pries your fingers off his shirt. “You alright?”

“I-I-“ you stumble over the words, throat choking up. It’s all so confusing. You need to be away, pull back, stop this before it goes too far. At the same time, you’ve never needed to be close quite this badly. 

“I can,” he answers a question you didn’t ask, “if you want.”

Limply, you nod. 

“Go on then, scoot.” Joel gestures for you to make room on the bed, and you do. He adjusts the pillows and lies flat, opening his arm for you. You curl up at his side, cheek on his chest, listening to the steady heartbeat underneath the cotton shirt. He smells like lemon soap, and a faint musk of sweat from sleeping. It’s enticing, the mixture, and you don’t know why.

You press your face into his shirt, breathing in the security that this strange man somehow brings. You don’t know when the shift happened from him being a man you wanted to stab, to this, but it’s happened now. It’s too late to deny this: Joel means something to you.

“I’m sorry about what I said earlier,” you tell him quietly.

He hesitates. “You…didn’t say nothin’ bad. That was always the plan, for you to go out on your own darlin’.”

He’s right of course, that was the plan. For the past two weeks, all you’ve been doing is letting him take care of you. The end goal, ultimately, to help you become a functioning Jackson resident. 

“But can I ask?” He continues, voice low and soft in the dark bedroom. 

“Yeah?”

“Do you…do you want to leave? S’okay whatever you wanna do baby, just… that is what you want, right? To be on your own?” 

As long as we’re together, we’ll be okay.

No, no, no I don’t want to be alone. Ever again. I want to stay with you forever. 

“Yes,” you lie. It’s a lie. You’re so afraid. Why can’t you just tell him the truth? Why can’t you just let someone in? If it’s gonna be anyone…well, it’d be someone like Joel. 

No. Not someone like Joel. Just Joel.

“So all that time on the road,” he adjusts your body slightly, tugging you up higher on his chest so that his chin rests on your head, “didn’t make you lonesome?”

An ache in your chest, sharp and spearing overwhelms you. “It-it did.”

“N’you like bein’ lonesome?”

The lie is on the tip of your lips before he says, “be honest, honey.”

“No,” you say, shoulders deflating.

“It’s hard,” he whispers, “lettin’ people in when you lost so much before. Believe me darlin’ I get that.”

“Then you know why I have to leave,” you tell him, desperate that he’ll understand, but also hoping that he’ll argue against it.

“I know why you think you gotta leave,” he corrects.

“This isn’t good for you anyway,” you’re shaking your head as you speak, fingers splayed out on his chest, “I’m a burden to you.”

At that, he manages a small, dry chuckle. You look at him, confused by what’s made him laugh. 

“Honey, havin’ you here…well, I think I needed it just as much as you did. You got no idea how much I like watchin’ you eat what I cook, listenin’ to you hum in the shower ‘cause you’re too shy to sing, watchin’ you curl up by the fireplace with that damn quilt around your head like a sherpa.” His fingers come down to cup your jaw, tracing the line of bone that leads to the curve of your chin, up to the bow in your lips. “How nice it is havin’ a pretty girl around to talk to, someone smart, someone funny, someone who’s like me.”

“Like you?” you inquire. 

“Mhm.” He presses the pad of his thumb against your lips, parting them slightly as he uses his finger to study the contours of your mouth. “Someone hurt, someone who thought they had no chance in this world. Someone who can get better, if she lets herself.”

Your throat feels tight. “I don’t know if I can.”

“You’re already doin’ it, baby.” He tilts your chin up with the meat of his palm, looking down at you through the silver streaks of moonlight. “Every day you get up, eat breakfast, and keep goin’. That’s all it is. Takin’ it one day at a time. Takin’ care of yourself. Letting yourself get better, slow n’ steady.”

You blink up at him, trying to process his words. You guess he has a point; two weeks ago you barely felt human, didn’t feel like you could ever belong in a place like Jackson, or somewhere like Joel’s home. But lately, through these routines of care, you’ve begun to feel…alive again. Still agonized by loss, still hopeless and confused and frightened, but something more than that too. 

“You don’t gotta stay,” he assures you, “not if you don’t want to. But don’t go just ‘cause you’re scared. Ain’t no reason to punish yourself. Not when I like havin’ you around so much.”

“What if you get tired of having me around?” you ask weakly. It’s no far stretch; every other short term partner you’ve ever had got sick of you after enough time. Every adult you roomed with in the QZ kicked you out sooner or later. Nothing is permanent, especially not people.

“You think I could at least get a chance to prove myself ‘fore you go ahead and write me off?” He smiles down at you, hand still cupping your cheek. “I actually ain’t all that bad a guy.”

“No, no,” you’re quick to reassure, “Joel, you’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met. You are- you are a good guy. It isn’t that, it’s-”

“It’s not you, it’s me, honey, that one’s a little played out.” There’s gentle amusement in his voice.

With a groan, you start to pull away. “You’re impossible.”

“Hey, m sorry.” he pulls you back in, gentle but demanding, and you concede, all too eager to lay against his warm chest. “All I'm sayin’ is, no one’s asking you for your hand in marriage or nothing. Just…stick around for a while. Let me make sure you’re real healthy, ready to go. Get some meat on these bones. Get you feelin’ good. Might take some time. Two weeks ain’t much.”

“I’ve got meat,” you defend.

He snorts. “Me too.”

“Joel-”

“S’gonna take time, that’s all I’m sayin’. Just, stay, alright? Let yourself…have this.” Joel presses a firm kiss to the top of your head.

Finally, you exhale and find yourself nodding. Although it’s against your instincts, and better judgment, you know he has a point. How can you ever get better if you don't give yourself the opportunity?

“I don’t really know how to do this,” you admit, “I’ve never really…been a person before. Y’know what I mean?”

He makes a quiet noise of consideration. “Gimme an example.”

“Like, the apple juice,” you explain in a rambly sort of voice, “or the dishwasher. I don’t know how to do things like you do. I mean, fuck, I walked in on you in the shower today.”

At that, he clears his throat. You must be imagining it, but you’re sure you can hear some sort of…something in the noise. 

“That kinda stuff takes time,” he replies quietly, “s’okay.”

You arch an eyebrow. “What else am I missing then?”

“You’d have to tell me that, honey.”

Abruptly, you remember his body, naked and wet from the shower. Something about him is so desirable; whether it’s simply the masculinity of his form; hairy and strong, the impressive endowment between his legs or something else, you aren’t sure. Could it be that he’s simply an attractive man, who’s kind and thoughtful and funny? Of course. 

Could it be that everything about Joel represents what you’ve always wanted? The security of this home he’s created, the warmth of his fireplace and the way he’d thought to set out mint leaves for you to chew on? The heft of his body; his large shoulders, his thick thighs, his soft stomach, well fed and dense with nutrition. He is whole, broken pieces glued back together painstakingly to build back up this incredible man. This beacon of recovery, healing, strength and happiness.

What are you missing? Everything that Joel has, it would seem. The chance to finally become the way he is… to be okay again.

And…well, it’s also been a while since you had a good fuck. That wouldn't hurt either.

The thought is so ridiculous, so sudden and inappropriate, that it makes you laugh. A real laugh; a genuine, deep-chested sound of amusement that has Joel pulling back with surprise. 

“Somethin’ funny?” he inquires, arching an eyebrow at you like you’ve lost your mind. 

“No, m’sorry.” You press your fingers against your lips in a pathetic attempt to stifle the laughter. “So stupid.”

“What?” he demands.

“No it’s- god Joel it’s so ridiculous I can’t-”

“Oh, just tell me damnit.”

“I was just thinking, you know, what might help make me feel normal again. Haven’t had it in a while…” you look up at him expectantly.

It takes a moment for the message to land in his brain, and his eyes widen slightly. “Oh. I-I see.”

“Yeah…” you clear your throat quietly.

“Well, shit honey. All y’had to do was ask.”

Your eyes widen. “Pardon me?”

He takes your face in his hand again, tilting your chin and gently pulling your body until you’re face to face, noses brushing. His lips twitch, eyelashes sweeping over his cheekbones as he studies your face.

“Like I said,” he murmurs, “ain’t nobody proposing marriage or nothin’. But there’s no reason you can’t…enjoy yourself. If you want to, that is.”

“You…we…are you sure?”

“Ain’t nothin’ you haven’t already seen,” he quips.

You groan. “Joel.”

A low chuckle in his chest. “Sorry baby.”

“If you’re just gonna tease me the whole time, then you can go fuck yours-”

Your retort is cut off by his lips pressing into yours, and you startle a bit, though you don’t pull back. Your body melts, tension leaking out of your shoulders at the feel of his gentle mouth on yours. 

And you’re consumed. There’s nothing else in that moment except for Joel.

His mouth on yours, his tongue pressing forward until it parts your lips. His body, thick and warm against your chest. The tangle of his graying hair, the way his breath grows more heavy when you intertwine your fingers with it and tug. His hands, one cupping your cheek, keeping you close, the other delicately beginning to roam your body. 

And maybe it’s wrong; hooking up with him on the heels of a horrific nightmare about losing your family, or doing it after you told him you were going to leave, or doing it at all considering you barely know each other outside of these serene, isolated two weeks of eating and sitting by the fire and laughing.

But you want him, and he’s good and you want to be a person again. You want to eat meals and drink tea and sleep with a quilt and fuck often. You want to ride a hard dick, suck on a thick, veiny cock, be caged in an embrace of big bulging arms, hear the guttural moan of a man in your ear as he cums.

It’s a hunger, like any other. The way your stomach growled and gnawed for the relief of a hot meal, your body yearned to be filled too. That warm, wet space between your legs, at times so empty and vacant you thought you might just die from the need. Fulfillment, desperate for it in all its forms. Yearning, hunger, pleas to live a life where such simple pleasures are not only permitted, but taken with ease.

It won’t make you whole, it won’t heal your scars or fix your wounds. It won’t change what’s happened or secure your future. 

But for a while, no matter how fleeting, it’s going to fill you up.

Isn’t that enough for someone who’s spent so long being hungry?

“C’mere,” he murmurs, so gentle, so soft, that it’s impossible not to do as he asks. You let him readjust you so you’re sitting on his lap, slender thighs spread around his thick ones, arms hanging off his neck, foreheads pressed together as he hungrily meets your lips again. He’s warm, heat radiating off his large body, and you instinctively lean in.

“Gonna make you feel good,” Joel’s words are muffled by the skin of your jaw as he leaves lingering kisses there, slowly traveling down to your neck. His tongue flicks delicately at the column of your throat, eliciting a small moan from your lips.

It’s been so long since you’ve been touched…

“God, you’re so pretty baby.” His fingers slide into the neckline of your nightshirt, which is really just one of his. It’s so large on you that you wear it as more of a dress, the only thing guarding your intimate areas from the outside world is your solitary pair of underwear, that’s been washed to death as you wait for more fabric to come into Jackson’s seamstress to make more. You’ve been going commando a lot.

It’s your immediate instinct to argue; you haven’t been pretty for a while, you’re not sure if ever. Survival is all you know; not caring for yourself or putting effort in to appear beautiful. 

But what’s the point, anyway? He’s here, he’s seen you for what you are, and he wants to make you feel good. What does it matter if you’re pretty?

Though… you do like the way it sounds coming off his lips. 

“Can I…” his lips explore the small patch of skin on your neck that’s exposed above the shirt, “can I take this off, honey?”

He’s tugging lightly on the shirt, asking your permission, even though in every way you’ve really already given it. You hesitate only briefly, concerned about the state of your sickly body. Then, you nod.

Calloused hands moving with a practiced tenderness, he bunches the shirt up at the hem and carefully slides it over your head, exposing your breasts and abdomen. You hear his sharp intake of breath, feel the warmth of it washing over your skin, and for a moment you’re paralyzed with fear.

He doesn’t like what he sees. How could he? You’ve become something inhuman. Scars, bones poking through flesh, discolored bruises. You’re something so ugly and unsightly that-

“Jesus, baby, you’re beautiful.” The pad of his hand smooths out to cup your breast, his thumb brushing elegantly over the bud of your nipple, which is rapidly coming to life from the sensation. “Lookin’ so healthy these days, so so pretty. You feel better?”

Robotically, you nod. “Y-yeah.”

“Love gettin’ to feed you, baby. Watchin’ you eat my food, gettin’ healthy n’soft.” He leans in, cradling your back to keep you upright as his warm lips explore the expanse of your chest, kissing down your sternum until he replaces his thumb on your nipple with his mouth. 

And he’s right, you think as you look down critically at your form. You’ve put on weight, surely not enough, not yet. But… you’re softer now, edges rounded out to a more gentle plush, knobby knees more full, bony hips more tender, slender thumb joints smoothed out. 

And you do feel better. Not dizzy or aching all the time, not sore or struggling to sleep from the pain, not burning from dehydration or growling from hunger.

You’re almost there, almost as full as a person can be. So, so close.

“I like it too,” you breathe, the last word pitching up with a surprised noise as his teeth graze across your nipple. A pleasant, but unexpected motion.

“That okay honey?”

“Mmm…yes…”

“Gonna make you so soft n’happy,” he murmurs, almost more to himself than you, you think, “gonna take care a’you.”

“Okay,” you whimper, pliant in ways you’ve never been with a partner before. 

You aren’t sure why, because he’s just sitting there, kissing you and holding you and telling you all of these kind things, but you feel the pooling of tension in your lower belly and the beginnings of a wet patch on your panties. It’s bizarre; other than teasing your nipple he hasn’t done much in the way of sexual advances, yet from his touch and his words alone, you need him.

And you didn’t imagine it, that his cock was big. You can feel it beneath your spread thighs, through his boxers and sweatpants, the thick girth and diamond hard weight of it pressing into the fabric. 

The heat between your legs feels almost unbearable now, the growing need and tension from his ministrations of your nipple spurring you on. Your fingers tangle in the wavy hair atop his head, and you feel his lips curve into a smile around your breast.

“Mind if I take this off?” he asks, removing his lips from your skin to tug at his own shirt. You nod quickly, eagerly, watching him slide it over his head.

In the soft glow of moonlight, the contours of his body are illuminated like the artful scenes of a movie. The tendons and muscle in his large arms, bulging and pulsing each way he moves, the clench of his jaw beneath his well-groomed beard, the mapping of dark hair over his thick chest. His stomach is full, wide and round and healthy, a sturdy man in every sense of the word. A big, meaty body to match that huge cock in his pants. It’s only fitting, you think as you admire the large score of his body. He’s scarred too, like you are, the lines and wrappings of a survivor beaten into his flesh.

“Ain’t as trim as I used to be,” he remarks offhandedly, though you think you sense a beat of hesitation in his words.

Your delicate fingers trail between his pecs, smoothing the hair down there until you reach the place beneath his belly button where the hair connects to his boxers. You tug experimentally at the hemline of his pants, eyeing the desperate thing there that begs to be freed. You watch his breathing pace up, his stomach and chest moving in synchrony with each hurried breath. 

So big, so full and warm and secure. Solid and strong, an impenetrable wall around you. 

“You’re perfect,” you tell him, and you don’t just mean his body. 

He ducks his head then, surely embarrassed by the praise, and buries his face in your neck once more. His lips and teeth graze the skin there, sucking and biting and kissing, leaving little wet spots as he moves along.

His large hands grip your hips then, lifting you with such ease it’s almost startling. He heaves you upward and then gently lays you on your back, head against the mound of pillows pushed up on the headboard. Your legs splay out before you and he positions himself above, careful not to lower his weight on to yours.

His lips return to your neck, dancing slowly down between your breasts, kissing the scarred flesh of your stomach and hips, teeth bumping into the cotton of your panties. His eyes dart up to you when he reaches them, eyebrow quirking. A question. He’s asking for permission.

You nod, too eager you’re sure.

“So pretty…” he breathes, pressing his lips to the wet fabric of your panties, eyes closing as he tastes the flowing liquid through the cotton. “‘Bout lost my cool when I saw these little things hangin’ off your pack, darlin’. Wondered what they’d look like on you, wondered what they’d look like off you…” He kisses the wet patch again, which makes your legs tense up, and slides his finger into the hemline, murmuring thoughtfully.

“Don’t fit so good anymore,” he notes, and you realize he’s right. There’s a pinch of fabric at your thigh that wasn’t there before, the mark of underwear too tight. It leaves little indents on your skin when he pulls at it, angry red marks that line the contours of your body. 

“You’ve been feeding me too much,” you manage.

He chuckles at this, deep and throaty. “I think we can do better, even.”

With that, he carefully glides the panties down your legs, the stickiness of your arousal clinging to the cotton until he finally separates it from your ankles. He holds it up, admiring the damp fabric. He balls it up in his hand, and then presses it to his nose with a deep, hungry inhale.

You blink, surprised. You’ve never had a partner…do that before. 

Joel’s eyes open, underwear still pressed to his nose and mouth. You can see the twitch of his jaw, the smile on his lips even though it’s hidden by your wet underwear, and it does something odd to you. 

He wants you so bad, is so hungry for you that he’s taking in every piece he can, breathing in your smell, your taste, even where it clings to the underwear that used to fit you and no longer does.

It makes you need, the way he wants you. It makes you ache desperately, makes you yearn and hunger for him too. Being wanted, being desired, it’s not something you’re used to.

“Smell so nice, honey,” Joel mutters, “bet you taste even better. So sweet, so wet.” He lowers himself between your legs, grabbing your thighs in his large hands, fingers pressing into the meat. 

It’s a reflex for your legs to tighten up, tension pooling at the sight of a relatively new man between them. He pauses, noticing your trepidation, and glances up at you without moving forward.

“Hey, you okay honey?” his voice is measured, composed. 

You nod.

“You sure? Talk to me baby, I gotta make sure you’re alright. You here with me?”

“I want you,” you manage, “please, Joel, I want it.”

“I’ll take real good care of ya’,” he promises you in that low, sultry drawl, “be real gentle. Treat you real nice.”

You’re nodding, already lost in whatever it is he plans to do to you. You feel a brief stab of insecurity for the state of your body hair, and you want to tell him as much, but you’re afraid it’ll kill the moment.

He doesn’t seem to mind, either way, lips pressing into your inner thighs, seeming completely heedless of the thick hair there. He pulls your body closer, gripping your hips in his strong hands, bringing your dripping cunt closer.

Joel’s head drops down, lips covering a delicate pattern on your lower belly, gliding easily over the soft hair on your pelvis, finding his mouth at your lips. Experimentally, he smooths his tongue over the wet slit there, glancing up when the action makes you inhale sharply.

His eyes are teasing, mouth quirked up in a small smile. Teasing, cocky, mischievous. 

“You’re g-gonna have to do better than that,” you tell him with a small curve to your lips.

“There’s that smile,” he muses, before burying his face between your legs again.

And there’s no ability to think of anything else, because he’s there. His tongue, expert and well practiced, running whirlpool motions over the bud of your clit, sucking and kissing and licking hungrily at the dripping bellow of your opening. 

Every sense is alight, each breath you take heavy with elation. The bundle of nerves between your lips is in overdrive, tensing and pulsing with desperate need as he gets you closer and closer. His tongue works miracles, the speed altering at just the right moment, switching his motions at just the right interval, lapping up your sopping liquids with his tongue like a starving man at a buffet.

“Taste so fuckin’ good, baby girl,” he groans into your wet folds, “such a pretty little cunt, so wet and soft for me.”

“For you…” you echo in a whine, fists gripping the sheet that’s come up off the mattress again.

The noises are obscene, the wet squelch of his tongue against your body, the almost frantic way he devours you. Hands holding your trembling legs in place despite the way you tense and move from the sensations, face buried against your wet center, the mess of liquid dampening his face and your thighs and the sheets underneath. 

You cum with a whining cry, a noise you didn’t know a person like you could make. It’s an innocent sound really, despite the debaucherous context. A noise of pure, primal pleasure, ripped from deep within your chest, a release and elation you haven’t felt in…you’re not sure if ever.

Knees clenched around his head, you’re expecting him to pull back now that you’ve gushed more fluid onto his face. But dutifully, he keeps eating. He drinks you in, the overstimulated, swollen clit beneath his lips is begging for relief, pleading to rest, but he doesn’t let it. 

Joel is hungry, and he won’t leave until he’s satisfied. Until you’re both satisfied.

“Taste so good when you cum for me,” he breathes when he pulls his lips back for air, “so sweet n’wet. Cum on my face, darlin’, do it again. Wanna eat you, all of you. So wet f’me baby.”

You think you cry his name, you aren’t sure, but you rip your fingers through his thick hair, tighten your thighs around his face, tears budding at the corners of your eyes from the ruthless sensation between your legs.

Then, a thick finger, gentle and careful probing at your entrance. He slides it in just a bit, moving with caution and curiosity. You buck your hips toward him eagerly, the desperate clench of your wet cunt around nothing is almost too much to bear. 

Slight relief as he glides his finger in all the way, pumping it gently in and out, back and forth to get a feel for the tightness of your slick walls. It’s been so long since anyone touched you this way, since you had anything substantial inside you, and Joel’s got the biggest fingers of any man you’ve ever met.

“That feel good baby?” he grunts as his lips ghost over your pulsing clit and his index finger smooths inside of you, “hurtin’?”

“No, good, good,” you pant.

“Good girl, attagirl.” He kisses your clit again and your hips buck once more, but he pins them down with his other hand. A second finger inside of you, matching the pace of his first, stretching you around the thick width of his digits. Preparing you for what’s to come, the massive, hard cock that’s going to spear you against the headboard.

Fuck, fuck.

“Joel,” you groan his name, feeling his fingers curl up in a crude little gesture inside you, coursing against your walls, brushing up against that place that makes you feel like you’re going to erupt. “Joel, Joel….”

He hums a low sound, lips and tongue still violently, rhythmically devouring your wet cunt. Between the pulsing thickness of his fingers, and the circular motions of his tongue on your clit, it’s not long before you white out. The pleasure is too intense, too sudden and overwhelming. It’s too much, too much, more than you’ve ever had before. 

Tears track down your cheeks against your will, your chest heaves with desperate, panting breaths. Your fingers have gone numb from their vice grip on the sheets, legs aching as they spread around his head to give him easier access, not a shred of resistance in your body as you submit to his expert touch. 

And it happens again, more intense this time. A black film teases the corners of your eyes, a devastatingly intense pooling in your stomach and through your cunt, a pulsing, thready explosion of pleasure bursting through you. 

You soak his face, legs jerking, hips convulsing, voice raw from crying out. The feeling is so intense that it dizzies you, your head floating off your body and spinning into a whirlwind somewhere in outer space. 

Joel licks it all up, tongue dragging across your drenched inner thighs, gliding across the shimmering wet slit of your lips, sucking on the raw skin until it’s nearly unbearable. Then, his wet mouth is moving, kissing up your thighs, the slope of your hips, your stomach and your breasts, sucking on your nipples and cupping them in his rough palms. 

Once he reaches your ear, teeth grazing the lobe, voice gruff, he whispers, “you with me, baby?”

You whine a small sound, feeble and needy. You feel the curve of his lips into a smile where they’re pressed into your ear, and he kisses your temple, lingering there. 

“M’gonna take these off, hm?” he slides a hand down toward his sweats, where you can see the large, intimidating shape of his hard dick outlined.

God, you need it, you need it like you’ve never needed anything in your life. So many years spent hungry, never realizing just how painful it could truly be to want something and be empty of it. 

Your pulsing, desperate pussy aches for him, dripping with the evidence of his prowess. Your thighs clench around nothing, pleading, begging, needing to be filled with whatever he can give you. 

Joel slides the pants off, boxers following suit, and your eyes widen a bit at the sight of his large cock springing forward. There’s a well-groomed crop of hair at the nape, heavy, even balls framing the thick protrusion of his shaft. The tip, angry and red, dripping with his need.

“Joel, let me-” you make a move to take it in your mouth, but he stops you with a gentle shush.

“No baby, just you tonight.” He lowers himself back above you, the hard tip just barely brushing your sopping cunt. 

A synchronized moan fills the air, both of you shuddering at the teasing contact. Holding himself upright on his thick, powerful arms, he lowers his forehead to yours, noses bumping. His lips ghost against your own, and you kiss him greedily, whining into the touch as his dick presses against you once more. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs, “you wan’ me to fuck you, honey?”

You nod desperately.

“Talk to me, honey.” His lips press delicately right beside your mouth, smoothing his large nose over the supple skin of your cheek. “Tell me what you want, hm?”

“I-I want you,” you croak, voice frail and shattered, “want you inside me, Joel. Want you to fuck me. Fill me up, fill me with you. Please, please. I need it.”

He smiles down at you, no trace of teasing or mischief there, only a genuine, earnest warmth. Gradually, his hips roll into you, pushing just the slightest bit of him inside. You shudder, gasping at the beginning of the stretch.

“Gotta go slow, honey,” he breathes, eyes closing as if in concentration, “don’ wanna hurt you.”

“N-no, I don't care,” you insist.

“I do, baby. Gonna take care of you, promised. I got you. I got you. You’re safe with me.” His lips warm against your collarbone, kissing wetly there as his hips inch forward, shoving more of himself inside.

The stretch is intense, painful despite how wet and glistening you are for him. The head of his cock, fat and dripping, grunts into you with restrained desperation. His thighs push forward, hips moving slowly, slowly, giving you time to adjust, giving you all the focus and care and attention. 

Finally, mercifully, he bottoms out, both of you groaning out a noise of agonized want. Your thighs are speared apart by his wide body, balls of your feet digging into his lower back. His arms cage you in, one hand flat on the mattress to prop himself up, careful not to put any of his massive weight on your light frame, the other touching you. Your breasts, your cheek, your hair, your lips, every part of you he can see he explores while he allows you to adjust to the heavy weight of his dick inside of you.

It’s huge, spreading you and stretching you so intensely that you’re grateful for his godlike patience. You feel it bumping up inside, tip scraping the mouth of your womb, almost enough that you swear you could touch it through your belly. 

“So big, Joel,” you tell him, your voice a thready imitation of your usual cadence, “so big n’strong…so nice…”

“I got you baby,” he cups your cheek, bending his body down to kiss you lightly. The movement sheaths his cock forward inside, and you both groan.

“Please,” you beg, “please fuck me…please fill me up. Want you to fill me with your cum. Keep me full forever.”

“Fuck, fuck, honey girl,” he bites at your lip, pulling hard between his teeth until he draws blood. He licks across the soft pink flesh, taking more of you into him; the thin red line decorating his tongue before he swallows it up like a good boy.

Then, his hips grind into yours and you let out a shrill noise, a wounded animal crying out. He moves, slowly at first, allowing your body to stretch around him, getting used to the impact of his impressive girth. 

Quickly, he picks up the pace.

You’re begging at this point, nails raking down his thick back, teeth gritting into the hot meat of his shoulder, feet forcing his hips into you. He grunts your name, spits curses into the soft flesh of your neck, grinds and pounds his hips against yours so hard it feels as though he really could split you in two.

But split, you do not. Rather, you become more. Full, whining and screaming his name, sated and hungry all at once. Desperate and satisfied simultaneously. A hungry, soaking little mess underneath this massive man. This man who at first glance, had tried to kill you, a favor you quickly returned. 

A man who’s done nothing for the past two weeks but try to make you whole. A man giving you all the pieces of himself he can spare to try and mend your broken ones. A man who knows what it’s like to fall apart and be put back together again. 

He sees you; scarred flesh, fear, loneliness, all your worst, all you have, and he takes you as his own.

“Goddamnit,” he growls into your skin, “so fuckin’ tight baby, so good…so wet f’me…so tight, fuckin’ gripping me baby.”

Your nails dig deeper into his back, which only seems to spur him on. His hips somehow continue their breakneck pace, pounding against your deepest point so hard that it makes your head feel floaty all over again.

“Feel so good, you okay baby?” his lips against your skin are slurred, sloppy and greedy. 

You nod, nod your head so fast you feel dizzy, and he laughs a little breathlessly. Then, you feel the rough pad of his thumb move from your face down to your clit. 

You do white out then, with the combination of his hard, massive dick spearing you against the pillows, and the grind of his thumb against your swollen clit. The sensations are overwhelming, so intense, too intense. Your legs clench around his waist, and you let out a low, guttural scream.

“Fuck,” Joel gasps, eyes shutting as his rolling hips grow sloppier, less rhythmic, “fuck baby, fuck, fuck you just came all over my cock. God, so fuckin’ tight, so good so good honey, m’gnonna-fuck-”

And you’re full. The hunger, the emptiness, it all fades away in that instant. 

Joel empties himself inside you, cock jerking and pulsing against your throbbing walls. He groans deep in his throat, cursing and grunting as he fills you up, liquid gushing out over your pelvis and thighs. 

It takes a few moments for both of you to come down, his spent cock still sheathed inside your warmth. He hovers over you, and you feel one of his hands cup your cheek, fingers tracing slow lines across the bridge of your nose.

“Baby,” he breathes raggedly, “talk to me.”

“M’fine,” you assure him, though you feel like you’re on another planet.

“You sure? Everythin’ okay? Didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“You’re stupid,” you tell him.

At that, he snorts. “Yeah, you’re fine.”

He moves to detangle himself from you, but your legs clench around him, arms clasping desperately around his neck. He’s so warm, so solid and safe, and you’re so full. 

“They used to have a word for this,” he muses quietly, jerking his chin toward the cage of your legs around his waist, “think they called it baby trappin’.”

“As if you couldn’t get off right now if you wanted,” you mutter.

“Already did that, sweet.”

“Okay, you know what, get the f-”

He presses into you again, and you’re silenced by the low moan that slips from your mouth at the pressure of his heft inside you, even soft and spent. He smiles, teeth digging into his lower lip as he looks down at you with admiration. 

“M’gonna make you a real nice breakfast tomorrow,” he says matter-of-factly.

“That so?” You arch an eyebrow, amused at the ridiculous attempt at conversation he’s making with his dick literally still inside of you. “What’s the Joel Miller Morning After Special look like?”

“Waffles, homemade batter ‘course. Blueberries, the ones we been savin’. Big ole jug of apple juice, just for you.”

“Just for me?” You smile faintly at him. 

“Just for you,” he confirms, “whatever you want, just for you.”

A small laugh drifts from your lips. “Well, that’s very nice of you.”

“So you ain’t leavin’?” he asks, a note of hope in his voice.

“No.” You shake your head. “Think I'll stick around and annoy you for a while.”

He brushes a lock of hair behind your ear with the pads of his fingers. It stays put this time. 

“I’d like that, darlin’.” His teeth flash white in the darkness again. “Think I could go for a little somethin’ now actually. You need anything? Some water?”

You nod, fighting the instinct to get up and get it yourself. Maybe, just maybe it’s okay to let someone else take care of you once in a while. Even if it’s something as simple as a glass of water.

“Sounds great,” you admit, wincing slightly at the pull as he finally slides out of you with a sopping noise. You don’t even want to look at the mess on the sheets.

“How about a snack?” he asks. “You hungry?”

And you look at him, sliding his t-shirt on over his sweat-slicked body, reaching for a towel on your rack to pass toward you. So gentle, so caring, so tender and pragmatic all at once. 

You aren’t alone. You’re warm, and full, and for the first time in a long time, you’re happy.

“No,” you tell him in earnest, “I’m not hungry.”

“You sure?” 

You nod, managing another smile for him. Surely, he’ll add it to his annoying internal tally.

“I’m sure. I actually…I actually feel pretty full.”

What a wonderful feeling it is. 

[tremendouscreationperson]

Logan x Reader pt.13

So my mate and I took my little brother out and he was like guys can we watch Deadpool/Wolverine so I watched it a fucking 3rd time

Upon my 3rd time watching I'm disappointed that Origins!Wade/Deadpool wasnt with the Deadpool core

And also I've realised how much dialogue I've like messed up 🤣🤣 thank y'all for sticking with me for chapters 1-3, if I ever post this on AO3 I'll have to spend years editing

This is like a part 1 of 2, the chapter was getting really long sorry

<<Part 12 Part 14>> Masterlist

The phone buzzed next to your head causing you to jolt upright.

You grumbled, eyes half open, patting the bed in hopes to stop the infernal noise.

It was your alarm, the one you had set to get up and go. Only you had set it when you didn't have to spend half the night rearranging your room.

“Morning sunshine.” Logan's voice made you turn. Where was he? He was normally right next t- right. He wasn't here. He was heading towards Nebraska.

“Logan?” You muttered, eyes barely blinking open.

“Hello baby.” He purred.

“Hi.” You smiled, God, his voice could just ease you back to sleep.

“It's pretty early for you to be up.” There was the tiniest echo to him.

“Where are you?” You pulled the phone closer, clearing the morning voice out of your throat.

“On route.” He revved the engine.

“Y-you're on your bike?” You squeaked. “Logan! That's dangerous!”

“It's fine, bub. You're on Bluetooth.”

“It's too early for me to even begin to learn what that is.”

He chuckled, the noise warning your chest. “You're fucking cute.”

“No, you're fucking cute.”

“Mm, wish I was.” He drawled, you could picture the smirk on his face.

Eventually you heaved yourself up and dragged your feet over to the drawers. Pulling out a suitable outfit. Some cycling shorts and a large shirt, no one would know it was Logan's but you.

You contemplated putting a bra on but you really couldn't be bothered with it, spending years in the Void with a broken one - snapped wires were a menace - you had grown accustomed to wearing what essentially was a sports bra so now as you looked at the padded cups they felt stuffy. The shirt was a thicker material - you think it was maybe loungewear? - it had long sleeves and a loose neckline where Logan had worn it.

Your hair was washed yesterday in preparation for today, wanting to look your best, so you didn't have to worry about looking scruffy. No, you looked comfortable.

You were put together well enough and when you looked in the bathroom mirror it was an outfit you would see other women wearing. Not that you cared. Maybe a little bit.

You stuffed your feet into some trainers, seriously debating sliders - you had thought socks and sandals were a big no no but the kids these days loved them - but decided on the trainers in case you needed to run. Preparing for some issue or display or anything.

You chucked your half full backpack over your shoulder, tossing a phone charger into it, and went to find the others.

As you opened the door Blade’s back was leaning against the frame.

“Fuck me!” You jumped, hand over heart. “Blade, you're actually going to kill me one day.”

He hummed. “Why has your bitch ass husband stolen my bike?”

“I did tell him not to.” You shut the door behind yourself.

“Mother fucker has a bike.” He tutted. “Ain't as pretty as mine.”

“Blade, I am sorry, I-” You shrugged, having no clue what to say. “He's an ass.”

“If he scratches it…”

“If he does, you have my permission to fight him.” Mock knighting him as you said 'permission'.

He laughed lowly. “We did fight once. Ended up on the same side. He gave me his coat.”

“Who were you fighting?”

“Some bloodsucker. Had an M name.”

Blade hadn't told you that. He hadn't mentioned he had once known a Wolverine. Not even when you had cried on his shoulder as Laura joined your party. You had mourned her, as well as the rest of your family, so seeing her alive and well really did mess with your psyche.

Laura's door opened to your left and she let out a surprised sound. “I was coming to see if you were awake.”

“Me and uncle Blade were just talking.”

“Anything interesting?” Her pupils fluttered between the two of you.

“A wolverine gave him a coat.” You repeated. “I didn't know he had met one.”

She crossed her arms. “Me neither.”

“I don't jabber like you.” He winked, a sly smile revealing his fangs.

You rolled your eyes and passed the man to knock at Gambit's door.

“Why are you up?” Laura asked Blade just in your earshot.

“Wanted to see you off.” He patted her shoulder. “Seeing less of you nowadays.”

She wormed her way into hugging him, not that he really resisted, and squeezed him. “It's strange being here.”

“I know.”

You wish you hadn't knocked at Gambit's door because the fucker opened it pulling your attention from them. “‘ey.” He nodded at you. “Who' ready for some drivin’?” Gambit ruffled your hair and shot passed you to the others. “Didn’ kno’ you'ere comin’.”

“I'm not.” Blade informed.

Gambit shrugged and tugged at Laura, “C’mon!”

You all trotted towards Logan's Jeep and climbed in. Your baby had the back row to herself and she had been clever enough to pack a small pillow in her bag.

Laura was wearing a Megadeth tee on top of a long sleeve with a pair of jeans. Gambit had opted for jeans as well but his seemed to be intentionally low waist. He'd paired it with a shirt that you're sure he had done a DIY crop job on.

All in all none of you looked like you were going to the same place but you looked good and you all felt comfy, all were able to decide what to wear. Not forced into the same outfit day in and day out. Laundry day in the Void was hilarious.

Everyone - bar Laura of course - had seen everyone else naked. You remember Magneto scoffing at yourself, Johnny and Gambit for sitting playing checkers in practically nothing, the odd sock and a ratty old shirt for modesty.

Y/N: setting off now x

You knew Logan would want to know so as Blade tapped the side of the car and Gambit pulled away from the curb you sent the text.

Your phone was sitting on your lap, Waze telling him where to go interrupting your playlist.

The Killers were your newest conquest. They were brilliant. You loved everything they performed, so dancy and fun!

Waze instructed you to get onto the highway you and Logan had had your hot steamy car sex and you had to fight the blush. If you were anywhere else people could've spotted you, well, they probably saw your car rocking… could you get a ticket for public indecency if they didn't have actual proof?

What if the car rocking was on camera?

“She's ‘sleep.” Gambit whispered next to you.

You turned back to see Laura spread out, sparko. “I hope she has fun at the Mansion.”

“Why wouldn' she?” He flicked the blinker on.

“I dunno, she hasn't been there.”

“Neither, chere.”

Gambit merged.

“Well, I know she had herself a Charles, I know he died in front of her. And yeah she's seen the one here for a millisecond, she had him look into her mind, but that's different. This will be informal, this will be- oh, I don't know.”

“You jus’ ‘ave to let things be things.” He shrugged. “You're worrying for her, when you don't need to. She strong. If she need you, she'll ask.”

You let that sit with you. He was right of course. She was tough and she would ask but since your little incident you were worried she had taken a step back. “It's just hard. We've lost so many people, I want to keep you all safe.”

“No such thing as safe.”

Again he was right. Say, right now, someone could have a brain aneurysm and crash their car into yours. There was literally no such thing as safe in a world of ever increasing variables. You, even, still entertained the notion that this was Cassandra toying with you.

“I don't think people give you enough credit, Remy.”

He chuckled. “Yo’ kno’ it serious when you use're my name.”

You laughed with him.

~~

The mansion came into view and you felt a nervous twinge in your stomach. “Laura baby.” You nudged her knee.

The girl cracked an eye and realised where you guys were. “We're here?”

“Yeah, love.”

She sat up and eagerly undone her belt.

“Laura, Gambit, this is the X-Mansion.”

The building was the same, there were slight differences in the foliage but it was eerie how exact everything was. You could see Colossus was standing like a statue at the door to greet you.

Gambit pulled up in front to the entry stairs.

He turned the car off and you all exited.

“Y/N, Laura, Remy.” Colossus greeted in kind. “Welcome, welcome.”

The three of you trotted up the stairs and into the front doors.

Fuck me, even the chandelier had it's one flickering bulb. This was your mansion. Your home. Your sanctuary.

//

“You needn't fear, Miss L/N.” Charles spoke above your head to your mother. “Y/N will be safe here.”

You could hear giggling to the left, giggling and stomping. There were kids having fun. Craning your neck you could see one kid floating mid air whilst the other had their hands extended.

They were using their powers… they were allowed to use their powers.

“Hey.” A feminine voice caught your attention. It was a young girl - a year or so older than you, maybe seventeen? - with bouncy ginger hair and a kind face. “You're new.” She spoke without moving her lips. “I'm Jean.”

“Y/N.”

The girl gave you a bright smile. “I was asked to show you your room.”

You turned back to your mother who was still engaged in conversation with Professor Xavier. She looked different. Her shoulders weren't sagging and her eyes seemed hopeful. She wanted you here. Wanted you to be safe and, well let's face it, she'd be safer without a fucked up child.

“You're not 'fucked up'.” Jean rolled her eyes. “You're just something new.”

Your eyes widened. “Can you hear my mind?”

“Yeah, sorry. I can't turn it off all the time.” She had genuine embarrassment splattered on face. “I don't mean to, I'm still practising.”

“Okay.” You nodded. “I'll try to keep my thoughts quiet.”

\\

The familiar sound of wheels pulled you from the memory. “Ahh.” Charles came into view. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

The others had clearly picked you as the spokesperson so you smiled. “Thank you for having us.”

“Of course.” His eyes crinkled with glee. “It was your home previously and apparently it hasn't changed. Would Laura and Remy care for a tour?”

The others looked at each other before nodding, unsurely.

“I'll call you both a guide.” He spoke before just sitting still. To an onlooker it would look rude, sarcastic, to say that and then sit motionless but you knew otherwise.

A girl with dead straight, long blonde hair and an unearthly feel to her sauntered into the entry. “I take Laura to Ellie and Yukio.” She spoke with a thick russian accent.

“Thank you kindly, Illyana.” Charles spoke over his shoulder.

You weren't 100% comfortable with Laura leaving but she had an eager expression on her face so you let her go with nothing more than a “call me if you need me.”

The two girls walked up the first flight of stairs, there were many in this labyrinth of an estate, and as they did they passed Rogue. She had darker skin than your Rogue but there was no mistaking that hair. Her hair was thick, voluminous and curly.

Her hips swayed as she strutted down the stairs. Adorned in ‘people clothes’ but looking every bit the X-Man she was.

“Y’all alright Sugar?” She placed her gloved hands on her hips. “I'm Anna Marie, they call me Rogue.”

“Remy LeBeau.” He bowed next to you. “They call me th’ Gambit.”

“Mmm. A Cajun, I can't wait to get some recipes outta you.” She waved him along, towards the right of the stairs and then disappeared underneath them to the kitchen.

Gambit clapped your shoulder before he jogged after her.

You were left with Charles. He was still smiling sweetly at you, it was a little unnerving.

“So…” You clapped your hands. “Who's my tour guide?”

“You don't need one, dear.” He told you simply. “You're free to explore, if you need me, call me.” He then whirled and zoomed off.

You were just left.

Again, to an onlooker it was rude. But maybe he knew you’d feel awkward paired with a X-Man. You would have to pretend to be in awe of the jet or the grounds or even just them. You knew a lot of these people but they had no clue you even existed.

If the TVA really went back and altered the reality was it still the same universe? How could they take their Logan out of it when he was the original Anchor being to the whole thing?

You pushed those thoughts aside and stomped through into one of the sitting areas.

It was large and decorated warmly. There were four sofas, three of which were in a square by the fire and the other was behind the one adjacent to the flames. There were coffee tables with board games and empty cups, messy bookshelves stacked high with trinkets and more games.

Two kids were playing chess, one had wings and the other was orange. Both were humanoid and young. Maybe 12?

//

You didn't care where you landed but you needed to sit by a fire. Stomping the light sleet off of your boots, you slipped out of your wet coat and scarf. Abandoning them on the floor - no one would be awake now - you rushed through into the first sitting available room. You flipped over the back of the sofa, face buried in pillows as your socks felt vague embers of warmth.

It was dangerous that it was still roaring but you didn't give a flying fuck.

“You alright bub?” A voice asked, opposite you.

You scrambled into a more presentable position and saw it was the new guy. What was his name? James? Jackson? Jonathan? It was definitely a J-Name.

He was sitting on the sofa opposite, in an X-Men hoodie and tracksuit bottoms, his feet were bare. The clothes led you to believe he had come from his bedroom.

“Yeah.” You nodded, hands outstretched to the flames. “Sorry, didn't realise anyone would be up.”

“It's alright.” He moved his hand to show that he was nursing a drink.

You questioned in disbelief, “is that bourbon?”

“Don't rat me out and you can have some.”

Now, that was an offer too good to pass up. “Sure thing. I saw nothing.”

He didn't have another glass so emptied the liquid into his mouth, wiped the rim and handed you a full glass. “Don't mind the-”

“It's fine.” After the day you had sharing a glass with a handsome man was nothing. “Working here I'm immune to any disease you could imagine.” You took a healthy swig, the liquid burning your throat. Immediately warming your insides. “I dunno if this is good stuff is but it's fucking strong. So cheers to that.”

He raised the bottle and took a gulp. You both sat in silence. After a while you had to shed your jumper, the heat making you sweat. He waited for you to fold your jumper before asking. “How long you been here?”

You did the mental maths. “Seven years.”

He hummed, the fire casting shadows that danced beautifully against his skin.

“Used to be everyone's favourite student, now I'm their favourite teacher.”

“Pretty thing like you, I'm sure you're right.” You had to pull your eyes away from him as he smirked. “What’d you teach?”

“Self defence.”

“Maybe I'll pop by.”

You took another sip. “You should. It'd be good to show the kids how to take down a bigger opponent.”

He sniggered. “It's a date.”

You prayed that the heat in your cheeks was from the fire.

“Why're you getting in so late?” One of his brows met his hairline. His hair was bonkers but endearingly cute, he looked like a little kitty cat. You wanted to see if it was as soft as you imagine.

You heaved a sigh. “I had to walk, the bike packed in.” Scott had loaned you his bike, drilling into you that you needed to refill it after using it. Well the fucker hadn't because it had conked out halfway through the journey.

The man opposite gave you a guilty smile. “Scott's?” You nod. “I might borrow it without his permission every now and then.”

You rolled your eyes. “So you're why I had to trek in the storm for 30 minutes. You owe me more than a drink Mr.”

“Logan.” He offered. Huh, you could've sworn it was a J-Name.

“Y/N.” You replied.

“I'll make it up to you Y/N. Somehow.”

\\

A buzz in your pocket centred you back to reality.

Logan: Picked up his scent a while back. He's walking in circles

Y/N: Why? X

Logan: Classic misdirection, maybe shield weren't so careful

Y/N: Just be safe baby x

Logan: Course

Logan: How's the mansion?

Y/N: Memory lane has nothing on this place x

Logan: That good?

Y/N: Think so… just remembered meeting Logan for the first time. We'd sorta been introduced before but actually talking was a while after

He had read the message but didn't reply immediately. Perhaps he had to put the phone away to track Victor?

Logan: I'm here if things get overwhelming

Y/N: I'm not gonna call you on a hunt, love x

Logan: You're allowed. No one else.

Logan: You have any sort of 'wobble', you call me. No tears without me knowing

Y/N: Okay x

Logan: I gotta go but I love you Y/N

Y/N: You more baby x

The kids kept giving you confused side eye so you carried on into the next room. Surely they had seen a random person before, your mansion had a new person daily.

//

“Big brother is watching you.”

“Please, I beg you, I will do anything. Please do not spoil this.” You begged. He had found you sitting on the floor in a small crevice, 1984 clutched in hand. “This is the only book the students haven't read. ‘did you like that part miss?’ no I haven't got to that part yet, Sanhu!”

“I won't.” His hands met his hips. “What are you doin’?”

“Isn't it obvious? I'm Hiding.” Your eyes scanned the room before you eased yourself up, Logan caught your hand and steadied you.

“Sorry to pull you from your spot.”

“It's okay, wasn't you I was hiding from.” You dogeared the page and closed the book. “They keep finding me. There's only so many inane questions I can stomach.”

Logan chuckled. “It's ‘cause half have a crush on you and the rest are trying to imitate ya.”

You scoffed. “I highly doubt that.”

“Bub, trust me.” He rolled his eyes at your expression. “Here.” He handed you a blank CD case. “I came to give you this, it's the band that sings Sexical.”

“Oh cool!” You accepted the CD and flipped it. It looked man-made; ‘She's an angel’, ‘fuel to run’ and ‘cream’ scrawled in Logan's messy scratch. “You made this?”

“There are some songs I don't think you'd like, so I thought I'd put the good ones together.” He shrugged, the wall behind you becoming interesting.

You opened the case to see he had thankfully written the band's name - Love/Hate - with the same marker on the disc.

“Well, thank you. I'll dig my Walkman out.”

Logan gave you a nod and stalked off.

~~

Christmas was wholly celebrated in the Mansion as there were those who couldn't return home. Storm and Jubilee had convinced you to help with the decorations and it took little to no convincing to get a certain gruff man to assist.

“Every year there's more.” You gestured to the decs.

Logan was leaning against the wall, he had helped you with the foil garlands, arms folded. “You love it.”

“Of course I do but taking it all down haunts me.” Last year it had taken four days to rid the Mansion of every last bit of tinsel. Angel had found a missed snowflake in the middle of June, it had fallen and landed on top of a portrait frame.

“If you had it your way, they'd stay up all year.”

“No.” You were adamant. “Halloween trumps Christmas.” Logan's brows rose to his hairline. “What? It's the superior holiday.”

“Wow, I knew you liked Halloween but hearing that from little miss kringle is something else.”

You rolled your eyes and gave him a playful shove. “Shut up.”

Logan caught your wrist and placed it back down to your side, pulling you closer as he did. “Don't start things you can't finish.”

“Oh, we all know I can take you.” You gave him a smug smirk, spurred on by his intoxicating gaze - there were flecks of green hidden in his dark eyes - you added, “And in a fight.”

Logan's eyes bugled yet they slipped to your lips and back up.

“Hey, tweedle Dee and Dum!” Ororo’s voice called. “I'm seeing a lot of gazing longingly into each other's eyes and not seeing a lot of decorating.”

You turned to see Storm standing at the opposite side of the room, box in hand, one brow raised.

“Gazing longingly?” Logan scoffed as you called out: “We needed a five minute break!” You gave a nervous chuckle at his response and the situation in itself before trotting over to Storm, Logan let your wrist go a second too late, causing another awkward laugh.

“You can't tell me this room isn't festive enough.” Your voice was slightly higher than usual, no one commented but you knew they knew.

“It isn't festive enough.” Storm deadpanned, handing you yet another box, she did crack a smile at your ‘wtf’ face. “This is the last one. I promise.”

You didn't believe her in the slightest but let her vacate the room as you opened the storage box. It was faux greenery, garlands and wreaths and mistletoe.

“Ooh, Logan look!” You presented the herb. “Poisonous to werewolves.”

Logan was still standing by the wall but took a couple steps forward to look. “Lucky we don't have any.”

“Yet.” You added. “With all us mutants it wouldn't surprise me if we got a Vamp or an Undead being. I mean you're pretty grizzly, not far off a wolf.”

A familiar smile settled onto Logan's face, it was the same one he wore whenever you went on a tangent. You suppose being the silent watcher he was, he must be used to people yapping around him, hopefully you didn't annoy him too much.

You tried to refocus. “Where should we put it?”

“Depends on who you want to catch out.”

“Well, Jean won't tell me that her and Scott have a thing… but they totally have a thing. Maybe we try to catch them.”

“‘We’ yeah?”

“Are you backing out of my incredibly complex and well thought through plan?”

“Never.”

~~

“Get out!” You screamed. “Go!”

The children behind you sprinted. They didn't wait for another order.

The humans had decided that they'd start out their New Year by killing children.

Your fields held strong against their bullets but you had known they would - if they could last against Adamantium they could last against a few bullets - creating bubbles of safety.

You were defense. Always on the lookout, always trying to hold back the onslaught so that the others could either fight or flee.

The footsteps behind you were out of earshot, meaning the children had got to safety. An underground tunnel would get them to a safe point. They would wait there for an adult.

You had done many drills and tests but you never thought this was a possibility. Fucking ridiculous!

You made a huge bubble and shoved the humans back, most of them being flung out of windows, glass shattering everywhere, but some hit the walls being knocked unconscious.

You were in bed, meaning that you had no shoes on so you tried to avoid blood, glass, bullet shells and any other debris as you examined each room.

You needed to get back to the others, you were protecting them from afar when a child screaming interrupted your flow. Logan's eyes had made contact with yours from his position in the garden and he gave you a few frantic nods. You didn't need permission but it was good that one of the team knew you weren't hit. If your fields suddenly vanished without explanation they might think the worst.

Shouting across the hall severed the silence and you jumped right back into the action. Jogging down the corridor, keeping low as you passed exposed areas.

Entering the room, you found nothing. It was just some of the teenage bunks. There were no children, no enemies, nothing.

Where had the shouting com-

Hands wrapped around you and you struggled, snarling as they strapped something to your neck. You tried to shove them off and create a field to prevent the rope? from winding around your neck. To stop it getting tighter.

No.

It wasn't a rope.

It was cold.

Metallic.

Why weren't your fields working?

“Not so strong now, cutie?” A masculine voice spoke from behind, he circled you and gripped your jaw with one hand. “It's a shame you're one of them, you're fucking hot.”

“Is that a gun in your pocket?” You sassed. “Wouldn't want mommy to know you liked a freak like m-” He yanked your hair, making your neck click as he pulled you backwards.

“Tsk, tsk. A girl like you should know what comes out of your mouth should be prettier than what goes in.”

You spat in his face.

“That's it, bitch.” He struck you across your face - releasing his grip on your hair - with such force you landed on your knees.

He looked unimpressed as he stalked over to you and yanked on your arm, dragging you along with him. You fought back of course but felt inadequate without your powers. What sort of technology did they posses to force the Mutant gene into submission?

He groaned at the top of the stairs before you were tossed down them.

Your vision was blurry when you came to, he was dragging you again, bruised and aching. You could feel warmth flow from your hairline, down to your eyebrows, also leaking from your nose. Moving your arm was painful but you wiped your nose and found a blurry sticky red substance on your hand.

“Oit!” He yelled.

You were yanked down another few steps - each one sending a new jolt of pain through your body - but as you felt the floor it was hard. Small cold stones met your bare legs.

Outside. You were outside.

“You Muties, stick together right?” He presented you, slumped on the floor, squinting up at him. “Sorry, one second.” The man threaded his hand back into your hair and pulled you up, deciding kneeling wasn't good enough and forced you to stand on throbbing ankles. “What's her mutant name? You all have one, right?”

Your eyes focused and refocused trying to make out who was on the field. Storm was easy to see because of her hair but you could also see Hank and Scott. You knew Logan was there earlier but couldn't see him now.

“What? No one wants to play now?” He turned your head towards him and gave you an over exaggerated frown.

You had just enough sense in you to spit in his face again.

“That's it you fu-” he didn't finish his sentence because he was too preoccupied with punching you straight in the face.

You, again, landed on the ground but this time you were giggling.

“What's so funny?”

“You got-” You wheezed, closing your eyes. “Mutant spit in your mouth.”

He turned back to the others, addressing them. “I was going to bargain with her life but she's pissing me off, so I'm just going to kill her instead.” He chuckled. “Uh-uh-uh Cyclops. You can't kill a human under the new bill.”

“What?” Scott voiced the question you all thought.

“No mutant can kill a human, not even in self defense. Starting on January 1st. It's too bad for your lo-” He cut himself off with a choked gargle.

“No, it's too bad for you.” Logan taunted. “You had 6 minutes.”

The clamp on your neck fell away and hands were on your cheeks.

“Y/N?”

You tried to open your eyes but it was agony. “Hey, bub.”

“That's my line.”

~~

Laying on the grass had become somewhat a passtime of yours now. For some reason you found comfort in the field.

When you had nightmares of that sadistic man and the bill and the humans and everything in your life, coming outside and laying on the dewy ground recentered you.

Charles and Erik had called a truce and began battling political opponents instead of each other. The bill was bullshit. It had passed and been withdrawn within a month.

It was odd classing Erik and Raven as enemies again when you knew ultimately you wanted the same goal but you would have to get used to it.

“I thought I'd find you out here.” You extended your neck to see Logan standing behind you.

“Hey, Lo.”

He collapsed next to you, sitting with one leg bent, his elbow resting on the knee. “You alright?”

You'd been the only mutant in the Mansion so far to have a collar fitted around your neck. You'd been the only one truly defenceless. Truly useless!

“I like the stars.”

He hummed, falling into a weighty silence with you.

There was no denying the two of you had grown closer, hell, he was probably your best friend at this point.

The two of you were paired together in training drills and in your lessons because you could really fight each other. Neither holding back. Your power could stop his. You were evenly matched.

He had gifted you more CDs and you had let him borrow a David Bowie LP. If he found you laying on the sofa reading he would sit next to you and keep you warm. He was so warm. Once, he even read to you. Your eyes were so tired and he plucked the book from your hands and finished the chapter.

You would never tell anyone, least of all him, but that was one of your fondest memories. His voice was so soothing and, bless him, he had even made up voices for the characters.

Logan always sat next to or opposite you as you ate, he was usually the main reason you ate, saving you a plate or bowl.

He was… well, like every other person with eyes here you'd formed a crush on him. He was just so kind. So generous. And it didn't hurt that he looked like that.

“I was thinkin’,” He started. You looked over, expecting him to still be sitting but he had moved. He was lying next to you, watching you. His nose inches from yours. “Tomorrow, I'll take you to to the bar I like.”

He was known for sneaking off premises at night. Coming home smelling like booze and smoke.

“The bar you like?” He had never confirmed he went to a bar - he was oddly secretive about certain aspects - but you all knew, it was something for him to admit it.

“It's a real shit hole but it's cheap and close.”

Your lips upturned at his blunt response. “Okay. You and me tomorrow. It's a date.”

“It is.” His face was serious. “I am taking you on a date.”

Oh.

“Me?” You were flabbergasted. There were goddesses like Jean and Ororo and Raven and Psylocke knocking about and he wanted to take you on a date?

“There was only so much rolling about in the simulator we could do before I asked you out.” He joked but you could see an undercurrent of fear in his eyes.

“Yeah. Okay.” Your cheeks were warm. “I'd really like that.”

His cheeks pinkened and he looked up at the stars trying to suppress his smile. “Good.”

You felt his hand intertwine in yours and tried so hard to act natural. Tried to keep your breath steady and appear calm and collected.

“So, uh, what does one wear to a real shit hole?”

Logan's shoulders shook with his laugh.

~~

It wasn't easy to take things slow when you lived and worked with the person.

Logan was ever the gentleman and gave you space but it was a strange mixture of wanting to be with him platonically and wanting to be with him romantically.

He was your best friend. You wanted to talk to him about your newest date but you also needed to act cool and casual.

You failed miserably at both of those things.

In fact you almost had a heart attack when he kissed your forehead for the first time.

He was yet to actually kiss you.

Which was good because it meant he liked you enough to listen and wanted to be around you without getting into your pants but you wanted him in your pants.

Which brought you to the present.

You were currently standing outside of his room - having knocked - waiting for a response.

“Lo, it's me.” You called through the wooden door.

“Come in.” He answered, slightly muffled.

You entered the room, he wasn't in view but the door leading to the bathroom was open, and flopped onto his bed. Letting out an exaggerated sigh - definitely not to inhale his smell - you spoke against his duvet, “I'm bored.”

“Yeah?” His footsteps got closer and you lifted your head and took a double take.

The fucker was glistening, a towel sitting far too low on his hips. His torso was gorgeous, he looked spectacular. He had strong pecs and chiselled abs, dusted with a coating of soft hair and there was one vein that disappeared into the towel that you ached to lick.

“Bub?” When your forced your eyes onto his face you saw a cocky grin.

“Yes?” You blunk, trying to figure out if he had spoken anything else. How long had you been ogling him?

A droplet of water fell from his hair and ran down his neck, passed his pecs and journeyed further- no! Don't look again.

Do not get caught twice!

“It should be illegal to look like you.” You spoke to your hands. They were resting on the duvet where your face had been.

“Kettle. Pot. Black.” One of his hands settled onto the towel, he usually had a belt to hold, so the movement could've been innocent but with the way his eyes scanned you, you knew it wasn't.

You eased yourself up, sitting on your folded legs and stared at him. Maybe you shouldn't. No either way you win. Either you call his bluff or... “You got a condom?”

The smile could've split his face in half, he licked his teeth, walking closer to the bed. Leaning down to open his bedside table he presented you with an unopened pack.

“Just for you.”

“I feel so special.”

Logan's right hand met your cheek and his thumb caressed the flesh. He was taller than you in this position so he lent down to kiss you. He was slow about it, giving you time to back out, but once his lips met yours he fastened the pace.

Your hands didn't know where to rest. One was fiddling with his chest hair whilst the other clawed at his back. You didn't want to be the one who disrobes their partner after less than thirty seconds of kissing but there was no robe. Can't disrobe someone who isn't wearing one, right? A mere piece of fabric barely covered him.

Oh my god.

He was naked.

Naked under the towel.

Fuck.

His tongue brushed against your bottom lip and you eagerly allowed access. Logan's chest rumbled, vibrating your hand, and you pulled back eyes wide.

“Do that again.”

He complied and you kissed your way along his chest. Sometimes you forgot how animalistic you were. How primal you could be.

Your cavewoman brain liked big strong man making noise.

Logan's nose nuzzled your neck, kissing your jaw and he ran his tongue across your jaw downwards to your collar bone.

It was almost embarrassing how wet you were but the steadily growing length poking your thigh made you feel better.

“I can smell you.” He ran his nose by your neck again. “Can always smell you. You're so sweet.”

“Always?” That better not be a hint.

“I know if you've been in a room.” He nipped your cheek. “I'm tuned into your frequency but now,” his voice deepened. “I can smell here.” The touch was phantom but his fingers were where you wanted him most.

You only had on a baggy shirt and ratty pj shorts so you were quick to slip out of the shorts, tossing them behind your shoulder.

“Towel.” You ordered.

“I-” He paused, conflict flashing behind his eyes. “If we start I'm not su-”

“There is nothing that could make me not want this.” You didn't know how else to say it. "I would do a lot of bad things to do a lot of bad things to your body."

He smirked and allowed you to tug on the towel, it loosening, revealing his dick.

Oh, it was fucking fantastic.

You couldn't help but kiss his abdomen, dragging your tongue along the low vein. Wrapping a hand around his length you kissed the tip and he shuddered.

“You're beautiful.” You spoke to his dick, licking the slit.

“Take your shirt off.”

You grumbled, ignoring him, and licked the underside from shaft to head.

“Y/N. Shirt. Off.” His hand held your neck, halting your movements - you were stopped, your tongue poking out just shy of him.

Pulling up you made a show of removing the shirt and his hands were instantly on you. One was at your hip whilst the other kneaded your breast. He dipped his head and captured a nipple between his teeth, making your spine arch.

“You, er, you experienced?” He questioned releasing your nipple from his lips, his eyes gazing up at you.

Why did it feel like he was embarrassed to ask?

“I've had a couple not great fucks,” You shrugged. “Prefer my own company.”

“That's about to change.” He captured your lips again.

~~

You were snuggled up in your bed watching the credits roll on a VHS you'd finally got your mitts on.

Logan slipped into your room and under the covers, wrapping a hand around your waist and dipping himself to kiss your cheek.

It was wet. Why was your cheek wet?

“Y/N?” What had happened?! Who did he have to kill?

“Spock fucking died!” You explained, frantically wiping your cheeks. “He just like sacrificed himself?”

If you had known that would happen you wouldn't have watched the movie at this particular time of the month.

Logan gave you a sympathetic noise and rolled you onto your spine, kissing your nose.

“It's okay.”

“No, it isn't.” Your eyelashes were wet but your eyes were no longer glossy. "Jim is alone, now."

"We'll get through this together."

Logan's palm found your abdomen and he kept his hand there, warmth radiating through easing some of the pain. “That's really nice.”

“I always get a fright each month when I can smell blood on you.” He nuzzled his face into your neck, placing delicate kisses to your flesh.

“How was the mission?” Your lips grazed his ear.

He had told you that your neck was his favourite part of you because it smelt the most. He was eager to mark and claim your as his own because it mingled the scents and apparently that was amazing. Logan seemed to get off on your scent alone so when there were hints of him on you he was wild.

“Distracted.” He sucked the junction between neck and collar bone. He had been chosen because of his unique sense of smell. It was a gift that he could track so easily. “Could smell you on my fingers, I didn't want to get bad guy blood on my hands because it would fuck it up. You'd smell wrong.”

Your body twitched as his tongue soothed the sore flesh. “That why it took longer?”

“Hmm.” He produced a small navy box from his jeans pocket, laying it on your chest. “This is why.”

You frowned but opened the lid to see the most beautiful pair of earrings imaginable. Diamond studs, each with three individual chains dangling, covered in more diamonds.

“O-Logan?”

His face was buried into your neck for an entirely different reason now. It was fucking adorable that this big strong man still blushed around you. “Was gonna wait til your birthday but…”

“Thank you, Lo.” You kissed where you could reach on his cheek. “They're beautiful.”

“I brought them because…” He pulled back, his hazel eyes studying your face. “I want to take you out more. Take you to places that aren't natural or manmade disasters. I want to show you off to the world. I like having you on my arm, I really want to show you off. I think we should go out more. You and me just see the world, maybe? Travel? And, well, I've also realised that I fucking love you.”

Neither of you had quite admitted that yet. There were close calls where you almost did after a bad mission but it felt wrong to tell him on your deathbed. Felt like you'd cheat him. He deserved more than a ‘hi and bye’.

“I love you, too. I think I might even love you more, Logan.” Your fingers stroked his temple, gruff hair itching your hand.

He let out a sigh of relief and you almost laughed because how could you not replicate the feelings? Then you considered the way he rambled. How much this must have meant to him, he always wanted to do it right; to make sure everything was perfect for you but it was when he stuttered and said things out of order that you really saw how much he cared. He was unable to form literate sentences because he loved you so deeply. That was true, real love. Not the smooth talking, lady killers in the movies.

“No you don't.” He pecked your forehead.

~~

“Who wants to see me kick Mr Logan's ass?” You cockily placed your hands on your hips.

Logan was standing next to you, hands in his hoodie pockets.

He was wearing matching grey sweatpants and you were dying. How did grey sweats look that good?

“He can't die.” Marcus - a little shit - sassed. “What's the point in fighting someone that can't die?”

“Well, self defence isn't about killing.” You set him straight. “It is about protecting yourself. Being able to keep yourself safe in this world is the most powerful thing you'll ever learn.” Hopefully, they would never know the hopelessness you felt when that collar locked around your neck, hopefully they could live in peace. Live freely.

Marcus just rolled his eyes.

“She's right, kid.” Logan backed you up. “There's a lot to fighting that isn't killing. I've been around a long time, I'd know.”

“Then shouldn't you fight someone more evenly matched?” He raised a brow. You knew this was coming. He had grown up in a very strict household. His parents were cultists, if he hadn't been a mutant he would've been the next leader. Shame. Women were beneath men in his eyes - which wasn't necessary his fault and you were trying to carefully show him but the fucker was pissing you off.

“She's kicked my ass more than any other opponent.” Logan shrugged playfully but you could see the twitch of his jaw.

“That's because you fight often. It's a matter of quantity and not quality.”

“Okay.” You clapped your hands before the kid would get on Logan's nerves. “Who wants to show me their skills?”

The lesson went smoothly after that. You saw a lot of potential in Erica and begged Winston to keep practising.

Marcus refused to show you - or anyone - his ability.

You had assumed it was because ‘mutant is wrong’ was drilled into him as a child but perhaps he just didn't trust you. You'd have to figure out how to bring him out of that shell.

The students left your class with a varying amount of glee.

“I don't know how you're so nice.” Logan lit a cigar. “You just put this smile on and keep going.”

“He's a kid.” You answered. “A stupid kid but a kid.”

“I think we're evenly matched.” He winked.

You scoffed and tidied away some of the equipment.

It was nagging at you.

It had been all class.

‘I've been around a long time’

Yeah, you knew.

Everyone knew.

But woul-would you be old and shrivelled and he'd still be the same?

Would he look at you in disgust once you started greying?

“What's the most dead you've been?” The words were sudden and far from eloquent.

Logan blinked, his brows meeting. “The most dead I've been?”

You nodded.

He pondered the question. “I was a skeleton at one point. My skin and organs regrew it was trippy.”

You considered the answer.

He could literally operate as a skeleton and you were out for a week because of a bad cold.

Was this the first chip?

Was this something that would slowly become a larger crack?

Would your relationship survive this?

You plastered a grin on your face. “Okay.”

~~

“Hey handsome!” You strutted straight up to Logan. He looked amazing, wearing a dark button down and black dress trousers. You wanted to take him straight upstairs.

“Baby.” His arm automatically wrapped around your waist, kissing your hairline before reconnecting with Kurt.

You didn't catch what they were talking about, too drunk to care but sober enough to nod along when they looked at you.

Kurt poked your nose before he disappeared and you sneezed.

“Bless you.” Logan bent his neck to look at your scrunched face.

“That was so tickly.” You rubbed your nose, hoping your makeup stayed in place.

“Have I told you you look beautiful tonight?”

“Only a thousand times.” You grinned upwards, tiptoeing to capture his lips. “I know it's Hank's birthday but you look so yummy. Want to take you upstairs.”

Logan growled at your words, wrapping his other hand around you, “I won't say no.”

“Let's go then.” You kissed his chin.

“Hey lovebirds!” Bobby called across the room. “I need another teammate.”

“Go on.” Logan nudged you, you had all night and the rest of your life to fuck. Maybe you should enjoy your friends company. Linger in the room too long. “You'll be terrible but it'll be fun to watch.”

He was standing next to Sunspot at one end of a Beer Pong match. Jubilee, Kitty and Rogue were at the other.

You mock gasped but knew he was right.

The game was rigged, you were sure of it. You had to drink every time and barely managed one cup. Logan took pity on you after the second beer and downed your drinks, the others weren't best pleased but no one was going to argue with the Wolverine about his girl.

It was so good to let loose.

After having your hysterectomy and being without your best friend for months this was bliss.

You hadn't realised how much he was a part of you. Removing him from your life left it cold and empty.

It was cliché but you had slowly tumbled into a depression without him. Much like any teenage lead in a shitty romcom being without your boyfriend was agony.

He understood your reasoning, didn't condone the actions but was able to see it from your perspective.

You were rarely allowed to be out of his eyeshot, now. He had become even more protective of you, wanting you to feel loved and supported even if you told him you didn't need that. He wanted you to come to him with any issue, to trust him, no matter how big or small.

And you wanted to be strong.

You wanted to prove that you were okay.

But being carried up to bed and coddled was fucking lovely.

“It's Alice in Chains!” You excitedly clapped Logan's arm. He had played you this song more than once, you think it was called Nutshell. Did Hank borrow some of your CDs? “This is your favourite song!”

He smirked. “Not my favourite but it's a good one.” He wrapped himself around your body, his front to your back, watching Jubilee sink one for Bobby.

“What is your favourite song?”

He hummed and you felt his shoulders move. “I don't know, I'd have to think on it.”

Okay, you'd allow that. It wasn't an easy question so you reworded it. “If you were dying right now what would you want to listen to?”

“You humming in the kitchen.” He answered without a second thought.

You giggled, turning in his hold. “No, come on, seriously.”

He rest his forehead against yours. “When you hummed Elvis… making those flapjacks… the sun was-it made you look ethereal, you were an angel. I want that.”

You remembered that day. Everything had gone wrong even though you followed the recipe to a tee! He had walked in on you mid tantrum and made life better. If he thought you looked angelic covered in sugar and chocolate then imagine what he thought when you made an effort.

“You always leave me speechless.”

He kissed your temple.

~~

“I never meant to cause you any sorrow.” You spoke seriously.

Logan looked up from the papers he was grading. His eyes squinting slightly in a silent question.

“I never meant to cause you any pain.” You injected sadness into your voice, it cracked slightly.

“What's happening?” He looked really worried, taking off his reading glasses.

“I only wanted one time to see you laughing.” You used your hands animatedly.

“Y/N?”

“I only want to see you laughing in the purple rain.”

He heaved a sigh of relief. “You had me worried. I was trying to figure out if I'd missed a birthday or an anniversary.”

“I can't grade these papers. The song is rattling around in my head.” You thunked your head against the desk. “Why did we say we'd help Jean again?”

“You told her you could grade more papers in a day then she could.”

“Pathetic fallacy this, juxtaposition that.” You groaned. “Why do I get so competitive?”

“I don’t know.” He spoke honestly. “We could be spending our evening any other way but you have us reading shitty analysises on An Inspector Calls.”

You didn't answer him. You wouldn't let him goad you. Wouldn't stoop to his level, despite wanting so badly to stoop in front of him. Biting the inside of your cheek you stood. “Nope, sorry, I have to play the record.”

He watched you wander to the shared pile of music. Your LPs and his CDs intermingled in the corner of his room.

“Is the Prince album in here?” You flicked through the LPs.

“All our music is. Did you let anyone borrow it?”

“I don't know.” You knelt, opening the cupboard underneath the record player, he panicked, jumping up.

“Don't look in-”

“Ha!” You waved the cover smiling but your enthusiasm ebbed away making room for suspicion. “Don't look in here?”

A hand stretched his face. “Please don't ask questions.”

“If you're hiding a present somewhere make sure it's not somewhere I'd look, Howlett.” You closed the doors. “That's like the first rule.”

“I don't have that many hiding places.” He defended. “We live together.”

That was technically true and untrue.

You still had a room.

You just spent most of your time in his.

“I can vacate i-”

“Shut up.” He took the record from your hands and secured the vinyl onto the spindle and placed the needle accordingly. He flipped the machine on and the last chords of ‘baby I'm a star’ played before the familiar strum.

He offered you his palm and you took it, easing up from the floor. “Dance with me?”

“Always.”

The two of you swayed to the music. It was the last song on this side of the record so you'd have to change it soon but just leaning against him, listening to Prince sing and play his guitar was heavenly.

Logan's nose was buried in your hair. He would tell you later on that he wouldn't have minded if you found what he was hiding.

He would've just got down on his knee then and there.

He didn't want to propose publicly but he wanted to make the day special. Make you feel loved like you deserved.

\\

“Y/N?” You turned your head. You were upstairs. Outside of Logan's room.

It was empty. Unoccupied.

“Storm.” She looked amazing. Had she even aged? Maybe she was born later in this universe.

“The professor asked me to check on you.” She spoke with ease but it wasn't the friendly chatter you were used to.

“Yeah sorry, I've just been wandering like a ghost around this mansion.” Your cheeks warmed. “I'm absolutely fine, though, thank you for checking up on me.”

Part 14

@littlecrowtime @geeksareunique @lovelyvaderx @br3nt-12 @st1nkabutt @maximumchilddreamland @catiwinky @twinkywink @ravenmedows @electricreader @racetrackheart @vulgarfuckinvirgo77 @bisasterbisexual @tzurue @narniansmagic @seamlessepiphany @4ria790 @caramelatae @mei-simp @slightlymediocree @h0n3y-l3m0n05

[joon4eva]

drunk in love — kim namjoon.

genre: best friends to lovers. mutual pining.

summary: you and whiskey are never a good combination. or: you've been in love with your best friend for years and you might tell him about it while drunk.

word count. ~2,597

warnings. OC is a stubborn drunk, heavy kissing.

note. swiped two pics from u @doucillies; ur moodboards are adorable (ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ)♡

masterlist

"Okay, it's time to go home."

"Nooooo," you whine, crossing your arms over your chest. "I'm havin'—hic!—the most fun right now!"

“We’re not doing this while you’re drunk, ____. Let's go.”

“I’m not”—you hiccup, hand flying up to your mouth, so ready to barf—“drunk.”

Namjoon rolls his eyes and grabs your arm, guiding you towards the exit of the crowded bar.

The room seems to tilt and wobble around you, like the inside of a snow globe shaken by a child. The alcohol in your system clouds your thoughts, transforming words into unintelligible murmurs and making the edges of your vision fuzzy.

You're not one to go out often, but tonight had been a night unlike any other. Drinks had flowed like water, and one had quickly turned into, well… too many to count.

"I c'n walk on my own!" you protest, somewhat indignantly. But as soon as the words leave your mouth, your knees buckle beneath you, and Namjoon is there to catch you before you can collapse onto the floor.

He sighs, shaking his head in amused exasperation.

"Sure, you can," he mutters sarcastically while looping an arm around your waist.

You lean against him heavily, suddenly grateful for his support as the world continues to swirl around you in a dizzying blur of colors. Your own head is swimming with the protests it's trying to form, yet all you can do is let out an indignant 'pfft'.

The cool night air greets you as Namjoon leads you out of the bar. Your senses are assaulted by everything—the sound of car horns honking in the distance, the bright street lights reflecting off shiny shop windows, the smell of old cigarettes and half-eaten takeout littered on the streets.

Namjoon hails a cab quickly enough; it seems as though all yellow cabs magically congregate whenever he raises his hand.

You slump into the backseat next to him and he rattles off an address to the driver before turning to face you.

"Do I have to worry about you hurling in my apartment?"

You shake your head vehemently despite how it makes everything feel like it's moving at warp speed around you. "I wo'nn… promise."

"You better not," he says, but there's no real bite to his words, just a soft smile that makes your head spin more than the alcohol ever could.

The rest of the car ride is a blur, punctuated by stifled giggles and quiet singing along to random tunes floating through the airwaves.

The car finally comes to a stop outside Namjoon's apartment building, and he practically carries you inside, supporting your weight as you half-walk, half-stumble towards the elevator.

His apartment greets you with its familiar warmth and comforting scent.

You shed your shoes immediately upon entering; he always hated when people wore shoes inside.

Namjoon takes you by the hand and leads you to his bedroom. There's no discussion about where you'd sleep–it was never really up for debate. You had spent more nights in his bed than your own over these past few months, sharing the space like it was a natural extension of your friendship.

But deep in your heart you felt the lines of this friendship slowly blur until they were nearly indistinguishable.

You vaguely recall Namjoon going out on dates with other women – discreetly canceling on you for an evening or casually mentioning it over coffee when he couldn't spend time with you.

Each mention was like a dagger in your heart; the mere thought of him being with someone who wasn't you caused a painful twisting sensation in your chest.

Namjoon helps you sit down on the edge of his bed, pulling off your socks before turning around to rummage through a drawer for some pajamas or anything that would fit you comfortably.

He pulls out an oversized shirt and hands it to you, ushering you towards his bathroom. He stands outside the door while you splash cold water on your face, trying to sober up just enough to not become a nuisance.

In the quiet of his apartment, even the steady rhythm of your heart pounding in your ears feels deafening.

Once you're dressed in the soft fabric that smells distinctly of him, Namjoon helps you sit on his bed again while he looks for more blankets.

In these rare moments of silence, your thoughts begin to spiral towards a dangerous territory. A confession, long buried under fears and doubts, bubbles to the surface.

"Namjoonie…" you slur giddily, your words blurred and hazy even as their weight is clear.

"Hm?"

"I love you," you mumble sincerely between hiccups.

He chuckles lightly and shakes his head. "Oh man, you're definitely drunk. I love you too."

"'m serious," you insist, each word heavier than the last. "Like, really... really love you.

He pauses in his search for a blanket momentarily, looking back at you with furrowed eyebrows but still not taking it entirely seriously.

"And I really love you too," he murmurs back softly, turning away from you again.

Finally managing to locate an extra blanket somewhere, Namjoon walks back over, gently draping it across your legs and sitting on the edge of his bed.

For a moment, the drunken haze seems to clear from your mind- just enough for him to see your vulnerability shining through.

"You don't get it," your voice wavers as you flop over onto Namjoon's pillow, breathing in his comforting smell. "'m sooo in love with you. Can't ssannd it. Tried t' ignore it, but ev'ry day, ev'ry night—it's always you.."

His lips part and his eyes go a little wide. He blinks at you, fighting back a smile though the hint of one lingers around your words.

“You’re drunk,” he eventually says, shaking his head.

“Maybe," you hum thoughtfully, "…but I won’t be in th' morning.”

Namjoon's gaze flickers to the side, his eyes boring into a spot on the wall as though he can shield himself from any potential heartbreak.

He lets out a quiet sigh and he runs a hand through his hair, clearing his throat before speaking.

"We can... we can talk about this tomorrow," he suggests softly. "When you've had some sleep and are sober enough to remember it."

"If you still feel this way then, we'll talk, okay?"

You frown at him stubbornly as he starts to settle you into bed. The soft duvet feels heavenly beneath your weary form, but the innate rebellion within you only swells stronger. “I don' need help,” you argue halfheartedly, poorly attempting to push away his supportive grip.

Namjoon just smiles gently, continuing to tuck you in despite your protests. "Of course you don't."

His familiar shape slips under the duvet beside you, close enough for comfort but still mindful of boundaries as you both drift off to sleep.

—

When dawn breaks, the first rays of sunlight creep through the cracks of the curtains, casting a warm golden glow across your faces.

It's only when Namjoon's bedroom starts to steadily regain its color that you wake up, face planted into one of the softest pillows you've ever had the pleasure of sleeping in.

Groggily, the memories from last night begin to trickle into your still foggy mind.

You're half-convinced it was all just a dream—an alcohol-induced haze of emotions and repressed feelings. But as you move to stretch out, stifling a yawn, you come face to face with Namjoon asleep beside you.

His face is relaxed, lips slightly parted as he sleeps. One arm is thrown casually over your torso, the other tucked under his pillow. The warmth of his breath tickles your cheek, and it's both terrifying and exhilarating.

You stare at him for a moment - taking in the curve of his jaw, the slope of his nose, and the dark fringe of eyelashes against his cheeks. It feels like discovering Namjoon all over again - this time much different but just as wonderful to behold.

Namjoon stirs, his arms reflexively tightening around you while he fights the urge to wake.

You catch a stray lock of unruly hair that has fallen across his face with trembling fingers.

His eyebrows crease slightly, and he sleepily opens his eyes to meet yours.

For a few moments, the two of you just gaze at each other, silent as his grogginess fades into a dawning realization. "Hey," he mumbles softly.

Your chest constricts as a half-smile finds its way on your face. "Hey," you respond softly back.

"You stayed."

"Of course."

His arms tighten around you once more as he pulls you flush against him, nestled securely between the heat of his body and the cool cotton sheets.

"I thought you would run away," he murmurs softly into your hair, chuckling when he feels you shake your head.

Honestly, you could easily drift back to sleep like this, feeling the gentle rhythm of his breathing and the soothing patterns his hand traces on your back. But just as your eyes are about to close, his voice rumbles from his chest.

"How are you feeling?" he suddenly asks.

"I've been better," you reply honestly, muffled against his shirt.

There's a beat of silence.

"Do you remember anything from last night?" he asks.

"Not much. I remember you taking me home but everything else is blurry."

"I didn't do anything dumb, did I?" you ask.

"Well, that depends on your definition of dumb."

"Hmm. Anything I would be embarrassed about?"

"Other than the fact that you're a very stubborn drunk, no," he reassures you with a quiet laugh. "...But you did say some things."

"Oh, like what?" you ask, pulling back far enough from him so you could see his face.

There's a slight pause, his gaze momentarily flicking from your eyes to your lips.

"You said you loved me."

You nod, taking a moment to figure out how you were going to respond.

Though those words still linger as truth in your head, hearing them out loud like that is difficult to put into words. You could easily dismiss them as drunken ramblings but Namjoon knows better; he can always read you like a book.

There's only so much denial you can carry on with before eventually being swallowed alive by the chaos of your emotions.

You sigh and retreat back into his arms, nuzzling your face further into his chest. Namjoon doesn't press or push any further. Instead, he holds you tighter. Neither of you says anything for a while.

"What's on your mind?"

"Nothing, really," you say, swallowing back the lump that has formed in your throat.

"Mm, don't do that."

"Do what?"

He draws away from you, but keeps his hold firm, almost as if you'll slip away if he lets go.

"Lie," he says softly, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips. "I know you better than that."

He smirks, amused at your stunned silence. He knows just as well as you do that he's successfully called your bluff.

"You already know the answer," you finally say.

He laughs at this, his eyes adorably crinkling at the corners and those dimples you absolutely love coming out to make an appearance.

You can feel your heart pounding with him so close; though the two of you always have been close friends, this new proximity makes your cheeks flush and your thighs press together reflexively.

Through this haze, a sudden surge of self-awareness hits you, reminding you that your hangover has most likely wreaked havoc on your appearance. You nervously lick your lips and rack your brain to quickly come up with an excuse to get out of this situation, and get out of it fast. 

Namjoon seems to pick up on your unease, reaching out and taking your hand gently. He guides it towards his chest, placing it right above his heart, urging you to meet his gaze again. His warmth eases some of your anxiety, and you finally meet his gaze again.

You can feel the steady beat of his heart under your fingertips, its rhythm slightly quicker than normal. He looks intently at your lips, and the corners of his mouth turn up into a faint, tender smile.

“I just want to hear you say it. Please,” he whispers.

Fully surrendered to him, to whatever this was, you find your voice.

"I love you," you manage to utter through the tightness in your throat.

Satisfied with your answer, he smiles and leans in to press a soft kiss to your forehead.

Now only inches away, his breath is warm on your face and his lips nearly graze yours when he asks, "Do I have permission?"

You give a slight nod, and that's all it takes for Namjoon to cup your chin with one hand and slightly tilt your head back to press his lips firmly against yours.

His lips are warm, surprisingly soft against your own, and as the kiss deepens, every lingering doubt is wiped away with each sweep of his tongue; it's delicate and excruciatingly slow. 

You let out a soft sigh against his lips as your fingers slide up to tangle themselves into his hair, gripping it to bring him impossibly closer. You lose yourself completely in it, every inch of your body humming to life as desire courses through your veins.

You can't help but release a gasp against his lips, which he swallows and echoes with a soft groan that reverberates through your chest. Your hands find their way down to his strong arms, fingertips pressing into the taut muscles there before coming to rest at his shoulders.

You shift against him as the kiss intensifies; legs tangling together beneath the cool cotton sheets. The air around you fills with soft moans and exhalations.

Between lingering and hardening pecks on your swollen lips, you feel him whisper against your skin—"My everything...", "...Wanted to do this for so long..."—and each phrase causes an answering shudder to course through every fiber of your being.

The faint traces of stubble on his jaw graze against your face in a way that feels rough yet exciting – a sensation you hadn't experienced before. By now, it seems as if every nerve in your body is on high alert, attuned to every caress and tender touch that passes between you.

His touch remains gentle as his hands slide beneath your his soft cotton shirt, tracing patterns along the small of your back.

Your torso is now pressed up against his so tightly that it would be nearly impossible for a piece of paper to fit between you two. He responds with a low hum of appreciation and he reluctantly ends the kiss but doesn't break away entirely; his forehead rests against yours as both of you try to catch your breaths.

It doesn't take long for your lips to start exploring new territories; they traverse each other's jaws, press tender kisses along each other’s necks, and gently nibble on earlobes – all provoking delightful sighs and moans that fill the room.

Namjoon then gently rolls you flat onto your back, never breaking contact as he hovers above you.

A warmth radiates through the air as he pulls back just enough for his breath to softly brush your lips. "I love you too," he confesses, his eyes searching yours for any trace of doubt.

The whispered words could have been drowned out by the sound of your pounding heart, but they cut through the air like a dagger.

"And I always will."

[ashlingiswriting]

do i know you? chapter ten

[ chapter ten — 5.5k words ] [ masterlist ] [ prev chapters: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine ] you don't open the letter. richie jerimovich x reader, past mikey berzatto x reader, slow burn

handcuffs, bus, metal detector, strip search. three pairs of socks, toothbrush, toothpaste. everything stolen by your cellmate as soon as you arrive, except what you’re wearing. entire jail segregated to hell. you claimed by the italians, who were expecting you. instructions are simple: stick to the bottom bunk, keep your mouth shut, and you’ll make it. this is jail, not prison.

nothing and no one can touch you when you’re like this, sunk deep inside yourself. your throat is still hoarse from shouting last night, but that’s incidental, not important. nothing is important.

you don’t want to be here, so you’re not. 

you’re standing on the corner with half a pack in your jacket pocket, and he’s not there—you can’t see him right now, not even in your head—but he’s on his way. the winter sinks cold so deep into you that your forehead starts to hurt. if you stand here much longer, you’re going to get a runny nose. you’re itching for a cigarette. you don’t want to smoke without him. 

a lot of people want your attention.

julie, you’ve got mail. who’s this, your man? is he trying to get you back? put a price on it, maybe you can finally get us something from commissary. 

julie, the feds are not playing around. it looks like there’s charges related to human trafficking coming down the pipeline, and they’re trying to tie you to it. i’m doing my best with your defense, but if you don’t want to cooperate, i can’t guarantee—do you hear me? 

julie, when she comes through, we’re gonna take her back here. if you see a guard coming, just keep your mouth shut and kick the dryer, okay?

a lot of people want your attention, but nobody gets it. you can survive this, put one foot in front of the other, only as long as you can stand partly sheltered by the angle of your apartment building, and listen to the wind rushing past. waiting and safe, as long as he never arrives.

the snitch gets carried out on a stretcher.

the lawyer leaves unsatisfied.

you don’t open the letter.

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it’s much worse at night. but still, sometimes, you can sleep.

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lunch here has a queasy familiarity. it feels like barracks or school. you sit at a long table and corresponding bench with the italians, wondering if all this sodium is gonna worsen your perpetual low-grade headache, squeezing peanut butter from its plastic packet directly into your mouth, not bothering with the bread. 

behind you, you pick out the word doctor in somebody else’s conversation. thinking that it might have something to do with you, you turn and glance over your shoulder, just in time to catch a woman saying, too loudly, no i’m fine. you think her words sound a bit slurred. you’re fifty percent sure her name is aja. 

you’re sweating, says her friend, a woman with box braids whose name you’ve never learned.  she sounds exasperated. did you take something? when she gets no answer, her voice gains a note of urgency. hey. did you take something?

aja, leaning hunched forward on the table, mumbles no.

relieved, her friend says, then just eat your lunch.

i don’t...aja blinks. goes to lift one baby carrot to her mouth, looks at it, then stops. is car warning, she explains.

in the back of your brain, something stirs.

by now, you’ve been noticed by the other women at that table, and they’re staring daggers back. they’re almost all black women, just like all the women at yours are almost all white—and your stare is violating rules more important than the law. 

beside you, your cellmate janine has caught on too. she smacks your arm a little harder than she needs to, annoyed that she has to reiterate a fundamental lesson. mind your business. but you can still hear aja muttering out a slow explanation of increasingly jumbled words, and that’s all you care to hear.

it’s like there was a heavy weighted blanket keeping you down and separate from life, and that’s suddenly lifted. you can see and hear. there are words floating to the surface, and next steps, and you’re on the move, standing up. 

every woman sitting at aja’s table is up on their feet in five seconds flat, except for aja and her friend, though the friend gives you a look that could cut glass. you can hear everyone from your table getting up behind you, too. 

what’s your problem? says one of the women standing opposite.

i’m a doctor. you’re not even looking at her, but when she says, sure you are, there’s enough menace in it to stop you in your tracks. then janine has an iron grip on your arm, trying to drag you away. it’s too late. when you said you’re a doctor, you believed it, and with that the world has come into focus with perfect clarity. the rest doesn’t matter.

is she diabetic? you say.

janine hisses in your ear stupid fucking bitch fast and low and you can see a flicker of movement to your right, another woman from your side coming for you, so you wrestle free from janine and dart a few steps forward. as quick and smooth as if you’d planned it, a woman from aja’s side steps behind you, between you and your own table. she’s taller than you by about six inches. she says, yeah, she’s diabetic. 

permission enough. you sit down on the other side of aja. up close, she’s sweating and wearing a concerned expression, like she’s forgotten where she left her phone. you can hear the guards shouting, getting closer. you ignore them.

don’t touch her, the friend snaps.

who’s gonna take her pulse, then? keeping a careful eye on the friend, you reach for aja’s arm. nobody stops you. aja herself looks at you with vague suspicion in her golden brown eyes, but she’s not all there enough to resist. once you get your fingers on her wrist and find her pulse, you don’t bother counting it for a full thirty seconds, that’s how fast her heartbeat is going. 

at this point, the outside world has gotten too loud, too insistent, and you can feel the moment about to break. 

she needs sugar now, you say to the friend. or she’ll end up in a coma.

got it, she says, and then the guards are on you. with shouts and shoves, they break up the gathering, end lunch ten minutes early. with a yank of your shirt, you’re returned to your group. 

what the fuck is wrong with you, janine hisses, but you barely hear her. you’re still thinking on your patient, trying to get a look. you think you see the friend reaching for somebody else’s tray—to get a packet of strawberry jam, maybe—but you can’t be sure.

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it makes no sense. your head throbs. if janine’s threats are even half true, you’re in for more trouble than you know how to handle, and you didn’t know how to handle your troubles before. but somehow, once you’re in the laundry room, it happens. 

you realize that you like it all. the strong smell of detergent, the sun coming in golden through the high windows built too thin for jumpers, the way you have to lean forward and really push against the weight of hundreds of t-shirts in the hamper trolley. even the finicky machine quitting mid-cycle only amuses you, because you know the trick to starting it up again: thump it in the right spot a couple times, hear it rumble back to work. it’s not until one of the guards passes by you that you hear, the fuck are you smiling about? and you realize you were smiling at all. you stop at once.

the thing is: you fucking did it. at dinner, you’ll see aja sitting at that same table, eating and talking clearly. she’ll be fine. you did that. you never thought you’d get this again, but it seems not everything is over. there is still a little life in you, enough to save hers.

not everything is over, and for once you can think about the letter tucked into your bra without it burning you. 

you don’t imagine it contains forgiveness—hope isn’t the same as delusion—but there could still be something in it that you would want to keep. richie could never respect your decision to leave. loyalty is what he’s cared about most, the one value he’s managed to cling onto by the skin of his teeth. but he might at least understand. 

times past, he has understood you far better than you expected, and strangely enough, you’ve understood him too. he might understand you now. stranger things have happened.

you won’t read the letter, of course. but you’ll keep that possibility with you, the one thing you have left to hold.

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hey doc, come here. look at this. 

janine is calling to you from across the laundry room, beckoning you towards the back corner where the security cameras don’t quite reach. you hesitate. you’re not stupid. that’s exactly the spot they once made you stand guard, and given how publicly you ignored all orders today, you wouldn’t be surprised if it was janine’s turn to stand watch and your turn to take the beating. it’s been a while since you’ve done that. you’re probably rusty. ah, fuck it.

you leave the bin of stained shirts where it is and walk over, rounding the corner to find two women waiting for you. one you recognize immediately as an enforcer, blonde and tall and glaring ferociously at you. the other, slight and silver-haired, is the leader. 

do you know why you’re here? she says. calm, even pleasant, like a schoolteacher. 

i have a guess, you say.

so the leader explains. she takes her time with it, uses so many words, but the long and short of it is: you have been living an easy life. they have been taking care of you, and you’ve repaid them with nothing but trouble. angie—the massive woman leaning on the far wall, the enforcer—burned herself today in the kitchen, on purpose, badly enough that she got sent to the infirmary. sure enough, there’s a bandage around the enforcer’s left forearm. aja was supposed to also be in the infirmary, unconscious.

why angie and aja would need to be in the infirmary together, with aja unconscious, is obvious. the leader doesn’t need to explain that part. 

interfering is a crime. interfering in someone else’s murder is a crime whose punishment you can’t afford.

i didn’t know, you say. on hearing your thin voice, you realize your mistake. times like these, you’re supposed to keep your mouth shut. matter of fact, almost always, you’re supposed to keep your mouth shut. 

i’ve been told you have a letter on you, the leader says. let me see it.

you say nothing. she motions to the enforcer.

in your second tremendously stupid choice of the day, you fight back. you duck one punch only to get your ears rung by another, square in the left eye. after that, she deals with you easily, with the advantages of height, weight, reach, and the knowledge that this might be her one chance to get you back. she hates you and she fights like it, like she might just kill you and call it an accident. it’s all you can do to keep quiet, not yell for help. 

in under a minute, she’s back to the leader with your letter in her hand, snatched from your bra. the sound of your own heavy breathing is so unsteady, it’s almost as bad as crying. your eye has already begun to swell up. 

we have a problem, the leader says. if you can’t follow the most basic instructions, how can we trust you? and if we can’t trust you, what can we do? 

in the silence, you realize: they have everything now.

you need to prove that we can trust you. you have no idea how you could possibly do that, and then she adds, tell me about what you did for linda.

this time, you think it through before you open your mouth. 

you know what she’s asking about, of course. it’s the only thing you’ve ever done for your boss’s wife directly, and you were told to keep it secret, too. an iud for her daughter-in-law, along with a fake fertility treatment. what a woman would do to convince the people closest to her that she wants children, when she doesn’t. you know what those men are like.

i don’t know what you’re talking about, you finally say. if you have a problem with linda, go settle it with her. 

the enforcer starts forward, but the leader stops her. i’ll give you the night to think about it, she says, as undisturbed as ever. but first, i want you to tell me the list of things we could do if you turn out to not be trustworthy. i need to make sure that you know.

you need to get these women away from you so badly now that it’s almost easy to talk. 

you could kill me. you say that first because you doubt they’d bother with that much effort. or make my life miserable. you could keep that letter. you could talk to your boss and work it so i get stuck in here for a ten-year stretch. 

and other than that?

i don’t know.

we could make it so you never work as a doctor again.

does she know?

her pale green eyes give nothing away, and the longer you stare at her, desperately trying to pierce her pitiless calm, the more you feel you’re only exposing yourself. eventually, you give up. it doesn’t matter if she knows. the carusos know. if they expose you, the best years of your life, spent in hard work and little else, they’ll be gone. the worst years of your life, spent in restless loneliness and little else, they’ll be gone too. if that bomb drops, there’s no point to any of it. a decade of your life, best and worst, all for nothing. every second of every day. everyone you pushed away. 

i’m in jail, you manage to say. i don’t think i’ll get work as a doctor ever again.

i’m just the messenger, the leader says. see you tomorrow.

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that night, you wait for janine to snore, then you bury your face in the pillow and discover that you’re wound too tight to even cry. the pillow smells like old socks. you turn over and stare up at the bunk bed above you instead. 

it’s not a choice, it’s just pure dread. in this place, you have nobody else. if the italians drop you, you’ll be as easily extinguished as the slugs that little boys like to sprinkle with salt, but it’ll take much longer, however long they make your sentence. your lawyer said the feds were trying to pin human trafficking on you. maybe they’ll succeed. it’s life or hell, that’s the point. life or hell isn’t a choice.

you will tell them what they want to know. they will pass it back up the chain to old caruso, who in turn will figure out that alessandra has been fooling him all along with that combination of iud and fake fertility treatment. wronged the family, in his eyes. maybe, given the raid that came not long after, it will be considered a sign that she knew the end was coming and helped it along.

maybe she did snitch. you don’t know. does the truth matter? this man looked at his own wounded son and said, he should be dead. not helping death along was his idea of fatherhood. but he had considered it, you know. this is the man you’re going to deliver your patient to, the man who has you by the throat.

when you first learned about the hippocratic oath, you found it romantic in the only way you could bear: do no harm. not be kind or even do good, not change the world or save the day, and certainly nothing as lushly irrational as love. something possible and real. a solid foundation. first, do no harm. 

alessandra might never know that you’re the one who gave her up.

that’s your patient, you remember a veteran surgeon saying to another resident. you can’t exactly remember what made him say it, some disrespect, but the viciousness of his voice left an impression on you. the unspoken seemed obvious. they’re the patient, you’re the doctor. they let you cut them wide open and put your hands inside them, so you better be prepared to show some fucking respect. surgeons always have a reputation for ego, so maybe it had nothing to do with treating the patient well, maybe it was a pure ego thing. but it felt, and still feels, like a personal claim. you violate your own patient and you might as well be a leafless tree, an unloving father.

you think over the leader’s words, trying to find yourself some loophole. relive each word as best you can while sniffing back snot because you have no tissues. but all you find is that the letter is gone now too, and with that, you tighten your jaw and refuse to let yourself start crying, because this time if you lose it, you’ll be lost.

the laundry room sunlight feels like it fell on your face years ago. that hope is gone. richie would not understand you abandoning your patient, and you wouldn’t want him to. you don’t even want him living in the same country as this fucking place. 

why didn’t you open that letter when you had the chance? if it’s not understanding, it’s probably rage, and you want that.  you would willingly read in excruciating detail just how fucked up it is that you caused his best friend’s death and then wormed your way so deep into his life that you could see him up close fighting the grief like a fish against the hook. you’d take that. if he tells you to go fuck yourself, fair enough. as long as it’s his words. that letter is the last of him, and you want it. 

that letter is the last of him because once you give up alessandra, there’s no coming back. once you give up alessandra, you’re not just a legal liability, not just a burden, but a genuine honest to god piece of shit twice over. you were a piece of shit already, but this?

you only realize you had hope now that you’re losing it. you only know you want to be a doctor once your license is on the line; you only know you were going to go back to him now that the door is receding many more years into the distance. there’s some life left in you, yeah. that’s not a good thing.

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when you get up out of bed the next morning to meet your fate, your left eye has swollen up so badly you can barely see out of it. you face the morning, the sudden harsh overheads turning on, with half vision and a desperate, helpless longing to be numb. the numbness doesn’t return, though the leader does. 

she sits next to you at breakfast. there’s no enforcer this time. apparently you’re not enough of a threat.

well? she says.

you should’ve cried last night; maybe then you wouldn’t feel such an intense urge to cry now. stupid. you say nothing. you want to pick at the lumps of rubbery scrambled egg on your tray, but you only stare at them.

this is your chance. she doesn’t say it like a threat. she says it like a friend. you sure you have nothing to tell me?

it’s happening, you can feel it happening, but you can barely process. she thinks your silence is a no. she thinks she’s being denied. and you know you need to tell her what she wants to hear, but the guilt of it is so heavy that your mouth stays closed. you’re terrified of her. of yourself. you know what will happen once you crack and open your mouth and let your patient down: your life will be over. and you have no idea of exactly what will happen if you don’t open your mouth, but your imagination can fill in those blanks a thousand different ways. 

you’re just fucking scared in all directions, and what it amounts to is this: you keep your mouth shut.

after what feels like hours, the leader speaks.

okay, she says. i’ll pass it on. 

she gets up from the table. around you, women are eating and joking and squabbling as usual. it doesn’t feel like you made a decision. it doesn’t feel like the end of anything. it just feels like you’re waiting for the next punch to land.

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days go by and you’re still tensed, waiting for that punch. nothing seems to change, but it’s cold comfort. and there’s no comfort in the moral victory, either—discovering that you have a single principle left doesn’t make you feel any better when all your energy goes into keeping your guard up. every dull hour, every dull meal could be taken away from you at any moment. the afternoon light in the laundry room is still beautiful. somebody should try to hurt you, and soon. if they don’t, you’re just going to lose it.

and then there she is. the enforcer, sitting on your bed, when you come back from the laundry room smelling of bleach from the white shirts. the burn on her arm is still bandaged. in full light, she looks even bigger. dirty blonde hair swept back in a ponytail, grey eyes hateful. 

when she takes out that blue envelope, your chest tightens. you can tell that she enjoys the look on her face, but it doesn’t last long. it’s strange. she tosses the letter with a dismissive gesture, and it lands on the floor between you.

congratulations. she still hates you, that much is clear—but she’s no longer enjoying herself, and that’s vital. that’s a good sign.

yeah? you say.

jack says you pass. 

she shoves past you hard on her way out. it’s all you can do not to snatch up the letter from the ground, to try and look as though you have some kind of control. 

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> dear julie, 

> i don’t know if you remember me, but you dated my best friend mikey a while ago. when i found out you got arrested, i talked to tina about it. she said you helped him till the day he died, and you’re the one who got us narcan.

> that sounds about right to me. i heard negative things about you once, but i never believed them. some things only come around once in a while, like a leap year. (which doesn’t have 365 days, it has 366.) one of those rare things is a friend who’s there when you need them. you have to recognize them when you see them. i think i recognize you now.

> this is just me saying that we haven’t forgotten you. tina says hi, and i’ll come visit, if you’ve got the time to spare. i’m guessing you’re pretty bored in there, and i can honk my horn and take a pie to the face as well as the next guy. 

> yours,

> richie

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yeah, that’s him. 

you know it’s him on the first reread, because you can see all the tightness falling away as he writes, from the cramped propriety and false casualness in the first sentences to the dear clown stupidity of the last. you know it’s him on the second reread, because he’s lying in his own way, trying to fit in with what you wanted, pretending he’s just the friend of your ex, not admitting to knowing you. you’re crying. you’ve waited a long time to cry. that’s incidental. 

it’s only on the fifth reread that you snag on the part about the leap year. it’s the weirdest part, the parentheses. long after you have the letter half-memorized and tucked away in your bra, after dinner and lights out, you’re thinking on it. you fall asleep to the question and wake up the next morning with the answer. 

i’d bet my life that there was a sig p365 in his hand when they found him.

some things only come around once in a while, like a leap year. (which doesn’t have 365 days, it has 366.)

what if it wasn’t you?

no, you’ve been inside for less than two months and you’re already detaching from reality. that’s probably what’s happening here. but you can practically feel the warmth coming off the page, and that’s all that matters. 

your nose is practically fountaining snot, and without kleenex, you just wipe it on your sleeve and read the letter again.

it’s only hours later that you stop obsessing over the letter for long enough to truly realize what has happened. you’re going to be okay. 

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the days pass quiet now. your swelled eye heals up slowly, until one morning you have full vision again. just as before, all you do is sleep, eat, work, and keep to yourself. nothing has changed. 

nothing has changed on the surface.

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.

you think about alessandra all the time, because of course you do. 

just because old caruso couldn’t get you to flip on her doesn’t mean she’s safe, and yet you think about her the way you think about aja, the way you think about a gap-toothed surgery patient from way back in your residency sometimes. the thing that made you text your bosses begging for news about the carbon monoxide poisoning patients. that’s still in you. 

you know you can’t actually save anyone in a way that lasts—any and all work can be undone in an car-crash instant, and sometimes is—but still. one of your patients has to make it, or else what’s the point?

eventually you stop seeing aja around, but you don’t hear any talk about her getting killed, so you figure: that’s the one. that’s the one you got to save. it makes no sense, you know, but you have this feeling that if you get to save anyone, you only get to save one. so you try to prepare for the news that alessandra is gone. 

but when the news comes of a death in that family, it’s not the one you expected.

you stare at your lawyer, shocked. wait, so old caruso is dead?

suicide, she says matter of factly. hung himself in his cell. 

the fuck? so do we think that… you trail off, mindful of the cameras, even if they’re technically supposed to be turned off for lawyer consultations. you believe he’s dead, but you don’t believe for a second that he actually killed himself. 

your lawyer shrugs. who knows. all that matters is that apparently there’s an informer of some sort that’s turned over a bunch of shit—cellphone records, emails—and they’re willing to give an affidavit that you were threatened. there’s a couple pretty graphic and specific examples. for example, allegedly, after the first surgery you performed in the easystop basement, the oldest of caruso’s sons put his hand in the semi-coagulated blood and—

he’s dead now, you feel obligated to say. it’s whatever. you remember it well, though you wish you didn’t.

she’s admirably noncommittal, your lawyer. it would be nice if it wasn’t so annoying. which one is dead now?

most of them, i guess. the father’s dead, the oldest son is dead, and the youngest son will probably never be the same despite your best efforts. considering those numbers, it’s nothing short of a miracle that jack, the middle son, has apparently decided to spare you. you kept your mouth shut on behalf of his wife, but right now there’s such a tangle of complications and so few actual facts available to you that you can’t begin to guess what’s truly happening behind the scenes. you can only be grateful that you haven’t been hurt worse. 

your lawyer is considering you with shrewd eyes. after a second, she says, if i can get you a plea deal, will you take it? 

i can’t testify, you say automatically.

i know. i think i can get a deal without testimony included.

wait, really? 

she gives you a look, as if to say, catch up, dummy.

how many years? you say.

months, possibly. we’ll see.

you hardly know what to say to that. cool, you say, feebly.

you’ve kept your mouth shut, so they’re taking it easy on you, that’s the bottom line. it feels like a copout to escape the worst punishments on the basis that you were coerced, even if that’s true, because you feel like you probably deserve worse. but fuck, you’ll take mercy from anywhere right now, right and wrong and dignity be damned.

i’ll let you know. your lawyer gets up to go, but just as you’re about to call for the guard, she stops short. oh, one last thing. your landlady finally agreed that you don’t need to pay her rent for the past two months.

lovely.

she threw out all of your belongings that the cops didn’t take.

can’t say i’m surprised. it still hurts, but it’s a hurt dwarfed by the immense relief of an imminent plea deal. i’d sue, but we both know my retainer’s gonna run out too soon for that.

she did forward your mail to me, though. 

my mail? what is it, a dollar fifty off a personal pan pizza?

one postcard from your mom and her boyfriend and his family. one interview request for a doctoral residency program in indiana. 

you don’t know which of those is weirder. the residency applications you mostly did in a period of loneliness and boredom. they were an exercise in desperation daydreaming, not meant to touch real life, and you never even imagined a person reading the papers you submitted. getting a response, a good response, is as strange as a character stepping off a page. and your mom having a boyfriend is no surprise, but a boyfriend with a family? the world’s ended, yeah, but is the world ending?

can you forward those to me? you say.

they’re already in the mail. you should get them within the next two weeks.

when your lawyer leaves, you’re still sitting there. the guard has to call your name twice before you get up.

what a fucking week.

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if you’re gonna get out in months, then…

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.

you earn seventy-two cents per day working in the laundry. the first time you go to the commissary, you buy a stamp, an envelope, and a blank card. then you smuggle detergent out of the laundry room so you can bribe janine into letting you borrow her pen.

you have richie’s letter memorized, but you read it again anyway. then you stare at the blank white space of the card. 

what is there to say? well, fucking everything, but there isn’t much you can say with the inevitable prison guard reading it all too. that cuts you off from saying most things, and then dignity wants you to shut up about the rest. sorry i thought my life was over and tore you to pieces about it. turns out my life isn’t over, can we be friends again?

thing is, if you write him a letter, he’ll write back, even if it’s to tell you to fuck off. and honestly at this point, you’d give up a lot more than dignity for that. so here fucking goes.

> dear richie,

> thank you for writing. i’m not good company right now and i can’t really write letters, but maybe we can get coffee sometime when i’m out?

> yours,

> julie

the yours gives you away, but you have so little else to offer. and besides, he started it.

it’s disciplined. that’s what you’re trying to tell yourself. it’s disciplined and concise and it gets across exactly as much as he needs to know and jesus fucking christ that short note looks absolutely pitiful in the comparatively vast white space of the card. 

so you make an addition.

> p.s. tear the bottom off for eva.

as best as you can, you draw the horses from memory. arched necks, white and dark patches on their coats, as close to the style of the girl who loved horses as you can. and then one girl with a superhero’s mask and a cape, holding up an apple so the tallest horse can eat it. you don’t draw well, but you don’t have the pen long enough to try a do-over. there’s a small chance you’ll make her smile, and that’s all you want. 

lick envelope, peel stamp, and send.

[ next chapter pending ] [ masterlist ]

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a huge thank you to all readers.

taglist: @garbinge, @narcolini, @drabbles-mc, @beingalive1, @eternallyvenus, @cerial-junkie, @jackierose902109, @shinebright2000, @scorpiolystoned, @fancyvoidtragedy, @justficsandstuff, @fromirkwood, @gills-lounge, @lostfleurs, @spicydonut25— if anyone wants to be added to or removed from the taglist, let me know!

[lilystyles]

comfort.

part three of the no strings attached series by @lilystyles

no strings attached masterlist & main masterlist xxx

authors note the long awaited part three!!! you guys are literally the best omg. all the love for both parts has been amazing since i'm so new to tumblr!! can't believe it :))) kisses and hugs, enjoy part three and follow me to see the other parts coming soon! sorry if this took some time, uni's kickin my ass.

brief description y/n calls harry drunk and scared, harry picks her up and helps take care of her. the next morning y/n worries she'll scare him off, but of course, harry eases those worries.

warnings! mentions of sex, swearing, and alcohol abuse, overall just a mature read. anxious girl reader moment (real). FLUFFY ASF!! around 4.5k words.

drunk!inexperienced!virgin!reader x fwb!harry

* * * * *

“Hello?” A crackly voice spoke into Harry’s phone.

The familiar voice of Y/n made his eyes snap open. It was an odd, long, 011 phone number; he was confused why her little contact wasn’t on his screen. It was this recent photo of her lying on a rug in just one of his shirts listening to records. He was still half asleep, all foggy and confused. Her call had woken him up from a deep slumber. He honestly thought he might have been dreaming for a moment, her voice was all distorted.

“Love, is that you?” His voice came out all deep and gravelly.

“Harry?! It’s Y/n!” He could hear noise in the background of her, her voice was warped and all crackly.

“Are you alright?” He said quickly sitting up from his bed, she never called on a random number. Something must be wrong. His knuckles rubbed along his eyes, trying to wake himself up. It was pitch black and freezing inside his room.

“My phone’s dead!! I’m at some club, you’re the only number I knew off by heart! Can you come to get me? I’m a bit scared and I’m stranded!” She was still shouting, he could hear people shouting and music in the background. She could hardly even hear her own voice over it all.

Harry looked at the time on his phone. It was around 1 AM. “I’m coming now, Y/n. Where are you?”

“Some place called The Swan!”

He had already slid some shoes on and began to race to his car. “I’m comin’ right now, I’m gettin’ in the car. Can yeh wait with one of tha’ bouncers or somethin’ until I’m there?”

“Good idea, H. Okay, see you soon. Drive safe please.” She sounded very drunk. The phone made a slamming noise when she ended the call, it must have been a pay phone.

Harry had to stop himself from speeding to get her. He tried to breathe. She was scared, and that unsettled him. He knew that she didn’t need protecting, but drunk women alone were vulnerable, he wished it wasn’t so but he couldn’t help but let his mind wander to awful scenarios.

The Swan was this really dodgy nightclub in a dodgy neighbourhood. For some reason, their friend Olive tended to favour it for the free drinks on Friday nights. She must’ve roped Y/n into going there tonight. Harry had gone to a business meeting that evening so they hadn’t been able to hang out, he’d called her to tell her. Y/n said that was okay and that she had plans anyway too. 

This must have been the plan. 

When his car arrived outside the strip of clubs he parked in a taxi zone, and quickly got out not caring whether or not he could park there. He looked around the swarms of people trying to find her familiar head of h/c hair. He was still in sleep clothes, this grey pair of shorts and a shirt that belonged to Y/n actually. It was this baggy old pink one with Spice Girls on the front it fits him more tightly than her. 

His shoes were slippers and socks and he had a hoodie over his head. When he got closer to the entrance he saw her. 

She was sitting on the floor beside two big burly bouncers. Her feet were bare and the heels she had on were in her hands. The dress she was wearing had ridden up a bit as she stared off into the distance, drunkenly. She hadn’t seemed to noticed her undies were on display or that her straps were falling down her shoulders. Her heels were off and she was sitting them in her lap.

“Y/n.” He said in relief, glad he’d made it here quickly enough. She was in a right state. 

She looked up, smiling all bleary-eyed. Her mouth was in a wide-open puppy dog grin.  “Harry!” Her arms lifted up for him.

He laughed feeling better now that he could see she was all okay, nothing had happened to her. He bent over slightly to pick her up into the hug that she was wanting. She dropped her shoes as he lifted her but she didn’t seem to care slinking her arms around his waist and leaning into him.

She squeezed him tightly. “Thanks for gettin’ me,”

“Of course, love. Am I really the only number y'knew off by heart?” He asked pulling back slightly to see her face.

She blushed looking down at her feet, all shy.

“Other than Mum.” She replied, finally meeting his eyes. Her Mum lived back home though, so Harry was the only person she had to call and truthfully the only one she wanted to call.

He smiled kissing her temple, brushing some hair away from her eyes. Her mascara was smudged and her lipstick had faded leaving her lips stained a slightly rosy colour, but she still looked beautiful.

“Don’t get cocky. It’s from all those times I’d call you in Uni to pick me up.” She replied, her words slurring slightly.

“Have you seen Y/n?” Asked Harry, in a gruff tone. 

Queenie, Y/n’s friend who’d invited her to the party, was smoking a joint quietly outside on the front porch of the university sharehouse.

“I think she’s inside, last I saw she was dancing on the kitchen table.” Said Queenie with a breathy laugh, blowing out a long cloud of thick white smoke. The potent smell hit Harry’s nose and he wished he was back home.

He just nodded, sighing. It was probably about 3 AM right now. He’d been asleep but their friend James called him up saying Y/n needed to be picked up and brought home. She was a bit out of control. 

Harry knew it was of roommately and best friendly duties to pick his girl up. She’d done it to him too, many times. And he did worry for her when she was out drinking, especially when he wasn’t there to watch out for her. Even in school when they’d get drunk off stolen alcohol in each other’s backyards he watched out for her always.

 James would always say it was because he was like a jealous boyfriend, but Harry denied that saying it was simply because she tended to end up passed out on the road without his watchful gaze.

When he got inside suddenly his pyjamas felt too hot even though it was a chilly night. There were many people swarming the house, he made his way to the kitchen saying hello groggily here and there to friends. 

When he got there he found Y/n dancing along to the beat of some awful song everyone knew the words to. Her hips were swaying and the exposed skin that her low-waisted jeans offered looked edible, she looked so good even with half a bottle of tequila in her. He fought away that thought and blamed his tired eyes.

Her cheeks were flushed from her drink and she had this toothy smile on her face.

“Y/n!” He called over the music, looking up at her on the table.

She opened her eyes looking down at him. “HARRY!!” 

He smiled, and suddenly waking up at three had been worth it, and coming to get her was no problem. “Hi, love!”

She made grabby hands at him. “Come on! Get up here! Dance with me!! I missed ya!”

How could he say no?

He didn’t say anything, he just let go of her to pick up her shoes from the ground.

Her arms were wrapped around her body like she was cold. 

“Are y’cold?”

She nodded her head. He quickly took off his zip-up hoodie and put it on her, zipping it up for her. He was rolling the sleeves for her because it was too big when her hand fell onto his chest gripping his (her) shirt.

“You’re a thief!” She teased. “Not my Spices Girls shirt, Harold!”

He just smiled, pushing some loose hair behind her ears. “S’cute! I think I look good in it. Don’t you?” 

He’d look good in a paper bag, but the real reason he wore it was that it smelt like her. The shampoo she used, her perfume, and that something that was just her natural aroma. He liked how worn it was, the soft feel of it, and how it had faded from so many years of sleeping in it. She wore it a lot when they were roommates too. But she’d had it since she was little. The once vibrant pink had paled to a babied pink hue.

Honestly, he’d been sad they couldn’t hang out that evening. He put it on to help him sleep.

“You always look good.” She rolled her eyes as if it was annoying. And sometimes it was, how did he look good in the old raggy-stained shirt? She would never know. Magic. He was bloody magic.

He started taking his slippers off. They were black slip-on ones. She frowned at him. “What are you doing?”

“Put them on. I don’t want yeh’ cutting yourself on tha’ glass.” He said softly. Her heels were still in his hands, looking dainty in them. 

She smiled softly before sliding her feet into the slippers. Her feet ached from those ridiculous shoes, she was glad to be rid of them. His sock-covered feet were on the floor. “What about you?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. Home?”

“Home.” She nodded. 

He made sure he had her purse too before opening the car door for her and placing the bag and shoes by her feet. She slid in and Harry even did her seatbelt up for her, before gently shutting the door. When he got in beside her she smiled, glad to be with Harry. She’d missed him, it had only been one day. But they had been inseparable at the minute.

His car smelt of tobacco, mint, and a spicy woodsy smell. Just like him. He had a vanilla-scented air freshener and a charm of jade beads hanging on the mirror. 

“Can I put some music on, H?” She asked turning to him. Her eyes stared up at him. He handed over his phone unlocked.

She opened Spotify and put on some Oasis. Hitting shuffle it landed on ‘Married With Children’ and she sighed. “Remember when we used to listen to Oasis at my house?” She asked. 

Growing up Y/n had the most CD variety and all the gang used to go over and listen; when Y/n’s parents were away they’d smoke and drink with this album on in the background. It always made Harry feel very nostalgic and it always reminded him of her. Even when they had drifted his hands itched to ring her if he ever heard it on the radio.

“Of course, you loved bloody Oasis.” He replied, smiling at the memory of 14-year-old Y/n. She had these colourful dresses, ratty sneakers, and an Oasis obsession. She just grinned over at him in reply, humming the words of the song. He could see that girl inside her even now, and Y/n could still see young Harry who was all dimples and laughs underneath the rockstar beside her.

“Yours or mine?” He asked gently as pulled up to a red light. 

“Yours, please. S’closer and I want your comfy bed.” She had been dreaming of his big grand bed, it was all white, fluffy, and fresh and it smelt of her Harry. She wanted to curl up in there, she’d been feeling a bit emotional recently. She thought her period might be coming soon. So all she wanted was to sleep in his arms and his very comfortable and luxurious bed.

And she liked when she woke up at his house and she’d find him sitting on the couch drinking his tea, as always he was awake before her, waiting for her with some pastries or big plates of bacon and eggs. It was like being in a bloody hotel!

He nodded, she looked so sleepy beside him. “As you wish.”

The drive was quick and quiet beside the low humming radio.

When the car pulled out the front of Harry’s large house he entered the security code into the gate and made his way inside the driveway. When he parked the car and turned off the engine, he looked over to find her very much asleep.

He sighed softly, letting himself take a moment to stare. Her eyes were shut, fluffy eyelashes on her cheeks, lips all pouty and soft. She looked so calm and soft like this, it made her look like an angel. An angel in clubbing clothes. He knew he wanted to get her inside and change her into something comfortable and get her safely to sleep, but he wanted to enjoy her beauty for a second.

“Bun,” He whispered his hand touching her cheek. She leaned into his touch, still asleep. “We’re home,” he said slightly louder. 

Her eyes fluttered open, and she just nodded. He got out and walked to her door, helping her out. He grabbed all her things, locked the car and then grabbed her hand to guide her inside. When they stepped inside Harry was glad to be home. 

He then guided her upstairs to the bathroom motioning for her to sit on the toilet. She did so happily and he opened his drawer grabbing some makeup remover and cotton pads, Y/n had a habit of falling asleep in her makeup so he’d bought this so she didn’t have to at his house. 

He soaked the cotton pad with the remover and stepped closer to her, pushing her chin up slightly. She smiled at him sleepily. 

He smiled back. It was silent, but they didn’t always need to talk. They’d never needed to talk all the time, that wasn’t their style. 

He gently pressed the cotton pad on her skin and removed all the makeup around her lips, cheeks, and forehead. It took a few cotton pads and then he finally did her eyes, she looked like a panda for a second and he giggled at her. 

Her hand had crept up onto his hip under the shirt, her nails gently scratched the skin there and she saw a peak of the fern tattoos. She loved those tattoos, they had to be her favourite. When she’d pleasure him she loved kissing along those tattoos and when they cuddled on his couch and her head was on his lap she would trace along them. They were just fucking so sexy.

He liked her tattoo too. He was just as obsessed with every inch of her, but he loved that she had gotten it with him in mind. He felt they’d always be connected till the end of time.

Once he had gotten all her makeup off her, he used a wet cloth to wash her face. She felt nice and clean. Harry knew just how to take care of her. He handed her a hairbrush she left here and she quickly brushed her hair before tying it back away from her clean face. 

“Y’want your shirt back to sleep in?” He asked pinching the pink material. 

She shook her head. She had started to sober up, but she was still looking sleepy, “Looks better on you, Harry.”

He gave her the pink toothbrush he’d bought for her for when she slept over. She cleaned her teeth. He waited, leaning in the doorway, watching her with droopy eyes. He was starting to feel sleepy too.

She followed him to his bedroom, her arm wrapped around his waist as she pressed her cheek onto his back. He loved her like this, they already were quite physically affectionate but that was usually Harry initiating it. But drunk Y/n loved to touch him, he’d always known that. She was the same in uni.

When they made it to his room he opened his cupboard. Grabbing a jumper he wore earlier that day and a pair of clean boxers. He handed them to her and since she was drunk, and they had started to see each other nude more often she had no shyness in taking off her dress and Harry’s jacket. She threw it to the floor before she finally took off her bra and undies to slip into Harry’s clothes. The navy jumper smelt of him and she loved that. 

The whole room smelt of him. She took his slippers off and left them by the foot of the bed.

“In ya’ get.” He gestured to his messy thrown sheets. She quickly crawled up to the pillows before wrapping herself in his big fluffy duvet. He turned his lamp off and got in beside her with a sigh.

“Thanks.” She whispered looking up at him. 

He just gave her a crooked smile, all dimples. “Of course.”

She moved closer to him resting her head on his chest.

“Sooky pants.” He teased, arms still wrapping around her. 

She didn’t reply, just kissed his chest. It made his cheeks heat up. She made it hard for him not to feel like this. Did she even realise? He would do anything if it meant he got some of her. Even if she didn’t want to date him, he was happy with anything. Any piece of her was enough to keep Harry.

The two fell asleep quickly, wrapped together in each other’s soft touch, they hardly moved at all during their sleep. Feeling peaceful and warm on that chilly evening was enough to make Harry sleep in longer than usual. 

Saturday mornings usually consisted of him going for a run, grocery shopping, calling his Mum or Gemma. But this morning he slept through the sunrise and all the way until 7:00! Harry was honestly amazed, it’d been a long time since he slept in until then. He looked down to find Y/n still buried in his chest, and couldn’t bring himself to move.

After an hour of drifting in and out of sleep, his bladder caused him to get up. He tried to be gentle but Y/n stirred. He placed her gently back but she made a little whine, arms grabbing his. 

“I’ll be right back, Love.” He whispered, kissing her forehead. She let go. 

She opened her eyes, the curtains were half drawn and but it was a rather dreary London morning. Didn’t seem to be raining yet, but thick grey clouds covered the sky so it was practically dark in Harry’s room. She felt awful, slightly hungover, mainly just sleep deprived. She felt tired and sore, kicking off the white duvet she looked down to find a big red blotch staining Harry’s white sheets.

She looked to see it all over her thighs too. “Oh shit!” She gasped. She was so embarrassed. She wanted to cry. She ruined his sheets, his clothes, and oh god. What if he was grossed out? What if he found her digusting? She wasn’t exactly thinking rationally, but she wished she could’ve gotten it another time. Why now?!?!

Her panic was interrupted by Harry coming back from the bathroom. He had two steaming mugs in his hands, all smiley. Happy to see her up, thinking maybe they could go for a walk today. There was a local park nearby. He thought it could be cute, maybe they could get breakfast at a nearby cafe and go for a stroll. Y/n had some study to do but Harry was good at making sure she took enough breaks. She had a habit of overworking herself.

He stopped smiling when he saw her panic and glossy eyes. “Y/n, what’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry.” She said, tears spilling from her eyes. He frowned, he hated seeing her cry. He walked closer to the bed placing the two teas on the bedside table and finally saw what she was talking about. She must have gotten her period in the night or early this morning.

He shook his head. “Don’t be sorry, baby, it happens.”

She placed her head in her hands, body slightly jolting from her sobs. He quickly wrapped her in his arms, rubbing her back. “It’s alright, I promise.”

“But I-I—” She hiccuped, pulling back slightly,“—r-ruined y-your sheets, Harry.”

“No you haven’t I’ll go wash them, it’s not a problem. It’s only sheets.” He caressed her head, pushing back stray hairs.

“What about your clothes?” Her lip quivered. She felt awful. So guilty.

“I’ll wash those too, Petal, s’fine.”

She frowned. “I’m so sorry. I know it’s gross.”

He frowned deeply. “S’not gross, it’s natural. Y’can’t control it, Love.”

She didn’t say anything, just looked down at the mess on the sheets and her legs. 

He kissed her forehead. “M’ gonna run you a bath, get some new clothes f’ya, and then I’ll get y’whatever breakfast y’want.”

She looked up, smiling gratefully. 

“What stuff do y’need? Do you need any pain relief?” He pulled out his phone and wrote down the list of things she needed. 

She felt so lucky, Harry was so sweet about it. Listening to every detail and asking questions.

He then ran a big bubble bath for her, lavender scented soap filled the room. He dimmed the lights and checked the temperature of the water with his hands. It felt just right. After he turned the water off he got a big fluffy black towel for when she was done. 

She stripped off his clothes telling Harry she’d wash them after she had her bath but Harry beat her to it and did the sheets and clothes all in one go while she warmed up and cleaned herself.

While she relaxed he did a few things around the house, including bringing her in a tea and his laptop to watch some Friends on. She needed something that didn’t involve thinking. 

He gave her a peck before leaving to buy her some pads and tampons, and the specific pain relief she wanted. 

Harry will admit that since gaining money he tended to go a bit over board sometimes. He came back home with enough pads and tampons for a year and lots of other things; including her favourite snacks and chocolate. 

When he came home from shopping he found Y/n relaxing still in the bath, eyes shut, as Friends played in the background. She opened her eyes, she looked a bit ill. She sometimes had really bad period pain. Today was one of those days.

He gave her a little haul of the things he bought. “I got tha’ ones with daisies s’on like y’asked.” He said shaking the box with the daisies. “Here’s the pain medication.”

She silently wondered if this is what a boyfriend would do. Her inexperienced brain made her question her sanity. Maybe this was normal for friends with benefits. She had literally nothing to base it on.

When he was done showing her he put them on the sink and Y/n told him she was ready to get out. He quickly shut the door giving her some privacy before grabbing some clothes for her to wear. 

He found a big black jumper with ‘Pleasing’ on the front, she loved this one (always knicking it), a plain white shirt of his that he wore to the gym sometimes, and a pair of black tracksuit pants with the drawstring so they would fit her well. He also found a pair of fluffy socks and had even bought some cotton underwear for her so she didn’t have to wear his boxers. At this point, Harry kind of wished she had a drawer here for her stuff. He liked having her here, and it might make things a little easier.

He knocked asking to come in. She mumbled a ‘come in’, and he did. She had wrapped herself in the towel. 

He handed her the pile of clothes, stroking her cheek. Her hair was damp letting the water fall over her neck, back, and shoulders.

“These are all clean and I bought some undies from the shop, so you should have everything. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thank you, Harry.” She said softly, eyes scanning his features. His eyes looked so green in the dim darkly lit house. How did he look so good right now? He was in casual lounge clothes. A pair of grey tracksuit pants that made him look muscular and a loose black long-sleeve. He looked so pretty watching her like that, arms crossed and worried eyes. He looked pretty all the time.

Today felt more intimate than anything they had done. Today had felt real.

“Of course, Petal. I’ll leave you to change.” He kissed her forehead.

He went downstairs, doing his usual morning routinely bits and bobs. When Y/n came down she had blow-dried her hair and washed her face. Her eyes, even with deep bags, still looked pretty. Lips all pouty. She seemed calmer now, but still tired.

“Are y’feeling up ta’ goin’ out?”

Even though she was tired, Harry had an excited look, how could she say no to him? Even if her uterus was angry inside her. 

“Okay? Breakfast?”

He nodded. “How could I drag you out without the promise of breakfast and a good time?”

She giggled.

They layered up for the winter weather, with puffer jackets and beanies. Y/n felt so funny in all of Harry’s clothes, but the smell made her so calm she was ready for a nap.

Harry mentioned that it was only a short walk through the park and then they’d be there. Since it was a pretty quiet area and Harry was wearing a beanie and sunglasses he wasn’t too worried about being noticed. Y/n was much the same in a pink beanie of his and this big crimson scarf around her neck. 

It was the one he wore on New Year's of  2014. “Harry, this is an old one isn’t it?”

He was typing on his phone replying to a worried Olive. He was annoyed she’d left Y/n to fend for herself and ditched her for a bloke. Nonetheless he told her Y/n was fine. He looked up at her, they were walking down his street. 

“Sorry, Love? What?”

She smiled placing a hand on her neck. “I remember this…”

“Oh, right. Yeah, had it for ages.”

She smiled softly. He turned is phone off and put it in his pocket grabbing her hand which had been swallowed by the long arms of his jumper. She let him, it felt too nice to pull away. His hand was warm and soft. She leaned into the comforting touch.

He kissed her hairline as they strolled through the park. It was chilly, Y/n found herself leaning into him happily. She wished it could be like this everyday. It was a Saturday so it was as busy as the quiet area got. Children ran around with worried mothers chasing after them. Teenagers on bikes laughing and flying by. Old couples wandered around closely together. 

They fit right in. Seeming like two normal people, a normal couple.

Harry wasn’t some rockstar right now, with Y/n he was just himself. Just Harry from Holmes Chaple. He loved that Y/n grounded him and made him feel normal, this to most was a boring day but to Harry the best in a long time.

When they got to the small strip of cafes Harry guided her to his favourite place. 

Over delicious hot chocolates and breakfast, the cold morning felt warm and Harry and Y/n felt blissful.

"Haz, thank you again,"

He just smiled and leaned in for a long kiss. It was nice and with no real sexual intentions. Just a genuine soft, warm, slow, nice kiss.

"Of course, now stop thanking me. No need. An' tell me what yeh' think of the eggs."

if you enjoyed this feel free to check out my masterlist here! xx feel free to request me too!

[cedarwoodtears]

Could u do any mattjess (friendship and romantic) hcs? Thanks!

YES ANON YESS BRO THEYRE SO CUTE TOGETHER!!!!!! MY HEART!!!! MY FAVORITE STRAIGHT COUPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHH

• matt has tried to get jessica more into sports but she gets a lot of the terms mixed up…like when someone makes a shot in basketball she’ll yell, “TOUCHDOWN!!!!” matt appreciates her spirit even if it’s wrong, he doesn’t have to heart to tell her…

• they have a samoyed that jess absolutely SPOILSS the amount of treats and bones he gets. his name is milo. she even got matt to knit him a cute little beige sweater that jess puts on milo during the winter. and also he gets a pup cup every monday and friday. to start him off good the week and to end good as well. when matt goes jogging in the mornings he also brings milo with him, they spend a lot of time together outdoors TEEHEE

• jess tends to cheat off matt’s homework for her classes but ESPECIALLY math. that’s a subject she cannot wrap her brain around…i mean she’s got a pretty bad grade in that class because matt is pretty much the same in math so they both get it wrong LMAOOOOO matt doesn’t like it when she does that, insisting that, “it’s better to learn it on your own” but she gives those puppy dog eyes and he can’t refuse…

• they send each other tik toks all the time. matt sends her at least 50 tik toks a day and half of them are completely illegible to her (his brainrot level is so severe). the other half is cute relationship posts but it’s always a 50/50 opening a tik tok from him. jess sends him edits of her favorite animes (she secretly LOVES anime it’s canon) and then also those “us?” posts…

• matt could literally be freezing to death and he’d still give jess his coat if she even had so much of a shiver. jess really appreciates his kindness and generosity but she also feels bad for him sometimes bc she doesn’t want him going without something either…matt is still working on not being a people pleaser but he tends to put jess before himself in everything

• jess normally cooks for them (and matt LOVES it everytime) but on special occasions like birthdays or an anniversary or something else matt will make her something! normally it’s um. not the best but jess appreciates him for his effort and eats it all…one time he accidentally charred the chicken beyond belief and she still had a little. it was a bite and she spit it out right after LMAOO

• they go on a lot of dates, whether it be to the park, or a museum, or a restaurant, or a theater, staying at home, THEY LOVE DATES!!! both their camera rolls are full of photos of each other when they go out…matt likes taking .5 angles of jess and she’s like “MATTT STOP IT IM LITERALLY GONNA KILL YOU THATS SUCH A BAD ANGLE” and he’s like “It’s great” jess says they make her look like a stupid drooling baby…he agrees sometimes LOL

• matt is a big knitter (shocker) and he loves working on stuff for her!! almost anything jess asks he’ll make….he’s an absolute unit when it comes to knitting bro he does NOT mess around..he can beat all the 80 year old white women EASILY!!! (exaggeration but he’s still pretty good) right now he’s in the process of making silly milo themed socks shhhh don’t tell jess it’s a surprise…

• jess is the big spoon. she might be 6 inches shorter than him but that means NOTHING!! she’s more than happy to hold him by the waist and so is he…jess does have a tendency to drool a lot in her sleep though so matt tells her to keep her head further back so he doesn’t wake up and turn his head back and BOOM drool. matt snores though so he can’t get annoyed with her over that. and it’s not quiet. sounds like a lawn mower might wanna get that checked out matt…

• jess loves stealing his clothes like half her closet is matt’s old/semi-recent stuff that he gave up hehe especially hoodies. she likes how they’re a lot looser on her and he gets really good quality hoodies too so it keeps her plenty warm compared to most of the women’s ones she owns. sometimes his boxers too like he’ll go to put on one and it’s missing and he’s like “jess took it didn’t she….” he can’t get mad though jess looks good in it….

[razziematazz]

yeah sexy bitches it’s extremely goofy headcanon time

(disclaimer: some of this would be specific to a human and/or modern au, because i love drawing them as humans, love the designs i gave them, and was not yet born in 2000- let alone conscious to remember anything about it. also i like giving them tails, even in the human au. this ended up being very long, so here’s a courtesy cut!)

max goof:

this man is BISEXUAL!!!!!!! he and roxanne were bi4bi, but they (mutually) broke up their senior year of highschool bc roxanne was moving for college across the country. after a bit of time, they went to just being close friends :3

speaking of college: we know that the goof family is poor. THEREFORE, i raise you: max is at college via a full ride scholarship. he worked his ASS off to be able to go to college without having to take out loans or “leech” from his dad, and it paid off!

he’s actually REALLY smart but a lot of people don’t know that bc “oh that’s some alt skater boy. he’s probably scraping by with a C average at best”.

he’s also the only reason bobby has passed any classes since junior year of hs

he came out to goofy the summer after he graduated high school. goofy cried bc he was so happy max trusted him enough with that and threw max 2 parties. he is the type of dad to buy max pride socks and wear a shirt that says “i love my gay son” for all of june. max is more than a little embarrassed, but overall? he loves his dad, and he’s really glad his dad loves him no matter what

idc what yall say he is NOT a little white boy as a human 😭😭😭 was literally jump scared the first time i saw him drawn white bc like i just thought it was agreed upon that he’s a POC

continuing with him as a human: yall will see this when i post my designs, but he’s pierced UP ‼️ he’s got snakebites he wears rings in (outwardly mimicking his buck teeth, since i draw the rings thick), both a madonna and monroe piercing, heavily gauged lobes, a double conch and double helix on his right ear, an industrial on his left, a right eyebrow piercing, and a tongue piercing. i also toyed w the idea of hip piercings but thinking abt dermal piercings makes me genuinely sick so

he also taught himself how to do piercings and pierced bobby’s lobe. a good half of his piercings were done at home. do not follow his example <3

(he tried to pierce his nipples and failed horribly, so he just took out the jewelry bc he was NOT having uneven nipples. this is based on one of my friend’s experiences!)

yall already KNOW he’s got that smudgy eyeliner look going on

that takes about 2 minutes. his hair, however, takes him a good 30! and an ungodly amount of hairspray.

his mom left when he was 5 and he barely remembers her

he and the goof troop became quick friends with tank after the x-games, and max definitely had a hand in tank giving bradley another chance

has a pet king snake and a pet tarantula! he got them when his powerline phase was still SUPER strong and named them both after him/his songs. whenever people ask him to explain their names, he gets lowkey embarrassed

got a matching trap stamp w bobby. peej was going to join too but he chickened out as soon as the needle touched down 😭

(the first time bradley accidentally caught a glimpse of max’s tramp stamp, he malfunctioned, fled the room, and had a crisis)

long, double coated black tail

bradley uppercrust III

closeted gay man

he’s the typical frat boy who’s been with a ton of girls, and he just kind of assumed that sex was a chore people went through and it was supposed to be be kind of unfulfilling for everyone

nah it’s just bc he wasn’t actually attracted to women 😭😭 he didn’t realize that he’s gay until his junior year of undergrad

(max and his stupid mouth full of stupid piercings that pours out stupid words and dumber retorts is what made him realize)

(he was literally like a little boy pulling on his crush’s pigtails and didn’t even realize it until about two weeks after the x-games, when he couldn’t stop thinking about how max still smiled at him and called off the bet afterwards)

on this topic: realizing he was gay caused an absolutely gigantic crisis, especially since he didn’t have a support system at all

(tank needed a lot of time to process everything, and even longer to begin forgiving bradley)

(speaking of that, while bradley was still officially the president of the gamma mu mu fraternity on paper [his dad paid everyone off], tank took over his position after the x-games. bradley was basically ostracized)

the main part of why his being gay was such a horrible realization for him is because his dad is the epitome of conservative. his mom believes queer people are just misled.

oh good lord, now it’s time to talk about his horrible father!!

as we’ve said, bradley’s dad is extremely homophobic. he’s the kind of guy to say spew absolutely every false “fact” or “statistic” and homophobic rhetoric anyone could have, and did this to bradley

he also put insane amounts of pressure on bradley

in the words of myself after watching a sad tiktok:

“[bradley is] so comphet and horrible neglectful parents who put far too much pressure on him core. he’s such a trust fund baby except the people who created that trust aren’t even in his life. he’s so simultaneously absent father and father who is constantly There, in his mind, judging him. he’s so internalized homophobia [because of this]”.

his father is definitely financially abusive btw

while he’s extremely rich, he threatens to take away any and all funding and shut down bradley’s cards at even the slightest hint of failure

being gay wouldn’t just get bradley’s funds cuts, though. it’d get him cut entirely from the family.

he’s meant to be perfect because he’s meant to be exactly like his dad and take over his dad’s place after retirement.

even one mistake would “warrant” his dad yelling at him for hours

bradley’s extreme daddy issues is what caused him to react so strongly to goofy saying “well clearly you don’t understand the bond between a father and son 🙄”

also bradley’s dad is the kind of guy to go for younger girls. he had four wives before bradley’s mom, but would leave them as soon as he found out his spawn was to be a girl instead of a boy. he needed a son to take on his “legacy”, and if they couldn’t provide that, they were worthless

and them being ~21 means they wouldn’t know any better

plus, he believes in the stupid “a woman’s prime childbearing years are 16-23 🤓” bs

so like even as he got older, he kept getting with women in that age range instead of those of his own

aka bradley’s mom was 21 and his dad 36 when they got married and had bradley within the same year.

on this note , bradley’s mom is.. not as bad

she holds the same values as his father, but isn’t nearly as extreme

she wouldn’t disown bradley for him being gay, but she would cry and cry because she thought it was a sign she failed as a mother. she’d beg him to “take it back”

to bradley, this is even worse than his father’s anger, since he was a mamas boy through and through.

she wouldn’t ever stand up to his dad, but even when he was young, bradley understood that it was out of fear

if she could get away with it, his mom would always comfort him after his dad’s outbursts

but if she was caught, his father would yell that all this soft treatment would turn him into a (slur i’m not comfortable saying!) and he needed to learn his lesson

all im gonna say is she blames herself

however, speaking of when bradley was young..

his mom has wavy/curly blonde hair

when he was young, he had the exact same hair as his mom

however, as he got older, his hair got darker

until it eventually became the same shade as his dad’s

bradley knew this made his mom a bit sad, but neither of them commented on it, because they both knew bradley was even more upset

it meant that he was now a near carbon copy of his father- minus his hair still being curly, and his lack of facial hair

however, when he got older and his hair became darker, his dad started pressuring him to straighten it, too

of course, he did, even though he hated it

… and at college, as a very subtle way of rebelling, he stopped straightening his hair until he had to see his father

anywayssss onto lighter headcanons!

(roxanne as well interlude !!)

bradley’s maternal uncle is married to roxanne’s maternal aunt!!

(this has absolutely zero basis btw 😭)

minus tank, roxanne was the closest friend to bradley growing up

his dad wasn’t really happy he was so close to a girl, but since roxanne is family, he let it slide; he’s supposed to be such a good family man, after all! it’s the uppercrust image!

anyways, as i said, they were super close

they would gravitate to each other every family get together (christmas, thanksgiving, etc) and would beg their parents to let them visit each other as often as possible

it was much more common for bradley to visit roxanne’s house than vice versa, since roxanne’s parents just have a feeling about bradley’s father. bradley had no issue with this at all

however.. max knew absolutely nothing about this!

whenever roxanne would say “sorry, i’ve got family over right now, i can’t hang out today”, he just wouldn’t question it

and bradley would passively listen to roxanne talk about her crushes, but since he couldn’t relate, it just sort of went into one ear and out the other

they also started to drift a bit during highschool

roxanne coming out to bradley was.. a lot. but he loves her, and knows she’s the best person he’s ever met, and so slowly, he begins to unlearn what his parents taught

roxanne is extremely proud (lol!) of bradley and bradley is.. feeling a lot of things, but he can’t say hate for others is one of them

for a long time, even when bradley was growing closer to the goof troop, winning back tanks everything, and accepting his feelings for max, roxanne was who bradley could always count on. she’s the person he came out to first, and he actually went to her for boy (max) advice multiple times 😭

she caught on quickly but didn’t mind at all

anyways, neither roxanne nor bradley knew that the other knows max- let alone that they eventually both date him

for the first time max is friends with bradley and roxanne comes back to spoonersville for christmas, max introduces them

except they already know each other.

and instead of “hello, im ___”, what he sees is them absolutely booking it towards each other with an “OH MY GODDDD!! HIIIII!! IT’S BEEN WAYYY TO LONG!! I HAVENT SEEN YOU IN, LIKE, 2 THANKSGIVINGS!!!!! HOWVE YOU BEEEN OMG WE NEED TO CATCH UP!!!!”

they both completely ignore max and he’s stood there absolutely DUMBFOUNDED

he is STUNNED

he is the EPITOME of ?!?!?!

bc what are the chances they know each other?? roxanne is NOTHING like the front bradley puts on, and her parents sure as hell aren’t millionaires

and what are the CHANCES max ends up not only having a crush on, but ends up DATING both?????

more roxanne: curled, medium-short haired, solid ginger tail

back to bradley

secretly loves it when max calls him brad instead of his full name

before max, no one had ever shortened his name

it feels like a separation from himself and the uppercrust name

it feels like he’s his own person, and not just an extension of his father- bradley uppercrust II

it takes him a good while and a few drinks to ever admit this, but afterwards, “brad” stops being only a teasing nickname- it has a new undercurrent of warmth

an everything shower takes him about 2 hours. he has very long, very specific skin care (both face and body), hair care, nail care, and grooming routines

these include the usages of no less than 30 different products

he has glasses but would rather wear contacts or just not be able to see than EVER wear them in public.

curled, very fluffy tail with a white bottom and tan top

(his dad forced him to always be in complete control of his tail; to never let it wag, never tuck it, anything. always hold it up high and steady)

(the only time he would let himself forgo these rules is when he was with only roxanne)

(the first time he felt the tell that his tail was about to wag when with max, he left IMMEDIATELY, and it took a while to unlearn all of this)

bobby zimmeruski

biggest stoner any of them have ever met

he’s high for the entirety of both movies

genuinely uses brainrot speak (rizz, sigma, gyatt, etc)

this spread to max, and eventually pj

…and when bradley caught himself thinking a brainrot word for the first time, he was absolutely MORTIFIED

he refuses to say the words.

however, beret girl is never infected!!

religious game grumps viewer

he tried to be a twitch streamer for like two days

pasty ass mf 😭😭

he has to wear spf100 every single time he goes outside in the summer or he WILL get 3rd degree sunburns

short and short-haired ginger tail

PJ

absolutely, 100% in love with bianca

im talking he’s already saving up for an engagement ring

(she would say yes in a heartbeat)

he stops wearing the beret he’s seen in at the end of the movie after a while

bianca assured him that, although she’s flattered, she’d love him just as much if he stayed the exact same as when they first met

his new found love of poetry is as genuine as can be tho

the designated driver for SURE

the “what the flip” to max’s “what the fuck” and bobby’s “what the sigma”

(PJ very rarely curses bc his dad does often. if yall didn’t know, his dad. erm. canonically sucks!! not as badly as bradley’s, but his dad is the “your kids should respect (FEAR) you” type)

has a short haired, black bobtail

beret girl

her name is bianca roan greene (b for beret, roan bc i like it, and g for girl)

she goes by roan bc i want her to escape being BG

(credit to Lian_mail on ao3 for the roan part!!)

also bi but leans heavily towards women

she’s a psychology major

she bonds with max over piercings bc she’s also got a few non-standard piercings!

she’s got double lobes, a helix, a forward helix, a conch and a daith on both sides

she wants a nose piercing but feels like, in regards to her future field of work, she’s already pushing her luck with all of the ear piercings

they’re partially why she wears her hair so long

by far the best at advice and the most level-headed out of the (extended, which includes her, roxanne, bradley, and tank) goof troop

has a long, smooth, long-haired tail the same color as her hair

[stellastra-scribbles]

Finally completed the outfit reference for Jayna Stiles, a half-elven NPC follower from Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura.

Outfit breakdown (or "outfit onions" as I like to call them lol~)

I really like Jayna Stiles and her backstory + goals of becoming a technological healer. I'm also a sucker for 19th-century fashion and I have an unhealthily large collection of reference books and a bunch of files saved from online museum collections (I've got about 22+ gigabytes of refs downloaded from the Library of Congress alone haha I need more hobbies).

More unrestrained detailed design ramblings below the cut~

Back on track, I really just wanted to design Jayna an outfit that suited her character more than her in-game sprites while also being practical for travel/adventuring.

Individual layers. I pulled most of her colors from her default outfit.

Since Arcanum's starting year is 1885, I usually picture the "modern" sense of fashion in big cities like Tarant and Caladon taking cues from real life 1885-1890s western fashions (to give myself some leeway with references). Smaller towns can be a bit more dated, but I try not to go back further than the 1870s in most cases.

However, for a character like Jayna, who hails from Dernholm, I gave her clothing from references dating back to the 1850-1860s. I did this because Jayna says in her recruitment dialogue that "[her] parents weren't wealthy people, and [she doesn't] make much money here in Dernholm," so I took this to mean that she likely wears clothing to last, wearing hand-me-downs, makes her own clothes, and mending it over the years rather than buying new clothes.

Given that Dernholm (+ the Kingdom of Cumbria in general) isn't in the best state when the game starts, they may be behind the times and the latest fashions take longer to reach Dernholm.

Gar: “Alas, poor Dernholm! Once home to the legendary Dragon Knights, it has fallen on hard times since Praetor became king some 60 odd years ago. He despises all technology, and I think he's recently become sour on magick as well.”

Herkemer Oggdoddler: “For two generations Cumbria languished as an economically abused and technologically impaired backwater in the shadow of Tarant. Its once fine capital, Dernholm, has become a ruin.”

Layer 1 - Chemise + Open Drawers. I deliberately drew the drawers as fairly loose so as to not expose her without having to redraw the pose or resort to "Barbie doll anatomy."

Various resources demonstrated the chemise being tucked into the drawers or worn fully untucked/loose, but I drew it as tucked-in for the sake of reference visibility, so perhaps either one works in practice.

Layer 2 - Corset + Socks/Stockings. I picked a more "contemporary" (1880s) design for the corset as I imagine it would be a more custom-fitted garment. Plus, anyone who has ever worn bras will attest that a bra that properly fits is comparable to a good pair of shoes: never cheap out on it because if you take care of it, it will take care of you. Perhaps that same logic can be applied to corsets in ye olden days and historically-inspired fantasy settings.

For Jayna, despite the simplistic design, it might be one of the few luxuries she can afford for herself given the necessity of the garment for bust support.

Layer 3 - Trousers + Shoes. I was inspired by vivandières and Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, who typically wore trousers beneath their skirts. Dr. Walker was a "surgeon, women’s rights advocate, abolitionist, and spy, [and] the first female U.S. Army surgeon during the Civil War." Since Jayna is an aspiring technological healer, I feel like an allusion to Dr. Walker and her practicality was appropriate.

Layer 4 - Petticoat. It's just something to fill out the skirt volume a tad. I considered adding a corset cover in this layer but I did like having the upper outline of the corset somewhat visible in the shirtwaist layer to illustrate her living situation (aka she doesn't have one or just has a poor-quality one). As a modern-age woman, I think this this all already looks like a laundering nightmare to wash by hand.

Layer 5 - Shirtwaist + Outer Skirt. I really like the shape of the 1860s Garibaldi blouse's sleeves (I think these are bishop sleeves? correct me if I'm wrong...) and the stripes allude to some 19th century nurse uniforms. I initially went for a plaid pattern but that was a pain to draw and using a pre-existing plaid brush/pattern just didn't look as good as I wanted it to be.

Layer 6 - Sash + Pistol Holster + Bag. Given Jayna's goals of becoming a tech healer, I took design cues from vivandières, who were 19th-century women attached to military regiments, with a few known vivandières being nurses (like Anna Etheridge).

However, rather than lifting the vivandière look completely, I imagine Jayna would attempt to replicate the silhouette with her own clothes. The bag is a bit of an amalgamation of various 18th-19th century hunting/frontier bags, so I apologize that I don't have a direct reference image.

---------------

Of course, in the end, I did take some liberties with the outfit so it's not completely historically-accurate, but that's okay since Arcanum is a fictional universe.

I guess I should've prefaced that I'm no expert on historical fashion, just a casual enthusiast who thinks "ooh old dress is pretty!"

I just wanted to see how far I could go before I had to make some concessions, such as:

Jayna's hair is short and worn loose while irl Victorian women typically had long hair and wore them up (there were documented exceptions of course). Many portraits for both female player characters and female NPCs across all in-game races show short hair and loose long hair, so let's just assume that 19th-century Arcanum has more relaxed feminine hair standards compared to the real-life 19th century western world. Also, irl 19th-century rural women did sell their hair for money, so maybe there's something to apply to the world of Arcanum with that. Or maybe the short-hair craze just hit Arcanum a few decades early *shrug*.

I initially planned to give her gloves, but many resources show vivandières not really wearing them, preferring to go barehanded.

The clothing colors may be a bit too saturated for the era I took inspiration from, but I wanted to stay somewhat faithful to Jayna's original sprite colors.

I did simplify some garments down for the sake of me having to draw enough layers as it is lol. Sorry if the lace wasn't fancy enough or that she doesn't have headwear. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Sometimes you just wanna finish a project and be done with it.

hoo boy, that was a lot

Thank You For Coming to My TED Talk :)

Now go play Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura~

[nanaminokanojo]

BAD NEWS (part 78)

-just when you thought you were over your humongous crush on your older brother’s best friend, geto suguru, you couldn’t have been more dead wrong, except satoru doesn’t like suguru for you because he knows his kind all too well: a huge ass playboy who breaks hearts like he changes socks. but you think, MAYBE you’ll be the exception…maybe not.

CHARACTERS: drummer!geto suguru x you/afab reader x guitarist!sukuna | gojo satoru | various jjk characters

GENRE: full-length smau + prose | band au | college au | stupid pining | aged-up characters | friends to lovers (?) | smut

TW/CW: strong/mature language | adult content so mdni on some parts | mentions of alcohol, drugs | mentions of cheating, promiscuity, mild dubcon, etc. | god-awful pet names | toxic behavior | will add more if something arises

MASTERLIST | CHAPTER INDEX

<<prev part 78 next>>

A/N: Prose after the 3rd panel + panels between texts.

The air was electric in the stadium, the roar of the crowd a constant backdrop to the intense battle unfolding on the pitch. The scoreboard read 1:1, and the tension was palpable as the clock ticked down in the second half of the women's intercollegiate nationals. Suguru sat in the stands, a little closer than usual, his heart in his throat, eyes fixed on the field, where the Shiga Pirates, your team, were locked in a fierce struggle with the Fukuoka Warriors.

Suguru had come to the match as a surprise, unable to resist after you dominated the semifinals with the most points as an individual player. But that was just an excuse. He missed you, and he just wanted to see you regardless of the results. He’ll always be proud of you, but now, as he watched you, his admiration was tinged with something deeper, something he kept hidden even from himself most days. You were his kitten, a private term of endearment that held more meaning than he’d ever dare to admit. And now, watching you struggle, his protective side surged towards the surface, wishing he could at least give you a pat on the back if that would encourage you.

"L/N Y/N is having a tough time out there today," the commentator's voice crackled over the loudspeakers, his tone tinged with both admiration and concern. "She’s been a key player for the Pirates all season, racking up an impressive eighteen goals and twelve assists, making her the leading scorer in the league.”

Suguru’s jaw tightened as he watched you, clad in the Pirates' signature red and white kit, sprint down the left wing. Your usual speed seemed hampered, each stride a little heavier than the last. The turf, slick from a light drizzle earlier in the match, wasn’t helping. You were known for your agility, the way you could cut through defenders with a single touch, but today, the conditions seemed to be working against you.

“She can usually find the net anywhere on the pitch,” another commentator said. “We’ve seen her impressive footwork during their match with the Shizuoka Lions yesterday, single-handedly turning the game around with a stunning hat-trick.”

“But today, she’s facing a different challenge; Fukuoka’s defense has been relentless, particularly with their ace, Nakamura Rei, shadowing her every move."

"Come on, Y/N," Suguru muttered under his breath, leaning forward, his fingers weaving tight amongst each other. He could see the determination etched on your face, the way your brows knit together in concentration. You were fighting for every inch, but the Fukuoka ace was right on your heels, matching you step for step. She had clearly studied your playstyle, anticipating your moves, cutting off angles, and forcing you into uncomfortable positions.

"L/N tries to push forward, but Nakamura is there again, cutting off her advance," the commentator continued. "The Pirates' star forward is struggling to find her rhythm. She’s been a constant threat throughout the tournament, but today, Fukuoka has managed to neutralize her impact."

Suguru’s heart pounded in his chest as he watched you attempt another break. You received a sharp pass from your midfielder, Hasaba Mimiko, expertly controlling the ball with your first touch, but as you turned to face Nakamura, you hesitated, just for a split second. It was enough for the Fukuoka defender to close the gap, forcing you to play the ball back instead of driving forward.

"Damn it," Suguru whispered, frustration gnawing at him. He knew how much this match meant to you, how hard you had trained, how you had visualized every possible scenario. He could see the tension in your movements, the way your shoulders tensed when Nakamura got too close, the quick glance you shot toward your teammates, searching for an opening that never seemed to come.

"L/N’s been isolated up top," the commentator observed, echoing Suguru’s thoughts. "She’s not getting the support she needs, and Nakamura is taking full advantage. The Pirates are going to have to figure something out if they want to get her more involved in the attack."

Suguru’s eyes never left you as you tracked back, helping out on defense. You were clearly frustrated, your usual fluidity replaced by a grittier, more desperate style of play. Every time you touched the ball, Nakamura was there, pressing, harrying, forcing you to rush your passes or make decisions under duress.

"The Warriors are doing a fantastic job of closing down the space around L/N," the commentator noted. "She’s used to having room to operate, to dictate the tempo, but today, she’s constantly under pressure. You have to wonder if fatigue is starting to play a role here."

That’s ridiculous. Suguru knew that it was more than just fatigue, seeing the weight of expectation bearing down on you, the pressure of leading your team in the biggest match of the season. But he also knew your resolve, the way you thrived under pressure, how you found stability in moments of adversity. You were not a Gojo for nothing, and he knew you were going to bounce back as he watched you shake your head, almost as if to clear it, before positioning yourself for the next play.

"You got this, kitten. Show ‘em," Suguru whispered again, this time with a note of encouragement. He knew you weren’t the type to back down, even when things weren’t going your way. The score was tied, the clock was ticking, and the Warriors were gaining momentum, but he believed in you. He knew that if anyone could break the deadlock, it was you.

As the ball came your way again, he held his breath. This was it. This was the moment where you could turn the tide, where all your hours of practice, all your sweat and determination, would come to fruition. And it will be then that you will get the recognition you so deserved. The crowd’s noise faded into the background, and all that mattered was you and the ball at your feet.

"Make it count," Suguru thought, his eyes locked on you, willing you to find that spark, that brilliance that had brought you this far as you squared up against Nakamura again.

**

The match was a grind, the kind that pushed you beyond your limits and into a sweat and adrenaline fueled blur. The scoreboard held steady at 2:2, the minutes ticking down as exhaustion weighed on your limbs. Your lungs burned, and your legs felt like they were made of lead, but you refused to let up. Still, you knew you had one last play in you. You owed it to your team, all of them relentless, pressing forward with everything they had, creating just enough of a gap for you to finally shake off Nakamura’s tenacious defense. You knew with every fiber of your being just what you’re expected to do.

The ball was crossed into the box, a perfectly timed pass from the right wing. Time seemed to slow as you gauged the angle, calculating the distance between you and the goal. Instinct took over as you launched yourself into the air without hesitation, your body twisting as you extended your leg for the shot. Your timing was impeccable, your foot meeting the ball with a solid, decisive strike. You felt the impact resonate through your entire body, a shockwave of power taking over as you and your team held your breaths along with the whole stadium. A blur of black and white zoomed past the goal post as the ball sailed toward the upper corner of the net.

In that split second before you landed back on the turf, your eyes flicked to the stands, and there he was—Suguru. He stood out in the crowd, looking dapper in a black, tight-fitting shirt that hugged his broad frame, he might as well be the only one standing there. His raven hair pulled back into that usual half-up, smiling gorgeously and proudly at you, his expression somehow warm despite the aviator sunglasses shielding his eyes. But you knew his gaze was locked on you, as it always seemed to be.

In a moment of elation, the world around you blurred, leaving only the sight of Suguru, and you wondered, heart skipping a beat, what he was doing there. It can’t be, you thought for a split second, wondering why on earth he was there. You didn’t know if you were really seeing him, or if the adrenaline was playing tricks on you. 

But then the ball hit the back of the net with a satisfying thud and the reality of the goal you’d just scored hit. The stadium erupted into a deafening roar, the colors of your team creating an undulating wave across the stands. The ball had soared past the goalkeeper’s outstretched hands and into the net with a satisfying swish.

Your teammates swarmed around you, their cheers almost drowning out the sound of the crowd. But even as they lifted you in celebration, your gaze remained fixed on Suguru.

“You’re here!” you called out although you knew he couldn’t hear you, but he was immediately able to tell what you were saying and nodded. It was really him. He was there. He watched you win.

Grinning despite your precarious balance on your teammates’ shoulders, you tugged off one of your cleats—the ones he had given you, your good luck charm—and waved it at him, a playful gesture that was your way of sharing the victory with him. He tilted his head slightly, his smile widening as he raised his fist to you. And as your team carried you off the field, you felt a surge of satisfaction, knowing that in that most critical moment, both Suguru and the cleats had been with you.

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© ORIGINAL WORK BY nanaminokanojo. CHARACTERS ARE INSPIRED BY GEGE AKUTAMI’S “JUJUTSU KAISEN”. [20240901]

PHOTOS/IMAGES/GIF/FANART/ANY MEDIA CREDITS GO TO THE RESPECTIVE OWNERS.

[untolduttering]

That jester-like outfit has me thinking about some of the Straw Hat boys as jesters.

Luffy? The perfect jester. He has physical comedy down to a T and his blunt tendencies have him dishing out the best insults, ones he genuinely means, but leaves the court laughing because they find them hilarious. He’s a little confused at first, because he thinks they’re just honest observations, but follows along since, hey, if it works, it works. And the outfit? He thinks it’s so great because it’s so much fun.

Zoro is not into it. He is not one to make a fool of himself for the entertainment of others, especially grown adults. He thinks the outfit is ridiculous. And the first time he’s supposed to perform, he almost gets in trouble, because he never finds his way there. Once he’s dragged in and the steward explains that he was lost, that’s when it all starts. He insists he wasn’t, and each time he’s ever asked for anything, he gets lost. And the court is fascinated. It’s so intriguing, so avant-garde, of a performance. They send him one way and he goes the other. And he’s just so insistent that he isn’t wrong. Even weirder, he never drops the act. A fool in his own way.

Sanji isn’t into it either, at first, but soon enjoys it. He thinks the outfit equally as stupid, until the first woman calls him charming and cute. Then he’s all over it. He’s adored by all the women and the silly fawning he does, they think he’s just so funny. The nosebleeds and the intense compliments and love confessions and the way he whirls around with his hands clasped and hearts in his eyes. Even funnier is the way he’s an absolute dick to all the men. Most come to hate him and how the moment his attention happens to fall on them, he’s sneering. Usually because of some uncouth behavior; a man saying something unsavory about a woman or a man who’s thinking of wasting a bit food that wasn’t “good enough”. And then turn right back around to being his lover boy self.

Usopp also makes a good jester, but unfortunately falls heavier into the fool category. He meant to put on a cool show with sorts of different contraptions, truly! But he got so anxious and the stage fright took over. He was fumbling and trying to talk through it, hyping it up to be this grand idea—it’ll knock your socks off!—but then the thing he made just didn’t work. Luckily, the court ate it up. Unfortunately, it’s what they expect of him now. They do enjoy it when something works, in total awe, but he’s learned that they enjoy it more when he makes a total fool of himself. He embraces it, telling his usual grandiose, self-hyping lies, all to make the failure that much bigger.

Brook is into the fit and takes it upon himself to make it even flashier. He does perform music, but that’s more the role of a bard, and so it’s only bone puns and jokes. One after another after another. The royalty he serves adores it, is leaned over, breathless with laughter and slapping their knee. But the court? They would really rather listen to the music. He is quite good, and would do anything to make the bone focused performance stop. They’d also prefer it if he’d stop asking the ladies for their panties, but the ruler finds that humorous too. The ruler wants what they want, they guess.

Franky is just cool. He is similar to Brooke, where he digs the outfit but makes some changes, mostly to make the bottoms into a speedo. He does the whole contraption show that Usopp was hoping for, and the court would be amazed, if he weren’t so odd. For about half of them, they’re all for it. They think the cyborg body is sick and the tricks even sicker. The other half can’t get over the outfit and think him a pervert and a weirdo and aren’t quite sure why he’s still here. Sure, the stuff he does is cool, and he can be funny, but why does he have to dress like that?

That’s all I’ve got so far and just for funsies. I don’t really see Jimbei, nor Robin or Nami, ever even entertaining wearing the clothes, let alone a room of people seeing them in it. I don’t think Chopper would get far. He’d walk in wearing the outfit, at an utter loss as to what to do, and immediately be set into some lady’s lap (most likely the Queen or princess) as she’s cooing at and petting him.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 5/28/2024

we are rapidly approaching the one-year anniversary of my ill-fated cross country move. i have changed from having a bad time in massachusetts to having a bad time in texas, but this time with my best friend's shoulder to cry on in real life. so an improvement i suppose

listening

i can't fucking believe this wasn't already in my driving playlist. thanks autogenerated spotify dance playlist

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reading

the maltese falcon by dashiell hammett. i didn't really appreciate philip marlowe the-human-detective-not-my-cat's bisexual eye for interior design and outfits until i started reading this book. this passage really threw me with regards to shoes before pants in what i assume is a fairly normal suit and not a specific type of formalwear? i have a very specific blind fashion blind spot and that's pre-wwii menswear

this led to an absolutely VICIOUS argument with my bestie bc our grandfathers were from very different eras and held themselves to very different levels of formality. hers was a fancy white collar bastard and mine wasn't. i never saw mine in a suit outside a funeral.

anyway i KNOW that the fashion in the latter half of the twenties up to WWII was for a very wide legged pant (the oxford bag) and i GUESS you could certainly shove your whole goddamn shoe down that leg but like. it threw me. socks before pants, certainly. especially if you have to fuck with sock garters. but shoving your whole shoe down a pant leg seems. well it just seems. there's an order of operations i thought was sacred for most things. was the seat truly so tight in an oxford bag. are suspenders really that awful to bend over in. so much womens formalwear is uncomfy on purpose so i feel like i have a skewed view of acceptable pain for an outfit to cause you

why am i reading this? can you think of a more on-brand book for me to read? please let me know if you do and i'll add it to The Pile

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watching

the tremendously charming soviet childrens film The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1967, Ptushko). court intrigue! a swan princess! giants marching out of the sea! a slightly unsettling squirrel puppet shelling gold and emerald walnuts! a lot of sight gags, some lovely ballet sequences, and there are so many little moving parts to look at in each scene. at its densest it's like howl's bedroom in howl's moving castle

this was on my library's streaming platform Kanopy and i had credits to use up.

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playing

two things in genshin that took absolutely forever to accomplish:

i finally maxed out the overall XP system (not the character XP system) so the game's just been chucking in-game currency at me instead, which has been helpful!

and i finally caught two thousand fish! very nice to clear like forty fishing spot markers i put down on my map, in advance of the forty billion markers i'll want to put down to mark stuff in the next big release at the end of the summer.

i forgot that i can use my desktop for things that aren't genshin and applying to jobs, so i reinstalled steam and fired up powerwash simulator. they popped out one new DLC in the year since i touched it, a santa's workshop level last winter. a good hour well spent. i spent a LOT of time with this game right before my move last year and it did genuinely help my anxiety.

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making

not a fallow week but a pictureless week. ended up painting most of my best friend's bedroom bc we didn't have anything better to do on a saturday night. i think this was the hardest i've ever raw-dogged a painting project bc we had no tarps or painters tape or paint trays or rollers wider than 3". just a bucket of paint and a need to make the half-painted bedroom wall look nicer for her new job zoom training. we have to do a lot of things like move the bed and paint that wall, and paint the ceiling, and do all the trim + doors, but it does look much nicer on zoom now!