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notjustjavierpena · 4 months ago

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Nerf

Series Masterpost | Main Masterpost | Support a disabled creator

A/N: There’s a little background to this. Sweet @sawymredfox posted a picture in an inbox that I can’t remember who belonged to but the picture was of a Nerf gun with a note asking for a gunfight over dinner. This one's for you, Wym!

Summary: Hubby returns from work to a Nerf gunfight over takeaway privileges. Luckily, he has tactical training and quite the appetite.

Pairing: Javier Peña x f!reader (no y/n)

Tags: Domestic bliss, fluff, pregnant reader, javi loves and worships his wife, pussy eating, fingering, squirting, rough piv sex, multiple orgasms, creampie

Word count: 4.7k

Link to this work on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57685981

Nerf

Javier comes home to his apartment like always on a Friday afternoon, fiddling around with his bundle of keys that he fishes out from his pocket to find the one to the front door all the while carrying his work bag in his other hand. He has planned a date night with you tonight and has been excited about it since Monday morning when you suggested it over breakfast. He cannot wait to see you in your shared home, already grinning from ear to ear at the idea of giving his wife a long kiss as you discuss the movie choices you’ve rented at the local Blockbuster. He doesn’t really care about what you insist on watching, easily distracted by you anyway as you watch your movie with curious eyes. He’s more interested in the food that you are going to eat, hooked on the idea of ordering greasy Chinese food to share with each other.

When he finally gets the door open, the apartment is dead quiet and the noise of Javier throwing his keys on the side table echoes through the hallway.

“Honey?” He calls out but you don’t reply.

He takes one step forward only to hear the sound of cheap plastic scraping across the floorboards. He furrows his brow and looks down, noticing the toy gun with a sticky note attached to it. He sets down his bag by the shoe rack and bends down to pick the gun up.

It’s a Nerf gun, more specifically a poor imitation of an automatic weapon. He checks the magazine and sees that it is full, loads it again, and only then reads the note sticking to it.

Husband,

Welcome home. I’m hiding in the apartment with a Nerf gun. Here is the other one… The winner decides what takeaway we’re having for dinner.

May the odds be ever in your favor,

Your wife

A grin spreads on his face, his senses heightened now that he knows you are watching him from somewhere.

As he pockets the note with as little noise as possible, he smirks with determination and thinks that you have no idea who you are up against. He secures his grip on the toy gun, remembering his tactical training from Colombia, and moves silently through the doorway to the living room.

He scans the space with his heart beating in his ears but where he expects you to jump out from somewhere, maybe behind the couch where you’ll be relaxing later, he finds nothing. He takes silent footsteps across the wooden floorboards, knowing which creak, as he makes his way through the small space, checking behind the curtain by pulling it open with the tip of the rifle. Not there either.

“I’m coming for you, esposa (wife),” he tells you tauntingly when he makes a left into the kitchen. You’re usually more into pizza, stringy with cheese and topped with mushrooms, but he really wants that goddamn chow mein from just around the corner. He tightens his grip, on a mission.

He inches forward to see if you are underneath the breakfast table with a cloth that you bought at a flea market a few months back. He didn’t think it would fit the rest of the furniture in the apartment but you insisted, and you were right. He loves the mismatched chairs surrounding its slightly quirky pattern now, pulling one out to make sure you really aren’t underneath the tablecloth by quickly lifting it and aiming.

The kitchen is completely empty, he decides, unless you are hiding in the refrigerator which he seriously doubts. Despite this, the silence is thick with impending doom and he takes a deep breath to steady himself, not about to lose to a person with no experience in the field. He listens carefully, taking a few steps back and suddenly a Nerf dart flies past his ear.

He whirls around, having noticed the slight movement just in time. And there you are, right in the doorway to the kitchen with a huge, beaming smile on your face, gun pointed at him, and wearing nothing but your white cotton underwear. He fails to concentrate on anything else except your gorgeous body, the only one in this whole world that he has worshiped multiple times and hasn’t lost interest in. He smiles at the sight of your baby bump that has just started to grow round and the way your panties’ elastic band sits across it. However, you play unfairly, a Nerf dart suddenly making its way toward him.

He manages to duck it, hearing it hit the kitchen cabinets behind him with a soft thud before clattering to the floor. He raises his gun and you squeal with delight, turning on your heel, and running through your shared home. He fires a few darts in your direction without hesitation but none of them get you and you’re gone again.

“Nice try, baby!” You laugh triumphantly. He follows the sound of your voice, your padding feet, and your giggles that elevate his heartbeat with indescribable warmth and happiness. They lead him to the bedroom, steadily creeping along the walls until he nudges the door open with his foot, gun at the ready.

He guesses that you’ve stepped into the closet where his shirts hang because you won’t have had time to roll underneath the bed. He makes his way across the floor and swings the door open only to find nothing but his old clothes. He furrows his brow but then tenses up at the thrilling feeling of the tip of your gun poking into his back. He smirks to himself.

“Hah!” You exclaim with glee, “Isn’t this a surprise? I can’t believe I won!”

His smile becomes more mischievous. You haven’t shot him yet, too arrogant to think that you won’t have to because he’ll surrender. Too bad for you that he is a stubborn man who loves you just a little more than anyone else before him. It’s enough to not let you win as you love it the most.

In a flurry of tactical decisions and moves, he manages to whip around and grab the gun to fling it out of your hands. It falls to the floor with a clatter and your eyes widen. It dawns on you that you have noticed his plan too late and you end up with a Nerf dart hitting you square in the chest.

“Gotcha!” Javier celebrates.

You stumble back dramatically, clutching frantically at your chest after impact to earn a genuine laugh from your husband. You end up on the floor and Javier steps forward to stand with a leg on either side of you.

“Do you stand down, soldier?” Javier asks, imitating the sound of reloading. When he aims at your chest again, you hold your hands up in mock surrender.

“Fine, you win take away privileges,” you giggle but still try to reach out for his gun.

Javier drops to his knees, getting comfortable on your thighs while you start to squirm, “You’re not very convincing, wife.”

“I’m being completely genuine, husband,” you reassure and accidentally push up into him, the slightest friction against his jeans making him feel a stir of desire in the length of his cock.

Just when you try to reach for his gun again, he throws it next to the other and thus out of your reach. He leans down over you, hovering over your pouting face, and kisses your lips, “You really thought you could beat me so easily? Chica tonta (silly girl).”

The exhilarating feeling of your little game has left him clouded by thoughts of you. His eyes start to wander down your figure, his yearning for you that’s been building since he left in the morning making him unable to stop them. Your chest rises and falls a little quicker underneath his greedy gaze. Your breasts are more full than usual because of the baby growing inside of you and you look so stunning sprawled out on the floor at his mercy that he can’t help but let his hands wander as well.

You arch up to catch his lips in a tantalizing kiss that leaves him short of breath. Warmth thrums underneath his skin, a result of your heat radiating through him even as his fingertips only ghost down towards your waist and stomach. Your skin is electric, soft to the touch, and glowing just right because you are pregnant.

“Javi,” you breathe softly as your hands come up to tangle in his hair, messing it up after he has had it under control the whole day. He nods but doesn’t keep his mouth on yours, instead lets the tip of his nose trail over your cheek and down your jaw whilst leaving kisses on your trembling neck as he descends.

“I missed you all day,” he whispers, nibbling and kissing your skin until a thin sheen of spit runs down the pulsing vein along your throat. When he reaches your belly, beautiful and pregnant, he presses several kisses all over the growing bump while listening to you sigh with contentment. He smiles into your skin, briefly resting his cheek on you to look up at your face, “How have you both been today?”

“We’ve been good,” you hum and run your hand through his hair, flattening it down again by pushing it back as you caress the top of his head, “We’ve missed you though. They’ve been moving around a bit but I think they’ve gone to sleep now… all that running around.”

“Lots of privacy for us then,” he teases. He shifts positions, scooting backward until he is kneeling between your legs. He pecks your belly repeatedly, “You just sleep, bebito (little baby) while I take care of your pretty mamá.”

“What do you have planned?” You ask, wiggling your hips to try and get comfortable on the hard floor. He smirks at you and crawls forward to yank at the covers on the bed, pulling them far enough off the mattress until the pillows follow. He helps you to lift your pelvis up so he can scoot the soft pillow underneath your hips and then does the same with your head.

“Can I eat this sweet little pussy, mamá?” He asks, finally kneeling in position again and watching you plant your feet on the ground by bending your knees. His own knees are hurting slightly but he ignores it because he knows he’ll forget it once he gets lost in your cunt.

“Please,” you swallow thickly after a hitched breath. You nod eagerly with that little expression on your face that he loves when you’re getting treated for simply being the love of his life; all softened features, mouth slightly open, and pleading eyes watching as he goes down.

Gently, he puts his palms on the back of your warm thighs and pushes your legs towards your chest, enjoying seeing you in the same position that he put that baby inside of you while he still can. You follow his movements without protest, keeping them there while he hooks his fingers under the waistband of your panties.

“You want it?” He asks while dragging the fabric down over your hips as you nod repeatedly, snapping it slightly from how you barely register that you have to cooperate. He laughs as you do, a tiny giggle escaping you as you hold your legs up with your hands under your knees when he slips the underwear off your feet and tosses it to the side.

Your pussy is on display for him like this, your pushed-together thighs and your ass slightly elevated from the pillow making it stick out even more. You squeeze around your calves to hold your position and he can see your dripping slit quiver, inviting him in to squish his head between your thighs.

He flattens his tongue to lick a long, greedy stripe from the cleft of your ass to your clit, feeling you pulse in excitement as he finally touches you with his mouth. He groans at your sweet taste, repeating the move to concentrate on gulping down some of your slick like he hasn’t had a drink all day and Texan summer is peaking. You make him so hard in his jeans that it hurts, the length of his cock straining against the zipper as your sweet scent fills his nostrils. As he eats you out slowly and hears you sigh with pleasure above him, he agrees with himself that he’ll fuck you too. He thought this would be enough but no, you look perfect, swollen and warm below him and he doesn’t want to go through this late afternoon without feeling your heat around his cock.

“Fuck, baby,” you gasp the way you do when your orgasm starts to tug from within you. He stops only using the tip of his tongue to be more forceful in his treatment. He covers your mound with his mouth, hollowing his cheeks as he sucks at your clit to hear you whine a mhmm…

You gush a little wetness when he releases you briefly, a drop of it sliding down between your cheeks so it accidentally wets the pillow you’re writhing on. Javier doesn’t care right now, will just throw everything in the washer later. He kisses your clit a few times before going in again, this time pressing his tongue against you to wiggle it against your clit that’s now hard from how turned on you are.

There’s a climb in your pitch, a little higher moan coming out your mouth as he starts to let small flicks of his tongue rain down on your gorgeous clit. He concentrates on getting you there, heart beating in his ears but still managing to listen to your heaving breaths, notice your palms tighten around your legs as you channel the intensity into whatever you can and feel your hips involuntarily move so he has to grab the widest part of your thighs and hold you in place.

When you start to hold your breath after a particularly long whine, he pulls away to stop your orgasm with the excuse that he has to breathe. You look down at him, releasing your grip around your knees to let your thighs fall out to the sides. You look frustrated, your racing heartbeat evident from the way your pussy pulses in a steady rhythm.

“I hate you,” you say through gritted teeth, hips lifting off the pillow for just a moment as you chase something, anything to no avail.

“No, you don’t, Mamacita, not with what I’m about to do to you,” he grins, eyes glued to your glistening slit, watching the shine of his own spit covering your delicate skin. He grabs your ankles to plant your feet on the floor like you’d done briefly earlier, only to slide his hands upward over your shins, knees, and thighs until they sit on your hips. He gropes your jiggly thighs for a second, watching his movements vibrate all the way up to your bra-covered tits. They jump a little and he knows he has never seen anything so perfect, catching his hungry eyes and attention for a little too long. When he wants to smirk at you, he sees your pouty face and chuckles, “Alright, I’ll hurry up. Gotta give you what you want when dinner isn’t your call.”

You bite your bottom lip as he descends on your cunt again, tensing up the muscle of his tongue to lick a long stripe between your soaked folds. He moans when your hands find his hair, tugging gently on the follicles of his scalp. When he dares glance up at your writhing body, he can only see your tensed-up jaw as you have thrown your head back.

“Fuck, Javi,” you whine, “F-fingers. Make me come on your fingers, please.”

He can definitely do that. He lets his dominant hand slide down between your legs while he holds himself up with the other one on your hip, keeping your pelvis down as he sucks hard on your clit. Two of his fingers enter you and curl toward the front of your walls, seeming to have a direct line to your spine because you arch your back with a groan.

Javier hums with pride, fucking you open on his digits whilst hollowing his cheeks around your clit. He drags the pads of his fingers over your g-spot again and again, hearing how your breathing speeds up once more and feeling your heartbeat as you rhythmically start to clench around his middle- and ring finger. He doesn’t have to look, is simply driven crazy by the mere thought of the finger that he wears his wedding band on disappearing into you over and over.

“I’m coming,” you announce with a cry, barely able to catch your breath at this point. You tug harsher on his hair, pushing your hips up to earn more friction, “I’m gonna come, baby. Fuck, you’re making me come.”

Javier bobs his head slightly as he nips and sucks and licks, moving his fingers inside of you almost frantically to get the reward that he so desperately wants and needs. You squeeze your eyes shut, thighs tensing up and then go completely silent above him for less than a few seconds.

You come with a high-pitched squeal a moment later, pussy going off into rapid spasms that choke his fingers but not enough for him to stop dragging them out while they curl upward. He releases his mouth from your pulsing clit, withdrawing his head from between your thighs so your arms fall to the floor. You gush all over his hand which he doesn’t manage to pull away, twisting your gorgeous body in surprise as you practically wet yourself on the floor. He tightens his grip on you to keep you on your back, hearing you sob with pleasure as he sinks his fingers knuckles-deep into you again and repeats the move.

Another gush soaks the floorboards and you are practically levitating by now, enough for Javier to be sure that he has made up for the fact that his pregnant wife won’t get her takeout craving satisfied. He hears how it sounds in his head, knowing immediately that he should decide on that goddamn pizza if he wants to have it easy.

He snaps out of it to go again at least three times more and when you seem like you can barely handle it anymore, he pulls back but only after a gentle peck on your swollen clit. You squirm in oversensitivity, shaking your head repeatedly while he cannot stop grinning in self-satisfaction. God, how on earth can he of all people have the privilege to make you feel so good?

It takes a moment before your mind isn’t fogged by fireworks going off between your legs anymore and you slump on the floor with a satisfied smile on your face, a giggle bubbling up in your throat which is the most heavenly sound he has ever heard.

“Okay?” He asks with a dazed expression, the taste of you lingering on his tongue. He rubs your thigh up and down, feeling the slight dampness from the sweat and wetness of your body.

You nod in reply, “Mhmm…”

“Made a mess on the floor,” he tells you with a hint of taunting in his voice.

“Mhmm,” you repeat, no shame in your tone which he loves completely, “You’ll clean it up.”

“Oh, will I?” He laughs quietly at the state of you. It’s true though; he will, and as you nod once more, he is already getting up from the floor with an aching hard-on in his jeans.

“Yes because I’ll let you fuck me when you get back,” you grin lazily, letting your thighs fall out to the sides even more to show him your wet cunt. He could skip the step where he gets a towel but you’ll complain about it later tonight if he doesn’t nip it in the bud.

He adjusts his cock in his jeans when he is on his feet and undoes the pants on the way to the bathroom, hands gripping the handle on the bathroom drawer a little too hard when he gets a towel. He slings the towel over his shoulder and pushes the fabric of his pants down over his hips, relieved when his cock is only covered by the softness of his briefs.

When he has patted down the floorboards, just managing to do it before your come has started to soak into the wood, he throws the towel to the side and kneels between your legs again. He looks at you with longing, with a fire in him that feels as if it is getting poured gasoline over it when you look into his eyes with a mischievous grin.

“Can I have it now, baby?” He asks politely as he pushes his briefs down, letting them sit just below his hips because it feels like too much work to undress completely when he so desperately wants to be inside of you. You nod and hold out your hands to signal that he needs to come closer, and he follows through on your silent request but only after taking a last look at the beautiful mess between your legs that he’ll push into soon.

When he crawls over you, you unbutton his shirt to reveal his chest and touch him all over. Your delicate hands roam over the skin of his torso, fingertips sliding through the little but sexy amount of hair there until you grab around the small of his back. You pull him in, he moves closer.

A sharp exhale leaves him as he enters you finally. You on the other hand moan shakily as he fills up every last inch of you, intruding just a little before you relax around him. Your hands slide down and your nails dig into his ass, motioning for him to start moving inside of you.

Your head falls back when he thrusts once then twice, fucking you slowly but harshly into the floor. It’s so ridiculous to think that he only had plans to kiss you when he came home, maybe making love to you in bed after the film you definitely won’t fall asleep to. He braces himself with a hand beside your thrown-back head, leaning down over you to practically latch onto your throat. He kisses along the beautiful arch of your neck, tasting your salty skin and feeling your throat vibrate against his lips with each noise of pleasure you make.

You bend your legs to wrap them around his hips, rocking with him as he fucks into you deeply. Your cunt is so wet and warm around him, echoing each of his groans by choking his dick just as he has come to love it after he started fucking you on the regular three years back. Here he is, happily married to you and he is going to be a father. The thought of what you two have together, what you will achieve together, makes him impossibly hard inside of you, especially when you go and do something as stupidly adorable as a Nerf gunfight. He must have you. Fantastic, sexy, beautiful you.

He rolls his hips to hear you say his name, the floor creaking underneath you as you move together. You tilt your head forward again to kiss him, slotting your mouth over his and tasting your sweat and slick on his tongue. You suck at the tip, hinting at how good you are at going down on him and he groans with how wanton you can come off. You’re not just a sweet girl like everyone says.

“There! Oh fuck, th-there,” you break the kiss to yell out for him as he hits an angle that wasn’t even deliberate, the noise bouncing off the walls. The little old lady who lives downstairs from you will be banging on the door tomorrow, gone before you can answer and having left a cheerful yet unhappy note that starts. It's so nice that you enjoy each other. Javier thinks it’s more than nice.

“Yeah? There, baby?” He does it again to piss off the whole building instead and your fingers dig into his skin with how good it is, “¿Así (like that)?”

“Sí, así (yes, like that),” you sob, your cunt squeezing his dick with how you have another high incoming. He seeks out your lips again but you are busy; your eyes are squeezed shut in concentration on your pleasure and your mouth hangs open as moan after moan leaves it, so he settles for a desperate bite to your jaw.

“I love you,” he says as clearly as he can muster, his own orgasm creeping up on him as he spears you again and again. He moves a little to go harder and faster, his pace slowly increasing until you need to hold onto him to not go upwards on the floor with the strength behind his hips. You slide your hands up his back, nails scratching in their wake until you pull him into your arms. God, he feels so good and safe when you do that. You are both sweaty, chests sticking slightly to each other from how much effort you are putting into being together like this.

“I love you too, esposo (husband),” you whimper feebly and tighten your legs around him to keep him where you want him the most. He can hear you are close in the way your breaths fall from your lips.

“Come for me,” he whispers with a hot breath against your ear that has you shivering on top of everything else, “Por favor, mi amor. Quiero sentirte (Please, my love. I wanna feel you).”

His words send you there, your sounds send him there. You come with a pained noise and then a string of moans, your brows furrowed as your cunt goes off into spasms that he relishes in. They pull his own high from him, his muscles tightening before pleasure washes over him as he fills you up with his spill. It is accompanied by a guttural groan that makes you clench around him just when he thought it was over. He cannot control his hips as he feels it. His pace, albeit slowing down, gets uneven until it comes to a complete halt.

Eventually, he rolls off of you. The both of you groan as he pulls out, and he immediately reaches for the towel which you place between your legs. He turns his head towards you when you do and as you gain eye contact, the both of you laugh in post-orgasmic bliss.

You scoot closer by wiggling your entire body. You also decide to share the pillow under your head with him, pulling into the space between you.

When you rest a hand on your baby bump, he reaches to hold it. Your breaths fall in sync with no need to say anything until you have the energy.

When that time comes, you look at him out of the corner of your eye, “So.”

“So?” He asks and pulls up his underwear.

“What did I lose to?” You elaborate while he buttons and zips his jeans.

“Chinese,” he replies and tries to suppress his excitement in case you start pouting. Instead, you laugh out loud.

“What? Why’s that funny?” He probably looks confused.

“I wanted Chinese,” you clarify with continuous giggles.

“Oh,” he joins in and chuckles, “You never want Chinese.”

“The baby wants Chinese,” you pat your belly with your other hand.

“Must be my kid,” he smirks and rolls onto his side. He pecks your cheek repeatedly.

“Must be,” you turn your head to kiss him but it doesn’t quite feel enough. So he kisses you again, squeezing the hand on your pregnant belly as he does it and when you giggle against his mouth, it seems like the whole reason he was put on Earth is to do all of this and what’s to come with you.

If you would like to follow my writing then go follow @notjustjavierpena-fics and turn on notifications 💖❤️

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dcufans4palestine · 5 months ago

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my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction · 1 year ago

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Infected

Miguel O'Hara X F!Reader • Rating: 18+ pals Masterlist• ao3• want to be tagged? | request info

Summary: An accident at one of Alchemax’s labs has led to Miguel being briefly contaminated with cA1m - a prototype drug that is meant to calm animals. However it seems to have a very different effect in humans.

A/N: A massive thank you to @midgardian-witch for reading the beginning of this (catching a hilarious typo), making some excellent suggestions, and reassuring me that I hadn’t just lost my mind completely (yet).

Reader doesn’t know Miguel’s spiderman.

Warnings: dubious consent - it’s basically a sex pollen fic, blood, hair pulling (can I write a fic without an Oscar Isaac character getting their hair pulled?), so much cum, hand job, oral (both m and f receiving), things get a little rough, face fucking, cum eating, biting, scratching, p in v sex, typos, please let me know if I’ve missed a warning!

Word Count: 5433

________________________________

“It’s mainly preliminary.” You said with a smile. “You weren’t in the room, but the filtration system links four of the labs.”

You check over Miguel’s notes, so far, he didn’t have any symptoms.

There had been an ‘accident’ in Lab B2, an accident that was being rapidly looked into. Lab B1, and B4 had been empty, but Miguel had been in B3.

Miguel was currently in a rapidly repurposed testing room, sitting on the bed with his shirt rolled up his forearms. His specific request for somewhere with reinforced walls, doors and windows had been… unusual. But he was a big guy, couldn’t hurt to be too careful.

“How are the others doing?” He asked with a slightly raised eyebrow.

“Okay,” you nodded. There had been eight people in Lab B2 when the container had broken. Two people, like Miguel, weren’t showing any symptoms.

The chemical compound, nicknamed cA1m, while liquid in its storage unit, turned to a gas at above zero degrees. Luckily it also denatured quickly, and there was a good chance that those who still weren’t showing symptoms were unaffected.

The chemical’s intention was for a more humane way to calm wild animals and livestock during veterinary checks. That way the animal in question didn’t need potentially dangerous anaesthetic for basic to mild level medical care.

It also wore off in 24 hours.

However, it still needed some work. And while early tests had gone well, apparently it did not have the desired effect in humans.

Four of the six infected had gone feral, absolutely crazy with rage, trying to kill and destroy everything and everyone within their reach.

Luckily no one had been severely injured before they had been tranquilised.

The other two were different, they had… other urges.

“Have you found any links as to why Doctor Guerrero and Doctor Vaughan didn’t react like the others?” Miguel asks. His voice was calm and controlled, like it always was. Politely interested, like he was listening to a presentation about your latest control data.

“Well, I have an idea. Though I haven’t fully proven it yet.”

He tilted his head to the side in a silent question. The action was endearing, it made your heart flutter and heat rise to your skin. And you hated it so, so much.

You smiled quickly and looked down, trying to cover the fact you’d been staring at him for a second too long.

“So,” you continued, drawing the word out a little to give you a pause of breathing room. “Both Guerrero and Vaughan are in relationships, both of them wanted to,” you pause for a moment, trying to find the most professional way to phrase it. “get to their partners. Unlike the others they also had a massively increased level of oxytocin.”

“Your theory is that that cA1m causes a berserk level of rage unless the subject is in love?” There was the smallest smirk on his lips.

It sounded stupid when he put it like that.

“Well… yes.” You fold your arms. “Look, Miguel,” he grinned when you said his name and you fought, and lost, the urge to smile back. “I’ve had fourteen hours and six people to base this off, plus three who are showing no symptoms. Give me a break, yeah?”

He held up his hands playfully. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You gave me a look.”

“What look?” He teased.

“I know you want to be trying to figure this out yourself, but you’re the one who insisted on not being allowed any breakable, or expensive, equipment while you’re in here.”

He smiled. “It’s true.” His gaze was heavy, crushing almost.

You shook your head and turned to the side table. “Anyway, are you gonna let me draw some blood or what?”

He nodded and held his arm out to you.

You know why you had been ‘nominated’ (begged) to be the one to see Miguel. He wasn’t the easiest CEO to work for in the sense that he was both physically and mentally intimidating, but what usually threw most people was that he was quiet, tended to watch and listen.

And he had a bit of resting bitch face.

But he was actually pretty pleasant to talk to when you got to know him.

You brushed your arm against his as you moved to get your equipment. Miguel audibly gasped.

A flash of worry pinched at your mind, you turned to look at him. “You okay?”

Miguel nodded; he was staring straight ahead at the wall. Obviously in distress.

“Miguel?” This wasn’t the same as those who had suddenly developed into a full-blown rage, but still you couldn’t help the sense of apprehension that crawled along your skin. You glanced at the sedative on the side table and shook your head.

“Miguel?” You spoke again, a little softer and moved a step closer towards him.

He shuddered at your voice, screwing his eyes up tightly. Sweat was beading on his forehead, heat rolling off him in waves.

“Miguel, I’m gonna-”

He moved faster than you could comprehend, one second he was sitting on the bed and the next he was looming over you, his hands clenched tightly around your biceps, and forcing you back.

You yelped as he pressed you into the wall, grabbing hold of his forearms.

His eyes were dark and wild, brimming with a terrifying energy.

“Miguel, wh-”

He crashed his lips into yours, swallowing down your words and slipping his tongue into your mouth frantically. It took you a fragment of a second to react, surprise freezing your limbs solid.

Miguel took your delay to his advantage, pushing his knee between your legs and pressing close. Not leaving a fraction of space between you as he devoured your mouth. Stealing your breath and igniting heat along your veins.

“Miguel,” you managed to push him back, the heels of your hands in his chest. This was the cA1m affecting him, it was the only explanation. Maybe the filtration system had diluted the chemical and caused a delayed reaction. “You need to-”

He snarled, his eyes pinpoint focused on you as he leaned forward and kissed you, hard. All tongue and sharp teeth as he wrapped his fingers around the back of your neck and gripped your thigh bruisingly tight, hitching it high on his hip.

You’d had dreams like this, fantasies, where he pinned you to the wall and kissed you until you couldn’t breathe. But you couldn’t do this, you couldn’t take advantage of him like this-

There was a sharp pinch of pain as Miguel sank his teeth into your bottom lip. You let out a small squeak of surprise, pulling away from him. And raised your hand to your mouth, your fingers coming back red.

Miguel, however, seemed unphased as he trailed kisses along your neck, smearing your blood along your skin. He ground his hips into yours, rocking back and forth and- oh god, he was big, just like the rest of him.

“Miguel, you need to,” you swallowed down a whimper as he sucked at your pulse point, just managing to resist the urge to hold him closer, to run your hands through his hair. “It’s the cA1m, you’re not thinking straight.”

He murmured something into your neck, his mouth not leaving your skin far enough for the words to be intelligible.

“Miguel-” You gasped as he nipped at your throat, not enough to break the skin this time.

Heat was burning from his skin, scorching into your body like you were too close to a flame.

You grabbed a fistful of his hair, yanking his head back a fraction too forcefully. You thought the brief pain might snap him out of it, give him a second of clarity. But as his chin tilted upwards, exposing his neck, he let out a long groan, his eyes squeezed shut.

It went straight to your core, your thighs clenching at the sound.

“Need you so bad, shit,” he rocked against you harder, pressing his length right up against your centre. “Always need you, you don’t understand,” he moaned and buried his head back into your neck, despite your grip on his hair, and sucked a love bite into your skin.

This time you couldn’t resist the urge. You sunk your fingers deeper, scratching your nails along his scalp and pulled him closer, pushing his face in your neck.

Miguel groaned appreciatively, digging his sharp nails into your shoulders. He nipped just below your ear, the keen, yet sweet little sting of pain blended with the slow and steady roll of his hips was simply tortuous. Almost enough to make you lose all common sense.

Almost.

You couldn’t do this, you couldn’t do this, you just couldn’t do this.

“Miguel-”

He whined as you said his name.

And you had to bite your lips together in order to hold onto your fading self respect.

“On the table,” you swallowed, trying to get your words out quickly, “there’s a sedative. It’ll help, it’ll-”

“You’ll help, being near you helps.” He mumbles, the words barely audible. He snakes his fingers along your ribs, just teasing the hem of your shirt.

“We just need to-oh!”

Miguel grabs hold of your shirt and pulls, ripping it open, buttons pinging off and going flying. Honestly, there’s less resistance from the material than you expected.

And then he's everywhere, his face buried in your chest, kissing the tops of your breasts as his fingers pinch at your nipples through the thin fabric of your bra.

You can't stop the moan of surprise that escapes your lips as you arch into his touch.

You had to stop this, now. Before he did something you'd very much enjoy and he'd very much regret.

"Fuck," you hiss under your breath and act quickly, trying not to overthink and get yourself caught up.

Maybe if he… had some relief you could grab the sedative in the afterglow. Hell, maybe he wouldn't even need the sedative if he came once.

Before you can lose your nerve you quickly unbuckled his trousers and managed to squeeze your hand under the material despite Miguel's frenzied mind trying to keep the physical space separating you both to a minimum.

He gasps as you touch him, letting out a choked sob that your brain was already committing to memory and filing under 'for use later'.

The velvety soft skin was rock hard and burning hot against your hand. So big that you couldn't even get your fingers fully round his girth.

"Please." He muttered, pressing his forehead against yours, his hands resting tightly on your waist.

His eyes were screwed shut, his mouth slightly open and when you moved your hand, the smallest upwards movement. He let out the sweetest sigh.

You bite your lip and wince as you catch the broken skin, but it doesn’t stop you from tracing your thumb over the tip of him, smearing precome along the head. You were trying to be quick, methodical, clinical, as you began to stroke him, setting an even pace. This was just a problem to solve. You should not be enjoying this.

But every glide of your hand, every touch, made Miguel gasp and moan as if it was the first time he’d ever experienced such sensations, made him bite his lip with his sharp (had they always been that sharp?) teeth, and it was intoxicating.

He pistoned his hips into your touch, thrusting faster and faster, and practically growling as he grew closer to his release.

You couldn’t help but watch him, enraptured, as heat pooled in your lower stomach, your own need growing. But this wasn’t about you.

Still, you couldn’t help yourself rocking back and forth against his leg ever so slightly to just take the edge off.

Miguel grunted, his eyes rolling back in his head, and there was a sharp pinch of pain as he tightened his grip on your waist, his nails digging in much harder than they surely should have been able to.

He swore under his breath as he cums, twitching under your touch, and coating your hand and stomach with his release.

There’s so much of it, far more than there should be as he cums and cums, gasping for air. Another side effect of the cA1m - perhaps you’d be annoyed as his release soaks into your ruined shirt if the sight of him reaching his peak wasn’t exhilarating.

You let go of him quickly, managing to disentangle yourself from him, despite Miguel low, exhausted whine of protest.

God, how were you going to get a new shirt without running into someone? And, you realised, probably a new pair of trousers too. Miguel’s spend had run down and soaked into the left side.

You grabbed the sedative from the side table. Your mind already racing, it wasn’t Miguel’s fault but would he remember? Would he be awkward with you now? Would your little chats and jokes stop? You swallowed down a pang of fear and turned. Now wasn’t the time for what ifs you-

Miguel grabbed your arms and you squeaked in surprise. How could he move so silently? His eyes were dark, hooded with lust, his trousers just hanging from his hips and… well, obviously so much for the idea that him cumming once would be enough.

“I need you.” He growled, his voice so low that you almost felt light headed. “I know you want me too, I can smell it.” He leaned forward scraping his teeth over your pulse point, and for a shameful moment you let yourself get caught up again, allowed yourself to revel in the sensation for the smallest second.

While he was distracted you pushed the needle into his upper arm, through his shirt, and injected the sedative.

It shouldn't take long.

He growled, pulling his mouth away from your neck to stare dangerously into your eyes.

You swallowed. A spike of fear dug into the base of your skull, some ancient urge telling you to run.

“It’s okay,” you said soothingly, unsure if you were really talking to Miguel or yourself. “It’s just the sedative.” You pulled the needle out of his arm. “You’ll be fine, let’s lay you down so-”

He kissed you hungrily, harsh and demanding as he forced his tongue into your mouth.

You allowed yourself to kiss him back the smallest amount as you waited for the sedative to work.

And waited… And waited…

Oh, no, just no, this wasn’t right, this couldn’t be right. There was more than enough in the injection to knock him out and yet he didn’t show any signs of slowing down.

Okay, so, this definitely wasn’t how it went with the others.

You side step, trying to twist past him and break his hold all in one movement. Maybe you could get to the door, maybe you could do… something. Your mind raced, there had to be a way to fix this, to help him, to be useful.

The side step didn’t work, Miguel’s grip was too tight, and you stumbled, skidding around and to your knees. The edge of the bed thumped into your back.

You gasp, gulp and stare up at him. That spike of fear dragging itself down your spine.

He growls and moves closer, his length bobbing and perfectly at your eye level. His gaze is dark and desperate, his bottom lip pinched between his teeth. You could see his pulse thundering in his neck, echoing along the length of his dick.

Rapid heartbeat was one of the side effects all the others had experienced, the sedative being the only thing that had managed to return it to a normaler level.

Maybe there was only one way you could be useful.

Miguel shifts his weight, preparing to move, but you lean forward first and run your tongue along the length of him.

A deep moan rumbles in his chest as you touch him, a gasp of breath. The sound floods heat to your core.

You wrap your lips around the tip, grabbing hold of his hips to pull him closer as you swallow as much of him as you can. You bob your head, encouraging him to move with you and there is a moment where you can feel the tension in his muscles, the strain in his thighs as he tries to hold back, to keep himself in check.

It doesn’t last long.

He snarls and thrusts forward, snapping his hips and nearly choking you. You splutter, trying to breathe through your nose but Miguel doesn’t give you a second to recover. He pushes forward, the back of your head slamming against the edge of the bed as he plunges deeper and deeper into your mouth, hitting the back of your throat with ease and still not even half way in.

Your grip on his hips tightens and you don’t know if you’re trying to pull him away or urging him on.

It burns, the size of him makes your jaw ache, tears roll down the sides of your cheeks from the force of his relentless thrusts.

His hands dig into the mattress by the side of you head, tearing into the fabric as he pounds into you, fucking your mouth with everything he’s got.

He groans, “yes, baby, yes,” his voice low and barely distinguishable as words.

You do your best to just hold on, to breathe and take as much as you can. The sounds of his moans filling your ears and mind, and god, how you wished you didn’t have a gag reflex and could take him deeper.

He keeps ramming into your mouth, snapping his hips against you with a frenzied energy and you push against his lower back, silently begging him to keep going.

Your neck throbs from discomfort, bruising forming where the skin is repeatedly hitting against the hard outline of the bed frame. Your knees burn from where they continuously rub against the floor with every buck and thrust.

Miguel lets out a short, animalistic cry as he cums down your throat suddenly. You moan against him, trying to swallow all of it but there’s just so, so much. It spills out of the side of your mouth and down your chin despite your best efforts.

He leans forward, breathing hard, his cock still in your mouth. And for a second you think this is it, the sedative will take hold or maybe this mindless lust has come to an end.

But he’s still hard when he pulls himself out of your mouth, his eyes still glazed over with the same madness when he looks down at you. He runs his hand over your chin, the pads of his fingers slightly sharp, and collects some of his spend that hasn’t trickled down your neck and onto your torn shirt and bra. Another item of clothing you’d need to change.

He smears his cum along your cheek, the movement possessive, like he was marking his territory.

There’s a pause, the lull in the eye of the storm before he pulls you up from the ground with a shocking display of strength, moving as if you were no heavier than a glass of water he was eager to drink down.

You can’t help the little yelp of surprise that escapes you as he practically throws you onto the bed, your back hitting the mattress and momentarily knocking the air out of your lungs.

But then he’s on top of you, pressing himself firmly between your legs as he growls and snaps his teeth close to your neck. He bites at your throat, hard enough to break the skin and you cry out as the pain quickly disappears into pleasure.

Your mewls only make his actions more frenzied as he tears your clothes completely off you with a speed that makes your head spin, before removing his own. The material rips so easily, as if he used a blade.

He runs his tongue along your chest, messily cleaning up the cum he’d spilt along you just moments before.

“Miguel-” You try to start, but then his mouth is back on yours, tasting like salt and iron as he drinks down your words to leave you breathless.

You gasp as he breaks away, trailing sloppy kisses down your body, his fingers running over your skin and leaving scratches. He bites your hip partially deeply and you keen, arching up into him as he moans.

“Your so fucking sweet.” He mutters before kissing lower and lower and, oh god. You nearly scream as his lips wrap around your clit and he sucks hard. Pleasure coils tight in your belly as a new wave of wetness leaks out and soaks into the torn up sheets beneath you.

His fingers dig into your thighs as he pushes his face into you, only breaking away so that he can lick through your folds hungrily, devouring you like a starving animal.

“Miguel!” You whine, letting out a series of high pitch moans that sound alien even to your own ears.

He sucks your clit once more, his teeth just grazing across it before he snarls and pulls away, pushing the back of your thighs and pressing them against your chest with a crushing strength.

You struggle to take a breath, barely filling your lungs before he’s thrusting into you with a guttural groan and a sharp snap of his hips.

The size of him hurts, it’s too much, too fast and you gasp in pain. You clench your jaw, your eyes screwing up as your hands fly to his shoulders, trying to push him back even though you know it’s no use against his strength.

But he stops instantly, stilling his movements.

You stare up at him in surprise. His eyes are still dark but there’s something else there, something pushing through that lust haze.

“Pain?” He whispers, sounding the most like his old self that he has since this ordeal began.

You swallow and nod, tears building at the corners of your eyes.

He slowly loosens his grip around your thighs, letting go shakily as if it is taking a lot of self control to do so. And while he doesn’t pull out, he doesn’t thrust in deeper either.

Carefully, he manoeuvres your legs down onto the bed either side of him, watching your face for any sign of increased discomfort. It’s only then that he looks down to where you’re joined, completely split open with only a quarter of his length inside.

He groans lows and you brace yourself for a brutal thrust that never comes. Instead he keeps his hips still as he slowly trails his sharp nails down your stomach, teasing the very edge of your clit before pressing his thumb against it fully.

A small moan escapes you and you clench down instinctively. Miguel hums in approval and starts to slowly circle the bundle of nerves, the touch light and soft as he just borders on the edge of losing control.

The pain starts to dissipate quickly, replaced with a steady continuous build of that deep need from before. You start to squirm. The pressure of his thumb isn’t enough and you rock your hips ever so slightly, your breathing hitching in your throat.

"More?" He whispers.

You nod your head rapidly.

“Thank god.” Miguel sighs, the words mumbled like a prayer almost too quietly for you to hear, and lets some of his weakening control slip.

Slowly he pushes further in, the tension shaking in his thighs as he fights with every instinct to pound you into the mattress and turn you into a crying mess beneath him.

He keeps circling your clit, groaning as feels a fresh wave of wetness leaking out of you.

You moan, grabbing hold of his shoulders. But this time you pull him towards you, urging him deeper. God, he’s big. Already it’s like you can feel him in your throat.

The stretch burns, but it’s good, it feels right. Like he is going to reach a whole new devastating part of you. Make you cum so hard that he’ll ruin any other sexual partner for good.

You hook your left leg on his hip and squeeze your calf over his lower back, encouraging him closer, deeper. While you plant your right foot firmly against the bed to rock up against him.

Miguel groans, his eyes closed. His movements on your clit falter as he slides further in.

There’s a sharp pain in your hip where his left hand holds you tight, his nails (it had to be his nails) dug in so deep that they broke your skin.

You let out a soft whine, clenching around his girth as he presses up against you perfectly and still pushes further in. The pleasure in your stomach tightening and starting to completely overwhelm all other thoughts, urging you to just chase your release.

Tears prick again at the corners of your eyes, a soft emotion beating hard in your chest. And you can’t help yourself, you grab hold of the back of Miguel’s neck, pulling him down towards you and arching up at the same time to kiss him hungrily.

He moans into your mouth, pushing back against you and forcing you into the mattress. His hips snap forward, finally sheathing himself completely in your tight, wet heat.

For a moment it’s like you can’t breathe, so completely full that not even air can enter.

Miguel stills, giving you a moment to adjust as he licks into your mouth and groans as your walls squeeze around his length. His pubis bone presses firmly against your clit, and you can feel the echo of his racing heart beat along his skin.

He breaks the kiss to breathe hard, his eyes closed and forehead pressed against yours. “I can’t… I need to…”

“Please,” you answer desperately, kissing him softly as you start to rock your hips ever so slightly.

Miguel lets out a whine, his eyebrows pinched together in bliss and the expression alone is nearly enough to make you cum on the spot.

“Can’t stop,” he mutters and you're not even sure if he’s aware of what he’s saying anymore as he grabs your wrists in either of his hands and pins them to the bed. “Feels so…” He ruts into you, pulling out so that just the tip of his cock stays inside before slamming back into you. “Fuck. So. Fucking. Tight.”

You wail under him as pleasure runs up your spine and down your legs as he punctuates every thrust with an upwards rock of his hips, continuously rubbing against your clit and pressing the head of his length to that perfect spot inside.

“So. Fucking. Wet.” He growls. His nails are slicing into your wrists, but you don’t care. Can’t care, you’ve lost all ability to feel anything but the glide of his cock and the heady build of your orgasm.

“So. Mine.” He growls and bites down hard on your neck. You cry out, the brutal pace of his hips only increasing, bringing you closer and closer and-

You gasp, his name catching in your throat as you finally cum. Every muscle shaking as it crashes over you in waves.

Miguel tears his mouth away from your neck, blood shining on his lips as he watches you come undone. He moans, his thrusts not faltering for a second.

“That’s it, cum all over me,” he glances down for a moment watching himself disappearing into you, amazed at how well you’re taking him, how tightly your walls are griping him, trying to milk him for all he’s worth. “Squeezing me so tight, oh shit-”

He cums loudly, still pistoning in and out of you as he fills you up with his release. There’s still so much of it, some leaks out, spilling out of your abused hole and sticking to your thighs.

You breathe deeply, your mind foggy from how hard you came. Your legs ache from being stretched so wide, your pussy throbs from overstimulation.

Miguel doesn’t stop, still rock hard and trusting. Pushing his cum deeper into you.

“Miguel,” you whine, your throat raw.

“I can’t-” he bites his lip, “I can’t stop, I need to, fuck, please, I need to-”

You kiss his neck, biting harder than you normally would at his jugular. He whines, the sound going straight to your core. Heat starts to build again.

“Keep going,” you mutter against his skin. “Keep going as long as you need to.”

You wake up sore and sticky. Aching and in pain. Even the slightest movement brings out an array of discomfort. Every muscle throbs, like you had done a year's worth of exercise in one day, and all the bites and scratches sting as you shift, the scrapes making you feel like someone had tossed you naked into a bush of brambles and thorns.

It takes you a moment to remember where you are, the tiredness in your bones trying to coax you back to sleep.

“I’m sorry.”

Miguel’s voice makes you jump. He’s still close to you, laying on his side with his chest pressed up against your back. One arm around your waist. There’s tension there, you know he wants to move away but is scared to move at the same time.

His cock is pressed against your backside, soft and sated.

You turn to look at him, too tired to worry about your nakedness. Besides, he had seen plenty of it anyway.

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

He scoffs. His mouth pressed into a thin line as he looks down.

It’s only then as you turn around completely to look at him that you see tears in his eyes. “Miguel?”

You softly touch his cheek but he flinches away from you. The action spikes through your heart. He can’t even look at you now.

“I’ve got everything to be sorry for, I, I took advantage of you, I rap-”

“No, no, no, no,” you can’t help but touch him again, putting your hand back on his cheek and rubbing your thumb soothingly across his skin.

This time he leans into it, letting out the smallest, shaky breath.

“You were infected, Miguel, you couldn’t control yourself. I don’t know how much you remember but the sedative didn’t work, and your heart rate was just, I mean, it was crazy high. And, if anything, I was the one that took advantage of you and-”

His eyes snap open. “You? You took advantage of me?” He says disbelievingly. “Look at you.” He touches the bite marks on your neck gently.

You give him a little smile. “I don’t mind.”

He breathes out another shaky breath, but there’s a hint of a smile. “You don’t mind?”

You shake your head. “Happy to help.”

He chuckles a little at that and nods as he runs a hand through his hair.

There’s a pause, a silence that you can’t stand.

“I guess I was wrong.”

Miguel frowns a little, confused.

“My theory, about people having that reaction if they’re in love, I mean.”

There’s a pause, the only sound a little gulp as Miguel swallows. Something passes over his face for a second, a faint trace of heat rising to his skin.

Oh. Maybe you weren’t wrong.

“Miguel?”

He breathes deeply, looking down. “I-”

You don’t give him a chance to finish, letting your adrenaline overwhelm you as you quickly lean forward and press your lips to his. Hoping against hope that you weren’t misreading the situation.

He’s caught by surprise for a moment, but moans happily and softly kisses you back as his arm wraps around you and pulls you close.

The kiss is slow and gentle, languid and sweet. It makes your stomach drop like you were falling from a great height. His embrace the only thing keeping you safe.

He runs his tongue over your bottom lip lightly, careful of the cuts, but licks into your mouth hungrily the second you part your lips. It’s not the same lustful need from before, this is deeper, sharper and desperate in a different way. As if after devouring your body he now needed to devour your soul.

He kisses you again, lightly before you both pull back for a second. He grins at you, a little shyly and you smile as you stroke his cheek.

“You weren’t wrong.” He muttered.

You frown and shake your head, confused.

He chuckles and kisses you again. “Your theory about love.”

____________________________________

Thank you for reading!

@pleasurebuttonwrites @raven-rk @campingwiththecharmings @alexxavicry @mystinky-butt @cocodiem @oscarisaacsspit @whatthefishh @mbakubabe @solobagginses @romanarose @saturn-rings-writes

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morning-star-joy · 2 years ago

Text

a stranger's heart without a home masterlist

Pairing: rivals to friends with benefits slowburn Joel x F!Reader, Post-Outbreak

Fic Summary: Sleeping with Joel Miller was supposed to be a one time thing. When the older brother of your closest friend showed up in Jackson, you hadn't expected him to stay more than a day. You'd both given into a brief moment of passion before he left, and that was the end of that. It didn't matter, you were never going to see him again. Then Joel returns a few months later, and screws up everything about the comforting life you had established in Jackson.

Fic Tags: One Night Stands, Rivals into Friends with Benefits, Emotional Slow Burn (really slow), Eventual Romance, Mutual Pining Idiots, Angst & Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Found Family (lots of Tommy & Reader and Dina & Reader friendships), Long Chapters

Fic Warnings: Explicit Smut (18+ MDNI), Language, Canon-Typical Violence, Alcohol Use, Age Difference (Reader in her 30s, Joel 56) Themes of Grief/PTSD/Depression with mentions of death (family members, both Reader and Joel) that can be heavy at times, Specific Warnings in each Chapter

Status: Complete

ao3 link

official art by @cynibuns

tribute edit by @dundienominee

moodboard/graphic by @planet-marz1

Reader fanart by @mydzygro-art

masterlist (no longer posting on tumblr, check ao3 for new fics)

chapter 1: I am not the only traveler

chapter 2: the holidays linger like bad perfume

chapter 3: do I wanna know if this feeling flows both ways (18+ Smut)

chapter 4: there it is again, that funny feeling

chapter 5: break the silence; damn the dark, damn the light

chapter 6: and I'll never see you again if I can help it (18+ Smut)

chapter 7: look at us, you and I, back at it again (18+ Smut)

chapter 8: maybe I don't quite know what to say, but I'm here in your doorway

chapter 9: I thought that you’d be here by now (18+ Smut)

chapter 10: can the killer in me tame the fire in you?

chapter 11: this slope is treacherous, this path is reckless (18+ Smut)

chapter 12: you take what you get, and you turn it into honesty

chapter 13: burned out flames should never reignite, but I thought you might take me home (18+ Smut)

chapter 14: he built a fire just to keep me warm

chapter 15: speak to me until your history’s no mystery to me

chapter 16: and it feels good to be known so well (18+ Smut)

chapter 17: baby, it's Halloween, and we can be anything (18+ Smut)

chapter 18: yes, I'll admit that I'm a fool for you (18+ Smut)

chapter 19: either I'm careless or I wanna get caught (18+ Smut)

chapter 20: with your boots beneath my bed; forever is the sweetest con (18+ Smut)

epilogue (18+ Smut)

(listed in order of how they occur after the main fic)

morning after chapter 20

waking up to oral (18+ Smut)

painfully domestic (kisses to get their attention)

lingerie & breeding kink (18+ Smut)

(epilogue takes place here)

half-asleep, half-awake (Joel POV companion piece to main fic)

not much I need (nonsexual intimacy)

kissing scars

easy, plaid-shirt mornings (18+ Smut)

would it be enough if I could never give you peace? (Reader's anxiety)

a feeling so peculiar (seasonal depression)

chapter 13 sneak peek (Jealous!Joel's POV Date Scene)

chapter 13 scene (Jealous!Joel Smut after Date 18+)

chapter 13 cut endings (Angst af)

chapter 14 sneak peek (Reflection Joel's POV)

chapter 15 sneak peek (Totally Casual Drinks Between Friends)

chapter 16 sneak peek (Dina and Ellie Plan)

chapter 17 sneak peek (The Dance)

chapter 18 sneak peek (Joel Pines for You)

chapter 18 secret scene (Tommy finally fucking figures it out)

chapter 19 sneak peek (Tommy and Reader)

fic playlist

MC playlist

Taylor-coded MC playlist (for my fellow Swifties!)

Joel POV playlist

#joel x reader #joel miller x reader #joel x reader smut #joel miller smut #joel miller hurt/comfort #joel miller angst #joel miller fluff #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller series #joel miller x f!reader #fic masterlist #a stranger's heart series

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myfictionaldreams · 1 year ago

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Day 15: Spanking/Flogging - Poly! Marauders

Summary: Sirius, ever the one to explore the kinky side of life, has bought a new toy which you're a little apprehensive about.

Tags: 18+ readers only, smut, foursome (F/M/M/M), polyamory, dom/sub, spanking, sex toy (flogger), punishment, discussion of safe words(!), pain play, overstimulated, begging, crying, praise kink, subspace, aftercare

masterlist 📚

kinktober masterlist😈

AO3 Link

“So where did you buy this?” was your first question as you stared at the opened package in the middle of the bed.

“I don’t think you want to know, Darling”, Sirius answers suspiciously as he sweetly kisses your cheek. You give him a deadpan look, not liking the answer at all.

“It looks like something from the dungeons, a torture device or something”. Reaching forward, you picked up the object Sirius called a flogger or whip. It had a black handle with a wrist strap and many thin leather strips coming off the end that swayed when you moved it. Inspecting it closely, you weren’t sure what to make of it, especially the leather material, making it seem almost barbaric.

“So what are you supposed to do with this? Swat flys away?” Your wrist twisted and turned as you pretended to swat an imaginary insect, earning a low chuckle from the three men scattered around the room.

Sirius, the closest to you who was sitting next to you on the bed, edged closer to your body until you could feel his warmth against your arm. Gently, he took the flogger from your grip and moved so that his handsome face was only an inch away from yours. His silky voice dropped an octave, “It’s for a certain naughty girlfriend and boyfriends who need a telling-off on their pretty little arses”.

Hearing this, your eyes zone back to the item, eyebrows furrowing as you bit your lip. “I don’t think I’ll ever be naughty enough for this”. Apprehension settled heavily in your stomach as you weren’t sure if you liked the thought of being spanked with something that looked so medieval.

“You know, we’d never use it on you if you didn’t want us to, right?” Remus reassures from where he is leaning against the bedpost with his arms crossed. Your shoulders drop in relief, giving him a thankful smile and nodding your head.

Keeping to their word, the Marauders did not use it on you. However, you were able to watch the flogger being used on the other, more specifically Sirius and James; however, it was mostly the long-haired Marauder that seemed to enjoy it to its full potential.

It was a rare occurrence for one of your boyfriends to receive the punishment in the form of being spanked, but over the recent months, it seemed that Remus, James and Sirius were willing to permit the punishments to each other and not just for you. Usually, it was because Sirius had done a prank without consulting the others, and hence, the rest of the Marauders got into trouble. For James, it was falling behind on his schoolwork because he was too busy practising his quidditch. Everyone tried to rally together to enforce the rules that were in place. It may have seemed like a strict regime to others, but it all returned to the dominant and submissive relationship the four of you shared.

You were the submissive of the group and enjoyed the dynamics more than anything, whereas the guys were more dominant, with rare occasions to switch when feeling particularly needy. There were always safe words in place to protect one another, and aftercare was the most crucial thing - next to communication - so all punishments were prediscussed to make sure they were consented to. They always end with sexual rewards or a feeling of euphoria due to the dopamine released with the mixture of pain and pleasure.

James was the first you got to witness with the flogger. He’d started with spanks to the back of his perfectly sculptured thighs that left red hues in the shape of Remus’ palm against his skin. When checking in with him during the punishment, James informed his boyfriends that he could take more, so Sirius took over with his new flogger. You sat cuddled into Remus’ lap, watching with fascination and morbid curiosity as to what the flogger would be like as you’d been thinking about the toy a lot recently.

It didn’t look or sound as scary as you thought, but James still flinched further up the bed, especially as the leather strips had caught the edge of his balls.

“Holy shit”, James grunted, fisting the shits and burying his face into them.

“Colour?” Sirius asked in a steady, clear voice.

“Green”, James confirmed, glancing over his shoulder with a broad grin.

“Good boy, count with me”, Sirius encouraged. James counted each hit with the flogger, suffering and grunting with each of the impacts but then relaxing into the bed in between during his breaks. By the time he reached number 15, James’ arse was streaked pink, and he was now slumped onto the bed, saying his safe word and that he’d probably had enough. Sirius agreed with him, and they proceeded to give him a lot of comfort and aftercare, being careful to tend to his spanked arse.

The following few times that you’d witnessed the flogger in action was with Sirius, who had been showing James and Remus how to use it properly and how much pressure to put between each hit to ensure it wasn’t too painful for the receiver. He even offered to show you how to use it, but you didn’t feel comfortable giving us punishments of any kind; it felt counter-intuitive, especially as all you wanted to do was cuddle and nurture them when they were crying out through the punishments.

Watching Sirius have a punishment was a special experience in of itself. He was so prideful and addicted to his pain kink that he continued to egg his boyfriends on whilst in the midst of having a punishment. After receiving the spanks delivered by a palm, he would boast and say it wasn’t nearly hard enough. This part of him sparked something in Remus, determined to show him that he shouldn’t be so mouthy. Sirius loved to push people, testing them and himself to see just how much he could take before breaking.

This has its own warnings as it could push the limit of the punishments, becoming dangerous, which is why it was crucial for all four of you to be present during these moments, and if someone deemed anything was going too far, it would stop immediately.

This happened the last time that the flogger was used. Sirius’ arse was perked into the air, the skin warm from the spanks and beginning to deepen in colour, but the palm wasn’t enough, and all he kept doing was mock Remus. “You think that’s a punishment? That was more like a love tap”. Remus soon fell for the teasing and found the flogger, using it on each of his round arse cheeks, the sound of the leather strips was louder than when James had experienced it, but from the noises Sirius was making, it was evident he loved every second. The red areas soon began to raise with hints of swelling from the impact, but Sirius continued to beg for more, needed it as if his life depended on it.

It was James who finally stepped in and said it was enough as he was observing Sirius’ face and could see that his eyes were glazed, even though he was grinning, showing all of his teeth. He looked drunk, and it scared the hell out of you as he was rolled onto the bed, body flopping as his mind was lost in his floating consciousness. However, he kept repeating how good it felt, which was then that you noticed that he’d came on Remus’ thigh just from being spanked.

Following this, your curiosity was peaked. Wondered if you would get the same euphoria that Sirius had experienced, and even though you hated the premie and thought of being punished because you were such a people pleaser, the idea of any of the boys being upset or angry with you shook your very core. However, you did like it when they spanked you during sex; when done right, the mix of pain and pleasure always felt so elating, but you were unsure how much pain was too much.

So, one late evening, the four of you were in the library finishing off the latest essay for Charms. Sirius was sitting to your right, James opposite him and Remus to his right, opposite you. You hadn’t written anything down for the last 15 minutes because you kept contemplating a question over and over in your mind until you couldn’t keep it contained anymore.

“Could you spank me with the flogger tonight, please?”

Many things happened at once. Sirius’ head snapped up to face you so quickly that he, in turn, knocked over James’ ink well, which coated his work. On the other hand, James kicked his legs and bashed into Remus’ shin, who then began to wear and rub his shin whilst looking at you like you had two heads.

Your eyes widen at the reaction, looking between the three of them confused.

“Love, you can’t just say things like this in a public space”, Remus chastises as your face heats in embarrassment with his words, looking over your shoulder, forgetting that you were, in fact, in the middle of the library and hadn’t whispered your words at all.

“Sorry”, you mumble, now deciding to be quiet, hiding your face to look sheepishly at the table, hoping none of the other students have overheard. As you stared at the table, you could see James waving his wand over his work, the spilt ink disappearing as he looked disappointedly at Sirius opposite him.

“Thanks for that, Padfoot; now I’ve got to write that entire sentence again”, James grumbled, annoyed, but he didn’t continue with his writing as he looked in your direction, making you look up to meet his stare, which was when you realised that they’re all looking at you.

Trying not to flinch under their intense stares, you lowered in your seat as Sirius leaned closer, his arm circling around the back of your chair. “Were you being serious about the flogger?”

“I thought you were Sirius”, you quip back with a small smile, earning an eye roll from the long-haired man and a ‘nice’ from James. Sighing, you sit further up in your seat and shift closer to Sirius’ side so you’re beneath his shoulder as his hand moves from the back of your chair to your shoulder, drawing idle circles through your white school shirt. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. I don’t want to try the punishment side of it, but after seeing it used on you, Sirius, I kind of want to try it. Maybe I’ll like it, and if I don’t, I’ll just shake my head or say red like I usually would.”

Sirius grins broadly, his eyes blazing as he glances towards Remus and James, who are nodding in contemplation.

Shuffling in your seat, you continued, “So yeah, I just wanted to let you all know because I couldn’t stop thinking about it”. Picking up your quill once more, you move to continue your essay, “Sorry, I’ll stop interrupting your work”.

Of course, your boyfriends couldn’t return to their essay so quickly as Sirius’ hand landed on your thigh, pushing beneath your skirt so that you could feel the bare skin of his palm and the slight calluses on them from where he held the bat in his Beater position in Quidditch. His plump lips dipped to be near your ear, “Oh Darling, if you think we’re going to go back to work after this, you’re sadly mistaken.

You try holding back your smile by biting the inside of your lips, but Sirius doesn’t need your mouth as his head tilted so he could kiss delicately along your jaw. Your body melted into the touch, eyes fluttering closed as you held onto the hand, squeezing the flesh of your thigh.

The two of you were abruptly interrupted by an obnoxiously loud cough, which forced the two of you thoroughly away from one another; however, Sirius kept his hand steady on your thigh. Next to the table stood a sharp-looking woman with your eyes fixed on a spot on the table as the librarian seethed at you and Sirius. “I don’t want any of that nonsense in my library.” Her eyes flick from an ashamed you to a grinning-ferally Sirius, whose eyes sparked with the confrontation. “Pack your things and get out. All of you”, she adds, looking at the other two Marauders.

The librarian leaves as James grumbles, “Thank Merlin for that, " as he packs his parchment and quills away.

You’re feeling unsettled as you pack away your bag, slinging it over your shoulder and waiting for the others, but then Sirius is at your side again. “I don’t know why you’re looking so glum. I want to get you back to our room and have some fun”.

Before you can even react, he’s spinning you on the spot and hoisting you over his shoulder, causing your bag to drop to the floor and a scream to leave your lips. Thankfully, Remus picked up your bag and placed it over his shoulder as Sirius laughed loudly as he rushed out of the library with the librarian screaming after the two of you.

Eventually, you begged him to put you down as his shoulder dug uncomfortably into your gut, and you were pretty sure that the back of your skirt had lifted enough that you were flashing people. This didn’t stop Sirius from basically dragging you the remainder of the way, his hand clasping yours in a tight grip as you struggled to keep up with his long legs.

However, once in the Gryffindor Common room, you’re once again being lifted onto his shoulders as he raced up the stairs, his strong arms wrapped around your thighs as you have to stare at the stone floor, gripping the back of his shirt for dear life.

You’re then indelicately thrown onto the magically enlarged bed in the dormitory that you shared with the three men. You squeak in shock as you bounce on the mattress a few times.

“Careful with her Pads, Jesus Christ”, James warns, closing the door behind Remus before locking it.

“She’s okay, aren’t you, Darling?” Sirius assured as he wrapped his long fingers around your ankle and tugged you closer, making you scream in shock and then giggle as he crawled between your legs, kissing the space where your shoulder and neck meet. His arms rest on either side of your head as your fingers run through his hair, brushing it out of his pretty face. His mouth opened further to press sensual kisses along the slope of your neck.

James and Remus smile, watching the glee and happiness on your face from where they had moved to sit on either side of the bed. Remus brushes the back of his fingers against your temple, drawing your attention away from Sirius for a moment. “How do you want to do this? Do you want to get straight into it, or do you want to play first?” Remus asks.

Releasing your hold on Sirius’ hair, you grab Remus's hand and play with his scarred fingers before linking them together, squeezing them for comfort. “I think I want to have some fun first, then when you think it’s appropriate, you can start spanking me”.

Remus nods in understanding, squeezing your hand back in response. James then catches your attention as he dips his face so it's the only thing in your eyeline. “So, when you say you want to play…”, he begins to taunt, but his glasses start to slide down his nose, making you laugh and release Remus’ hand to push the frame back up his nose. “Thank you”, he noted before continuing, “Anyway, does that mean I get to have a taste?”

“Be my guest”, you declare, spreading your legs further underneath Sirius, who is still on top of you. Not for long, though, as James tackles him out of the way and drops to his stomach on the bed, face between your legs as he pushes up your skirt.

Each slowly took turns stripping an article of clothing from your body so their mouth, fingers or cock could draw orgasms from you. Your blood warmed with each one, thighs trembling and drenched with sweat and bodily fluids; your most sensitive areas were throbbing and on the edge of being overstimulated, hole arching from clenched so many times and clit thumping with your pounding heartbeat.

Your face was currently slumped against the silky sheets, mouth open and greedily sucking in air against the material. Sirius was behind you on his knees, cock delved deep into your pussy that was suffocating him to perfection. His hands were massaging your arse cheeks, feeling the soft skin, admiring how they moved and testing how ready you were with some light spanks. They jiggled with the impact. A high-pitched squeal bursts from your lips as well from the sharp skin, but you soon rock back onto his cock, melting into the bed so far that you thought you’d fall right through and onto the wood floor beneath.

Sirius smirked arrogantly at your reaction, doing the spank again with more pressure, causing your shrilled tone to lower. “More, give me more, Siri, please!”

“Your wish is my command, Darling”. With increasing strength, he continued to lay spanks to your arse. It felt so good to have the sharp sparks of pain to the fleshy area and the continued poke of his cock stretching your walls.

Not that you were aware of it, but Remus had rummaged through the box beneath the bed that held all of the naughty items Sirius seemed to have collected over time. Sirius held out his hand for the flogger, accepting it and then running the strands over your naked back for a second as a little warning as to what would occur. Arching your back further, you waited for the first blow as Sirius reminded you of what was discussed earlier, “Remember, shake your head or safe word if it's too much or you need a break”.

“Yes, sir”. Just to be safe so that he didn’t accidentally hit his cock, Sirius eased himself out of you and helped you to lie down with a pillow beneath your hips so that they were elevated and pushing your arse further into the air.

“Relax for me. James is just going to touch you a little to keep you in the right mood”, Sirius advised whilst cupping your warm arse cheek. You remained placid on the bed as your boyfriends moved around you. James appeared first, sitting next to you as his hand pushed between the pillow and your mound until he was cupping over your clit, applying the slightest bit of pressure for you to find some pleasure. Remus sat above your head, gently repositioning your head so that it now rested on his naked thigh.

Your thoughts were only consumed by the fingers resting on your bundle of nerves as your hips rocked hard against James, moaning and increasing your arousal.

“That’s it, good girl. Get yourself off on Prongs’ fingers”, Sirius praises before adjusting his position and readying the flogger. It connects with your left arse cheek. You flinch and squeal at the sharpness of the sting but relax down quickly as it wasn’t as painful as you’d first thought, as Sirius had made sure to go lightly on you. However, the burning pain did deepen into the muscle.

It was better than you thought, so a smile stretched across your lips as you nuzzled further into Remus’ thigh and rubbed your clit harder against James’ fingers.

“Well done, you took that so well, Sweetheart. See, it wasn’t that bad, was it? Let's go for a few more”, Sirius encouraged.

The man on his knees flicked his wrists and spanked both of your arse cheeks one after the other in quick succession. He rotates his hand in circles so that the sharp slaps continue to reign down as you moaned and then whined, the pain getting too much in one moment. Noticing the change in your noises, Sirius gave you a break to rub his large hand over the tender area that was hotter to the touch.

“She’s soaked”, James comments, still massaging your clit in slow circles with four of his fingers. The longer that time went on, the further the warmth in your body spread, creating a satisfied, buzzing sensation throughout your limbs and head.

Sirius continued with the strokes, the strings increasing with each whack of the

flogger, and with each tap, your hips dug in harder to James' fingers. Sirius made sure to give each of your cheeks equal attention, the surface area deepening in shade and raising in slight swelling.

Your gasps weren’t as deep anymore. Instead, you were sucking in quick, shallow breaths to try and keep yourself stable, but it was doing the opposite as you became more light-headed. Sirius had stopped at this point as Remus began to rub his large hand down your spine in long circles. “Slow your breathing down; you’re going to get lightheaded”, Remus instructed with an authoritative tone. You breathed in through your nose until your lungs were full of air and slowly breathed out through your mouth. Eventually, it helped enough that you began to calm down again, not feeling as lucid as before.

“Keep going, please, Siri”, you mumble against the softness of Remus’ thigh. Sirius looked between James and Remus to see if they agreed that you could or even should continue, but they all nodded as you smiled lazily over your shoulder.

‘Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack’,

Sirius’ wrist continued to rotate, bringing the flogger’s leather strips to contact against your arse. You’re cringing away more, but the burn and the fingers on your clit felt so good it was almost impossible for you to explain how you felt. It was like a perfect balance; the drenching of the sheets beneath your pussy was evidence enough as to how much you were enjoying it.

Further, you fell into the floating sensation, as if you were weightless. Even though the pain was still increasing, you didn’t want it to stop; you could keep going at this for hours and hours and hours.

“That’s enough”, Remus's voice cuts through the repetitive throughs repeating in your mind as you frown.

In a pathetic whimper, you begged, “No, don’t stop”. You try and wiggle your hips to entice the boys in, but your body is depleted of energy.

“Love, you’re crying. It’s enough”, Remus explained.

‘You were?’ you thought, having previously mistaken the wetness on your face for sweat. Opening your mouth, you tried to take another deep breath like before but realised that your chest was raking with quiet sobs.

James removed his fingers from beneath you and moved off the bed as Remus cradled your face lovingly with a calm touch with his thumb against your cheekbone. “Shhh, you’re okay. The pain is going to stop. You’ve been so good for us”. Remus continues to speak but at a much softer tone, hoping it will calm you down.

“But, I don’t want it to stop; it feels so good”, you say in a bratty tone, all high-pitched and whiny. “I feel so warm and floaty”, a hiccup bubbles from your throat.

“Ah”, Sirius begins talking from behind you, “Should have anticipated this - Oh, thanks, Prongs” he moves aside and allows James to place a wet, cold cloth onto your arse cheek, which causes your body to olt in shock. Shiving from the touch, it also helped scare you into a small reset, the cries stopping.

Remus begins to move out from underneath you, replacing his wet thigh with a soft, comfortable pillow for your head to lie on. Sirius shuffles up the bed so he is lying beside you. “You feeling a little bit spacey, Darling?” Your eyes were closed as you nodded, referring to the submissive headspace you quickly slipped into that made you feel this way, not knowing when something was becoming too painful and needing the others to help you through your vulnerability. “I thought you were”, Sirius continues whilst cupping your cheek, which you immediately nuzzle into.” “Hey, can you drink this for me? It’s ok, I’ll help you; I’ve got a straw”.

Opening your mouth, Sirius directed the straw for you to drink the glass of water Remus had gotten for you. “Well done, you wanna open your eyes for me?” Sirius asks once you’ve finished drinking.

“Too tired”, you say in an exhausted voice.

“Okay, well, how about you eat this chocolate for Remus before stares a hole through my head and James is going to rub some lotion onto the sore area. Afterwards, we’ll try to get some sleep; how does that sound?”

You’re now officially too tired to reply, so just resort to nodding your head. Opening your mouth, Remus feeds you the rich, thick chocolate he has stored in his bedside cabinet as the wet cloth is removed, and James carefully wipes some cooling gel into your arse.

“It’s ok, you’re doing so well”, Sirius encourages, still lying beside you. “Here, let’s get you covered up”. From behind him, Sirius finds a blanket that he folds in half and carefully places over your back, being careful not to be ruined by the lotion. As you’d finished the chocolate, you almost immediately passed out. You’d be sore in the morning, but certain lotions and potions could aid with this that one of the boys could go and steal from the supply cupboard, and you were more than sure that this whole night had awakened something new within your submissive, kinky brain.

#the marauders #poly!marauders #marauders x reader #marauders smut #sirius black #james potter #remus lupin #james potter smut #james potter one shot #sirius black smut #sirius black one shot #remus lupin smut #remus lupin one shot #harry potter smut #harry potter #mine*#kinktober #kinktober 2023

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weltraum-vaquero · 19 days ago

Text

Swan song

Professor Viktor x TA Reader

[PART 1]｡ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆[PART 2] ⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆[PART 3]

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆[AO3 link] ⋆｡ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡

Summary: You’re a bright phD student who won’t shy away from a challenge. Getting the most notorious professor at the University of Piltover to hire you as his assistant is one of them.

Tags: Modern AU, SFW (for now…), DILF professor Viktor, who delights in being a bit of a dick, and becomes even more mean on bad pain days, and who is constantly insufferably rightfully smug, Smart & competent reader being reduced to a wolf with heart eyes going AWOOOGA when they lay eyes on Viktor.

Word count: 7.8k

Notice: This fic is written with a transmasculine reader in mind, but that won’t come into play at all until the final third chapter of this mini-series.

Notes: 1. Shoutout to my beloved buddies for helping me with this fic, AND the banner. You guys know who you are. 2. I hope you enjoy this very self indulgent piece about my take on Viktor as a professor in a modern AU. Keep in mind that this work is entirely spoiler free. Although it will be posted over the upcoming three weeks as arcane season two drops, I had no information about any of the leaks whatsoever as I wrote this, and did my utmost to avoid them. This iteration of Viktor was written with his season one character traits as a base in mind. 3. The science Viktor and reader talk about in depth in this fic is entirely made up and definitely falls apart under scrutiny. Don’t look too hard. Yes, I made up an entire hextech based scientific field specifically so I could carnally have this old man.

You know exactly what to expect from someone like Professor Viktor Sidorov-Svoboda.

You’ve done your homework on the man: interviewed colleagues who’d taken his lectures as undergrads (scary — but great at his job had been the general consensus), and checked his ratemyprofessor profile. Which, by the way, had been a terrific read.

Dr Sidorov-Svoboda is a very polarizing man, it seems. Reviews were either raving about his cogency, or saying they’d drive to his lecture without wearing a seatbelt in the hopes that death would take them before Sidorov did. There seemed to be no in-between, other than one review calling him a total DILF and rating him five out of five for that alone.

You digress. All sources had gotten across more than enough for you to understand what you were going to face once you’d step into his office: brilliant, tenured, independent, a no-nonsense attitude, and with a spotless track record of turning down TAs.

Which you’re here to change — the last part, that is.

It’s not exactly a guilt-free affair. Dr Heimerdinger — the dean himself — had personally reached out to you, and requested you try to convince Sidorov-Svoboda to accept you as his TA. Should you succeed, you would be offered a generous wage.

That, along with the fact that Sidorov’s name is going to pretty up your CV something fierce if you somehow land this job, is reason enough to make you at the very least give it a go.

With a fortifying breath, you rap your knuckles on the oakwood of his office door.

“Yes?” A heavy accent makes itself known on the y.

You wait to see if he’ll open — five seconds pass — he doesn’t.

Rude.

You take that as your cue to push the door open yourself.

Nothing could have prepared you for the man whose cat-like eyes pierce you from above rectangular silver reading glasses. He hadn’t even bothered lifting his head from what he’d been reading through; and when he finally does grant you the gift of being looked at, wholly, it feels the same way as having a painting stare back at you. In the back of your mind, you swear you can hear the horns of an orchestra blaring into a crescendo.

His gaze pierces you, in a way that borders on literal. It’s undressing — less erotic, and more terrifying, as a consequence of nakedness, of being read. Professor Sidorov-Svoboda looks at you with a kind of disinterest that screams I have you figured out, and it’s punching your heart down into your stomach in a lovely, terrible way.

The lines of his face are lovingly crafted. Dark shadows under hollow cheeks, golden eyes under strong brows, there’s something intrinsically statuesque about his face. You’d expect to look at something akin to Sidorov-Svoboda in a museum, carved in marble, not in one of the dusty offices at your university.

He cocks his head, exposing a long, swan-like neck dotted with beauty marks, as he waits for you to regain your wits. Which you do, before any of this crosses the threshold between awkward and downright embarrassing.

“Hello, doctor,” you finally manage. “My name is (y/n) (l/n), theoretical arcanism department, phD student. I was… hoping we could discuss a position as your TA.”

He cocks a brow, thoroughly unimpressed, before he slides his glasses off his face. He even takes a sip of his lukewarm coffee, deliberately slow in swallowing it, before he finally speaks.

“I believe you should already be familiar with the fact that I do not take assistants.” Sidorov leans forward in his chair a fraction, still poring over his book, and there is a marked pop in one of his joints that sounds nothing short of painful. He seems hardly bothered by it.

“I am,” you reply. “Which is why I am here in the hopes of changing your mind.”

That finally makes him look at you properly again. It’s a delight. You wish you could savor it, instead of desperately trying to keep your wits about you.

“And why would you want to do that?”

The answer to that question has changed substantially since you’d first stepped foot into his office.

But you’re fortunately not stupid enough to tell him that.

“Your name is worth gold in the community, doctor. I would like it on my resume.”

He picks up his pen, squinting as he scribbles something in his book, before he hums with disinterest.

“Mm. I heard doctor Pididdly takes more kindly to flattery.” He brushes a grey strand of hair from his face, clicking his pen as he simply lets you stew in your own embarrassment and focuses on whatever he’s reading. When he speaks again, he does not award you the honor of feigning the smallest hint of interest. “And you can send doctor Heimerdinger my regards. Let him know I am still not looking for an assistant.”

He has you figured out, and it’s making you feel dumber than any advanced class has ever had the honor of doing.

“The dean? I haven’t spoken to him since—“

“Since last year, when you took his theoretical arcane force fields class? Or was it since he explicitly asked you to come to my office with this proposition?”

You’re not the only one who’s done their research on the other. Though it’s painfully clear that he was much more thorough in his pursuit.

“I’m… sorry.”

“For wasting both our time? You should be.” He does dignify you with one glance, and even sets his pen down, as he bids you goodbye.

—

You’re fortunately not a sore loser. The money and resume addition would have been nice, yes, but you suppose they still would not have made up for working with someone as sharp and cutting as Svoboda.

You’ll gladly take the loss. And you are.

He’s long gone from the front of your mind, though something about him — his gaze, his face, his voice — lingers and shrouds the back of your brain with a tempting distraction from your thesis.

The last thing you expect as you’re burning your retinas staring at the blue light of your laptop screen leafing through the countless open tabs on your laptop is a notification. It startles you out of your skin, the red dot next to the university portal app’s icon.

Still, more curious than nervous about who could be messaging you at 11pm on a Saturday, you click.

Dr. Prof. Viktor Sidorov-Svboda

Good evening. Please come see me in my office on Monday. I would like to discuss the arrangements of your future employment as my assistant. Let me know what time would work best for you, within the limitations of my office hours.

11:32

…What?

You wonder what swayed his mind in your ultimate favor after you’d embarrassed yourself quite so thoroughly this week. But you're not about to complain — you more than certainly need the money, and his name on your resume.

Whatever turned the odds in your favor, you’re ever-grateful. And as much as you hate to admit it, you do double-check the message to make sure it’s actually real.

Thank you for this opportunity, professor. I’m looking forward to working as your assistant, as well as broadening my knowledge and skills. Would 1 PM work for you?

11:34

Dr. Prof. Viktor Sidorov-Svboda

Yes. That should be fine.

11:34

You think you should leave it at that. You know you should. But… you’re curious. You really hope this doesn’t cost you the job offer you’ve just received.

May I ask what swayed your decision?

11:37

Dr. Prof. Viktor Sidorov-Svboda

You may not. Good night.

11:37

So much for that.

—

You knock, but this time you don’t wait after being greeted with a yes? from behind his imposing office door.

“Hello, Professor Sidorov-Svoboda.”

You’re greeted with the distinctive smell of chicken stock and vegetables wafting from his office as you step in — a sore reminder of the fact that you’ve yet to procure lunch. Whatever he’s been eating, it smells tremendous.

His thermos squeaks as he screws it shut and sets it on the corner of his desk, gesturing for you to have a seat.

“Hello.” The faux velvet seat creaks awkwardly below you. “Thank you for your punctuality. I won’t take up too much of your time — we’ll discuss any questions you might have in further detail, but, to, eh… save us time, I’ve compiled a list of your responsibilities, and some personal preferences regarding grading papers I expect you to take into consideration when you do so.”

As he explains, you take a moment to take in his office. You certainly hadn’t gotten to it last time.

It’s mainly tidy, save for his large desk, which is littered with papers, a sudoku magazine, a disposable coffee cup from the campus cafe (though the cup is tall, roughly fit for a latte, if you had to guess… hm) and his dark blue, slightly beat-up thermos. Upon closer inspection, there’s a sticker on the cap.

It’s a small thing, worn like the rest of it, but the colours are unmistakable. Baby blue, pink, white — five stripes.

As a million questions and half a million answers start flashing through your head, the rustle of paper snaps you out of your thoughts.

There’s something analytical and vaguely, barely amused about how he looks at you when he slides the list across the table to you.

Contrary to what you expect, it’s not long. His main demand is grading papers, which isn’t your preferred kind of labor, but labor you will chew through, no less.

“I expect fairness when you grade,” he clarifies. “Contrary to what some students like to say, I grade papers with utmost integrity. I am not lenient, yes, but I am not absurd, either. You will find further guidelines on how to strike that, eh… balance yourself on the list I’ve made. And don’t hesitate to ask, should any uncertainties arise when you grade.”

“Fortunately, it’s applied arcanism,” you reply. “Not much room for… uncertainties, I’d expect.”

“You would be surprised.”

Viktor gives a knowing smile. Something about the placement of his mole right above the corner of his mouth, where his chapped, pale lips thin out, has your vision tunneling. You damn near startle when he starts talking again — good god, you need to get your act together.

“I will direct students’ questions to you, from now on. Should you not have an answer, you are welcome to contact me — but keep it to a minimum. Especially since applied arcanism is, as you seem to think, such an easy topic. As for lectures, you may attend, but it isn’t something I’ll be expecting from you. You teaching said lectures does not come into question. I have standards — high ones. If anyone is to take over, it will be someone whom I am certain is qualified for the job, not a phD student.”

“I am still prepared to,” you say. “Should the opportunity… present itself.”

“It most likely won’t.” With that, he straightens his back out in his seat, cracking the knuckle of his right thumb as he leans back in thought, going over his mental list. “Do you have any questions for me?”

His little smirk is magnetic, crows feet near his eyes creasing ever so slightly deeper as the corners of his lips rise. One of his dark brows lifts gently in a display of smugness that leaves you braindead enough to nearly miss the entirety of his next sentence. “Other than the one from Saturday night?”

Oh, damn him. Damn him.

And, as a matter of fact, you have about ten more. But none of them are even close to appropriate to ask — not now, or ever.

“No,” you lie. It somehow feels like he can see right through it.

“Very well. Thank you for your time.”

You thank him too. You’re not sure what for — his sudden generosity to offer you this position, or simply for the fact that he looked so pretty while he talked.

—

You, by now, know what optional really means in academia. Above all else, it’s meant to be an abstract line that separates two distinct groups: those who put in the extra effort, and slackers.

You don’t want Sidorov-Svoboda to know you as the latter.

Which is why you get a hold of his lecture schedule from Heimerdinger on the very same Monday afternoon, and plan on attending every single one of them that doesn’t overlap with something else in your schedule. Until he either outright tells you to stop, or until your contract as his assistant ends.

Much to your surprise, most of his lectures, save for Wednesdays and one on Fridays, do fit into your schedule as well.

On Tuesday, you are thirty minutes early waiting outside his office door.

And, as much as it shouldn’t be, it is a little funny how he startles when he groggily wobbles out of his office, keys in hand, and a cane in the other.

It’s a gorgeously designed thing; so much so it has you (stupidly) guessing it’s strictly in use for aesthetics the moment you first see it. It’s made of sturdy wood, with a dark finish and golden details down the length of it. The wood on the handle has gone light and matte with use.

But judging by how he leans on it as he numbly turns to lock the door of his office behind himself while he greets you leads to a different conclusion. And the stagger in his stride as he approaches you only confirms that he does, in fact, need it.

“Good morning, doctor Si—“

He raises his free hand slowly, like it’s heavy with fatigue. It’s enough to shut you up.

“Viktor,” he says. “Please. Just call me Viktor, from now on.” He pauses, looking you up and down with a fatigued sort of near-jealousy, before he shakes his head. “Why… are you here at seven thirty in the morning?”

“I want to attend your lectures.”

He sighs.

“And you picked the one at this hour?”

“Yes.”

“Hm.” You can’t quite tell if he’s displeased or if he’s just really tired.

“Rough morning?” You ask.

“Aren’t they all…”

It certainly isn’t your intention to let it become a habit — you’re his assistant, not his secretary, but you’ve learned that sucking up does get you forward in academia more often than not, so you offer: “Would you like me to get you some coffee?”

“I am getting myself coffee.” He attempts to stifle a yawn, but does not succeed. “But I would like you to accompany me.”

Your heart flutters. You tell yourself it’s because you’re getting coffee with one of the fathers of applied arcanism.

—

“A french vanilla latte, please. Under the name “A french vanilla latte, please. Under the name Viktor.”

Before you get to mentally clap yourself on the back and imagine a round of applause for your keen eye, you have to focus on not making a fool of yourself when you say your own order. The professor thankfully takes mercy on you, and leaves to take a seat at one of the tables — though probably for his own sake, rather than to spare you any embarrassment.

You decide the polite thing would be to keep him company as you wait for your orders. Reluctantly, you approach the table he’s picked, and, after a moment’s hesitation, pull out a chair for yourself.

“Professor Heimerdinger spoke quite highly of you.”

It startles you, the sound of his voice interrupting the lull of the clanking of dishes and hissing of steam and hum of the espresso machines.

“Oh. I appreciate that he did.”

“Hm.” For how blasé he’d acted until this very moment, it seems like you’ve said something that’s piqued his interest utterly. He hunches forward a hint, entwining his long, bony fingers over the top of the cane between his thin thighs. “You don’t seem very surprised.”

Uh oh.

“I’m sorry if it seemed that way, really, it’s not that I’m not flattered, professor—“

“Viktor,” he interrupts. “And you needn’t be. I do not care for, ah… false humility.”

Oh?

“False humility?” You question.

“A mark of someone either too self-conscious to accept a well deserved compliment, or desperate for one.” He pauses, looking for… something in your expression. You can’t tell if he finds it, but you know his gaze feels cold, like being prodded at with a nitrile glove. “I prefer working with people who are capable of appreciating their own effort. It’s good to know you are one of them.”

There’s warmth that seeps through the metaphorical glove, sterile as it is. It feels good to be acknowledged by the likes of him, who’d been so ruthless to figuratively knock your feet out from below you just days ago. He must have done his research on you, must have asked around, read around, figured out — just like you had done to him.

Curiosity eats at you.

“Well… what else do you know, pr— Viktor?”

His eyes rest on you like you’re a particularly tricky equation. One he knows will yield a pretty result. Being looked at by him is electric, like squeezing an unstabilized hexgem in your fist so the current courses through you, tingling.

“Don’t get cocky.” He smiles, he actually smiles, and it frays the space-time continuum just how much it youthens him. Salt and pepper hair and crow’s feet and frown lines be damned; as you watch the tip of his snaggle canine poke out from beneath his top lip, it becomes evidently clear that you are standing face to face with the man who stole illegal equipment to prove a point, the man who worked with highly explosive material for years to birth the very foundation of his scientific domain. “It is most certainly a good look on you, but it won’t bring you too far. You can ask Doctor Talis, I believe he should have a doctorate in arrogance by now.”

Is he…?

“French vanilla latte for Viktor!”

—

Listening to him teach might as well count as hypnosis.

When Viktor steps into the room, silence ensues gently, gradually. He’s not feared by any means, but he is respected. By the time he reaches the teacher’s desk and pulls out the chair from under it, the class has gone fully silent.

He sets it by the blackboard, then, slowly, bracing himself on both his cane and the backrest of it, takes a seat.

“Good morning.” He positions his cane between his thighs, clearing his throat with… perhaps almost a hint of awkwardness. “Alright. Before we begin today’s lecture, there has been a small change that everyone should be made aware of. This is my new assistant, (y/n) (l/n), and they will be joining us today. You will be addressing all questions you encounter outside of my lectures to them, from now on.”

Whispers spread across the amphitheater like wildfire.

“Now,” just like that, when his voice sounds out again, most of the chatter dies out, “today we’ll be discussing Holloran’s equation, and its applications in arcanistic techmaturgy.”

It’s magical, the command he has over the room. Viktor is a meager man, especially with the backdrop of such an imposing room. The high ceiling dwarfs him, and yet, there doesn’t seem to be a single atom in the room that doesn’t move the way he wants it to.

You’d known Viktor to be an eloquent man — you’d experienced it at your own detriment — but this beats your expectations. His explanations are enticing, he uses his words like breadcrumbs, leaves them tactfully, just enough to guide you to the conclusions he wants you to draw.

You’d never found so much satisfaction in simply listening. In spite of knowing full well the intricacies of what he is discussing, you let his voice envelop you, you follow him where he takes you.

“Now that we’ve established how Holloran’s equation exponentially heightens the energy output of Hexcrystals without disrupting the LHC — the laminal hexeon cascade — as I’m sure some of you may be wondering, how do the basic principles play into it? Any guesses?”

The class falls silent. You would give anything to be among the students right now, raising your hand to enounce the right answer. To have him looking at you like you’re bright.

You await with bated breath to see who in the crowd of focused frowns and scribbling pencils will dare speak first.

“Wouldn’t the caveat be that Talis’ fourth principle states that 30% of the energy output is converted into heat?” A young woman in the audience attempts. “Holloran’s equation operates based on the notion that the crystal is at a constant temperature.”

“Precisely. Very good,” Viktor praises. Excited, he turns to the blackboard. “Right here…” he underlines the equation, “is where Morichi’s constant comes into play…”

But you’ve long lost him.

The words twist in your head, turning into something sultry and intimate.

Precisely.

Very good.

Right here.

You find yourself staring at the groove of his pale neck, where it swoops into the line of his shoulder, hidden beneath the collar of a dress shirt and a brown wool vest.

You wonder what it’d smell like, to tuck your face in there. To have the pulse of his neck thrumming on your lips, to mouth at the mole on his jaw when he tilts his head for you, willing.

You wonder how many more are below the collar of his shirt. Dotted line on a treasure map, to guide your touch, your kiss, your tongue. Use them where he needs them, use them where his skin begs you to. Use them until his tired spine bows, use them until tattered joins are oiled with pleasure—

What is wrong with you?

—

Viktor disappears after his lecture. You hope he’d grace you with another conversation, another smile, something, but he is gone surprisingly fast. He bids you goodbye once his lecture is over, telling you he has matters to attend to, and that is that.

Overall, it’s an uneventful day otherwise. A few students end up messaging you, most with questions on what Viktor had taught that day. Others nitpicking what would and would not be a part of the upcoming midterm (whom you simply dryly referred to the syllabus). Two people, however, did message you to ask you how you’d landed the job.

You’d ignored them.

On Wednesday, you see none of him. You drop by his office after class, but there is no response to your knock, and the door is locked. He must have gone home.

On Thursday, you wait for him outside his office thirty minutes early for his 3PM lecture, but he doesn’t show. So you decide to go straight to the amphitheater, and do find him there.

He looks worn. No less graceful than the last time you’d seen him, but his cane has been ditched in the favor of a crutch that’s tucked under his arm. The creases in his checkered dress shirt and face seem deeper now, the pale indigo under his eyes is richer, darker.

He gives you nothing more than a curt greeting before class commences.

And yet, he never blunders. Never loses himself, his diction is as concise as the day you’d first met him, carrying himself with the grace of a swan as he talks and his chalk glides over the board. But his numbers slant, the loops on his letters are looser, the rows on the blackboard curve downwards to the right; just barely at first, but as the lecture advances, it becomes more obvious.

He cuts the class shorter by fifteen minutes.

The students know better than to linger. Nobody comes to address any questions, and they leave the room surprisingly quick.

Once the amphitheater is empty enough that even the thump of his crutch reverberates on the wooden floor as he makes his way to the desk, you finally dare speak.

“Is… everything alright?”

“Don’t start,” he cuts back, resting his crutch against the desk before bracing himself with both hands on the flat surface. He sighs, and does a futile attempt of relieving some of the tension in his spine by rolling his shoulders.

His joints crack, and you can see his sharp shoulder blades moving under his shirt, wings on a flightless bird.

And you’re not sure what to say.

“Sorry,” he finally adds, the harshness of his reply catching up to him. “Not… a good day.”

“Got off on the wrong side of the bed?” You attempt weakly, and, much to your utter surprise, he does actually smile.

“Mm. That might explain the past two decades or so.” He does finally look at you from below droopy eyelids, and though there’s not a doubt about him being tired still, there is more gentleness to it. As though woken out of a dream. He takes pity on the confused look on your face, and adds: “My bed is in a corner.”

Ah.

“Is there anything I can do to help? Anything I can get you?”

“A new spine,” he jokes, hunching forward to crack his back, before he does his best to stand up straight once more. When he speaks again, his playful lilt is sorely missing. “Why are you here?”

“I want to attend your lectures — as many of them as I can, at least.”

Viktor shakes his head, mutters something both a little desperate and a little bitter in a foreign tongue.

“You don’t need to do that. From now on, you can simply tell Cecil you were here. And I will confirm it, should he ask. But I do not need… a babysitter. I’m sure you have better things to do as well.”

What? Why would he think that?

“I…” you falter, “Heimerdinger didn’t put me up to this.”

He scoffs, not particularly at you, but it’s surprisingly hurtful nonetheless.

“I thought we had moved past the stage where you felt the need to lie.” He sighs. “I know he worries. There is nothing to worry about. In the unlikely event he does find out you haven’t been following me around as he asked, I will take full responsibility.”

That alone makes you worry. Had Heimerdinger neglected to tell you the full picture? What was there that warranted the dean himself worrying?

”I came to your lectures because I wanted to see you teach.” The last word is more of a lie than anything you’ve said thus far. “I admire your cogency. I want to absorb as much of it as I can.”

Viktor looks thoroughly unimpressed. “We also discussed how I feel about flattery, did we not?”

“It’s not flattery,” you argue. “I came here of my own volition because I think that there’s a lot I can learn from you, professor. Now, if you don’t want me here, you can simply give me the word, and I will act accordingly.”

He mulls it over for a long second while he shuts his leather briefcase.

“Perhaps that would be best,” he finally decides. “For now, continue with your assigned duties. I will let you know if there is anything else I need from you.”

He practically scans you for a reaction, lays you out paper-thin on a glass slide, and slides you under his most potent microscope lens.

You don’t know if he finds what he’s looking for, because he doesn’t look long. He slings the strap of his briefcase over his shoulder, and turns toward the exit with renewed, but undoubtedly spiteful vigor.

“Have a good day.”

“You too, professor.”

—

“Oh, if it isn’t one of my favorite phD students!”

The dean’s mustache curls almost comically with the over-the-top, but somehow still sincere smile he gives you.

“Hello, doctor Heimerdinger,” you greet, letting the smell of laquered wood and floors wash over you as you step into the pristine, impressive office. As opposed to Viktor's, the ceiling is higher, the windows bigger, and there are only sterile messes to be found in the room. A stack of books that is not as neat as the rest, a cactus that doesn’t look all too swell on the windowsill, and documents that are scattered over his workspace in a way that’s still neat.

“What can I do for you? I hope the first week of your collaboration with doctor Sidorov-Svoboda has gone smoothly.”

“That… is actually why I’m here.” You clear your throat awkwardly, and take a seat on the plush chair that faces his desk. Whatever it’s stuffed with, it’s comfortable, it has you sinking.

“I see. I know he can be… a tad, well, peppery at times,” Heimerdinger giggles at his own choice of words. “Give him some time. Once the two of you manage to find some common ground, I can assure you he is wonderful company, and an incredibly bright mind.”

“I don’t doubt any of those things.” You start kneading your hands in your lap, digging for the right words. God, social chess was never your forte. “I’m actually here because there has been a bit of a misunderstanding between the two of us that I was hoping you could clear up.”

“Oh.” His smile drops. “I’m listening.”

“You see, when… well, when I attended his lecture today — the second one I’ve attended — he seemed… very displeased with my presence.”

“Ah…” Heimerdinger falls silent for a long moment, gears turning in his bald head. “That… well,” he laughs awkwardly, “I’m afraid that might have been because he might wrongly assume I told you to do so.”

You nod curtly. “I know. He told me as much.”

“I apologize for the misunderstanding. I will try speaking to him, but—“

“Actually, doctor, that isn’t why I came to you,” you cut in, “he told me more than just that. He said you’d put me up to this because you were… worried about him.”

At that, the smile on Heimerdinger’s face is entirely gone.

“Naturally, that also got me… quite worried. I came to you because I wanted to know the full picture of this… arrangement I’ve gotten into.”

“I see,” Heimerdinger sinks in his seat, folding his hands in front of his blond mustache as he picks his words carefully. “Well, since you have been made aware of this fact, I suppose there is no harm in admitting that I do, in fact, worry about Viktor. Him and I have history, so to speak. I’ve known him for many years, and, though he has remained the same bold, ambitious young man within, I sometimes fear old age may be catching up to him. But! That is not something you need to concern yourself with. The sole purpose of hiring you was to create a mutually beneficial arrangement. Your resume will certainly benefit from his name, and as for him, I wanted to simply… lighten his workload. But that is all I expect of you.”

“I understand.” And you do, to some degree — but Heimerdinger’s whole speech has done nothing but raise more questions than provide any real answers.

“Would you still like me to speak to him on this matter?” He asks.

“No.” With renewed courage and curiosity, you rise from the comfortable chair. “Thank you, professor. For this, and for putting in a good word for me with professor Sidorov-Svoboda.”

“Of course,” he smiles — genuinely, this time. “Though it might sound quite absurd to you now, considering the current circumstances… the two of you are more alike than you may believe.”

You’re not sure what to make of that, either. So you just smile back.

—

On Friday night, as you’re poring over your thesis with a warm mug of tea as a panacea for your racing thoughts and lack of inspiration, you receive an email.

Apologies

From: [email protected]

To: me

Good evening.

I wanted to formally apologize for what happened on Wednesday. Accusing you of something you hadn’t done was unjustified and unprofessional of me. You are always welcome to my lectures, should you still wish to attend.

I was also hoping to speak to you in person on Monday. Would 1 PM still work for you? Let me know.

Thank you.

VSS

It comes as a surprise, to have someone in his position apologize so… willingly. You wonder if Heimerdinger had talked to him after all, and if so, what he might have said to turn the odds so terribly in your favor. Again.

You write a fast reply: you thank him too, above all else. You consider saying you hadn’t expected and apology, but you fear that might come off wrong, so you ultimately ditch that part.

And you tell him yes. 1 PM would work for you.

—

You attend his 10AM lecture on Monday, but this time, you don’t wait for him at his office. Though eager and enthusiastic, you fear your initial approach of waiting for him thirty minutes early might have been too stifling.

So you wait outside the lecture hall. He shows up ten minutes early, crutch under one arm, coffee in his other.

There is just a hint of foam on his upper lip, where grey-brown stubble shows. He licks the milk away before he even sees you, and you’re thankful for it — being caught staring at the pink of his smart tongue darting over the curve of his top lip considering the current circumstances would not have been a good look.

“Good morning,” he greets. Though he’s still using the crutch, he seems to be in an improved mood as opposed to the last time you saw him. “I must admit… I did not expect you here already.”

“If you’ll have me, I want to come,” you say.

Something about that catches him off-guard, the swell of his Adam's apple bobs and his eyes widen just a hint. But he’s fast, always is, and he straightens up and clears his throat before you get to analyze him the way you wish you could.

“Ahem. Well. I’m happy to hear that.” He gestures to the door as if he’d almost forgotten he was holding a coffee, because it sloshes just a hint too loud. Fortunately, there are no victims to the small droplet that spills from the plastic cover. Viktor frowns, most likely with frustration at himself, before he turns to you. “Alright. After you.”

You step into the lecture hall first, per his request. The room begins to quiet when the students see you, but as you turn around to hold the door open to him, it gets worse.

You do not care for the curious, gossip-hungry glances that rest on you.

—

“I appreciate your openness regarding the discussion of this matter,” Viktor begins, shutting his office door behind himself. “Coffee?”

He dips his hand behind an old but trusty looking coffee machine that sits on the table next to the door. You hadn’t noticed it the first time you were here.

The hint of a frown as his fingers roam the space between the back of the machine and the wall is doing… something to you.

“Yes, please.”

“I must warn you,” his voice lilts again in that pleasant, playful way, like a cat twirling figure eights between one’s legs, “it is significantly less… fun than the ones at the cafe. I only have sugar.”

He finds the switch on its back, finally, and there’s a little pop as he flips it, before he retreats his hand.

“Works for me,” you assure. “What did you want to discuss?”

“Mainly, I wanted to eh… extend my apologies to you in person.” His glasses ride further up his nose as he pinches the bridge of it, rolling his shoulders, as if to draw courage. “And to put my… reaction into some context, should you be willing to hear it.”

You hope it’s not outwardly visible that your heart starts vibrating.

He has been on your mind much more than you would like to admit, tangled in questions, in guesses. You unfortunately have the mark of a true scientist — nothing scratches an itch in your soul quite like having your questions answered.

“I would.”

Viktor retrieves a stack of single-use cardboard cups from one of his drawers, sliding out two, which he positions under the coffee machine. He presses the same button twice, then gestures to the chair that faces his desk.

“Have a seat.”

You do.

He lingers beside the coffee machine, resting the backs of his thighs against the edge of the table it’s on as he starts to think.

Just now, it strikes you that maybe social chess isn’t always his forte, either.

“People tend to… underestimate me,” he begins. The coffee machine whirrs, clicks, whirrs again — and then coffee starts to trickle. He tucks his free hand into the pocket of his slacks in what attempts to be dejection, but clearly isn’t. “And while that is an advantage in a competitive environment, it’s not something I appreciate coming from my colleagues.”

“I wasn’t…”

“I know that. Now.” He clears his throat, then, with a show of surprising dexterity, slides his hand from his pocket and grabs both cups with one hand — one tucked between his index and middle finger, the other tucked between his middle and ring finger. You reach out to offer your help, but he sets down both cups on his desk, then hobbles around it, and finally takes his rightful seat on the opposing side. “I unfortunately can’t say the same for Cecil. He does try, and more often than not, he is tactful about these matters, but there is the occasional… slip-up. I try to understand; him and I… have history, as he likes to say.”

You would love to know the exact implications of said history. From what you’d heard, there was the consensus that Viktor had been something of a protege to Heimerdinger, twenty or so years ago, before he’d made it big and co-created the field of applied arcanism.

“I’ve taken up some new responsibilities lately,” Viktor adds, “and Cecil, though worried as ever, has… overstepped some boundaries of mine. You were caught in the crossfire of that, which is hardly fair to you. I’m sorry.”

“Was he the one who convinced you to hire me?”

Viktor shrugs, avoiding your gaze. “Eeeh… partially.”

“I think I understand your issue with his… overstepping. To some degree.” You take the cardboard cup, blowing the steam away, before you take a sip. “I would also have preferred to be hired by you because you wanted it, not because you'd been talked into it, but… well, I’m glad it ultimately still happened, I suppose.”

“Rest assured that the decision was still mine alone,” Viktor replies. Smart eyes watch you over the rim of the cup as he takes a sip himself.

Silence settles. A telltale sign you should get going — but you don’t want to.

“You mentioned some extra responsibilities,” you attempt. He’d shut down your curiosity before, but you’ll be damned if that’s going to deter you from trying again. “Within the university, or… personal?”

“Within the university.” Viktor sets the cup down, sharp joints jutting out as he intertwines his fingers around the circumference of it, hands resting on the table. There is a mole on his left ring finger, right under the knucklebone. “I have been trying my hand at independent research.”

You only notice the fact that you’d leaned in closer with interest when a tiny smug smile ghosts over his face.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that is just about all I should be telling you.”

Oh, come on.

“Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

His brows raise with surprise, and for the very first time since you’d known him, Viktor seems genuinely stumped.

“Your… research,” you clarify. “And I could show you what I have for my thesis so far.”

“Oh. Alright, I will, eh… bite.” Taking his paper cup with him, Viktor leans back in his seat, and watches you like a cat watches birds. Not necessarily on the prowl — but with great interest. “Tell me.”

“Me first?”

“You suggested it,” he smirks. “It seems only fair, does it not?”

Uncertainty halts you. You have to wonder if Viktor Sidorov-Sviboda is the kind of man that would steal an idea.

You’ve heard he’d gotten the short end of the stick in his partnership with Jayce Talis — though he’d contributed greatly, his name was sorely amiss from all the terms, laws, anything Talis had coined in their domain.

He must know what it’s like to be cheated out of well-deserved credit.

You suppose he wouldn’t propagate the cycle — but in the off case he does, you have a handful of professors who could vouch for your idea being yours, on account of having vaguely, barely, helped with your thesis. None had been too keen on such a touchy subject as the one you were breaching, and were resistant to offering their opinion.

You hope Viktor won’t fall into that same category.

Part of you already knows he doesn’t.

“Alright.” Though you’re not exactly excited to have your own strategy used against you, you can only hope he’ll hold up his end of the bargain. “My thesis is on the hexionic model. Within and outside the context of a matrix.”

Viktor scoffs with amusement, rather than plain mockery. But there is a taste of it in there, somewhere, in the curve of his lip. “You theorists and your hexionic models. Any attempt at a new hypothesis is no less flawed than the last.”

And it’s thrilling. To be challenged, instead of praised, or dismissed. It makes something in you catch fire, every word itches behind your teeth, like you need to tell him.

“That’s exactly why I’m proposing an entirely different hexion model in my paper.“

His pupils widen so much his eyes go dark. Like a cat about to pounce.

“Oh? Tell me.”

“If we accept that the very core of a hexion’s energy release is based on entropy, on the desire for disarray, and we apply that to a hexion’s very structure… I believe there’s something to be made of the whole mess we are currently facing.”

Viktor had been holding his breath. You notice, because it sounds just a tad sharper when he finally draws a reluctant inhale, and, gears in that mind of his turning fast, sharp, steady, he finds another way to refute your point.

“Like Pididdly’s hexion model?”

“No,” you say. “Though I bet Pididdly will wish he could come up with what I have. Can I have a pen and some paper?”

You have him now.

“Yes, yes, of course.”

Viktor tugs the drawer of his desk open so hard it thunks, digging for a scrap of paper and a pen. When you take it, holding the paper between the two of you, he leans in, too, enough for you to be able to smell his aftershave — the aquatic spice softened by flowery vanilla.

It’s intoxicating enough to have the storm of ideas in your mind going quiet, buzzing. You manage to untangle them before you make a fool of yourself.

“My model is proposing disordered order, so to speak. The hexion is split up into different parts as Torek suggested in his hypothesis. But I think she was too small minded in her approach. For my model, I use the concept of something I’m calling areals. Different areals for different component particles. I believe particles will never be in a fixed, certain place.” You draw the centrion — though hypothetically an ochtahemiocyahedron — as a sphere for simplicity’s sake, surrounded by three vaguely defined layers. Viktor rests both elbows on his desk, sharp chin on intertwined fingers, watching with a tilt of his head. Your mouth’s gone dry. “These areals are… spaces where, if you were to look, at any given moment, the likelihood of you finding a specific hexion particle in its assigned areal is high — but never 100%. They are constantly moving, oscillating, vibrating — within their areal. Like I said: disordered order. And this theory also holds up in the context of matrices — for the most part. There are some kinks I need to iron out, but… this is the gist of it.”

At that, he lights up.

“Extraordinary,” Viktor mutters. It’s music to your ears, rolls down your spine in a wave of dopamine, tingles all over. He taps his finger to the schematic diagram, then stares into your eyes so thoroughly you wonder if he can see into the depths of your amygdala. There is maybe a palm’s length between your faces, a gap you itch to breach. He says the next thing like a solemn secret. “This could be beyond revolutionary.”

“Thank you.”

Viktor doesn’t miss a beat when he says: “I would like to help you with your thesis. Should you require it.”

Now that knocks your knees out from under you. You’re lucky you’re sitting.

One of the founding fathers of applied arcanism wants to read your thesis? Wants to help you?

“I…” You can’t remember to breathe, your mouth’s gone thick and cottony and swallowing is a distant dream and he is looking right at you, young and hungry and alive underneath the barely composed shell of himself. “I’d be thrilled.”

He grins, the top of his lip a mere thin line over his teeth.

“I already am,” he lilts. You watch the way his mouth moves — the curl of his tongue against the back of his teeth as he rolls his heavy, thick r, the plush purse of them on the m.

And when you remember to look into his eyes again, you catch him red handed.

He’d been staring at your lips, too.

Startled with the reality, the puzzle-piece-click of knowing, the both of you retreat into your seats. With a shaky hand, you pick your cup back up, and take a sip from your coffee. It’s gone lukewarm.

“I’d like to ask you to print it, if possible.” His voice is bridled again, steady, certain. Normal. He tugs on another drawer, and retrieves something shiny, metallic. A key. He lays it on the table, sliding it towards you. “You can use the printer in my office, if need be.”

“I can print what I have so far this evening, and leave it for you here. Would that work for you?”

”Yes.”

You look at the clock on his wall — it’s entirely later than it should be. You have a lab you should be getting to.

“Could you spare some time on your lunch break tomorrow?” Viktor asks, clearly having read your mind again, somehow. “I think I should have it read through by then.”

“Absolutely, but… you don’t even know how much there is to read through.”

He smiles. “If you write with the same enthusiasm you talk, rest assured I will tear through it.”

#viktor arcane #viktor arcane x reader #arcane viktor x reader #arcane viktor #viktor arcane x you #reader insert #my writing

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kissmetwicekissmedeadly · 3 months ago

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MIDNIGHT CINDERELLA MEMORIAL POST

The Midnight Cinderella app will be closed on Monday August 26th, 2024 (5 PM JST). The English version was actively updated from 2014 to 2021 when Cybird announced the ceasing of operations for MidCin, but the app remained accessible until today. I'm sure I'm not the only one who mourns the loss of it even after all these years of discontinuation, so I wanted to put together a post to properly say goodbye to it. Trying my best not to make it all too sappy - I'd rather look at it as a show that reached its final episode. Some things might be left unresolved but in the end, you remember the cast and the emotions they made you feel more than the actual plot. Nowadays there arguably may be better titles by Cybird out there, but for me, the simplicity of MidCin was what made the details so memorable.

1. VIDEO - POV: You're playing Midnight Cinderella (for 10 minutes)

The 10-minute version (without sound) is accessible via the link above (opens in Google Docs) This one I was really excited about recording! It's just your normal day playing midcin, I'm sure many will find it nostalgic and comforting. You log in, claim your daily bonus (I used the chance to do a present box reveal, 90+ items, many of which you might recognize from route grace checks), play the garden gacha (in my case, I used up all the points I had accumulated, 7800 which equals 39 solos), do your princess lessons, change your avatar, greet your friends, read 1/5 of today's free story parts, check the ranking and your stats, look at your memories directory. The video has no sound, as the game wouldn't let me turn it on (you will see me try to do so throughout the video...) but later on I got it to work so I recorded a one-minute video (the one imported above) of me replenishing stamina just for those iconic sound effects that you either loved or absolutely couldn't stand the volume of, haha.

2. A Midnight Cinderella playlist (spotify link)

While I wasn't there for the early days of midcin, the songs I associated with the game almost always captured this very specifically nostalgic 90s-10s period, you'll see what I mean. Many of those are taken from 8track playlists dedicated to Midnight Cinderella, and if I'm not mistaken you can still look at what is left of them if you search them up. Others are just my very random interpretations of the route stories and the characters.

3. Fic recommendations

We have a lovely community of creatives and there are still so many works left behind which you can check out on the tags! But especially for fics I wanted to list some that truly touched me during the years (all links open in ao3) -

i'm on fire and its NSFW bonus scene bloodstream by a deleted user - words are not enough for this one. It's like it meant more than Nico's whole route for me at one point, and the songs are forever in my heart as Nico songs...

MidCin Works by DBMidCin (SoftSen) - ALL of these. This is my go-to collection of writings for midcin when I start to miss the game, it has a little bit of everything. The headcanon of Giles teaching his girls French for instance is one of the things I still remember reading like it was yesterday!

Bedroom Etiquette (NSFW) by RubyLeeRay - Because this is the dream. Doing something forbidden with your tutor Giles is the ultimate fantasy, I swear. I just love it.

And of course, many, many more. There are currently 166 works on the midcin tag in Ao3, and I'm sure there are a lot of hidden gems here on tumblr as well! Reminder that writers LOVE it when you interact with their old works, it's not weird, you shouldn't hesitate doing so if you find yourself enjoying any of them! <3

4. My own humble collection of MidCin writings on my writing blog @xxsycamore!

Maid, Butler, Chamberlain (NSFW) - Nico x MC with Giles joining them

Grabbles: 💋 Demand for a kiss, right here, right now (GILES); 👔 Stealing their clothes to cuddle when you miss them (BYRON); more coming soon as there are still some in my askbox and I plan on including midcin in future short writings request openings too.

Shared Moments (NSFW) - Nico x Reader - Secret relationship

Ice-cold heat (NSFW) - Byron x Reader - Temperature play

Double the Surprise - Alyn and Leo birthday fic

Leo Crawford having a misadventure with a cat (ao3 link) - crack fic featuring most of the suitors

5. Out of context Midnight Cinderella screenshots

This is a sideblog of mine dedicated to posting out-of-context funny screenshots that I took while playing the routes - @oocmidcin . If you have some of your own that are not on there, you're free to submit them and add to the archive!

6. The perfect MidCin song - The Moon Will Sing by The Crane Wives

When I first discovered this song back in 2020 I dreamed of making it into a midcin music video with simplistic art and animations... It ended up being just something you daydream in detail about while in the car, but that's alright. I could at least share my vision with you! Disclaimer, this is just an interpretation and obviously it can't fit all characters ideally - In the brackets, I explain how the lyric is related to them and usually it reveals their backstories. Some of the details I've already forgotten, sorry if it's inaccurate.)

Tell me once again

I could have been anyone, anyone else

Before you made the choice for me

(Giles - his family making the choice for him since birth and later disowning him once he failed to become a knight due to his illness)

My feet knew the path

We walked in the dark, in the dark

I never gave a single thought to where it might lead

(Nico - wandering the streets with his mother once they were thrown out of Stein castle because she was a commoner having an affair with Byron's father, the King)

All those empty rooms

We could have been anywhere, anywhere else

Instead I made a bed with apathy

(Robert - the empty rooms of the once flourishing palace of the country that Robert ruled and led to demise, nowadays becoming a mere court painter)

My heart knew the weight

Ten years' worth of dust and neglect

We made our peace with weariness and let it be

(Leo - the years in which Alyn didn't speak to him, after the death of their parents)

The moon will sing a song for me

I loved you like the sun

Bore the shadows that you made

With no light of my own

(Albert - loyally standing in king Byron's shadow)

Name your courage now

We could have had anything, anything else

Instead you hoarded all that's left of me

(Sid - his relationship with his fiance that he agreed upon just to find out more about his parents by getting close to her father)

Swallowing your doubt

Like swords to the pit of my belly

I want to feel the fire that you kept from me

(Alyn - searching for answers about the murder of his family and the fire that burnt down their home)

I shine only with the light you gave me

(I could have been anyone, anyone)

(Louis - being a nobody and MC being his sun)

7. It goes on

I went to read what I could of chapter 4 of Rayvis' route, using my last two chapter tickets as well, thinking it won't make me cry. And then I'm hit with those familiar things.

So let's close this with a word about the things that never change in the universe of Midnight Cinderella.

Stumbling down the grand staircase and right into the arms of somebody. Escaping the palace at midnight with Nico's help. Sitting at breakfast with Giles giving you your schedule for the day. Nico's teasing little smile as he accompanies you everywhere and listens to your relationship troubles. The way he's just a little suspicious at times. Finding Robert painting in the garden of Wysteria palace. Going to the room of your chosen suitor for the first time and meeting a pet there. Leo teaching you history and politics in his office. Dance lessons with Louis. Needing those dance lessons because King Byron is coming to Wysteria and a ball is going to take place. The bureaucrats being unhappy with you as a princess elect, no matter what. Galloping on a horse with Alyn who just protected you from an enemy attack. Getting information from a certain flirty merchant at a bar. Albert bickering with Nico, Sid teasing Louis. Being introduced to Archduke Herneit at Stein castle. King Byron appreciating the night sky. The sight of your yellow and orange princess elect room where on the large bed with its blue bedframe and tall see-through canopy you lie awake and think about the events of the day and how would a wise future Queen of Wysteria deal with the current situation. But ultimately you fall asleep, hearing the melancholically beautiful sounds of a violin coming from somewhere deep within your dream, and leave it all to the following day.

Thank you for everything, Midnight Cinderella!

08/26/2024

#midnight cinderella #midcin #midnight cinderella giles #midnight cinderella byron #midnight cinderella sid #cybird #otome #otome games #midnight cinderella nico #midnight cinderella alyn #midnight cinderella leo #midnight cinderella albert #midnight cinderella robert #midnight cinderella rayvis #Spotify

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the-fic-rex · 2 years ago

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5 basic things you can do to improve your ao3 experience +1 thing that will not help

Get an account

There is a process to this- you need to get on a waitlist and then will be sent an email to make an account (at this point in time the wait time is about a week)- but once you have an account you unlock a lot of features that make the whole experience better, such as the marked for later list, turning off the extra acknowledgement for adult content, mute users, and you can see more fics that are only available to people with an account.

2. Use a site skin

This can be as simple as just getting dark mode (the reversi skin), or it can dramatically change the viewing experience. There are premade ones to chose from that require absolutely zero coding. Skins can also just be applied to one platform- for example on mobile devices you can consolidate tags. You can also use skins to hide works or tags you don’t like or that have a lot of fics that clog up search results.

3. Search by things other than fandom

If you love a trope and want to see more of it or love a niche character, click on the tag to search within it. You may get fewer results but it will allow you to scratch that specific itch without having to wade through 100s of pages of results. If you search by a trope, you can then apply a fandom tag on top of that so you see the characters you love.

4. Download fics

AO3 makes downloading fics super easy and you should do it! Whether you know you will be offline, are concerned that a fic could be deleted, you want to read on a e-reader instead, or you just want to be prepared for the next AO3 crash, downloading fics can let you read with no limits. The download button is at the top of each fic and lets you download a bunch of different file formats.

5. Interact with authors

One of the things I love most about reading fanfic as opposed to traditional media is that the people writing the fics are just as into the fandom as you are. So by leaving kudos, commenting, subscribing and checking out any linked social medias, you can get involved or give back to the community. Take this with the warning that authors may not want to interact back with you and have no obligation to, but to some authors a comment on their fic will make their day which is just a good goal to strive for if you liked a fic.

Even if you don’t want to leave a comment or follow an author's socials, a subscription is a nice way to feel a bit included in the writing process. Once you subscribe to a work, series, or author, you get fun emails whenever something updates! It keeps you from wondering if you missed something and makes reading your email a more enjoyable experience.

Don't make it anyone else's problem if you didn’t like a fic

This is a little obvious but it is worth repeating- commenting that you didn’t like a fic changes nothing. If you don't like a fic, you don’t have to finish it! If you did finish it but wish you didn’t, that is what the back button is for. If you keep forgetting you didn’t like a fic and keep clicking on it, you can create a skin that blocks it from view, or mute the author. If you didn’t like the content, filter out the tag describing that thing using "Other Tags to Exclude" within the Sort and Filter menu. If something is against the AO3 terms of service, you can report it.

None of those things need to be shared with the author and doing so just makes the internet a less fun place.

Happy reading!

#ao3 #ao3 new users #ao3 tips #fanfiction #mine

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frothingatthemaw · 2 months ago

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> puzzling

summary: vessel and reader do some puzzling. pairing: vessel x gn!reader warnings/tags: softbf!vessel, clingy!vessel, mentions of guilt, reader has autistic/adhd traits, use of petnames (love, darling), slightly suggestive (if you want to view it that way), bad dialogue. word count: 1.2k a/n: i was compelled by thoughts about this while watching a puzzling youtube video, this was supposed to be a very small thing but turned into this. also my first sleep token fanfic so please be nice to me. this hasn’t been proofread either, apologies for typos or something of the such.

ao3 link

You had decided to take up the challenge of completing a puzzle. This was something you hadn’t done since childhood, a hobby that would take up some hours of your time at Christmas, as your family seemed to like gifting you puzzles. You didn’t mind though, even as a child you enjoyed sticking the pieces together. This struck your love for them at all.

By this time, you had been going at this specific puzzle for just over a few hours. It was 1,000 pieces; you knew what you signed up for. It had taken over every bit of your attention, completely engulfed in the task at hand. If there was one thing about you, it was that you never left something half finished, so you’d be damned if you left the dining table with the puzzle yet to be completed.

Still yet, this was taking longer than you remembered it took you when you were young, too, which was frustrating. You tried not to think about it, tried to not blame yourself too badly for being slow at this. You brushed it off on your child mind being much sharper than these days, and also the time it had been since you puzzled last. Benefit of the doubt.

It had been so long you'd been at this, in fact, that your boyfriend had started to feel abandoned to the point of waddling his way into the dining section of the kitchen in your shared apartment. You didn’t quite catch the blanket he had wrapped around his shoulders and draped over his head, he was only a blur in your peripheral vision, and you had vaguely heard his footsteps. You’re thankful you heard him because you can feel that you would’ve jumped out of your skin at his touch on your shoulders if you hadn’t. You let out a small gasp despite this.

“Still going at it, love?” Vessel asks you, hands slipping over your shoulders more.

You hum back to him absentmindedly. Your eyes were darting across the pieces laid out across the table, furrow in your brow. It was becoming a little infuriating that you couldn’t find this specific piece and your brain wouldn’t allow you to move onto the next until you found this one. A huff comes from you. At this, Vessel starts to massage your shoulders.

“Do you need help?” He speaks again. You notice that his voice sounds tired. It makes you feel a twinge of guilt that you can’t dwell on.

He leans down, hands still on your shoulders, leaning his face against yours. He places kisses along your jaw, up to your check, back down to your neck. He missed you.

“Can you see this piece?” You point at an empty space in the already assembled other pieces. “I can’t fucking find it and I’ve been looking for ages,” you sigh. You finally allow yourself to feel some of his touch.

Vessel angles his head to get a better look at the puzzle sprawled on the table. He’s still close to you, enough where you can hear his breathing. You feel the blanket around him, falling further back into the chair to try your best to be closer to him. Something about Ves being like this makes your core melt. You adored when he was all soft and cuddly. Especially for you.

His fingers brush through the small pieces of printed cardboard, eyeing them with the same intensity you had been before. He sucks in a breath while he picks one up, then places it into the spot you’re trying to fill. It slips into place perfectly. You almost want to curse him for it.

Instead, you opt for saying, “Maybe I should’ve recruited you to help me earlier.” Your tone sounds tired, even you can hear that now.

A dry laugh comes from him, you stare at the smile on his face. He looks proud. You want to bite into him. “I think you need to take a break, darling.”

Okay, yeah, you did need to take a break because a headache bursts through you at full force. You’re not going to tell him that.

You’re reluctant to reply, but you eventually settle with, “I really want to get it finished first though.” You pout at him, sinking a bit down the chair.

Vessel’s hand squeezes at your shoulder, planting a kiss to your neck in unison. “Let me help you then.”

“Do you really want to?”

“I miss you,” he says. Your heart aches a little. Maybe a lot.

“Sorry,” you mumble. You didn’t mean to get so focused on this that you blocked everything out, including him.

He leans backwards, standing straighter. He takes your chin into his hand to make you look up at him. “No sorries, yeah?”

You nod.

“Good.” He leans down to kiss you, lingering there, he savors it. He tastes you, slowly. It was a hunger in his stomach that had been building for the last few hours, and he was taking his time to satisfy it. If the puzzling hadn’t melted your brain, his lips and tongue finished that for you.

When he pulls away, the way he looks at you only amplifies the puddle you’ve become. Vessel had this way of his eyes saying how much he simply adored you. It was identifiable, instantly, and it never failed to do its job.

“Wanna get up so I can help you?”

Your brain didn’t understand at all what he was implying under the fog he placed upon you. It wasn’t until he took your hand, pulled you up, sat down in your place, and tugged you back down to sit on his lap that it clicked. All of it seemed like a blur to you. You were having trouble processing things.

This feeling dissolved when Vessel started questioning you about what you were planning on looking for next, asking about your sorting arrangement as well. The questions were grounding. Ves also had a way of doing that, placing you atop clouds and bringing you back to Earth in the same breath.

And so, the next while was spent with you on his lap, the two of you finding it much easier to finish the puzzle together rather than you on your own. This didn’t mean that he didn’t get distracted a few times by kissing your neck, saying that he’s proud of you, and reiterating how he had missed you.

After the puzzle had officially been approved by you as accomplished, Vessel had dragged you to bed with him. Here took place of many sleepily shared kisses.

“No idea how much I needed this,” he told you between the kisses.

You wanted to tell him that you couldn’t tell him either, that this melting of your chemical compounds was needed in a form of saturation. The shaking of his hand as it came up to hold your face almost broke your skull in half. He licked into your mouth with more hunger than in the dining room, believe it or not.

The act of this had lasted until neither of you could not go any longer, jaws almost sore. And the exhaustion was an honorable mention too. You couldn’t have even guessed how much time had passed. Though, it didn’t take any time at all for Vessel to put both of you to sleep through his whispered praises to you. Even in a state of deliriousness, he couldn’t help but to utter how much he yearns for you.

#ender.txt #vess writes #stevie.fics #sleep token fanfiction #sleep token fan fiction #sleep token fic #vessel fanfiction #vessel x you #vessel x reader #sleep token vessel x reader #sleep token x you #sleep token x reader #vessel sleep token x reader

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facingthenorthwind · 1 year ago

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AO3 tag capitalisation and why you can't change it

Have you ever tagged your fic in all Title Case and then discovered one of your tags has become all lowercase when you hit save? Or had it become title case when you tried to type it in lowercase? Does this offend your aesthetic sensibilities?

If you said yes to any of these questions, I would like to offer my deepest condolences. I, too, have had this problem. Unfortunately, you can't fix it (except in one very specific situation).

The first time a tag is used determines its capitalisation (unless it becomes a canonical). For example, I'm sure not everyone who tagged kylux au intended for it to be all lowercase, but the first user who tagged it capitalised it that way, and so it remains. This is because the wrangulator (the part of the AO3 backend that handles tags; yes this is what we officially call it) treats different capitalisations of a tag as the same tag, and isn't capable of having it display differently in different fics.

There are two situations where capitalisation can change: firstly, it could become the exact phrasing of a canonical tag. This is what it's called when a tag becomes filterable and multiple tags that mean the same thing (called syns) get connected together and all redirect to the canonical. For more info, you can read this post I wrote! All canonical tags get changed to title case when they're made canonical, because the tag edit page that wranglers can see enables wranglers to change the capitalisation of a tag (it also allows us to change the diacritics, but not anything else). If your tag is a synonym of that canonical, its capitalisation does not get changed, only if you've used the exact phrasing that later becomes canonical (for how to tell what kind of tag something is, please see the post I linked earlier). For example, if I was the first user of the tag "obi-wan on tatooine" and typed it all lowercase, it will remain lowercase even when the tag wrangler syns it to the canonical "Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine". But if I was the first use of "obi-wan kenobi on tatooine" and typed it all lowercase, when it's canonised it will change appearance on my work to be in title case. Tag wranglers will never change the capitalisation of your tag in any other situation.

Secondly, if you are the only use on an unfilterable tag (which means it has not been synned anywhere), it is technically possible to change the capitalisation if you decide that you want to change how it looks later. In order to do so, delete the tag from your work. Then wait approximately 24 hours (give it a few more for leeway) and tag your work again. You should be able to now tag it with different capitalisation. The reason you have to wait 24-ish hours is because of a part of the wrangulator called the rake. The rake deletes any unfilterable tag that has zero uses (except if it's used in a tagset) approximately 24 hours after it's made. Notably, any tag that has been synned to a canonical does not get raked. If you want to check if your zero-use tag has been deleted yet, you can search for its exact text in tag search. If it still exists, it will be a search result and show (0) after it. If it's been deleted, it won't show up at all. It's important to note that just because an unfilterable tag shows up in tag search with (0) after it, that doesn't mean it will be raked in the future! These are usually tags in a tagset, which don't disappear. A tagset (example) is used by people running challenges for participants to have a pool of tags to choose from. There is no way to determine whether a tag is in a tagset, not even as a wrangler! You just have to assume it's the case if it never disappears. And remember, if anyone else has used the tag you're trying to change, it won't work!

So in conclusion: sorry about the tag that is the wrong capitalisation. You almost certainly can't fix it.

#ao3 #ao3 tags #how to ao3 #tag wrangling

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fanfictilltheend · 7 months ago

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❤️‍🔥Violent Heart Part 1: ♪All I've ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you ♫ (or the VERY DARK Stepdad!Mechanic!Covict!Joel x Afab!you one)❤️‍🔥

A/n: It's here!!!!!! 18+ Only. This took me 7 freaking months so you mofos better like, reblog, and comment. This is both my most and least personal fic I've ever written and it is dark and relies heavily on plot (no smut until part 2 but i swear it's worth the backstory!!!!) READ ALL OF THE TAGS DO NOT COME FOR ME UNLESS YOU DID THIS FR FR. This ones for my dark joel fangirlies(guys and NBies) and the daddy issues fam ily ❤️‍🔥 (also not me naming my fic in part after hallelujah by leonard cohen but there is a reason!!!!!!!!!!)

Summary: The story starts with Part 1 where afab!Y/N is a child and Joel is her new stepdad and this story explores their relationship. Themes of abusive family, domestic violence, child abuse, daddy issues, physical violence, murder, stepcest (kinda b/c he is divorced from her mom technically but she grew up with him as her stepdad), infidelity, age gap, and more are explored throughout the fic. PLEASE READ SPECIFIC TAGS (part 2 tags will be added with the release of part 2). Part 2 picks up with Y/N at age 20 and how her relationship with Joel has changed and gets steamier. NOTHING SEXUAL OCCURS BETWEEN Y/N and JOEL until Y/N is 20!!!!!!! Also check out this playlist of music that's in the fic!!!!

Tags (PLEASE READ): Afab!you, stepdad!joel, mechanic!joel, convict!joel, no apocalypse au, Mentions of sex (little detail), mentions of male masturbation, infidelity, domestic abuse/violence, sibling abuse/violence (no one ever talks about sibling abuse but it’s very real), physical child abuse, neglect, allusions to past domestic violence, cursing, brief mention of pedophilia and kidnapping (David), allusions to committing future pedophilia (David), threats, cancer mention, Sarah death discussion, Tommy death mention, murder, prison, mentions of god and religion, fights, general violence, alcohol consumption, using music lyrics to move the plot, daddy issues, use of y/n

Word Count: ~15k

PART 2 (coming soon)

Ao3 Link

Violent Heart Masterlist

Full Masterlist of all my work

Joel Miller is not a good man, that he knows like the backs of his calloused hands.

He knows loss too, feels it burrowed in the hollow cavity of his chest. Sees it in the face of every little girl he meets.

The memories sting.

He knows pain, deep in the depths of his character, down to the fundamentals of what makes him something that resembles a human being. The belts, the bigger hands, the harsh words, and then the grief. The recent Bring back my babygirl! The ancient ¡Basta, Papí, por favor, no Tommy, no Mamá! ¡Por favor no esta noche! The indignity of begging, always reduced to begging to a cruel man, an indifferent doctor, a cruel universe.

He knows hard work, how to work with his hands. He knows the grit and grease of labor. Sees the cogs turning in the engines he fixes, relates to them. Feels like he knows them intimately because he is one too, chugging along day after endless day. But no one dares fix Joel Miller.

Until…

Her name is Erica and she’d like her front bumper replaced, please. She has long eyelashes and a soothing voice. And she has money too, at least more than he, who is almost broke from the cost of Sarah’s medical bills. She comes with baggage, Joel can tell from looking into her eyes, but then again so does he. And he hasn’t been laid in god knows how long.

She takes him on a date and he lets her. She reveals she has two kids, but Joel doesn’t care. They fuck at her place while the kids are at school and she wants it soft, like her hands, and that’s how Joel gives it to her.

A week later, Joel has moved in, which is good because his rent was due and he couldn’t pay it. He still hasn’t met the children.

***

It’s Joel’s day off and he’s sitting on the couch in his new home. His back hurts, but that’s nothing new. He’s got an excellent view of their nice, big backyard with a wooden fence. The kind of home he would have liked to have given Sarah. He sighs. Technically, nothing is wrong.

Then he sees it. It takes him a second to realize what is going on. It’s a whirlwind. He sees the back gate open and two tumbling forms fall over the threshold onto the manicured grass. One form is bigger, a boy of about twelve or thirteen beating the shit out of a much smaller form, fists flying. The other form is a little girl, no more than eight, defending herself like her life depends on it. Perhaps it does with the way he’s going at her.

This must be the son, Aiden, and the daughter, Y/N.

He’s a good boy, really, but he has anger issues sometimes. He’s been through a lot. That’s what Erica said, but Joel does not see a good boy. He sees a bully. A disproportionately violent one at that. Nothing that tiny girl could have possibly done could warrant the brutality he sees before him.

Anger is something else Joel knows intimately, and that is what he greets when he runs outside to end the fray.

“Stop that!” he roars, pulling Aiden off of Y/N.

“Who the fuck are you!?” the boy screams, fury and hatred radiating off of his entire being.

He continues thrashing and punching at nothing as Joel restrains him.

“I’m gonna kill her!” he screams, his eyes bulging.

“What the hell happened?” Joel growls, still holding onto the livid boy–verging on young man.

“She ripped up my paper!” he bellows. “For no fucking reason! I worked hard on it!”

“It was a lie,” she says with so much conviction Joel almost flinches.

He looks down at the little girl, her nose bleeding, her right eye turning purple. She has tears streaked down her face, but she is not crying. Her shirt is ripped. The first thing he thinks of when he sees her is Sarah. Of course it’s Sarah, how could he not think of her? But this little girl is different, has a different look in her eye. This look is much harder and feels like she’s lived a thousand lifetimes. He thanks god Sarah never looked that way, but somehow he wants to hear about everything this little girl has experienced. Something twangs in Joel’s chest that he has not felt in what feels like an eternity.

“It was not a lie, you stupid bitch whore!” Aiden shouts angrily, still fighting back against Joel’s unrelenting grip. “Take that back!”

“No, you take it back! Dad is not a hero. You could’ve picked anyone to write about and you choose him? After everything he’s done?” she screams herself.

The sound of her voice is powerful but desperate. Joel feels himself needing to know more and bury himself deep inside her experiences.

“SHUT UP!” Aiden yells, finally ceasing his movements.

A tear falls from his cheek.

“If I let you go, will you stop whooping your sister?” Joel snaps firmly.

“Get away from me, you stupid cuck!” Aiden curses, turning his energy to Joel. “Who the hell are you to me? Fuck you! I’m out of here!”

He wriggles out of Joel’s grasp and Joel lets him go and Aiden storms back out the rear gate, slamming it behind him.

“You alright?” he asks Y/N.

Joel crawls over on his knees, still upright, closer to her.

“Had worse,” she shrugs, running a hand through her messed-up hair.

She wipes the tears and blood from her cheeks.

Joel shudders to imagine what she means.

“He always like that?”

“Yeah,” she nods. “So you Mom’s new boyfriend?”

“Something like that,” he nods back. ”’M Joel. Joel Miller.”

“I’m Y/N,” she says a bit mournfully. “Here,” she continues suddenly, reaching out a small hand to his cheek. She wipes blood (hers) gently off his stubbly face. “Didn’t mean to get ya dirty.”

Joel is nothing short of touched. He wasn’t even aware he could still have such a feeling. His cheeks go rosy pink. His heart pulses. He stares at her delicate hands and notices a long, thin scar on her left middle finger.

“‘S no trouble, sweetheart,” he hears himself reassuring her. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Could even mend your shirt if ya want. Know how to sew and all.”

He reaches out a large hand, but she flinches at the sudden movement. A dull ache wells up in Joel’s chest.

“Not gonna hurt you, honey. Swear it.”

He wants with every fiber of his being for her to believe him, for it to be true.

She takes his hand.

***

That evening Erica is still not home, working late Joel supposes. It is nine o’clock when Aiden slinks back into the house.

Joel stops him from making his way up the stairs. He is more than familiar with the art of creeping.

“Think you oughta apologize to your sister,” he says as gently as possible. Maybe he can impart some manners onto this unruly child now that he’s calmed down some. “You beat her real bad. You’re much bigger than her.”

“I’d do it again,” Aiden hisses, his eyes cold. “It makes me feel better.”

And then, to Joel, the answer is simple. What do you do with a bully who won’t repent? Fight him back. Show him who’s boss, who’s bigger.

He grabs Aiden by the arm in a flash of anger and drags him up the stairs. The boy screams and flails, but that doesn’t deter Joel. He brings him to the room he assumes is his, the walls covered in sports posters and memorabilia.

“Take off your shirt,” he growls, a familiar fury pounding inside his chest.

When Aiden protests, Joel does it for him, ripping the kid’s shirt nearly in half. Rage floods through Joel’s veins and he can’t exactly place why, but the feeling is very real and bouldering through him at an alarming speed. He knows this feeling, feels strangely at home there.

He undoes his belt and brings the leather end down on Aiden’s back, not the buckle like his father used to do. Joel does have some decency buried deep in his chest. And then he loses himself to the unyielding anger.

“You get ten,” he snarls. “Don’t you lay a hand on your sister again. Is that understood? Now you answer to me.”

No response except for a scream.

“I said , do you understand?” Joel roars, bringing down the belt.

Rage consumes him like a drug. He barely registers what he’s doing. The belt goes down again and again. And somehow, through the screaming and the pain, and the intoxicating feeling of being completely in control for once, Joel’s line of vision wanders to the bedroom door. In all the excitement, it was left ajar and out in the hallway, sitting on her knees is Y/N. Joel immediately expects fear, despair, revulsion. When Tommy would watch him take a beating his face would betray the most acute sense of hopelessness and terror and the waterworks would begin. But Y/N just stares at him unflinchingly, at what he’s doing. She doesn’t cry, she simply sees. Too much for a child, and yet, she watches. She does not intervene, doesn’t even try to. And for the tiniest moment, her and Joel’s eyes connect, and he feels a sense of calm, of comprehension, of recognition in that uncannily knowing gaze. Her irises sparkle and Joel feels…something that he cannot entirely articulate. Seen? Accepted? Understood? Joel knows logically what he is doing is an ugly, vile thing — he has never claimed to be a good man. Practical maybe, but never good. And yet, Y/N sees it — sees him — and she doesn’t look away. She cocks her head slightly, and images of Tommy grimacing in revulsion and fear as Joel mercilessly beat up their childhood neighborhood bullies to the point of unconsciousness pop into his mind, of the haunting look in his brother’s eyes. Even Sarah could not stomach his violent heart when she witnessed him beat up some pervert with a camera that had looked at her funny at the mall. Even though it was for her — to keep her safe. She had stared at him in disgust and pity. She had not seen him then at all.

But now, looking at Y/N, for the briefest moment, Joel can swear he sees something resembling a smile flicker over her serious face. And though it goes as quickly as it comes, he feels the familiar sensation gnawing at the bottom of his stomach: primal and untameable, soft and vulnerable, but fierce and loud at the same time. He feels an inexorable, inescapable sense of care and devotion to this child. But most of all, because she sees him, truly sees him, and does not turn away in disgust, Joel Miller feels the gut-wrenching, unquenchable sensation of love deep in his chest. For the first time since Sarah died on that hospital bed, weak and unwell from the chemo he could not afford, he feels alive .

***

Things fall into a tentative routine. Every morning, Joel wakes up in bed beside Erica. They fuck the night before more often than not, but always in that same slow way that doesn’t do much for Joel. It’s enough to get off, sure, she isn’t an unattractive woman, but he’s mostly there for the meal ticket and roof over his head. He goes to work at the auto-body repair shop, Erica goes to her job at her law firm. The kids ride the bus to school. He gets home in the evenings before Erica and spends time coexisting with the children. Usually, he kicks back on the sofa, rubbing his sore back, and watches television, minding his own business. Aiden mostly avoids him, doing god knows what in his room. He bullies his sister cruelly and Joel punishes him when he sees fit. Erica knows what he does to Aiden and either doesn’t care or approves. He never lays a hand on Y/N though. She warms up to him slowly, cautiously. Most evenings she sits on the far end of the couch and Joel on the other, but as she gets used to him and sees that he’s not a threat, at least to her, she scoots closer.

The children’s father is no longer in their lives from what Joel can tell, which is perfectly fine with him. When Joel’s heart does not feel full of lead, he plays the guitar. Y/N sits and watches him. She is a quiet child, but unrelentingly brave. When Joel lets the TV blare, he rarely cares to pay much attention these days, she stays and watches with him, no matter what is on and never complains or asks to change the channel. Blockbuster zombie apocalypse movie? She watches. News special on America’s most dangerous serial killers? She watches. Documentary on venomous snakes? She watches. Should Joel be letting her watch this crap? Who the fuck knows? He isn’t her father. And plus, he won’t admit this to anyone, hardly even himself, but he likes having some company. It makes everything feel…less. And he likes that she doesn’t try to make him speak. Sometimes there are no words and he thinks Y/N understands this. Unlike Erica who yaps every second of the day. But Joel stays polite and plays along. He has to.

But he will not lie, Aiden gets on his very last nerve. There is something that Joel cannot quite place that makes him feel like he has known this boy his whole life even though they are as familiar as perfect strangers. All siblings fight and rough-house. That is normal. Hell, he and Tommy used to fight rough and tumble all the time. But the way Aiden bullies Y/N is something else entirely. And most times, it is unprovoked. And he is so much bigger than she is, growing bigger by the day.

Joel’s beatings have not stopped Aiden’s anger and sadistic attitudes, but they do make sure that he takes some kind of physical consequence for his crimes. It makes Joel feel better and he thinks it makes Y/N feel better too. And some days he gets so fucking mad at Aiden that he thinks not even god could stop his wrath even if the boy turned into Mother Theresa herself! Okay, maybe that’s extreme, but another part of Joel thinks maybe it’s not. The truth is, though he is loathe to admit it, some days, he is not in control of his anger. Some days he punches so hard, his knuckles bleed and he has to stop for a second to come back to himself. Others he goes so roughly on Aiden that he causes the kid to become bloody and he feels ashamed of what he’s done. But there are other days, very dark days, where he wishes he could do it over and over again. He convinces himself he’s doing it for Y/N and not some other sinister ulterior motive he does not care to dwell on…

One night, a few months into Joel’s new living arrangements, he walks through the upstairs hallway to his and Erica’s bedroom, passing the closed door to the bathroom that the kids share. He has done this what feels like a thousand times before and doesn’t think anything of it until he stops and realizes he hears Y/N singing.

♪“ Someday, my pain / Someday, my pain will mark / You…”♫ she sings softly.

He can barely hear it over the crash of the water from her shower, but her voice is beautiful. It pulls at Joel’s shrunken heart, deep inside his long-dead chest. Her voice has an eerie quality to it too, almost haunting. He’s not sure of what song it is, but he finds himself wanting to know. Eventually, she stops, and Joel goes to bed, but her voice echoes in his mind for hours as he lies awake in the dark.

The next day, Joel is sitting on the couch when the kids get home from school. Y/N joins him on the other side of the sofa as usual. They watch reruns of some unfunny family sitcom.

“Heard you singing last night,” he finally grunts unceremoniously.

Y/N goes very still.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, avoiding his gaze. “I’ll be quieter next time.”

Joel looks over at her. He realizes she looks terrified.

“Ain’t no problem with it,” he tries to explain, confused. “Thought you sounded nice is all.”

“You tryna trick me?” she stammers, tears collecting in her shimmering eyes.

“What? Trick you? What you crying for, honey? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Joel is genuinely flabbergasted.

Tears trickle down her cheeks. What has he done this time? he wonders. But he is concerned more than anything. Hell, he hasn’t seen her cry like this since the day they met. Not even last week when Aiden slammed her head into the metal oven in the kitchen (luckily it was off or Joel would have really killed him that time).

She sniffles, looking conflicted, then collects herself as best she can manage.

“M-my dad didn’t like when I would sing. ‘Specially if he was in a depo…I forget the word…deponition? Deposition? When he was on the phone for work, I mean. If I was being too loud. Or too shrill. He didn’t like that one bit. He’d get mad…” she trails off.

“The way Aiden gets mad?” Joel asks very slowly, not truly wanting to know the answer.

“Yeah,” she nods after a while. “Except he’s a lot bigger. And stronger. He…he broke my arm once. But it was on accident I think. He got me ice cream after.”

Anger, red and hot, pulses through Joel’s veins. What hadn’t this child endured at the hands of angry men?

“What did your mother do?” he bites out, almost unnaturally calm from trying to control himself.

“Well, most of the time he’d kinda like hit her around, I guess? But the time he broke my arm was the time she made him leave for good and they got a divorce and all. Aiden says it’s my fault he won’t come around anymore. He was so mad. He loves Dad so much. I don’t understand it though because even though Dad likes him a lot more than me, Dad would still be so mean to him sometimes. Mom says I don’t even know all of it...Promise I won’t bother you with singing though, okay?”

“Sweetheart,” Joel says as softly as his blinding rage will permit. Somehow, when he’s with Y/N, he finds he can control himself better. “I’ll never get mad at you for singing. Or being too loud. Or anything. Never gonna put my hands on you. I’m sorry if what I do to Aiden scares you or made you think that I would ever do such a thing to you.”

“It doesn’t scare me,” she shakes her head. “When you get rough with Aiden, you do it because he did really bad, to protect me. It’s like with you there’s rules that make sense. Aiden chooses to be mean and violent so you choose it back to him. With my dad, it was different. It was like I could breathe wrong and I’d get in trouble. Get in trouble for things I couldn’t control or help. Sometimes I did bad, I know I did, but I also know there were other times where I wasn’t hurting anyone and he’d still hurt me so badly. My dad never got mad at Aiden for hurting me though. He thought it was funny, I think. Sometimes he’d kinda like sick him on me. Kinda how you could a dog.”

Joel doesn’t know how to respond, doesn’t know the right words. He figures he can only show her with his actions who he is and she will just have to learn to trust him. If her father ever enters the house though, he will wring his neck. That’s for certain. Thank God he doesn’t come around for his sake, Joel’s, and the family’s.

“I was just thinking,” Joel finally says. “If ya want, I could learn how to play that song you were singing on my guitar and maybe you could sing it for me sometime?”

“M-maybe we could sing it together?” Y/N asks tentatively, her eyes wide. “Singing in front of other people is kinda scary.”

“I haven’t sung in a while,” Joel sighs. “Might be rusty.”

“That’s okay,” she grins hopefully.

Joel wants to take a photo of that rare sight and keep it close for as long as he lives, torn in his pocket or snug in his wallet, he doesn’t care.

“Joel?” she asks a little cautiously, breaking him from his thoughts. “Can I ask you something?”

“‘Course, kiddo,” he says as gently as he knows how.

“Who’s Sarah?”

His heart stops. His blood runs cold.

“What? How did you–”

“You were talking. In your sleep yesterday,” she says, shrinking away a little and Joel feels sorry for scaring her again. “When we were watching Dexter . Well, you fell asleep right before. You were snoring and all, but you were also talking and mumbling that name. You sounded sad and scared.”

Joel should definitely not have allowed her to watch that! But that is hardly the point right now.

His heart squeezes so tight it burns. What was there to say about Sarah – the entire reason his life had had any purpose? His perfect babygirl? The light of his life?

He could lie. So easily too and Y/N would never know. He could say nothing at all. Hasn’t even told Erica about her yet. Hardly ever speaks to anyone about her these days.

And yet…

“She was my daughter,” he hears himself say softly. “She…got sick. Died of leukemia a while back. She was twelve.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the wallet he was just thinking about. Inside is a tiny school photo of Sarah – the last one she ever took. It’s faded a little, but she’s still smiling so big she could block out the sun. He shows it to Y/N.

“I’m sorry, Joel,” she says and she really does look sorry.

Not the way his co-workers and customers say it – almost as a reflex – to fill the void in the conversation. Her eyes are shimmering.

“Nothin’ to do about it now,” he shrugs, running his thumb over the photo paper, softened with age. “But she was so damn special. My whole world.”

He has learned to repress the tears, not to show weakness, that is not hard. Not anymore. But the anger that broils up inside him – the injustice of it all – how he was unable to help her. Unable to save her. He feels almost like a child again, powerless in an unforgiving, unrelenting world. He wants to fight back!

He is so angry he begins to shake and his hands clench into fists.

He wants to flip over the fucking coffee table – fling it across the room! He wants to punch in the glass of the flickering TV screen until his fist is broken! He wants to–He wants–

He just wants his babygirl back…

A sob, small and foreign rises in his throat, but he pushes it down.

He thinks Y/N knows though. Can see the vulnerability in his eyes.

She reaches out a small hand and touches his fist, pushes it down gently into the soft fabric of the couch so he’ll stop shaking. It doesn’t entirely work, but he thinks he appreciates the effort.

“I don’t know if this is the right thing to say,” she begins a bit skittishly, still not entirely trusting the hulking, raging man above her. “But I think I would have liked to have been her friend.”

And for the first time since Sarah died, Joel sobs .

Y/N pops up from the couch and Joel’s heart cries out louder in his chest for her to come back, don’t leave me too as he tries to suck the tears back in. It doesn’t work though and liquid gushes down his cheeks. He doesn’t think he can take the rejection, the loss of her. But thankfully, she returns just as quickly as she went with a handful of tissues stuffed into her small fist.

“Here, Joel,” she offers. “Here. Don’t cry.”

Joel does cry though. He’s ashamed he’s broken down in front of this literal child, and he doesn’t let out much noise, but he doesn’t take the tissues either. He can’t.

She’s so sweet though, or maybe it’s because she is truly afraid of him now, of his wrath, he’ll never really know, but she frowns and reaches out a little hand, the one with the scar on the middle finger, and tries to wipe up the tears.

The paper of the tissue tickles his cheeks.

“Shouldn’t havta…” he tries.

“Didn’t mean to make you…” she answers.

A pause.

“You didn’t, honey. That was all me,” he assures her finally.

She lets out a sigh of relief and soaks up the last of the salt water from his face, brushes the tissue gently against his nose. It tickles, causes him to snort. He smirks a little.

She smiles back shyly, she can’t help it, he can tell.

“You know,” he says thoughtfully after a few moments of silence, sighing deeply. “I reckon she would’ve wanted to be your friend too…”

***

A few months roll by. Things are virtually the same except Y/N seems more comfortable around him now. Maybe it’s because she saw his weakness up close and personal, his Achilles heel —— knows how to coax it out of him now if she has to. Or maybe it’s because she truly trusts him. Whatever the case, she sits closer to him on the couch now, still giving him a respectful foot of distance though of course.

Once in a blue moon, she sings for him and he tries to keep up with the lilting sound of her high voice. She says she likes his low, deep voice just fine, it’s just she still gets nervous singing in front of other people so it’s still a rare occasion. His favorite is when she sings solo and he gets to strum along for her and really listen. Sometimes her voice cracks in a very specific way that some might find to be a flaw, but Joel would never.

Aiden makes fun of them and calls them the ‘Von Trapp Family Singers.’ Are they a family? Joel wonders.

One day after work, Joel goes to the library to find some sheet music for a song Y/N likes. She treasures the photo-copied paper like a gift as Joel deciphers the notes he can actually read for her. She color-codes each one carefully in magic marker so she can remember the differences between them.

The next day, Aiden burns it up with a lighter he has acquired from God knows where. Joel confiscates it – the last thing he needs is this particular child setting fires – and It doesn’t end well for Aiden. He limps for damn near a week. But some days, when Aiden is calm, he joins Y/N and Joel in front of the TV if a sports game is on. He doesn’t sit on the couch though, just the floor. He doesn’t say much to them but does get invested in the good and bad plays of each game, gets sore if his team is losing. On one particularly good day, when the Rangers hit a grand slam, and Joel was actually paying attention, he and Aiden actually high-five.

Things are going…well? Is that the right word? It is a foreign concept for Joel. For Christmas, he gets Y/N guitar, Aiden a book on boxing so maybe he will redirect his anger into somewhere productive, and Erica a spa-day kit for 20% off that he saw at CVS (he never claimed to know what women want). Aiden is neutral, surprised, he thinks, that Joel even got him a present. Erica is actually appreciative and returns the favor with some new socks and underwear.

“A practical gift for a practical man,” she says, kissing him on the forehead.

Joel supposes he appreciates the gesture.

Y/N, though, is thrilled.

“Thank you, Joel! Got you something too,” she says excitedly, bouncing up and down in her red and white pajamas.

“That’s not necessary,” Joel chides, leaning over to pick up the wrapping paper that was strewn across the living room floor.

But secretly he is curious. He didn’t think she even had any money of her own…

Aiden opens the cover of the boxing book with disinterest, eyeing the new guitar distastefully.

Y/N jumps up, leaves the room, and returns with a small plastic baggie in her hands. Inside are little, different bits of colored plastic clumsily and haphazardly cut into tiny, sharp-looking, badge-shaped pieces. One he recognizes is from the top of a yogurt container he put into the recycling the other day, another one from the top of a Gatorade bottle.

“Here ya go!”

She shoves the plastic bag into his large hands enthusiastically.

“Thank you,” Joel responds, still unsure what he was given.

It reminds him of when Sarah was young and would come home with some sort of abstract macaroni painting from kindergarten and he would nod and smile knowingly when she explained that of course it was Two dinosaurs getting married, Dad. Duh!

“You could try one on my new guitar,” she offers, a little disappointed when he doesn’t have more of a reaction. “You said you lost most of yours…”

Joel immediately feels guilty and then it clicks. She tried to make him guitar picks! His heart clenches with emotion he can not quite identify.

He pulls a little orange one out of the bag and accidentally nicks the edge of his finger. Because of the way it was cut, no doubt with uncoordinated child’s hands and a pair of scissors, the edges are much too sharp to serve as an actual guitar pick without damaging guitar strings or apparently Joel’s finger. Dumb kid. But he’s beyond honored anyone would take the time to do such a thoughtful thing for him.

He hisses softly and sucks the blood off his finger.

“Oops,” she says, horrified. “Shoot. Sorry, I–”

“‘S no trouble,” he interjects dismissively. “Love ‘em. Was my fault anyway. I’mma be honest with you though, sweetheart; don’t think the guitar strings can handle these babies.”

“Oh,” she says softly, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. “Oh, yeah, okay...”

She deflates, looking down at the carpet.

Joel selfishly lets her be sad for a beat before swooping back in to be the one to save the day.

“But here’s what I’ll do…”

She looks back up at him with an intoxicating kind of hope in her eyes.

He takes his wallet out of his back pocket and slips the orange pick into the photo slot next to the picture of Sarah. He returns the wallet back into his pants.

Y/N positively beams. Brighter than the sun, even, Joel thinks.

Aiden yawns purposefully loudly and rolls his eyes. Erica looks touched and maybe even a little proud of her choice in men. But Joel didn’t do it for them. The only reaction in the world he cares about is hers.

Y/N is still grinning, bouncing on the balls of her feet again. But then she does something new: she leans in and hugs him, wrapping her little arms around his waist, burying her face in his flannel shirt, pressing against his tummy.

The world stops for Joel.

At first, he just hangs there limply, awkwardly. Literally forgets what one is supposed to do in such a situation, but then instinct kicks in and he wraps his arms around her too and squeezes ever so slightly. It’s a more cautious hug than Sarah would have given him – she would have squeezed him half to death – but Y/N is still holding him. Someone small and warm is holding onto him for the first time in what feels like an eternity. And just like that his past is rhyming with his present and it is the most beautiful sound Joel Miller has ever heard.

Joel Miller is not a good man, no, but maybe, just maybe, he thinks he could be one for Y/N.

***

Joel tries to be good. He does. His first order of business is stop beating on Aiden – especially in front of Y/N. No amount of violence towards the kid seems to do any good anyway – he still hurts her. And Joel is sick of bandaging her up and wiping the blood from her cheeks; something has to change. Not that he wouldn’t do it a thousand times if he had to. He’d do anything for the girl, that he is sure of. And the truth is, Aiden is close to getting big enough to really fight back. And Joel knows if Aiden really lays a hand on him, he’s not sure he will be able to control himself enough to not inflict permanent damage. And he doesn’t want that. Truly.

So at first, Joel thinks about having Erica send him away to a wilderness camp for troubled children or some such program he sees mentioned on reruns of Dr. Phil. She has the money to do it too. But she won’t send him away. She refuses, loves him too much. Protecting Y/N seems as far down on her list of priorities as ever. She is useless at disciplining him, always has been, so it is up to Joel to find another solution. So the next thing he tries is to set the boy up in boxing classes. This is risky since it might just teach him new ways to hurt Y/N, but at least it will be a place to direct his anger.

It works for a while, to his and Y/N’s immense relief, but that leaves Joel nowhere to take out his anger. He tries to ignore it at first and shove it down, but it starts to come out in little ways. At work, he barks at a customer who locks his keys in the car he’s trying to fix. At home, he shouts at Erica for missing Y/N’s school play. The rage leaks out of him, pours off his entire being. He tries jerking off more to increasingly violent porno magazines to calm himself down since Erica is sure not satisfying him. It doesn’t do enough though, not really. Finally, he tries boxing at the local gym himself, but it is not enough either. Boxing has rules. The first sorry sucker he gets in the ring with, he beats to the point of unconsciousness. Two men have to pull him off to get him to stop. They kick him out immediately.

So Joel tries going to the bar after work with the guys from the shop and drinking a little to take the edge off. That actually helps somewhat. He’s careful about it, never comes home drunk, never drinks in front of Erica or the kids. But what helps the most are the bar fights. He’s careful about that too. Only fights the assholes, which there are many of. Switches up the bars he goes to. But some motherfucker slaps a girl's ass without permission? Joel’s on him in seconds, watching like a predator from the shadows. Some dude throws a drink in the bartender’s face? Joel clobbers him half to death. And sometimes? People in the bar applaud him, even cheer him on. It’s probably because they’re intoxicated, but that’s how he justifies it to himself like he’s some kind of goddamn vigilante. Deep down he knows he is something much, much uglier. But at least he’s not doing it to Aiden, a child. And more importantly, at least it is away from Y/N.

***

One day, Y/N falls sick. It starts out as what seems like a cold with a nasty cough. Kids are little germ factories, Joel knows that. He tells himself it is nothing to worry about – that all kids get sick sometimes. The first few days she lies on the couch like a zombie, coughing incessantly into her elbow and sleeping a lot. She snores ever so slightly which he finds charming. Joel stays home from work with her because Erica has to be in court and they watch lots of nature documentaries and daytime talk shows.

Then the coughing gets worse and Joel’s brain stops functioning properly and he has trouble explaining why. He feels more on edge, more agitated. Erica takes Y/N to the doctor and comes back with a diagnosis: walking pneumonia. Nothing too serious, lots of kids get it. She is prescribed antibiotics and is supposed to drink lots of fluids and wait it out. But when Erica tells Joel the news of what the doctor told her he is holding a glass of water and it shatters in his large hand, cutting the skin of his middle finger.

“Fuck!” he yells.

And he cannot articulate precisely why, but he feels good that there is a justified reason to yell.

Erica wipes his hand and cleans the glass up.

“Gotta go to court again today, honey,” she says like everything is fine and normal. “Can you look after her today? Call in sick? She’s in bed. Going through it.”

Joel nods and she is gone like this whole thing is nothing. Like her precious, living breathing child is not suffering in the room above his head.

He climbs the stairs and enters Y/N’s room. He doesn’t often spend much time there. The walls are painted pink and differently shaped dolls and stuffed animals line the white vanity across from her canopied bed. He does not think he has ever seen Y/N play with any of those specific toys, come to think of it, or express any interest in the color pink (no doubt Erica’s secret passion for interior design rearing its ugly head). He vows silently, one day, to paint the walls any color she wants.

But there she is, sprawled out in her bed coughing a nasty cough. Something shifts inside Joel at the sound. She looks unwell and weak and so small.

“Hey, honey,” he says softly, almost robotically.

Something is not right. He sits on the edge of her bed, feels her burning forehead. He takes her temperature gently with the thermometer that goes in her ear. He feels that weird sensation like he’s been here before even though he has hardly ever entered her bedroom. One hundred and four degrees Fahrenheit it reads when it beeps. Joel swallows a lump in his throat that he didn’t realize was there.

She coughs pathetically. She looks out of it, her eyes far away. Joel’s heart throbs painfully.

Y/N is mumbling something incoherent now. Joel leans a little closer so he can decipher the words.

He makes out something like: No, Dad. Don’t. Stop, please. Please, not tonight.

Joel stops breathing.

She must be delirious from the fever.

And then she’s crying. Quietly, but crying all the less. And this time, unlike every time he has seen her tears before, she sobs. Actually makes noise, her chest wracked with it.

Then she coughs so hard she starts to wheeze and it hits Joel so ferociously he practically loses his grip on reality.

When Sarah was sick she had leukemia, a blood cancer. And cancer requires treatment. Expensive treatment. But of course, Joel hadn’t cared. He would have sold every item he owned to save his child, would have traveled to the ends of the earth if he had to, done literally any and everything in his power to protect her. So he paid for most of her chemotherapy with high hopes. Desperate hopes, but high ones. It had been her best shot at getting better according to the doctors. And the thing about chemo is, the side effects can literally be deadly. Joel is not a man of science, but the doctor explained that those drugs kill the bad cells that make up the cancer, but also the good ones. It fucks with your immune system, weakens you. Makes you lose your hair, vomit, and or be so weak you can barely walk. All that happened to Sarah. Joel felt like a traitor taking her to those treatments. Logically, he knew they were necessary, but he always felt like he was the one doing those awful things to her. It eviscerated him, left him raw and empty, and helpless like a child.

But in the end, it was the pneumonia that killed her. Her body couldn’t fight it off. She’d died in a hospital bed, Joel at her side, holding her hand, unable to do a single damned thing except scream .

Y/N coughs again, simultaneously pulling him from his thoughts and throwing him back into them. His heart is pounding in his chest to Do something! But there is nothing to be done, nothing he can do! Why can’t he ever seem to protect her?

She looks up just then, notices him for the first time since he entered the room, still crying feebly.

“He hurt me,” she whispers up at him, her eyes glazed over and glistening with tears. She reaches out for a handful of his dark blue work shirt and pulls it tightly to her. “He hurt me. And I couldn’t–I c-couldn’t…”

And then he is holding her, not quite sure how, but he is holding her trembling body to his chest and he will not let her go. Not for the world, not for anyone. He will not lose this child. He wraps his arms around her, holds tight. He will keep her safe, no matter the cost.

“It’s okay, babygirl,” he whispers. “I got you.”

***

Joel and Erica get married that spring. They agree on a private ceremony in front of a judge with only Y/N and Aiden in attendance. When Aiden hears the news, he throws a fit, He breaks dishes and punches a hole in the TV set which sets Joel’s teeth on edge. But Y/N is overjoyed. In the end, he and Joel adorn what Joel considers monkey suits and Erica wears a beautiful white dress that accentuates her figure. Y/N wears a frilly pink dress and carries a basket of pink roses. Joel never thought he’d be a married man and yet here he is. He imagines Sarah in attendance too and his heart aches. This is his life now.

He refuses to wear a ring.

***

Time passes. Long stretches of time where things feel–dare he think it–normal.

Aiden doesn’t beat Y/N, but begins to get into fights at school. Joel saves his violence for the bar scene which he begins frequenting more often.

Erica starts working later, gets promoted in her job. Fucks Joel less and less, not that he cares very much.

Joel goes to back-to-school nights and family cookouts. He teaches Y/N to play the guitar and how to fix car motors. In both these activities, she is no natural, but she tries her best and listens well. She smiles more than he’s ever seen. He drives her to sleepovers and Aiden to boxing practice. He paints her bedroom walls orange.

Things feel stable.

Two Christmases pass.

And then things take a downturn.

***

One evening, Joel returns home from work later than usual. When he arrives home in his truck, he notices an expensive sports car in the driveway. Erica has affluent friends, sure, but he’s never seen this particular car before. Something about that doesn’t sit right with him.

He opens the front door with a creak and Erica intercepts him before he can make it to the dining room table for dinner. She presses a hand to his forearm bulking with muscle.

“Don’t freak out,” she whispers urgently.

Joel stops and hears the sounds of people eating dinner and a man’s raspy voice speaking.

“Freak out about what?”

He makes his way past her to the dining room. He sees a man he does not immediately recognize sitting at the head of the table, Y/N is flanking one side of the table next to him and Aiden the other. He is conventionally handsome and wearing an expensive pinstripe suit. When he looks up, he smirks at Joel. Joel thinks he looks kind of like Aiden if you were to squint. And then he understands who he is.

“The fuck are you doing in my house?” he growls, lunging forward.

“ Your house?” the man smirks again, unflinching.

He looks Joel over, examining his mechanic’s uniform, the grease stain on Joel’s cheek.

Erica grabs Joel. She pulls him back out into the hallway.

“Tell him he’s not welcome here,” Joel snarls, trying to get a look at the man over Erica’s shoulder.

She pushes him backward gently. Instantly, he is worried for Y/N, for all intents and purposes alone in there with the man who abused her and this entire goddamn family for that matter. He catches a glance at her and she looks terrified . Aiden, conversely, Joel sees, looks like he just won the lottery, staring up at his dad in adoration. Joel doesn’t think he has ever seen him look so happy.

“This is important to them,” Erica snaps quietly. “That’s their father. He has a right–”

“Get him out of here or I’ll kill him,” Joel says deadly quietly. “He what? Doesn’t show up for over three years and you think that–”

“I know that he has a right to speak to them. I am their mother and they need a sense of closure. Aiden needs this. So you will sit down at that table and have an amicable dinner or so help me God, Joel.”

Erica never speaks to him like this. He is shocked.

“Fine,” he snarls after a while, his chest heaving.

He can hardly think straight while Y/N is in there alone with that excuse for a man. Better he be close to protect her instead of thrown out of the house.

He walks back in with Erica, who sits next to Y/N, leaving Joel nowhere to go but next to Aiden.

“I’m Derek,” the children’s father says, leaning over the food Erica has prepared to shake Joel’s hand.

Joel doesn’t take it.

“And you must be Joe? The new husband.”

“Joel,” he replies shortly.

He looks over at Y/N who is trying to be brave, he can tell, but deep in her eyes, looks petrified.

They eat dinner in tense silence until Derek breaks it and begins bragging about his golf club record, the latest client he’s been representing, his new girlfriend, Sylvia.

“See, she’s helping me become a better man,” Derek insists with a forkful of steak. “I know I haven’t always been…the greatest of fathers or partners, but she really convinced me coming here would be a good thing. That it would be healing. You guys will meet someday, I’m sure.”

Joel leans forward toward Derek, reeling at the idea that this man could possibly be back in the picture of his family’s life, but Erica reaches under the table and squeezes his knee in a death grip and Joel holds himself back.

Aiden hangs on his father’s every word. Erica looks somewhat intrigued after she lets go of her husband’s leg. Y/N screams silently at Joel, who tries his best to communicate without words that he will keep her safe.

“And I know I’ve missed quite a bit,” Derek continues. “Which is why I brought these. Sylvia’s idea, really.”

He reaches down toward his feet and pulls out a fancy golden gift bag and takes out two presents. He hands one to Aiden and the other one to Y/N. Aiden rips his open excitedly. Inside is a hunting knife with a red handle.

Great, Joel thinks.

Y/N doesn’t move though, stopped like a deer in the headlights.

“Open it, girl,” Derek sneers.

She looks over at Joel.

“Go on, baby,” he says softly, heat pumping through his blood.

She unwraps the pink wrapping paper and finds a Barbie doll in a clear plastic box. Joel has never seen her play with dolls at all come to think of it.

“Isn’t that thoughtful?” Erica smiles cautiously.

“Thanks, Dad,” Aiden says enthusiastically. “Can’t wait to show the guys at ROTC.”

“Good for you, son,” Derek grins. “Serving our country is the highest of honors.”

Joel suddenly tries not to think about Tommy blasted to bits halfway across the world in Afghanistan, his body in such bad condition all that he got left of his baby brother was a finger and two bent dog tags.

Aiden beams.

“Well,” Derek barks, eyeing Y/N distastefully. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” he taunts.

Joel sees where Aiden gets it from. This arrogant, bullying behavior. He shifts in his seat, ready to strike if necessary.

“Thanks,” she says very quietly.

Derek grins in a kind of satisfaction that makes Joel want to go over there and punch his daylights out. He almost does too until Erica kicks his shin beneath the table and he controls himself.

Y/N frowns. She looks over at Joel, then back at her father. Something ripples across her face, but it goes so quickly Joel cannot assign any meaning to it. But she looks ever so less scared somehow, more angry almost, but not quite.

And then after about ten minutes of somewhat peaceful eating and Derek making Aiden and Erica laugh with stupid anecdotes from his court cases while Joel and Y/N exchange looks, it happens.

Y/N’s hand reaches forward and knocks against her glass of coke. It goes flying over in Derek’s direction and drenches him in the sticky liquid, staining his suit.

“Sorry, Dad!” she squeaks immediately. “Oh my god, I–”

“You little slut!” he roars in response, almost like a reflex, backhanding Y/N across the face with lightning speed and accuracy. “Do you know how much this fucking suit cost!?”

The force of the blow is so strong it knocks Y/N from her chair onto the ground.

Before a coherent thought can even go through Joel’s head he is on the other man, slamming him up against the wall behind him by the throat.

“Joel, don’t you dare!” Erica yells, but it is too late.

Joel sees red and can’t exactly recall what he does next, but it goes something like this:

He squeezes around Derek’s throat and bangs his head backward against the wall a few times. The other man tries to get a punch in, but Joel ducks and kicks him in the balls. Derek crumples to the ground and Joel gives his chest another hard kick. He whines pathetically.

Aiden gets up then, but Erica uses all of her strength to pull him back before he can get involved in the mix. He resists, shouts something that Joel cannot make out, but Erica manages to keep him from the two men with a great amount of effort and struggle.

Derek is on the floor now and Joel is straddling him, landing punch after ruthless punch down onto his head. His nose begins to bleed, but Joel keeps punching.

“HOW DARE YOU?” he roars down at the trembling, gushing man on the floor.

There is so much blood splurting all over his face, dripping down onto his expensive stained suit, and the floor that Derek almost stops looking like Derek. Joel sees Aiden’s face in his features. And then there is so much blood that it could be anyone’s face screaming back at him for mercy. It could be those creepy, asshole men at the bar. It could be the much bigger kid who always used to beat up Tommy every day in the schoolyard. It could be that damned head doctor who let his babygirl die. It could even be his no-good, bastard, alcoholic papá .

He turns his head ever so slightly while still delivering punches. Erica has Aiden in a bear hug. She is screaming for Joel to stop. Aiden is bellowing something that sounds like, You bastard, I’ll kill you! Get off of him! I’ll kill you! And then Joel sees Y/N still on the floor from where she was knocked. Her face is still turned in the same direction it was slapped into, but she is not crying or screaming. Her eyes are dancing.

They connect with Joel’s.

He knows he is supposed to be a good man for her, but she doesn’t seem to mind his deviant behavior. He stops then, though, because otherwise he thinks he will kill the man and he doesn’t want Y/N to experience that. He steals a glance at her again and she looks ever so slightly disappointed, but her wide-eyed expression tells Joel that Christmas has come early this year. She sends him a look of gratitude and Joel thinks that maybe he did act like a good man for her after all in the case of this vile, pathetic person who is supposed to be her father.

Finally, Joel stands up. He walks over and reaches out a bloody hand to Y/N and pulls her gently from the ground. Even after she’s standing upright she doesn’t let go of him.

Derek gets up after a while, wiping his sleeve over his face to try to tame the excess blood. Joel thinks that maybe he broke the man’s nose. He feels not a shred of remorse. The other man spits on the ground at Joel’s feet and leaves without saying goodbye to his ex-wife or children, slamming the front door behind him.

Erica is not pleased with Joel’s behavior. Aiden is shouting and screaming. He breaks a plate by throwing it onto the floor with a loud crash. Joel leans over and grabs the knife his father gave him and sticks it in his front pocket so Aiden doesn’t feel tempted to use it. Y/N’s small hand is still in his.

When Aiden is coherent enough to listen to instructions and all screamed out, Erica sends the children upstairs to bed.

Joel tries to walk Y/N up to bed to tuck her in, but Erica stops him.

“ Not you,” she growls at Joel.

She is livid in a way Joel has never seen before. For a moment, he seriously wonders if this is the end of their relationship.

The kids scamper upstairs and Erica yells at Joel for ages.

At a certain point, he stops listening. He doesn’t try to argue back. Doesn’t care to. He is actually calm now, though his chest is still heaving from the exertion, more calm than he’s been in ages. He knows that she will never understand why he had to do what he did to Derek. She lives in another reality where his violence is not acceptable if she has to bear witness to it. She doesn’t care about Y/N the way she is supposed to. Never has. Doesn’t know or see her. Not the way Joel does. Has too big a soft spot for Aiden. Tolerated Joel’s violence toward him though like a coward. Maybe deep down she knew he needed some kind of discipline? But when Joel lays a hand on her scumbag of an ex-husband that’s what’s too far? When he hurt her own daughter? When Joel himself was responsible for hurting her own precious son? Where was her outrage then?

But he voices none of this. Pushes it down. He cannot lose her. Not this house, not the kids, not the financial security. Never Y/N.

Erica banishes him to the couch for the first time in their relationship. Joel doesn’t mind.

Hours later, late into the night, he hears soft footsteps walking down the stairs. He rolls over on the sofa to see who is approaching. He wonders if it is Erica there to apologize because he knows her well enough to know by now that she will forgive him eventually. She will forgive anything it seems. But it is not Erica at all.

“Joel?” a little voice asks quietly. “You up?”

“Yeah, baby,” he replies. “You okay? I’m so sorry he pulled that shit on you.”

Y/N shrugs.

“Sorry I…I didn’t stop it before it happened,” he admits like a secret.

She shrugs again.

“‘M sorry she made you sleep on the couch and all,” she replies.

“‘S no trouble. I don’t mind.”

“But it’s my fault you got in trouble in the first place.”

“Y/N, you ain’t done nothing wrong,” Joel tells her seriously.

It’s hard to see her in the dark, but he thinks she’s grimacing guiltily.

“I just wanted to say…” she begins hesitantly. “Thanks for like sticking up for me and all that. You…you’re the only one who does.”

Joel hides a smile from his babygirl. Something inside him likes being that person for her, he cannot lie to himself. Likes being the one she can count on.

“You were like some MMA fighter,” she continues. “But then all the blood was like in The Shining .”

One day, not long ago, Joel had fallen asleep on the couch when The Shining came on and Y/N had watched the entire thing out of her own free will. That movie had frightened the shit out of him as a kid!

“I’m sorry if I scared you, sweetheart.”

“You didn’t,” Y/N replies matter-of-factly. “I wasn’t scared of what you did for a second…I know that’s messed up, but I kinda wanted you to…”

She trails off.

Joel understands.

“I kinda, please don’t get mad, but I sorta knocked the cup over on purpose,” she admits.

Joel’s eyebrows go way up on his forehead in surprise.

“It’s just,” she babbles quickly in self-defense. “Mom and Aiden were like giggling and hanging onto every dumb thing he said and it scared me. I thought they might let him keep coming around and start liking him again. And I also knew he hadn’t changed too. I could tell on account of how he was looking at me in that same mean way he always did. And I also knew you’d save me like you always do and you had this angry look in your eyes. I knew what you would do. I could feel it in my gut…”

“You little shit!” Joel smirks.

He has to give her credit where credit was due – that was incredibly shrewd. Dangerous, but oh so clever. She played everyone in that room like a fiddle. Joel is honestly kind of proud.

“You mad?” she asks tentatively, biting her bottom lip.

“Nah,” Joel grins. “At you? Never. You shouldn’t have had to let him hurt you to get him away from you, but you protected yourself and that’s the most important thing. If I had to do it over, I would.”

Y/N smiles.

She’s a fucked up little girl, but Joel is a fucked up man, and they both live in a fucked up world.

“Got your back,” he grunts. “Remember that. Now scurry along back to bed and get some rest.”

“G’night, Joel.”

***

Time passes.

Erica forgives Joel of course and Derek never comes around again.

Y/N and Aiden grow bigger.

They go on camping trips and Joel teaches Y/N and Aiden how to fish. Never thought he would see the day where Aiden was willingly listening to his instructions, but the day comes anyway. Of course, the boy’s favorite part is cutting up the bloody fish guts like Joel’s used to be as a child. Y/N likes the part where you wait for the fish to bite. She sits next to Joel on the grassy river bank, the sun shining down on the lazy lake they are camping by, and smiles softly to herself.

Another two Christmases pass.

All the while, Joel is visiting the bar more and not necessarily to drink. His violent streak is getting worse somehow. He thinks, though he’s no goddamn shrink, that it might have something to do with the fact that he and Erica are not having any sex. Their relationship is still amicable and she is still sweet to him, and he tries his best to be to her too, but in the bedroom is mostly crickets. Joel jerks off, of course he does, but his fist is no substitute for a warm body.

Joel causes such a scene at the bar he frequents the most, that the cops have to be called. He ditches the place before he can get arrested, but he’s getting worried about his behavior. Something must change.

So then come the women. They practically throw themselves at him. Never has he thought he was that attractive until women literally offer themselves up to him on a silver platter after saving them from some drunken creep. Joel had always declined until now. But Joel is only a man. He fucks them rough and dirty (with their permission of course – Joel is not a good man, and a lot of things, but he isn’t a fucking rapist) in the bathroom stalls, in the alleyways. In the moment it feels good and helps him let off some steam, but after he feels guilty. And it doesn’t satisfy him much more than with Erica if he really thinks about it. One thing that Erica has over these women who let him act out his violent self is the look of devotion in her eyes. That’s always the thing that gets Joel to cum in the end when he does get to fuck her.

He would leave her, she isn’t that special to him if he’s honest, but she offers him a twofold sense of stability he has never known in his life. The first fold is the financial stability that has evaded him all of his days. The second is the feeling of family . Something so mundane and normal. And despite her flaws, she treats him so well – better than Sarah’s mother ever did. And most importantly, he doesn’t think he could leave Y/N. Not now. Not when she looks at him like he is the universe. Not even Aiden whom Joel has (begrudgingly) begun to see the traces of himself in.

***

This particular muggy, summer day begins normally. Joel goes to work, fixes a Chevy Impala’s fluid tank. And then he walks in with an old, beat-up Honda Accord.

His name is David, and Joel has heard of him through murmurings and bar stories and whispers at community barbeques. He’s a notorious neighborhood legend, whose house kids cross the street to avoid. He is the boogeyman at the end of the cul-de-sac.

The story is, though through the many versions Joel has heard some of the details get muddled, that he kidnapped and raped a twelve-year-old girl (that part all versions agree on). Some say he was supposed to have ten years in prison, others say twenty, but whatever the number he got out in one for “good behavior.” In jail, he supposedly devoted his life to God and became a preacher.

Joel doesn’t want to help him, but his boss hisses at him that money is money and he’s going to serve the man whether Joel likes it or not.

There’s something wrong with the exhaust pipe, so Joel bends down and takes a look at it. He opens the trunk and sees a box of Bibles next to a plastic bag of zip ties. His blood runs cold.

“The fuck is this shit doing in your car?” he growls, referring to the zip ties.

“The Bible is the word of God, Mr. Miller,” David replies, eyeing Joel’s nametag. “Would you like one? I’m always trying to spread The Good Word.”

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about,” he spits, looking over to make sure his boss is not watching.

“If you must know, though it’s none of your business, those zip ties are for my garden to help hold up my plants. They are remarkably useful,” David smiles sickeningly politely.

And that’s when Joel loses it just a little.

He picks up the ties and pockets them.

“Listen here, you pedophile piece of shit,” he snarls. “If I hear about you stepping one goddamned pinky-toe out of line–”

“Hey, Joel!” A little voice calls.

The breath is knocked from Joel’s lungs.

Y/N bounds up to them holding a brown paper bag out of nowhere.

“You forgot your lunch! Mom dropped me off so you could have it. It’s tuna though. I hate hate tuna. But you’ll eat anything so I hope it’s good for you at least,” she babbles.

“Baby,” Joel says very quietly, his heart thrumming in his ribcage. “Right now’s not a great time. Why don’t you go on home and I’ll catch up with you later?”

Then she notices David. By the fact that she doesn’t immediately leave, Joel determines she has no clue who he is.

“Hello, young lady,” David smiles, eyeing Joel knowingly. “I’m Pastor David.”

“Uh, hi,” she says.

Joel thinks he might actually kill him.

“Would you like something to take home with you?” he asks.

Y/N blinks in confusion as Joel steps in front of her.

“She’ll be going now, won’t you Y/N?” Joel suggests dangerously.

“Here,” David says before she can respond.

He hands her a black-covered bible.

Y/N takes it, looks at the cover, and laughs. Joel and David both look down at her in surprise.

“No offense, ‘Pastor David,”’ she smirks. “But I don’t believe in that shit. Here, you can have it back,” she offers.

He takes back the book somewhat defeatedly. And Joel grins internally.

“Bye, Joel,” she tells him, still smirking.

She side-hugs him quickly and returns to Erica’s car.

“How dare you even look at her–” Joel booms at the sad, pathetic excuse for a man once she is out of earshot.

His hands are clenched into fists and they are shaking. Every part of him is on fire.

“I think I’ll be going now,” David interjects lightly. “I can see my business isn’t welcome here. You have a beautiful daughter, Mr. Miller. Quite a mouth on her. Shame if something were to happen to her…Oh, the things someone like me could make her believe…”

Joel reaches back his fist to punch, to pummel, to kill, but suddenly, another hand grabs his and holds it in place. Joel’s boss has materialized behind him and is holding him back. Good thing too. It’s probably the only thing that saves Joel’s career and David’s life.

David winks and drives away as the boss begins to reprimand Joel who is still shaking and fuming.

All he knows is this: If anyone touches his babygirl he will not hesitate to put them six feet under, no matter the cost to himself. He will not hesitate to get blood on his calloused hands. He will not hesitate to kill. And this time? His baby will not sustain a single scratch . He will not wait for her to get hurt before he acts.

***

Joel wants nothing more than to go home and spend time with his babygirl and wife and even his step-son if he will allow, but there is blood popping and oozing and broiling and churning under his skin like billowing, bubbling lava. If he doesn’t do something about it soon he will explode worse than a volcanic eruption so he heads to the seediest bar he can think of. He makes his way inside and sits right up at the bar, already occupied by a few people. He orders a drink (his usual: whiskey on the rocks) and waits for the impending opportunity for violence he is sure is lying in wait.

He cannot believe the shit that came out of ‘Pastor-fucking-David’s’ sick, perverted mouth and that he almost lost his job over it. He lets that thought charge him up into a rage, his fists clenched so tightly they are beginning to ache in the joints. He cannot believe that disgusting little fucker had the audacity to say that horrible scummy bullshit in his presence when he would do anything to protect that innocent child. He takes a drink of his whiskey and knocks it back in one gulp. He would do anything , ‘Lord’ only knows. He snickers to himself sinisterly.

And while he’s on the topic, fuck God! When had He ever done a single damn good thing for Joel his entire miserable life except maybe to give him Sarah and then take her away like she was nothing and not the entire light of the universe wrapped into a small, vulnerable person? Joel doesn’t know much about the bible, truth be told, but he remembers a few things from his Sunday school days. He remembers that people are created in the image of God and the stories he remembers most are from the Old Testament which heavily featured a God of absolute rage. Maybe that is the way he is god-like, built of anger and revenge and wrath and the sick, pathetic hunger for power that lurks inside most people.

But he also remembers Jesus being meek and mild. Joel never understood that desire until he had Sarah and then Y/N in his care. If Joel could snap his fingers and make himself some fundamentally kind and caring man he would, but he can’t. Joel Miller is not a good man. He tried to be for Y/N, he truly did, but look at everything he’s done in the time he’s known her: he used Erica to get financial stability and roof over his head, he’s cheated on her numerous times, he beat Aiden, a child, and everyday the weight of that guilt grows greater as he begins to truly understand how wrong that was, and he beat his babygirl’s pathetic excuse for a father (but still her father) in front of her. He also beat people in bar fights and that time at the gym. And the thing is: is he even a little bit sorry about any of it – except for maybe what he did to Aiden? No, not even a little. And he’d do all of it again if it could mean getting to spend time with his babygirl, Y/N, again. His babygirl who FUCKING DAVID tried to threaten!

And the problem is: who knows what that fucker is capable of? The police and the judicial system let him out after one year which can only be described as a colossal moral failure and a massive miscarriage of justice. It wouldn’t take much for David to really figure out where they lived and grab Y/N and throw her in his trunk like he did that poor other little girl. Maybe that’s paranoid, but Joel knows better than most that when a man wants to do a dark thing he will find a way to do it. Joel does not want to live his life constantly looking over his shoulder as some horrendous pedophile lives freely.

And then he turns his head to look down at the rest of the fairly busy bar and he sees him . None other than David himself, drinking a beer. Joel cannot believe his luck. It is like all of the light in heaven has aligned to give him such a gift. A part of him is screaming to not engage because Joel is sure he could kill him for what he said about Y/N. But the rest of him is already standing up and grabbing David by the shoulder and–

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get the fuck out of here now ,” he snarls. “Almost lost my job because of you, you sick fuck. You’re lucky I give you a warning and don’t wring your neck on the fucking spot.”

David turns around, Joel’s fingers digging into his shoulder.

“Proverbs 24:1 and 2,” he quotes calmly. “‘Do not envy wicked men or desire their company; for their hearts devise violence, and their lips declare trouble.’”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means perhaps I will be leaving. I don’t care to spend my time with wicked men such as yourself. And I have many preparations to make for what is to come. How is your daughter doing since we last met?”

Joel’s heart runs cold.

“Get my baby’s name out of your goddamned mouth .”

“Hope we run into each other soon,” David grins as he gets off the barstool and dislodges himself from Joel’s grip. “There is a lot I could teach her.”

He turns to leave. Disgusting coward, Joel thinks. He could let the man go. But then what? Live in fear of him? Let his precious Y/N live in fear of him? Joel is tired of living in fear, of resigning to a cruel man in a cruel world, and he will never do that or let Y/N do that ever again.

And then David leans in so close that Joel can smell the alcohol on his breath and the sweat on his skin.

“Can’t stop thinking about her pretty little hands around my–”

Joel doesn’t let him finish. In that moment he knows what will transpire. He picked this seedy-ass bar for a reason: so that no one will bother to stop him.

He lands the first punch with ease, doesn’t even feel the pain till minutes later. The force of the blow to David’s head is so strong he slams down into the ground. It is so violent that David’s eyelid starts to bleed and the skin around the impact spot becomes puffy and dark.

David shouts for help, but no one in this place gives a fuck and even if they did everybody knows who he is and what he did so they don’t give a shit two times over.

Joel continues the assault. Punch after punch reigns down on the other man as blood begins to coat his features. David tries to get a punch or two into Joel’s stomach, but Joel straddles each of his biceps and holds him down so he can continue hitting. The longer Joel hits, the better he feels. This time is different. This time he does not see the features of every man he’s ever hated in the face of his victim. This time he sees only David’s disgusting smirk in his mind’s eye. This time he only thinks about how he is saving Y/N from a lifetime of fear and cruelty. This time Joel will not let his adversary get a strike in first. This time he will be the one to stop the fate of impending devastation that lies in the palms of David’s shaking and broken hands. This time he can save her .

When Joel is done with his hands, he is panting heavily. He moves on to his feet, kicking the man’s gut sadistically, his trembling hands, his face. Crunch , goes David’s skull. And then he is not moving or breathing.

Joel stops.

A lick of fear trails against the inside of his stomach, but the rage, always the rage warms his stomach like a rush of flames.

So he keeps going. He bends back down and squeezes the man’s throat just to make sure. It’s good he did too because David’s bloodshot, viens-having-burst eyes snap open and David makes a pathetic little squealing noise and Joel squeezes harder, rougher, with more conviction.

In the end, it takes longer than he thought it would.

Joel only stops when he hears sirens blaring in the distance. He looks up for the first time since the assault started and sees all of the patrons staring at him in revulsion and fear. The bartender actually has the phone in her hand. Joel guesses she was the one to finally call the cops. He guesses he was so sadistic and violent that even this shitty place had seen enough. He thinks to run, briefly, but where would he run to? Everything he has ever wanted in life is now going to be closed off to him. But he saved Y/N and that makes everything worth it. It has to have been worth it.

Joel puts two scarred, calloused fingers to David’s pulse point, as blood (his and David’s) drips down from his knuckle onto the wooden floor and feels nothing.

When the cops handcuff him and take him away, he doesn’t resist. He comes quietly. He cannot ever really be a good man for Y/N, he understands that now, but at least now she and he may know some peace of mind after what he’s done.

***

The time leading up to the trial is a blur.

Erica pays for an excellent lawyer, but divorces him on the spot. It seems there are some things even she will not forgive, and apparently murder is one of them. She allows the children to see him one last time in cold, sterile police interrogation room. A court-appointed child advocate social worker must be present. They allow him to have his handcuffs taken off for the first time since he was arrested. The kids are told he accidentally killed someone in a bar fight and for legal reasons he leans into the “accidental” part.

Aiden comes in first. He knew who David was and tells Joel he did the right thing. Joel is surprised. He reaches out a limp hand, dirt caked under his fingernails, and shakes Joel’s for the first time since they’ve known each other and they part ways on good terms.

“You’re not my dad,” Aiden tells him quietly. “But you always put up a good fight to be there.”

And he leaves.

Joel is more touched than he wants to believe.

Y/N’s visit is much more difficult.

“How could you!?” she screams, standing by the door the second she sees him as he sits at the interrogation table, his chair turned toward her.

At first Joel thinks she means how could he killl another human being. Y/N didn’t seem to know who David was after all. But that’s not what she is mad about.

“How could you leave me!?” she shouts, tears in her eyes. “You’re going to be taken away from me! Mom is leaving you because of this and that means you aren’t like my dad anymore. You’re going to forget all about me and never get to see me again because you killed some dumb man who tried to give me a bible?”

“He was not a good man,” is all Joel can say.

He can’t be the one to tell her more, hasn’t told anyone how David had threatened her. Not even his lawyer. He doesn’t want to scare her, doesn’t want to admit to anyone he let those words even get to leave that shit stain’s mouth.

“I don’t care!” she shouts again. “I want you!”

And then she bursts into tears and runs into his chest and Joel holds her against his orange jumpsuit and starts to feel tears trickling down his own cheeks.

“Never gonna forget about you,” he nearly scolds her into hair. “How could you ever think that, baby? You’re my babygirl. I’ll get out one day and come right back to you, understand?”

“But Mom–”

“You’ll be grown by the time I get out and won’t have to worry about what she says. But I’ll tell you this: you might feel different about me by the time your grown up and however you feel I want you to know I’ll respect that. But I ain’t gonna forget about you. Not ever.”

“Your time is up,” the court-appointed social worker states.

“No!” Y/N shouts, burying herself deeper into Joel’s embrace. “NO! I’m not leaving! I won’t leave you!”

Joel hugs her back tightly, crying into the top of her head as she sobs softly into his chest.

In the end, the social worker has to pull her away as she screams.

“I love you, Y/N!” he calls to her as the social worker drags her from him. “Never gonna forget you, babygirl. Remember that.”

All Joel can hear back is a broken wail.

***

Erica attends the trial; the kids are forbidden. Joel’s defense claims it was a drunken accident and goes for manslaughter. Because he killed a known child molester he has no trouble while he waits in jail. He is even considered a hero by some. No one tries to fuck with him and that’s how Joel would prefer it since if he gets into too many fights it will just add to his sentence and he must get out and get back to his babygirl if she’ll still have him. His lawyer tells him not to mention the threats that David made toward Y/N because it will look like more of a reason that Joel would have had to intentionally kill him as opposed to accidentally like the manslaughter plea would have the court believe. Joel listens. He does exactly what he’s told because this lawyer is good and he needs to get out someday for christ sake.

In the end, he gets ten years and his lawyer tells him he could get eight for good behavior.

Eight years, if Joel can manage it.

They take him away to prison in handcuffs. Erica sobs. It is the last time he sees her.

***

Joel always wondered if his temper would land him in prison. Now that he’s here things go surpringly well. He gets a reputation for being the murderer of a child molestor and people respect him, listen to him when he bothers to speak. He keeps things in order and people start to refer to him as the “pod boss.” He also reads a lot in his cell, tries to help people with their cases and appeals if he can. And if someone steps out of line, Joel is more than happy to put them in their place so long as he can avoid attention from the guards, who he actually mostly gets along with to their faces, but behind their backs beats people to a pulp. No one ever dares to snitch on him and he is considered on the right track to get out for good behavior early.

Time passes — painfully long stretches of time.

He has a lot of time to think, to read. He reads every book in the prison library over the time he is incarcerated. He reads parenting books, self-help books, books on trauma, books on abuse, books on anger management, books on meditation, books on spirituality (nothing sticks in that regard though, he is still furious like God, but less so these days). Somehow his anger has started to simmer down a notch.

But he worries his babygirl will forget about him, or worse grow to hate him. He’s not sure he’ll survive that.

Luckily, or he might have withered away and died, somehow Y/N convinces Erica to let her write him a letter once a month and have one call with him on Christmas.

Christmases quickly become his favorite day of the year.

Y/N writes him religiously. She talks about how angry she is at him, how she misses him, how she finally fixed the motor on Joel’s old pickup truck, how some boy gave her a love letter on Valentine’s Day, how she thinks of him every day.

Joel never tells her what David said about her, lets her believe he is just some violent, drunken idiot. He writes back how much he misses her, how he read a new book this week, how prison food is shit, how he’d probably greet that boy with a shotgun if he thinks he’s getting anywhere with his babygirl, how his whole heart beats for her.

She’s allowed to send him one photo a year, her most current school photo, and Joel hangs them on the wall of his cell so he can see her beaming at him at his highest and lowest moments along with the tiny picture of Sarah he managed to save from his wallet.

Aiden even sends him a card each Father’s Day. It never has anything written in it except for whatever stupid pun or text the card came with, but Joel reads between the lines with that one. Each one seems to whisper to him louder and louder, I love you and I forgive you. Joel writes him back, “Thanks, kiddo. -Joel” He hope that conveys the thousands of sorrys he wants to scream from the rooftops and say straight to the boy’s face. He will someday when he gets out. He makes himself promise. He hears from Y/N when Aiden joins the marines.

When Joel gets to actually hear Y/N’s voice on the old prison phone it’s like the most beautiful sound he has ever heard except for maybe Sarah’s voice. She babbles away about her life and what’s she’s up to and he hangs on every word like gospel. He barely gets a word in, but prefers it that way. Wishes he could hear her singing. Once, when she’s sixteen, and sounds so woefully grown up it hurts Joel’s entire heart, she hums a little absentmindedly and he can’t get the sweet sound out of his head. Her love for him never seems to waver and that is a blessing that Joel will never forget, the only thing he would thank this cruel God for. And of course, his love for her never wavers either. She is the only beacon of light for him in this dark and mundane existence. She is his everything.

***

When Y/N is eighteen and no longer under her mother’s control, she comes to visit him in person. This is the first time they have seen each other in six years. Despite their loving correspondence, Joel is nervous to see her for the first time since her childhood. He worries about how awkward it might be.

When he sees her walking into the dinky little family meeting room, his entire mode of existence changes.

She looks so beautiful, so grown-up. Sure she had always been a cute little kid, Joel always thought that, but now she is a woman. Tears come to Joel’s eyes. When her eyes connect with his, he feels so seen .

He tries to get a word out, but before he can she is running to him, into his arms and Joel has never felt something so perfect in his entire life. He knows he has never felt a love like this before. Not even with Sarah…something about this is different somehow? Joel is not too in touch with his feelings, but he’s trying to be more attentive to them these days with nothing left to do but read about such topics as “emotional regulation” and “mindfulness.” He’ll come back to this thought later though…

Y/N begins to babble into his ear, something about missing him and not wanting it to be awkward, but this is the furthest from awkward Joel has ever felt.

Joel has never been a man of many words so all he can think to say is,

“Missed you, babygirl.”

She grins at that, brighter than all the suns of all the planets in the universe (Joel has been reading about those too) and he laughs for the first time in what feels like a lifetime.

She laughs too, wipes tears from her eyes, and says,

“Missed you too, Joel. More than you know.”

Joel thinks that can’t possibly be true for that is all he has known for the last six years and possibly his entire life: missing her.

She comes once a month, drives an hour just to see him, and she tells him about college and later her very own shitty apartment. Her mother has thrown herself into her work and Aiden is serving his second tour. She makes good grades and has a stable boyfriend that treats her well, she swears. Joel couldn’t be happier for her, except the boyfriend business does make him want to crush that little fucker’s head in for some reason.

***

The last time Y/N comes to visit before his release (eight years to the day for good behavior) (she is 20 damn years old already!) something feels different to Joel. When he hugs her to greet her, he’s suddenly very aware of her body, the curves of it, her softness. Her hair smells so good, he doesn’t want to let go of her and then to his intense dismay and shock he feels himself getting a little excited down south. Immediately, he lets go of her, feeling like a pervert, praying she didn’t and doesn’t notice. He doesn’t see any obvious signs from her and the two sit down (Joel rather quickly) at the flimsy, nailed-down table and they talk of Joel’s impending release. All the while, Joel is trying to stay calm. He convinces himself it was just an accident and that he hadn’t been around any women in what felt like an eternity and that’s what led him to get worked up. But when Y/N leaves to go home he feels a kind of dull longing in the bottom of his gut. A different kind of longing then what he had felt for a younger Y/N. Joel tells himself not to repress for the first goddamn time in his life and let himself feel. And he does. He feels butterflies and yearning and need, a great big need inside himself. And then he knows what else he feels: the gut-wrenching, unquenchable sensation of love and beneath that, primal, base, and self-loathing: desire .

In his solo cell (that he has acquired because he is the pod boss and respected) he jerks off to those thoughts, touches himself to those feelings. When he cums unusually hard, he feels an overwhelming amount of shame. Of this, Joel knows, he will never ever tell another soul. Joel also knows he will not hurt his babygirl any more than he already has, intentionally or not, not ever. But then again, being a good, upstanding man has never really quite been in his arsenal, has it?

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PART 2

Violent Heart Masterlist

Full Masterlist of all my work

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